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J-Groups, Under Attack, Ask Voters for Help

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Where Do Candidates Stand on Press Freedom?

3 Radio Groups Providing Storm Info in Spanish

Few Black and Brown Winners at ONA Awards

. . . Cost, Internal Politics Stifling Diversity

Ruby Washington, Pioneer Photographer, Dies

Henderson, Detroit Free Press Reach Settlement

‘The Victims Who Don’t Count’ Are Too Often Black

Authors Call Identity, Not Economics, Key in ’16

Black Women Not as Angry as Mythmakers Have It

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In May, Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs was body-slammed by Greg Gianforte, a Republican candidate for Montana’s congressional seat. Gianforte is now a member of Congress, whom President Trump praised at a Sept. 6 rally. “This man has fought,” said Trump, pausing for effect, “in more ways than one, for your state. He has fought for your state. Greg Gianforte. He is a fighter and a winner.” (video) (YouTube)

Where Do Candidates Stand on Press Freedom?

As midterm elections approach and President Trump continues his verbal attacks on the news media, two dozen media organizations, led by the international press freedom group Reporters Without Borders, are launching a counteroffensive in which they encourage voters to ask their congressional candidates where they stand on press freedom.

The campaign, called #DefendPressFreedom, “seeks to galvanize the American public in protecting and defending the First Amendment,” the Radio Television Digital News Association said in a news release on Thursday. Voters are to be urged to contact their candidates through phone calls, letters, at town hall meetings or on social media.

Participating are the American Society of News Editors, Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association, Asian American Journalists Association, Association of Alternative Newsmedia, Free Press Action, Freedom Forum Institute, Freedom of the Press Foundation, International Center for Journalists, International Press Institute, International Women’s Media Foundation, Investigative Reporters & Editors, Media Law Research Center, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, National Press Club, National Press Photographers Association, Native American Journalists Association, News Media Alliance, Newseum, Online News Association, PEN America, Radio Television Digital News Association, Society of Environmental Journalists and Society of Professional Journalists.

“By doing this, we hope to bring to light the critically important role that journalists play in the US, as well as the dire need to preserve press freedom in the midst of its concerningly steady decline,” the announcement said. “It is vital to remember the crucial role journalists play in empowering the community to make more informed decisions and to hold those in power accountable. This is why it’s time to remind those running for office of the The importance of an independent and free media. It’s time to #DefendPressFreedom.”

The initiative follows one last month led by the Boston Globe, in which more than 400 news outlets joined together, each in their own words to reject the president’s oft-repeated scapegoating of the media as “the “enemy of the people.”

RTDNA Executive Director Dan Shelley said, “Too often, today’s candidates and elected officials disparage, lash out at, obstruct and even attack journalists working to keep the public informed about how those officials are conducting the public’s business. RTDNA and our partners are encouraging voters to remind their congressional candidates that they are responsible to the people and that upholding press freedom is a crucial mechanism for accountability.”

The announcement continued, “In the US, assaults against reporters, photojournalists, and media workers are becoming more and more commonplace. Physical, verbal, and online attacks against reporters undermine the media’s role as a critical pillar of democracy, consequently creating opportunities for government overreach, the erosion of the First Amendment, and infringing on the public’s right to be informed.”

The issue of attacks on the press surfaced Friday at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Legislative Conference. “One of the things that has just been boiling my blood is the lack of respect for the press coming from the orange man,” Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., said, opening a panel discussion called “Black Journalists: Reporting Our Experiences in the Era of Trump,” Rachel del Guidice reported Friday for the Daily Signal, a publication of the conservative Heritage Foundation.

At Trump’s Sept. 6 mass rally, in Billings, Mont., the president stoked loud jeers from the crowd by criticizing the reporters in attendance. “Look at all the fake news back there,” Trump said.

The attacks on the press are the basis for a new course offered this fall by Stanford Continuing Studies and the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford University, the school announced on Wednesday.

The course, “Journalism Under Siege? Truth and Trust in a Time of Turmoil,” is to be offered on Tuesday evenings beginning Oct. 2.

Dawn Garcia, director of the fellowship program, and Michael Bolden, its managing director of communications, are to host a diverse group of nearly 30 guest speakers throughout the five-week course.

3 Radio Groups Providing Storm Info in Spanish

“In the best public service tradition of broadcasting, three radio station groups have voluntarily banded together to provide life-saving information to Spanish-speaking residents of two coastal South Carolina communities threatened by Hurricane Florence, [PDF] the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC) and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), announced on Monday.

“The companies are:

“Cumulus Media, which serves Myrtle Beach

“Dick Broadcasting, which serves Hilton Head

“Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS), which is voicing and transmitting Spanish-language alerts and information for Cumulus Media’s and Dick Broadcasting’s South Carolina stations.

“The three broadcast companies came together at the request of the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC) and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). The South Carolina Broadcasters Association and the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau each assisted in identifying the participating broadcasters.

“Through this initiative, the 22,000 Hispanic residents of the Myrtle Beach radio market and 21,000 Hispanic residents of the Hilton Head radio market are receiving life-saving information about health care issues, shelters, how to find missing persons, health care issues, and avoiding injury. . . .”

Few Black and Brown Winners at ONA Awards

When just two black women and one Latina — but no black or Latino men — stepped up to receive one of the 37 awards presented Saturday night at the Online News Association conference in Austin, Texas, it was reflective of ONA’s continuing challenge to become more inclusive of African Americans and Hispanics.

An ONA survey of its 2,600 attendees showed 26 percent of those responding to be nonwhite and 74 percent white, although 22 percent preferred not to answer. Eight percent said they were Hispanic, Latino or of Spanish origin. Of the 26 percent nonwhite, Asians were 11 percent, blacks 7 percent, American Indian or Alaskan Native, 1 percent. Those who identified as more than one category were 2 percent, and those who checked Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander were less than 1 percent.

Marissa Evans, a Student Journalist of the Year for the National Association of Black Journalists in 2013, accepted an award for the Texas Tribune for “Dangerous Deliveries.” The entry was the result of Evans’ “tireless reporting from South Texas all the way to Poland” on “why Texas women were dying at unusually high rates after childbirth,” in the words of the Tribune. It won in the “Explanatory Reporting — Small Newsroom” category.

Akoto Ofori-Atta, senior editor of the Trace, “an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit newsroom dedicated to shining a light on America’s gun violence crisis,” accepted for her outlet, which tied in the “General Excellence in Online Journalism, Micro Newsroom” category. She is also a black journalist.

“In the year under consideration for this award, The Trace used its investigative chops to produce document- and data-driven deep dives into stolen guns and NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer,” the Trace reported on Monday. “We published an audio report about the hurdles faced by gunshot survivors, highlighting The Trace’s use of digital storytelling techniques to cover deeply affected communities. An animated guide to bump stocks, produced in collaboration with The New Yorker days after the Las Vegas shooting, underscored the newsroom’s issue expertise at a time when public interest in gun violence was high. And we tested readers’ gun violence knowledge with a quiz, as part of its commitment to increase understanding of this issue among the public. . . .”

Alba Mora Roca, executive producer at AJ+ Español, accepted the award for “Excellence in Collaboration and Partnerships” for Verificado 2018, AJ+ Español, Animal Político and Pop-Up Newsroom. Verificado 2018 is an elections fact-checking project in Mexico. “This was a big collaboration to fight fake news in Mexico during the presidential campaign,” Mora said, according to Teresa Mioli, writing for the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.

Yemeni journalists Zahra Rasool, Manal Qaed Alwesabi and Ahmad Algohbari won in the “Excellence in Immersive Storytelling” category for “Yemen’s Skies of Terror,” airing on Al Jazeera Contrast.

That so few black and brown journalists were on stage did not mean that issues of concern to them were not recognized.

The Florida Times-Union and ProPublica, for example, won the University of Florida Award for “Investigative Data Journalism, Small/Medium Newsroom,” for “Walking While Black.” Topher Sanders of ProPublica, a black journalist, and Benjamin Conarck of the Florida Times-Union wrote that their organizations had examined “more than 2,200 pedestrian tickets issued to people in Jacksonville from 2012 to 2017, and found that 55 percent of them were issued to blacks despite the fact that the city’s population is just 29 percent African American. . . .”

Some of the members of the National Association of Black Journalists at the Online News Association conference. Blacks were 7 percent of the attendees.

. . . Cost, Internal Politics Stifling Diversity

Irving Washington, executive director of the Online News Association, says the perception of the number of black and brown people at last week’s conference is largely a function of whether the observer is a first-time visitor.

“It’s like night and day,” he told Journal-isms at the conference site, the J.W. Marriott hotel in Austin, Texas. Washington recalled that in earlier years, when African American attendees would gather for a photo, the portrait would include about six, including himself. Today, those six would see a dramatic difference.

First-timers don’t have that frame of reference, however, and wonder why there are so few black and brown attendees.

As noted in this column after an ONA conference four years ago, the position of ONA leaders has likewise changed. At a 2008 gathering in Washington, then-leaders told Journal-isms that nothing about racial diversity was on the agenda because the organization dealt with technology, which is colorblind.

Those days are gone. The association is aware enough to survey attendees’ racial backgrounds and, Washington said, it puts a diversity focus on the speakers. “Getting people to see people who look like them,” by gender and race, encourages more diversity, Washington said.

Some members of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists posted “our official @NAHJ at #ONA18 selfie” on Twitter. Hispanics were 8 percent of attendees.

Journal-isms asked about 10 black and brown attendees why there weren’t more people of their ethnic groups.

The answers:

Washington said the cost of attending reflects the cost to produce an event for that number of attendees, but that there are ways to cut costs and that the rate has been flat for six or seven years. People can save money by serving as a volunteer, distributing convention material and helping at registration.

He said he was open to discussing an idea from Peterson that the association adopt a tiered pricing structure, with accessibility tied to the amount paid. The organization also has fellowships for students at historically black colleges and universities, for women and for those under 30.

But overall, Washington said, the goal is to “get more black and brown people to see themselves in the digital process — getting us to see that we belong here,” that knowing more about artificial intelligence, Blockchain, how new technologies can lead to better storytelling — “this can lead to stuff.”

The New York Times picture desk hosted a farewell toast and party in 2014 for five staff photographers, including Ruby Washington, who collectively gave 189 years of service. (Credit: Chang W. Lee/New York Times)

Ruby Washington, Pioneer Photographer, Dies

“Ruby Washington was an intensely private person,” David Gonzalez reported Saturday for the New York Times. “Her daughter, Courtney, said she had no idea her mother was the first African-American woman to become a staff photographer at The New York Times. Her editors said that while she won awards, she didn’t go to galas to accept them. And when she fell ill with breast cancer in 2010, many of her colleagues had no clue, since she kept on working.

“This week, many of them were stunned when they learned that Ms. Washington, 66, died after her cancer returned earlier this year. Her reticence may have been more than just a quirk, but a survival strategy for someone who was promoted from lab technician to staff photographer, much to the intense resentment of some of the men who felt they had been passed over.

“Her response? Silence. . . .”

Gonzalez also wrote, “Marilynn K. Yee, a retired staff photographer, was perhaps her closest friend at the paper. ‘Being women of color at the paper we bonded more so than the others,’ Ms. Yee said. ‘I think we had a special affinity together, and we were both mothers who worked during our pregnancies. I think we were both driven. Being female, I think we had a greater understanding of how to work with people. It showed in her work, where she could get the most flattering photos of people who didn’t feel comfortable with the camera.’ . . .”

Henderson, Detroit Free Press Reach Settlement

“A settlement has been reached, but no terms disclosed, between the Detroit Free Press and newspaper owner Gannett Co. Inc. and fired editorial page editor and Pulitzer Prize winner

Stephen Henderson

Stephen Henderson, according to those involved,” Bill Shea reported Sept. 7 for Crain’s Detroit Business.

“Henderson, 47, was fired by Gannett on Dec. 15, 2017, after the newspaper said he had engaged in ‘inappropriate behavior’ with female colleagues years before. There were no accusations or evidence of sexual assault, the Free Press reported at the time.

“Henderson’s attorney, Bloomfield Hills-based employment and civil rights lawyer Deborah Gordon, confirmed to Crain’s on Friday afternoon that the settlement had been reached in late July after several months of negotiations. There was no lawsuit, she said.

” ‘He’s moved on and wanted a clean slate and is pleased there is resolution,’ she said Friday afternoon. ‘There were never any complaints filed against him.’

“She termed the settlement talks as routine and said there was ‘obvious respect’ on both sides. . . .”

‘The Victims Who Don’t Count’ Are Too Often Black

“After his father was murdered in Sarasota, Florida, in 2015, Anthony ‘Amp’ Campbell was in shock,” Alysia Santo reported Thursday for Reveal, of the Center for Investigative Reporting, in conjunction with the Marshall Project and the USA Today Network. “Not only had he lost his role model and supporter, he also worried about coming up with $10,000 to pay for the funeral and burial.

“Campbell, an Alabama State University football coach, emptied most of his savings but still could not cover the whole cost. Sarasota police urged him to apply to Florida’s crime victim compensation fund for help. Every state has such a fund to reimburse people for the financial wallop that can come with being a victim.

“The answer was no. His father, Johnnie Campbell, had been convicted of burglary in 1983 after a late-night break-in attempt at a local business, and Florida law is clear: People with certain types of felonies in their past cannot receive victim’s aid. It did not matter that the elder Campbell had changed in 30 years — the Sarasota City Commission called him a ‘prominent citizen’ a month after his death — or that his son had never committed a crime.

“Florida is one of seven states that bar people with a criminal record from receiving victim compensation. The laws are meant to keep limited funds from going to people who are deemed undeserving. But the rules have had a broader effect: An analysis of records in two of those states — Florida and Ohio — shows that the bans fall hardest on black victims and their families, like the Campbells.

“ ‘Nobody came and questioned or asked. It was just, “no,” ‘ said Campbell, 43, who lives in Montgomery, Alabama. ‘I just felt like they turned their backs on us.’ . . . ”

Authors Call Identity, Not Economics, Key in ’16

“Two years after the 2016 election, there has been no single answer to the question: What happened?” Dan Balz wrote Saturday for the Washington Post. “In an outcome that saw the popular vote and the electoral college diverge, theories abound, opinions are many and consensus fleeting. Now, a trio of political scientists have come forth with their answer as to why Donald Trump prevailed over Hillary Clinton, summed up in the title of their forthcoming book: ‘Identity Crisis.’

“The co-authors are 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.

“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. 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. . . .”

Balz also wrote, “Their conclusion agrees with that of Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University, who has long studied the rise of polarization in American politics and who focuses on racial resentment in his recent book, ‘The Great Alignment: Race, Party Transformation and the Rise of Donald Trump.’ . . . ”

Black Women Not as Angry as Mythmakers Have It

The idea that “black women are especially angry” was called one of “five of the most intransigent myths” about anger Friday in a Washington Post Outlook section piece by Soraya Chemaly, director of the Women’s Media Center Speech Project and author of “Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger.”

“This is a trope,” Chemaly wrote.

“ ‘Congratulations to Maxine Waters, whose crazy rants have made her, together with Nancy Pelosi, the unhinged FACE of the Democrat Party,’  President Trump tweeted in July. In schools, a 2017 report by the National Women’s Law Center found, black girls are 5.5 times more likely to be suspended than their white female peers. A racist Australian newspaper cartoon depicted Serena Williams’s quarrel with a U.S. Open umpire, which helped cause her defeat in the final last weekend, as a tantrum.

“But a 2009 study found that black women exhibited no more or less anger than a control group. And in that Esquire/NBC survey, 56 percent of blacks and 66 percent of Hispanics reported getting angry at least once a day, compared with 73 percent of whites. Fifty-eight percent of white women said they’d experienced increasing anger over the course of the previous year; only 44 percent of nonwhite women said the same. ‘There is no meaningful difference between black and white women in reports of elevated anger,’ concluded the most recent study, conducted by Elle magazine this year.

“Microaggressions against black women do appear to raise stress and anger, but, largely because of experience in navigating that form of discrimination, black women are more likely to suppress displays of anger to avoid being penalized for seeming emotional and irrational. . . .”

Short Takes

Ron Claiborne
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