Articles Feature

Hampton U. Cancels J-Student Trips to Party Conventions

by richard01601

‘Chief Concern . . . Is the Safety of Our Students’

Journalist Spotted ‘Plagiarism’ by Mrs. Trump

Wall Idea Opposed on Both Sides of Border

Baton Rouge Mass Killer Another Black War Vet

American Urban Radio Network Under New Owners

Short Takes

B.D. Colen: Police Killings Caused by Truth Revealed

‘Chief Concern . . . Is the Safety of Our Students’

“A 50-student trip to both conventions has been canceled by administration officials of a historically black college citing security concerns,” Darren Sands reported Monday for BuzzFeed.

“In a memo made available to BuzzFeed News, Hampton University’s Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications (SHSJC) Dean B. Da’Vida Plummer said there were ‘unresolved personnel, operational, and planning issues related to the project discovered in the final hours of vetting the safety and security of the student experience” and that the decision to skip both conventions ‘was made after thoughtful consideration with the safety of our students being the university’s number one priority.’

“The school was to host a townhall on prison reform and energy at Case Western Reserve University on Tuesday. A new invite was released on Monday saying a new event would take place at the Holy Trinity Church & [Cultural] Arts Center on Thursday.

“On July 11, Case Western said it would reduce campus activity during the RNC in light of violence in Minnesota, Baton Rouge, and Dallas. ‘Last week’s tragedies have horrified us all and raised profound questions for our country,’ a release read, adding the RNC was ‘expected to draw dozens of protests’ and ‘could see a significant degree of conflict.’

“The convention project is the culmination of a year of planning by assistant professor Carol Angela Davis, who is the school’s Scripps Howard endowed professor. Davis also took students from High Point University in North Carolina to both conventions [in] 2012. . . .”

Plummer told Journal-isms by email, “My chief concern then and now is the safety of our students.”

Students at Hampton’s “HU” rival, Howard University, are covering both conventions, Yanick Rice Lamb, associate professor and chair of  Howard’s Department of Media, Journalism and Film, messaged Journal-isms on Tuesday.  “Four students are there now. We will probably have the assistance of an additional two students who are from the Cleveland area and are working at internships there,” she wrote.

Ron Harris, director of HUNewsService.com, and the four students arrived Tuesday, Lamb said. Faculty members Ingrid Sturgis, Fredric Kendrick, Milbert Brown and herself were on the road in Pennsylvania.

[Lamb added by email on Wednesday: “Our students cover stories nationally and internationally, including the frequent protests in our backyard in the nation’s capital.

[“We always discuss safety with them beforehand. In the field, students and faculty members stay in regular contact and check in frequently.

[“The students are aware of potential security issues, but seem unfazed. They have been eager to cover protests, which so far haven’t lived up to the hype. There’s a very heavy police presence here — with officers outnumbering civilians in come locations.”]

Journalist Spotted ‘Plagiarism’ by Mrs. Trump

A laid-off television journalist and Twitter user is being credited with spotting striking similarities between Melania Trump’s opening night speech Monday at the Republican National Convention and one delivered by Michelle Obama at the Democratic convention in 2008.

Jarrett Hill “said in an interview that one of Ms. Trump’s lines — the words ‘strength of your dreams’ — caught his attention as he was watching on his computer from a Starbucks in Los Angeles, juggling Facebook chats and browsing Twitter,” Maggie Haberman, Alan Rappeport and Patrick Healy reported Tuesday for the New York Times.

“’It kind of made me pause for a minute,’ Mr. Hill said. ‘I remembered that line from Michelle Obama’s speech.’

“Mr. Hill, 31, found the clip of Mrs. Obama’s speech online and noticed that parts of the two speeches sounded the same. He then realized that a larger portion appeared to have been borrowed as he continued to examine both.

“ ‘I thought, “That’s legit plagiarism,” ‘ said Mr. Hill, who described himself as a supporter of President Obama. ‘ “Someone took this piece and plugged in their own information.” ‘

“Accusations of plagiarism are not unheard-of in political speeches, although the consequences have varied. . . .”

Hill’s LinkedIn profile describes him as host and executive producer of the weekly “Back2Reality” podcast in Los Angeles. He has worked on television shows in Atlanta and Los Angeles.

The U.S.-Mexican border, with the United States on the left. (Credit: U.S. Customs and Border Protection)
The U.S.-Mexican border, with the United States on the left. (Credit: U.S. Customs and Border Protection)

Wall Idea Opposed on Both Sides of Border

“A major bilingual poll released today by Univision News, the award-winning news division of Univision Communications Inc. (UCI), in partnership with Arizona State University’s Cronkite News and The Dallas Morning News reveals that the overwhelming majority of residents living along both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border are opposed to the construction of a wall between their countries and do not approve of the current tone of the U.S. presidential election,” Univision announced on Monday.

“The complete survey results are available in Spanish and English at UnivisionNoticias.com, Cronkite News and The Dallas Morning News.

“The Cronkite News-Univision News-Dallas Morning News Border Poll found:

  • 86 percent of border residents in Mexico and 72 percent of U.S. border residents were against building a wall between Mexico and the U.S.
  • 77 percent of border residents in Mexico and 70 percent of U.S. border residents described the issue as ‘not important.’

“In addition, a majority of residents along both sides of the border also see the current tone of the U.S. presidential campaign as potentially damaging for relations between the two countries (Mexico: 69 percent; U.S.: 59 percent). . . .”

Gavin Long, who police say killed three officers in Baton Rouge, La., on Sunday, made videos under the name Cosmo Setepenra. (video)
Gavin Long, who police say killed three officers in Baton Rouge, La., on Sunday, made videos under the name Cosmo Setepenra. (video)

Baton Rouge Mass Killer Another Black War Vet

“There are tears on both sides of the police brutality issue these days,” Les Payne, a retired editor and columnist for Newsday, wrote for that newspaper on Sunday.

“The shedding of black civilian blood in Minnesota and Louisiana reportedly moved Micah Xavier Johnson to spill some white police blood in Dallas. This double dose of pain in all its unequal measure has triggered yet another dialogue on race in this former slave republic. After killing five cops and wounding seven others plus two civilians, Johnson was cornered on the scene and executed without trial by the Dallas police who blew him to bits with a robot bomb; so much for holding the cop-killer accountable.

Slain Baton Rouge officer Montrell Jackson had written, "Please don’t let hate infect your heart. " (Credit: Facebook)
Slain Baton Rouge officer Montrell Jackson had written, “Please don’t let hate infect your heart. ” (Credit: Facebook)

“However, the police officer who killed Philando Castile in Minnesota and the two uniformed executioners of Alton B. Sterling in Louisiana are walking the streets on the public payroll. So, too, are other recent killer cops walking free, such as Timothy A. Loehmann, in Cleveland; Daniel Pantaleo, in Staten Island; Darren Wilson, in Ferguson, Missouri; Peter Liang, in Brooklyn; and Jason Van Dyke, in Chicago, to say nothing of would-be cop George Zimmerman, in Florida, who auctioned off the 9-mm pistol with which he killed Trayvon Martin.

“The troubling issue in these cases is that police across the country continue to exert excessive and deadly force against African-Americans in a racially disparate pattern — and that these white killer cops are not held accountable. . . .”

Payne’s column appeared before a masked man clothed in black killed three Baton Rouge, La., police officers in a gas station ambush. The man was identified as Gavin Long, like Johnson an African American war veteran.

“Black war veterans historically return with a dramatically lower tolerance for racist mistreatment at home,” Payne wrote. “Widespread riots — starting with the Charleston, South Carolina, disturbance in 1919 — were triggered across America by such fed-up black veterans after World War I, for instance, and President Harry S. Truman was moved to desegregate the U.S. Army after returning black World War II veterans made it clear that they would not take it any more. Johnson’s parents said their son, who as a child wanted to be a police officer, was transformed after a seven-month stint fighting for the freedom of the Afghans.

“ ‘The war was not what Micah thought it would be,’ said his mother. . . .”

Coincidentally, Payne was mentioned on Facebook Monday in an essay by B.D. Colen to be published in the Huffington Post.

“When I was a reporter at Newsday, on Long Island, I used to hear our National Editor, Les Payne, one of America’s leading journalists, who is African American, tell stories of ‘driving while black,’ ” Colen wrote.

“I won’t say that I didn’t believe him, for I had never known him to prevaricate about anything. But the descriptions of his encounters with my ‘friends’ the police were so far from my own experience that I had trouble relating to them. Even when I saw the broadcast and rebroadcast of the, brutal, savage beating of Rodney King, I still wondered, ‘what did he do to deserve that.’ And then some genius decided to put video cameras in cell phones and the floodgates of truth were opened wide. . . .”

American Urban Radio Network Under New Owners

Chesley Maddox-Dorsey
Chesley Maddox-Dorsey

American Urban Radio Networks is transitioning to new ownership: Sheridan Broadcasting Network has lost its 51 percent stake and Access 1 Communications Corp, a New York-based firm that owns several radio and TV stations, now owns 100 of the company.

“We’ve been transitioning since the official takeover on May 1st and we expect that’ll go on another 30-60 days, Jerry Lopes, president of program operations and affiliations at the Pittsburgh-based company, told Journal-isms by email on Monday. Chesley Maddox-Dorsey “is the new CEO.”

Christian Morrow reported in May for the New Pittsburgh Courier, “Sheridan Broadcasting Network Founder Ron Davenport Sr. has confirmed that the company’s strategic bankruptcy plan aimed at giving it time to finalize the buy-out of its partner Access One and take control of the American Urban Radio Network was unsuccessful, and as a result, Sheridan has lost its 51 percent stake in AURN. . . .”

Morrow wrote on May 19, “Now that the American Urban Radio Network has severed its longtime partnership with Sheridan Broadcasting Network, it is wasting no time in making a new mark on the media landscape by bringing the Democratic and Republican Party Presidential candidates to Pittsburgh for a forum at the August Wilson Center for African American Culture” in Pittsburgh.

The National Coalition on Black Civic Participation (NCBCP) and the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB) announced on July 14 that they are inviting the Democratic and Republican presumptive presidential nominees to take part in a Conversation with Black America with American Urban Radio Network as the lead media partner for the Aug. 18 forum.

However, the candidates have not confirmed that they will attend, spokeswoman Marlene Layton told Journal-isms on Tuesday. If there is no confirmation, “then we’ll probably pull the plug on it,” she said.

Short Takes

  • “The California Second District Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that a 6-year-old Choctaw girl known as ‘Lexi,’ will be staying in Utah with her family,” Suzette Brewer reported July 9 for Indian Country Today Media Network. “In the scathing 38-page decision, the three-judge panel ruled against foster parents Summer and Russell Page, citing their ‘self interest,’ their pattern of interference with and resistance to Lexi’s visits with her extended family . . . ” Brewer and the Native American Journalists Association had complained that coverage of the case was skewered toward the white foster parents and was poorly reported.
  • Applications close Aug. 15 for the Inland Fellows Program, described as “a two-year program for early-stage employees with the potential to make a successful career in the newspaper industry — and to help newspaper workplaces better reflect the makeup of the audiences they serve.” The Inland Press Association, its sponsor, is a not-for-profit organization based in Des Plaines, Ill., with more than 1,000 daily and weekly newspaper members in all 50 U.S. states, Canada and Bermuda. Inland is owned by its member newspapers and operated by a volunteer board. Inland-member managers nominate employees for the program.
  • “The UNC School of Media and Journalism announced today that Capitol Broadcasting Company (CBC) will support two national media diversity initiatives administered by the school,” the University of North Carolina announced on Thursday. “Capitol Broadcasting’s gift will support the Chuck Stone Program for Diversity in Education and Media and the CBC-UNC Diversity Fellowship Program over the next four years. . . . The CBC-UNC Diversity Program — now entering its fifth year — is a highly competitive fellowship for 12 top university seniors or graduate students within six months of graduation and pursuing broadcast journalism careers. It is an intensive, hands-on, 5-day workshop led by professionals at WRAL-TV and UNC journalism faculty. “
  • “For the third day in a row, people in Indian-controlled, conflict-torn Kashmir did not get their newspapers Monday because they have been banned,” Rama Lakshmi reported Monday for the Washington Post. “The ban on newspapers came on top of the shutdown of cable TV operators and private cellphone service, actions imposed by the government as it struggles to control angry street protests against the killing of a popular leader of a terrorist group 10 days ago. Newspaper editors are angry and are calling it a full-blown information war. . . .”
  • The International Federation of Journalists said Monday that it “strongly condemned the arrest and detention of Alfred Taban, Editor-in- Chief of the Juba Monitor in South Sudan. Taban was arrested on Saturday, 16 July in the capital Juba by the agents of the National Security Service and is currently detained incommunicado. According to the Uganda Journalists Union (UJU), an IFJ affiliate, Taban was arrested in relation to an article that he wrote in his weekly column ‘Let’s Speak Out.’ In his article he called for the removal of President Salva Kiir and Vice President, Riek Machar, accusing both of them of failing to control troops loyal to them which have resulted in the loss of lives and property. . . .”

    B.D. Colen: Police Killings Caused by Truth Revealed

    By B.D. Colen

    There is a headline in the New York Times this morning reading, “Anguish Deepens for Police: ‘We’ve Seen Nothing Like This,” and indeed none of us have.

    But what is surprising is not that we are seeing the wanton murder of police officers, but rather that it has been so long in coming. (I know my one Facebook friend who is an officer — are there others? — will find the sentiment just expressed offensive, so I will note that I not only do not condone what is happening, I unequivocally condemn it; an unprovoked attack on any police officer is an attack upon all of us, and upon the fabric of our society. But here’s the thing — the weft and warp of our society are visibly separating.)

    B.D. Colen
    B.D. Colen

    There are those who say that the widely circulated videos of the murder of African American civilians by police — and there is no other word for the deaths we have seen in most of those videos — and the demonstrations by ‪#‎BlackLivesMatter‬ are “responsible” for the murder of police officers.

    They are “responsible” for those deaths in the same way that the reporting of the words of Donald Trump are “responsible” for some of us calling him a fascist: Those videos have pulled back a curtain long hiding the ugliest of truths, largely only known to those with dark skin; in many places, in many ways, the same police we were taught in elementary school are our friends are part of an army of occupation, enforcers of a kind of social apartheid.

    When I was a reporter at Newsday, on Long Island, I used to hear our national editor, Les Payne, one of America’s leading journalists, who is African American, tell stories of “driving while black.” I won’t say that I didn’t believe him, for I had never known him to prevaricate about anything. But the descriptions of his encounters with my “friends” the police were so far from my own experience that I had trouble relating to them.

    Even when I saw the broadcast and rebroadcast of the brutal, savage beating of Rodney King, I still wondered, “What did he do to deserve that?” And then some genius decided to put video cameras in cell phones and the floodgates of truth were opened wide.

    We’ve all seen the videos; we’ve all read the stories. If we have a shred of honesty within us we know that being a black male in America can, in and of itself, be a life-threatening condition. If we have a shred of honesty within us we know that, in countless predominantly white communities all across America, there are police officers who believe they have the right, perhaps they believe they have the duty, to treat African Americans, and especially young African American men, in ways that would horrify those same police officers if they saw their own family members being treated that way.

    What is shocking about the murder of police officers by deranged African American men — with legally obtained, ubiquitously available, high power, military weaponry, is not that these murders are occurring, but that their coming has taken so many decades. What happened in Dallas, what happened in Baton Rouge, was not “caused” by any group exercising its constitutional rights to protest, to speak out about certain ugly realities in our society, nor has it been “caused” by the kudzu-like spread of video cameras across the land. It has been caused by truth revealed. It has been caused by the behavior of men and women whom those innocent, dead, police officers would call their “brothers.”

    We caused those deaths, by our inaction, by our acquiescence in the maintenance of a social structure, by our active or passive maintenance of a national fabric that not only allowed, but supported the behavior that has inevitably brought us to the ugly place in which we now find ourselves.

    We will be repeatedly told this week by those celebrating the ascendancy of America’s first fascist candidate for President, that it is time to restore “law and order” in America. Indeed it is; for everyone; everywhere; in every way.

    B. D. Colen is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former medical writer, editor, and columnist for the Washington Post and Newsday, who teaches science journalism and documentary photography at MIT. Colen pioneered the coverage of bioethics in the main stream media, covered the AIDS epidemic from its recognized beginning in 1981, and has written numerous books on medically related subjects.

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