Articles Feature

Outrage in Texas A&M Case Prompts Resignation

by richard01648

Interim Dean: To Remain Would Be a ‘Distraction’
‘The Cruelty Is the Point,’ Says Houston Editorial
L.A. Times Unmasks Cops Who Blew Up Neighborhood
Funders Not Doing Right by BIPOCs, Study Says

Students’ Stories Lead to Revered Coach’s Firing
Coates Shows Up in S.C. to Support Teacher
Unexpected’ Death: Meteorologist Elise Finch, 51
Charles Cherry II, Black Press Publisher, Dies at 66

Short Takes: Andale Gross; Johnathan Solarte; Ron DeSantis and “corporate media”; Jesse J. Holland; link between Fox News and harsher sentences; Ernest Owens; Cesar Conde; HuffPost’s ” Indigenous Voices”; WCVB Boston and the NAACP; Bayan Wang; “Top 10 Most Influential Personalities in Sports Media”; Reggie Bush;

Black Tech Week; AsAmNews; Valerie Guyton; Jacqueline Charles, Riad Kobaissi and Mariam Ouédraogo; former British-Pakistani foreign correspondent’s suit against CNN; Mexican journalist’s killing; African media mogul’s U.S. venture.

Homepage photo: Kathleen McElroy’s appointment as Texas A&M journalism director was celebrated at first. (Credit: Meredith Seaver/Bryan-College Station Eagle)

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Appearing on KAGS-TV in Bryan, Texas, on July 12, Kathleen McElroy discusses her plans to leave Texas A&M’s journalism program and return to the University of Texas. (Credit: KAGS-TV/YouTube)

Interim Dean: To Remain Would Be a ‘Distraction’

“The interim dean of Texas A&M’s College of Arts and Sciences announced on Monday he will step down from his role following the botched hiring of renowned journalism professor Kathleen O. McElroy amid conservative backlash,” William Melhado and Alejandro Serrano reported Monday for the Texas Tribune.

“ ‘I feel in the light of controversy surrounding recent communications with Dr. Kathleen McElroy that this is the best thing that I can do to preserve the great things that we have achieved over the last year in creating the College of Arts and Sciences at Texas A&M,’José Luis Bermúdez said in the statement released Monday evening. ‘My continuation in this role would be a needless distraction as you all continue the work that we have begun.’

“Bermúdez said he will leave his role at the end of the month. He did not know who his successor would be. Bermúdez told The Texas Tribune he had no further comment about his decision to step down, but said he would remain as a professor at the university’s philosophy department.

“Last month, A&M celebrated hiring McElroy — who worked at The New York Times for two decades and formerly directed the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Journalism — to revive the university’s journalism program. But the deal fell apart in the weeks that followed after a vocal group of constituents in the Texas A&M system expressed concern over her experience at the Times and with her work on race and diversity in newsrooms, McElroy told the Tribune last week.

“During the failed negotiation process, McElroy said that Bermúdez told her he could not protect her from university leaders facing pressure to fire her over ‘DEI hysteria’ surrounding her appointment. Bermúdez advised McElroy to stay in her tenured role at UT-Austin. . . .”

“For too long, leaders — both Democratic and Republican — have struck a Faustian bargain, relying on deterrence through brutality as a substitute for thoughtful policy,” wrote the Houston Chronicle. (Credit: Jerry Lara/San Antonio Express-News).

‘The Cruelty Is the Point,’ Says Houston Editorial

“There’s a reason Native Americans called barbed wire the ‘devil’s rope,‘ ” the Houston Chronicle editorialized Tuesday.

The Chronicle was referring to a story broken by its parent Hearst Newspapers, based on emails it obtained, in which a state trooper said migrants were left bloodied from razor-wire barriers and that orders were given to deny people water in sweltering heat.

“In one account, Texas Trooper Nicholas Wingate told a supervisor that upon encountering a group of 120 migrants on June 25 — including young children and mothers nursing babies — in Maverick County, a rural Texas border county, he and another trooper were ordered to ‘push the people back into the water to go to Mexico,’ ” Acacia Coronado reported Tuesday for the Associated Press.

“White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Tuesday that the trooper’s account, if true, was ‘abhorrent’ and ‘dangerous.’ Democrats in the Texas Capitol said they planned to investigate.” Immigrant rights organizations weighed in, and the story became national news, even as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office contradicted the trooper’s story.

Moreover, as the Dallas Morning News reported, “U.S. State Department officials said Texas repeatedly ignored requests for proper inspection of wiring and buoys to ensure they do not violate any international treaties.

“ ‘We aren’t asking for permission,’ Abbott tweeted in March, referring to the state’s erecting 60 miles of concertina wire.

“Shortly before a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper sent an internal memo detailing what he called inhumane treatment at the border, Mexico’s incoming foreign affairs secretary sent a diplomatic memo to the United States accusing Texas officials of violating bilateral treaties from 1944 and 1970. . . .”

The Chronicle editorial, which is behind a paywall, continued:

“The trooper described the actions in an email dated July 3 as inhumane.

“The cruel embrace of the spikes offered 19th century settlers the solution they’d been looking for to stake their claims out west: a fence that kept cattle in, and undesirables out. Unsuspecting wild buffalo and longhorns often became ensnared, thrashing their bodies against the wire, not knowing that the more they struggled, the more they’d suffer. If hunger or thirst didn’t kill them, infections from their festering wounds would.

“Though many cowboys and even ranchers protested the wire and its agonizing violence, the devil’s rope offered something too tempting: dominion.

Texas National Guard soldiers put concertina wire on the embankment of the Rio Grande river in El Paso, Texas, in March. (Credit: Omar Ornelas/El Paso Times)

“Over countless wars, that design has been perfected into even more barbaric forms, including razor wire — the kind that Gov. Greg Abbott has strung along the Rio Grande as part of his billion-dollar border security initiative.

“The war we’re fighting now, Abbott and his cronies argue, is at our southern border. And the enemy? Smugglers and organized crime, of course. But also, desperate families of men, women and children, many seeking asylum.

“That includes an unsuspecting 19-year-old who became trapped in wire and writhed in pain while suffering from a miscarriage.

“A man who tried to free his child from the unrelenting teeth of a razor-wrapped barrel and earned a ‘significant laceration’ on his left leg.

“A 15-year-old boy who broke his right leg in the currents because the razor wire was ‘laid out in a manner that it forced him into the river where it is unsafe to travel.’

“And a 4-year-old girl caught trying to cross the wire and pressed back until, in the triple-digit heat, she passed out from exhaustion. . . .

“For too long, leaders — both Democratic and Republican — have struck a Faustian bargain, relying on deterrence through brutality as a substitute for thoughtful policy. Rather than ‘secure the border,’ these tactics have only increased the number of human remains that wash up on the Rio Grande banks. They’ve deeply scarred too many soldiers left to do the dirty work of cowardly elected leaders, and taken the lives of several National Guardsmen.

“Concertina wire and booby traps can’t distinguish between a criminal and a nursing mom. But the men and women in uniform who work our border can.

“The crisis at our border is a humanitarian one and it requires humans to handle it with compassion and consideration, not a merciless barrier of deterrents. It requires clear, accessible legal pathways that encourage migrants to safely access ports of entry.

“Even if DPS were to insist on humane treatment of all migrants, the cruelty won’t be forgotten, especially by the family and loved ones of the men, women and children whose last breath was at our border. And the cruelty won’t really cease until Congress repairs our broken immigration system and politicians like Abbott stop their barbed assaults — in rhetoric and in weaponry — that exploit the life-or-death struggles of migrants as easy campaign kindling.

“ ‘Barbed wire proclaims that you are kept out or kept in, and, when you resist, it rips you,’ W.H. Auden wrote in a poem after World War II. ‘Other barriers weather, crumble, grow moss; wire merely rusts, and keeps its sting.’

“As it was when western lands were dominated and wrenched from Native Americans’ hands, the cruelty is the point.”

Residents Paula Benítez de Rodríguez, left, and Rosalba Beltran hold posters with photos of two LAPD officers involved in the fireworks detonation. (Credit: Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

L.A. Times Unmasks Cops Who Blew Up Neighborhood

“About 30 people marched in South L.A. on Monday afternoon to demand harsher punishment for the Los Angeles police officers who blew up their neighborhood two years ago,” Brittny Mejia and Libor Jany reported Monday for the Los Angeles Times.

“The march followed a recent Times investigation that, for the first time, named the six bomb squad officers who were involved in the botched detonation of illegal fireworks in June 2021. They were Det. Damien Levesque, Mell Hogg, Mark Richardson, Brendan McCarty, Thomas Deluccia and Stefanie Alcocer.

“ ‘It took two freaking years to get the names of officers; that’s a joke,’ said Maria Velasquez, who was among more than 80 residents displaced by the blast.

“Despite repeated demands from affected residents, the officers’ names and formal discipline in the matter had largely remained veiled, thanks to the LAPD’s secretive disciplinary system and its refusal to discuss personnel matters. The Times was able to determine the officers’ names — and how the LAPD dealt with some of them — through investigative records, court documents and interviews.

“Four officers tied to the incident have been disciplined, according to the LAPD. The only disciplinary action they’ve disclosed is Alcocer’s 10-day suspension, although they did not name her.

“The LAPD has cited state law as the reason the department cannot disclose officer personnel records or information relating to the June 2021 explosion. The Times’ attorney pushed back on that, telling Chief Michel Moore that the state requires such disclosures in instances in which officers badly injure people or there are sustained findings of unreasonable or excessive force, as was the case in the blast. . . .

“The blast injured at least 17 people and damaged or destroyed 13 businesses, 22 residential properties and 37 vehicles, police have said. . . .”

Only 21% of respondents say funding is enough for basic operations.

From the Pivot Fund report

Funders Not Doing Right by BIPOCs, Study Says

“Seventy-nine percent of BIPOC-founded news organizations that responded to our survey stated that current funders are not meeting their primary needs,” Tracie M. Powell and Meredith D. Clark, PhD, wrote for the Pivot Fund, using the acronym for Black, Indigenous, People of Color.

“Most cited the scale of philanthropic funding, which was generally not enough to sustain operations for a significant amount of time or to make game-changing moves, such as hiring additional staff.

“Reporting requirements were often described as burdensome, with one publisher saying he would not advise a news startup to apply for philanthropic funding unless it had dedicated development staff to handle the requirements.

“Boot camps and accelerators [defined as “a mentor-based program that provides guidance, support and limited funding in exchange for equity”] received mixed reviews. While many appreciated lessons learned and connections made, some experienced journalists and publishers called it ‘paternalistic’ to make participation a requirement of funding. . . .

“BIPOC founders were clear about what they need: General operating support, streamlined reporting requirements, and investments large enough to build capacity. Being able to hire additional business-side or journalism staff is how they can produce game-changing results.

“They also want to see philanthropy tailor its approach to BIPOC publishers, recognizing that it may take more investment to scale and [achieve] sustainability. And they want philanthropists to find ways to work with for-profit publishers, who are filling a vital civic role but aren’t set up to receive donations as easily as a nonprofit. . . .”

Students’ Stories Lead to Revered Coach’s Firing

“The news release about the football coach’s two-week suspension was short and matter-of-fact,” Laura Wagner reported July 12 for The Washington Post.

“It acknowledged that an investigation found evidence to support a complaint about hazing within the football program but provided few details — except that university officials strongly disapproved and changes would be made. Released on a summer Friday, nearly two months ahead of the season, it drew minor media attention, and the story easily could have ended there.

“But reporters for Northwestern’s student newspaper wasted no time digging into what they saw as holes in the administration’s announcement.

“By Monday night, systemic hazing within the Northwestern football program was a national news story, the university had divulged shocking details from its investigation — and Pat Fitzgerald, a revered coach entering his 18th season at the helm of the team he once played for, had been fired outright. . . .”

The Daily Northwestern stories were bylined Nicole Markus, Alyce Brown, Cole Reynolds, Divya Bhardwaj and Lawrence Price.

Meanwhile, Anthony Gharib reported July 10 for USA Today, “After a Saturday report by The Daily Northwestern detailed alleged hazing and sexual misconduct on the Northwestern football team, three former players are making allegations about a racist culture within the program, including multiple racist attacks and remarks from the coaching staff and players, The Daily reported on Monday. . . .

“Two of the former players who spoke with the Daily askedCarron J. Phillips, Deadspin: We all know Pat Fitzgerald’s football coaching career isn’t over to remain anonymous. One told the Daily there was blatant racism on the team, with Fitzgerald implementing the ‘Wildcat Way,’ which meant asking Black players and coaches to cut their dreadlocks. The former player alleged that the coaches used the phrase ‘good, clean American fun’ to indicate how they wanted players to look and act, adding that white players with longer hair were not asked to change it.

“Ramon Diaz Jr., a Latino player who was an offensive lineman from 2005-2008, described a hostile experience as a non-white player.

“ ‘I didn’t feel like I could be anything other than white’ Diaz told The Daily. ‘We never felt like we could be ourselves. We had to fit in by being white or acting white or laughing at our own people.’ . . .”

The Associated Press reported Tuesday, “A former Northwestern football player filed the first lawsuit against Pat Fitzgerald and members of the school’s leadership, seeking damages stemming from a hazing scandal that cost the former football coach his job. . . .”

Ta-Nehisi Coates was at Monday’s school board meeting in South Carolina’s Lexington-Richland school district but did not speak. Neither did teacher Mary Wood, who was told to stop using his book. (Credit: (Joshua Boucher/The State)

Coates Shows Up in S.C. to Support Teacher

“Author Ta-Nehisi Coates sat silently through a school board meeting in South Carolina to support a high school teacher told to stop using his book on growing up Black in America in her advanced English class,” the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

“Mary Wood has taught the lesson before, but after a few of her Chapin High School students wrote a school board member in February that the unit made them feel ‘uncomfortable’ and ‘ashamed to be Caucasian’ the books were taken up and the assignment ended.

“Coates wrote his 2015 book ‘Between the World and Me’ as a letter to his teenage son on his perceptions of the feelings and circumstances of being Black in America and how racism and violence based on skin color are part of American society. . . .”

Bristow Marchan reported for The State in Columbia, S.C., “Mallory Greene, 14, is a rising high school student who said she so far had not been assigned a non-white author in school, although she had read Coates’ book.

“ ‘He describes America as a galaxy, where idyllic white suburbia was on the other side,’ Greene said. ‘I grew up on that side of the galaxy… and learning his perspective brought me awareness, not shame.’ . . .”

Superintendent Akil Ross, who is Black, “opened the meeting by laying out Lexington-Richland 5’s policy on academic freedom, saying he was confused by questions of whether the district taught ‘systemic racism.’ “

Marchan continued, “Ross shared his own story about a lesson his young daughter had learned in school about the invention of the cotton gin, which ‘improved conditions for workers,’ she was told. Ross, who is Black, said his daughter told him her class had learned about ‘workers, like us,’ without the class material mentioning those workers had been enslaved.

“ ‘I said, “maybe we need a second opinion on this,” which he said his daughter’s teacher was able to do. . . .

“The meeting Monday ended without the board taking action, although Ross offered the board his ‘commitment’ to better teach teachers how to use controversial material ‘so there’s no confusion’; to offer staff development, ‘so they know what their protections are’; to have multiple viewpoints presented — and to offer Greene, the rising high school student, non-white authors to read in school. . . .”

Coates himself was present for Monday’s school board meeting, but did not speak. Neither did Wood, who was also present.

‘Unexpected’ Death: Meteorologist Elise Finch, 51

“New Yorkers are mourning the loss of a beloved local TV personality,” NBC News reported Monday.

“Meteorologist Elise Finch, who delivered weather reports on WCBS for 16 years, died over the weekend at just 51 years old. Finch’s passing was ‘sudden and unexpected,’ according to a statement on the station’s website, noting that the broadcaster had appeared on air just two days before her death on Sunday.

“Finch is said to have passed away at a community hospital and a cause of death has yet to be determined. CBS New York aired a poignant tribute to Finch’s memory, with her teammates getting visibly emotional while reflecting on her personal and professional legacy.”

Charles Cherry II, Black Press Publisher, Dies at 66

“ Charles W. “Chuck’’ Cherry II of Daytona Beach, a fierce proponent of the Black Press and a longtime warrior for social justice, died on Saturday, July 15, at age 66,” the Daytona Times reported Saturday.

“Chuck Cherry retired as publisher of the Daytona Times and the Florida Courier in 2020 after running the Black newspapers’ editorial operations for decades.

“The retired attorney also was an author, speaker, radio broadcaster and strategic business planning consultant. . . .”

Short Takes

  • Andale Gross (pictured), editor since 2019 of the Associated Press team that covers race and ethnicity in America, has been named the Kansas City Star’s next managing editor, Luke Nozicka reported Tuesday for the Star. “The job marks a homecoming for Gross: A native of Moberly, he earned a journalism degree at the University of Missouri and started in the industry in 1994, covering Olathe schools out of The Star’s Johnson County bureau. ‘It’s a full circle moment,’ said Gross, who starts Monday. Gross will become the first Black editor to hold the position of managing editor. He will be The Star’s second-highest-ranking editor and be in charge of day-to-day newsroom operations. . . .” Reporter Gary Fields is leading the race and ethnicity team until a permanent leader is found.
  • “A former San Antonio sports anchor was arrested and charged with murder after a fatal shooting in Corpus Christi on Monday, July 3,” the San Antonio Express-News reported. “Johnathan Solarte (pictured), 37, shot a family member during a verbal argument that turned physical at a home located in the 6600 block of Spurs Nation Drive around midnight on Monday, according to Corpus Christi police. The 35-year-old man who was shot was transported to a local hospital where he died of his injuries. . . .”
  • Jesse J. Holland (pictured) is joining the leadership of George Washington University”s School of Media and Public Affairs as associate director, the school announced. Holland “is the associate director and assistant professor at the school . . . . He is an award-winning journalist and the author of the first novel featuring comics’ most popular black superhero, The Black Panther,” according to the school’s official bio. Holland “is currently serving as Distinguished Visiting Scholar In Residence at the John W. Kluge Center of the Library of Congress” and is “host of the Saturday edition of C-SPAN Washington Journal . . . .”
  • “Ernest Owens (pictured) has come on board as Eater Philly’s new editor,” the publication announced Tuesday. “Owens is a seasoned journalist, radio personality, and author who most recently worked as an editor-at-large and columnist for Philadelphia Magazine. He hosts the weekly podcast Ernestly Speaking! and works as an adjunct professor at Cheyney University. He is also president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists. In February, he published the book The Case for Cancel Culture with St. Martin’s Press. . . .”
  • HuffPost, which “publishes original journalism reaching 65 million monthly global readers, today celebrated the official launch of Indigenous Voices, a new vertical featuring the stories, perspectives and voices of Indigenous peoples,” the company announced July 11. The launch is sponsored by the third season of FX’s ‘Reservation Dogs,’ a critically acclaimed, award-winning series bringing Indigenous representation on television to the forefront of culture. ‘Widespread cultural erasure has prevented many of us from examining Indigenous stories and understanding the complexities that tribal communities experience today. Indigenous Voices will be a space for nuanced conversations about what it means to survive and thrive in this cultural, geographical, and inherently political identity’ . . . .”
  • “Black Tech Week (BTW), a culture-driven conference connecting entrepreneurs, innovators and creatives of color to corporations, investors and one another across several days of curated content, social events and incredible energy, has created a media division, BlackTech Weekly. This expansion aims to amplify the work of Black founders, partners and ecosystems around the world,” TVNewsCheck reported July 13. “BlackTechWeekly has secured partnerships with several corporations including Inc. Magazine and NBCUniversal. “The distribution and engagement power of these collaborations will help bring the extraordinary stories of Black innovators to a collective audience of over 100 million people, monthly,” said Brian Brackeen, co-owner of Black Tech Week.
  • “Asian American Media Inc, the non-profit that publishes AsAmNews 365 days a year, has been awarded two grants totaling $162,500,” AsAmNews reported July 11. “The latest grant of $62,500 will fund our Los Kinjos or Lost Neighborhoods project. AsAmNews will examine the loss of 44 Japanese American communities after WWII. We will look at where members of those communities dispersed, why they left and the impact the disappearance of these neighborhoods had on their culture and livelihoods. We will also compare what happened after World War II to communities in danger of being lost today from the Asian American, African American, Latino and Native American communities. . . .”
  • “More and more newsrooms are discovering that diversifying their coverage to better represent and engage the communities they cover is not only the right thing to do, it’s necessary if they wish to remain relevant and sustainable,” the American Press Institute reports.” Better News recently published a report about how Louisville Public Media shifted from just reporting news about Black people to making news for and with them,” according to an update from the American Press Institute. “Better News podcast host Michael O’Connell talks to Louisville Public Media’s vice president of content, Gabrielle Jones, about LPM’s new approach to covering the news for and with its Black audiences.”
  • “The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) announced prestigious awards to three journalists distinguished by their passion and perseverance in covering global crises and uncovering widespread corruption,” the press freedom group said. “Miami Herald Caribbean Correspondent Jacqueline Charles [left], who has provided incisive reporting on disasters, violence, corruption and more in Haiti and elsewhere in the region, will receive the ICFJ Excellence in International Reporting Award. Thee 2023 ICFJ Knight International Journalism Awards go to Riad Kobaissi of Lebanon, an investigative journalist whose revelations of corruption foreshadowed the Beirut port explosion, and Mariam Ouédraogo of Burkina Faso, who has shown the impact of extremism in West Africa on women and children.”
  • “A former CNN journalist is suing the network claiming unfair dismissal and racial discrimination after she was left disabled during an assignment. British-Pakistani foreign correspondent Saima Mohsin (pictured) was severely injured during a reporting trip in Israel in 2014 when her cameraman ran over her foot. The tissue damage left her struggling to walk and work full time, and Mohsin says her request to change to alternative duties was denied. She further alleges that when she asked to switch to a presenting role to reduce the amount of time she spent traveling, she was told ‘you don’t have the look we are looking for.’ Her contract with CNN was terminated three years later,” the Daily Beast told readers, summarizing a report in the Guardian.
  • “In a groundbreaking move, renowned African media mogul Olasunkanmi Olanrewaju, popularly known as Ola Signal (pictured), has established his presence in the United States, solidifying his authenticity as a media icon,” Edwin Elic-Jaleiba reported July 12 for Front Page Africa in Liberia. . . . Ola Signal, as the CEO of Signal Media International, announced the establishment of an umbrella company headquartered in the United States. This venture aims to uphold the pride of African media, technology, and entertainment in the diaspora. One of the company’s major milestones is the planned hosting of the first-ever All African Festival USA in the summer of 2024. Additionally, Signal Media International will launch the Pan African Diaspora (PADI) magazine and Pan African Diaspora (PADI) television channel, available on cable and the internet. . . .”

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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@groups.io

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