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Latino Leaders Irate After NBC Meeting

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Network News President Blunders but Elevates Diaz-Balart

Syrian Journalist Says Internal Rifts Led ISIS to Bomb

Ta-Nehisi Coates Wins National Book Award

Smith Students Want Reporters to Declare Their Support

Fuhrmann Taking Buyout from L.A. Times After 25 Years

Merida Denies Trying to Poach Post Staffers for Undefeated

Irby’s Exit Leaves Poynter Without Black Faculty

More Mexican Immigrants Leaving U.S. Than Migrating

Ex-Officer Convicted; Station Aired Dashcam Video

Short Takes

Network News President Blunders but Elevates Diaz-Balart

“Hispanic lawmakers hoped a meeting with top executives from MSNBC and NBC News Wednesday would smooth over hard feelings from Donald Trump’s appearance on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ Instead, it had the opposite effect,” Lauren French and Hadas Gold reported Wednesday for Politico.

“NBC News President Deborah Turness committed a major blunder — as far as the Hispanic lawmakers were concerned — when she described undocumented immigrants as ‘illegals,’ a term that many in the Latino community find highly offensive.

“Turness was describing NBC’s integration with their Spanish-language network Telemundo, which included coverage of Pope Francis’ visit to the U.S. and his interaction with a young girl who was afraid her parents would be deported because they’re ‘illegals.’

” ‘I’m going to stop you right there. We use the term undocumented immigrants,’ Rep. Juan Vargas (D-Calif.) interrupted.

“Turness apologized.

“That exchange kicked off a meeting that was already expected to be tense. Lawmakers were hoping for an explanation of why Trump hosted Saturday Night Live, despite formal protests from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. MSNBC and NBC News executives  — who are part of a separate entity from NBC’s entertainment division, which oversees SNL — came expecting to talk about the progress they’ve made in making their newsrooms more diverse.

“Vargas later told POLITICO, ‘She was saying how they’ve done all these great things and then boom, she said “illegals.” ‘

“It only got worse from there. Turness at one point spoke Spanish in an effort to show she understood and respected how important the issues discussed were to the Hispanic lawmakers.

” ‘We love the Hispanic community…Yo hablo español,’ Turness said, according to lawmakers present.

“But that didn’t go over well with lawmakers, some of whom left irate. . . . .

“NBC officials did discuss their diversity efforts during the meeting, noting that the company has added more Hispanic correspondents to ‘NBC Nightly News.’ They also touted news that Jose Diaz-Balart, an MSNBC and Telemundo host, will officially become a rotating anchor on the Saturday edition of ‘Nightly News’ and will be a regular contributor to ‘Meet the Press.’ That part was well received, according to a source familiar with the meeting. . . .”

Journalist Abdalaziz Alhamza tells CNN on Wednesday that his group has smuggled videos out of ISIS’s de facto capital of Raqqa, Syria, that show children training to kill. (video)

Syrian Journalist Says Internal Rifts Led ISIS to Bomb

The Paris terrorist bombings and other recent horrific acts by the Islamic State were undertaken in reaction to “problems between the fighters and the leaders,” according to a Syrian journalist whose organization reports at its peril from behind the ISIS front lines.

Abdalaziz Alhamza, co-founder of the activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS), told Journal-isms by telephone from New York Friday that in the most recent acts of terrorism, leaders were out to demonstrate to the rank and file that the Islamic State “is still strong and can do anything everywhere in this world.”

Alhamza, a 24-year-old Syrian refugee now living in Berlin, is visiting the United States to receive an International Press Freedom Award in New York Tuesday from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Journalists from Ethiopia, Malaysia and Paraguay are being similarly honored, and all have endured death threats, physical attacks, legal action, imprisonment or exile in the course of their work, CPJ said.

Alhamza’s group “has been declared an enemy of God by Islamic State, and at least two RBSS members have already paid the price with their lives,” CPJ added. “In October 2015, Ibrahim Abd al-Qader, an early member of RBSS, was killed by Islamic State operatives, along with his colleague Fares Hamadi, in an apartment in Urfa, southeastern Turkey. Al-Moutaz Bellah Ibrahim was kidnapped by Islamic State and murdered in May 2014.

“In July 2015, Islamic State released a highly produced video, showing two men saying they worked for RBSS. The men are then strung up on trees and shot. One of the founders of RBSS later told CPJ that the two men did not belong to the group. . . .”

Journal-isms talked with Alhamza after the awardees spoke at a press briefing Thursday in Washington in a congressional hearing room under the auspices of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission and the Senate Human Rights Caucus.

Alluding to the beheadings, Alhamza told the group, “We don’t know who will be the next one,” but said it was important to be able to supply the Syrians who remain in the country with accurate information.

Michael Calderone, who interviewed Alhamza Tuesday for the Huffington Post, wrote, “The Islamic State ruthlessly cracked down on free expression from the start of its occupation, but in recent days has gone to even greater lengths to prevent information from getting out. They have closed Internet cafes, the group reported Wednesday, and Alhamza said it has become increasingly difficult to take photographs with security cameras installed throughout the city. Still, Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently has been able to publish several audio recordings this week of warplanes bearing down on the city. . . .”

Asked whether he had any message for U.S. journalists, Alhamza told Journal-isms that they should “be safe and report the truth,” but also “be careful before they publish,” saying he had seen “a lot of information not confirmed” in circulation. As one example, he said it had been reported that ISIS members were buying and selling women in a public square for use as slaves. The selling took place, but in private homes and only the leadership participates, he said.

CPJ provided more background: “In April 2014, around 17 Syrian activists set out to document the abuses of Islamic State after the militant group took over and declared the northern city of Raqqa to be the caliphate’s capital.

“The activists, working anonymously for their safety, formed a group, Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS), which is one of the few reliable and independent sources of news left in the Islamic State stronghold. The group’s Raqqa-based members secretly film and report from within the city and send the information to members outside of Syria, who transfer the news to local and international media.

“Since its inception, RBSS has publicized public lashings, crucifixions, beheadings, and draconian social rules, thus providing the world with a counter-narrative to Islamic State’s slickly produced version of events. . . .”

Other CPJ awardees are the Zone 9 bloggers from Ethiopia, “a group of bloggers of which six were arrested, imprisoned, and charged with terrorism in retaliation for critical reporting”; cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque, “Zunar,” from Malaysia, “who is charged with sedition and faces a potential 43-year jail term for drawings lampooning high-level abuse in the Malaysian government;” and Cándido Figueredo Ruíz, “a Paraguayan journalist who faces death threats and has lived under 24-hour police protection for the past two decades because of his reporting on drug smuggling on the Brazil-Paraguay border.”

In accepting the National Book Award Wednesday, Ta-Nehisi Coates gave a moving tribute to a friend killed by police who inspired him to write his book-length essay, “Between the World and Me.” (video)

Ta-Nehisi Coates Wins National Book Award

“Ta-Nehisi Coates won the National Book Award for nonfiction Wednesday night for ‘Between the World and Me,’ a visceral, blunt exploration of his experience of being a black man in America, which was published this summer in the middle of a national dialogue about race relations and inequality,” Alexandra Alter reported Wednesday for the New York Times.

” ‘Every day you turn on the TV and see some kind of violence being directed at black people,’ Mr. Coates said in an emotional acceptance speech. ‘Over and over and over again. And it keeps happening.’ . . .”

Smith Students Want Reporters to Declare Their Support

“Students and faculty at Smith College apparently didn’t want a repeat of that ugly episode at the University of Missouri, where a communications professor was filmed calling for the forcible removal of a journalist from an on-campus demonstration earlier this month,” Callum Borchers reported Thursday for the Washington Post.

“So when they held a sit-in Wednesday to protest racial discrimination, their solution was to not let in members of the media in the first place — unless said media members pledged allegiance to the cause.

“This remarkable passage comes from MassLive.com, whose reporter was turned away:

” ‘Alyssa Mata-Flores, a 21-year-old Smith College senior and one of the sit-in’s organizers, explained that the rule was born from “the way that media has historically painted radical black movements as violent and aggressive.”

” ‘We are asking that any journalists or press that cover our story participate and articulate their solidarity with black students and students of color,’ she told MassLive in the Student Center Wednesday. ‘By taking a neutral stance, journalists and media are being complacent in our fight.’

“Smith organizers said journalists were welcome to cover the event if they agreed to explicitly state they supported the movement in their articles.

“Wait, it gets better/worse:

“Stacey Schmeidel, Smith College director of media relations, said the college supports the activists’ ban on media. . . .”

Meanwhile, Kia Breaux, a 1996 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism and director of regional media for the Associated Press in Missouri, Kansas and Iowa, wrote about her own student experience for the Missourian, which publishes in Columbia, Mo., where the school is based.

“The events that unfolded last week at Mizzou brought back many painful memories,” Breaux wrote.

“They also were an indication that the work I’ve done to improve things for the next generation of students at my alma mater has fallen short.

“As a student pursuing a journalism degree at Mizzou in the 1990s, my intelligence was questioned. I was called a nigger, and I was subjected to offensive racial stereotypes. I also was respected, educated and nurtured by faculty and staff of all races. . . .”

Fuhrmann Taking Buyout from L.A. Times After 25 Years

Henry Fuhrmann, assistant managing editor at the Los Angeles Times, supervising the copy desks and library and heading the newsroom’s Standards and Practices Committee, told colleagues on Thursday that he is taking a buyout.

“Today marks the start of my 306th — and final — month as an editor at the Los Angeles Times,” Fuhrmann wrote on Facebook. “I’m happily hitting ‘pause’ on my career and accepting the company’s buyout offer. By the time I leave on Dec. 18, I will have logged 25½ years in eight jobs in six departments, working alongside hundreds of the most accomplished, dedicated and, above all, generous journalists in the business. After all this time, I still can’t believe my good fortune.”

Fuhrmann messaged Journal-isms, “I plan to take a short break from daily journalism and then figure out the next steps in the new year, most likely something involving editing or possibly even teaching. I’ll remain involved in AAJA, though I’ll be scaling back on that score too.”

Fuhrmann has been co-president of the Asian American Journalists Association’s Los Angeles Chapter, a longtime Los Angeles board member and former national advisory board member.

Merida Denies Trying to Poach Post Staffers for Undefeated

On Oct. 6, Greg Howard of Deadspin parenthetically broke the news that ESPN President John Skipper was pursuing Kevin Merida, then a managing editor for the Washington Post, to lead ESPN’s black-oriented site The Undefeated.

“Merida is interested; he met with Skipper in Los Angeles last month, and according to a source, he’s been quietly asking if some of his favorite Post employees would be open to following him to ESPN,” Howard wrote.

Less than two weeks later, ESPN and Merida announced that the rumor was true, and he is now The Undefeated’s editor-in-chief. But until an interview Monday with Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated, Merida was silent about whether he had sought Post colleagues to follow him.

“I am looking to field the best team we can field,” Merida told Deitsch. “Hiring is really difficult. You can’t just hire all three-point shooters, just to mix sports metaphors, no matter how deadly accurate they are. You need to get the mix right. I made a conscious effort while I was still at The Post not to talk to my Post colleagues about coming to The Undefeated, both before I made the decision and even after it had been announced I was leaving. I didn’t think that was right. Of course, now, we will look for talent everywhere. . . .”

Merida also described the kind of people he was looking for. “We hired 100 people for The Post newsroom last year. I like people who stand out, who have distinctive voices or distinctive ideas, who want to experiment, who are collaborative in nature, who might be odd or quirky, or just make you go, wow. I also like people with potential, who haven’t become great yet. But you can see greatness in them. And of course, you need a Steph Curry or two,” a reference to the Golden State Warriors point guard considered by some to be the greatest shooter in NBA history.

More Mexican Immigrants Leaving U.S. Than Migrating

“More Mexican immigrants have returned to Mexico from the U.S. than have migrated here since the end of the Great Recession, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data from both countries,” Ana Gonzalez-Barrera reported Thursday for the Pew Research Center.

“The same data sources also show the overall flow of Mexican immigrants between the two countries is at its smallest since the 1990s, mostly due to a drop in the number of Mexican immigrants coming to the U.S. . . .”

Ex-Officer Convicted; Station Aired Dashcam Video

“A jury has convicted an Inkster officer whose bloody beating of a driver was captured on video of assault and misconduct in office,” WDIV-TV in Detroit reported Thursday.

“The jury rendered their decision Thursday, also finding [William] Melendez not guilty of a strangulation charge.

“Melendez is being held without bond until his sentencing on Dec. 3. His wife stormed out of the courtroom after Judge Vonda Evans announced Melendez’s bond was denied.

“The jury this week rode in vans to see the street in Inkster where Floyd Dent was stopped by police and punched in the head 16 times by former Inkster police officer Melendez last January.

“The dashcam video wasn’t publicly known until the Local 4 Defenders aired it in March. Melendez was fired, and Inkster agreed to pay $1.4 million to the 58-year-old Dent. . . .”

Short Takes

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