Maynard Institute archives

Norris Leaving NPR to “Grow” Race Project

by richard0710

Host Says Effort Might Expand Beyond Journalism

Michele Norris, co-host of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” with Quinn O’Toole, managing director, NPR West, and deputy national editor. (Credit: NPR/file)

Host Says Effort Might Expand Beyond Journalism

After 13 years at NPR, many co-hosting the network’s signature “All Things Considered” daily newsmagazine, Michele Norris is leaving to devote more time to growing “The Race Card Project,” the Peabody Award-winning initiative she began five years ago.

“It’s a good time to try something new, particularly since this project has grown in ways I hadn’t thought it would,” Norris told Journal-isms by telephone on Thursday. “There are so many issues around race and identity and the gap that divides us.”

Moreover, “the media landscape is changing,” and she’d like to see whether the Race Card Project can expand beyond the confines of journalism or try different kinds of storytelling. She suggested a look at the project’s website and the stories told by readers to get a sense of the possibilities for further exploration. Churches and college campuses are among places that have sought interaction with the Race Card Project, she said.

In announcing the award for the project in 2013, the Peabody Awards explained, “This project, headed up by Michele Norris, undercuts the political, pejorative meaning of the term ‘race card’ by asking people to use six words to summarize their thoughts and experiences about race and send them in on postcards, emails, or tweets.

“Initially compiled on a website (theracecardproject.com), the descriptions eventually grew into a regular segment on NPR’s Morning Edition. A single six-word description such as ‘Ask who I am, not what,’ ‘Mexican white girl doesn’t speak Spanish’ or ‘My mixed kids have it differently’ opened up complicated, vulnerable and insightful discussions about race that we rarely hear in public spaces.

“The segments featured enlightening commentary from the authors about their own racial experiences. In a succinct 7½ minutes, we get a glimpse into the nuances of personal experience with race — ones that we might never hear, even from somebody we have known for years. For encouraging public discussion about diversity in ways that cut through obvious differences to present unique and individual lived experiences, The Race Card Project receives a Peabody Award.”

Michael Oreskes, NPR’s senior vice president of news and editorial director, announced Norris’ impending departure in a staff memo late Thursday afternoon.

“For the past 13 years, Michele Norris has brought inspiring voices, thought-provoking perspectives, and deeper insights into the day’s news to millions of NPR listeners. While hosting All Things Considered, in reports across NPR newsmagazines, and through live events, she has made an indelible mark on NPR. All this makes it difficult to share that she has decided it’s time to open the next chapter in her journalism career and will be leaving us at the end of December.

“Over her time at NPR, she brought our audiences profoundly moving, award-winning coverage ranging from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and interviews with leaders in politics, art, culture, and beyond.

“She also helped NPR reach younger listeners through the Backseat Book Club with producer Justine Kenin and she has led visceral, honest national conversations about race through the York Project she conducted with Steve Inskeep around the 2008 elections that earned the duPont Award. In recent years, as the creator and host of The Race Card Project, she has challenged each of us to think in new ways about how we see ourselves and each other. . . .”

Norris, 54, spent almost 10 years as a reporter for ABC News in its Washington bureau before joining NPR in 2002. She also worked as a staff writer for the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times.

Norris began hosting “All Things Considered” on Dec. 9, 2002, and in 2009 was named “Journalist of the Year” by the National Association of Black Journalists. in 2011, NPR announced that Norris would take a leave from the hosting job until after the 2012 elections because her husband, Broderick Johnson, accepted a senior adviser position with President Obama’s reelection campaign.

Johnson went on to take a position as cabinet secretary in the administration, heading the “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative to help young men of color, starting in 2014. Norris did not return to the anchor chair, instead becoming a host and special correspondent.

She told Journal-isms that she had not determined a business model for the Race Card Project. But she cited the StoryCorps project headed by David Isay, which travels the country collecting the stories of everyday people and airing them on NPR, in calling today “a wonderful time for entrepreneurial journalism.”

StoryCorps calls itself “an independently funded organization” as well as a public service.

The announcement comes two days after ombudsman Elizabeth Jensen disclosed that NPR has “four more Asian employees in those areas than a year ago and three more Latinos, but two fewer African-American employees.”

Quoting Oreskes, Jensen wrote, “NPR is examining how it can step up its hiring of people with strong journalism experience from related industries, such as newspapers and television. 

Recycled Baltimore Images — How True?

December 16, 2015

With Mistrial, Opportunity to Repeat Prior Mistakes

Editorial: Despite Mistrial, “Damaging” Testimony Emerged

Critics Say GOP Debaters Putting Fear on Ballot

FBI Denies Terrorist Couple Posted Openly About Jihad

“PBS NewsHour” Spotlights Stagnant Newsroom Diversity

NPR News, Information Staff Is 77.6 Percent White

Story Makes Case for More Action on Same-Race Crime

DuPonts Honor Pieces on Michael Brown, Immigration

Documenting Chinese Who Are Adopted, Living in U.S.

Short Takes

With Mistrial, Opportunity to Repeat Prior Mistakes

A mistrial declared Wednesday in the trial of Baltimore Police Officer William G. Porter provided an opportunity for the news media to recycle images of the unrest that followed the April 12 death of Freddie Gray in police custody.  But how true a representation will those images be? 

More trials will follow, as Porter is only the first of six city police officers to stand trial.

On “NBC Nightly News,” reporter Ron Mott recalled “more than a week of fiery riots” as he spoke in front of matching background images.

The Baltimore Sun, however, has a more limited use of the term “riots,” according to John E. McIntyre, night content production manager. He wrote Journal-isms in June, “We have attempted to restrict use of ‘riots’ and ‘rioting’ to the events of Monday, April 27, the day the Freddie Gray protests abruptly turned to arson, looting, and attacks on police officers.

“We have used the terms ‘unrest’ and ‘disturbances’ as umbrella terms for both the day of the riots and the less violent actions on the days preceding and following it: the minor vandalism, confrontations with police, demonstrations that disrupted traffic, and the like.

“So ‘unrest’ and ‘disturbances’ have been commonly used as labels. . . .”

Coverage of the Baltimore situation was among those revisited at the summer journalism conventions.

At September’s Excellence in Journalism conference in Orlando, which included the Society of Professional Journalists, the Radio Television Digital News Association and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery discussed major mistakes made by out-of-town reporters.

One was failing to provide context by reporting how wide an area is affected by unrest, a shortcoming compounded when the same images of burning buildings are shown repeatedly on outlets with plenty of time to fill. Viewers receive the impression that the entire city is burning. “Sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know,” Lowery said.

At a Journalists Roundtable session in Washington in May, an all-news radio reporter who filed stories from Baltimore noted the obnoxious behavior of some journalists whom he did not name. One network anchor wanted to hold some young people at the scene after his live shot so the youths would still be there when he went on the air at 10 p.m.

The anchor’s producers said “You can’t do that,” but the anchor replied, “We need the shot.” The assembled journalists agreed with Carla Wills, executive producer of news and public affairs at WEAA-FM in Baltimore, when she said of such stories, “it’s not news anymore, it’s manufactured.”

Wills, now with Pacifica Radio’s “Democracy, Now!,” said WEAA had a different experience than the outside reporters because WEAA is part of the community.

The kids who were looting were like kids whose parents tell them not to touch the stove — they have to touch it just to see why the parents said not to, she said. WEAA, based at Morgan State University, did not call it a “riot,” but “unrest.” Ron Nixon, who went to the city from the New York Times Washington bureau, said he called it “pockets of rioting.” He also described “pockets of opportunism” when people looted — such behavior had nothing to do with Freddie Gray.

Editorial: Despite Mistrial, “Damaging” Testimony Emerged

Judge Barry G. Williams of Baltimore City Circuit Court declared a mistrial in Baltimore Wednesday after jurors told him they could not reach a verdict on any of the four charges against Baltimore Police Officer William G. Porter.

The Baltimore Sun editorialized that mistrial or not, the public learned valuable information.

Whether inaction by Porter “during the arrest of Freddie Gray amounted to a crime is a difficult question, and we were not surprised to see the jury in his trial struggle with it ,” the editorial said. 

It also said, “What the trial revealed with great clarity, though, were the failings of the Baltimore City Police Department. We’re not sure whose depiction of it was worse: the prosecution’s account of police who express a callous indifference to the lives of those they arrest and then lie to cover for each other, or the defense’s picture of a department so rife with incompetence that their client’s failures were entirely unexceptional.

“Prosecutors didn’t just accuse Mr. Porter of lying or engaging in a cover-up. They suggested that the department has a ‘stop snitching’ code for its officers just as repulsive as the one on the streets. And the defense attorneys didn’t just portray Mr. Porter as an inexperienced cop who was following the lead of experienced officers. They drew a picture of a department where training is cursory and where standards of conduct are routinely ignored — if officers even bother to read them in the first place.

“But what the lawyers said was nowhere near as damaging as the testimony of the police officers themselves. Baltimore police called as character witnesses for Mr. Porter’s defense said that they almost never followed general orders requiring the use of seat belts in police vans, notwithstanding the department’s multi-year crusade to improve compliance or the memo strengthening the requirement that was issued shortly before Gray’s arrest.

“Mr. Porter testified that he didn’t seat belt Gray because he was afraid that doing so would expose his gun — despite the fact that Gray’s hands were cuffed behind his back, his feet were shackled and he was not by the defendant’s own account causing any disturbance. What’s worse, an 18-year veteran of the Baltimore department who is now the police chief in Charlottesville, Va., backed that up as entirely reasonable. . . .”

Critics Say GOP Debaters Putting Fear on Ballot

“Tuesday’s debate was kind of like looking at a traffic accident,” Mark Trahant wrote Wednesday for indianz.com. “You drive by not wanting to peek, but then you do, and it’s awful, so you think, ‘why did I do that?’

“About the closest thing to reality was when Jeb Bush pointed out that Trump is a chaos candidate who would be a chaos president. True. But that idea fits Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, and perhaps others on the stage. And worse, the idea of willful chaos also fits the majority of Republican voters right now. It’s these voter groups that are demanding destruction in Washington.

“Meanwhile in Washington folks are actually trying to govern. The new Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, announced a compromise with Democrats early Wednesday morning on a spending bill to fund the government next year. The current funding bill expires today. A vote could come on Friday. . . .” The new bill includes funding for Indian programs.

For the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Emil Guillermo wrote, “If the fifth Republican debate made you feel fearful and anxiety ridden, here’s something to celebrate instead.

“On Dec. 17, 1943, 72 years ago this week, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Magnuson Act, which repealed the Chinese Exclusion Laws. They were those nasty laws that came out of hateful rhetoric from the U.S. Senate, where the Chinese were called a ‘degraded and inferior race’ that posed a threat to this country. Add a few epithets and comparisons to vermin and you get the picture. The result was a ban on immigration that lasted more than 60 years.

“Heard something similar lately?

“In a twist, the law was repealed by the same man who unfortunately would forget his history lesson and later incarcerate 120,000 Japanese Americans.

“But the U.S. would ultimately apologize for that too.

“It’s what I call the U.S. political Fear Cycle. Asian Americans have been through it. And Muslims are in it now. . . .”

Pacifica Radio’s “Democracy, Now!,” where hosts Amy Goodman and Juan González welcomed Bob Herbert, former New York Times columnist, also picked up on the “fear” theme. From a transcript:

“JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Bob, I wanted to ask you about the role of the media — specifically, in this case, CNN — in framing the discussion, because I was stunned —

“BOB HERBERT: So was I.

“JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — that over an hour was spent just discussing ISIS and what — it was almost as if CNN had decided that fear and the fight against terrorism was now the main discussion that had to occur, because, for instance, in discussing foreign policy, there was no mention of Israel and Palestine —

“BOB HERBERT: No.

“JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — no discussion of Latin America —

“BOB HERBERT: No.

“JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —or President Obama’s decision to normalize relations with Cuba. There was even scant discussion of the situation with Russia and the Ukraine. It was all focused on the Middle East and on ISIS, it seemed.

“BOB HERBERT: It was all about ISIS and terror and fear, and the subtext — I don’t even think it’ a subtext; I mean, it’s right out there — and fear of Muslims. . . .”

Fear is making strides in American public opinion after the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., the Pew Research Center reported Tuesday.

Under the headline, “Views of Government’s Handling of Terrorism Fall to Post-9/11 Low,” Pew wrote, “Racial divides over these views persist. While only 30% of blacks and 40% of Hispanics say Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence, half of whites (50%) say this.

“Seven-in-ten white evangelical Protestants say Islam encourages violence more than other religions, the highest percentage of any religious group and little changed from 2014. By comparison, about half of Catholics (49%) and white mainline Protestants (51%) say this. And among the religiously unaffiliated, just 35% say Islam is more likely to encourage violence among its believers. . . .”

FBI Denies Terrorist Couple Posted Openly About Jihad

“Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik did not make open posts on social media regarding radical Islamic jihad or martyrdom before the Dec. 2 terror attack in San Bernardino, FBI Director James B. Comey said Wednesday, attempting to knock down criticism that U.S. officials had missed the growing radicalism of the couple and could have prevented her from moving to the U.S. last year,” Richard A. Serrano reported Wednesday for the Los Angeles Times.

“Speaking in New York, Comey also revealed for the first time that the shooting deaths last July of five people after attacks on two military installations in Chattanooga, Tenn., have now officially been classified as a terrorist attack. The assailant in that attack, Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, a naturalized U.S. citizen living in Hixson, Tenn., was killed by police gunfire after he shot and killed four Marines and a sailor and wounded three other people. . . .”

Serrano also wrote, “In the San Bernardino case, Comey said, some news reports about Farook and Malik’s social media use had been a ‘garble.’ He emphasized the distinction between postings on social media and private messages using social media platforms.

The story also said, “An article Tuesday in the Los Angeles Times was consistent with Comey’s characterization. The article reported that federal law enforcement officials had said that Malik had sent at least ‘two private messages’ on Facebook to a small group of Pakistani friends in 2012 and 2014 pledging support for jihad.

“Those private messages were sent before she entered the U.S. on a K-1 fiancee visa in July 2014. One of the officials characterized the messages as ‘her private communications … to a small group of her friends’ that ‘went only to a small group.’

“In an article Sunday, the New York Times reported that Malik had ‘talked openly on social media about her views on violent jihad.’

“The two articles prompted critics of the Obama administration to say that officials had not done enough to catch potential terrorists and safeguard the U.S.

“Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas echoed those complaints during the Republican presidential debate Tuesday night in Las Vegas. . . .”

Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Richard Prince at the Newseum in Washington. (video)

“PBS NewsHour” Spotlights “Stagnant” Newsroom Diversity

Richard Prince discussed many of the news items covered over the years in the “Journal-isms” column in an interview with Charlayne Hunter-Gault that aired Tuesday on the “PBS NewsHour.” Hunter-Gault is examining “Race Matters Solutions.”

“There is just too much indifference to the whole idea of diversity,” Prince said. “Yes, we will do it if we get to it. I mean, the number of newsrooms in this country that have no people of color at all in them is appalling. And the fact that it’s allowed to remain, I think is scandalous. [In its 2010 report, the American Society of News Editors wrote, “465 newspapers responding to the ASNE census had no minorities on their full-time staff. This number has been growing since 2006. . . .”]

“But we’re fighting apathy, indifference and competing interests. And people are saying, look, I have to worry about the bottom line. And they don’t realize that the bottom line is tied to . . . our changing country that’s becoming browner and browner. And that’s where your potential customers are. . . .”

However, the columnist also said, “There are a lot of solutions that people are trying. And, as people say, if one thing doesn’t work, then you just try something else.”

Story Makes Case for More Action on Same-Race Crime

The Washington Post weighed in on the debate that pits those who speak up about deadly police violence against civilians and others who argue that more emphasis should be given to intraracial crime.

“Video released last month that shows a police officer killing 17-year-old Laquan McDonald with 16 bullets ignited passion on the streets of Chicago. Protesters disrupted shoppers along the famed Magnificent Mile, the city’s police chief was fired, and the Justice Department launched an investigation into racial disparities in officers’ use of force,” Michael A. Fletcher reported on the front page of Saturday’s print edition.

“Three months earlier, when 9-year-old Jamyla Bolden was cut down by a stray bullet as she did homework in her Ferguson, Mo., apartment, the response was different. There were no protests or demands that city officials step down. The night after her death, demonstrators in nearby St. Louis took to the streets, setting fire to a vacant house and a car — not in response to Jamyla’s death, but to protest the police shooting of a young black man in the back during a drug raid.

“The contrasting responses have put the goals of some community leaders at odds with those espoused by groups such as Black Lives Matter, who have seized the political moment with loud protests calling for less-aggressive policing and more accountability for law enforcement. Some political and religious leaders say that what’s needed is an equal public outpouring over the severe crime that continues to plague many communities. Compared with the reaction provoked by a police shooting, they said, response to street violence is too often muted, fragmented and brief. . . .”

Fletcher went beyond the complaints to suggest solutions.

He also wrote, “Some neighborhood and political leaders here and elsewhere . . . say bands of demonstrators could occupy crime hot spots in neighborhoods, press local officials for a greater police presence, or march until there was a political imperative to provide more services such as recreation and after-school programs that can steer young people away from crime. Or they could plug into existing anti-crime groups that are starved for manpower and support. . . .”

DuPonts Honor Pieces on Michael Brown, Immigration

“St. Louis station KMOV, Baltimore’s WBAL and Raleigh, N.C.’s WRAL are all being honored with the prestigious Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award,” Chris Ariens reported Tuesday for TVSpy.

“KMOV’s Craig Cheatham and team are being honored for their investigation into the shooting death of Michael Brown and the criminal justice system in and around St. Louis in the hour-long, commercial free documentary The Injustice System.

“WBAL’s Jayne Miller is being honored for her investigative work on the death of Freddie Gray. ‘Her exemplary reports raised important questions about probable cause, police policy, and accountability,’ the judges found. ‘Miller asked probing, smart questions and followed up with clear analysis of a fast changing story.’

“WRAL reporter Leyla Santiago and photographer Zac Gooch are being honored for their series Journey Alone, about the surge in illegal immigration and the unaccompanied minors who made their way to North Carolina. . . .”

Documenting Chinese Who Are Adopted, Living in U.S.

“I wanted to tell the Chinese audience how the Chinese adopted live in America,” Meng Han told Rena Silverman for the New York Times “Lens” blog, “and what kind of lives they have and what is different.”

Han, a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow at the University of Maryland, left China in the spring of 2014 to study English.

A senior photojournalist at Beijing News, Han “sought out families through an online advertisement,” Silverman wrote Wednesday, “and the first response came surprisingly enough from Cheryl Wu, a second-generation Chinese woman who had adopted her daughter from China’s Jiangxi Province.

“Ms. Wu had taught children with special needs in Washington, D.C. ‘My job is to look after handicapped children,’ she said, ‘so I always hoped to adopt a child from a Chinese welfare house and take care of her myself.”

“Ms. Wu introduced Ms. Han to a network of families with adopted children who often got together for parties and other occasions. Over about a year, she met some 30 families in 10 states, some through word of mouth, others when a nonprofit organization wrote about her project in a newsletter, and still more through a school where families brought children to learn Chinese and Chinese dance. . . .”

Short Takes

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