Articles Feature

Behind Walls, ‘Completely Out of Public View’

by richard01814

Prison Strike Continues, but Reporters Kept Away

Harris, Booker Futures Are Part of Kavanaugh Story

Steele Suspects N.Y. Times Op-Ed Was Group Effort

Durhams Is First Black President of LGBTQ Group

Studios Urged to Press for Diverse Film Critic

Confidential Papers Show Detained Children’s Fears

52% of Voters Don’t See Threat to Press Freedom

Kaepernick Ad Gives Nike a Windfall in Exposure

Five Writers Win Award Named for Studs Terkel

Kenyan Reporter Flees Trap, Murder Attempt

Short Takes


“Coverage of the killings, and the strike, have been limited, and not because they aren’t noteworthy.” (video) (Credit: WSPA-TV, Spartanburg, S.C.)

Prison Strike Continues, but Reporters Kept Away

“On a Monday in April, at Lee Correctional Facility, in South Carolina, a bloody brawl erupted,” Alexandra Ellerbeck and Avi Asher-Schapiro reported Thursday for Columbia Journalism Review.

“More than four hours passed before guards intervened; in the meantime, seven men died and dozens lay injured. The violence was so intense, and the sluggish response from authorities so disconcerting, that, starting August 21, incarcerated people across the country launched a peaceful strike in protest

In Lansing, Mich. (Credit: Twitter)
In Lansing, Mich. (Credit: Twitter)

“In an effort organized by the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, a union group, and Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, an anonymous collective, prisoners are refusing to perform their assigned jobs and demanding that authorities address a range of concerns — from little or no pay for prison labor to racial disparities in sentencing to the lack of voting rights for incarcerated citizens and ex-felons.

“Coverage of the killings, and the strike, have been limited, and not because they aren’t noteworthy. Although prisons and jails can be found in nearly every community in America, journalists struggle to keep the public informed. ‘What happens behind prison walls — with public funds and in the name of public safety — is completely out of public view,” Jessica Pupovac, a reporter in Chicago, says.

“Pupovac, who has worked with the Society of Professional Journalists to document media access to prisons in all 50 states, has found that, in many cases, authorities will simply avoid reporters they don’t want to deal with. ‘If they’d prefer a story not get out,’ she tells CJR, ‘it doesn’t.’

“In addition to a complex network of state policies that restrict everything from the length of interviews to the pens and paper reporters can bring in, journalists say that the system is often unresponsive to information requests and that they must worry about retaliation against their sources. . . .”

Sens. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker. (Photo via Kamala Harris)
Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Cory Booker, D-N.J. (Photo via Kamala Harris)

Harris, Booker Futures Are Part of Kavanaugh Story

“Eleven years after Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton used Senate hearings as an anti-Iraq war launchpad for their presidential ambitions, two Democratic senators are similarly seizing on the Supreme Court battle to play to the gallery of 2020 primary voters,” Eric Bradner and Stephen Collinson reported Friday for CNN.

“Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing has given California Sen. Kamala Harris and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker an opportunity to show the Democratic base they can put up a fight against President Donald Trump while the national television cameras are running.”

CNN’s was but one story casting the futures of Harris and Booker as part of the storyline of the Kavanaugh hearings.

“The two have seized the moment,” the reporters continued, “upending the conversation around the hearing with exchanges that demonstrated qualities at the core of their political appeal: Booker, a willingness to break norms to stand for his principles, and Harris, a long-time prosecutor’s ability to undermine a cagey witness.

“It comes in one of the last major Senate fights before major Democratic 2020 presidential candidates are expected to launch their campaigns after November’s midterm elections.

“Republicans have complained that Harris and Booker are posturing with 2020 in mind. . . .”

According to the website becauseofthemwecan.com, “This marks the first time two African Americans have sat on the committee at the same time in its 201-year- history.

“As a matter of fact, no African American senator has sat on this committee since the 1990’s when Carole Moseley-Braun served. Moseley-Braun was the first Black woman elected to the Senate as a Democrat from Illinois in 1993. Booker is now the first Black man to sit on this committee. . . .”

Steele Suspects N.Y. Times Op-Ed Was Group Effort

“Former Republican Party National Chairman Michael Steele goes on the record with NNPA Newswire and it turns out there are more resisters inside the White House — a high-level group of Republican resisters to President Donald Trump — not a single individual, but a large and still growing group,” Stacy M. Brown wrote Friday for the National Newspaper Publishers Association.

Michael Steele
Michael Steele

“In an NNPA Newswire exclusive, Steele said the damning New York Times op-ed by a senior Trump administration official was likely written by a team of the president’s trusted hierarchy and it’s a clear signal that America is now witnessing a White House in utter chaos. . . .”

Others were not only trying to determine the identity of the op-ed writer, but debating the propriety of the Times’ publishing the piece with a promise of anonymity.

In addition, Michael Calderone reported Friday for Politico:

“Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders . . . scolded the media for its ‘wild obsession’ with the writer’s identity (scroll down) and directed those who ‘want to know who this gutless loser is,’ to ‘call the opinion desk of the failing New York Times.’ She also posted the Times’s main number and at least a half dozen journalists —including reporters and editors who work on the news, rather than opinion side of the paper — acknowledged getting calls.

” ‘Not sure this is what [Sanders] had in mind when she urged people to call The New York Times,’ tweeted political reporter Ken Vogel, along with audio of caller thanking the paper. The Times’s Andrew Das, Sydney Ember, Elizabeth Dias, Vivian Lee, and Edmund Lee also noted receiving calls, some positive and others negative. ‘The vitriol against the paper is astounding,’ tweeted Lee, who covers media. ‘I don’t know how politics reporters do this every day.’ . . .”

Durhams Is First Black President of LGBTQ Group

Sharif Durhams
Sharif Durhams

Sharif Durhams, a senior editor for news and alerting for CNN Digital, was “confirmed” as president of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, the organization, also called NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists, announced on Friday.

Durham’s appointment takes effect at the conclusion of NLGJA’s 2018 National Convention in Palm Springs, Calif., on Sunday. It makes him the first African American president of the 28-year-old NLGJA, the National Association of Black Journalists noted in a congratulatory announcement.

In the NLGJA convention student news outlet, NLGJA Connect, Kristin Lam wrote Friday that the organization is “known historically for a lack of diversity.” It has 850 members, of whom 85 percent
filled out some or all demographic information on their profiles.

“For ethnicity, 60 percent identified as white, and 23 percent identified as non-white, including African-American, Latinx, Asian-American or Pacific Islander, Native American, Middle Eastern, Caribbean and Middle Eastern. Three percent identified as multiracial, some chose multiple categories and 17 percent did not specify,” Lam wrote.

NABJ noted that Durhams has been a member of NLGJA since 2000 and previously served as vice president of broadcast and treasurer.

The NABJ announcement continued, ” ‘My goal is to improve the diversity of this organization as well as [its] outreach,’ said Durhams, who has lifetime memberships in both NLGJA and NABJ. ‘I definitely want both organizations to work more together. In some ways, our issues mirror each other, such as making sure there is support in our newsrooms for diversity and getting people from diverse backgrounds into leadership positions.

” ‘There are ways we can back each other up to make sure all of our voices are heard.’ . . .”

(Credit: USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative)
“UR” means “underrepresented” (Credit: USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative)

Studios Urged to Press for Diverse Film Critics

“A new report from USC’s Dr. Stacy Smith on the race and gender of film critics is urging the major studios to press news organizations to create a more diverse pool of critics to review their movies,” David Robb reported Friday for Deadline: Hollywood.

“The report [PDF], based on the reviews of the 300 top-grossing films from 2015 to 2017 as posted on the Rotten Tomatoes, found that only 21.3% of 59,751 reviews were written by female critics, while 78.7% were penned by male critics — a gender ratio of 3.7 male reviewers to every 1 female reviewer.

“Critics from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds, meanwhile, accounted for 16.8% of those reviews, compared to 83.2% by white critics. Minority female critics were found to have only written just 3.7% of the reviews — a ratio of nearly 31 to 1 compared to their white male counterparts.

“The report, the second in as many years from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, makes a strong case that women and minorities remain underrepresented within the ranks of movie reviewers, but goes on to argue that the remedy may lie in the reviewed having greater sway over who’s assigned to review.

“ ‘The major distributors appear to be operating according to an invisible quota system that does not reflect the audience for film,’ Smith says in the report. ‘If the studios believe that critics’ reviews play a role in the box office performance of their films, they must do better — and that includes asking publications to do more to create a diverse pool of critics.’

“But asking the studios to help shape the pool of reviewers is an odd request coming from an organization that operates under the umbrella of a major journalism school — in this case, the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. . . .”

After the first part of the report was released in June, the Sundance and Toronto film festivals announced they would both allocate 20 percent of press credentials to underrepresented journalists going forward.

Confidential Papers Show Detained Children’s Fears

“One 16-year-old from Guatemala said he wanted to ‘quitarme la vida,’ or ‘take my life away,’ as he waited to be released from a Chicago shelter for immigrant children. He was kept there for at least 584 days,” Melissa Sanchez, Duaa Eldeib and Jodi S. Cohen reported Thursday for ProPublica and Mother Jones.

“A 17-year-old from Guinea went on a hunger strike, telling staff members he refused to eat until he saw evidence they were trying to find him a home. He was released nearly nine months after he entered a shelter.

“And a 10-month-old boy, forcibly separated from his father at the U.S.-Mexico border in March, was bitten repeatedly by an older child and later hospitalized after falling from a highchair. He was detained for five months.

“ProPublica Illinois has obtained thousands of confidential records about the nine federally funded shelters in the Chicago area for immigrant youth operated by the nonprofit Heartland Human Care Services — some dating back years, others from as recently as last week.

“The documents provide a sweeping overview of the inner workings and life inside one of the country’s largest shelter networks for unaccompanied minors, including children separated from their parents under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy.

“While the records focus on Illinois shelters, they provide a rare glimpse of a secretive detention system that holds children at more than 100 sites across the country. They include descriptions of serious incident reports filed with the federal government, caseworkers’ notes on family reunifications, employee schedules, daily rosters, internal emails and more.

“The documents reveal the routines of life inside the shelters, days punctuated by tedium and fear as children wait and wait and wait to leave. They spend their days taking English lessons and learning about such peculiarities as American slang, St. Patrick’s Day, the NFL and the red carpet fashions at the Academy Awards. They complain about the food and mistreatment by staff. And they cry and write letters and hurt themselves in despair.

“In what they say and write, and in what is said and written about them, one truth becomes abundantly clear: The longer children are detained, the more they struggle.

“And the time they spend inside is getting longer. The average length of stay nationally in fiscal year 2017 was 34 days. It grew to 57 days in June amid the Trump administration’s border crackdown that divided families, and then more recently to 59 days, federal officials told ProPublica Illinois last week.

“But that figure masks the harsh reality that some children have spent hundreds of days waiting to leave. . . .”

52% of Voters Don’t See Threat to Press Freedom

“Amid an alarming confluence of threats to journalists and the news media, there is a lack of urgency among American voters around the idea that press freedom is at risk in the U.S., according to a new research report released Wednesday by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press,” the committee announced.

“A majority of voters, 52 percent, said they did not see press freedom as under threat — a lack of perceived risk that was even higher among some when viewed through a partisan lens: 66 percent of Republicans and 56 percent of Independents said they perceived little or no threat to the press, while just 38 percent of Democrats gave the same response. . . .”

The committee also said: “Despite voters’ lack of perceived threat to press freedom, there is hope for those who seek to build support for it. According to the survey, 95 percent of voters agree on the importance of having a free press, and based on the research findings, there . . .  are clear steps that press freedom advocates, journalists and news media organizations can take now to reinforce the value of a free press in the eyes of the public and build broader support among key constituencies: . . .

  • “Highlight the press’s role to inform. . . .
  • “Address perceptions of bias in news coverage. . . .
  • “Don’t make President Trump the focus of the conversation. . . .
  • “Reach out to politically diverse audiences . . . .
  • “Illustrate threats to press freedom by using real examples. . . .
  • “Be transparent about newsgathering decisions and promote accountability when mistakes are made. . . .”


The Guardian posted the Nike ad on YouTube. (video)

Kaepernick Ad Gives Nike a Windfall in Exposure

“Nike Inc.’s market capitalization is down $3.4 billion since the company released its latest ad campaign featuring controversial quarterback-turned-activist Colin Kaepernick,” Brandon Kochkodin wrote Thursday for Bloomberg News.

“But it’s not all bad news. The latest estimates put the value of the media exposure from the campaign at more than $163 million, according to Apex Marketing Group — almost four times the $43 million tallied in the first 24 hours since the ad debuted.

“Apex characterized roughly 40 percent of the publicity as positive, 30 percent negative and 30 percent neutral. . . .”

On the Undefeated, Jemele Hill wrote Wednesday, “It would be naive to see Nike expanding its business relationship with Kaepernick as a symbol that it isn’t afraid of backlash or Donald Trump, and it believes in the fight against racial injustice. Nike signed Kaepernick for one simple reason: to make money.

“Kaepernick’s new deal with Nike is reportedly worth millions and will include him having his own branded line. Kaepernick and Nike have been in business together since 2011, and despite all the controversy that has surrounded Kaepernick, the company never severed ties with him.

“Know why? Nike knows Kaepernick has become one of the most recognizable faces in America. He moves the needle. He’s become an icon. He represents the very culture that Nike wants to continue to monetize. . . .”

Five Writers Win Award Named for Studs Terkel

Kathy Chaney
Kathy Chaney

Journalists Kathy Chaney, assistant audience engagement editor at the Chicago Sun-Times; Michael Spencer Green, photojournalist at the Associated Press; Dahleen Glanton, columnist at the Chicago Tribune; and Odette Yousef, reporter at Chicago Public Radio, have won Studs Terkel Awards, the group Public Narrative announced on Friday.

They are given to Chicago writers who “demonstrate quality journalism, authentic storytelling and [who are] exemplary when it comes to Studs’ gift of elevating people’s voices above power.”

Poet Kevin Coval of Young Chicago Authors won the “Uplifting Voices” Terkel award.

The legendary Terkel, best known for his oral histories, originated the award in 1994. He died in 2008 at age 96. Nominators were asked, “How has this person given voice to Chicago’s diverse communities or made an impact on a community or cause?”

The winners are to be honored on Sept. 20.

(Credit: NTV/YouTube)

Kenyan Reporter Flees Trap, Murder Attempt

Reporters Without Borders called Friday “for a thorough and impartial investigation into the attempted murder of a reporter with Nation Media Group (NMG), Kenya’s biggest press group, while he was investigating an alleged adulterous relationship between the governor of the western county of Migori and a university student.

“The reporter, Barrack Oduor, had a close brush with death in Migori on 3 September when he met with Governor Okoth Obado’s alleged girlfriend, Sharon Otieno, to interview her and they arranged to meet jointly with the governor’s personal assistant, Michael Oyamo, at a hotel in the town of Rongo.

“After Oyamo arrived at the hotel, he invited Oduor and Otieno to get into a car with him in order to discuss the sensitive subject at a different location. But just minutes after they left together, the car pulled up, Oyamo got out and two men got in.

“The two men began to hit Oduor but he managed to throw himself from the car while it was on the move and, although injured, to run away. Otieno was not so fortunate. Her body was found in a nearby forest two days later.

” ‘It is essential that the Kenyan authorities conduct a thorough investigation in order to identify the instigators of this trap that led to the murder of a journalist’s source,’ said Arnaud Froger, the head of RSF’s Africa desk. ‘If the reporter had not miraculously escaped, he would doubtlessly have suffered the same fate as the young woman with him in the car. Was the governor’s assistant acting on his own initiative or was he ordered to hush up the affair? The investigation must answer this question.’

“The Kenyan government hailed Oduor’s ‘courage’ and announced that Oyamo, the governor’s personal assistant, was arrested at Nairobi airport. The governor himself has not been questioned by the police. . . .”

Kenyan broadcaster NTV reported, “The arrest came shortly after two media lobby groups, the Kenya Union of Journalists and the Media Council of Kenya, condemned the Monday night abduction and asked police to investigate the incident. . . .” (video)

Short Takes

  • “Our recent post about the exit of weekend anchor TaRhonda Thomas from 9News noted the current shortage of black TV journalists in Denver, with just four African-American reporters in relatively low-profile positions (one is anchoring a Saturday morning newscast) at four stations,” Michael Roberts wrote Friday for Westword. “This situation comes as no surprise to veteran TV and radio personality Gloria Neal, who’s returned to Denver following a stint at a major station in Atlanta that ended prematurely and is likely to spawn a lawsuit. In her view, a de facto quota system is in place that only allows African-American journalists to maintain a token presence. . . .”
  • Lucy Bustamante
    Lucy Bustamante

    “Lucy Bustamante is joining Philadelphia’s NBC-Telemundo duopoly, where she’ll be anchoring for both stations,” Veronica Villafañe reported Friday for her Media Moves site. “She starts the new job on Monday, September 10 as a weekday morning news anchor for NBC10 from 4 to 5:30 and breaking news anchor and reporter for Telemundo 62 from 6 to 7 am. The bilingual Emmy-award winning journalist was most recently a weekday morning and noon anchor at WVEC, the ABC affiliate in Norfolk,

    Christina Kristofic
    Christina Kristofic

    A, where she spent the past 8 years. . . .”

  • Janet Jackson “became a years-long fixation” for Leslie Moonves, the CEO and chairman of CBS, “after the so-called ‘wardrobe malfunction’ of 2004, when her breast was exposed for nine-sixteenths of a second after Justin Timberlake tore a piece of fabric off her bustier during their Super Bowl halftime performance,” Yashar Ali wrote Thursday for HuffPost. Ali also wrote, “Moonves ordered Viacom properties VH1 and MTV, and all Viacom-owned radio stations, to stop playing Jackson’s songs and music videos. . . . While Jackson’s career was significantly damaged, Timberlake’s flourished. . . .” [“Moonves’ tenure at CBS Corp. is expected to end within the next 24 hours as new allegations of sexual assault and harassment surface in an investigative report by Ronan Farrow,” Cynthia Littlejohn reported Sunday for Variety.]
  • “Sharyn Flanagan is the Philadelphia Tribune’s new Magazine Editor,” Irv Randolph, managing editor of the black-press publication, told Journal-isms by email Wednesday. “She will oversee Tribune Magazine, Sojourner Magazine, a quarterly visitor’s guide and the Tribune’s lifestyles and entertainment sections as well as the Learning Key, a weekly education supplement for Philadelphia public school children. The Tribune’s new City Editor is Christina Kristofic. She was formerly News Director at the Buck County Courier Times. Prior to becoming becoming News Director, the equivalent of City Editor, she was an award winning investigative reporter. Christina, Sharyn, new Digital Editor Lissa Poirot and new Web Coordinator Jasmine Goodwin will help the Tribune move toward a new Digital First approach.” Flanagan left USA Today in March after almost 16 years; then joined the Associated Press’ East Region desk in Philadelphia, which is moving to New York.
  • Hugo Balta, senior director of multicultural initiatives at ESPN/Disney ABC Television Group and president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, is also on-camera talent coach for the NWT Group, Balta announced Friday. “The work for NWT helps me fund the not-for-profit I started in 2016 to raise funds for scholarships to Latino journalism students,” Balta messaged Journal-isms.
  • “She knew how to cover Flint. Now she’s figuring out how to make that coverage sustainable,” reads a headline over a story on the Poynter Institute website Wednesday about Jiquanda Johnson, who bought the Flint Beat in Flint, Mich. Kristin Hare explained, “For the next month, we’re learning about people who’ve started their own news sites. What’s worked? What can we learn from where they’ve failed? What does their work show us about the landscape of local news? . . .”
  • The African American Film Critics Association, celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, is the subject of a tribute in the Sept. 4 edition of Variety, where it ran five pages. It is “sponsored content” from Morgan Stanley Global Sports & Entertainment. “Sponsored content means the brand paid for it and Variety’s Content Studio creates the piece,” Variety spokeswoman Michelle Rodriguez explained via email.
  • “North Korea has opened its borders to a flood of outsiders this week, eager to demonstrate its achievements to visiting business travellers, tourists, more than 130 overseas journalists and the actor Gérard Depardieu,” Nathan Vanderklippe reported Friday for the Globe and Mail in Toronto. “But an unusually large gathering in Pyongyang this week before a major national anniversary celebration was prefaced by a threat to foreign reporters, who were told that angering or insulting the regime could land them in five to 10 years of ‘reform through labour.’ . . .”
  • “A South Sudanese military judge on Thursday jailed 10 soldiers over the gang-rape of five international aid workers and the murder of a journalist in a 2016 attack on a hotel in the capital, Juba,” the German news agency Deutsche Welle reported. It also reported, “The judge ordered South Sudan’s government to pay the hotel more than $2 million (€1.7 million) in compensation, as well as $4,000 to each of the five rape victims. The family of the slain journalist was to receive 51 head of cattle. . . .”
  • “The Nigerian government has said it did nothing wrong by detaining a journalist, Jones Abiri, for two years without trial,” Halimah Yahaya reported Monday for Nigeria’s Premium Times. “Mr Abiri was recently released on bail by the court after he was charged following outcry by Nigerians and the international community. Before he was charged to court, the Nigerian government had denied he was a journalist and claimed he was only a crime suspect. . . . The journalist is demanding a compensation of N200 million [about $555,865 U.S.] from the Nigerian government for his prolonged detention without trial. . . .”

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