Articles Feature

O’Reilly Out, Carlson In at Fox News

by richard02649

Latest Allegations Came From Black Women

. . . Resentful Fans Enjoyed Skewering Mainstream

Social Media Inflated Threat From ‘Facebook Killer’

Black Press Meet With Trump? Why Bother?

N.Y. Daily News Didn’t Get the Memo About ‘Negro’

‘Next to Die’ Inmates Reflect Before Execution

LGBTQ Media Help Readers Adjust to Trump

Faulty I.D. on N.Y. Times Op-Ed Upsets Israelis

Almost 50 Years Ago, the News Industry Was Called Out on Race. How Should That Be Commemorated?

Short Takes

Credit: Mike Luckovich/Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Mike Luckovich/Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Latest Allegations Came From Black Women

Fox News is parting ways with Bill O’Reilly, the network announced Wednesday, after a series of allegations of inappropriate behavior topped Tuesday by one from an African American Fox News clerical worker, and a second disclosed Wednesday by Jehmu Greene, a current Fox News contributor who is also African American.

However, a third black woman, Deneen Borelli, who has appeared on ‘The O’Reilly Factor’ about a dozen times since 2009, came to O’Reilly’s defense, Paul Bond reported Wednesday for the Hollywood Reporter.

“After a thorough and careful review of the allegations, the Company and Bill O’Reilly have agreed that Bill O’Reilly will not be returning to the Fox News Channel,” the Fox statement read.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson will replace O’Reilly in the 8 p.m. ET time slot, David Folkenflik reported for NPR. In the musical chairs that followed, “the network promoted two racist clowns to help fill the void: Eric Bolling and Jesse Watters,” Andrew Kirell reported for the Daily Beast.

“The abrupt dismissal ends O’Reilly’s 21-years at the helm of The O’Reilly Factor, which began as The O’Reilly Report when the fledgling network began in 1996,” Doug Stanglin reported for USA Today. “He proved a steady ratings winner for the network over two decades and top ad generator, but also a lightning rod for controversy.

“The 67-year-old O’Reilly, who recently signed a new multi-year contract worth more than $20 million a year, has been on vacation but was scheduled to return to the air on Monday. . . .”

Emily Steel and Michael S. Schmidt reported for the New York Times Wednesday, “One woman who had hesitated for months to voice her complaints came forward on Wednesday to report inappropriate behavior by Mr. O’Reilly to Paul, Weiss. The woman, Jehmu Greene, said she had decided to call the firm after she received no response to an email she sent to a network executive more than a week ago to schedule a meeting to discuss her concerns.

Jehmu Greene
Jehmu Greene

“Ms. Greene said instances of harassment occurred when she was a regular guest on the network but before she became a network contributor in November 2010. Ms. Greene disclosed her allegations to The Times in the fall but decided to go on the record this week. . . .”

The clerical worker said O’Reilly used to leer at her and call her “hot chocolate,” according to attorney Lisa Bloom.

Bloom told Ashley Cullins of the Hollywood Reporter Tuesday that she helped the clerical worker, who wanted to remain anonymous, report the harassment to the network’s hotline.

“The woman worked for a different broadcaster in 2008 while this was going on, but The O’Reilly Factor host’s office was near her desk, the attorney claims,” Cullins wrote.

” ‘He would never talk to her, not even hello, except to grunt at her like a wild boar,’ Bloom tells The Hollywood Reporter. ‘He would leer at her. He would always do this when no one else was around and she was scared.’

“Bloom says she spoke with three witnesses who knew the woman at the time and confirmed she was upset and stressed at the end of each workday. ‘She’s not asking for any money,’ says Bloom. ‘She just wants them to know her story.’

“At the time, Bloom says the woman valued her job too much to risk speaking up.

” ‘She was afraid if she told him to knock it off she’d get fired,’ Bloom says. ‘Now that’s she’s aware this is all in the news, she’s decided to phone in a complaint to the Fox News hotline.’

“An attorney for Bill O’Reilly, Marc E. Kasowitz, responded with a statement to CNN that read: ‘It is outrageous that an allegation from an anonymous person about something that purportedly happened a decade ago is being treated as fact, especially when there is an obviously orchestrated campaign by activists and lawyers to destroy Mr. O’Reilly and enrich themselves through publicity driven donations.’ . . .”

Gabriel Sherman of New York magazine, who has often been ahead of the story, reported Tuesday, “The prospect of dumping O’Reilly — once unimaginable— has gained steam this week due in part to street protests outside Fox News headquarters and advertiser boycotts on O’Reilly’s air. One network insider said Fox executives are alarmed by the severity of the ad-revenue decline. ‘It’s worse than Glenn Beck,’ the insider said, referring to the advertiser revolt that helped derail Beck’s Fox News career in 2011.

“Another factor: the Murdochs’ pending $14 billion takeover of European pay-TV provider Sky.” Rupert Murdoch is chairman of 21st Century Fox and Fox News, and others in his family are principals. “On May 16, the British media regulator Ofcom is set to judge whether the Murdochs are ‘fit and proper’ to own such a large media property. Removing O’Reilly could appease critics and help close the Sky deal. (In 2011, the Murdochs abandoned their initial takeover offer for Sky after the London phone-hacking scandal.)

“Meanwhile, the Murdochs are also dealing with a restive workplace. Female Fox News employees are growing increasingly frustrated that the Murdochs have not forcefully confronted the company’s culture of sexual harassment in the wake of removing Roger Ailes,” Fox News Channel founder and former chief executive. ” ‘Morale is awful,’ one Fox female executive told me yesterday, adding that employees are wondering if budgets have been cut to pay for sexual-harassment settlements. . . .”

Folkenflik, appearing on NPR’s “Here and Now” on Wednesday, described Carlson as “a new favorite of Rupert Murdoch.”

Writing about Bolling and Watters, the Daily Beast’s Kirell said, “Both of those smirking dudebros have histories of race-baiting that stretch as far back as some of O’Reilly’s serial sexual-harassing.

“Plucked from Wall Street to give trading analysis for Fox Business Network, Bolling has become one of the network’s most shameless attention-grabbers over the past near-decade. While manning ostensibly business-related shows for FBN (first Money Rocks, then Follow the Money), Bolling frequently played host to early racist birther conspiracies. . . . ”

He also wrote, “Watters’s biggest claim to fame was a segment last fall in which he took his perpetual shit-eating grin to the streets of New York’s Chinatown to openly mock Asians. . . .”

Tucker Carlson interviews President Trump on March 15. (Screenshot/Fox News)
Tucker Carlson interviews President Trump on March 15. (screenshot/Fox News)

Brian Steinberg wrote for Variety that Fox’s “primetime lineup will maintain a similar tone and attitude even without the person who was arguably the network’s most recognizable anchor.

“Tucker Carlson, who has held forth in primetime at 9 p.m. and delivered solid ratings, will move to O’Reilly’s 8 p.m. slot starting Monday, April 24. Fox News will fill Carlson’s former berth with its panel show, ‘The Five,’ while keeping Sean Hannity at 10 p.m. . . .”

Carlson was in this space last month when he and Mexican-born journalist Jorge Ramos “engaged in a heated debate about immigration on Carlson’s namesake TV show . . .  in which the host falsely claimed that Ramos is not Latino,” Char Adams reported for People magazine.

“Univision anchor Ramos spoke out against Donald Trump’s past statements about Mexican immigrants during a Wednesday appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight, encouraging Carlson to be ‘tolerant’ of the ‘multiracial country.’

“ ‘Let me just point out that you are white,’ Carlson, 47, said. “’Obviously, you’re whiter than I am. You’ve got blue eyes. So, I don’t know exactly what you mean by white or Latino.’ . . .”

Hispanics can be of any race.

. . . Resentful Fans Enjoyed Skewering Mainstream

Television analyst Andrew Tyndall of “The Tyndall Report” was one of the first with an analysis of the removal of Bill O’Reilly:

Andrew Tyndall
Andrew Tyndall

The most glaringly obvious and most routinely noted aspect of the success of FOX News Channel — both its commercial and ideological success — over the past two decades is the skill with which it has carved out an unchallenged niche at the conservative end of the political spectrum.

Before FNC, all television news aspired to be mainstream news. By proclaiming itself fair and balanced, FNC announced to a hitherto unserved, resentful, right-wing audience that the mainstream was actually unfair and imbalanced. This new channel, alone, would embrace a worldview that resonated with that minority who felt deceived and ignored by the liberal, establishment, mainstream media.

Yes, the right-wing minority to whom FNC catered felt ideologically alienated from mainstream television news. But that was only half of it.

There was also the mainstream media’s tone of omniscience and condescension: known in journalistic slang as The Voice Of God.

FNC, when it hired Bill O’Reilly from the syndicated TV tabloid Inside Edition, was not only hiring a right-leaning Irish-American Levittown populist, it was also hiring a showman with a twinkle in his eye, a brawler’s argumentative style, a vernacular turn of phrase, and a teasing ability to walk right up to a serious accusation in his No Spin Zone and then back away with a “just saying” shrug.

O’Reilly embodied both of the innovations that FNC brought to TV news. He violated the studied ideological mainstream neutrality of the anchor’s politics. He also punctured the pomposity of the anchor’s Voice Of God.

Just as Rupert Murdoch had successfully blended right-wing populism with a street-smart sense of fun in his Fleet Street tabloid newspapers in London — along with the unrepentant sexism of his topless Page Three pinups — so he had Roger Ailes install O’Reilly as the embodiment of the same blend, complete with flashier-than-ever red-white-&-blue graphics, brought to TV news (sexism fully included).

The similarities between Bill O’Reilly and Donald Trump are easy to note, both in their populist politics and their sexual predations. A third similarity is just as important: Both are crowd-pleasing showmen who know how to signal to loyalists in their audience that they are not taking themselves quite as seriously as their detractors are. And that half of the fun that they have with their audiences comes from watching the outrage that they manage to provoke.

Pennsylvania State Police investigate the scene where Steve Stephens, the suspect in the random killing of a Cleveland retiree posted on Facebook, ended his own life on Tuesday. (Credit: Greg Wohlford/Erie Times-News)
Pennsylvania State Police investigate the scene where Steve Stephens, suspect in the random killing of a Cleveland retiree, ended his own life on Tuesday. (Credit: Greg Wohlford/Erie Times-News)

Social Media Inflated Threat From ‘Facebook Killer’

“I got a sales call from Nevada Sunday evening, and when I told the caller I live near Cleveland, she said solicitously, ‘Wow … I hope you’re staying safe,’ ” Ted Diadiun wrote Tuesday for the Plain Dealer in Cleveland.

” ‘Huh?’ I answered cleverly.

” ‘You know, with all that stuff that’s happening there,’ she answered.

“It took me a minute to realize that the Steve Stephens story had gone global. And that all two million of us in the Cleveland metropolitan area were considered to be in grave danger. Perhaps, as the hysteria spread, all 180 million of us east of the Mississippi.

“Now, this is not to diminish the seriousness of the threat that Stephens continued to pose before he shot himself in Erie, Pennsylvania, this morning, nor the tragedy of Robert Godwin Sr., the well-loved man Stephens murdered Sunday and recorded to display on Facebook.

“But threats and tragedies of this kind have existed throughout human history, without sending the civilized world into a tizzy. Here in the age of social media, however, news of such things spreads quickly, and soon everyone is running around like so many Henny-Pennys, waiting for the sky to fall. Or, as the case might be, crouching behind drawn drapes in their darkened living rooms. . . .”

Black Press Meet With Trump? Why Bother?

“At the very beginning of the new administration, and probably in a moment of hubris, Omarosa Manigault, an aide to President Donald Trump, promised that the first newspaper interview with the new president would go to a member of the black press,” retired journalist Paul Delaney, a veteran of the mainstream as well as the black press, wrote April 13 for the Center for American Progress.

“Nobody took her seriously. In fact, such a meeting has yet to occur, prompting me to think that, given the disastrous encounters with other black groups — such as black college presidents — perhaps it is best that such a meeting never happens. . . .”

Delaney also wrote, “Black media have kept up a constant drumbeat against the Trump administration; we can expect that to continue, and possibly intensify. One issue sure to bubble up repeatedly — meetings with President Trump. As a former colleague at The New York Times, E.R. Shipp, wrote in The Baltimore Sun:

” ‘So with nuts, neophytes and revisionists running the Trump asylum, one might wonder why 70 or so presidents, chancellors and advocates for historically black colleges and universities — HBCUs — accepted a ‘getting-to-know-you’ White House invitation.

” ‘I suspect the same sentiment will apply to members of the black media, if they’re ever invited to meet with the president. ‘ ”

N.Y. Daily News Didn’t Get the Memo About ‘Negro’

New York’s Daily News didn’t get the memo about capitalizing “Negro.”

While the word has fallen into disfavor, it wasn’t always so. The memo about capitalization was issued about 1930. It took a sustained crusade by black journalists and others that lasted decades.

W.E.B. Du Bois
W.E.B. Du Bois

News columnist Shaun King, a Black Lives Matter activist, made the point Monday that conservatives who objected to Barack Obama’s golfing time are silent now that Donald Trump is president.

“The problem wasn’t that they hated seeing a President spend the money on golfing,” King wrote. “The problem wasn’t that they hated seeing a President spend precious time on the golf course. A golfing President never disgusted them. The problem was that few things irritate bigoted white men more than an uppity negro.”

King repeated the “uppity negro” theme throughout the column.

W.E.B. Du Bois, the venerated sociologist, journalist and activist, was one of those pushing for that capital “N.”

As historian David Levering Lewis explained in his 2000 biography “W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963,” “Uncompromising month after month in his editorials and exposes, Du Bois’s courage was a reminder of the insurmountable odds faced by dark-skinned people in their native country.

“As recently as November 1925, the New York Times had once again rejected his plea to capitalize Negro. Denial of upper-case existence in the newspaper of record merely affirmed symbolically the literal denial of the humanity of an entire race — token diminution that both reflected and sustained the cruelest beliefs and actions in the real world. The policy of the Times suited an era in which thirty-four ‘negroes’ were to be lynched in 1926.”

There was also Lester A. Walton, managing editor of the leading black weekly The New York Age. Walton was one of the first African Americans to work for the Democratic National Committee and U.S. minister to Liberia before and during World War II.

Lester A. Walton
Lester A. Walton

In a letter that remains online in the New York Times archives, Walton wrote to the Associated Press on April 21, 1913, “Some of our race papers refer to us as ‘Afro-Americans,’ refusing to employ the term ‘Negro’ because of the disinclination of the white press to capitalize the ‘n’ in Negro [PDF].”

“In the daily press you frequently read an article which is written something like this: ‘Every race was represented at the conference held in Carnegie Lyceum Tuesday evening. The Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, and negro were much in evidence.’ What a rank injustice to the Negro to use the lower case ‘n’ in this instance! . . . .”

The New York Times relented on March 7, 1930.

“It is a little thing mechanically to grant, but it is not a small thing in its implications,” the Times editorialized. “Every use of the capital ‘N’ becomes a tribute to millions who have risen from a low estate into ‘the brotherhood of the races.’

“THE NEW YORK TIMES now joins many of the leading Southern newspapers as well as most of the Northern in according this recognition. In our ‘style book’ ‘Negro’ is now added to the list of words to be capitalized. It is not merely a typographical change; it is an act in recognition of racial self-respect for those who have been for generations in ‘the lower case.’ ”

Neither King nor the Daily News copy desk chief responded to an inquiry.

Kenneth Williams
Kenneth Williams (Credit: KHBS/KHOG-TV, Fort Smith/Fayetteville, Ark.)

‘Next to Die’ Inmates Reflect Before Execution

“The Marshall Project has been paying close attention to Arkansas’ death row, where eight men were initially slated to die in 11 days because of a looming expiration date on one of the drugs used in their lethal injection,” Carroll Bogert, president of the Marshall Project, wrote Wednesday in an email to project followers.

“Our Next to Die project has been tracking the twists and turns; Kenneth Williams — one of the condemned — reflected on his final days for our Life Inside series; reporter Maurice Chammah explored how the cases of these men reflect the complex politics of the death penalty; and Tom Meagher described the confluence of events that led to this historical moment on NPR’s The Takeaway.

Williams, one of seven spared Wednesday when a district judge blocked the use of one of the lethal injection drugs, was one those participating in the project, conducted in collaboration with Vice.

Williams “[m]urdered farmer Cecil Boren during an escape from prison where Williams had been incarcerated for murdering cheerleader Dominique Hurd,” the BBC reported.

“Oh boy, do the letters come pouring in after an execution date has been set!” Williams wrote on April 6. “During mail call, I receive more mail than ever before about the well-being of my soul. Do you know God? Have you accepted Jesus Christ as lord of your life? If you don’t repent before you die you will go to hell. They send typed letters, handwritten letters, cards, books, etc.

“Most of these materials are destined for the trash. Where were they all those years, when I was sitting on death row, when I might have embraced what they had to offer? . . .”

Williams also wrote, “Some of the prisoners opted out of petitioning for clemency, knowing the board usually issues a denial. They figured they’d save themselves the disappointment.

“I, on the other hand, saw opportunity. I wanted to appear before the board so I could show them I was no longer the person I once was. God has transformed me, and even the worst of us can be reformed and renewed. Revealing these truths meant more to me then being granted clemency. I’m still going to eventually die someday, but to stand up for God in front of man, that’s my victory.

“To the families of my victims, to whom I have brought pain, great loss, and suffering, as shallow as ‘I am sorry for robbing you of your loved one’ can sound, I would rather say it, and mean it, than not say it at all. . . .”

LGBTQ Media Help Readers Adjust to Trump

“The election of Donald Trump to the White House has radically transformed the relationship between the press and the Oval Office, a shift felt acutely among LGBTQ media as the industry has taken on a more adversarial role,” Nico Lang wrote Monday for Columbia Journalism Review.

“Prior to the Trump presidency, many in the community wondered whether there would be a need for LGBTQ-specific news outlets in the future — that queer and transgender people would be so fully integrated into society that outlets like Out, NewNowNext, Washington Blade, The New Civil Rights Movement, and LGBTQ Nation would no longer be necessary.

“But as publishers and editors tell CJR, that has never been the case. The past five months have illustrated the vital importance of LGBTQ media in US society, as these publications provided support, information, and comfort to a community forced to adapt to a drastically different political landscape. . . .”

Faulty I.D. on N.Y. Times Op-Ed Upsets Israelis

Marwan Barghouti
Marwan Barghouti

“The New York Times on Monday added an editor’s note to the opinion piece written by jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti explaining the reason for his incarceration amid heavy criticism for failing to note his murder and terror convictions,” the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Tuesday.

“The initial text of the op-ed referred to Barghouti as a ‘Palestinian leader and parliamentarian.’

” ‘This article explained the writer’s prison sentence but neglected to provide sufficient context by stating the offenses of which he was convicted,’ the note read. ‘They were five counts of murder and membership in a terrorist organization. Mr. Barghouti declined to offer a defense at his trial and refused to recognize the Israeli court’s jurisdiction and legitimacy.’

“In the editorial published on Sunday, Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences for terrorism and murder in Israel, explained why he and hundreds of other Palestinian prisoners have gone on hunger strike. Barghouti accused Israel of ‘mass arbitrary arrests and ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners.’ . . .”

The newspaper also said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the Times. In addition, “Speaking to Army Radio on Monday, Deputy Minister for Diplomacy Michael Oren called the opinion piece a ‘journalistic terror attack.’ The former ambassador to the U.S. said that Israel should consider action against the New York Times for publishing something ‘full of lies,’ especially if it turns out the paper helped Barghouti smuggle his article out of prison. . . .”

Haaretz also wrote, “The Times’ public editor, Liz Spayd, addressed the paper’s omission on Tuesday in a piece titled ‘An Op-Ed Author Omits His Crimes, and The Times Does Too.‘

“Spayd wrote that ‘a rash of readers’ had objected to the paper’s ‘distorted characterization of Barghouti,’ an issue that, she noted, the Times has dealt with before. ‘I have written before on the need to more fully identify the biography and credentials of authors, especially details that help people make judgments about the opinions they’re reading,’ she wrote. . . .”

 

The Kerner Commission report was issued March 1, 1968,
The Kerner Commission report was issued on March 1, 1968.

Almost 50 Years Ago, the News Industry Was Called Out on Race. How Should That Be Commemorated?

Almost 50 Years Ago, the News Industry Was Called Out on Race. How Should That Be Commemorated?

It will be 50 years next March since the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, known as the Kerner Commission, shook the news media with its declaration that “the journalistic profession has been shockingly backward in seeking out, hiring, training, and promoting Negroes.”

The Kerner report also said, “News organizations must employ enough Negroes in positions of significant responsibility to establish an effective link to Negro actions and ideas and to meet legitimate employment expectations.”

The report led to training programs for journalists of color and increased hiring. In 1978, the American Society of News Editors set a goal of achieving parity in newsrooms with the percentage of people of color in the general population by 2000. Twenty years later, the goal was changed to 2025. The 2000 goal was not met, but “diversity” is now part of industry language and outreach efforts continue. Ethnic diversity now also includes Hispanics, Asian Americans and Native Americans.

How should the news industry commemorate this 50-year milestone?

Richard Prince, author of “Journal-isms” and a member of ASNE’s Diversity Committee, is submitting ideas to the organization and would like to include those from readers.

Please send to journal-isms-owner (at) yahoogroups.com by this Friday, April 21. Or you can simply use the Comments section, below.

Chapter 15 of the Kerner Commission report, “The News Media and the Disorders,” is here.

A brief summary of Chapter 15 is here [PDF]. (Go to Chapter 15)

Short Takes

A runaway slave ad placed by Andrew Jackson in the “Tennessee Gazette,” on Oct. 3, 1804. See fourth item. (Credit: (Library of Congress/Tennessee Gazette)
A runaway slave ad placed by Andrew Jackson in the Tennessee Gazette, on Oct. 3, 1804. See fourth item below. (Credit: Library of Congress/Tennessee Gazette)

John Yearwood-seated

(Credit: International Press Institute)

“A few months ago, I was on a plane with Julie Andrews while on my way home from an IPI board meeting in Austria. When we landed, the woman in front of her got up, turned around and said simply, ‘Thank you.’ With those two words, she spoke for all of us in the cabin. Thank you, Richard Prince.”

— John Yearwood, executive board chairman, International Press Institute; president, Yearwood Media Group; former world editor, Miami Herald.

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