Overruled After Seeing Slur on Page Proof

Stressful Time for Latino Journalists:

Extra Security as NAHJ Meets in San Antonio

Participation Up to 22.8% in ASNE Diversity Survey

Baltimore Ad Rep Links Firing to Race Complaint

U.S. Praise for Mugabe Deleted After Objections

. . . Some Dispute Western Narrative

Short Takes

Overruled After Seeing Slur on Page Proof

A white copy editor at the Patriot Ledger in Quincy, Mass., owned by what is soon to be the nation’s largest newspaper company, quit on the spot last week when his objections to printing the “N-word” on the front page were overruled.

The story in question was relatively small potatoes. “A Braintree man was held without bail Tuesday after police say he drunkenly brandished a gun and repeatedly yelled a racial slur at neighbors in a car he thought was speeding down a residential street,” began the Sept. 3 story by Joe DiFazio.

“Michael S. Kerns, 41, was arraigned in Quincy District Court on two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, two counts of civil-rights violations, improper firearm storage and drunkenly carrying a gun as a licensed gun owner. He is due back in court Thursday for a hearing to determine if he poses a danger to the public. . . .”

” ‘You niggas think you can flip me off!’ Kerns allegedly yelled. . . .”

Jeffrey Dale, the copy editor who objected, recalled in an email, “On Sept. 3, after designing/editing two completely different sports sections for The Patriot Ledger and Brockton Enterprise, basically doing the job of two people, I did what I always do, which was walk over to the copy desk and ask if they needed any help proofing or finishing pages. The front-page editor gave me pages to proof.

“A story titled ‘Braintree man accused of brandishing gun, yelling racial slur’ was published on the front page.

“As I started to proof the story, (the second reported hate crime in our coverage area in two weeks, but the first we reported) I noticed a couple small correx (e.g. civil rights being hyphenated), but then I got to the 5th graph, in which we published a quote that spelled out the N-word in full.

“I went to the copy desk where I was told that the decision to publish that word was already made and our hands were tied. No one on the copy desk wanted to publish it in full, yet for some reason we did. By the time I read the graph and tried to make my case, no one was left in the newsroom who could be a decision maker. All the senior editors had left for the evening, including the copy chief Jen Wagner. [One editor said in a text message, “I have a black kid and I agreed with this printing.”]

“After giving the front-page editor my proofed pages, I went back to the sports department [where] I began to stew.

“I have worked for six papers directly and 100s of papers indirectly in my short 10-year career in the newspaper industry and I’ve NEVER EVER seen that word published in full.

“When the president called certain countries in Africa ‘shithole countries’ we used asterisks to censor his epithets. Yet we publish the N-word in full?

“I could not stand behind this work, packed my desk, and quit on the spot. I texted the copy chief, Jen Wagner, who informed me that ‘the decision wasn’t taken lightly.’ This was also the same explanation I got from managing editor Greg Mathis. . . .”

Within 24 hours, the paper reversed itself. Online, the offending sentence was changed to ‘You n***** think you can flip me off!’ Kerns allegedly yelled.”

Regardless, Dale contacted the National Association of Black Journalists and its new president, Dorothy Tucker.

Lisa Strattan, vice president of news for GateHouse New England, told Journal-isms by email on Monday, “After a deliberative process, Patriot Ledger editors arrived at the decision to spell out the racial epithet. Upon further review among a larger group the following day, we determined use of the word in full was unnecessary and offensive and we modified it online. Simply put, we were misguided and we corrected the mistake where we could.”

Last month, GateHouse and Gannett announced their intent to merge and form the largest newspaper chain in the country. GateHouse already owns 156 daily publications,  operating in 612 markets across 39 states.

It is rare for mainstream newspapers to spell out the well-known racial slur. The Associated Press stylebook says of the term “N-word,” “Do not use this term or the racial slur it refers to, except in extremely rare circumstances — when it is crucial to the story or the understanding of a news event. Flag the contents in an editor’s note. See obscenities, profanities, vulgarities and race-related coverage.”

Dale says he is not assuaged by the paper’s reversal.  “I don’t want my job back because the people who made that incredibly stupid decision remain in power.

“I lost all the respect for them the second they thought publishing that word would be OK,” he told Journal-isms by email.

“Maybe I’m being too hard on them. But the newsroom remains 100 percent white. Until they make changes to address their extreme lack of diversity I can’t work [for] them.”

Strattan did not respond to a question about the newsroom’s diversity. The Patriot Ledger did not participate in last year’s annual diversity survey from the American Society of News Editors.

Asked what he’ll do next, Dale replied, “I’ve started applying to jobs. One of my old colleagues from my days at The Norwalk Hour is in law school and is encouraging me to take the LSAT. I’m still pretty young, 32, so that is an option.

“But honestly, after all of this, and the conversation that I had with Dorothy Tucker who told me I can’t give up, I want to stay in the business.

“Dorothy told me ‘we need people like’ myself, which just warms my heart so much.

“It feels so good not to be alone on this. . . .”

• Karu F. Daniels, the Root: With No Fux To Give, Author Walter Mosley Exposes Hollywood’s Sensitivity to the N-Word
• Mary Whitfill, Patriot Ledger: Braintree man who waved gun, yelled racial slurs released without bail

Stressful Time for Latino Journalists

Extra Security as NAHJ Meets in San Antonio

By Mc Nelly Torres

Latino journalists are facing unprecedented stress as they report on violence and/or hate crimes against people of color, including members of their own communities, a circumstance evidenced last week when the National Association of Hispanic Journalists met in San Antonio, Texas.

Amid concerns from members, “Excellence in Journalism” conference organizers ramped up security after the Aug. 3 mass shooting at a Wal-Mart Supercenter in El Paso, Texas, in which Latinos were targeted by a white supremacist who traveled from Dallas, killed 22 people and injured 24.

NAHJ leaders told attendees before the conference that armed and uniformed off-duty police would be present at the hotel property. The co-hosts — NAHJ, the Society for Professional Journalists and the Radio Television Digital News Association — are to share the cost for the security. They were not disclosing that cost.

“RTDNA, SPJ and NAHJ together agreed to have enhanced security at EIJ ’19 in San Antonio September 5-7, Dan Shelley, executive director of RTDNA, explained by email on Tuesday. “This was only out of an overabundance of caution and was not in response to any specific threat or threats. The three parties also agreed not to disclose specific details of the security plans in case we wish to replicate them at future events. I heard from a number of EIJ ’19 attendees who appreciated the extra security and said they felt safe because of it.”

 More than 600 Latino journalists from the United States and Latin America were present, according to Alberto Mendoza, NAHJ executive director, as the organization celebrated its 35th anniversary. Race, violence, immigration and self-care for journalists were frequent topics, and newsrooms were urged to call out racism when it happens.

A “cultural competency guide” covering Latinos is expected to be released in January. The concern over “cultural competency” arose, according to President Hugo Balta, after members of NAHJ’s board felt that news coverage of the El Paso shootings did not adequately capture the gunman’s intent, Valeria Olivares reported for the Latino Reporter.

“There was a missed opportunity in the storytelling of that mass shooting,” Balta said.

At a membership meeting on Saturday, Balta recalled that Jim Acosta, a Cuban-American CNN White House correspondent who had become one of the most visible symbols of President Trump’s attacks on the news media, briefly had his White House press credentials revoked last November. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ruled in favor of Acosta and ordered the White House to reinstate his press pass.

“We are also under attack for being members of the Hispanic and Latino communities and some of us for being part of the immigrant community,” Balta said.

Balta also talked about NAHJ’s decision to denounce Fox News management and return $16,666 that the news organization had paid NAHJ as a sponsor for the EIJ conference. Fox radio host Todd Starnes‘ made racist comments referring to Latin American migrants as “a rampaging horde of illegal aliens.”

“We are championing the fair treatment of Latinos in the newsroom and in the communities,” Balta said, noting the decision does not target Fox journalists at local stations, but management that allowed the negative rhetoric against Latino immigrants to air.  While NAHJ returned the $16,666 check to Fox News, it made most of that amount back thanks to individual donations, Cheyenne Darcy Amaya reported for the Latino Reporter.

As the EIJ conference began, SPJ and RTDNA announced that the organizations were joining NAHJ in adopting a code of conduct similar to one the NAHJ board approved in March 2018.

Other journalism organizations, including Investigative Reporters and Editors, have adopted similar codes in recent years.

The code adopted by NAHJ comes of the heels of an 18-month investigation prompted by allegations of an inappropriate relationship between a mentor and a student journalist working for the Latino Reporter during the conference in 2010.

At the membership meeting on Saturday, Balta announced that a four-member committee had concluded its probe, and said a summary, including some recommendations approved by the board, would be provided to the membership within the next few weeks.

“We feel that we needed to offer something that is reflective of the time and care that the committee put into the investigation,” Balta said. Mendoza added, “The other reality is that we got pro bono attorneys so the timeline doesn’t always exactly align with need to get it done.”

Blanca Rios, Region 6 director and one of the four assigned to the committee looking into the allegations, said the committee interviewed between 16 and 20 people.

“The people we reached out to were appreciative of us reaching out to them and were open,” Rios said, clarifying that not all the people contacted were suspected of inappropriate behavior. Some were witnesses or people with information. “They were open to talking to us and they hope that we can prevent this from happening again.”

Rios said that at least three allegations of inappropriate conduct and/or relationships surfaced during the inquiry.

At the Saturday gala, Ricardo Sandoval-Palos, public editor for PBS and a long-time NAHJ member, announced “palabra,” a bilingual, multimedia long-form journalism platform that is to feature original content to promote the work of NAHJ’s freelance members.

“We’ve long been denied and not had a place at the table,” Sandoval-Palos told attendees at the gala. “So maybe it’s time we build our own damn table.”

Palabra is to be home to stories that the mainstream media have ignored, abandoned or failed to tell.

Other convention highlights included:

• San Antonio Express News columnist Elaine Ayala, Jim Avila of ABC and Ana Real, a CBS News foreign news editor who died early this year of leukemia, were inducted on NAHJ Hall of Fame.

• 

  At RTDNA, Jerry Walsh, immediate past chair, “passed the gavel to Chair-Elect Terence Shepherd, who assumes the role of RTDNA Chairman. He is the association’s first Chairman of African descent. Shepherd leads the WLRN, Miami, news department, which has earned [30] regional and three national Murrow Awards in the past three years,” the group reported.

• The San Antonio Express-News hosted a session with Julian Castro, former San Antonio mayor and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, in which Castro answered questions about immigration, health care, education and other topics.
• Rebecca Aguilar,  a former NAHJ board member who is diversity chair for SPJ and was elected to serve as secretary/treasurer for the SPJ board, received the SPJ President Award.  So did Ivette Davila-Richards, another former NAHJ board member who worked with Aguilar on the Diversity Leadership Fellowship. “Diversity is key for our organization to survive. I want to continue coming up with ideas that can help our chapters attract people of different backgrounds (ethnic, age, religion, etc) and keep them as part of SPJ. New blood brings in new ideas. All voices should be at the SPJ table,” Aguilar said, according to Skye Ray of EIJ News.
• At SPJ, at-large director Yvette Walker, assistant dean of student affairs at the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma, was re-elected with 571 votes, Skye Ray reported for EIJ News. “SPJ’s next focus must be on reconnecting with journalists and industry members, recruiting new interest in the organization. What makes SPJ important and how can we work with media partners efficiently? Where is our place at the table? I say it is helping cut through the noise of those who criticize media, funding important efforts to keep journalism free, and training and energizing today’s journalist,” she said.

Also at NAHJ, Oscar Serrano, co-founder of El Centro de Periodismo Investigativo de Puerto Rico (CPI in English) and Carla Minet, executive director of CPI, participated in a session Thursday with veteran anchor Maria Elena Salinas.

In the session, “After 889 pages: The impact of investigative reporting,” Minet and Serrano described how independent non-profit organizations such as CPI hold the powerful accountable. CPI, a nonprofit based at the InterAmerican University in Puerto Rico, has been producing investigative work for more than a decade.

But it was the release of more than 800 pages of leaked chat messages from an application known as Telegram in which Ricardo Rossello, the beleaguered former governor of Puerto Rico, members of his cabinet and operatives including lobbyists revealed conversations in which they made offensive and, at times, racist comments about enemies, the media, victims of Hurricane Maria and low-income people, among others.

The chats sparked a movement that led to Rossello’s resignation this summer. The leaked chats also revealed that for about two months the group strategized attacks against politicians and media members and discussed government business.

Minet and Serrano were quick to explain that the public outrage followed social unrest that accumulated over decades.

Puerto Rico has undergone a major-fiscal economic crisis, bankruptcy and many political scandals. Add to this Hurricane Maria in 2017 and the slow local and federal response, and the lives of people in Puerto Rico have been difficult.

The leaked chats, Minet said, were like a drop that filled the cup.

CPI was honored during the luncheon awards with NAHJ’s Si Se Puede Award.

Mc Nelly Torres is a Florida-based independent investigative journalist.

• Julian Berger, EIJ News: Stereotypes of Latina Journalists with María Elena Salinas
• Ashley Fredde, EIJ News: Podcasts are lacking diversity
• National Association of Hispanic Journalists: CBS News and NAHJ announce scholarship in honor of Ana Real
• Saniya Rao, EIJ News: Say this, not that: A conversation on inclusive reporting

Participation Up to 22.8% in ASNE Diversity Survey

Participation in the American Society of News Editors’ annual newsroom diversity survey increased by more than five points from its historic low of 17 percent last year, ASNE, now the News Leaders Association, said in releasing the latest figures on Tuesday.

But “[w]hile encouraging, these figures cannot be generalized to interpret the landscape of the U.S. journalism industry as a whole because the survey relies on information collected from a convenience sample of organizations that volunteer to participate,” the group added.

“Overall, people of color represent 21.9 percent of the salaried workforce among newsrooms that responded to this year’s Newsroom Employment Diversity Survey,” the organization said. “The results summarize responses from 429 news organizations, including 267 newspapers and 65 online-only news sites (some organizations did not specify).”

This year, 1,883 news organizations were contacted for inclusion, for a 22.8 percent response rate.

Among the conclusions the association was willing to draw, it said that “people of color make up only 18.8 percent of newsroom managers at both print/digital and online-only publications” and that “[j]ournalists of color make up nearly a third of the full-time workforce among online-only news organizations” that participated.

In addition, “Nearly 200 journalists who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender completed an additional self-administered survey that was offered this year, which was distributed through a link forwarded to newsrooms, and via the Association of Gay and Lesbian Journalists’ weekly newsletter. Of the journalists who completed the self-administered survey, 78 percent identified as white, while 7.5 percent identified as African American or Black. Another 7.5 percent identified as biracial or multiracial, and nearly 3 percent identified as Asian. . . .”

The survey measures progress toward ASNE’s goal of having the percentage of journalists of color in newsrooms nationwide equal to that of people of color in the nation’s population by 2025. The original goal was to have that percentage match that of the general population by 2000.

In 2010, the Census Bureau said Hispanics or Latinos were 16.3 percent of the U.S. population; blacks or African Americans were 12.6 percent; Asians 4.8 percent; Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islanders 0.2 percent; and Native Americans or Alaska Natives 0.9 percent. The census counted 6.2 percent as “some other race” and 2.9 percent as two or more races.

•  Heather Long and Andrew Van Dam, Washington Post: For the first time ever, most new working-age hires in the U.S. are people of color

Baltimore Ad Rep Links Firing to Race Complaint

An African American sales representative at the Baltimore Sun is pursuing a race discrimination complaint against the newspaper, saying that “The Sun retaliated against her by firing her after a three year discrimination battle which is still under investigation” by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, according to David DeJesus, secretary of the Washington-Baltimore News Guild.

“My goal is to raise awareness of the discriminatory practices against men and women of color who work in media, and outside of the newsroom,” DeJesus wrote to Journal-isms. “I like to think of ad sales as an extension of the newsroom since we provide the financial platform to support news operations. . . . Our fight for inclusion has to be through the whole organization, since the powers that be make diversity decisions affecting us all.”

Jackie Roane-Griffin, the sales rep, worked at the Sun for three decades, and filed her complaint in 2017. “The key facts are that Jackie protested what she felt were discriminatory actions taken against her by her sales management team, by removing accounts from her, which were handed to less experienced white employees. Jackie was the only African-American on the outside sales staff (34 years),” DeJesus told Journal-isms by email.

“She filed an EEOC after multiple attempts to have the issue handled by The Sun’s HR department.  Rather than resolve the issue, The Sun pursued Jackie looking for anything she may have done to violate their policies,” DeJesus wrote on Aug. 7. ” She was fired two weeks ago for sharing proprietary information with former Sun employees, and for taping a conversation between The Sun’s HR department and herself. . . .”

The case is also before the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights.

Asked to comment, Renee Mutchnik, a spokesperson for the Sun emailed Thursday, “I can tell you that we take these matters seriously, but it is our policy not to comment on personnel matters.”

The case covers familiar terrain for DeJesus, a veteran ad department salesman. Two years ago, the Washington Post quietly paid to settle a  longstanding advertising department discrimination lawsuit that DeJesus filed, Evan Gahr reported at the time for the Observer.

Robert Mugabe’s message to journalists (Credit: SABC News) (video)

U.S. Praise for Mugabe Deleted After Objections

“The U.S. Embassy in Zimbabwe deleted a tweet praising the country’s late Prime Minister and President Robert Mugabe after users called out his controversial human rights record,”  Morgan Phillips reported Saturday, updated Sunday, for Fox News.

“Mugabe died Friday at age 95, two years after he was forced to resign after decades in power.

“ ‘The United States extends its condolences to the Mugabe family and the people of Zimbabwe as they mourn the passing of former President Robert Mugabe,’ the since-deleted tweet read. ‘We join the world in reflecting on his legacy in securing Zimbabwe’s independence.’

“Fox News’ Tucker Carlson called the tweet an example of the executive branch being ‘completely out of control.’

“ ‘Apparently the US Ambassador to Zimbabwe signed off on it,’ Carlson said Friday on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight.’ ‘He should be recalled for that… This is when you know the executive branch of government is completely out of control. That it’s being run by bureaucrats who don’t care at all who was elected, who are acting out their left-wing agendas without any restraint.

“ ‘Because Robert Mugabe was such a bad leader that no normal person would look at him and say we need to mourn his passing,’ Carlson continued. ‘Not one person. The only words in response to his death would be “good riddance.” ‘ ”

. . . Some Dispute Western Narrative

Some commentators have pushed back against the Western narrative that Robert Mugabe was a hero when he sought independence for Zimbabwe but a disaster when he became a ruinous dictator.

Among them was the Herald in Zimbabwe, which editorialized Sunday:

“As Africa mourns the death of its iconic Pan Africanist Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe last week, its new crop of leaders should learn important lessons derived from his thinking.

“One of those lessons is Cde Mugabe’s emphasis on African unity, which he viewed as necessary for the development of the continent.

“Throughout his life, especially from the early days of his involvement in the liberation struggle, most of Cde Mugabe’s speeches were centred on African unity.

“Internally, this quest was manifested in the way he managed to unite Zimbabweans to focus on a common purpose of developing the country. . . .”

The editorial added, “Most of the problems that faced Zimbabwe during Cde Mugabe’s time were directly as a result of the [response] by Western countries to his stance on African unity.

“A united Africa is definitely not in the interest of the imperialists, and this explains why they react ruthlessly to anyone who [dares to propagate] such a stance. We all know that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was eliminated with the aid of Western countries because of his persistent calls for a united Africa. . . .”

• allafrica.com: Hero or Villain? — World Reacts to Robert Mugabe’s Death
• Alan Cowell, New York Times Insider: How One Journalist Covered Robert Mugabe’s Rise to Power: Cue the Carrier Pigeons
• Petina Gappah, the Guardian: Mugabe’s death can be the start of Zimbabwe’s healing process
• James North, the Nation: When Remembering Robert Mugabe’s Corrupt Legacy, Blame Britain
• Roger Southall, the Conversation: Robert Mugabe as divisive in death as he was in life
• Redi Tlhabi and David McKenzie, CNN: Robert Mugabe’s legacy is complicated (video)

Short Takes

• More than 60 news outlets have committed to running one week of focused climate coverage, to begin Sept. 16 and culminate Sept. 23, the day of the landmark international Climate Action Summit hosted by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in New York, Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope reported July 26 for Columbia Journalism Review.
• “Despite the destructive power of Hurricane Dorian, broadcast TV news aired just one segment from August 28 through September 5 that mentioned the links between climate change and hurricanes like Dorian,” Evlondo Cooper reported Friday for Media Matters for America. “CBS ran the only segment, while ABC and NBC both failed to air a single segment linking climate change to the development and destruction of Dorian. . . .”

• 

  Another member of the Stokes family is advancing in the news media. “The Cleveland Fox affiliate just added a new reporter, Alex Stokes, and, although she grew up in New Jersey, she has some deep Cleveland roots,” Mark Dawidziak reported Monday for the Plain Dealer. “She is the granddaughter of Louis Stokes, the Cleveland civil rights leader and politician who served 15 terms in the United States House of Representatives. Carl Stokes, Cleveland’s first African American mayor, was her great uncle.” Carl Stokes also was an anchor at New York’s WNBC-TV. Louis Stokes’ son, Chuck Stokes, is editorial/public affairs director at WXYZ-TV and his daughter, Lori Stokes, is co-anchor of “Good Day New York” on WNYW-TV in New York. Alex Stokes is Lori Stokes’ daughter. Alex leaves WHNT-TV in Huntsville, Ala.

• A study of local news outlets shows, “fairly convincingly, that despite the economic hardships that local newspapers have endured, they remain, by far, the most significant providers of journalism in their communities,” Philip Napoli and Jessica Mahone reported Monday for Nieman Lab. “And while there is great hope and expectation that newer, online journalism sources will emerge to compensate for the cutbacks and closures affecting local newspapers, our study has shown that this has yet to take place. . . .”
• “Jacqueline Stewart has been named host of Turner Classic Movies’ silent movie program ‘Silent Sunday Nights,’ making her the network’s first African American host in its 25 year history,“ Jake Coyle reported Monday for the Associated Press. “TCM on Monday announced the hiring of Stewart, a professor of cinema and media studies at the University of Chicago who has specialized in the racial politics of film preservation. She will make her TCM debut on Sunday. . . .”
• BET plans to broadcast “a new primetime news special examining student loan debt and its disproportionate impact on African American students,” the network announced Tuesday. The special is the first nationally-televised hour-long town hall aimed at the hot button student loan crisis. Hosted by political strategist and advocate, Angela Rye, this Town Hall looks to sound the alarm and pose solutions toward affecting change to what has become an American crisis. ‘YOUNG GIFTED AND BROKE: Our Student Loan Crisis’ airs Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on BET. . . .”
• Anchor Lester Holt has been shaping “NBC Nightly News” to include more explicit discussions of race, Sarah Ellison reported Friday for the Washington Post. “ ‘There has been no sense of, ‘I’m a black anchor and therefore we’re going to do black stories,’ he said. Race and criminal justice are ‘the issues of our time right now.’ These are issues ‘we’re all reporting on.’ ‘I’ve never come with an agenda. I was one of those that always said, “I’m an anchor who is black, but I don’t come here as a black anchor, and there’s a difference. . . . I can’t escape the fact that I’m here as a result of people who’ve demanded rights and tried to awaken this country. So I have a certain sensitivity and a certain access to cover certain stories, and that’s what we ask of anyone here’ . . .”
• “Journalists covering the protests in Hong Kong are experiencing increasing violence at the hands of the police, according to media groups and first-hand accounts from reporters,” Erin Hale reported Monday from Hong Kong for the Guardian. “A range of abuses have been reported, including being shoved and indiscriminately hit with pepper spray or teargas by officers, prompting the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club to renew calls for an independent investigation. . . .”
• “Hampton University announced Thursday it would be partnering with the University of the Bahamas to allow students who have been displaced by the storm to spend the fall semester on its campus in Hampton, Virginia, tuition-free,” Kendall Trammell reported for CNN.  Dean B. DaVida Plummer of the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications said Sunday she did not know yet whether any new Bahamian students would be enrolling at the j-school.
• Gary Fields, former Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, will be news editor of the Associated Press’ global religion team, the news cooperative announced Thursday. In April, AP announced the launch of the team, along with Religion News Service and The Conversation, with a $4.9 million grant from the Lilly Endowment.
• “The union that has represented workers at the site ThinkProgress said on Monday that it was exploring ‘legal options’ against the site’s owner, the Center for American Progress (CAP), just days after it shut the progressive news outlet down,” Gideon Resnick reported Tuesday for the Daily Beast. Sam Fulwood III, a veteran journalist who joined ThinkProgress as a columnist two years ago from the larger CAP organization, told Journal-isms Tuesday he is returning to the Center for American Progress in his previous role as senior fellow.
• In partnership with the Washington Post, the Poynter Institute Tuesday announced the journalists selected for its fourth annual Leadership Academy for Diversity in Digital Media. “The 30 journalists who emerged from over 120 applicants are pioneers in digital media who have demonstrated an aptitude for leadership through current projects and references. They were selected by a committee including graduates of the program, with an emphasis on ensuring diversity across ethnicity, geography, technology platforms, organization size and skill sets. . . .” The Diversity Academy will be led by Carla Broyles, senior editor for recruiting and training at the Post, and Sharif Durhams, senior editor at CNN Digital.
• Jemele Hill is creating buzz with her piece for the Atlantic headlined, “It’s Time for Black Athletes to Leave White Colleges. “They attract money and attention to the predominantly white universities that showcase them, while HBCUs struggle. What would happen if they collectively decided to go to black schools?” reads the subhead.

This photo from the #NABJ19 convention is going viral — and for good reason https://t.co/Ts2ObovsRy pic.twitter.com/pQDP8hy4no

— KOIN News (@KOINNews) September 6, 2019

• ” There’s an image going viral right now of 25 black journalists, including two of our own right here [at] WLNS-TV at last month’s National Association of Black Journalists annual convention in Miami, Florida,”  Dana Whyte wrote Sunday for the Lansing, Mich., station. “What makes that photo so special is that all the women in the picture have . . . decided to break the mold when it comes to their hair. . . .” On NBC-TV, “Today” show contributor Simone Boyce wrote about the event on Aug. 28.
• “A journalist who revealed offshore accounts and shell companies of a corporate titan and French trade representative has been fined and given a suspended jail sentence by a court in Benin, West Africa,” Will Fitzgibbon reported Aug. 25 for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. “On August 12, the criminal court in Benin’s capital, Cotonou, found reporter Ignace Sossou guilty of publishing ‘false news’ under the country’s draconian online press law about Benin-born businessman Jean-Luc Tchifteyan. . . .”
• “About 100 people demonstrated outside The Washington Post’s building on Saturday to protest its coverage of the recent crisis in India’s Kashmir region,” Fredrick Kunkle reported Saturday for the Post. “Vijay K. Sazawal, a protest organizer, said he believes The Post’s reporting has been overly sympathetic to Kashmir’s Muslim-majority community while overlooking the concerns of Hindus and other minorities who live there. . . .”
• Amid the commemorations of the 400th anniversary of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the United States, National Geographic has found a different angle. “400 years after slavery began in the United States, black scuba divers are searching for ships that carried enslaved Africans to the Americas,” reads a headline over an Aug. 23 story by  Kim M. Williamson.

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• Book Notes: New Cosby Bio Looks Like a Best-Seller
• Journo-diversity advocate turns attention to Ezra Klein project (Erik Wemple, Washington Post, March 5, 2014)

Columns below from the Maynard Institute are not currently available but are scheduled to be restored soon on journal-isms.com.

• Book Notes: “Love, Peace and Soul!” And More
• Book Notes: Book Notes: Soothing the Senses, Shocking the Conscience
• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2015
• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2014
• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2013
• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2012
• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2011
• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2010
• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2009
• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2008
• Book Notes: Books to Ring In the New Year
• Book Notes: In-Your-Face Holiday Reads
• Fishbowl Interview With the Fresh Prince of D.C. (Oct. 26, 2012)
• NABJ to Honor Columnist Richard Prince With Ida B. Wells Award (Oct. 11, 2012)
• So What Do You Do, Richard Prince, Columnist for the Maynard Institute? (Richard Horgan, FishbowlLA, Aug. 22, 2012)
• Book Notes: Who Am I? What’s Race Got to Do With It?: Journalists Explore Identity
• Book Notes: Catching Up With Books for the Fall
• Richard Prince Helps Journalists Set High Bar (Jackie Jones, BlackAmericaWeb.com, 2011)
• Book Notes: 10 Ways to Turn Pages This Summer
• Book Notes: 7 for Serious Spring Reading
• Book Notes: 7 Candidates for the Journalist’s Library
• Book Notes: 9 That Add Heft to the Bookshelf
• Five Minutes With Richard Prince (Newspaper Association of America, 2005)
• ‘Journal-isms’ That Engage and Inform Diverse Audiences (Q&A with Mallary Jean Tenore, Poynter Institute, 2008)Chrissie Gale, Jennifer Davidson and Nigel Cantwell, the Conversation: Child migrants around the world are being denied their human rights