Articles Feature

CNN Query Gets Trump Aide Fired Over Ties to Racists

by richard03216

Speechwriter Joined White Nationalists at Meeting

‘White Nationalist’ or ‘White Supremacist’?

Lisa Wilson Leaves the Undefeated for the Athletic

ICE Traps Undocumented Spouses of U.S. Citizens

‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Exceeds Box Office Expectations

L.A. Times Nabs N.Y. Times’ Sewell Chan

Baquet, Baron on Influence of Their Backgrounds

Aretha Given Less Than Royal Tribute at VMAs

Media Ready to Do Right by Native Americans?

In China, What Happens to ‘Enemies of the State’

Short Takes

Support Journal-isms

(Credit: Mike Luckovich /Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Speechwriter Joined White Nationalists at Meeting

“A speechwriter for President Donald Trump who attended a conference frequented by white nationalists has left the White House,” Andrew Kaczynski reported Sunday for CNN.

“CNN’s KFile reached out to the White House last week about Darren Beattie, a policy aide and speechwriter, who was listed as speaking at the 2016 H.L. Mencken Club Conference.

“The Mencken Club, which is named for the early 20th century journalist and satirist whose posthumously published diaries revealed racist views, is a small annual conference started in 2008 and regularly attended by well-known white nationalists such as Richard Spencer. The schedule for the 2016 conference listed panels and speeches by white nationalist Peter Brimelow and two writers, John Derbyshire and Robert Weissberg, who were both fired in 2012 from the conservative magazine National Review for espousing racist views.

Darren Beattie
Darren Beattie

“Other speakers from the 2016 conference are regular contributors to the white nationalist website VDare. Jared Taylor, another leading white nationalist, can be heard at the conference in 2016 on Derbyshire’s radio show along with Brimelow.

“The White House, which asked CNN to hold off on the story for several days last week declined to say when Beattie left the White House. . . .”

However, Robert Costa reported Sunday for the Washington Post that Beattie “was terminated last week after revelations that he had spoken at a conference attended by well-known white nationalists, according to three people familiar with the decision who were not authorized to speak publicly.”

Kaczynski continued, ” ‘Mr. Beattie no longer works at the White House,’ White House spokesman Hogan Gidley told CNN on Friday night. ‘We don’t comment on personnel matters.’

“Beattie confirmed to CNN he spoke to the 2016 conference, saying his speech was not objectionable.

” ‘In 2016 I attended the Mencken conference in question and delivered a stand-alone, academic talk titled “The Intelligentsia and the Right.” I said nothing objectionable and stand by my remarks completely,’ he told CNN’s KFile in an email on Saturday. ‘It was the honor of my life to serve in the Trump Administration. I love President Trump, who is a fearless American hero, and continue to support him one hundred percent. I have no further comment.’ . . .”

Costa tweeted on Sunday, “This story raises many questions. What kind of vetting is being done of staffers in terms of links to extreme events/groups? How did [Chief of Staff John] Kelly and POTUS respond when told of this development?” ”

“And who else, if anyone, in the Trump administration has associated with Peter Brimelow in last 2 years? If a 2016 panel with Brimelow is a bridge too far for this speechwriter, Beattie, then it’s worth asking if Brimelow has had meetings or chats w/ others in the admin.”

CNN is frequently derided by Trump as a purveyor of “fake news.”

‘White Nationalist’ or ‘White Supremacist’?

The Associated Press Stylebook (subscription required) makes a distinction between “white supremacist” and “white nationalist.”

“white nationalism. A subset of racist beliefs that calls for a separate territory and/or enhanced legal rights and protections for white people. Critics accuse white nationalists of being white supremacists in disguise.

“white separatism. A term sometimes used as a synonym for white nationalism but differs in that it advocates a form of segregation in which races would live apart but in the same general geographic area.

“white supremacy. The racist belief that whites are superior to justify political, economic and social suppression of nonwhite people and other minority groups.”

The website of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, has 1,751 references to “white nationalist” but 2,669 to “white supremacist.”

Lisa Wilson Leaves the Undefeated for the Athletic

Lisa Wilson, the executive sports editor at the Buffalo News who joined the Undefeated in March 2017 as its senior editor for sports, is leaving for the sports startup the Athletic, where she will be NFL managing editor, the Athletic announced on Tuesday.

Lisa Wilson
Lisa Wilson

Wilson will be “[p]ulling all of our national coverage together, as well as collaborating with our local editors across the country,” the Athletic announced.

“I’m looking forward to working with the national team as part of the Athletic’s expanded NFL coverage as well as local writers including my talented former News colleague @ByTimGraham,” Wilson tweeted on Tuesday.

She said in another tweet, “My last day at @TheUndefeated is Friday. I’ll miss working with this great group who welcomed me into the family from Day One. Thanks fam, for everything. It’s been a pleasure.”

As second vice-president of the Associated Press Sports Editors, Wilson is on the ladder to lead the group.

As executive sports editor at the News since 2011, she held a rare post for an African American woman in daily journalism.

[Update: Wilson messaged on Aug. 25, “I’ll be moving back to Buffalo because I can work remotely in my new position.”]

Also announced: “*Ted Nguyen, who has been contributing to a number of our local sites, signed on full-time to do the kind of film study and deep strategic breakdowns that make The Athletic unique. He’ll be using his keen eye for details in work across the NFL landscape. . . .”

The Athletic acknowledged it had a problem with diversity in August 2017, shortly after its launch.

Gregory H. Lee Jr., a former president of the National Association of Black Journalists and former chair of its Sports Task Force, messaged Tuesday, “Since my study in April, I have seen some improvement in the numbers with regards to diversity at the Athletic. There is some work to be done, but I am pleased to see they have made progress with its hiring and their participation at the NABJ Convention by sponsoring a workshop and having a booth at the job fair so they can meet the talented journalists we have at our association.”


‘I have American dreams;’ says Lucimar de Souza, center, days after being released from ICE’s custody (Credit: YouTube)

ICE Traps Undocumented Spouses of U.S. Citizens

“On January 30, Lucimar de Souza, an undocumented immigrant from Brazil, went into a US Citizenship and Immigration Services office to prove her marriage to an American citizen was legitimate,” Noah Lanard reported Friday for Mother Jones.

“It was a standard part of the process for undocumented immigrants married to US legal residents to obtain green cards, one they had long been able to take without fear of detention or deportation. But as she exited her interview, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained her, causing her to be separated from her 10-year-old son. She spent the next three months in jail.

“De Souza was not the only immigrant to be arrested while verifying her marriage with USCIS, nor was the arrest an accident. Internal government emails and depositions of ICE officials unsealed this week show the two agencies worked together in New England to effectively ambush undocumented immigrants like de Souza who had clear paths to obtaining green cards. The arrests were deliberately spread out over time to prevent the media from finding out about them, the documents show.

“The new materials also reveal a startling lack of awareness among some ICE officials of a process that was supposed to allow undocumented immigrants married to legal residents to obtain legal status without being deported.

“The documents were released as part of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts that seeks to block the Trump administration from detaining and deporting people in New England who may be able to obtain green cards through spouses who are US citizens. . . .”

Michelle Yeoh, Henry Golding and Constance Wu in a scene from “Crazy Rich Asians.” (Credit: Sanja Bucko/Warner Bros. Pictures)
Michelle Yeoh, left, Henry Golding and Constance Wu in a scene from “Crazy Rich Asians.” (Credit: Sanja Bucko/Warner Bros. Pictures)

‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Exceeds Box Office Expectations

“Warner Bros.’ highly-anticipated ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ dominated the box office this weekend, making history for Asian American representation and becoming the highest-opening romantic comedy since 2015’s ‘Trainwreck,‘ ” Sonaiya Kelley reported Sunday for the Los Angeles Times.

“The first contemporary English-language Hollywood film with an all-Asian cast since ‘The Joy Luck Club’ 25 years ago, ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ earned $25.2 million over the weekend and a cumulative $34 million since its opening on Wednesday, according to figures from measurement firm [comScore]. Analysts had predicted that the film would collect $29 million through Sunday.

” ‘It’s a well-made movie, and it’s tapped into the zeitgeist culturally as an important touchstone across the domestic marketplace,’ said Jeff Goldstein, Warner Bros.’ distribution chief.

“According to Goldstein, 38% of audience members over the weekend were Asian, 41% were white, 11% were Latino and 6% were African American. ‘We started on Wednesday with a 44% share for the Asian audience,’ he said, which represents a rare trend. ‘The shift illustrates the broadening of the movie, which will continue as time progresses.’

“The movie appeals to everyone, he said: ‘I think it just looks like fun. The people are handsome and pretty and the locations are exotic. It looks like a nice diversion from life.’

“For author and CNN contributor Jeff Yang, whose son Hudson stars on the ABC sitcom ‘Fresh Off the Boat,’ the film marks a sea change for Asian American representation in mainstream culture.

” ‘Certainly for Asian American audiences, this is a signal moment for us,’ he said. ‘It really is the first time that we’ve seen in a contemporary setting an all-Asian cast with an Asian American protagonist light up the screen. And the storyline itself, I’ve likened it as the first real Asian American Disney princess story. At its core, this is a story about an immigrant Asian American woman who finds herself essentially in a fantasy land from which she couldn’t possibly have imagined coming herself.’ . . .”

L.A. Times Nabs N.Y. Times’ Sewell Chan

“Sewell Chan, a New York Times reporter and editor, on Monday was named a deputy managing editor of the Los Angeles Times, where he will assume a key position in a newly minted leadership team when he joins the organization in late September,” the Times reported.

Sewell Chan (screen shot)
Sewell Chan (screen shot)

“The Times has been rebuilding since Los Angeles billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong bought the paper and San Diego Union-Tribune in June for $500 million from Chicago newspaper owner Tronc. Soon-Shiong tapped veteran editor Norman Pearlstine to lead the newsroom.

“Pearlstine recruited Chan, 40, who is expected to bring new energy to the group of journalists responsible for initiating coverage for The Times’ digital and video platforms as well as its print edition.

“He will play an important leadership role while making us smarter and faster,” Pearlstine said in a statement. He said Chan would report directly to him.

Pearlstine told Journal-isms he is also keeping his promise to bring African Americans and Latinos into newsroom leadership.

” My mandate from Patrick Soon-Shiong is to make our newsroom reflect the diversity of the audiences we seek to serve,” he said by email. “I am in complete agreement with that mandate. While I think it inappropriate to discuss specifics, I can tell you that we post almost all our job openings and we insist that a diverse slate of candidates be identified and interviewed for all our senior positions.”


Flanking the statue are, from left, Dean Baquet, David Axelrod and Marty Baron.

Baquet, Baron on Influence of Their Backgrounds

Dean Baquet and Marty Baron, the executive editors of the New York Times and the Washington Post respectively, joined former Obama aide David Axelrod for “The Axe Files” on CNN Saturday in Philadelphia. In the wide-ranging conversation, now available as a podcast, Axelrod asked each to discuss how his ethnicity and family background affected his jobs as a journalist.

From the transcript:

DAVID AXELROD: . . . one thing that’s striking about you guys is you both have great personal stories. Marty, you’re the son of Jewish immigrants who originated in Germany. You’re the son of Creole parents from New Orleans, a person of color.

We have a president who has said incendiary things about immigrants, about race. How do you as — as people, how do you process and how does that impact how you make decisions?

DEAN BAQUET: That’s a good one.

MARTY BARON: Well, look, I mean, my father was born in Germany. He went to what was then Palestine. My mother was born in what was then Palestine and became Israel. And they left that country. They were in Paris for a couple of years and then came to the United States. I think that —

AXELROD: Why did they come here?

BARON: My father believed in the American dream. That’s what he wanted. He loved the opportunity of the United States. [He] was a true believer in — in all of that and wanted to be — that’s where he — it just suited him I guess. So — and he became a businessman and that’s what — that’s what he was about.

And so, you know — I mean, I think, I as a kid traveled a lot with my parents. My father was in the export business. So, we — we traveled overseas. And so, I got around the world and you get exposed to lots of different kinds of people.

And so, you know, certainly for myself, I feel pretty accepting of lots of different kinds of — different kinds of people. And recognize that this country is made of a lot of people who came from a lot of different countries, and a lot of different backgrounds. And, you know, I hope that — and I expect, and I believe that’ll — that people are making the kind of contributions that my parents made to this country.

AXELROD: So, when you hear this, sort of . . . anti-immigrant script from the president and taking the steps to reduce immigrants and so on, how do you react to that personally? I’m a son of an immigrant as well, actually, in full disclosure, so.

BARON: Right. Well, you know, look — I mean, I think that we are professionals and we treat this as — as journalists. And we, in so many instances, sort of set aside, you know, whatever our personal feelings are about things.

Look, I — the American public has the right to debate policy — has the right to debate policy about immigration, and all of that. And I believe in the — I believe in the democratic — the democratic process, that there should be an honest debate about — about these sorts of things.

What always concerns me, and it’s not just relevant with regard to the immigration debate, is if you start demonizing people, and drawing sweeping generalizations of who people are. Because we know as — both, as individuals and as journalists, that when you actually dive into it, when you start talking to people, they don’t — they don’t fit the generalizations.

They’re all individuals with their own individual circumstances. And I think that it’s important for us as journalists, and probably important for policymakers, to understand people as the human beings, as the individuals they are.

. . . ‘ I’m Sensitive to the Demonization of Groups’

BAQUET: I’m — I’m — I would say I’m — I’m sensitive to the demonization of groups. I mean, I grew up as a black kid in the — in the segregated South. And I — and I am sensitive to when the president, or anybody in a position of power, makes sweeping statements about groups of people.

I do — but the way I grew up gave me something else, too, which is, my father had a — had a small restaurant and bar in a — in a black working class neighborhood in New Orleans, and I had never been any place, had never been exposed to anything until I became a journalist.

I think, if anything, that’s given me, sort of a — a deep and abiding belief in journalism. It — it’s changed my life. It put me on a, you know, it exposed me to the world in a large way. And I think that — that may be one reason I, sort of, stick to the tenets so closely. I mean, I believe in it.

I believe that — that we have a role and that my role as editor of the New York Times, in calling out powerful institutions, whether it’s the president or the, you know, the head of Uber. I — I think, if anything, my upbringing gave me a sincere belief in that role, in the role of journalism.

AXELROD: So, you mention that — that he — he called Omarosa, this past week, a dog. Did you view that as a — as a racist comment?

BAQUET: You know, it’s funny, I have two reactions to that and I’m not — I’m not skirting the issue. My first reaction is when a — when somebody calls a black woman a dog, my visual reaction as a black man is to — is to feel this, sort of — the — pain and anger of a black man. So here’s where journalism comes in. He actually calls everybody a dog.

AXELROD: Yes, fair enough.

BAQUET: He’s called – he’s called Ted Cruz a dog. He’s called – yes, I feel it — I feel it more because of who she was, but I also dig a little bit deeper and find that he uses that kind of language, sort of, pretty openly with a lot of people. . . .

Aretha Given Less Than Royal Tribute at VMAs

“The queen of soul got a less than royal tribute at the MTV Video Music Awards when Madonna came out to deliver a rambling story about Aretha Franklin’s music without any performance of the late singer’s classic songs,” the Associated Press reported Monday night.

“A short archive video of Franklin was played before Madonna declared that Franklin ‘changed the course of my life.’

“She ended the speech by saying ‘I want to thank you for empowering all of us, RESPECT.’

“[Camila] Cabello then accepted the trophy from Madonna, winning the biggest award of the night for ‘Havana.’

“She bowed in respect to Madonna, and dedicated the award to her. . . .”

Media Ready to Do Right by Native Americans?

“A recent report confirms what Native Americans have always known: Most people in the United States know little, if anything, about American Indians. And what they do know is based on questionable information spread by traditional media,” Cecily Hilleary reported Aug. 11 for the Voice of America, adapted for its Learning English course by Susan Shand.

“At the same time, the report shows that the U.S. media is ready to help end misunderstandings and build new stories about Native Americans.

“The report comes from The First Nations Development Institute and Echo Hawk Consulting, a private advisory business. The two-year ‘Reclaiming Native Truth’ project was designed to study common ideas about Native Americans and find ways to correct stereotypes.

“With help from Native American experts, researchers organized nearly 30 study groups across 11 states. The researchers spoke with political, judicial and business leaders. They also questioned more than 13,000 Americans and looked at social media.

“Among the findings:

  • “Native Americans are largely invisible in modern society;
  • “Non-Native media controls news about Native Americans;
  • “Stories about Native Americans deal mainly with their problems, not strengths;
  • “Stereotypes affect law, policy and decision-making;
  • “Politicians do not understand tribal rights or U.S. treaty requirements. . . .”

In China, What Happens to ‘Enemies of the State’

“It was on September 16, 2001, five days after the 9/11 attacks, that President George W. Bush declared his now-infamous ‘war on terrorism,’ ” Mehdi Hasan reported Aug. 13 for the Intercept.

“Other governments around the world followed suit — but few matched the speed, intensity, and sheer cynicism with which the autocrats in Beijing aligned themselves with the Bush administration.

“Dogged by protests and revolts from a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority called the Uighurs in the vast and autonomous Central Asian border region of Xinjiang — or East Turkestan, as it is historically referred to by the Uighurs — the Chinese spotted an opportunity.

“In the weeks and months after 9/11, Beijing began submitting documents to the United Nations alleging that the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, or ETIM — a group that few people had ever heard of, or could even confirm the existence of — was a ‘major component of the terrorist network headed by Osama bin Laden‘ and ‘an important part of his terrorist forces.’ By September 2002, both the U.N. and the United States had listed ETIM as a ‘terrorist organization’ — throwing the Uighurs under the geopolitical bus.

“Fast forward 17 years: On Friday, a panel of U.N. human rights experts said Uighurs in Xinjiang were being treated as ‘enemies of the state’ and announced that it had received credible reports about the ‘arbitrary and mass detention of almost 1 million Uighurs’ in ‘counter-extremism centers.’

“One. Million. People. It’s an astonishingly high number. In the context of the Uighur population as a whole, it’s even more shocking: There are around 11 million Uighurs living in Xinjiang, which means that almost one in 10 of them has been detained, according to the U.N. How is this not anything other than one of the biggest, and most underreported, human rights crises in the world today?”

Short Takes

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