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On Richard Parsons: What Race Has to Do With It

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High-Ranking Media Exec Was of Two Minds
Sportscaster Greg Gumbel Dies of Cancer at 78
From 12/26: Gangs Kill Haitian Journalists Covering Story

Richard Parsons discusses the lack of CEO diversity with Jonathan Capehart on “Washington Post Live” a year ago. (Credit: Washington Post/YouTube)

High Ranking Media Exec Was of Two Minds

When Richard Parsons, “Serial Fixer of Media and Finance Giants,” died Thursday of bone cancer at 76, Black publications made sure to include his race in their headlines. In mainstream media, some did; some didn’t.

It was a reflection of the way Parsons himself viewed his race, and perhaps other Black CEOs as well.

Back in 2007, Ron Stodghill, then a Black New York Times reporter, wrote for his newspaper, “The subject of race has proven to be delicate for African-American executives, many of whom prefer to view themselves as — at least publicly — an ‘an executive who happens to be black.‘ They have earned the right through hard work, they say, to be judged on their merits.”

On Thursday, Stephen Galloway wrote for the Hollywood Reporter, “Parsons was for many years the highest-ranking African American in any media company, though that was a distinction he frequently played down. He advised young African Americans to focus on their new opportunities.”

And yet this exemplar of business success was clearly Black in his orientation. “Parsons, whose love of jazz led to co-owning a Harlem jazz club, also served as Chairman of the Apollo Theater and the Jazz Foundation of America. And he held positions on the boards of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the American Museum of Natural History and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City,” wrote Anick Jesdanun and Michael R. Sisak for the Associated Press.

The AP’s own headline was, “Richard Parsons, prominent executive who led Time Warner and Citigroup, dies at 76.”

But in the New York Amsterdam News, part of the Black Press, that same AP story ran as “Richard Parsons, prominent Black executive who led Time Warner and Citigroup, dies at 76.”

Who was Dick Parsons? Below its “Serial Fixer” headline, the Times’ subhead read, “Mr. Parsons’s lengthy résumé is a catalog of corporate emergencies at Time Warner, Citigroup and the Los Angeles Clippers.”

Benjamin Mullin’s story began, “Richard D. Parsons, whose humane approach to business made him a serial troubleshooter at distressed companies such as Time Warner, CBS and Citigroup and a sought-after adviser at the highest echelons of American industry, died on Thursday at his Manhattan home. He was 76.

“Mr. Parsons’s (pictured, by Chester Higgins Jr./New York Times) winding career tracked the biggest companies in American media and finance — and the biggest problems. Time and again, he stepped in when things looked catastrophic and put his smooth leadership style to work, disentangling Gordian knots and assuaging discontented shareholders.

“Mr. Parsons, a jazz-loving oenophile who served on the board of the Apollo Theater and owned a Tuscan winery, rose to the top of the business world in an era when he was frequently the only Black executive in the boardroom. A self-described ‘Rockefeller Republican,’ Mr. Parsons spoke out on social justice issues in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020, signed a letter protesting a 2021 law that imposed restrictions on Georgia voters, and was a founder of the Equity Alliance, a fund that backs early-stage ventures led by women and people of color.”

In 2007, Parsons was chairman and CEO of Time Warner when pioneering Black journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault (pictured) quit CNN, a Time Warner property, because, she said at a special honors banquet of the National Association of Black Journalists, she felt CNN wouldn’t seriously cover Africa.

CNN correspondent Paula Zahn asked Parsons about diversity then for the CNN show “In the Money,” eliciting an answer that painted journalists as part of the problem.

“RICHARD PARSONS, CHAIRMAN & CEO, TIME WARNER: Progress happens slowly, I think the name of the game, I think it is to speed up the inevitable. I think diversity, as we’ve been calling it for the last 20 years, is inevitable reality in the American workplace. It is just a question of how quickly it happens. And it is happening. Not at the rate, speed, some of us would like, but it is happening. . . .

“ZAHN (pictured): In spite of how aggressive Time Warner has been, in putting these programs in place. Are you satisfied when you look around at your own company? Basically our newsroom, when you look behind me.

“PARSONS: The answer is no, I’m not satisfied. So we’re sort of redoubling our efforts. Although we’ve done, we’ve done virtually certain of this, probably as much as any major diversified media company in America, but yet the pace of change has still been slow. Interestingly enough the place where we have the most difficulty is among our journalists.

“ZAHN: Why do you think that is?

“PARSONS: I think because to a real extent, journalism is like priesthood, and certain experiences and schoolings and schools that you have to go to become a member of the club. And so, again, you have that pipeline problem, we have a number of people who are sort of moving up, who went to the right schools and had the right experiences. But it is breaking down those barriers that existed that aren’t even necessarily intentionally constructed, but it is the way things were.

“When you’re looking for new journalists, people that are looking go out and find, replicate themselves. They try to find folks that went to the same schools, same orientation, the same sort of prior experiences. And if — if you don’t have enough in this case minorities who had those experiences, they simply come back and say, ‘I can’t find qualified candidates.’ What we’ve done, we put a big focus on hiring people who can put the lie to that myth.

“ZAHN: You acknowledge that structural racism is alive and well in Corporate America.

“PARSONS: I assert that. That’s my belief.

“ZAHN: And the minorities are at distinct disadvantage. How do you in corporate culture confront the attitude that you’re expecting less of minorities, that you’re giving more opportunities than you are to the majority of the population. Clearly that’s something you’ve heard, I’ve read it in emails.

“PARSONS: That is very interesting. I don’t know if you’ve had any chance to get exposed, we’ve hired a gal who is now from Harvard, her name is Mazoran Benotchy [phonetic spelling] and she’s done a lot of work on what people’s subconscious perceptions are. And they aren’t even aware of these different ways they think about people, depending on their ethnicity, depending on their gender, depending on their race, so you have to — first thing you have to do is sort of surface that for them to look at it and understand it, it exists, it is in their head. Then you engage them in how are we going to change?”

Still, some of the obituaries quoted from another interview Parsons gave in 1997 to Elisabeth Bumiller of The New York Times, who today is about to step down as the Times’ Washington bureau chief.

“Mr. Parsons, 48, has friends among the city’s black financial elite — he shoots clay pigeons with Kenneth Chenault, a vice-chairman of American Express, and John Utendahl, the founder of Utendahl Capital Partners — but he is often the only African-American at corporate board meetings and East Side dinners. Although he says he was by choice not especially visible during Mr. [Rudolph] Giuliani’s 1993 [New York mayoral] race because ‘I didn’t want to be positioned as the Mayor’s black guy,’ he insists that he never feels the stresses of other high-level black professionals who work in a white corporate world.

“To illustrate, he tells a story he has often told before, about a white liberal woman who asked him in the 1960’s to describe himself.

” ‘And I started by saying, “Well, I’m a lawyer,” and she said, ‘”Wrong! The defining quality for you is that you’re black. And you refuse to acknowledge that.” ‘ Mr. Parsons shrugged, crediting his father, who was an electrical technician at Sperry Rand on Long Island, for his own views.

”I can remember him saying to me when we were talking about the slogan ‘I’m black and I’m proud,’ ‘Now Richard, wouldn’t it strike you as odd if somebody said, ‘I’m Irish and I’m proud?’ I said, ‘Well, people do say that.’ He said, ‘Yeah, but think about that. If you’re going to take pride in anything, take pride in something you’ve accomplished. Don’t take pride in an accident of birth.’ So, hey, what can I say? For a lot of people, race is a defining issue. It just isn’t for me . . . It is, it is” — he pauses — ”like air. It’s like height. I have other things that I’m focused on.’ ”

To our benefit, others continue to be focused on diversity in the business world, such as McKinsey & Co., a global management consultant company headquartered in Washington.

“For almost a decade through our Diversity Matters series of reports, McKinsey has delivered a comprehensive global perspective on the relationship between leadership diversity and company performance,” the company said in its 2023 report, “Diversity Matters Even More.”

“This year, the business case is the strongest it has been since we’ve been tracking and, for the first time in some areas, equitable representation is in sight. Further, a striking new finding is that leadership diversity is also convincingly associated with holistic growth ambitions, greater social impact, and more satisfied workforces.

“At a time when companies are under extraordinary pressure to maintain financial performance while navigating a rapidly changing business landscape, creating an internal culture of transparency and inclusion, and transforming operations to meet social-impact expectations, the good news is that these goals are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, our research suggests a strong, positive relationship between them. And in an increasingly complex and uncertain competitive landscape, diversity matters even more.”

So, yes, that Parsons was Black was important for journalists and readers to know — high up.

And so should they know of Parsons’ perseverance and optimism. “The sky’s the limit,” he told Fortune magazine in 2016. “Those barriers that were almost impenetrable a generation ago, certainly two generations ago, are gone. There are other structural things that we need to do in our society to level the playing field, but you can go from the top to the bottom almost regardless of race, origin creed or sexual orientation.”

Greg Gumbel, ” One of the elder statesmen of sports broadcasting,” appears on “Last Word in Sports Media Podcast” in 2022.

Sportscaster Greg Gumbel Dies of Cancer at 78

“The family of former New York Knicks broadcaster Greg Gumbel announced his passing at the age of 78 on Friday,” Geoff Magliocchetti reported for Sports Illustrated.

” ‘He passed away peacefully surrounded by much love after a courageous battle with cancer,’ Gumbel’s family said in a statement to CBS. ‘Greg approached his illness like one would expect he would, with stoicism, grace, and positivity. He leaves behind a legacy of love, inspiration and dedication to over 50 extraordinary years in the sports broadcast industry; and his iconic voice will never be forgotten.’ “

Gumbel joined CBS in 1988 for the first of two stints, serving as the host for studio coverage of the NFL, college baseball, basketball, and football, MLB, NASCAR, and the Olympic Games. After CBS lost NFL rights in 1994, he would then hold similar duties at NBC, notably serving as the primary play-by-play man for the National League baseball playoffs during MLB’s return from a strike-shortened season in 1995. Gumbel was also on the mic for more NBA games and also hosted the peacock network’s NFL studio coverage (as well as the 1996 Summer Olympics.

“A second stint at CBS awaited in 1998 when the network returned to the NFL. Gumbel was called upon to serve as the play-by-play man for its top games and he became the first African-American to serve in such a role for a major American championship event when he narrated Super Bowl XXXV between the Baltimore Ravens and New York Giants. . . .

“Gumbel is survived by his wife Marcy and daughter Michelle, as well as his brother and fellow journalist Bryant.”

Gangs Kill Haitian Journalists Covering Story

Dec. 26, 2024
Reporters Targeted by Police as Well as by Criminals


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A survivor of the worst gang attack on Haitian journalists in recent memory described Wednesday seeing colleagues cut down by bullets, and reporters with head and chest wounds going an hour or more without help. (Credit: Africa News/YouTube)

Reporters Targeted by Police as Well as Criminals

“At least two journalists and a police officer were killed Tuesday after armed gangs opened fire on them inside an old military hospital in Haiti’s capital. The attack also left at least seven journalists and two police officers injured with gunshot wounds,” Jacqueline Charles and Johnny Fils-Aimé reported on Christmas Day for the Miami Herald.

“The injured were being treated at La Paix Hospital after a specialized unit of the Haiti National Police went inside the facility that is part of the Hospital of the State University of Haiti, better known as the General Hospital, to rescue the wounded,” the Herald’s front-page story continued.

The Committee to Protect Journalists reported that, “A local gang leader, Johnson ‘Izo’ André, claimed responsibility for the attack in a video posted on WhatsApp, saying the Viv Ansanm gang coalition had not authorized the reopening.”

Pierre Luxama followed Wednesday night for the Associated Press, reporting, “A survivor of the worst gang attack on Haitian journalists in recent memory described Wednesday seeing colleagues cut down by bullets, and reporters with head and chest wounds going an hour or more without help.

“ ‘Some were hit in the chest,’ ” photographer Jean Fregens Regala recalled. “Some of the journalists had part of their face destroyed, some were shot in the mouth, or the head.”

The AP published a photo and videos of wounded journailsts lying on the floor in bloodied clothes, waiting for aid

The Herald story continued, “Police officers told a Miami Herald freelancer and other waiting journalists that they had left four bodies on the ground. After three ambulances arrived at the hospital, journalists identified two of the bodies inside one of the ambulances as online journalists Mackendy [also spelled Marckendy] Nathoux and Jimmy Jean. A Haitian police spokesman could not be reached for comment.”

The New York Times identified Nathoux as working for the Voice of America.

“It felt like a terrible movie,” said Dieugo André, a photojournalist who witnessed the violence,” reported Juhakenson Blaise Tuesday for the Haitian Times, published in Brooklyn, N.Y. “André also contributes to The Haitian Times. ‘I have the blood of several injured journalists on my clothes.’

“The injured include journalists Robens Pétion, Réginald Baltazar, Velondie Miracle, Florise Deronvil, Jean-Jack Aspèges, Jocelyn Justin, and Rosemond Vernet. PNH [Haitian National Police] spokesperson Lionel Lazarre said he had not received instructions to intervene during the attack. . . .”

The Herald also wrote, “The tragedy unfolded while the press was awaiting the arrival of Health Minister Duckenson Lorthe Blema to cover the reopening of the General Hospital, which had been closed for months because of gang attacks. As reporters waited inside for the arrival of Blema, they could hear gunfire out in the streets, where two armored police vehicles were patrolling. . . . “

“In a video shared online, long volleys of gunfire could be heard as bullets flew through the green iron gates of the General Hospital.

“Other photos and videos shared online by some of the reporters trapped inside showed journalists lying on the floor covered in blood, with gunshots wounds to the head, chest and mouths. In one video, a journalist showed where a bullet had pierced his tongue.

‘“ ‘We haven’t found a nurse or anyone to give us first aid, anything,’ a journalist who was not injured said as she pleaded for help. ‘Those who are the most vulnerable, we want to get them out of here.’

“But getting out of the area proved difficult as police exchanged gunfire with gang members.

“ ‘The whole area is under siege,’ Guyler Delva, head of the press freedom group SOS journalists, said before police moved in to rescue the trapped reporters.

“ ‘Bandits are shooting all around. If the journalists go out into the street, they will be killed and no one is helping them. The situation is very worrisome. They are stranded.’

Journalists Marckendy Nathoux, left, and Jimmy Jean were shot dead while covering a reopening at the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Tuesday. Nathoux also worked for the Voice of America, The New York Times reported. (Screenshots: Haitian Times/YouTube and Beleza Haiti News/YouTube via Committee to Protect Journalists)

“Delva blamed the Haitian government for the incident, saying the attack is part of a larger problem in which journalists are being targeted by the police as well as gangs. Reporters have reported being harassed by police while on assignment. Earlier this year Haitian authorities issued a list of journalists they were seeking to arrest, claiming they were working with gangs.

“Last month the country’s telecommunications authority, CONATEL, shut down a popular program, Boukante la Pawol, hosted by Guerrier Henri, on Port-au-Prince’s Radio Mega after Henri allowed gang leader Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Chérizier to speak. Delva said the move infringed on press freedoms and was a throwback to the days Haiti was ruled by dictators.

“ ‘Journalists have been working with a lot of fear,’ he said. ‘They realize that the government doesn’t care. They not only try to block them but they openly show they won’t intervene to help them.’

“The Association of Haitian [J]ournalists also condemned the attack and called on authorities to avoid exposing journalists to danger. The group also asked on the authorities take immediate measures to provide all the necessary assistance to injured journalists and to the parents of those murdered in the exercise of their duties. Both the prime minister’s office and ruling transitional council condemned the attack.’ . . .

“In July Haitian authorities claimed that they had taken control of the General Hospital. But days later, the country’s prime minister was forced to run for cover, along with police officers, when armed gangs opened fire as he was giving a tour of the facility to visiting CNN journalists. . . .

“What happened today on Christmas Eve at the General Hospital where people in the population, journalists and police were victims, is unacceptable,’ Leslie Voltaire, the president of the council said, in a brief video message. ‘It will not stand without consequences.’ . . . ”

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