Updated Sept. 29

Question Has Implications for News Coverage

Cosby Sentencing ‘Shook Me’ as a Black Journalist

Balta Leaves ESPN-Disney for Media Diversity Work

N.Y. Times to Begin Yearlong Fellowship Program

Poll Finds Nonwhites Not as Harsh on Media

Was GOP’s Black-Media Man, Now He’s a Democrat

Librarians, Translators Aid Mexican Journalist

CNN Having Hard Time Keeping Trump Defenders

Short Takes

Question Has Implications for News Coverage

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, whose nomination now moves to the Senate floor, shocked many who watched his aggressive performance at his confirmation hearing Thursday, with some calling his lashing out at opponents over the top.

On MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” analyst Lisa Green called it the reaction of “a man who saw the ground shift from under him.”

Kavanaugh’s pushback at members of the Senate Judiciary Committee was unprecedented. He turned the hearing’s focus from Christine Blasey Ford’s claim that Kavanaugh had assaulted her as a teenager to his partisan accusation that the committee’s Democrats conspired to exact retribution for President Trump’s election and to take “revenge on behalf of the Clintons.”

The appeals court judge’s ire was really about something else, MSNBC contributor Sam Seder explained after Green’s comment: privilege, and the potential loss of it. It was not just a political issue, but a cultural one, Seder said. “Loss of privilege is a form of aggrievement for a large part of the population,” he said.

Seder put his finger on something that should give journalists pause as we frame coverage of this Supreme Court battle. And it hits uncomfortably close to home for the news business. As some women of color have noted, the #MeToo movement and the quest for newsroom diversity are linked.

It was a point made last January at “The Power Shift Summit,” which took place at the Newseum in Washington. Most of the 125 attendees were white women who discussed a range of issues associated with harassment, but the women of color among them kept returning to race as part of the core issue: a power imbalance that handicaps both women and people of color.

“It’s not just an issue of sexual harassment,” Sarah Glover, president of the National Association of Black Journalists and one of the facilitators, told the group.

“It’s really about power and power situations and newsroom environment and work environment, and power often leads to issues of discrimination at large, and so I think it’s very important that we look at this not just as a straight, white female issue,” said Glover, who was circling part of the room with a microphone, taking comments from the attendees.

“This is an issue that’s impacting LGBT communities, black communities, black, brown, Asian, and so we want to make sure that when we talk about a power shift that women of color and women beyond straight, white women are at the table.”

In fact, according to Farai Chideya, a journalist and educator who is now a program officer at the Ford Foundation, even some white men don’t fit the model of those entitled to assert supremacy. “In the intersectionality of race, class and gender, the more things that remove you from heteronormative, white male power, the less likely you are to be able to speak and to be heard,” Chideya said from the audience.

On Thursday, America: Jesuit Review, a weekly magazine published by Jesuits, revoked its endorsement of Kavanaugh, writing that “this nomination battle is no longer purely about predicting the likely outcome of Judge Kavanaugh’s vote on the court.

“It now involves the symbolic meaning of his nomination and confirmation in the #MeToo era. The hearings and the committee’s deliberations are now also a bellwether of the way the country treats women when their reports of harassment, assault and abuse threaten to derail the careers of powerful men. . . .”

It’s not that the cultural significance of the Kavanaugh battle is not part of the coverage; it’s a matter of degree.

Some, such as the Washington Post’s Greg Jaffe, who went to the Landon School, a boys’ elite prep school “down the road and not all that different from” Georgetown Prep, have called out the presumption of male entitlement in which they were raised — “the culture of casual misogyny and heavy drinking that existed in the 1980s.”

Doreen St. Felix wrote Thursday in the New Yorker, “More than presenting a convincing rebuttal to Ford’s extremely credible account, Kavanaugh — and [Sen. Orrin] Hatch, and Lindsey Graham — seemed to be exterminating, live, for an American audience, the faint notion that a massively successful white man could have his birthright questioned or his character held to the most basic type of scrutiny. . . . Republican senators apologized to the judge, incessantly, for what he had suffered. There was talk of his reputation being torpedoed and his life being destroyed. This is the nature of the conspiracy against white male power — the forces threatening it will always somehow be thwarted at the last minute. . . .”

Michael D’Antonio, author of “Mortal Sins, Sex Crimes and the Era of Catholic Scandal,” also touched on power and entitlement. He wrote Monday in the Boston Globe, “A man groomed to hold black-robe power wants more of it from an institution that supposedly serves a greater good. GOP senators are trying to give it to him while appearing to act justly. The parallels to the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, including the arrival of a second accuser, abound.. . . ”

The Globe’s Joan Vennochi added Thursday, “Brett Kavanaugh was as mad as a privileged white man can be at the prospect of losing a coveted seat on the US Supreme Court to a girl who wasn’t part of his Georgetown Prep social circle back in their high school days. How dare someone like that mess up the careful career plan he built upon fealty to Republican smear tactics?”

Vennochi’s Globe colleague Renée Graham saw the old ways changing, however slowly. She wrote Tuesday, “Kavanaugh may still be confirmed, so that he can violate women’s rights under the shield of justice. Yet nothing can still a movement already forcing a glacial but steady shift from a dangerous ‘boys will be boys’ mind-set to one where ‘boys’ will be held accountable — even those who grow up to be Supreme Court nominees. . . .”

These are commentators however, not news executives.

In July, the Rev. Jesse Jackson reiterated for attendees of the National Association of Black Journalists an admonition he made to the group back in 1984, that black journalists must seek “appraisal power.”

The American Society of News Editors is emphasizing training for newsroom leadership in its diversity efforts.

After the 2016 presidential election, some journalists of color challenged the notion that Trump’s victory was largely the result of economic anxiety in the heartland.

Now John Sides of George Washington University, Michael Tesler of the University of California at Irvine and Lynn Vavreck of the University of California at Los Angeles have a new book, “Identity Crisis.” “They have plumbed and analyzed a wealth of polling and voting data, examined surveys of attitudes taken long before, during and after the 2016 campaign,” Dan Balz wrote for the Washington Post. “Their conclusion is straightforward. Issues of identity — race, religion, gender and ethnicity — and not economics were the driving forces that determined how people voted, particularly white voters. . . .”

In other words, loss of privilege.

Which editors shaping the news report will give that issue the centrality it deserves?

• Jeremy Barr, Hollywood Reporter: Fox News Fires Contributor After He Calls Kavanaugh Accusers “Lying Skanks”
• Christina Cauterucci, Slate: Brett Kavanaugh’s Testimony Made It Easier Than Ever to Picture Him as an Aggressive, Entitled Teen
• Lauren Collins, New Yorker: Brett Kavanaugh and the Innocence of White Jocks
• Editorial, Kansas City Star: With Kavanaugh, Hawley puts loyalty to Trump first. That’s a problem
• Editorial, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Kavanaugh, accuser testify convincingly enough to merit delaying confirmation
• Paul Farhi, Washington Post: The conservative conspiracy theory about the media and the Kavanaugh nomination has a few holes
• John Ingold and Jesse Paul, Colorado Sun: As Trump, Republicans question her allegations against Kavanaugh, those who know Debbie Ramirez work to defend her
• Alexandria Neason and Nausicaa Renner, Columbia Journalism Review: The media bullying of Christine Blasey Ford
• Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald: We all should find sexual assault abhorrent, but not all of us do
• Ronnie Ramos, Indianapolis Star: IndyStar editor Ronnie Ramos on Varvel cartoon: ‘Our readers deserved better’
• Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: Just how low can Republican senators go?
• Fabiola Santiago, Miami Herald: What’s so hard to understand? Sexual assault is about domination, not love or sex.
• Jason Schwartz, Politico: New Yorker under fire over latest Kavanaugh allegations
• Erika D. Smith, Sacramento Bee: A crying Brett Kavanaugh. This is what white male privilege looks like
• Ezinne Ukoha, Medium: Why Brett Kavanaugh’s White Privilege Will Get Him Confirmed
• David Uberti, Columbia Journalism Review: On cable news at the Kavanaugh hearing, everyone stays in character
• Emily Witt, New Yorker: The Boys’ Club That Protects Brett Kavanaugh

Cosby Sentencing ‘Shook Me’ as a Black Journalist

“The sight of Bill Cosby being led away in handcuffs following his sentencing for sexual assault on Tuesday shook me to the core,” Greg Braxton wrote for the Los Angeles Times. “For a few moments I stopped breathing. Although this ending to the long and sad legal saga was inevitable, it was still overwhelming to actually see it play out on national television.

“Please don’t get me wrong. This emotional response is not in any way dismissive of the horrific acts that Cosby is convicted of, or the pain and anguish his numerous victims have suffered for decades. That he has still not uttered one word of apology nor expressed any kind of remorse makes his crimes even more monstrous.

“The initial gut reaction is more about reconciling the fall from grace of a once-universally beloved entertainer now labeled as a ‘sexually violent predator’ with my personal recollections of covering and bonding with one of the most beloved pop cultural figures of my generation — a towering figure of black culture who was a success at everything he did.”

“For me as a black journalist, Bill Cosby transcended his status as a top entertainer. He was an African American legend whom I had worshiped since childhood, a larger-than-life figure whom I got to know on a first-name basis and who became one of the touchstones of my career. . . .”

Braxton also wrote, “That’s not to say it was always easy. Interviewing Cosby could at times be a challenge because he would not speak in sound bites. Tangents would go on for several minutes, and I had to learn to be patient if I wanted my questions answered. . . .

“There were also those occasions when I was truly puzzled by Cosby. He could be a great talk show guest, and his upbeat personality and charisma was at the center of his triumphs as a star, pitchman and host of the retooled game show ‘You Bet Your Life’ in the early ’90s. But he could also display a darker edge. . . .”

However, Michael Calderone wrote Wednesday for Politico, “Some prominent journalists have expressed regrets for not adequately following up for years on the accusations against Cosby, which now come from more than 60 women.

“In Nov. 2014, New York Times media columnist David Carr wrote on Cosby’s ‘media enablers,’ including himself, and Ta-Nehisi Coates reflected on his failure to address the allegations in a 2008 Atlantic feature on Cosby.

” ‘I don’t have many writing regrets,’ Coates wrote. ‘But this is one of them. I regret not saying what I thought of the accusations, and then pursuing those thoughts. I regret it because the lack of pursuit puts me in league with people who either looked away, or did not look hard enough. I take it as a personal admonition to always go there, to never flinch, to never look away.’ . . .”

• Jenice Armstrong, Philadelphia Inquirer: Bill Cosby’s sentencing is both a triumph and a tragedy
• Sopan Deb and Julia Jacobs, New York Times: Reactions to the Cosby Sentence: Accusers and Allies Speak
• Errin Haines Whack, Associated Press: Some black Americans see racial comeuppance in Cosby saga

Balta Leaves ESPN-Disney for Media Diversity Work

Hugo Balta, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, has left ESPN, his employer for the last seven years, he announced this week.

“Balta joined ESPN in 2011 as a coordinating producer for ‘SportsCenter’ and was named Senior Director of Multicultural Content for ESPN’s Digital & Print Media team two years later,” Veronica Villafañe reported Thursday for her Media Moves column.

“In 2016, he moved to a new role at the sports cable network that focused on diversity and inclusion as Senior Director of Hispanic Initiatives at ESPN Deportes.

“I’m taking advantage of an opportunity to take all I’ve learned in the past several years in order to focus on projects where I can integrate journalism, diversity and inclusion and a focus on best serving the U.S. Hispanic audience,” Balta tells Media Moves.

“ ‘I will be working with NJ Spotlight, CALmatters, Identidad Latina and other print/digital media in expanding their reach of Hispanics/Latinos by developing strategies for improving storytelling in English and Spanish in local and national coverage.’ ”

Balta messaged Journal-isms Friday, “The work I will be doing is consistent with the responsibilities I had during my 7 years with ESPN and the Disney ABC Television Group, including overseeing news coverage. That work is consistent with my eligibility as a regular member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) and as such fulfills the requirements to serve as a member of the national board.”

Balta announced earlier this month he had become on-camera talent coach for the NWT Group. “The work for NWT helps me fund the not-for-profit I started in 2016 to raise funds for scholarships to Latino journalism students,” Balta said then.

N.Y. Times to Begin Yearlong Fellowship Program

The New York Times is replacing its newsroom summer internship program with a yearlong fellowship aimed at recent graduates of college and graduate school, the Times announced on Friday.

“We hope that this new immersive program will benefit not only the participants and The Times, but other newsrooms. We expect most of our fellows will graduate to positions at other publications,” the announcement said.

“We plan to open an application window later this fall, with our first class of fellows starting in summer 2019. We will post the application link soon on our Careers page.”  The newspaper said it would determine the size of the first class at a later date.

While the Times is discontinuing its two-year David Carr Fellowship, launched in 2015, it said the Summer Journalism Institute will remain. The institute is for “students (or December or May graduates) who are members of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists or the National Association of Black Journalists or students (or December or May graduates) at a historically black college or university.”

Among the “frequently asked questions” [PDF] the Times posted was “How does this relate to diversity initiatives at The Times?”

It answered, “Building a diverse and inclusive workplace is essential to our mission. It enriches our report, because journalists with diverse backgrounds reflect the society we cover. As noted in our diversity report, many of the numbers are moving in the right direction — though not far enough or fast enough. However, there is evidence that our efforts are paying off. Companywide, 61 percent of our new hires in 2017 were women, and 39 percent were people of color.”

Poll Finds Nonwhites Not as Harsh on Media

Despite longstanding complaints about the news media, the Pew Research Center found that nonwhites are more favorably disposed than whites when pollsters questioned U.S. adults about the media’s watchdog role.

A greater percentage of nonwhite adults than white adults ranked the media more highly on these criteria:

• “Criticism from news organizations keep politicians from doing things that shouldn’t be done,” 74 percent for nonwhite adults to 60 percent for white adults.
• “News organizations tend to deal fairly with all sides when presenting the news on political and social issues,” 41 percent to 24 percent.
• “Trust the information they get from national news organizations,” 23 percent to 20 percent
• “Trust the information they get from local news organizations,” 28 percent to 27 percent
• “Think that news organizations understand people like them,” 46 percent to 36 percent.
• “Feel connected to the outlet they get most national news from,” 47 percent to 40 percent.
• “Go into a national news story expecting that it will largely be inaccurate,” 75 percent to 70 percent
• “Think that news organizations are willing to admit their mistakes,” 34 percent to 27 percent

The figures are at odds with other studies of people of color and the news media. In February, for instance, a study of Twitter users sponsored by the Knight Foundation reported that “when media outlets do try to cover minority groups, they actually drive up disdain on the platform. Not only is hate-tweeting articles a real thing, it may be the dominant mode for how minorities talk about media coverage about their communities, as Cliff Kuang reported then for fastcodesign.com.

Overall, Jeffrey Gottfried, Galen Stocking and Elizabeth Grieco of Pew reported Tuesday, “After a year of continued tension between President Donald Trump and the news media, the partisan divides in attitudes toward the news media that widened in the wake of the 2016 presidential election remain stark, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of survey data of 5,035 U.S. adults collected between Feb. 22 and March 4, 2018. . . .

” A vast majority of Democrats (82%) say in the survey conducted earlier this year that they support the news media’s watchdog role, believing that news media criticism keeps political leaders from doing things that shouldn’t be done. On the other hand, the majority of Republicans (58%) think news media criticism gets in the way of political leaders doing their job. . . .”

• Jonathan Rothwell, New York Times: Biased News Media or Biased Readers? An Experiment on Trust

Was GOP’s Black-Media Man, Now He’s a Democrat

As national director of African American Initiatives and Media for the Republican National Committee, Telly Lovelace was the go-to guy for journalists seeking information about African Americans and the Republican Party.

But now Donald Trump is president, and Lovelace is no longer a Republican.

“Just last spring, I changed my party registration to Democrat,” Lovelace told the Journal-isms Roundtable in Washington on Tuesday.

“I used to see Ron Dellums on the elevator” at the Capitol, Lovelace said of the activist Bay Area congressman who died at 82 on July 30. Dellums and other House Democrats “knew I was a Republican and they would always tell me, ‘Telly, you’re always welcome to come home.’

“This spring, I finally came home. I did it out of frustration with what’s going on with the Republican Party. . . . but also, I wanted to vote in the Maryland Democratic primary. I wanted to have a say in that. There’s not much action in the Republican side, outside of Larry Hogan there,” speaking of the incumbent governor running against Ben Jealous, the Democrat who would become the state’s first African American governor.

“I think he will be re-elected,” Lovelace said of Hogan. “The numbers are showing that, but I voted for Ben Jealous in the primary.” Lovelace also said, “at the end of the day, the Republican Party became the party of Trump. I personally saw that, witnessed that, being at the Republican National Committee in the latest stages of the primary going into the general election, that the Republican Party, the RNC, the entire apparatus, structure was becoming Trump, and day to day, that’s who we are, so. . . .”

The Republican National Committee did not respond to a question about whether the African American liaison position was filled. Former RNC Chairman Reince Priebus appointed Lovelace to the job on April 1, 2016.

“Trump received 8 percent of the black vote in the 2016 general election, and many black Republicans were on record saying they would not support him,” Vanessa Williams wrote June 15 in the Washington Post. With Omarosa Manigault’s departure,” Williams added, “Ben Carson, the retired pediatric neurosurgeon who also ran for president in the last election, is the lone high-profile African American in the administration. He is the secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. . . .”

Lovelace is now a principal at Lovelace Capitol Strategies, describing himself as a public relations/strategic communications/government affairs professional.

• Terrell Jermaine Starr, splinter.com: Meet the man with the hardest job in Republican politics (July 21, 2016)

Librarians, Translators Aid Mexican Journalist

“Journalists were scandalized when the Trump administration jailed an award-winning Mexican journalist in Texas and sought to extradite him to the homeland he fled after death threats,” David Beard reported Wednesday for the Poynter Institute.

“In July, Emilio Gutiérrez Soto seemed to have had a happy ending. He was freed from an El Paso detention facility after his case was championed by the National Press Club, and he moved north to attend a prestigious mid-career journalism fellowship at the University of Michigan.

“But a hearing remains in October before [an] immigration judge in Texas, who has doubted Gutiérrez Soto’s work or his reason to fear persecution if deported. Judge Robert Hough, disregarding investigations into the Mexican army’s role in threatening Gutiérrez Soto’s life after his reporting of soldiers’ theft from migrants, asked for proof — clips — that he had actually been a journalist.

“To that end, librarians and translators have worked to unearth three decades of his journalism from local outlets in Mexico’s northern Chihuahua state.

“Molly Molloy, a research librarian at New Mexico State, searched through an online database to recover 144 of his bylined stories. And this weekend, more than 60 Spanish-language translators have signed up for a ‘translate-a-thon’ that seeks to compile an English-language portfolio of Gutiérrez Soto’s work for the court.

“Is there a sense of urgency? ‘Absolutely,’ said Julie Evershed, director of the University of Michigan’s Language Resource Center and organizer of the weekend effort in Ann Arbor. She has had 150 translators of all languages volunteer. . . .”

CNN Having Hard Time Keeping Trump Defenders

“CNN’s shows regularly feature people who like to defend the administration of President Donald Trump. Keeping their seats filled is becoming a tougher task,” Brian Steinberg reported Monday for Variety.

“Jason Miller had become a steady presence on CNN, appearing on programs like ‘Erin Burnett OutFront’ to defend White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, among other Trump officials. But Miller, a former Trump campaign aide, left his role as a CNN political analyst this weekend after allegations about his off-camera behavior surfaced, in the process becoming the latest pro-Trumper to exit the network after gaining national recognition for his appearances.

“He joins a growing parade of Trump defenders who have found it difficult to stay on CNN. The AT&T-owned cable-news network in August suspended Paris Dennard, a strong defender of Trump decisions, after The Washington Post reported Dennard had been fired from a job at Arizona State University for what the paper called ‘inappropriate incidents’ involving two women there.

“Ed Martin, a former Missouri Republican Party chairman who also hosts a radio show, offered outspoken pro-Trump commentary on CNN for several months before parting ways after describing some African-American members of a CNN panel in which he was included as ‘black racists.’ And of course, CNN cut ties with one of its most polarizing and well-known Trump backers, Jeffrey Lord, after he used the phrase ‘Sieg heil!’ on Twitter. . . .”

Short Takes

• “Hurricane Maria and its aftermath were generally under covered by the US press — numerous reports and analyses have shown that hurricanes affecting the mainland received far more attention and that stories from Puerto Rico often failed to break into the national conversation unless they included a Trump angle,” Pete Vernon wrote Tuesday for Columbia Journalism Review. “But for a number of journalists from mainland outlets, who are either based in Puerto Rico or have made repeated trips over the past year, the story has become a mission. . . .” Vernon spoke with David Begnaud of CBS News, CNN’s Leyla Santiago and Frances Robles, a national and foreign correspondent at the New York Times.
• “Noticias Telemundo Investiga,” the NBC-owned Spanish-language network’s investigative unit, presented two reports denouncing cases of sexual abuse by Catholic priests to Latino survivors during the “Noticias Telemundo” nightly news on Wednesday and Thursday. (Video) (Second video)
• USA Today reporter Fredreka Schouten is joining the CNN Politics team as a national political reporter with a focus on money and politics, Rachel Smolkin, vice president and executive editor, CNN Politics, announced on Twitter Monday.
• Publishers “including Washington Post, NowThis, Mic, Vice, Refinery29, Mitu, Cheddar, and Good Luck America will put swipe-up-to-register options in their relevant election coverage,” John Constine wrote Tuesday for TeleCrunch. “Snapchat’s own news team of curators will be compiling Our Stories about election issues and voting, and like last year, Snapchat will offer themed creative tools including an ‘I’m Registered To Vote’ filter. They all offer the swipe-up registration option that can be completed inside Snapchat’s app. . . .”

• 

  “Mel Elfin, a journalist who led Newsweek’s Washington bureau for 20 years,. . . died Sept. 22 at a hospice center in Washington. He was 89,” Matt Schudel reported for the Washington Post. Elfin found himself going head to head with Clifford Alexander, equal employment opportunity lawyer, in 1972, after Elfin fired the late Sam Yette, the first African American correspondent in the Washington bureau. Yette sued before the D.C. Commission on Human Rights, former Newsweek counsel Ed Smith wrote in 2014. Newsweek lawyer Edward Bennett Williams “predicted that we would lose before the Commission (we did) but get a reversal on appeal (we did). Sam Yette, undeterred, promptly landed a position as a journalism professor at Howard University,” Smith wrote.

• “Charo Henríquez has been promoted to Senior Editor of Digital Strategy at the New York Times,”  Veronica Villafañe reported Wednesday for her Media Moves column. “In her new role, she’ll be working with other senior editors on the Digital Transition team to provide strategic support to desk heads, as well as newsroom leadership to build and strengthen the paper’s digital audience. A former editor of People en Español, Henriquez joined the Times in September 2017 as senior editor of digital storytelling and training.
• Janice Min, the former co-president of The Hollywood Reporter, is joining Jeffrey Katzenberg’s mobile video startup NewTV,“ Dawn C. Chmielewski and Dade Hayes reported Tuesday for Deadline: Hollywood. “Min, the former US Weekly editor who left the top editorial perch at The Hollywood Reporter in 2017, shared the news on Twitter. “So YES, you can assume there will be news programming (Hollywood, political and more),” Min tweeted, without getting any more specific. . . .”
• “CBS Corp. has named Richard Parsons interim chairman of the Board of Directors,” Tim Baysinger reported Tuesday for the Wrap. Baysinger also wrote, “The move comes a few weeks after a shakeup on the CBS board of directors that saw five independent directors and one National Amusements Inc.-affiliated director exit. That move was a part of the settlement between CBS and National Amusements, the company’s majority shareholder. This settlement included the departure of former CEO Les Moonves, who resigned in the wake of multiple sexual misconduct accusations. . . .” Parsons has been one of the highest-ranking African Americans in corporate America.
• “Nikole Hannah-Jones, an American investigative reporter, is the recipient of the 2018 John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism,” Columbia University announced Tuesday. “Hannah-Jones covers civil rights and racial injustice for The New York Times Magazine. . . . ‘Nikole Hannah-Jones is one of the country’s most distinctive and respected voices on the subject of race in America,’ said Dean Steve Coll, a member of the Chancellor jury. “Her reporting on segregation in housing and education has performed a critical public service. She embodies the best of our profession and the spirit of the John Chancellor Award.’ . . . ”
• “The Star Tribune has joined a legal effort to unseal the divorce records of U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, the Democratic candidate for attorney general,” Jessie Van Berkel reported Tuesday for the Star Tribune. “Ellison and his ex-wife, Kim Ellison, divorced in 2012. The related records have been sealed, so the public cannot access the information. . . . The efforts follow allegations by Ellison’s ex-girlfriend, Karen Monahan, that Ellison domestically abused her in 2016. He has denied the allegation repeatedly, and Monahan has continued to press her case in frequent tweets. . . .”
• “In this OZY original series, we spotlight a new coterie of women who have picked up the baton to continue the strides made by women like Barbara Jordan and Donna Brazile in politics, Shonda Rhimes and Issa Rae in entertainment, Naomi Campbell and Robin Givhan in fashion and Serena and Venus Williams in sports,” Constance C.R. White wrote for ozy.com. “The NFL’s Jennifer King, media’s Liv Little, entertainment’s Christine Sanders, Silicon Valley’s Alana Hewitt and fashion’s Leomie Anderson are just some of the women who have our attention. The prominence of glamorously married Meghan Markle and Serena Williams led one wag to quip, ‘Black women are the new trophy wives.’ . . .”
• “The Onalaska ISD superintendent who said ‘you can’t count on a black quarterback’ has resigned, calling his comments ‘wrong and inappropriate’ in a letter addressed to the school board president,” Jasper Scherer wrote Sept. 22 for the Houston Chronicle. “Lynn Redden, who made the comment Monday morning on the Chron.com Facebook page in reference to Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson, submitted his resignation letter to the school board Saturday. . . .”
• “A Pakistani court ordered the arrest of prominent journalist Cyril Almeida on charges of leaking sensitive material after he wrote news reports that angered the nation’s powerful military,” Kamran Haider reported Monday for Bloomberg. “The Lahore High Court on Monday issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against Almeida, a reporter for English-language daily Dawn, and requested he be placed on a no-fly list after he failed to show up for hearings in an ongoing treason case, Azhar Siddiqui, the lawyer who petitioned the court, told Bloomberg by text message. . . .”

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