Site icon journal-isms.com

‘NBC Killed My Rape-Allegation Story Too’

richard

Updated Oct. 25

Woman Says Network Caved to Russell Simmons

Facebook’s Approach to Diversity Called ‘Disgusting’

A Gwen Ifill Stamp: ‘How Totally Fantastic’

Why Trump’s Use of ‘Lynching’ Is More Offensive

Reporter Traces Own Roots During Story on 1619

NAACP Addresses ‘Financial Mess’ at The Crisis

N.Y. Times of 19th Century Didn’t Hide Its Racism

Reporters I.D. Men in Till Memorial Vandalism Case

Black Women Most Unhappy with Their Jobs

Diversity Requires Interventions in Order to Work

Short Takes

Support Journal-isms
Sil Lai Abrams (Credit: CNN)

Woman Says Network Caved to Russell Simmons

‘In the days leading up to the publication of Catch & Kill, Ronan Farrow’s blockbuster account of his dealings with NBC News, I have been struck by the company’s insistence that Farrow didn’t have the Harvey Weinstein story in the bag,” Sil Lai Abrams wrote Monday for the Daily Beast. “I don’t believe a word of what it says because in 2018, the network killed my #MeToo story that was being reported by MSNBC host Joy-Ann Reid. Incredibly, a year after NBC botched Farrow’s reporting on Harvey Weinstein, they had the audacity to do it again. . . .”

In an appearance Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “The Story with Martha MacCallum,” Abrams said the case had become a legal issue, not a journalistic one, when lawyers for hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons threatened legal action. “I was told that the head lawyer for NBC Universal was talking directly with Simmons’ attorney,” she said. “The decision was made” that her story and those of other abuse victims “doesn’t matter. If you can make it go away, all the better.”

Abrams wrote in the Daily Beast, “In November 2017, I told Joy about my experience of being raped by Russell Simmons in 1994. I also shared that in 2006, former Extra co-host A.J. Calloway sexually assaulted me in his car and was subsequently arrested for his crime. When Joy and I first spoke, Russell had already been accused of rape by Keri Claussen Khalighi. In fact, she appeared as a guest on the now-defunct NBC show, Megyn Kelly Today. However, I would be the first woman to allege being sexually assaulted by Calloway.

“When NBC chose to squash my story, it not only abdicated its obligation to report news, it provided cover for a man who would later be accused of serial rape and sexual assault when my story was eventually published by The Hollywood Reporter the following summer.

“When I approached Joy, I had no idea that NBC had a reputation for not breaking news about men accused of sexual assault. Therefore, I had no reason to believe my story would be derailed by the network. After going through a thorough vetting process, an on-camera interview with Joy was taped on Jan. 7, 2018.

“While she’s a host on MSNBC, I was told that NBC was not taping it for the cable network but NBC itself, in order to get it a larger audience beyond Joy’s weekend show; also, it was to be paired with a lengthy print piece written by Joy for New York magazine. I was told the TV portion was scheduled to air on Jan. 13, 2018, but I received an email the day before from Joy asking me to reach out to her.

“When we spoke a few hours later, she informed me that Russell Simmons’ attorney had gone ballistic and NBC was not going to air the segment, and the New York magazine story was also on hold since they were paired. She assured me the story wasn’t dead, but that NBC simply needed more vetting done in order to feel comfortable with moving forward.

“I was disappointed, but still hopeful. As I would come to learn, my optimism was profoundly naive. . . .”

Abrams also wrote, “I am one of the many survivors that NBC silenced, and bore witness to how it treated one of their top talents for trying to break a story on sexual predators. Given what has been exposed thus far by Farrow and others, it’s clear that NBC thinks it can spin their way out of this — again. What it fails to recognize is that this is a much bigger issue than their cover-ups, payoffs, and excuses. The media is supposed to be a watchdog for abuses of power. Reporting on the behavior of alleged serial predators is more than news. It’s an act of social good.

“Actions have consequences. Inaction does as well. In their response to the Hollywood Reporter piece, NBC claimed it didn’t have enough on one of my assailants to air my interview. Yet at the time my account was published, at least a dozen women had already accused Simmons of attempted sexual assault or rape. Despite what the network said, they had enough on Calloway and still held the story.

“Once my story became public, close to a dozen women reached out to tell me their own stories of alleged sexual victimization at the hands of Calloway. In the absence of publication, these women never would have known they weren’t the only ones he had assaulted. . . . .”

An MSNBC spokesperson said Tuesday, “We are declining further comment.” A spokesperson said in June 2018, “When MSNBC pursues any investigative story our mission is always to be as thorough as we can, to scrutinize sources and corroborate information before we report. Anything else falls short of our journalistic standards.”

Reid said at the same time, “I began working with Sil Lai Abrams last November on a story about her allegations of sexual assault against two prominent men. I pitched the story to New York Magazine because she preferred a print outlet, and they expressed interest. In mid-December, I pitched the story to MSNBC for the first time. The idea was that when the reporting was complete the two news organizations would each release their own stories.

“Before sharing the story with MSNBC, I had agreed to Sil Lai’s request that both accused men be included in any final story — not just one or the other. I interviewed Sil Lai and several witnesses, and spent several weeks researching aspects of her story to determine whether there was enough material there to keep going. It was important to her that she tell her full narrative. Ultimately this meant we needed to verify two separate allegations of sexual assault, not just one.

“After roughly three months, our team at MSNBC was far along in our reporting on the allegations against one of the accused men, but unable to confirm significant aspects of the claims related to the second man. This meant that we could not report on either man. The process was clearly frustrating for Sil Lai, particularly once other women publicly accused one of the men.

“Investigative reports like these take time, and not surprisingly, sometimes journalists get frustrated as well. I inappropriately shared that frustration privately with Sil Lai. I completely respect MSNBC’s standards and practices. Meticulous research to get the facts right was the only option, especially given the seriousness of the allegations.”

Abrams said on the Fox show, “There’s no statement [by Fox] on what I said recently.”

Facebook’s Approach to Diversity Called ‘Disgusting’

“Rep. Joyce Beatty called Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s approach to civil rights and diversity ‘appalling and disgusting’ during Zuckerberg’s testimony with the House of Representatives’ Housing and Financial Services Committee on Wednesday,” Kevin Webb reported for Business Insider.

“Beatty is the vice-chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and said she has met with Facebook several times in the past year to discuss the company’s approach to diversity and inclusion. In March, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development sued Facebook, claiming it was allowing [R]ealtors to exclude people of specific race, gender, and background from targeted housing advertisements. . . .”

Separately, two Facebook officials announced a project that will highlight diversity news. Campbell Brown, vice president, Global News Partnerships, and Mona Sarantakos, product manager, News, announced Oct. 25, “Today we’re starting to test Facebook News, a dedicated place for news on Facebook, to a subset of people in the US. ” “Diverse News” is to be one of four main categories of publishers: general, topical, diverse and local news publishers.

“Diversity publishers” are defined “as those focused on key communities that fall under the five racial and ethnic groups defined by the US Census: Black/African-American, Latino/Hispanic, Asian, American Indian and Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander.”

Gwen Ifill served for 17 years at the “PBS NewsHour.” (Credit: Abbey Oldham)

A Gwen Ifill Stamp: ‘How Totally Fantastic’

The announcement Tuesday of a “Forever” U.S. postage stamp honoring the late journalist Gwen Ifill met with almost universal praise, but the Baltimore Sun might have topped the list of print tributes, with editorial writer Peter Jensen voicing the opinion of the editorial board on Wednesday.

Recalling an appearance on a weekly Maryland news roundup show with Ifill when she worked at the Baltimore Evening Sun, Jensen concluded, “How great, how totally fantastic, how miraculous that at a time when journalists and journalism is under such vicious attack from some of the most powerful political figures in the country, that the U.S. Postal Service can give the profession such a tip of the hat.

“The business of holding the powerful accountable has never been more daunting, at least not in my lifetime. We need more Gwen Ifills, her courage, her smarts, her generosity, her genius. Some of us will never hit for the cycle. We will never pitch a no-hitter. We will never field a triple play or make a leaping catch in center field to save a game. But we can damn well recognize those who do and cheer when they take the field — and when they leave it. Thanks, USPS, for elevating Gwen, her role in the struggle for equal rights, and her outstanding journalism. You really delivered this time.”

From a 2008 photo

Jensen credited Wayne Dawkins, a journalism professor at Morgan State University and unofficial historian of the National Association of Black Journalists, with nominating Ifill, but Postal Service spokesman Roy Betts told Journal-isms, “No individual or organization is credited by the Postal Service for the selection of Gwen’s stamp or any other stamp. It’s a public process.”

Betts also said, “The public nominates stamp subjects. We receive thousands of suggestions every year. The Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee, its members are appointed by the Postmaster General, reviews the suggestions and recommends about 30 subjects annually to appear on stamps to the PMG for final approval.”

Dawkins did work as a consultant on the project after a Postal Service consultant saw Ifill mentioned in his book “Rugged Waters: Black Journalists Swim the Mainstream,” and a 2012 Diverse magazine article in which Dawkins was quoted regarding Ifill’s work.

Betts said he expected the stamp would become available in January, before the start of Black History Month. Other journalists of color who have been honored on postage stamps are antilynching crusader Ida B. Wells, in 1990; black press correspondent Ethel Payne, 2002; Ebony and Jet magazine founder John H. Johnson, 2012, and the slain Ruben Salazar of the Los Angeles Times, the first Mexican-American journalist from mainstream media to cover the Chicano community, in 2008.

Meanwhile, black alumnae of Simmons University, the Boston women’s college that is Ifill’s alma mater, are continuing their objections to the naming of a white dean to head the Gwen Ifill College of Media, Arts, and Humanities, so named in 2017.

“The news of a US postal stamp honoring Gwen Ifill’s legacy was celebrated by Simmons’s Black alumnae. We are all so proud!” alumna Carol Pope messaged Journal-isms on Thursday.

“The protest continues because sadly, the Ifill College at Simmons University is still led by a white dean. Leadership which is not reflective of Gwen’s heritage or her professional accomplishments.”

The African Methodist Episcopal Church announced that the stamp unveiling would be held at Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, Ifill’s home church, in late January or early February.

Why Trump’s Use of ‘Lynching’ Is More Offensive

“When President Trump claimed this week that an impeachment inquiry amounts to a ‘lynching,’ it was a major controversy, with Democrats (and some Republicans) condemning his words,” Amber Phillips reported Wednesday for the Washington Post.

“But a couple hours later that same day, it surfaced that some Democratic members of Congress used the term ‘lynch’ in the 1990s to defend President Bill Clinton from impeachment, including then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) and the lawmaker who would be in charge of writing up articles of impeachment against Trump, House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold E. Nadler (D-N.Y.). As far as we can tell, there wasn’t a massive outcry the way there was Tuesday against Trump. The Fix’s JM Rieger reports:

“Biden apologized for using the term but claimed that the way Trump used it was worse.

“So what’s different this time? We posit a few theories.

“Trump said it: This is the big one for a few reasons. One is that Trump is president of the United States, so his words carry more weight than those of a member of Congress. He’s also white, and the majority of lynching victims were black. For the most powerful (white) person in the world right now to compare his plight of an impeachment inquiry, where lawmakers are following very real evidence, to the gruesome, death-by-torture mob mentality that claimed the lives of thousands of powerless black men was especially dissonant. . . .”

Wanda Tucker, right, and reporter Deborah Barfield Berry hug at Dulles International Airport outside Washington after returning on separate flights from a 10-day trip to Angola, from which they traced their ancestors. (Courtesy of Amaya Berry)

Reporter Traces Own Roots During Story on 1619

“In 1619, the first Africans are believed to have arrived in America,” Lulu Garcia-Navarro reported for NPR’s “Weekend Edition Sunday.” “Destined for a life of slavery in the New World, 350 people were taken from Angola and stuffed onto a ship named the San Juan Bautista.

“Phoenix resident Wanda Tucker believes her family may have been descended from the survivors of that journey.

“So when USA Today reporter Deborah Barfield Berry learned about Tucker as part of the newspaper’s coverage of the 400th anniversary of slavery’s beginnings in America, she thought she’d be telling a story about one family’s roots in Africa. She never expected to become a part of the story herself. . . .”

Berry related the story by email to Journal-isms: “I was assigned to help write a story about the members of the Tucker family of Hampton, who believe they are descendants of the first Africans to arrive in the British colony in 1619. As part of that reporting, my editors learned I also had some Tuckers in my family from the same general area. They suggested I take some DNA tests. I did – before I went to Angola with Wanda.

“Wasn’t until I was about to push the button that I finally got the results from another DNA test from my older male cousin and Wanda’s  brother that it showed they shared a male relative. They don’t know when the connection happened. Could have been back in Africa or in the U.S.”

Navarro told listeners, “It’s a discovery that Berry says she is still processing.

” ‘I’m still kind of overwhelmed by just the whole story,’ she said in an interview with NPR’s Weekend Edition. . . .”

Lottie Joiner, named permanent editor of The Crisis, is flanked by Marc Banks of the NAACP communications team, left, and Trobon Williams, vice president for marketing and communications, as she distributes copies of the magazine at the Journal-isms Roundtable in Washington on Oct. 8. (Credit: Sharon Farmer/sfphotoworks)

NAACP Addresses ‘Financial Mess’ at The Crisis

The NAACP is “cleaning up the financial mess that we call The Crisis,” (Facebook) its historic magazine founded in 1910 and once edited by sociologist, journalist and activist W.E.B. Du Bois, according to Derrick Johnson, the organization’s president and CEO.

“In terms of our contractors, we have not been as timely as necessary but we’ve been as timely as we’ve ever been“ (video), Johnson told the Journal-isms Roundtable Oct. 8 in response to a question from Trice Edney News Wire founder Hazel Trice Edney, who said that a writer for the magazine distributed to NAACP members had not been paid for eight or nine months.

“Because in turning that ship around, what I walked into was outrageous. . . . one of the things we have to do as black institutions is be accountable to black folks even when we’re not doing the right thing . . ., ” Johnson continued. He assumed the top job in 2017.

“The Crisis specifically was our for-profit company, that hadn’t turned a profit in 40 years. That’s garbage, right? So in February we put forth an effort [and] dissolved the board of the Crisis, and we put it under the NAACP, and we’re cleaning up that financial mess that we call The Crisis. As we move [editor] Lottie [Joiner] from interim to actual director, we can get the magazine on time . . . We hadn’t sold an ad in two years. . . . We have to fix it and I think we’ve gone a long way to fix it.”

Asked to elaborate, Aba Blankson, senior vice president for Marketing and Communications messaged Tuesday:

“The Crisis is a crucial communications publication and outlet not just for the NAACP but to highlight and elevate stories that reflect the African American experience. Over the last few years, we have witnessed the demise of several of our legacy publications including Ebony and Jet. It is now more important than ever that we take the steps necessary to strengthen the Crisis — to explore strategic business models to ensure sustainability, to expand the ability of the team to cover timely stories, and to distribute original content through print, digital and social platforms to reach our audience.

“The Crisis is part of our external affairs team. Lottie Joiner is the Editor.” Blankson also said that the writer had been paid.

In August, Johnson led a delegation of more than 200 in Ghana to commemorate the arrival of Africans 400 years ago in Virginia. Johnson said he wanted to restore Ghana’s W.E.B. Du Bois Center for Pan-African Culture, the final resting place of Du Bois and his wife, Shirley Graham Du Bois, and make it a global attraction. Du Bois was one of the fathers of Pan Africanism, he said, a label Johnson applies to himself.

N.Y. Times of 19th Century Didn’t Hide Its Racism

The New York Times of the late 19th century displayed “nakedly racist treatment . . . in writing about African-Americans and Italian immigrants,” Brent Staples, a 21st century successor to those Times editorialists, wrote in a Columbus Day-timed essay on discrimination faced by early Italian Americans.

“The Times was not owned by the family that controls it today when it dismissed Ida B. Wells as a ‘slanderous and nasty-minded mulattress’ for rightly describing rape allegations as ‘a thread bare lie’ that Southerners used against black men who had consensual sexual relationships with white women,” Staples wrote Oct. 12 in a piece headlined, “How Italians Became ‘White.’ ”

“Nevertheless, as a Times editorialist of nearly 30 years standing — and a student of the institution’s history — I am outraged and appalled by the nakedly racist treatment my 19th-century predecessors displayed in writing about African-Americans and Italian immigrants.

“When Wells took her anti-lynching campaign to England in the 1890s, Times editors rebuked her for representing ‘black brutes’ abroad in an editorial that joked about what they described as ‘the practice of roasting Negro ravishers alive and boring out their eyes with red-hot pokers.’ The editorial slandered African-Americans generally, referring to rape as ‘a crime to which Negroes are particularly prone.’ The Times editors may have lodged objections to lynching — but they did so in a rhetoric firmly rooted in white supremacy. . . .”


(Credit: Pro Publica)

Reporters I.D. Men in Till Memorial Vandalism Case

The investigative website Pro Publica Monday published “How We Identified the Frat Brothers Holding Guns in Front of an Emmett Till Memorial.” The answer, “We searched through property records, tips from Instagram users, and dozens of Instagram and Facebook photos and videos to figure out their names.”

A new bulletproof memorial to Till was dedicated Saturday in Mississippi after previous historical markers were repeatedly vandalized.

Jerry Mitchell, veteran investigative reporter on Mississippi civil rights cold cases, reminded readers on July 25 that “Since the first sign was erected in 2008, it has been the object of repeated animosity.

“Vandals threw the first sign in the river. The second sign was blasted with 317 bullets or shotgun pellets before the Emmett Till Memorial Commission officials removed it. The third sign, featured in the Instagram photo [showing vandalism suspects], was damaged by 10 bullet holes before officials took it down last week. A fourth sign, designed to better withstand attacks, is expected to be installed soon. . . .”

The Associated Press adds, “The brutal slaying of the 14-year-old black teenager helped spur the civil rights movement more than 60 years ago. . . .”

On July 30, Mitchell reported for the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, which is collaborating with Pro Publica, “When the head of the University of Mississippi condemned fraternity members last week for posing with guns in front of a bullet-riddled memorial to the slain 14-year-old civil rights icon Emmett Till, he defended the campus investigation and the decision not to discipline the students.

“He said Ole Miss had been unable to identify ‘all’ the students involved when it received the complaint ‘or that they were all affiliated with the same fraternity.’

“But the statement was misleading. . . . interim Chancellor Larry Sparks acknowledged that his administration had mishandled the investigation and said that he has launched an internal review into a ‘breakdown in communications’ that prevented a full examination of the incident by university administrators.’ . . .”

Black Women Most Unhappy with Their Jobs

Race, ethnicity and gender are strongly correlated with job quality, the Gallup Organization found in a survey released Wednesday, “Not Just a Job: New Evidence on the Quality of Work in the United States” by Jonathan Rothwell and Steve Crabtree.

Overall, just 4 percent of employed Americans say they are in good jobs, compared with 44 percent in mediocre jobs and 16 percent in bad jobs.

The survey found:

Diversity Requires Interventions in Order to Work

“For diversity to become a reality in the nation’s workplaces, companies and institutions need to do more than recycle costly and ineffectual initiatives,” Pamela Newkirk wrote for Time on Oct. 10, in conjunction with the release Tuesday of her book “Diversity, Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Industry.”

Pamela Newkirk

“Cyrus Mehri, a civil rights lawyer who successfully litigated discrimination lawsuits against major corporations including Coca-Cola and Texaco, says companies need to analyze metrics related to hiring, pay, promotions and bonuses along racial and gender lines to detect and disrupt patterns of bias.

“ ‘Everybody is quick to do unconscious-bias training and not interventions,’ says Mehri, who, with the late civil rights lawyer Johnnie Cochran, is credited with devising the NFL’s Rooney Rule, which requires a diverse slate of candidates for coaching and front-office jobs. ‘When you keep choosing the options on the menu that don’t create change, you’re purposely not creating change,’ he says.

“To wit, A Leader’s Guide: Finding and Keeping Your Next Chief Diversity Officer, a report published this year by the consulting firm Russell Reynolds Associates, stated that more than half of diversity professionals do not have the resources or support needed to execute programs and strategies. Only 35% had access to company demographic metrics, and a survey of 1,800-plus company executives found that diversity ranked last on a list of eight potential business priorities.

“But persistent failure appears not to have prompted many institutions to change course. Although Google reportedly spent $114 million on its diversity program in 2014, its diversity report this year showed that blacks made up just 3.3% of the workforce and held 2.1% of tech and 2.6% of leadership roles.

“Why do companies spend so much to achieve so little? Lauren B. Edelman, a professor of law and sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Working Law: Courts, Corporations and Symbolic Civil Rights, found that courts tend to look for symbolic structures of diversity rather than their efficacy. In other words, the diversity apparatus doesn’t have to work — it just has to exist — and it can help shield a company against successful bias lawsuits, which are already difficult to win.

“Misan Sagay, a black filmmaker and member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, says more attention also must be paid to what happens once people of color are hired. ‘A lot of the times they want our physical presence but not our voice,’ she says, explaining that real change begins with the composition of the studio executives who greenlight projects. ‘There should be some brown faces when I’m pitching,’ she says. ‘Until there’s diversity at every level, I doubt filmmakers of color will be on a level playing field.’

“True progress won’t come without discomfort, says Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, which allocates hundreds of millions of dollars annually to efforts promoting equality. ‘It requires incumbent leaders and managers to change their behavior and practices,’ he says. ‘It means that institutions have to change incentive structures and to fundamentally interrogate their own behavior.’ Walker adds that this is not just a conservative problem, as many purportedly progressive fields, like fashion and entertainment, also lack diversity.

“In the end, racial diversity will not be ushered in by pledges, slogans or czars. It will be achieved only once white America is weaned off a prevailing narrative of racial pre-eminence, which can still be glimpsed in historical narratives, film and literature, and in racially offensive iconography like blackface. The seeds of this corrosive ideology are planted early, and a paradigm shift will require courageous leadership. Yes, change will require resources and resolve, but no amount of money will succeed alongside a willful negation of our shared humanity. . . .”

Short Takes

At Vinh Hair Salon on West Valley Boulevard in Alhambra, Calif., co-owners Steven Tang, left, Ben Tang and Jimmy Yim speak four languages —-Mandarin, Cantonese, English and Vietnamese. See fourth item. (Credit: Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times)
Rekha Basu
Support Journal-isms

Facebook users: “Like” “Richard Prince’s Journal-isms” on Facebook.

Follow Richard Prince on Twitter @princeeditor

Richard Prince’s Journal-isms originates from Washington. It began in print before most of us knew what the internet was, and it would like to be referred to as a “column.” Any views expressed in the column are those of the person or organization quoted and not those of any other entity.
Send tips, comments and concerns to Richard Prince at journal-isms-owner@yahoogroups.com

About Richard Prince

View previous columns (after Feb. 13, 2016).

Columns below from the Maynard Institute are not currently available but are scheduled to be restored soon on journal-isms.com.

 

 

Exit mobile version