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National Geographic Examines Racist Past

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‘Did Little to Push Readers Beyond the Stereotypes’

Mainstream Media Return to Denouncing Farrakhan

‘Fake News’ Smear Takes Hold at State, Local Levels

‘Panther’ Sequel Assured, but Will Africans Like It?

Competing Anchors Talk in Spanish-TV Milestone

Paper Finds Immigrant Leaders Welcome #MeToo

TV Bosses Say Diversity Helps the Bottom Line

NBC Explores How Rights Movement Used Media

Photographer Faces Death Sentence in Egypt

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“Race Issue” kicks off a “Diversity in America” magazine series continuing through 2018.

‘Did Little to Push Readers Beyond the Stereotypes’

“I’m the tenth editor of National Geographic since its founding in 1888,” Susan Goldberg wrote in a “letter from the editor” of the National Geographic in its special “Race Issue,” due out in print March 27 but now available online.

“I’m the first woman and the first Jewish person — a member of two groups that also once faced discrimination here. It hurts to share the appalling stories from the magazine’s past. But when we decided to devote our April magazine to the topic of race, we thought we should examine our own history before turning our reportorial gaze to others. . . .

“We asked John Edwin Mason to help with this examination,” Goldberg continued. “Mason is well positioned for the task: He’s a University of Virginia professor specializing in the history of photography and the history of Africa, a frequent crossroads of our storytelling. He dived into our archives.

“What Mason found in short was that until the 1970s National Geographic all but ignored people of color who lived in the United States, rarely acknowledging them beyond laborers or domestic workers. Meanwhile it pictured ‘natives’ elsewhere as exotics, famously and frequently unclothed, happy hunters, noble savages — every type of cliché.

“Unlike magazines such as Life, Mason said, National Geographic did little to push its readers beyond the stereotypes ingrained in white American culture. . . .”

Goldberg, a former editor of Bloomberg News and of metro newspapers in Cleveland and San Jose, Calif., also wrote, “April 4 marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s a worthy moment to step back, to take stock of where we are on race.

Susan Goldberg (Credit: Jason Miccolo Johnson)

“It’s also a conversation that is changing in real time: In two years, for the first time in U.S. history, less than half the children in the nation will be white. So let’s talk about what’s working when it comes to race, and what isn’t. Let’s examine why we continue to segregate along racial lines and how we can build inclusive communities. Let’s confront today’s shameful use of racism as a political strategy and prove we are better than this.

“For us this issue also provided an important opportunity to look at our own efforts to illuminate the human journey, a core part of our mission for 130 years. I want a future editor of National Geographic to look back at our coverage with pride — not only about the stories we decided to tell and how we told them but about the diverse group of writers, editors, and photographers behind the work. . . .”

According to a news release, “Throughout the rest of 2018, the series looks at racial, ethnic and religious groups in the United States, including Muslims, Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans, and examines their changing roles in 21st-century life.

“In conjunction with the publication of the issue, National Geographic has also launched a social media campaign, #IDefineMe, calling on individuals to share their experience with race and what it means to them. . . .”

Mainstream Media Return to Denouncing Farrakhan

Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam is being denounced in some sectors of the mainstream media in language that has not been seen or heard since the 1980s.

Those who have been seen in proximity to Farrakhan are also being excoriated, including African American members of Congress and Tamika Mallory, national co-chair of the Women’s March, who was present at the Nation of Islam’s annual Saviour’s Day event on Feb. 24.

There, Farrakhan railed against Jews using language bound to offend. According to Askia Muhammad, a member of the Nation who reported on the speech for the NOI newspaper, the Final Call, Farrakhan made a distinction between “wicked” and “righteous” Jews. Muhammad wrote, “Jesus the prophet and the last prophet to the Jews was 2,000 years too soon but I’m on time, said Min. Farrakhan. These are wicked Jews, not righteous Jews that you find in revelations, that’s what the late Rev. Billy Graham said to Richard Nixon, he added. . . .”

However, such distinctions were lost by the time the Nation responded last week.

“Jewish people have control of agencies of government and the enemy is so angry that if you like me and want something in this world, you have to denounce me or keep the relationship secret, said Min. Farrakhan,” Richard B. Muhammad and Charlene Muhammad wrote in the Final Call’s March 6 edition. They reported under the headline, “Farrakhan’s defenders challenge Jewish lies.”

Glenn Kessler, who writes the “Fact Checker” in the Washington Post, devoted his Friday column to statements on Farrakhan by Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., vice chair of the Democratic National Committee and one of two Muslim members of Congress.

“Ellison, in his ‘Morning Joe’ interview, implied he had had no association with Farrakhan since 2006. His spokesman flatly said he had ‘no additional involvement.’ But new evidence suggests these statements are false.”

Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., came in for criticism from the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board on March 7. “Farrakhan is the ill-informed leader of a large organization. It’s important that his comments be condemned by other influential voices in the community, such as a member of Chicago’s congressional delegation. But when The Daily Caller, a conservative publication, asked Rep. Danny Davis, D-Chicago, the congressman laughed off his close relationship with Farrakhan, saying he had no problem with him and wasn’t concerned by Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism,” the Tribune wrote.

“ ‘That’s just one segment of what goes on in our world,’ Davis told The Daily Caller. ‘The world is so much bigger than Farrakhan and the Jewish question and his position on that and so forth. For those heavy into it, that’s their thing, but it ain’t my thing.’

“Davis’ words were thoughtless and irresponsible. He responded later with a strong statement condemning anti-Semitism and all forms of hatred. He also attacked The Daily Caller for trying to impugn his character. But as our colleague John Kass noted in a column, what Davis didn’t do in his three-paragraph March 5 statement is criticize or even mention Farrakhan. Not a word. That leaves Davis open to the charge that he’s complicit in Farrakhan’s bigotry.”

Davis issued a second statement three days after the first. It said in part, “I reject, condemn and oppose Minister Farrakhan’s views and remarks regarding the Jewish people and the Jewish religion.”

The issue came up again Sunday at a campaign event featuring Anthony Clark, Davis’ challenger in the March 20 primary, Anna Bybee-Schier wrote Monday for the Tribune.

” ‘I 100 percent disagree with what Mr. Farrakhan stated,’ Clark said. ‘I support the Jewish community.‘ ”

However, Bybee-Schier also wrote, “Clark responded that he felt people shouldn’t pick and choose what they support in leaders with influence. He compared the position of supporting Farrakhan as a black community leader and ignoring his history of anti-Semitism, homophobia and transphobia as being similar to that of voters who cast a ballot for President Donald Trump based only on his economic platform. . . .”

For Sunshine Week, in which the news industry celebrates the importance of access to public information, the Associated Press prepared this video on “how our journalists go about reporting a complex news story fairly and accurately.”

‘Fake News’ Smear Takes Hold at State, Local Levels

“An Idaho state lawmaker urges her constituents to submit entries for her ‘fake news awards,’ ” Ryan J. Foley reported Sunday for the Associated Press. “The Kentucky governor tweets #FAKENEWS to dismiss questions about his purchase of a home from a supporter. An aide to the Texas land commissioner uses the phrase to downplay the significance of his boss receiving donations from employees of a company that landed a multimillion-dollar contract.

“President Donald Trump’s campaign to discredit the news media has spread to officials at all levels of government, who are echoing his use of the term ‘fake news’ as a weapon against unflattering stories. . . .”

Separately, the news service reported, “The federal government censored, withheld or said it couldn’t find records sought by citizens, journalists and others more often last year than at any point in the past decade, according to an Associated Press analysis of new data.

“The calculations cover eight months under President Donald Trump, the first hints about how his administration complies with the Freedom of Information Act.

“The surge of people who sought records but ended up empty-handed was driven by the government saying more than ever it could not find a single page of requested files and asserting in other cases that it would be illegal under U.S. laws to release the information. . . .”

Foley also reported, “When Trump announced he was going to do his fake news awards, a group of us conservative legislators said, ‘We need to do that, too,’ ” said Idaho state Rep. Priscilla Giddings, who has urged supporters to send examples of ‘biased, misleading and fake news’ and plans to announce her awards March 18. ‘We need people to wake up to the fact that just because it’s on the front page of the Boise newspaper doesn’t mean it’s 100 percent true.’

“The winners of the contest, it turns out, will be announced at the end of Sunshine Week, an annual focus by the nation’s news media on government transparency and the importance of a free press. . . .”

‘Panther’ Sequel Assured, but Will Africans Like It?

The wildly successful “Black Panther” film will spawn a sequel, the head of Marvel Studios confirmed on Friday, but will it be different enough to please the real Africans?

The question arises because African intellectuals who have written about the subject have been less enthralled than their American cousins.

“What can you tell us about plans for a Black Panther sequel?” Anthony Breznican of Entertainment Weekly asked Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige on Friday.

“Nothing specific to reveal,” Feige replied, “other than to say we absolutely will do that. One of the favorite pastimes at Marvel Studios is sitting around on a Part One and talking and dreaming about what we would do in a Part Two. There have been plenty of those conversations as we were putting together the first Black Panther. We have ideas and a pretty solid direction on where we want to head with the second one. . . .”

Elahe Izadi reported Sunday for the Washington Post, “Ryan Coogler’s take on the beloved Marvel character grossed nearly $1.08 billion at the global box office in just four weeks, according to estimates published Sunday by Box Office Mojo. . . . [N]o other Marvel movie has sat atop the box office for four weeks in a row since premiering, according to Box Office Mojo. . . .”

On Feb. 26, the Post published on its Global Opinions web page an essay by Patrick Gathara, a Kenyan political cartoonist, strategic communications consultant and writer. It was headined, ” ‘Black Panther’ offers a regressive, neocolonial vision of Africa.”

It turns out that other African writers shared similar views.

“The truth is that Black Panther, at the end of day, emerges from a very American imagination,” Ainehi Edoro and Bhakti Shringarpure wrote for the website africasacountry.com. Edoro is assistant professor of English at Marquette University and Shringarpure is assistant professor of English at the University of Connecticut.

“To the extent that it aims to express the natal rupture experienced by African-Americans and the perpetual legacy of traumatic uprooting that is brought upon them, Black Panther beautifully evokes it.

“It fills the heart to see the loss that an unmoored and orphaned Eric [Killmonger] feels, and the sense of solidarity he has with his black brothers who continue to suffer worldwide. Coogler and team have been heavily criticized for depicting Eric as an aggressive, toxic, woman-murdering war veteran but the Wakandans have been depicted somewhat unfairly too, even though they stand in for a powerful African utopia that is meant to reshape the global black experience. . . .”

On the same site, Russell Rickford, an associate professor in the History Department at Cornell University, wrote, “Unfortunately, anyone committed to an expansive concept of Pan-African liberation — one designed to free African and African-descended people throughout the world — must regard Black Panther as a counterrevolutionary picture. . . .”

Boima Tucker, managing editor of the site, also weighed in. He wrote that he grew up in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s as the child of an immigrant from Sierra Leone. “At its best, Black Panther fever is inspiring a new generation of Africans from all nations to feel proud of their heritage, and learn more about the place that heritage comes from. In a context where black people’s lives are denigrated, this should be celebrated. At its worst, the Black Panther fever emboldens the divisiveness or isolationism that are at the center of conflict in the film. . . .”

Still, NPR’s Eyder Peralta reported from Nairobi, Kenya, on Feb. 22 that the film was selling out.

“It’s an amazing movie,” Hadijah Kyampeire told Peralta. “Yeah, you come out inspired. You come out thinking you can do what you put your mind to, like, oh, good. I don’t know.”

Shakira Ndagire Seruwagi was ready for a sequel. “When it ended, we all felt like it shouldn’t have ended,” Seruwagi told NPR’s reporter.

The interview, in Spanish, took place in Coral Gables, Fla. (video) (Credit: Noticias Telemundo)

Competing Anchors Talk in Spanish-TV Milestone

“It would be like David Muir going on NBC Nightly News and talking with Lester Holt,” Chris Ariens wrote Saturday for TVNewser.

“Monday night on Telemundo’s evening newscast, anchor José Díaz-Balart will interview Univision’s main anchor Jorge Ramos.

“Their conversation, which took place at a bookstore in Coral Gables, Florida, is part of Ramos’s book tour for his new memoir, Stranger.

“But Díaz-Balart sees it as a bigger conversation about the Hispanic community.

“’ This Noticias Telemundo initiative strengthens our shared commitment to the Latino community at a time when journalism has become of vital importance for us,’ Díaz-Balart said.

From the transcript of the meeting, courtesy “Noticias Telemundo”:

About the US presidential campaign and being an immigrant in the Trump era:

JDB: In your book Stranger, you say that you have never felt so rejected or so … marginalized by some people as you have under Trump.

JR: Let’s see, when Donald Trump is voted into office and says, “Mexican immigrants are criminals and rapists…” Well, I’m a Mexican immigrant….

When he decided to run, in June 2015, I sent him a handwritten letter with my cellphone number, and he published the number on Instagram. Then, two months later, I went to a press conference…

JDB: In Iowa.

JR: And I confronted him there, as anyone would have done. I stood up because I wanted to be at the same level, so that our body language would be the same. Because television doesn’t just happen — we were surrounded by 6, 7 cameras – television is something you create. And so I raised my hand and said, “I have a question about immigration.” If I had waited for Donald Trump to give me permission to speak, I would still be standing there now with my hand in the air. I faced him down, and Donald Trump told me: “Go back to Univision.” What he was really saying was: “Go back to your country!”

JDB: That’s right…

JR: “Go back to Mexico” is what he wanted to say. And seconds later, because hatred is contagious, one of his supporters turned to me and said: “Get out of my country!”

JDB: And you didn’t expect that.

JR: No, I didn’t expect that. And when someone hates you, José, you feel it; you don’t just hear it. You feel it in your whole body. The same thing has happened to you, I know…Trump included. He said: “Excuse me, excuse me” to you, right?

JDB: “You are finished,” is what he told me. “You are finished.”

JR: He said that to you?

JDB: That’s right: “Tú estás terminado.”

JR: Your revenge will be in 2020, when you say to him: “No, Mr. Trump, you are finished.”

Hmong women’s advocates such as Sia Her publicly tackled issues of sexual misconduct long before the national MeToo conversation gained traction last fall. (Credit: Richard Tsong-Taatarii /Star Tribune)

Paper Finds Immigrant Leaders Welcome #MeToo

“When Sia Her spoke out about domestic abuse and sexual assault in the Hmong community two years ago, she faced instant backlash. One voice-mail message called her a ‘traitor to her people,’ ” Mila Koumpilova wrote Sunday for the Star Tribune in Minneapolis.

“Hmong women’s advocates like Her publicly tackled issues of sexual misconduct long before the national MeToo conversation gained traction last fall. But they say the movement has lent new momentum to their cause.

“Her says the timing is right for her proposal for a $500,000 state domestic violence and sexual assault prevention fund.

“But the movement — with its largely white and famous spokeswomen — hasn’t resonated with [everyone] in Minnesota’s immigrant communities.

“Women in the Hmong, Somali and other local groups face the added burden of inviting charges that they’re discrediting their communities at a time of heightened scrutiny of immigrants. Others haven’t felt included in the broader conversation.

“ ‘Mainstream America is afraid of tackling these issues within cultural communities,’ said Her, head of the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans.  ‘They are afraid of being accused of cultural insensitivity … of being racist.’ . . .”

TV Bosses Say Diversity Helps the Bottom Line

“They saved the best for last,” Scott Roxborough reported Monday for the Hollywood Reporter.

“For the closing panel on day one of the two-day INTV conference, held in Jerusalem, organizers pulled out the big guns on Monday. Top executives from Showtime, TNT, Fox Television Group and HBO sat down with Rick Rosen, head of TV at [the talent agency] WME, for a wide-ranging discussion on the present, and possible future, of the small-screen business. . . .”

Participating were David Nevins, CEO of Showtime; Gary Newman, chairman & CEO of Fox Television Group; Kevin Reilly, president of TBS & TNT; and Casey Bloys, president of HBO programming.

“Networks are . . . leaving money on the table, Newman argued, if they fail to [diversify]. Pointing to Fox Television’s track record — with series like Empire and The Chi — of ‘casting color blind,” Newman said while diversity was ‘socially good,’ the studio was driven less by altruism than by the bottom line. ‘It’s really the commercial opportunity,’ he argued. ‘Our shows are just better when they are more diverse.’

“Newman and the other members of the panel — ‘all white males, though not all straight,’ as Bloys put it — talked up their companies’ achievements in addressing gender and racial inequalities in house, but all acknowledged the need to do more.

“ ‘At HBO we are close to 45 percent female writers and directors … and there’s not one programming decision I make that I don’t run by a woman,’ Bloys said, ‘but we have been less successful in terms of diversity in the ranks’ of the company.

“Showtime’s Nevins noted the importance of making ‘the workplace more welcoming to a diverse group,’ while Newman said Fox was working ‘both in writers and directors programs to attract minority trainees and to move as many as we can into shows.’ ”

NBC Explores How Rights Movement Used Media

Two-hour special debuts March 24 on NBC and March25 on MSNBC.

“Today, NBC News announced the world premiere of HOPE & FURY: MLK, THE MOVEMENT AND THE MEDIA, a new documentary film that examines how Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and leaders of the civil rights movement used the power of print and visual media, especially television, to awaken America to the shame and injustice of racial inequality,” NBC announced on Monday.

“From executive producer and NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack, the two-hour network event will premiere on NBC on March 24th at 8:00 pm ET and on MSNBC on March 25th at 9:00 pm ET. . . .”

The release also said, “The documentary film was produced and directed by award-winning producer and directors Rachel Dretzin and Phil Bertelsen. It is narrated by Lester Holt, anchor of ‘NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt’ and features interviews with activists including Ernest Green, one of the Little Rock Nine; Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton; Rev. Jesse Jackson; Congressman John Lewis, former chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; Bob Moses, leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; Diane Nash, founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; Brittany Packnett, Vice President of National Community Alliances for Teach For America and member of the Ferguson Commission; Rev. Al Sharpton, president and founder of the National Action Network and host of MSNBC’s ‘PoliticsNation’; C.T. Vivian, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient; and many more.

“Additionally, the cross-generational group of history-making reporters who covered the civil rights movement and are reporting today’s crusade include: Joseph Boyce, the first black reporter for the Chicago Tribune; Taylor Branch, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of ‘America in the King Years’; Tom Brokaw, NBC News Special Correspondent; David Garrow, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of ‘Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’; Dorothy Gilliam, the first African-American female reporter at The Washington Post; Bryant Gumbel, host of HBO’s ‘Real Sports’ and former co-host of NBC News’ ‘TODAY’ . . .”

Also, “Nikole Hannah-Jones, writer for The New York Times Magazine; Chris Hayes, host of MSNBC’s ‘All In with Chris Hayes’; Hank Klibanoff, Pulitzer Prize-winning co-author of ‘The Race Beat’; Bill Kovach, former Washington Bureau chief of The New York Times; Moses Newson, former reporter for The Baltimore Afro American; Bill Plante, former CBS News senior White House Correspondent; Dan Rather, former anchor of ‘CBS Evening News’; Joy Reid, host of MSNBC’s ‘AM Joy’; Hedrick Smith, former reporter and editor for The New York Times; Gay Talese, former reporter for The New York Times; Richard Valeriani, former NBC News correspondent; and Curtis Wilkie, author and former reporter for the Clarksdale Press Register; among others . . .”

Press freedom groups protest death sentence for Mahmoud Abou Zeid, known as Shawkan. (Credit: RSF)

Photographer Faces Death Sentence in Egypt

“Prosecutors have requested a death sentence for Mahmoud Abou Zeid, an Egyptian photojournalist known as Shawkan who has been held for four and a half years,” Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said Wednesday.

Joining other press freedom groups, the organization said it “condemns the complete disproportionality of the proposed sentence and reiterates its call for his immediate and unconditional release.”

The photojournalist “is one of the more than 700 defendants in a political mass trial in Cairo for whom the ‘maximum penalty’ — death by hanging — was requested by the prosecution on 3 March.

“Arrested in connection with an anti-government protest in Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya Square in August 2013, they are all accused indiscriminately of charges that include murder, attempted murder and membership of a banned organization (the Muslim Brotherhood).

“ ‘Seeking the death penalty for a photographer who simply covered an opposition demonstration is a political punishment, not an act of justice,’ RSF said. ‘Shawkan’s only crime was trying to do his job as a photographer. He must be freed at once. ‘ ”

Short Takes

Artist Terrence Osborne, right, presents an original painting to WWL-TV anchor Sally-Ann Roberts to mark her retirement, a gift from station executives. (Screengrab via WWL-TV)

 

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