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As Mob Takes Capitol, BET Shows Tyler Perry

by richard03795

TV One Gives Viewers ‘Family Matters’

Homepage photo: Security officers point their guns at a door in the U.S. House chambers that had its windows broken by rioters. (Credit: Bill O’Leary/Washington Post)

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(Photo is actually of the Lincoln Memorial, not the Capitol )

TV One Gives Viewers ‘Family Matters’

As the major television networks broadcast the shocking images of white militants storming the U.S. Capitol Wednesday, Black Entertainment Television and TV One, two major Black-oriented networks, were showing their usual fare.

For BET, that was a “Tyler Perry’s Assisted Living,“; for TV One it was “Family Matters: We’re Going to Walt Disney World.”

The relatively new Black News Channel, with its limited distribution, was carrying the CNN video feed but doing its own voiceover.

BET spokesman Luis DeFrank, asked what decisions BET made about its coverage and why, replied, “We have started reporting in real time on our digital platform BET.com . . . and are monitoring the situation closely.”

It is true that news consumers are embracing sources other than live television. “Compared with those who were working from home before the pandemic, new remote workers leverage TV-connected devices and digital platforms at a higher clip,” Nielsen reported in August.

“They dedicate more than seven hours (or 70% of their time spent with TV and digital devices) to devices other than linear television. In other words, new remote workers aren’t just embracing the new freedoms they have during the work day; they’re also capitalizing on the freedom of content choice given to them by more dynamic media platforms. “

It is also true that BET has previously chosen to stream coverage of news events rather than broadcast them on television, citing its younger audience.

However, BET has also partnered with CBS for television coverage, as in the October one-hour special, “Say Her Name: The Untold Story of Breonna Taylor.” Both CBS and BET are owned by Viacom.

A TV One spokesperson did not respond, and Univision and Telemundo spokespeople could not immediately be reached.

[Kevin Gray of Telemundo replied on Thursday: “Telemundo broke from regularly scheduled programming to offer continuous live coverage from 1 pm until 11 pm, first anchored by Jose Diaz-Balart and Felicia Aveleyra and later Julio Vaqueiro. In some markets, the national news coverage broke for local newscasts with our national news coverage resuming once the local news ended.

[“Noticias Telemundo Senior Washington Correspondent Cristina Londono reported live all day from inside the Capitol, offering a first-hand account of what was happening. We also had several correspondents reporting live from outside the Capitol.

[The special coverage also streamed throughout the day live on our website and social platforms (FB, Twitter, YT)”

[Univision spokesman Jose Zamora messaged Jan.8, 

[“In general:

  • [“Over 10 hours of breaking news coverage

  • [“Univision Network News and Univision Local reporters and correspondents on covering the Capitol on the ground
  • [“Continued coverage from our newsroom and studios with the participation of our news anchors
  • [“Special coverage on our newscasts
  • [“Reporting on UnivisionNoticias.com and all digital and social media platforms
  • [“Minute by minute updates on the Univision News Live Blog
  • [“Fact-checking through ‘elDetector,’ Univision fact-checking platform the first Spanish-language with this focus in the U.S.”]

Journalists of color were not silent on television or on social media, however. On Twitter, some contrasted law enforcement’s treatment of the overwhelmingly white crowd with police confrontations with Black and brown protesters.

Michele Norris, a Washington Post columnist and former NPR anchor, tweeted, “At no point ever would black or brown protestors be allowed to do this. We are in perilous territory. We would be throwing around the word coup if this happened in another country.”

Eva McKend, a reporter for Spectrum News, said, “It’s amazing to me. I have a congressional press badge and even at the slight hint of me looking lost or out of place, I am constantly being asked where I’m going by Capitol Police and being gently reminded of where I can and can’t go. How were they . . . able to get this far?”

Omar Jimenez, national correspondent for CNN who was arrested by Minneapolis police after the Memorial Day George Floyd killing, wrote, “I saw more arrests during protests in Minneapolis this summer than I have watching people storm the US Capitol.”

Jelani Cobb of the New Yorker tweeted, “I reported from Ferguson. The difference in the aggression level of the police there against unarmed protesters vs what we’re seeing against white people attempting a coup in the capital is effing astounding.”

On Fox News, commentator Juan Williams was part of the live coverage and joined in the condemnation of the events. “This is way beyond politics,” he said.

CBS political reporter Ed O’Keefe, who is Hispanic, said on his network that his mother, who is from Latin America, would think she was seeing images from Venezuela and Nicaragua, not the United States.

Cognizant of the importance of words in such instances, NPR issued a “guidance,” host Lulu Garcia-Navarro tweeted. Gerry Holmes, news manager/Newsdesk editor, wrote the NPR staff at 4:15 p.m. EST, “We can refer to the group of extremists who stormed the Capitol as a mob. Additionally, it is fair to call what they have done as an insurrection.”

Conscious of the need to better fulfill the needs of African American news consumers, Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group announced three weeks ago a new over-the-air 24/7 broadcast television network, TheGrio.TV, and hired veteran Washington correspondent April Ryan in the dual role of White House correspondent and D.C. bureau chief.

Three black fathers from Lancaster, Pa., Marquis Lupton, William Way Jr., and Brandon Way Sr., launched TCP Network, which “aims to give people of color, and other disenfranchised groups a voice and platform, and supports its community through broadcasted content, community service events, and media literacy camps for kids. To date, the company mainly broadcasts on Facebook Live, and currently has over 10 Vlogcast shows, with over 30 volunteers helping the company grow.”

Also on digital media, journalist Roland Martin streams live his “Roland Martin Unfiltered” podcast five days a week on Facebook and YouTube, with multiple rebroadcasts.

His “popular digital newscast recently celebrated its second anniversary. And there’s more. Martin’s daily podcast, #RolandMartinUnfiltered, recently reached 675,000 YouTube subscribers – a significant milestone for both the veteran journalist and for the varied online platforms on which the show is streamed,” Valerie Fields Hill and Allana J. Barefield wrote last week for the Texas Metro News/Garland Journal, I Messenger.

Reporters on the scene said on the air that they were harassed with cries of “fake news” by Trump supporters, who also destroyed video equipment. Trump had denounced the news media once again in a speech before the insurrection began.

As David Bauder initially reported for the Associated Press, “The storming of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump played out on national television and social media in searing fashion Wednesday.

“The pictures were stunning: security officials with guns drawn on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, people fighting with police in the Capitol Rotunda, rioters smashing windows and streaming into the building where the nation’s leaders had gathered to count votes sealing President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

“Reporters and anchors described scenes of bedlam and fear, questioning how security and the nation’s leaders did not anticipate it.

“ ‘This is so, so embarrassing for the United States of America,’ CNN’s Wolf Blitzer said.

“Television networks had gathered to watch congressional debate over the election but their cameras quickly turned to ominous scenes outside the building as a crowd that had listened to an angry speech by Trump marched to the building.

Bauder also wrote, “Earlier in the day, the nation’s deep divisions were apparent in the media. Fox News Channel, Newsmax and One America News Network all carried the president’s speech outside the Capitol live, even as the debate within the Capitol was beginning.

“CNN and MSNBC, meanwhile, ignored Trump’s words.”

Ciprian-Matthews to Head CBS’ D.C. Bureau

January 5, 2021

Dominican Republic Native is Network Veteran

Lindsay Peoples Wagner, Teen Vogue Editor, to Run The Cut

Clyburn Wants to Amplify ‘Lift Every Voice’:

Challenges Journos of Color in ‘Sound Bite’ Culture

Capehart Succeeds Mark Shields on ‘NewsHour’

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Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews speaks in 2019 before the Dallas-Fort Worth Hispanic Communicators, which honored scholarship recipients. (Credit: Hispanic Communicators DFW)

Dominican Republic Native is Network Veteran

Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews, one of the highest-ranking Latinas in mainstream television, has been named executive vice president and Washington bureau chief for CBS News

Ciprian-Matthews, who was born in the Dominican Republic, is a CBS News veteran who “has served as CBS News’ acting Washington bureau chief since July, responsible for CBS News’ recent campaign coverage such as the 2020 conventions, presidential debates, Election Night and the CBS News Decision Desk,” a CBS announcement said.

“Throughout her distinguished career, Ciprian-Matthews has held several senior management roles and managed teams across the globe. She brings extensive newsgathering experience to the Washington bureau[,] having steered coverage of countless international conflicts, natural disasters, political events and terrorist attacks.

“Ciprian-Matthews has served as acting bureau chief since July, after it was announced that Chris Isham would move to a new role before exiting after the election,” Ted Johnson wrote for Deadline.

The announcement added, “As the Washington bureau chief, Ciprian-Matthews will oversee the newsgathering and management of the Network’s largest bureau that is also home to the CBS EVENING NEWS with NORAH O’DONNELL and FACE THE NATION.”

It continued, Ciprian-Matthews “started her career as a general assignment reporter for the National Public Radio Spanish-language news program, ‘Enfoque Nacional.’ . . .

“She has also served in several high-profile leadership positions outside of the organization, including on the advisory board for the International Women’s Media Foundation, News Leaders Association (formerly the American Society of News Editors and AP Media Editors), the Freedom Forum Institute’s Power Shift Project and the ViacomCBS Veterans Network Advisory Council. “

Johnson noted, “Ciprian-Matthews was the recipient of an Alfred I. duPont award for CBS News’ coverage of the Newtown tragedy. The National Association of Hispanic Journalists presented her with the Presidential Award of Impact in 2016. . . .”

Lindsay Peoples Wagner is returning to The Cut after two years in charge of Teen Vogue. (Credit: Brittainy Newman/New York Times)

Peoples Wagner, Teen Vogue Editor, to Run The Cut

“The Cut, the New York Magazine style and culture website with a devoted following, named Lindsay Peoples Wagner as its new editor in chief on Monday,” Katie Robertson reported Monday for The New York Times.

“Ms. Peoples Wagner, 30, will rejoin the publication after a two-year stint as the top editor of Teen Vogue, where she was the youngest editor in chief of a Condé Nast magazine and one of the few Black journalists to have led one of the company’s publications. She was previously a fashion market editor for The Cut, which started out as a fashion blog on the New York Magazine website and became a stand-alone site in 2012. . . .

“One of Ms. Peoples Wagner’s last projects for The Cut [in 2018] before she left for Teen Vogue was an examination of being Black in the fashion industry, an article for which she interviewed more than 100 people of color. She said inclusivity would be her number-one priority on her return to the publication. (Ms. Peoples Wagner is also a co-founder of the Black in Fashion Council, which represents people of color in the industry.)

“ ‘Inclusivity — whether it be race, ethnicity, sexuality, any difference in background — I think it’s really important to hear different voices and different walks of life and how people are able to continue to be resilient throughout this crazy tough pandemic time in our world,’ she said.

“David Haskell, the editor in chief of New York Magazine, said on Monday that Ms. Peoples Wagner had been an adviser to him on diversity and inclusion efforts, and that she had distinguished herself from other candidates in the ‘broad, big search’ for The Cut’s next editor in chief. ‘She’s an incredibly exciting combination of continuity and change,’ he said.

The Cut added, “Peoples Wagner will be stepping into the role vacated by Stella Bugbee, who in October moved into the position of editor-at-large at New York Magazine.

“ ‘Not long after Lindsay first came to the Cut, she came into my office with a prepared deck of printouts and pitched an entirely new column that she would cast, style, and write, even though it was beyond the scope of her role,’ says Stella Bugbee.

” ‘She had incredible ambition mixed with a sure-footed confidence. And as it turns out, she was a phenomenal scout for talent that would become household names, from Cardi B to Little Yachty, Ashley Graham, and Issa Rae. I remember thinking, Someday Lindsay should run the Cut , so, naturally, I’m thrilled that she will be coming back to take the reins. Her commitment to creating an inclusive fashion community is unparalleled in the industry. She’s a force who’s just at the beginning of her career, and I look forward to watching her as she blazes her path forward.’ . . .”

Clyburn Wants to Amplify ‘Lift Every Voice’

January 4, 2021

Challenges Journos of Color in ‘Sound Bite’ Culture

Capehart Succeeds Mark Shields on ‘NewsHour’

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“That’s why you’re going to be so important,” Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., told the Journal-isms Roundtable on Sunday. Journalists of color have “had the life experiences” to know when certain assumptions don’t pass the smell test. (Credit: Deborah Barfield Berry)

Challenges Journos of Color in ‘Sound Bite’ Culture

House Majority Whip James Clyburn told journalists Sunday that he plans to introduce legislation to make “Lift Every Voice and Sing” the “national hymn.” He also said that journalists of color have an especially challenging mission in the era of “sound bite” culture and apprehension in communities of color about the new COVID-19 vaccines.

Clyburn, D-S.C., provided the key Democratic primary endorsement that propelled Joe Biden into the presidency and now chairs the Biden inaugural committee, among his other duties.

He said he did not expect President Trump to attend the Jan. 20 inaugural ceremony. And Clyburn said he was not surprised when told of Sunday’s Washington Post report that Trump “urged fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, to ‘find’ enough votes to overturn his defeat in an extraordinary one-hour phone call Saturday that legal scholars described as a flagrant abuse of power and a potential criminal act.”

“In a one-hour phone call on Saturday with Georgia election officials, President Trump threatened vague legal consequences if the officials did not act (obtained by The Post). President Trump urged fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger to ‘find’ enough votes to overturn his defeat.” (Credit: Washington Post)

“We can expect almost anything from this president,” Clyburn said. The swearing-in of Kamala Harris as the nation’s first vice president of color has added to security concerns, he said.

The majority whip said that Democrats had “an even chance” to win two U.S. Senate seats in the special Georgia election Tuesday that will decide which party controls the Senate. The Democrats, he said, will avoid the mistakes made in November in South Carolina, when Democrat Jaimie Harrison failed to unseat Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham.  

“I do believe we can win in Georgia,” Clyburn said. “And I do believe the only difference they need to make in Georgia and South Carolina is to win on Election Day. Jamie went into Nov. 3 leading by 150,000 votes. We have a way of calculating and we were in the lead big time. On Election Day, we got outvoted. We did not do the groundwork that was necessary to win on Election Day.”

Clyburn, whom the Guardian last week called “the most important politician of 2020,” gave a ringing endorsement for Harrison — whom Clyburn said he has known since Harrison was an 11th grader — to become chair of the Democratic National Committee. He said Harrison was advising Georgia Democrats Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock in their Senate runoff races against incumbent Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.

Clyburn was introduced by his daughter, Mignon Clyburn, formerly acting chair and member of the Federal Communications Commission and who serves on the FCC transition team. Her father said he had secured agreement from Biden to back universal internet access, an issue in which the FCC also has jurisdiction.

“The greatest thing that we can do in the 21st century for rural America, for what I would call low-income communities, is to have internet in every home,” Clyburn said.

“One of the things I sat down and discussed with Joe Biden the Sunday night before my endorsement was what we need to do to make sure that health care is efficiently and effectively delivered to everybody. It cannot happen unless we have telehealth and telemedicine, to make sure that we have education adequately applied to every community. Cannot happen without online learning. We’re not going to have developments in rural communities of businesses and entrepreneurs without the internet.”

Further, Clyburn warned about infiltration of the Black Lives Matter movement, pointing to vandalism targeting the leaders of the U.S. House and Senate over the holiday weekend. The attackers blighted “their homes with graffiti and in one case a pig’s head as Congress failed to approve an increase in the amount of money being sent to individuals to help cope with the coronavirus pandemic,” as the Associated Press reported.

 

Mignon Clyburn, former FCC member and acting chair, top row, center, introduced her father, House Majority Whip James Clyburn. D-S.C., second row, at left. The two once started a weekly newspaper in Charleston, S.C. (Credit: Deborah Barfield Berry)

“How sophisticated it was, that’s somebody trying to start something,” Clyburn said of the vandalism. “That’s what that is.

“We have to be careful that we do not allow an infiltration of this movement. Ask the attorney general of Minnesota what they found out . . . in Minneapolis when people started breaking out windows and breaking down buildings. It was an infiltration there.

“In Columbia, S.C., we had a very peaceful march in Columbia in support of Black Lives Matter. Their timing was wrong, and when the folks got there to infiltrate the movement, we had terminated the march, had come to an end, but they still went around Columbia, breaking out windows. And we did an investigation and it had nothing to do with the movement. I wonder where they came from. I don’t know why they came, but we knew that they went to work and arrested them for having done it.

“So all I’m saying to you is, just because it’s being done in the name of the movement doesn’t mean it’s a part of the movement. That’s a part of what your job is going to be going forward.

“That’s why you’re going to be so important.” Journalists of color have “had the life experiences” to know when certain assumptions don’t pass the smell test.

At one point in his talk, Clyburn referred to what he called the “kicking out” of the late Rep. John Lewis from the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee “because he refused to adhere to a philosophy in the soundbite of “Burn, Baby Burn.” Clyburn was making a point about the dangers of a “sound bite culture.”

However, leaders of SNCC disputed this account. Courtland Cox, president of the SNCC Legacy Project, messaged Journal-isms, “Jim Clyburn has NO knowledge of what and why anything happened in SNCC.”

Clyburn was speaking before 63 participants on a Zoom call of the Journal-isms Roundtable, a monthly gathering of journalists discussing race, journalism and current events, with more watching on Facebook Live. The video can be viewed here. 

It was the day that members of the House of Representatives were sworn in. Clyburn joined the Zoom shortly after the noon swearing-in.

After a year of a national racial reckoning after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, the NFL decided that during its opening week, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” would be performed before each game, ahead of “The Star Spangled Banner,” as Andrew R. Chow reported in July for Time magazine.


“Lift Every Voice and Sing” – often attributed as the Black national anthem – is a hymn penned as a poem by James Weldon Johnson, right, in 1900 and set to music composed by his brother J. Rosamond Johnson in 1905.

“I’ve been toying around with an idea now for two or three decades, ever since I’ve been in the Congress,” Clyburn said. “I’ve been trying to build up enough nerve to introduce a national hymn.

“I instructed my staff two weeks ago to prepare legislation to for me to apply this week to make ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ our national hymn. We have a national anthem, we don’t have a national hymn. I would love to see that become our national hymn, and being sung at events, not as the Negro National Anthem, but as the United States of America’s national hymn.

“We are putting that legislation in this week. I hope I can survive and see [that] it passes.”

Clyburn is also chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. In that capacity he invoked the power of journalists to get beyond sound bites about the COVID vaccines.

“When it comes to COVID, my big job now, we’ve got two vaccines out there — There’s a third and fourth on the horizon — I do believe there’ll be six or seven.” he said. “Vaccines available in the not-too-distant future. My job is to make sure that these vaccines are distributed in an efficient manner, in an effective manner, and in an equitable manner.

“Those are the three E’s that I’m going to be working with. I tell people all the time that I remember the polio vaccine. There were two polio vaccines. One was a shot in the arm, and one was a drop of serum on a lump of sugar. Can I tell you which communities got the shots, and who got the lump of sugar? That’s going to be our job.

“That you make sure that this vaccine is equitably distributed when it’s made available. I’m going in to get my second shot on Friday, and that’s going to be another problem.

“And that’s why I say that you all are so important! ‘Cause I do believe . . . I know about the Tuskegee experiment. And I’ve lived a lot of inequities. I know what it is to have appendicitis, and then have to go through the back door of a doctor’s office to go through a segregated wing of a hospital. They have your appendix removed. . . .

“But you’re going to be an integral part of educating the public on this vaccine. Because we are not going to get rid of this pandemic until we get beyond it, which we cannot get beyond until we have organized and scientifically imposed herd immunity. Not Trump’s herd immunity, but the herd immunity that comes with sufficient distribution and utilization of the vaccine.

“If you don’t do the vaccine, we’re not going to get to where we need to be, and we’re not going to get there until the public is sufficiently educated on the fact that this is not an experiment. This — this time — is real, and you got to have faith and confidence in the process.”

Clyburn was preceded by a celebration of the appointment of James F. Blue III (pictured), “PBS NewsHour” producer, who has been named senior vice president and head of the Smithsonian cable channel, as well as vice president for news and documentaries of the MTV channels, including Comedy Central, MTV, VH1 and Logo TV. All are part of Viacom/CBS..

He was introduced by veteran journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault. They first met in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1992 when Blue was 22. They worked together on the “NewsHour.”

Blue said he has an opportunity to highlight arts coverage, and to induce cross-pollination among other Viacom/CBS channels, including BET, or such innovations as having Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah do documentary work.

Blue also said, “You can’t look at anything I’ve done and not see the diversity that is inherent in it.”


From left: Talkers Jonathan Capehart; White House correspondent April Ryan and Michael Steele, former chair of the Republican National Committee, at New York University in 2017. (Credit: Washington Square News)

Capehart Succeeds Mark Shields on ‘NewsHour’

“Jonathan Capehart, a Washington Post opinion writer and anchor of MSNBC’s The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart, was today named a regular contributor to the PBS NewsHour,” PBS announced Monday.

“As part of this role, Capehart will provide political analysis and commentary alongside New York Times columnist David Brooks for the Friday discussion segment Brooks & Capehart, regularly moderated by anchor and managing editor Judy Woodruff, in addition to PBS NewsHour political specials. Capehart, who has served as an occasional PBS NewsHour contributor since 2018, succeeds syndicated columnist Mark Shields, who was a PBS NewsHour regular for more than 33 years before stepping down in December 2020. . . .”

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Richard Prince’s Journal-isms originates from Washington. It began in print before most of us knew what the internet was, and it would like to be referred to as a “column.” Any views expressed in the column are those of the person or organization quoted and not those of any other entity. Send tips, comments and concerns to Richard Prince at journal-isms+owner@groups.io

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