Furor Over L.A. Times Newsroom Cuts

34 White People, 39 of Color to Exit
Alcindor a Mom After Sharing Infertility Issues
N.Y. Backs Away From Ban on Prison Journalism
Stephen A. Smith, on Fox, Says Biden Is Too Old
Pam Moore, Bay Area Anchor Since ’91, Retires
When the Boss Is Black and Calls About Coverage
‘Homophobia Doesn’t Hurt Just Gay Men’
‘Buffalo Soldiers’ Term an Insult From White Media?

Short Takes: Sharif Durhams; Alicia (Lisa) Shepard; local television news salaries; Raymond Zhong’s Grand Canyon expedition; Virginia Military Institute; ABC’s campaign reporters/producers; Univision’s airport store; “Why are Latin American workers so strikingly unproductive?”; Darrin Bell’s “The Talk”;

Amplifying positive stories within Black community; “difference between your job and your life’s work”; apology for coverage of Australian massacre of Indigenous; investigation by journalists from 10 countries; Israeli shootings of photojournalists; CPJ’s Jacob Weisberg; Egbert Gaye of Montreal; Kenya station targeting Generation Z; change “in form,” not substance, toward journalists in Philippines.

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Members of the Los Angeles Times Guild gather Thursday in El Segundo, Calif., where the newspaper is based, for a staff meeting by Zoom with Executive Editor Kevin Merida. “This is a setback for us,” Merida acknowledged, speaking of diversity. (Credit: Twitter)

34 White People, 39 of Color to Exit

The decision by the Los Angeles Times to eliminate more than 70 newsroom positions is meeting strong pushback from the newsroom, from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and from the Times’ News Guild, with NAHJ noting that the decision will disproportionately affect Latino journalists.

“The departures include 34 white people and 39 people of color: 19 Latino people, 11 Asian American people, four Black people and five employees who identify as two or more races,” Meg James wrote for the Times Thursday, reporting on a Zoom meeting between “a raw and angry staff” and Executive Editor Kevin Merida.

“ ‘This is a setback for us,’ Merida acknowledged, noting that management was forced to follow the rules of the labor contract, which requires that layoffs be based on seniority.

“ ‘Diversity is always important. We need to look at it in every context of our work… That’s been a lifelong commitment for me, throughout my entire journalism career,’ he said.”

But Merida said the Times was facing a budget gap of “tens of millions of dollars,” which prompted the decision to cut dozens of staff members. Executives initially announced 74 layoffs, but the number was reduced by one on Thursday after a team leader volunteered to go.

James also wrote, “The Times was making strides toward its profitability goals until COVID-19 pandemic closures in 2020 decimated advertising. . . .

“The Times’ contraction unfolded against a broader backdrop of a newspaper industry in an existential crisis that has prompted dozens of newspapers to fold. Newspapers are starving for advertising revenue, which is being raked in by internet giants, including Google, Facebook and TikTok.”

During the meeting, Merida told more than 500 staff members, “It’s terrible. I feel awful about it but when you’re a leader you have moments like this. We’ll be losing a lot of very valuable people and that’s just really hard to take. It’s hard for me, too.”

NAHJ said Thursday that “Latino and Asian staff members, in particular, are overrepresented among those who were notified yesterday that they will be laid off. Latinos represent 26% of the 74 positions slated to be cut, and Asian Americans represent 15%. Figures released last year showed that Latinos comprised 15% of the Times newsroom.”

NAHJ requested a meeting with Times leadership “to discuss why Hispanic journalists are being disproportionately laid off, what their plans are to cover Spanish-speaking communities after these layoffs, and how they plan to meet their 25 by 25 goal given the deep cuts they’ve made,” a reference to Times plans to have a staff that’s 25 percent Hispanic by 2025.

Merida announced the layoffs Wednesday in a note to the newsroom.

The Times said the newsroom positions being eliminated represent about 13 percent of the total.

“Full-time and temporary workers will be let go, including a handful of managers. Reporting positions are expected to be largely spared but the production staff will be scaled back. Nearly a third of the cuts come from news and copy editor ranks. Some photographers, audience engagement editors and audio producers will also be affected.”

Dania Maxwell tweeted Thursday, “Yesterday I was given a layoff notice at the LATimes. I’ve given my heart and soul to the company. I’ve given nights and weekends away from home for the work. I’ve given a lot more than any ‘job’ so it feels pretty dark. @latguild

“The photo department was hit hard. It lost several photographers and editors. I’m one of two Spanish speakers that are being laid off. In a city where the most common language spoken other than English is Spanish, it speaks volumes about how the company will cover its own city.” Later Thursday, after an unidentified manager volunteered to leave, one of the Spanish-speaking photographers was reinstated.

More than 300 Guild members, including many well-known Times journalists, signed a blistering “open letter” stating, “the company has blindsided us with proposed layoffs — which we will begin bargaining over today — and Kevin Merida and newsroom leadership initially only planned to speak with us on Monday, five long days after announcing their intention to upend many of our lives. This is deeply insulting.

“We would have been willing to discuss alternatives to layoffs had your representatives at the bargaining table broached the issue at any point in the last nine months. In fact, the Guild has a track record of finding solutions to newsroom budget problems. In the depths of the pandemic financial crisis in 2020, Guild leadership proposed an innovative work-sharing plan to Times management that averted 84 newsroom layoffs.

“Instead, the company surprised us with this proposed layoff. We deserve better. The livelihoods of dozens of our colleagues are now on the line. Nothing could be more important for our day-to-day well-being and our professional futures at The Times.

“Your handling of this proposed layoff sends a clear message to the newsroom: You don’t care about the contract, and you don’t care about us. . . .”

In the initial Times story, “Times spokeswoman Hillary Manning disputed the union’s characterization, saying the labor agreement gives management the discretion to proceed with layoff notices before offering voluntary buyouts.”

During the Zoom meeting, Merida said, “We’ve been evaluating the budget, in real time, since the beginning of the year, and trying to create savings, trying to do things to prevent what is happening now. It’s on management to make that difficult decision. I want to own the toughness of that, and [not] put that on anybody else,” James wrote.

• Letters to the Editor, Los Angeles Times: On L.A. Times layoffs, readers talk subscribing, political slant and preserving journalism

• Alan Nunez, Al Dia, Philadelphia: L.A. Times guts diversity in abrupt layoffs. 19 Latinos and 11 Asian Americans among those affected

Alcindor a Mom After Sharing Infertility Issues

After going public in an essay this year about her difficulty trying to conceive, NBC’s Yamiche Alcindor gave birth to a healthy boy on May 30, Danielle Campoamor reported Tuesday for Today.com. “Alcindor and her husband, Nathaniel Cline, named their new addition Yrie Myles Alcindor Cline (pictured, below).

“Yrie is pronounced ‘i-ree,’ according to Alcindor and Cline, in a written statement shared with TODAY.com — the same pronunciation of the Jamaican saying ‘Irie,’ which the couple explains means ‘vibes are good and everything is well.’ “

“For the past four years, I have been feverishly chasing motherhood — hoping, and praying, and deeply wanting more than anything else in this world to be pregnant and to bring home a healthy baby,” Alcindor wrote in April. “All this, while desperately willing my way through rounds and rounds of IVF [in vitro fertilization] and pressing forward through wild, rocky news cycles that required me to look and sound calm.

“I agonized over sharing this news because I am both deeply grateful for this incredible blessing, and deeply aware of how reading yet another pregnancy announcement might hurt women who are still struggling to become mothers. . . .

“So if you’re a person whose body isn’t doing the thing you deeply want it to do, if you’re a woman whose path to motherhood has hit speed bumps, potholes, roadblocks and detour signs that have forced you on a winding, painful journey, this message is for you. I empathize with your struggles. I see your pain. And, I hope my story provides both comfort to those still in the struggle to get to motherhood, and affirmation for those whose paths have left deep scars. . . .”

N.Y. Backs Away From Ban on Prison Journalism

“The New York State Prison agency rescinded rules blocking incarcerated writers and artists from publishing their work Wednesday, a day after New York Focus exposed the policy,” Chris Gelardi reported Wednesday for the publication.

“A May 11 directive established a stringent, months-long approval process for people in New York state prisons to publish creative work — including books, art, music, poetry, film scripts, and other writing — outside prison walls. The policy gave prison superintendents the power to block publication of work that violated any of a number of broad rules — including portraying the prison department in a way that could ‘jeopardize safety or security.’ It also prohibited incarcerated people from getting paid for their creative work.

“The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision told New York Focus that it planned to apply the restrictions to journalism, which wasn’t mentioned in the directive. Incarcerated writers and watchdogs expressed concerns that the rules were meant to silence information-sharing and possibly violated the First Amendment. . . .”

• Ginia Bellafante, New York Times: Upstart News Site Has Youth on Its Side, and Albany in Its Sights

Stephen A. Smith, on Fox, Says Biden Is Too Old

“The public perception of ESPN’s stance on mixing politics with sports has always been a little off-kilter” (scroll down), Tom Jones wrote Thursday for the Poynter Institute.

“While it’s clear that ESPN has preferred its personalities not wade too far into the political pool, it would be wrong to say ESPN has a ban on it. Many of the network’s personalities have weighed in on such things as social issues and protests.

“But when Stephen A. Smith — one of ESPN’s highest-paid, well-known and featured on-air personalities — appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show this week, he said something that was shocking in its candor.

“Smith would not take Hannity’s bait that President Joe Biden is a ‘cognitive mess,’ but he was critical of the president.

“Smith said, ‘Excuse me, I’m not going to label it that way, Sean. What I’m going to tell you is this. I’m looking at him and I don’t like what I see, I’m not impressed with what I see, and I’ve been very concerned with what I’ve seen. And the fact that he’s going to be 82 years of age at election time, if he were to win the election, then he’d be in the White House until he’s 86 years old. I think, in the year 2023, it is utterly embarrassing that the liberal side has him as their best candidate. What does it say about you when that is the best candidate that you can give the left? That is ridiculous! That’s not a knock against Joe Biden, that is more of an indictment of the Democratic Party.’

“I’m not saying it’s wrong for Smith to voice his opinion, and ESPN gives Smith a lot of leeway (he has his own political podcast), but it still was mildly surprising to see Smith a.) on another cable news network and b.) being so politically outspoken.

“Awful Announcing’s Andrew Bucholtz has more, including the video.“

• Carron J. Phillips, Deadspin: Stephen A. Smith’s political takes are beyond concerning — they’re dangerous

“Legendary KRON 4 anchor Pam Moore reflects on an amazing career” (Credit: 95.7 The Game)

Pam Moore, Bay Area Anchor Since ’91, Retires

“Pam Moore, veteran journalist, and evening anchor for KRON4 News announces her retirement from the evening anchor desk,” Matthew Damore reported for the station Tuesday. “Moore has been anchoring KRON4 News since March 1991, where she reported and anchored across all KRON platforms, KRON4-TV, kron4.com, and streaming service KRONon. . . .

“Some of the significant interviews from Pam’s career include a profile of the late Georgia Congressman John Lewis, her interview with then-Senator Kamala Harris, and the founder of Black Lives Matter, Alicia Garza. She also interviewed one of her mentors, Belva Davis, former KRON4 anchor and reporter. Pam also shed light on stories that highlighted the rich culture of the Bay Area, like Oakland’s Historic Grand Lake Theater. She also championed meaningful stories each February hosting KRON4’s ‘Honoring Black History’ special. . . .

“A major career highlight for Moore was her work on KRON4’s five-part news series ‘About Race,’ which garnered numerous awards, including a prestigious George Foster Peabody Award, the Pew Center Batten Prize for Civic Journalism, an In-Depth Reporting Award from the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, top honors from the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame and the Best Documentary Award from the California Associated Press Television Radio Association. . . .

“When not in the anchor chair, you could find Pam Moore contributing her time to support Bay Area non-profits such as STEM, Women in Science, Girls Inc., Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, Bay Area Black Journalists, and Performing Stars in Marin County. She is also a founding board member of Friends of Faith, an organization that supported low-income and under-insured women diagnosed with breast cancer through the Women’s Cancer Resource Center. Moore also mentored through the Oakland Rotary ‘Help Oakland Pupils Excel’ program.”

When the Boss Is Black and Calls About Coverage

Black media mogul Byron Allen (pictured), on an unending quest to expand his broadcast holdings, put forth this anecdote last week about the difference Black media ownership can make:

“There was a kid, a young Black kid, who was murdered,” Allen told Eric Deggans of NPR on June 4.

“He was playing his music in the parking lot. And a white guy checked into a hotel and he didn’t like hearing that music in the parking lot up in his hotel room. And he went down and he shot and killed the young Black kid. Now I happen to own a television station in that market. And I called up the person at the time who was running my stations and I said, ‘I want you to make sure that our news department goes and [does] a story about that young Black kid and his family, and humanize him,’ because media has a way of demonizing Black people, especially Black men.

“He didn’t have a gun. He’s dead. ‘I want you to show America who he is.’ And the guy who worked for me at the time said to me, you know, it was an awkward moment for him because he had been in the business many, many years, and he had worked for a number of wealthy white families who owned very large news operations. And none of them had ever called to get involved with a local story, more or less suggesting I was interfering, because there’s that wall of news, and you don’t call up and you don’t interfere.

“And I had to explain to him in that moment, ‘over your 40 years in this business you’ve worked for very rich, white men who never had to care or be concerned about the narrative because they were rich, white men. Today, you work for a rich, Black man, and I have to be concerned about the narrative.’ And that’s what happens when you have diversity and ownership, and that matters.”

“Now, I’ve never shared that story publicly.”

While Allen did not give specifics about the location of the incident, it fits the description of one that took place in Ashland, Ore., on Nov. 30, 2020. The slain victim was Aidan Ellison, 19; the killer was Robert Keegan, 47. Allen Media bought KDRV-TV in nearby Medford in 2019.

Last month, Keegan was sentenced to 12 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of first-degree manslaughter, unlawful possession of a firearm and recklessly endangering another person. Of course, not all Black owners would have ordered such coverage; nor would only Black-owned stations have profiled the Black victim.

‘Homophobia Doesn’t Hurt Just Gay Men’

“ ‘Abbott Elementary’ star Tyler James Williams (pictured, below) is not gay,” LZ Granderson (pictured, second below) wrote Thursday for the Los Angeles Times.

“The Emmy nominee made that clear on Instagram recently — just in time for Pride.

“ ‘Usually I wouldn’t address stuff like this, but I feel like it as a conversation is bigger than me,’ he wrote. ‘I’m not gay, but I think the culture of trying to “find” some kind of hidden trait or behavior that a closed person “let slip” is very dangerous.

“ ‘Being straight doesn’t look one way. Being gay doesn’t look one way.’

“Not exactly breaking news in 2023, and yet the phrase ‘no homo’ keeps hanging around, doesn’t it? Same goes for ‘straight-acting’ on gay dating apps — an uncomfortable reminder that being queer doesn’t automatically inoculate you from stereotypical thinking.

“And I speak from my own experience.

“When I was in my 20s I wasn’t comfortable being around flamboyant gay men. I was out of the closet, but I had brought my insecurities with me. I had told myself the uneasiness stemmed from my being an introvert. The truth is I wanted to be viewed as a ‘regular dude’ who just happened to be gay. They, on the other hand, were ‘GAY!’ I was almost 30 before I understood how unhealthy my thinking had been. . . .

“Nothing reins in a so-called alpha man faster than the threat of being seen as gay. I’ve heard ‘Don’t be gay’ used to stop happy men from dancing in bars and ‘Man up’ to prevent sad men from expressing sorrow. There are best friends afraid to hug one another because ‘that’s gay.’

“Homophobia, disguised as masculinity, slowly drains the joy and connection out of life.”

Granderson’s column was headlined, “Hey, straight guys, be like Tyler James Williams, not Josh Hawley.” He wrote, “Williams’ approach to the conversation is a lot different from that of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), whose book ‘Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs’ was released last month. Hawley argues that the archetypes Williams refers to are society’s cure, not part of the problem.”

• Charles M. Blow, New York Times: Yes, We’re in an L.G.B.T.Q. State of Emergency

• Ruben Navarrette Jr., Washington Post Writers Group: Pride Month should be about love and acceptance, not war and division

‘Buffalo Soldiers’ Term an Insult From White Media?

The term “Buffalo Soldiers,” describing the all-Black peacetime regiments created in 1866 and continuing in the segregated U.S. military for decades, might have been a creation of white journalists. It was not a term used by the Black soldiers themselves and was considered an insult, according to an Arlington, Va., historian who has written about one of these soldiers, his great-grandfather.

Yet Alfred O. Taylor Jr. (pictured), the historian, messaged Journal-isms, “Personally, I think that the name ‘Buffalo Soldiers’ should continue. The name recognizes them for their bravery and ferocity as reminders of the way buffalo fought. This was proven in the many years spent in Indian country. The name remained as a badge of endearment until its disbandment after World War II.”
 
In a speech to the Arlington Historical Society carried in December by C-SPAN and repeated last week, Taylor pointed out that, as the Smithsonian says, “Though the terms are often used interchangeably, buffalo and bison are distinct animals. Old World ‘true’ buffalo (Cape buffalo and water buffalo) are native to Africa and Asia. Bison are found in North America and Europe.”

Taylor said, “You know, [at] one time the plains were inundated with bison (video). And until the bison were — we almost lost all of the bison in the United States — because it got to be that — they were just hunted for game. . . . Let’s call it ‘buffalo’ to keep it there. As I said, people ask, no, the soldiers themselves did not relish being called Buffalo Soldiers. They did not relish being buffalo. To them, a buffalo was an insult. The name Buffalo Soldiers was given to them, as I said, more or less [by] the media, or the press. In saying, interpreting that the Indians said, on one vein they said they were tough and fought like buffalo. In the other vein they said they look like buffalo with their dark skin and wooly hair.

“But they found no records, in neither the court martials or records that the African Americans called themselves buffalo soldiers.”

In his slim book, “Following the Trail of Trooper Alfred Pride, Buffalo Soldier (1865-1893): A Patriot and a Pawn,” Taylor cites HistoryNet: Black Soldiers in Black History.”

A passage there says, “‘Buffalo Soldiers ‘ caught on with white journalists after it was first recorded in a letter to The Nation in 1873. . . . but Black soldiers themselves never seem to have used it in their letters to Black newspapers, in court-martial testimony or in pension applications.

“Among them, ‘buffalo’ was an insult, as when one soldier remarked that an officer ‘had the men out on drill the other day, and he cursed one of the men, and they stood it like black buffalo sons of bitches’. Another private called a sergeant a ‘God damned black, cowardly, buffalo son of a bitch.’ “

Those who have written about these soldiers have remarked on their bravery and the racism they faced, along with the irony, as David Bearinger says in the foreword, of “one group of people pitted against another — used as ‘pawns on a chessboard’ by the perverse ideology that today we call ‘White supremacy.’ “

• Emma Epperly, Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash.: WSU historian shares expertise for documentary on Buffalo Soldiers that airs Monday on PBS

• David Kindy, Smithsonian magazine: The Black Buffalo Soldiers Who Biked Across the American West (June 14, 2022)

Short Takes

• “The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday named Sharif Durhams (pictured), a veteran journalist whose career includes leadership positions at The Washington Post and CNN, as managing editor of news,” J. Scott Trubey reported Monday for the Atlanta operation. “Durhams, 46, is a deputy managing editor at the Post whose responsibilities include multiple breaking news desks, including the general assignment team, Morning Mix and newsrooms in Seoul and London. Prior to his time at the Post, Durhams was a leader on the global digital programming team at CNN, and also has experience as a government and education reporter.” Durhams is also a board member and past president of NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists.

• Thirty-two percent of Black people say that when selective colleges and universities consider race and ethnicity in college admissions, it makes the overall college admissions process more fair, while 28 percent of Hispanics, 18 percent of Asians and 15 percent of whites say so, according to the Pew Research Center.

• Alicia ‘Lisa’ Shepard (pictured), described in this space as a conscience of the news industry, included Journal-isms in her will, along with the Journalism and Women’s Symposium (JAWS), the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, the Washington Association of Black Journalists, the News Literacy Project and the International Women’s Media Foundation. Shepard died April 1 at 69 (scroll down) of complications from lung cancer.

• “The latest RTDNA/Newhouse School at Syracuse University Survey found that local television news salaries rose by 4% in 2022,” the Radio Television Digital News Association reported Tuesday. “That’s better than last year’s 1.1% (two years ago, salaries rose by 3.5%). But inflation in 2022 hit 6.4% so 2022 was the second straight year of a drop in real (after inflation) wages: down 2.4% this year after last year’s 5.9% shortfall. That brings the two-year cumulative loss to 8.3% in terms of real wages.”

• “When the Virginia Press Association handed out its annual journalism awards in early May, the big winner was a little college newspaper. The Cadet, produced by students at the Virginia Military Institute, took home the top prize — for ‘Journalistic Integrity and Community Service’ — for editorials and articles about the school’s contentious diversity issues,” Paul Farhi reported May 31 for The Washington Post. Farhi continued, “The press association is now investigating whether the paper’s win was tainted by an undisclosed conflict of interest: the fact that the Cadet’s ‘senior mentor’ is a VMI alumnus who has waged a legal battle against the school diversity programs that the student journalists have been covering. The alum, Bob Morris, helped revive the paper in 2021 and heads the nonprofit foundation that underwrites it. . . . “

• ABC News Friday announced the “campaign producers/reporters who will embark on the campaign trail, contributing to all of our political coverage in the months ahead. Our 2024 embed class includes Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Libby Cathey, Abby Cruz, Hannah Demissie, Lalee Ibssa, Nicholas Kerr, Soorin Kim, Will McDuffie, Fritz Farrow and Kendall Ross.”

• An article in The Economist under the headline “Why are Latin American workers so strikingly unproductive?” has drawn online backlash as racist. “It’s incendiary, it’s insulting,” in the words of Alexander Aviña, an associate professor of history at Arizona State University, Edwin Flores reported Friday for NBC News. “The story, published Thursday in the London-based magazine that covers global and economic affairs, focuses on why Latin America, according to World Bank figures, is the world’s slowest-growing regional economy. The article posited different factors, including governments’ lack of investment in education, limited competition, a large informal economy and corruption. . . .”

• Darrin Bell, 48, “is best known to some readers as an artfully unflinching satirist and the first Black cartoonist ever to win the Pulitzer Prize, in 2019,” Michael Cavna wrote Tuesday for The Washington Post. “To others, he’s known for his syndicated comic strips ‘Candorville’ and ‘Rudy Park.‘ ” But in Bell’s new graphic novel, “The Talk,” “Bell combines the overtly personal and the sociopolitical in a textured autobiography that blends raw honesty, moving memories and powerful insights on race and police relations — including when squad cars unnervingly trailed his White mother and Black father toward a county line in California a half-century ago. . . .”

• “Here’s an idea to steal and adapt: Create an online subscription-based platform that produces editorial content focused on amplifying positive stories within the Black community, raising awareness regarding relevant issues that affect the community at the local, state and national level,” Better News reported. Greg Hedgepeth, president and CEO of Substantial Media LLC. said in the podcast, “We’ve been honored to partner with several organizations and institutions including the City of Greenville, East Carolina University, ECU Health (formerly Vidant Health), the Carolina Small Business Development Fund, The National Institute of Minority Economic Development, and several nonprofits that promote Black excellence and build awareness in communities of color.” The Better News podcast is a partnership between It’s All Journalism and the American Press Institute.

• “In late April, I gave the commencement address for the University of Michigan School of Education,” Tressie McMillan Cottom (pictured), a senior research professor at UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Education, a MacArthur Fellow and New York Times opinion writer, wrote Friday for the Times. “I stood onstage with my own job to do: to tell the students that they will have many forms of employment in their lifetimes. Some will be good. Some of them will be bad. But in this life it is important to be clear that there is a difference between your job and your life’s work. The sooner you figure out the difference, the better off you will be. . . .” Cottom also wrote, “Having an end goal for everything I do has had an unintended effect on my choices: It has started to narrow my vision of what’s possible to things that I think I can win at doing. . . . My job description has a version of not being the best at a few things but finding joy in doing things I am not very good at doing at all. . . .”

• In Australia, “The Sydney Morning Herald has apologised for failing ‘dismally’ in its coverage of the Myall Creek massacre and two subsequent trials in the 19th century,” Amanda Meade reported Friday for Britain’s Guardian. “On 10 June 1838, with the Myall Creek Station manager away, a dozen stockmen led by John Henry Fleming rounded up and brutally killed at least 28 Wirrayaraay women, children and elderly people while their young men were away helping another settler. In several editorials published before, during and after two Sydney trials in late 1838 relating to the massacre, the Herald essentially campaigned for the 11 accused mass murderers to escape prosecution,” an editorial in Friday’s paper said.

• “How journalists from 10 countries investigated organized crime in the Amazon in memory of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira,” reads the headline over a story by Carolina de Assis Wednesday for the LatAm Journalism Review. “The first scene of The Bruno and Dom Project trailer shows the moment when members of the Union of Indigenous Peoples of Vale do Javari (Univaja, by its Portuguese acronym) find British journalist Dom Phillips’ press card buried in mud on the bank of the Itaquaí river in Atalaia do Norte, in the Brazilian state of Amazonas,” she wrote. “The image symbolizes the efforts of the more than 50 journalists involved in the project that honors the legacy of the journalist and Brazilian Indigenous affairs expert Bruno Pereira by exposing the illegal activities in this area along the borders of Brazil, Peru and Colombia, where the two men were murdered on June 5, 2022. The project, led by French organization Forbidden Stories, went live on June 1 and included 16 news outlets in 10 countries.”

• “Israel Defense Force officials must investigate the Wednesday, June 7, shootings of photojournalists Momen Somrain and Rabi al-Munir with rubber bullets and make public its findings,” the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday. “IDF soldiers shot the journalists with rubber-coated bullets while they reported on an IDF demolition of a terrorism suspect’s house in the central West Bank city of Ramallah, according to news reports, statements by IDF officials, and the local press freedom group Palestinian Journalists Syndicate. . . .”

• Jacob Weisberg (pictured), CEO of Pushkin Industries, a media company focused on audio content that he co-founded with journalist Malcolm Gladwell, has been elected board chair of the Committee to Protect Journalists, the organization announced Thursday. Weisberg, whose term will run from 2023 to 2026, succeeds Kathleen Carroll, who has been a member of the CPJ board since 2008 and chair since 2017. Weisberg joined the board in 2011 and has been vice chair for the past six years. Until September 2018, Weisberg was the editor-in-chief of Slate Group.

• “Battles between the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces, former allies who jointly seized power in a 2021 coup, have made headlines around the world. But Sudanese journalists have been hampered in covering the events [and] have been beaten, detained and interrogated, mostly at the hands of RSF forces,” the Committee to Protect Journalists reported May 30. ‘Honestly, if the current clashes continue in Sudan for a much longer time, I think I will have to go anywhere in Europe and try to start a new life from scratch,’ freelance Sudanese photographer Faiz Abuabkar told CPJ after he was shot by RSF forces. ‘It is just too dangerous in Sudan right now.’ ”

• “An online radio station in Kenya is creating awareness about economic opportunities and the environmental protection of oceans,” Atieno Odera reported Thursday for Kenya’s News24.com. “Blue Radio was started in September 2022 and targets Generation Z. More than four million Kenyans who live in the coastal communities depend on the ocean for their livelihood.”

• Journalists, editors and activists who spoke with the Committee to Protect Journalists when they visited the Philippines in April all noted a discernible change in tone toward the press under Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (pictured), Beh Lih Yi and Shawn W. Crispin reported for the committee on May 16. Marcos Jr., who won the presidency in May 2022, so far has demurred from the overt antagonism toward the media seen and felt under his populist, tough-talking predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte. “But that change in form, the journalists, editors and activists say, has not yet been accompanied by substantive actions to undo the damage wrought to press freedom under the Duterte administration or advance legal reforms to prevent a renewed government assault against independent journalists and media groups. . . .”

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• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2018 (Jan. 4, 2019)
• Book Notes: Is Taking a Knee Really All That? (Dec. 20, 2018)
• Book Notes: Challenging ’45’ and Proudly Telling the Story (Dec. 18, 2018)
• Book Notes: Get Down With the Legends! (Dec. 11, 2018)
• Journalist Richard Prince w/Joe Madison (Sirius XM, April 18, 2018) (podcast)
• Richard Prince (journalist) (Wikipedia entry)
• February 2018 Podcast: Richard “Dick” Prince on the need for newsroom diversity (Gabriel Greschler, Student Press Law Center, Feb. 26, 2018)
• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2017 — Where Will They Take Us in the Year Ahead?
• Book Notes: Best Sellers, Uncovered Treasures, Overlooked History (Dec. 19, 2017)
• An advocate for diversity in the media is still pressing for representation, (Courtland Milloy, Washington Post, Nov. 28, 2017)
• Morgan Global Journalism Review: Journal-isms Journeys On (Aug. 31, 2017)
• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2016
• Book Notes: 16 Writers Dish About ‘Chelle,’ the First Lady
• Book Notes: From Coretta to Barack, and in Search of the Godfather
• Journal-isms’ Richard Prince Wants Your Ideas (FishbowlDC, Feb. 26, 2016)
• “JOURNAL-ISMS” IS LATEST TO BEAR BRUNT OF INDUSTRY’S ECONOMIC WOES (Feb. 19, 2016)
• Richard Prince with Charlayne Hunter-Gault, “PBS NewsHour,” “What stagnant diversity means for America’s newsrooms” (Dec. 15, 2015)
• Book Notes: Journalists Follow Their Passions
• Book Notes: Journalists Who Rocked Their World
• Book Notes: Hands Up! Read This!
• 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)