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Joy Reid to Fill Harris-Perry Slot

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‘We Will Fill the Space With Something New’

Prof’s Op-Ed Is Final Blow for Confederate Statue

Suit Alleges N.Y. Times Favors Young, White Staffers

Survey: Latinos Eager to Vote Against Trump

Researcher Finds New Level of Anti-Muslim Bias

Obama Surprises College Reporters, Takes Questions

Ferrier, Gonzalez Win Reynolds Fellowships

White Publisher Uses Name of Historic Black Paper

Teen Vogue Examines Cultural Appropriation

Short Takes

Joy Reid, in blue dress, with her “Reid Report” team at MSNBC when the show signed off on Feb. 27, 2015.

‘We Will Fill the Space With Something New’

Joy Reid will host a new weekend program airing Saturdays and Sundays 10 a.m.-noon ET on MSNBC, filling the slot vacated by Melissa Harris-Perry, the network announced on Friday.

“Melissa did a show that was incredibly valuable,” Reid said in a news release. “Instead of trying to replace it, we will fill the space with something new; something compelling, and something that adds to the conversation.”

The announcement said, “Reid will tackle the most important news and political topics of the week and, along with a rotating panel of journalists, will explore how these issues shape the country. The program will premiere next Saturday, May 7 at 10 a.m. ET.” The show has not yet been named, MSNBC spokesman Mark Kornblau told Journal-isms.

“MSNBC viewers crave not only the facts, but also in-depth discussion and analysis from a range of perspectives,” MSNBC President Phil Griffin said in the release. “There is no one better equipped than Joy to lead this new project, and create a place for the kind of unique discussion our audience has come to expect.”

Reid also said, “We are a country of too much talk and too little conversation. We talk past our invisible divides of race and class, ideology and region rather than taking them on. Saturday and Sunday mornings will be a place to talk politics and do good journalism while bringing diverse, smart, and accomplished voices to the table.”

Lisa de Moraes added for Deadline Hollywood, “It’s been a little more than a year since MSNBC took The Reid Report off its weekday daytime lineup, same time it yanked Ronan Farrow Daily — both of which were ratings challenged, replacing them with MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts in the 1-3 PM ET block as part of a shift toward breaking news and away from issue-talk. Since then, Reid has been serving as a correspondent at the network.

“More recently, two months ago Harris-Perry and MSNBC confirmed she would not return to the cable network, after an email in which she denounced MSNBC’s decision to pre-empt her show for election-cycle coverage was leaked to the New York Times.

“In a tweet, Harris-Perry wrote: ‘Farewell #Nerdland. Inviting diverse new voices to table was a privilege. Grateful for years of support & criticism.’ Nerdland was her nickname for fans of her wonkish weekend political program. . . .”

Harris-Perry, author, professor and founding director of the Anna Julia Cooper Center at Wake Forest University, now writes for elle.com. The center is “an interdisciplinary center that supports and generates innovative research around gender and race in pursuit of a national dialogue and positive outcomes.”

The Confederate monument on S. Third Street at the University of Louisville (Credit: Michael Clevenger/Courier-Journal)

Prof’s Op-Ed Is Final Blow for Confederate Statue

A 121-year-old Confederate monument at the University of Louisville is coming down, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer and university President James Ramsey announced Friday. The editor of the Courier-Journal, the city’s daily newspaper, credits an op-ed piece in his paper.

On Twitter, Ricky L. Jones, chair of Pan-African Studies at the school who wrote the op-ed, couldn’t have been happier. A tweeter wrote, “Ppl need to remember the Confederacy LOST!!” and Jones replied, “It lost AGAIN today!!!!”

Another wrote, “Not only that they lost. But they committed absolute treason in defense of an abominable practice.”

“Yes! YES!!!!” responded Jones. “I’M SO F—-‘ HAPPY RIGHT NOW!!!! #TearDownThisStatue “The South falls AGAIN! It’s a celebration (in Rick James’ voice)!”

Jones had written April 21, “For 20 years, I have walked by that towering granite and bronze eyesore glorifying the nadir of America’s past. For 20 years, I have listened to cries for its removal. For 20 years, we have been plagued by confusion, compromises, excuses and half measures. One hundred twenty-one years is too long. Twenty years is too long. Twenty more weeks is too long. We’ve waited long enough. It’s time for the statue to go. . . .”

The Courier-Journal’s Phillip M. Bailey reported Friday that Fischer and Ramsey “gathered at the monument across from the Speed Art Museum on Third Street, joined by several city and university officials and U of L students.

Ricky L. Jones

” ‘I recognize that some people say this monument should stay here because it is part of history, but I also appreciate that we can make our own history,’ Fischer said.

“The decision came less than two weeks after Ricky L. Jones, professor and chair of Pan-African Studies at U of L, wrote a column in the Courier-Journal calling for the mayor and university to take the monument down.

” ‘We don’t consider ourselves in Louisville to be part of the South,’ Fischer said in an interview after the announcement.

“Both Fischer and Ramsey’s offices said they had been working on moving it for several weeks.

“Jones said that whatever motivated the decision, he is elated the monument will no longer be on campus. He said generations of U of L students, faculty and staff have opposed the statue’s existence. . . .”

Neil Budde, executive editor of the Courier-Journal, told Journal-isms by telephone that the newspaper had not editorialized on the issue, having cut back on editorials and relying more on op-ed pieces such as that by Jones.

Bailey also wrote, “Kentucky was a slave state but never joined the Confederacy. But many Kentuckians fought for the South. . . .”

Suit Alleges N.Y. Times Favors Young, White Staffers

“Mark Thompson, the chief executive of the New York Times and former director-general of the BBC, is facing a multimillion-dollar class action lawsuit alleging that he introduced a culture of ‘deplorable discrimination’ based on age, race and gender at the newspaper,” Rupert Neate reported Thursday for the Guardian.

“The lawsuit, filed on behalf of two black female employees in their sixties in New York on Thursday, claims that under Thompson’s leadership the US paper of record has ‘become an environment rife with discrimination.’

“The class action lawsuit, seen by the Guardian, alleges that the Times, which promotes its liberal and inclusive social values, preferentially favours its ‘ideal staffer (young, white, unencumbered with a family)’ at the expense of older female and black employees.

“ ‘Unbeknownst to the world at large, not only does the Times have an ideal customer (young, white, wealthy), but also an ideal staffer (young, white, unencumbered with a family) to draw that purported ideal customer,’ the lawsuit, which the women’s lawyer said could be extended to up to 50 similar alleged victims, states. ‘In furtherance of these discriminatory goals, the Times has created a workplace rife with disparities.’

“Eileen Murphy, the Times’ head of communications, said: ‘This lawsuit contains a series of recycled, scurrilous and unjustified attacks on both Mark Thompson and Meredith Levien. It also completely distorts the realities of the work environment at the New York Times. We strongly disagree with any claim that The Times, Mr. Thompson or Ms. Levien have discriminated against any individual or group of employees. The suit is entirely without merit and we intend to fight it vigorously in court.’

“The lawsuit, filed at the US district court of southern New York, claims that since Thompson became CEO of the Times in 2012, after eight years as director-general of the BBC, the paper’s advertising staff has been ‘systematically becoming increasingly younger and whiter.’ . . . ”

Levien has been the Times’ executive vice president and chief revenue officer since April 2015.

Survey: Latinos Eager to Vote Against Trump

“The Republican Party’s image, already quite negative, has slipped since last fall,” the Pew Research Center reported on Thursday. “Currently 33% of the public has a favorable impression of the Republican Party, while 62% have an unfavorable view. Unfavorable opinions of the GOP are now as high as at any point since 1992. . . .”

The slippage is especially pronounced among Latinos, who, according to the Latino Decisions research firm, are prepared to turn out in record numbers against front-runner Donald Trump.

“Over the course of his campaign, Trump’s rhetoric against ‘illegal immigration’ has helped to boost him to the front-runner position among the Republican candidates,” Adrian Pantoja reported Wednesday for  Latino Decisions.

“Political pundits and party elites have offered speculations on the effects of his campaign on Latino voters and the prospects for a Republican victory this November. The speculation can now be cast aside as the reality of Trump’s effect is now documented by the results of our first national tracking poll on the
Latino electorate. Latino Decisions in partnership with America’s Voice recently released the results of a nation-wide survey of 2,200 registered Latino voters.

“Respondents were asked to rate [Hillary] Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich on a four point favorability scale ranging from very favorable to very unfavorable. Among the five candidates, Donald Trump had the worst favorability rating, with a 79% ‘very unfavorable’ rating. In contrast Cruz and Kasich had ‘very unfavorable’ ratings of 34% and 18% respectively. That is a dramatic 45-point gap between Trump and Cruz, and 61 points between Trump and Kasich.

“The animus Latinos feel toward Donald Trump is evident in our poll, despite his claim that ‘The Latinos love Trump, and I love them.’ Clearly majorities of Latinos oppose Donald Trump. The question is, will Latinos turnout in record numbers against Trump? Has Trump’s campaign damaged the Republican Party name among Latino voters?

“The results of the survey unequivocally answer yes to both of these questions. . . .

“Nearly three out of four Latino voters believe the GOP has shunned Latino voters, with 42 percent agreeing that the party ‘doesn’t care too much about Latinos’ and 31 percent agreeing the party is ‘sometimes hostile toward Latinos.’ While Trump may fall short of securing the nomination, the damaging effect of his campaign on Latino voters is unlikely to be repaired before November. . . .”

Researcher Finds New Level of Anti-Muslim Bias

“In the 1970s, Jack Shaheen, the son of Lebanese Christian immigrants, began his groundbreaking research into how Arabs and Muslims are demonized in American pop culture and, from the start, it was an unwelcome pursuit,” Hannah Allam reported Tuesday from the McClatchy Washington bureau.

“The first academic paper Shaheen wrote on the subject languished, unpublished, for three years. His first book manuscript racked up dozens of rejection letters. Smear campaigns in academic circles painted him as a propagandist. And the work was lonely — nobody else cared about how Rudolf Valentino launched the stereotype of the swarthy, desert-dwelling predator with his 1921 film ‘The Sheik.’

“Still, Shaheen pressed on in what became a lifelong mission to expose what he considers racist and dangerous distortions of Arabs and Muslims. Over the past 40 years, he’s addressed the topic in three books, in a documentary, on two Hollywood film sets and in countless news interviews.

“And yet Shaheen paused when he received an invitation to speak last month about media depictions of Muslims before a small gathering on Hilton Head Island, the picturesque beachfront community in South Carolina where he lives with his wife, Bernice. He eventually accepted, but for the first time in his four-decade campaign, he considered saying no.

“ ‘I just turned 80 and I didn’t want to have to confront all this bigotry,’ Shaheen said by telephone from the island. ‘I’ve never had anxiety speaking about this issue. I’ve never felt this way before. That’s how strong this bigotry is. There was prejudice before, yeah, but this is bigotry.’

“In all his years of research, Shaheen said, he’s never seen anti-Muslim prejudices this intense, including in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The current hostility toward Arabs and Muslims, he said, is reflected in and reinforced by on-screen portrayals that haven’t evolved much over the years. . . .”

President Obama interrupted Press Secretary Josh Earnest’s briefing for college reporters Thursday, saying, “I hear there’s some hotshot journalists here. Josh was speaking for me, and I wanted to make sure he was getting it right.”

Obama Surprises College Reporters, Takes Questions

“For most journalists who cover the White House regularly, the chance to question President Obama comes rarely, and the opportunity for a one-on-one interview with him almost never,” Julie Hirschfeld Davis reported Thursday for the New York Times.

“Not so for a group of college journalists visiting the White House on Thursday, who were treated to a surprise presidential news conference in the White House briefing room. One of them even scored a tentative date to interview Mr. Obama on his campus next month. . . .”

Among those sharing the news on social media were Phillip Jackson of Hampton University, web editor of the Hampton Script, and Daniella Oropeza, correspondent for Newswatch Ole Miss. “Pending the Supreme Court’s decision, will this administration take further action on immigration?” Oropeza asked.

Obama replied, in part, “the only way to have a permanent solution to this problem is for the kind of legislation to pass that we saw the Senate actually pass on a bipartisan basis that would continue to strengthen border security, but also give a pathway to citizenship for those who had been here for quite some time.”

Ferrier, Gonzalez Win Reynolds Fellowships

Michelle Ferrier, associate dean for innovation at the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University, and Alejandro Gonzalez, development and innovation director for 14ymedio, are among eight winners of fellowships awarded for the 2016-2017 academic year by the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, the institute announced Thursday.

Gonzalez, who will be a residential fellow, plans to work on low-bandwidth technology to amplify the distribution of the news organization’s content in Cuba.

The project will also develop revenue streams that directly leverage users instead of third-party advertisers, the announcement said.

Ferrier, a nonresidential fellow “will create and test a hybrid accelerator model to support student-professional media startups for underserved and underrepresented communities. She will also build a platform for collaboration among historically black higher education institutions with graduate programs in media and journalism entrepreneurship. Ferrier will build on her work through the Media Deserts Project.”

Residential fellows spend eight months on the University of Missouri campus.

Nonresidential fellows explore their ideas from their home or office, with an occasional visit to campus.

White Publisher Uses Name of Historic Black Paper

“Newspapers still matter,” Melvin B. Miller, editor and publisher of the Bay State Banner, wrote on Monday.

“In fact, the names publishers select for their newspapers are still very important. The publisher of the Boston Courant has brazenly decided to call his weekly ‘The Boston Guardian,’ a name that is sacrosanct in Boston’s African American Community. Yet, there is no journalistic achievement of the Boston Courant to warrant the appropriation of such an historic appellation. The publisher’s decision represents a profound insensitivity both to Boston’s African American community and the history of Boston journalism. . . .”

David Jacobs launched the newspaper in April after recently closing his previous newspaper, the Boston Courant, which covered several downtown neighborhoods, Kathleen Conti added Monday in the Boston Globe.

“Jacobs said he was dumbfounded by Miller’s assertion, and was surprised that Miller did not reach out to him before his online post,” Conti wrote.

“ ‘My mouth dropped open,’ Jacobs said. ‘That I committed some sort of sacrilege, that is not the way I operate and that’s not the sort of person I am.’

“The Guardian newspaper was founded in 1901 by William Monroe Trotter at a time when black-owned Boston newspapers were flourishing, covering African-American issues that were ignored by mainstream newspapers. The Guardian published until the mid 1950s.

“Trotter, who was raised in Hyde Park, was a Harvard graduate and activist for civil rights who admired William Lloyd Garrison, editor of The Liberator, an abolitionist newspaper published in Boston in the 1800s. He used the Guardian to shed light on injustices against African-Americans, including segregation.

“Another African-American Boston newspaper in the late 1800s was The Boston Courant, the name Jacobs used for his previous weekly, founded in 1995. He said he did not hear any objections to his use of the Courant name at the time, and he questions the controversy over the Guardian name.

“Jacobs said he wasn’t concerned about using Boston Guardian because the original hasn’t been published for more than 60 years and because the name is not trademarked. Asked if he would consider changing it, Jacobs replied, ‘Heck no.’ . . . .”

Barbara Lewis, director of the Trotter Institute for Black History and Culture at the University of Massachusetts Boston, commented  under Miller’s Banner article, “I was asked by a Globe columnist to consider what Trotter might say about this newspaper name controversy if he were alive today.

“First, he would say, it’s more than about a name. Legacy and representation are at issue here as well as who gets to silence and replace whom, at what cost for what return. Both names that Jacobs chose for christening his two papers, the Boston Courant and the Boston Guardian, became famous from the 19th into the 20th century, as the political voice of a deliberately disenfranchised community in Boston, a city that likes to present an image of liberality to the world.

“The recently launched, Boston Guardian, which is backed by multiple investors, many from the development world, is targeted to a moneyed clientele in some of the city’s tonier zip codes. So, Trotter, who was known for not biting his tongue, might well ask, is this reworked Boston Guardian a la Jacobs and his development cronies, coming out following a legal loss, a warmed-over gentrification rag?”

(Credit: Teen Vogue)

Teen Vogue Examines Cultural Appropriation

“Borrowing from other cultures has never been trendier — or more taboo,” Elaine Welteroth wrote April 21 for Teen Vogue.

“From afros to cornrows, henna to headdresses, cultural appropriation is a trending topic on the tips of tongues everywhere. (To get caught up on the conversation, look no further than Amandla Stenberg’s brilliant, critically acclaimed video Don’t Cash Crop My Cornrows where she breaks it all down.)

“The countless call-outs, egregious offenses, and heated debates swirling on social media ignited an important dialogue within the Teen Vogue office: Where does cultural appropriation end and cultural appreciation begin?

“We asked seven real girls — with epic hair! — to weigh in. Here, in their own words, inspiring young women reclaim their beauty looks with an ode to the cultures they came from. . . .”

Carl Juste’s award-winning image of a Haitian migrant detained at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base during a mass influx of Haitians and Cubans in 1993. (sixth item below) (Courtesy of Carl Juste)

Short Takes

 

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