‘Exorcise the Nationalist Bent Before It’s Too Late’

Reporters Fume at Exclusion by State Department

Threats to Press a Reminder of Slain Crusader

Trump Hero Andrew Jackson a Villain to Indians

Jones to Head Specials for NBC News, MSNBC

ESPN’s Next Layoffs Will Hit On-Camera Talent

Women’s History Month Includes Knight, Holiday

G.D. Regguinti Dies, Organized Native Journalists

Short Takes

‘Exorcise the Nationalist Bent Before It’s Too Late’

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, must go, two of his home-state newspapers say.

King tweeted over the weekend, “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies” and predicted Monday that blacks and Hispanics “will be fighting each other” before overtaking whites in the U.S. population.

King’s “rampant racism is an opportunity for Iowa Republicans and the party at large. Exorcise the nationalist bent before it’s too late,” the Quad-City Times editorial board wrote on Wednesday.

“The House should make an example of King, and Iowa GOP should be actively seeking a candidate to oust him in next year’s primary. . . .”

The Des Moines Register wrote on Monday, “If King’s world view truly doesn’t match that of the Republican Party, then party leaders at both the state and national level need to stand together in supporting an opposing candidate in the 2018 Republican primary. Given King’s longstanding record as one of the least effective members of Congress, the GOP should have no difficulty finding a more thoughtful and qualified individual to represent the people of Iowa’s 4th District.

“The only question is whether these party leaders have the courage of their alleged convictions.”

The Register is the state’s largest newspaper; the Gazette in Cedar Rapids, the second-largest, has not weighed in on King because his district is outside its  circulation area, Jennifer Hemmingsen, opinion editor at the Gazette, told Journal-isms. However, a Gazette news story reported Monday, “The tweet brought widespread condemnation from politicians in Iowa and Washington,” and conservative columnist Adam Sullivan wrote Thursday, “King’s latest controversy will not likely hinder his political career — not anytime soon, and not in Iowa’s 4th District, at least. But if his brand of conservatism is allowed to take hold across the party, our days are numbered.”

As Eve Peyser reported Monday for vice.com, King, “one of the most right-wing members of the House of Representatives, launched a viral tweet over the weekend when he endorsed far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders — who once said ‘I hate Islam’ and compared the Qur’an to Mein Kampf. King’s endorsement of Wilders came in the form of a retweet of a pro-Wilders cartoon, to which King added, well:

Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies. https://t.co/4nxLipafWO

— Steve King (@SteveKingIA) March 12, 2017

Wilders’ party was beaten soundly by that of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Wednesday.

French President Francois Hollande called it a “clear victory against extremism.”

On Tuesday, Chris Massie reported for CNN, King “was on the radio responding to a question about Univision anchor Jorge Ramos’ comment to Tucker Carlson on Fox News that whites would become a majority-minority demographic in America by 2044, a point Ramos used to make the argument that it is a multiracial country.

” ‘Jorge Ramos’ stock in trade is identifying and trying to drive wedges between race,’ King told Iowa radio host Jan Mickelson on 1040 WHO. ‘Race and ethnicity, I should say to be more correct. When you start accentuating the differences, then you start ending up with people that are at each other’s throats. And he’s adding up Hispanics and blacks into what he predicts will be in greater number than whites in America. I will predict that Hispanics and the blacks will be fighting each other before that happens.’ . . . ”

Register columnist Rekha Basu wrote Wednesday, “King was rewarded with recognition from the Ku Klux Klan’s former leader David Duke, who tweeted, ‘God bless Steve King!‘ and ‘Just in case you were thinking about moving — sanity reigns supreme in Iowa’s 4th congressional district.’ On Monday, King kept the ball rolling, saying on CNN he wants ‘an America that’s just so homogeneous that we look a lot the same.’

“These kinds of remarks put Iowa’s Republican leaders in the uncomfortable position of having to publicly distance themselves, but not do it so strongly as to jeopardize their standing with King’s voters. So Gov. Terry Branstad and Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann saved the real condemnation for Duke, voicing more tepid disagreement with King. . . .” [Updated March 16]

• Rekha Basu, Des Moines Register: King’s race-baiting finds another target: Kaepernick (Sept. 16)
• Rekha Basu, Des Moines Register: How non-Western non-Christians paved way for King (July 24)
• Jarvis DeBerry, NOLA.com | the Times-Picayune: A conservative critique of Steve King’s racist tweet
• Editorial, New York Times: Into the Void, With Steve King
• Suzanne Gamboa, NBC Latino: Rep. Steve King Remarks Seen as ‘Racist,’ ‘Nativist,’ ‘Despicable’
• Eve Peyser, vice.com: A Short History of Congressman Steve King Saying Racist Shit
• Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: White supremacism is ready to roar
• Adam Sullivan, Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Steve King conservatism and the future of the GOP 

Reporters Fume at Exclusion by State Department

“The Trump administration’s efforts to rewrite the rules for media coverage reached a furious peak on Wednesday as veteran State Department reporters expressed outrage over Secretary Rex Tillerson’s decision to take only a reporter from a conservative website on his first trip to Asia,” Hadas Gold reported Wednesday for Politico.

“ ‘The State Department is the beacon of press freedom around the world. The message now to China in particular when he gets to Beijing is that press freedom doesn’t matter,’ MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who is following Tillerson’s trip and broadcasting from Tokyo, said in a recent appearance on air. ‘Up until now, secretaries of state have made it a key demand that our press corps gets into meetings … that there be access for the media … A key component of foreign policy is being undercut by this.’

“Tillerson’s move caught most of the media off guard, in part because he has more to gain than lose by courting the diplomatic press corps, which has enjoyed generally good relations with all secretaries of state going back to the Reagan administration. Indeed, of all the branches of the Washington press corps, the State Department’s is widely considered the most staid and serious, the type who actually care about policy versus palace intrigue.

“But those same reporters are now furious, frustrated and, in some cases, disgusted by what’s been deemed a violation of tradition and a public trust, with Tillerson’s decision to bring only Erin McPike of Independent Journal Review, a conservative news outlet which made its name with lighthearted videos featuring politicians and viral stories.

“McPike has been with IJR for only a few weeks and doesn’t even cover the State Department: She’s its White House reporter and is often in the briefings. McPike won’t be acting as a pool reporter for the rest of the diplomatic press corps, meaning she won’t be sharing information about the trip with other reporters, which is what would normally happen if there were limited space for reporters and only a few were chosen. . . .”

Threats to Press a Reminder of Slain Crusader

“Incredibly, especially for those of us who called him our friend, 25 years have passed since the murder of fearless journalist Manuel de Dios Unanue, at a Spanish restaurant in New York City,” Albor Ruiz wrote Tuesday for Al Día in Philadelphia.

“The courage to expose Colombian drug capos and their poisonous presence in his city, cost him his life.

” ‘No one can tell me what I can’t write,’ the tall, thin, intense Unanue would answer those who would warn him about the risk to his life. He was well aware it was a dangerous business. But the Cuban-born journalist was not willing to compromise.

“As I wrote in the Daily News 12 years ago, ‘The warnings of danger became reality. On a tragic evening 13 years ago, a hooded and slightly retarded 16-year-old gunman known as Mono, calmly walked up to Unanue at the Mesón Asturias restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens, and pumped two bullets into his head. The murderer had been paid $4,500 by Colombian drug capos, who had been on the receiving end of tough Unanue scrutiny. The crusading journalist fell dead in a pool of blood, leaving behind a companion and a 2-year-old daughter.’

” ‘It seems to me he laid down his life for all society,’ John Cardinal O’Connor told the 1,500 people who attended an emotional memorial service at St. Patrick’s Cathedral a few days later.

“Unanue, the former editor of El Diario-La Prensa, the oldest Spanish-language daily paper in the country, was 48 when he was killed on March 11, 1992. It was the heyday of the Colombian drug cartels, and their pernicious influence extended to New York, especially Queens, where he lived and died. Unanue’s death was a grim reminder — and a reality check — of how fragile freedom of the press is, even in the U.S. . . .”

President Trump paid tribute to Andrew Jackson’s legacy at The Hermitage in Nashville on Wednesday. (Credit: the Tennessean.) (video)

Trump Hero Andrew Jackson a Villain to Indians

“President Trump compared his presidency to that of Andrew Jackson while marking the birthday of the nation’s seventh president on Wednesday,” Mallory Shelbourne reported Wednesday for the Hill.

“Speaking outside of The Hermitage, Jackson’s estate in Nashville, Tenn., Trump referred to Jackson as the people’s president, echoing the populist comparisons made by pundits about himself and Jackson. . . .”

In contrast, Lynn Cordova reported Tuesday for Indian Country Media Network that Native Americans “consider the late president a villain directly responsible for the death of thousands of Cherokee during the forced march remembered as the Trail of Tears. Jackson’s Indian Removal Act of 1830 aggressively pushed Native Americans off their ancestral lands, which Jackson stole and purchased for plantation use. His documented hostility and hatred of Native Americans earned Jackson the names ‘Indian Killer’ and ‘Sharp Knife.’ . . .”

Cordova also wrote, “Andrew Jackson isn’t the only former president with a noted disdain for Native Americans. George Washington, the former general of the Continental Army and first President of the United States, believed the most efficient way to kill Native Americans was to ‘ruin their crops,’ and Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, said ‘(Native Americans have) justified (their own) extermination.’ . . .”

Jones to Head Specials for NBC News, MSNBC

“Rashida Jones, who joined MSNBC in 2013 from WIS-TV, where she was news director, has been upped to SVP of specials for the combined NBC News and MSNBC,” Chris Ariens reported Wednesday for TVNewser.

“ ‘She’s been a critical part of MSNBC’s dayside success — the best growth story in cable news,’ [NBC News president Noah] Oppenheim writes in a note to staff, obtained by TVNewser. ‘She brings deep knowledge of cable, breaking news coverage and events programming to her new role.’

“Jones’s promotion means longtime head of specials, Mark Lukasiewicz, is departing NBC News after 16 years. He’ll stay on for the transition, then move on to NBCUniversal’s Talent Lab. Before NBC News, Lukasiewicz spent 11 years at ABC News. . . .”

ESPN’s Next Layoffs Will Hit On-Camera Talent

“ESPN’s last big round of layoffs took place in 2015 and stayed, for the most part, behind the camera,” Daniel Holloway reported Wednesday for Variety. “Its next round won’t be so deferential to talent.

“The Disney-owned cable channel is set to reduce personnel in the coming months, with the bulk of cuts coming from the on-air ranks. The move is indicative of the growing pressure ESPN feels as the cable ecosystem evolves, and of how the network plans to adapt in response.

“According to Nielsen research, ESPN had 87.4 million subscribers in March, down from more than 100 million six years ago. Subscriber erosion has presented a challenge for all cable channels in the era of skinny bundles — low-cost network packages delivered via broadband, such as DirecTV Now — but ESPN, with its outsize presence in the cable landscape and the Walt Disney Co. portfolio, has been scrutinized more closely than most brands. . . .”

Holloway also wrote, “ESPN has shifted its talent priorities in the last two years. Gone are old, high-priced hands such as Chris Berman, Keith Olbermann, and Bill Simmons. Among the channel’s rising stars are Scott Van Pelt, who began hosting a special late-night version of ‘SportsCenter’ in 2015; Michael Smith and Jemele Hill, who launched their own specially branded 6 p.m. ‘SportsCenter’ last year; and ‘Mike and Mike’ co-host Mike Greenberg, [whom] the network is eyeing for a possible solo morning show.

“All four represent a type of personality that ESPN will value in the coming reorganization — they appeal to young or traditionally underserved audiences and are able to move seamlessly between television and digital.

“Reprioritizing talent is part of a larger ESPN effort to pivot toward digital — and mitigate losses. . . .”

Women’s History Month Includes Knight, Holiday

• 

  The Association of Latino Professionals for America listed “The 50 Most Powerful Latinas of 2017” in Fortune magazine on Wednesday. Included are Cynthia Hudson, senior vice president and general manager of CNN en Español and Hispanic strategy for CNN/U.S.; Claudia Puig, senior vice president and general manager of local media, Univision Communications Inc.; and Monica Lozano, former CEO of La Opinión and ImpreMedia.

• The African American Public Radio Consortium, which brought to NPR “The Tavis Smiley Show” and “Tell Me More,” is offering stations a musical, career-long, three-decade look at Gladys Knight and the Pips, narrated by Bubba Knight, a member of the group and Gladys’ older brother. Journal-isms readers may listen to the two-hour show free of charge by downloading the MP3s here. The production was conceived by KCEP-FM in Las Vegas in partnership with the consortium, Loretta Rucker, consortium executive director, told Journal-isms by email. It has aired in Atlanta; Alcorn, Miss.; Greensboro, N.C. ; Prairie View, Texas; Las Vegas; Jerome, Ariz.; Shreveport, La.; and Gualala, Calif. “Both the producer and the AAPRC are interested in sharing this with any station that requests it,” Rucker said. She may be reached at lerucker (at) aol.com.

• Hilary Parkinson of the National Archives introduced readers Monday to Sharon Farmer, who during the Clinton administration became the first woman and the first African American

  

  to be named chief White House photographer. “For Farmer, one of her most memorable assignments took place thousands of miles from the White House,” Parkinson wrote. “ ‘In 1998, I accompanied the President and Mrs. Clinton to Ghana. There was a huge rally in the stadium in Accra. There must have been over 250,000 people cheering the President and First Lady. They were given the kente cloth of the Africans and, wearing them, proudly stood next to President and Mrs. Rawlings of Ghana. What a moment in time!’ . . .”

• In April 1957, the freelance photographer Jerry Dantzic, working for jazz singer Billie Holiday’s record company, Decca, “drew the assignment of finding a new chapter in her story during an Easter Week engagement at the Sugar Hill club in Newark,” John Leland wrote Tuesday for the “Lens” blog of the New York Times. He also wrote, “Most of Mr. Dantzic’s images were never published until his son Grayson compiled them in ‘Billie Holiday at Sugar Hill,’ which adds a quiet new dimension to the story we thought we knew about Holiday. . . .”

• Dina Gilio-Whitaker, Indian Country Media Network: 3 Historical Native American Women You Might Not Know, But Should (March 8)

G.D. Regguinti Dies, Organized Native Journalists

“Gordon David Regguinti passed on to the spirit world on February 2, 2017,” Mark Anthony Rolo wrote Tuesday for the Circle News, a Native American publication based in St. Paul, Minn. “He was 62.

“Regguinti was a pioneer in the movement to establish Native American journalism as a legitimate institution, giving critically needed voice to Native peoples from all circles of life. . . .”

Rolo also wrote, “Karen Lincoln Michel (Ho-Chunk), who served as NAJA’s president, said Regguinti was instrumental in shaping the vision for the organization,” referring to the Native American Journalists Association.

“When I think of the people who have given a part of their lives to make NAJA what it is today, Gordon is among that circle of amazing individuals,” Lincoln Michel said. “He poured a lot of his energy into growing the organization from a fledgling nonprofit to a journalism association with a national reputation. He kept the focus on Native journalists and how NAJA could better serve them in the important role they play in their communities.”

“Regguinti’s work with NAJA included securing major foundation grants to underwrite training workshops for emerging Native journalists. He used his position to lobby mainstream news organizations to open their doors and hire more Native people. And he was aggressive in educating Indian Country about the importance of a free tribal press.

“But just as important as strengthening Native American journalism, Regguinti shared a growing vision among all journalists of color — the power of a collective voice on behalf of those who represent their communities. Regguinti was on the ground floor in helping to create UNITY: Journalists of Color, an umbrella organization of minority journalism organizations who, together sought to bring leverage on the mainstream news media to hire more journalists of color and to demand improved coverage of their communities. . . .”

Short Takes

• “HBO is making a documentary about Ben Bradlee, the legendary Washington Post executive editor who died in 2014,” Andrew Beaujon reported Tuesday for Washingtonian. “. . . Longtime Bradlee friend and Washington Post reporter [now columnist] Richard Cohen is an executive producer on the as-yet-unnamed picture. . . ” Cohen did not reply to inquiries from Journal-isms, but Lana Iny, HBO’s vice president for media communication, said by telephone that it was “too early in the process” to say whether black journalists would be portrayed in the film. As reported in this space when Bradlee died, “while the Bradlee era has been defined as one of the Pentagon Papers and Watergate, it was also one of black struggle and women’s liberation, areas in which Bradlee had a steep learning curve. . . .”

• 

  Ernest J. Wilson III, dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism since 2007, is stepping down and will be succeeded on July 1 by Willow Bay, the school’s director, Dominic Patten reported Monday for Deadline Hollywood. Bay is a former “Good Morning America Sunday” anchor and has also worked for CNN, NBC, the Huffington Post and Bloomberg. She would be the school’s first female dean. Wilson, who is also Walter Annenberg Chair in Communication and professor of political science, did not respond to inquiries.

  

• “FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said that the agency is studying restrictions on media ownership, characterizing a number of the rules as ‘quite antiquated’ . . . ,” Ted Johnson reported Tuesday for Variety.
• In 2015, Texas Department of Public Safety trooper Brian Encinia pulled over Sandra Bland, a black woman, “for failing to use a turn signal and arrested her. Bland was found dead in her Waller County jail cell three days later,” the Star-Telegram in Fort Worth, Texas, recalled March 3 in endorsing a bill known as the Sandra Bland Act. The bill, sponsored by State Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, “breaks down into two major parts: racial profiling and the diversion of a person suffering from mental health issues or substance use disorder. . . .” However, it is given little chance in the Republican-controlled legislature.

• Adriana Diaz, a CBS News correspondent in Beijing, is returning to the United States as a correspondent in Chicago, CBS News President David Rhodes announced on Monday, Lisa de Moraes reported for Deadline Hollywood. Diaz, a digital journalist, is proficient in Mandarin, “nearly fluent” in French and in Spanish, “nearly bilingual,” according to her LinkedIn profile.
• “WAMU in Washington, D.C., expected a drop-off in audience and station carriage when it introduced a new national program to succeed the long-running The Diane Rehm Show in January,” Tyler Falk reported Monday for current.org. “It’s ‘the natural thing that happens in a transition,’ said JJ Yore, WAMU’s GM. But after two months on the air, 1A is exceeding expectations for station carriage. . . .” “1A” is hosted by Joshua Johnson, formerly newscaster and podcast host at KQED-FM in San Francisco.
• “Back-to-back Sports Illustrated covers are a rarity,” Alex Wong wrote Tuesday for the Undefeated, describing the phenomenon that took place in 2012 involving then-New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin. Wong also wrote, “Five years later, the impact of Lin’s back-to-back Sports Illustrated covers endures. ‘You just have to have a representation of what’s possible,

  

  especially in the Asian-American community,’ ” Ursula Liang, a writer at the time for ESPN The Magazine, said in the story. ” ‘Your parents need to see that it’s possible. People don’t need to know about sports to be able to walk by a grocery store aisle and see [Jeremy] on a cover. That’s a different type of visibility.’ . . .”

• “It was announced on Monday that Univision and Fusion lead anchor Jorge Ramos will be honored with a 2017 Walter Cronkite Award next month in Washington for ‘advancing the conversation about what divides us as a country,’ according to jurors for the award,” Joe Concha wrote Tuesday for the Hill. Concha objected, maintaining, “he personifies exactly why an overwhelming majority of Americans don’t trust the media: He’s an outspoken advocate who publicly abuses his power while serving as lead anchor on two national networks to advance his agenda to his audience and presents it as fact, not opinion. . . .”
• Carla Hinton, religion editor at the Oklahoman since 2002 and the Tulsa Association of Black Journalists’ 2009 Journalist of the Year, and Paul R. Lehman, the first African-American newsperson on Oklahoma City television and the first black professor at the University of Central Oklahoma, are to be among nine journalists inducted into the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame on April 27, the Tulsa World reported Wednesday.
• “On the eve of International Women’s Day, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is proud to announce the opening of Afghanistan’s first center for the protection of women journalists,” the press freedom organization announced on March 7.
• In Britain, “TV writers and producers have threatened to boycott plans to measure diversity on television after broadcasters refused to reveal which shows had the worst record for employing people from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds,” Tara Conlan reported Friday for the Guardian.

(Credit: Kea Dupree Photography)

“From the time I was hired as the first African American female reporter at The Washington Post 55 years ago, I have been fanatical about diversity in mainstream media because I know it produces fairer, more democratic news for all Americans. At a time when a powerful and inclusive media is more important than ever, the relevance of ‘Journal-isms’ grows daily.”

— Dorothy Gilliam, veteran journalist, 19-year Washington Post columnist; former president, National Association of Black Journalists; co-founder, Maynard Institute for Journalism Education.

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