Maynard Institute archives

“Bigfoots” on the Campaign Plane

by richard0409

John McCormick/Chicago Tribune

Jen Psaki, Sen. Barack Obama’s traveling press secretary, is surrounded in February by reporters amid a debate over ground rules on the campaign plane.

Election Is Historic, but Not Press-Corps Diversity

A front-page photo of Sen. Barack Obama in the New York Times last week showed the Democratic front-runner on his campaign plane as a number of hands holding tape recorders reached up to him. None of the hands appeared to be black or brown.

It seemed ironic in that Obama is the first African American with a serious chance to be president, running in a campaign in which the nuances of race have been discussed as never before.

For black journalists old enough to remember Jesse Jackson‘s runs for the presidency in 1984 and 1988, another frame of reference came to mind. Jackson’s candidacy opened the doors, often at his insistence, for black journalists to cover a national presidential campaign.

The doors are not quite as open this time.

A black editor at a major news organization told Journal-isms, “our campaign coverage is extremely white. It doesn’t mean it lacks sensitivity, but they don’t know the nuances of growing up black in America.”

Another black journalist who requested anonymity because he said he hadn’t finished his research offered reasons others echoed, some on the e-mail list of the National Association of Black Journalists:

“My . . . sense is that this campaign, despite its historic proportions, is not the launching pad for black print journalists to vault into the inside of campaigns and national politics as what happened from 1984 to 1996, when you could count on bylines across the nation by the likes of Gwen Ifill, Ken Cooper,Milton Coleman, Marilyn Milloy, Mike Frisby, Steven Holmes, Sylvester Monroe,Derrick Jackson, Sam Fulwood and Kevin Merida to grace Page One with some major aspect of a presidential campaign,” this person said. His list is not all-inclusive. “Most of those then-reporters moved up the power chain to become nationally significant editors, columnists, authors and television hosts.

“The possible reasons are many. The most obvious is that Obama quickly turned out to be THE story of 2008, not just the top presidential story, but THE top domestic story for America, win or lose. That could have inspired newspapers to put their top political ‘bigfoot’ reporters on him and the level of black ‘bigfoots’ does not appear to be at anywhere near the level of the ’80s and ’90s.

“The logical ‘why’ as to the lack of black ‘bigfoots’ or even rising stars worth sending to the hustings is that the chance for a Gwen Ifill to cut her teeth on a presidential campaign has been severely diminished by the flat levels of black hiring for many years, even before they were compounded by the shrinkage of our industry. Ancedotally, there is plenty to suggest that buyouts have now begun to suck black institutional memory out of our newsrooms along with general memory.

“Precisely when we are witnessing the most amazing election in our lifetimes along the lines of color and gender, we are losing role models and black editors in the newsroom who might have gone the extra mile to make sure black people had a shot in being deeply involved in coverage.”

To be sure, there have been many advances since the Jackson campaigns. Other journalists of color — Latinos, South Asians and Asian Pacific Americans – are being assigned to the candidates. The reporters and photographers covering the contest number more than the “embeds,” as those on the plane are known. And with the explosion in cable news and the Internet since the ’80s, there are more venues for commentators of color.

Candice Tolliver, a senior communication strategist for the Obama campaign, said she has reached out to a number of journalists of color who wished to interview Obama. Ifill does not travel regularly on the campaign plane, but has an interview scheduled Monday on PBS’ “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.”

As 2008 began, and the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary were about to take place, Journal-isms asked news outlets about the diversity in their campaign teams. They replied here.

This week, Journal-isms asked the outlets for an update. Some responded, others did not. Those that did:

Associated Press: “Photos: Three of the AP photographers on the campaign trail in recent weeks have been minorities. Print: Three of the AP editors and reporters involved in campaign coverage have been minorities. There have been more women covering the presidential candidates and editing the stories for AP,” said spokesman Paul D. Colford.

ABC News: “Ron Claiborne has been covering Senator John McCain‘s campaign for all ABC News’ broadcasts and platforms. Sarah Amos is the off-air reporter covering President Bill Clinton. Additionally, several off-air reporters of color had been covering various Democratic and Republican candidates until their candidates dropped out of the race, including Raelyn Johnson, who was covering Senator John Edwards‘ campaign. She recently joined ‘World News with Charles Gibson‘ as a producer,” spokeswoman Natalie J. Raabe said. CBS: “The numbers are about [the] same as when you asked in January . . . more than 10 percent. . .” according to spokeswoman Kelli Halyard.

CNN: “As part of CNN’s comprehensive and winning political coverage, CNN correspondents Joe Johns, Suzanne Malveaux, Dan Lothian, Chris Lawrence, Ed Lavandera and Ali Velshi frequently report on the campaign either from the trail or in-studio. Many of these correspondents have also anchored the network’s long-form programming Ballot Bowl,” said a CNN spokeswoman. Soledad O’Brien plays a key role in each primary and caucus night coverage from the CNN Election Center in New York, and Donna Brazile, Amy Holmes, Roland Martin, Jamal Simmons andLeslie Sanchez regularly provide analysis during both special coverage and regularly scheduled broadcasts.”

Dallas Morning News: “Our staffing is in line with what you reported previously. We geared up and were prepared for the increased attention on the Texas primary, using Gromer Jeffers Jr. , our Dallas-based political writer, who is black, along with Christy Hoppe, our Austin Bureau chief; our senior political writer, and other correspondents from the Austin Bureau, Washington Bureau and Dallas. We also used specialty beat reporters here, some of whom are black and Hispanic, who produced issue-centric stories on immigration, health care, the economy and the minority vote,” said Mark Edgar, deputy managing editor.

McClatchy Newspapers: “William Douglas, an African-American, is our lead reporter on the Clinton campaign,” said Robert Rankin, government and politics editor.

NBC: “NBC News continues to use our regular team of on-air anchors and correspondents, including Ron Allen reporting for the network, MSNBC and msnbc.com from Senator Clinton’s campaign, and Kevin Corke who reports for the news division from Washington, D.C. and the primary states. Lester Holt covers the race extensively as co-Anchor of ‘Weekend Today’ and Anchor of ‘Nightly News’ Weekend Edition. Additionally, we’ve hired Michelle Bernard of the Independent Women’s Forum and Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post as political analysts. It remains a priority with this news division for diversity to be represented on-air and behind the scenes,” said spokeswoman Lauren Kapp.

National Public Radio: “At NPR, the journalists of color who are covering the current presidential race (Obama, Clinton, McCain) are: Audie Cornish, Juan Williams,Cheryl Corley, Mandalit del Barco, Michele Norris, Farai Chideya, Michel Martin,” said spokeswoman, Andi Sporkin. USA Today: “Catalina Camia and Fredreka Schouten are still on the campaign in the key roles reported earlier. Larry Copeland, our National Correspondent in Atlanta, covered the Mississippi Primary and will continue to be involved,” said Ed Foster-Simeon, deputy managing editor for news.

Douglas, who works out of the McClatchy Washington Bureau, said he thought his white colleagues were quick to pick up on the racial undercurrent during the South Carolina primary, when Bill Clinton made comments interpreted as racially charged.

But when Douglas went to New Orleans with Hillary Clinton for Tavis Smiley‘s “State of the Black Union” conference, “a lot of the mainstream media didn’t quite know there was this tension between Tavis Smiley and Obama over the decision [by Obama] not to attend the event. Hillary spoke there and the Clinton press corps didn’t pick up the whole ball of wax. My story had the whole ball of wax. You have to sort of listen to ‘the Tom Joyner show’ and read the black-oriented Web sites to pick that up, and we don’t have time to read a newspaper, much less what some consider boutique reading.”

Similarly, while some questioned why Obama supporters interpreted certain comments from the Clinton camp as racially motivated, “as a black person you might have heard some of these things” and know them to be code words. “That’s our job, to do the best we can to explain that. It’s tricky, but that’s part of the racial thing that’s going on in this campaign,” Douglas said.

Diversity was an asset even for those not on the campaign plane. At the Dallas Morning News, Edgar said, “for the Texas primary, which took place in a state as huge and diverse as Texas, obviously it helps to have a staff that reflects that.” Especially, he said, when a number of out-of-state reporters filed stories that resorted to stereotypes of Texas as “big hair, barbecue and pickups.”

Other journalists of color spotted on the campaign trail include Perry Bacon Jr., Krissah Williams, Jose Antonio Vargas and Kevin Merida of the Washington Post, Brian DeBose of the Washington Times, Daren Briscoe of Newsweek, producer Athena Jones of NBC, producers Andante Higgins and Fernando Suarez of CBS, blogger Pamela Gentry of BET.com, Michael Luo and photographer Ozier Muhammad of the New York Times, Monroe Anderson of the Afro-American newspapers, labor writer Jesse J. Holland and photographer Charles Dharapak of the Associated Press and Sylvester Monroe of Ebony and Jet magazines. Darlene Superville has edited AP coverage in Washington, and various columnists have joined the trail from time to time.

Wendell Goler of Fox News covered three of the losing Republicans — former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romneyand former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee — but is now back at the White House. “I did Giuliani until he bailed and Romney until he dropped out. Even did a stint with Huckabee (but he was having too much fun to quit) before returning to the White House. Now I’m focusing on the lame duck,” he told Journal-isms.

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Columnist on Spitzer Disputed on Role of Press

Wall Street Journal columnist¬†Kimberly A. Strassel‘s¬†assertion¬†that disgraced New York Gov.¬†Eliot Spitzer¬†was served by an enabling press corps has been rejected by at least two other columnists who say she failed to back up her claim.

 

“Desperate newspaper columnists can always grind out a quick piece by purchasing a large burlap bag and stuffing ‘The Press’ and several pounds of broken glass inside it. Drag to a steep, long staircase, give it a shove, and the column almost writes itself,”¬†Jack Shafer¬†wrote¬†on Thursday on slate.com

“Like most press critics who hunt with a blunderbuss, Strassel is low on specifics.

“. . . None of this is to say that Spitzer was my kind of attorney general or that the press distinguished itself in its coverage of him. He wasn’t and it didn’t. Bias for Spitzer, where it existed, probably grew out of reporters’ preference for action over inaction. Many reporters become blocked when assigned to write about something that isn’t happening. That’s why they love writing stories and columns about the horrors of ‘gridlock’ and ‘do-nothing’ politicians.”

On the Web site of the Columbia Journalism Review,¬†Dean Starkman¬†wrote¬†on Thursday, “The press – and let’s face it, this has been The New York Times at its best – has done a spectacular job on this story. It is the press that blew Spitzer out of office like he was shot out of a cannon.

“Strassel, of course, isn’t referring to the journalists who brought Spitzer low, but to the other journalists, the lapdogs, who reported on his tenure as New York attorney general.

“He knew, too, that as financial journalism has become more competitive, breaking news can make a career. He doled out scoops to favored reporters, who repaid him with allegiance. News organizations that dared to criticize him were cut off. After a time, few criticized anymore.

“It should be noted that her colleagues at The Wall Street Journal, particularlyCharlie Gasparino, now of CNBC, scored as many Spitzer scoops as anyone, if not more.”

 

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WSPA-TV

Bystanders try to intervene as Spartansburg, S.C., reporter Charmayne Brown, center, in white pants and gray jacket, is pushed to the ground and assaulted Tuesday in Union, S.C. Four people were charged in connection with the attack.

Woman Charged in Attack on TV Reporter Apologizes

“One of the women arrested in the¬†attack¬†on News Channel 7 reporterCharmayne Brown¬†has a message for Brown and residents of the Upstate,” WSPA-TV in Spartansburg, S.C.¬†reported¬†on Friday.

 

” ‘All I can do is apologize and hope that Ms. Brown and the community accepts my apology because from the bottom of my heart, deeply I apologize for what happened,’ said¬†Billie Joe Taylor, 31.

“Taylor,¬†Trina Dawn Vinson¬†and¬†Tousha Michelle Smith¬†are accused of assaulting Brown Tuesday at the home of Taylor’s father, 73-year-old¬†Tommy Howell. A fourth person,¬†Ronald Lee Harris, 30, is accused of pushing Brown’s photographer,¬†Ti Barnes, during the altercation.

“Howell was found dead on his couch Tuesday morning, and his grandson,¬†Shane Howell, 33, later admitted to killing his grandfather, investigators said.

“It was later that afternoon, when Taylor says reporters were asking questions and the family was feeling stressed, that the confrontation erupted.

“The attack has garnered national media attention, in part because Brown says racial slurs were being used prior to and during the incident.”

“Asked why the family seemed to leave a white WYFF News 4 reporter alone and go toward Brown, Taylor replied, “I don’t know. I mean, I guess because we asked him to leave and he pretty much just said OK and walked off. And they were throwing back comments at us like ‘we don’t have to leave.’ “

“Brown and Barnes said they didn’t feel welcome from the time they arrived in the Union neighborhood. They said racial slurs were being used before the fight.”

Union Police arrested a fourth person in connection with the attack, WSPA-TVreported on Wednesday.

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Martin Reynolds Named Oakland Tribune Editor

 

Martin Reynolds

Martin G. Reynolds, managing editor of the Oakland (Calif.) Tribune, has been promoted to editor of the Tribune and managing editor of the Bay Area News Group, he told Journal-isms on Friday.

 

Reynolds, 39, succeeds Pete Wevurski, who had been detailed to a project for the Bay Area News Group. Wevurski remains managing editor of the Bay Area News Group-East Bay.

Reynolds said that since he had been acting editor, he had worked to improve the newspaper’s identification with the city. “It seemed like we were afraid to put Oakland news on the front page above the fold,” he said. He said he also planned to create partnership with graduate students at San Francisco State University and the University of California at Berkeley so that they would be mentored by Tribune reporters.

The students could do more of the “process” stories, freeing Tribune reporters to do more involving analysis. In addition, Reynolds said he wants to stimulate community journalism, “teaching people how to tell their own stories.”

The Tribune, which has a circulation of about 100,000, has 14 metro reporters and 20 regional reporters it shares with the Bay Area News Group, which includes 23 paid daily newspapers.

Reynolds is a 2005 graduate of the Maynard Institute¬†Media Academy, training that he said “put me in a position to navigate” management at the paper.

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Native Journalist, Unity Offended by Headline

“A recent entry in a respected news industry blog left me baffled about the editing choices that allowed a culturally insensitive comment to figure prominently in a story about newsroom layoffs,”¬†Michaela Saunders, Eastern Cherokee, Ottawa and British-American, and an education reporter at the Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald,¬†wrote¬†on Tuesday.

 

Her remarks were seconded by Unity: Journalists of Color.

“The headline in¬†Jim Romenesko’s¬†blog on Feb. 29 first shocked, and then saddened me. It read: Newsday’s ‘getting rid of more Indians, keeping the chiefs,'” Saunders’ column continued.

“While my heart went out to those who lost their jobs, I also thought of my Eastern Cherokee family and my Native American friends as I read the blog entry and the Newsday story, where the quote originated. Would they see it? Would they have a ‘not again’ feeling, or worse? Would my sister have to explain the comment to my niece?

“But something else stayed with me hours later about these two attempts to relay the story of devastating loss at Newsday. There were at least three missed opportunities to exercise better judgment in filtering out an objectionable and unnecessary quote.

“The comment I take issue with came from a Newsday union leader. He was trying to say that more managers would be spared at the expense of reporters, referring to the saying, ‘Too many chiefs and not enough Indians.’ His attempt at an analogy only served to reduce Native American cultures to a clich?©, infuriating those of us who want to see our people portrayed as 21st century Americans and not ancient relics.”

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Kids’ Newspaper, Series on Tipping Honored

A community’s failure to tip properly in restaurants can drive those restaurants away from the area, damaging the local economy, the Tri-State Defender, a longstanding black newspaper in Memphis, told readers in a¬†campaign¬†that began in January.

 

Its stories addressed such questions as, “What is the tipping gap costing us?” and “What you can do to help.”

 

 

 

The series gained the newspaper honorable mention for a Chrysler Financial/NNPA Foundation Award, presented Thursday night in Washington during the National Newspaper Publishers Association’s Black Press Week.

 

The Washington Informer won the grand prize for a supplement produced entirely by third- and fourth-grade students at Birney Elementary School in Southeast Washington, and students, their teacher and principal came to share in the honor.The Birney Informer¬†is distributed as an insert in the newspaper each month. An additional 1,000 copies are distributed to the school, increasing the newspaper’s overall circulation.

The award is presented to a black-owned newspaper for its entrepreneurial accomplishments and community service, seeking “to encourage members of the Black Press of America to look beyond traditional streams of revenue, such as advertising, and to develop creative ways to thrive in today’s competitive media industry,” according to a news release.

Syndicated morning radio host Tom Joyner was honored for his community service, including awarding scholarships to black colleges and a maintaining a hotline to report voter irregularities that Joyner said has recorded 36,000 calls.

Sen. Barack Obama, who was to follow Sen. Hillary Clinton in addressing the group, remained in the Senate for a series of votes and did not attend. Clinton spoke on Wednesday.

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Denver, Charlotte Papers in Tussle Over Credit

 

Gregory Moore

“A dispute over a Pulitzer Prize finalist in investigative reporting has emerged between The Denver Post and the Charlotte (N.C) Observer. The conflict sparked a phone call Wednesday from Observer Editor¬†Rick Thames¬†to Post Editor¬†Greg Moore, who is also a Pulitzer Board member. Moore says he is now ‘writing a letter about it,'”Joe Strupp¬†reported Friday in Editor & Publisher.

 

“At issue is the Post’s July 2007 series on lost and destroyed evidence, which E&P has learned is among the three finalists in the investigative reporting category. The series included examinations of a number of cases in which evidence questions had been raised.

“Among the cases examined is the story of¬†Floyd Brown, a mentally disabled North Carolina man who was freed in late 2007 after 14 years in prison without being tried. He was charged with murder, but questions about different pieces of missing evidence, including a murder weapon and bloody clothes, eventually led to his freedom.

“Former Charlotte Observer reporter¬†Emily S. Achenbaum, who left the paper in January to take a job with the Chicago Tribune, wrote numerous stories about the Brown case dating back to late 2006, including an extensive package in March 2007, which predated the Post series. She now wants the Pulitzer board to take a close look at both her coverage and the Post’s.

“Achenbaum contends that the Post coverage, by reporters¬†Susan Greene¬†andMiles Moffeit, was written without credit to the Observer and with the inference that the Post first dug up the story.

“Moore acknowledged that the Observer coverage was prominent, but contends that the Post did its own reporting and had no reason to formally credit the Observer. ‘It seems to me that they did what a really good paper should do, but if anything, their story led us to a treasure trove of court documents that we went and got.'”

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A Journalist Remembered for Uncommon Heroism

Wes Hughes, a former editor at various levels of the Los Angeles Times, was a city editor and columnist at the San Bernardino (Calif.) Sun until last week’s layoffs. His final column, never published, honored a black journalist,¬†Kevin Roderick¬†wrote¬†Tuesday in LA Observed.

 

“When I come upon an article about sickle cell anemia, my mind conjures up memories of an old friend, long dead. In my eyes,¬†Byron Robertson¬†was a hero, not in an exaggerated way of heroism but day-to-day heroism that few of us can match,” the never-published column began.

“Byron didn’t have sickle cell disease but he carried the trait. So did his wife Edna. That’s why their son Lamont inherited it. If either parent had been free of the trait, little Lamont would have escaped its grip. The mumps are not usually a killer but when Lamont caught them, it was a death sentence.

“. . . Byron wanted to write but opportunities were scarce in the 1960s and ’70s for black people, especially young black men. There were few black people in newsrooms.

“. . . He’d always been driven by a desire to fight racism. After he lost his son, he spent almost every weekend in Oakland chronicling the Black Panthers. It scared the hell out of police up and down the Sacramento Valley. But his work caught the attention of bigger newspapers and he was hired by the Sacramento Bee. He told me that he even encountered racism from some of the staffers and editors there.

“He stood up under the pressure but it took its toll. High blood pressure destroyed his kidneys and damaged his heart and vision. He went into dialysis three times a week at one of the major hospitals in Sacramento. It kept him alive until he received a kidney transplant and he continued his work in the movement.

“He was feeling pretty good for a while but suddenly his body rejected the implanted kidney and it was removed. He refused to ask for another. He said the pain that came with the rejection was too much to risk again. If you’ve ever felt a kidney punch, you’ll have just a bit of an idea what he meant.

“So it was back to work and back to dialysis.

“The union at the Bee went on strike. It was long and drawn out and it finally failed as member after member gave up and slipped back to work. Byron of the great ethics who needed the medical coverage probably more than anyone else working there was the only one who refused to give up.

“He took an African name,¬†Ndugu Chui.

“I always thought it was his pride that killed him, although dialysis eventually drains you of everything. Even in his wheelchair he had great dignity and heart.

“Today, I stumbled across an article about promising new research on sickle cell disease and it triggered my memories of Byron.

“I wondered what he would think if he could see the world today. I know he would be disappointed that innercity black people are sunk in a morass of despair, crime and failure. He wanted black people to find their rightful place in society. And I wonder what he would think to see a young, well educated black man on the verge of winning a major party’s nomination for the presidency of the United States and doing it with the support of millions of white men and women. I hope he would be pleased.

“He was just a day-to-day hero. But in hindsight, his feats look giant.”

After an excerpt of Hughes’ piece was posted on another¬†blog¬†a former co-worker,¬†Anne Peterson, wrote that she remembered that Robertson co-wrote a piece on racism in Shasta County, Calif.

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Short Takes

  • Vernon Smith Jr., a former editor at the Dallas Morning News, and¬†Lonnie Isabel, a former editor at Newsday, were in Jordan for 2 1/2 weeks in February training journalists there and working as in-house consultants with several publications there under a program of the International Research & Exchanges Board, or IREX, Isabel told Journal-isms. “We were part of a three-person team that included¬†Barbara Dury, a former ’60 Minutes’ producer. We worked with journalists there on news writing, ethics, management, interviewing, training techniques, etc. At our consultancies we worked with reporters and editors and producers on improving their products, honing their skills, and developing their staffs. I am going back for more work with the Star, a weekly in Amman, probably in June. I’m sending you this because it’s an example of new opportunities that arise after the buyout mania of the past few years,” said Isabel, who now teaches at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism.¬†
  • Former Philadelphia anchor¬†Alycia Lane¬†”has filed a notice of claim in the New York City Comptroller’s Office alerting the city to a potential future lawsuit seeking $5 million-plus from the City of New York, the New York Police Department and nine individual police officers,”¬†Dan Gross¬†reportedFriday in the Philadelphia Daily News. Lane was charged with assaulting a police officer in New York on Dec. 16 during an incident in which Lane, her boyfriend¬†Chris Booker, Q102’s morning host, and another couple were involved in an altercation with three plainclothes police officers, Gross wrote.¬†
  • With his contract up, ESPN and¬†Stephen A. Smith¬†“are reassessing his role, and according to a person in the industry with knowledge of his situation, that might well include no longer doing his local and national radio shows,”¬†Neil Best¬†wrote¬†Wednesday on his Newsday blog. “Smith has had a show on ESPN 1050 for three years. In September, the second hour of the show went national. It appears unlikely Smith will leave ESPN entirely. Under a new deal, he presumably would focus on his TV work as an NBA analyst.”¬†
  • “Basketball and the civil rights movement are intertwined in ‘Black Magic,’ a two-night ESPN documentary that spotlights famous and unfamiliar names tied to historically black colleges and universities,”¬†Kathy Blumenstock¬†noted¬†in the Washington Post. It airs Sunday and Monday. “The film, which airs without commercial interruption, includes more than 40 conversations with former players, coaches, historians and others. Among those interviewed are¬†John Chaney,¬†Willis Reed,¬†Pee Wee Kirkland,¬†Charles Oakley¬†and¬†Ben Jobe, who coached at six historically black colleges. Their words and remembrances are juxtaposed against a backdrop of news footage and fast-paced game broadcasts.”¬†
  • “Pappas Telecasting Companies is announcing the cancellation of news programming on [its] Reno Stations, KREN, a CW affiliate, and KAZR, a Tu Visi??n affiliate. The final news broadcasts on both KREN and KAZR aired on March 10. The elimination of news is partly the result of the impending sale of some Pappas Telecasting properties and partly because the stations didn’t see adequate advertising revenues to justify the expense of the news division,” the company¬†said. “KREN/KAZR is one of the first truly bilingual newsrooms in the United States.”¬†
  • On March 8 and 9, some 18 ethnic journalists went to Duluth, Ga., to enhance their investigative reporting skills. “Sponsored by Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), in collaboration with New America Media (NAM), the ethnic journalists were given tips on covering labor and immigration, cracking criminal records, cultivating sources and better interviewing, and learning the ethics and accuracy of investigative journalism, among many others,”¬†Anthony D. Advincula¬†of New America Media reported¬†on Thursday.¬†
  • “Carolina Escalera¬†went to a shantytown in Brazil with a simple idea: Teach journalism skills to impoverished kids, and they will feel empowered. The University of Missouri journalism student spent a month in the fall teaching journalism classes four hours a day outside the north Brazilian city of Recife,”¬†Abraham Mahshie¬†reported¬†Tuesday in the Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune. “It can be applied to ghettos in the U.S. because you can teach people to feel empowered and change their community through journalism,” Escalera said of her effort.¬†
  • “When¬†Dick Vitale¬†basically declared during this weekend’s Duke-North Carolina broadcast that¬†Tyler Hansbrough¬†displayed the most desire of any player he has seen in all the years he has been covering college basketball, for a moment – a fleeting one – I thought I was smoking crack again,”¬†Mike Freeman¬†wrote¬†Monday in a bold column for CBSSports.com. “America loves a tough white guy.”¬†

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Feedback: Jeremiah Wright Is Not Unique

Could somebody please educate the American press so that it understands unequivocally that for as long as slaves and free blacks donned their Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes, black preachers have been feeding our spirits in the same manner as¬†Jeremiah Wright¬†so that Monday through Saturday we would could maintain our sanity? I don’t think they know this. I understand there is no reason for them to know, but being spiritually girded on Sunday is how we were able to survive 400 years of oppression from the Middle Passage to indentured servitude, to slavery, to Jim Crow, to lynchings, to last- hired-first fired, to Reaganomics, toClarence Thomas, to welfare reform to¬†Don Imus, to conservative talk radio . . . you get the picture.

 

Karen P. Moody
Attorney and freelance writer
Baltimore
March 14, 2008

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Feedback: Bernard Shaw’s Warning Was Correct

I recently came across the report on¬†Bernard Shaw’s¬†speech regarding the media and diversity (“Bernard Shaw Issues a Warning,” Aug. 11). He could not have been more correct. It has been an across-the-board network news struggle to air African-American journalists, analysts and reporters of other nationalities.

 

As a news writer, I used to work overnight and would see¬†Russ Mitchell¬†reading news on CBS. It was always puzzling why CBS kept him on at 3 a.m., when only a small number of viewers could see him. Clearly, Mitchell was very talented, but also black. It was no accident or coincidence that as two black journalists we had the same shift. Mitchell was finally promoted to weekend anchoring after several years of overnights. This is dramatically different from¬†Anderson Cooper’sovernight success, or even¬†Tucker Carlson’s. There is a difference in opportunity here, and race is the pink elephant in the room.

CNN has hired¬†Roland Martin. However, like¬†Armstrong Williams, Martin is not the best representation of African Americans. Martin’s recent¬†opinion piececompares African American and Hispanic voters to light and dark pieces of chicken. Is this the best black intellectualism that CNN can come up with? When Williams was caught in the uncomfortable position of accepting taxpayers’ money to promote “No Child Left Behind,” TV executives were given an opportunity to say, “See, that’s why we can’t have black commentators.” It was an opportunity to group all black journalists in Williams’ bubble.

Fox News’ “O’Reilly Factor” occasionally invites¬†Al Sharpton¬†on the air. In these discussions, O’Reilly quickly becomes condescending, and inevitably berates the reverend’s intelligence. It’s a real testimony to the fact that some still believe that blacks are somehow intellectually inferior.

White journalists like¬†Chuck Todd¬†and¬†John Harwood¬†are able to practice their trade successfully in a number of media. Todd, who started on “The Hotline,” now has contributed to Atlantic Monthly and is also political director for NBC News. Todd is also a regular commentator on MSNBC national news.

Harwood started with the Wall Street Journal and is now CNBC’s chief Washington correspondent. He is also writing for the New York Times. He appears on PBS’ “Washington Week,” MSNBC’s “Hardball with¬†Chris Matthews” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Harwood and Todd are good journalists, but their minority colleagues cannot expect the same doors to be open for them. This says nothing of¬†Wolf Blitzer, who appears on CNN more than any other anchor. How can the system not produce any new faces, when he is on the air six days a week?

Black journalists could simply never reach this level of weekly appearances or appear in multiple major media outlets. It’s not for a lack of talent, but really a comfort level that media executives have with white figures in these roles.

Wamara Mwine
Crisis Media Counselor
CMPR Communications
Baltimore
March 13, 2008

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Feedback: Re-Reporting Articles Is Nothing New

I am reminded that bigger newspapers-one that recently moved into a new headquarters in mid-town Manhattan springs to mind-have thrived on re-reporting articles that smaller papers have done, putting them into a broader context and in all probability, won Pulitzers for doing that. I have not read the Denver Post series, but it appears that is exactly what a newspaper that is not part of the East Coast establishment press has done. I would hope that the same standards would apply to the Denver Post, published in the city where I was born, that have been applied in the past to bigger papers published on the East Coast.

 

Ken Cooper
Freelance
Cairo/Boston
March 15, 2008

 

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