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Plenty of Time to See Jay Z Now

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2 Fired After Seeking Tickets to Hillary Event

Slate’s ‘Headlines From the Future’

Pundits Tell CNN’s Zucker to Look in the Mirror

‘This Election Has Brought Out the Worst in People’

Detroit Anchor Retires, Will Champion Medical Pot

Dakota Pipeline Workers Found Native Artifacts

Venezuela Blocks Washington Post Reporter

U.K.’s Lionel Morrison Fought for Black Journalists

Short Takes

Hundreds of people lined up on E. 30th Street leading to the Hillary Clinton campaign offices in Cleveland last Friday morning to get free tickets to a Jay Z concert to be held this Friday. The ticket distribution is part of a get-out-the-vote campaign. (Credit: David Petkiewicz/cleveland.com)

2 Fired After Seeking Tickets to Hillary Event

“WEWS Channel 5 ‘Good Morning Cleveland’ anchor Jackie Fernandez and meteorologist Somara Theodore are no longer with the station,” Joey Morona reported Tuesday for cleveland.com.

Jackie Fernandez

Scott Jones reported for his TV news tipsheet FTVLive Monday that the two “were fired after posting that they were standing in line to get free Jay Z tickets” for a get-out-the-vote concert for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton scheduled for Friday.

“Sources say that Fernandez and Theodore were both on the clock while waiting to get the tickets,” the FTVLive story continued.

“This happens just as corporate had posted a message on the Scripps in house website, telling employees to be extra careful of not participating in any political activities from now and until the election. . . .”

“We don’t discuss internal employee matters,” news director Jeff Harris said in a statement, Morona reported. “However, News 5 holds all of its journalists to the highest ethical standards.”

Somara Theodore

“It is important to the reputation of our station and to Scripps, our parent company, that our news coverage is fair and unbiased,” Harris said. “Those crucial qualities have been emphasized repeatedly during this contentious election season.

“We remind our journalists frequently to avoid even the appearance of support for any sides of this election. It is imperative that we maintain objectivity in the work we do to serve our communities in NE Ohio.”

“Harris said the station is still figuring out staffing for the morning show going forward.

“Fernandez and Theodore both arrived in Cleveland last summer. They were introduced as part of News 5’s ‘fresh and hip news team’ in splashy promos . . . ”

The Clinton campaign on Thursday announced procedures for media to apply for press credentials to cover the  event.

Legendary musician Stevie Wonder will perform in Philadelphia at a rally Friday for Clinton supporters, the campaign announced Wednesday, Jerry Gaul reported for PhillyVoice. “On Saturday, the campaign is hosting another get-out-the-vote performance that will feature pop singer Katy Perry. . . .”

Slate’s ‘Headlines From the Future’

“This week and next week, two grand American contests are coming to a close,” Holly Allen, Josh Levin and Seth Maxon wrote Wednesday for Slate. “By Thursday morning, either the long-suffering Chicago Cubs or the long-suffering Cleveland Indians will be World Series champs and no longer long-suffering. By next Wednesday (we really, really hope), either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will be the United States’ president-elect. We’ve imagined what one of those baseball-and-politics scenarios might look like in the newspaper mock-up above.” Allen is a Slate web designer, Levin is Slate’s executive editor and Maxon is nights and weekends home page editor. As it turned out, the Cubs won their first World Series in 108 years, 8-7, invalidating one part of the “racist mascot” headline. Other Slate headlines 

Pundits Tell CNN’s Zucker to Look in the Mirror

“CNN president Jeff Zucker described former network commentator Donna Brazile’s interactions with the Clinton campaign as ‘unethical’ and ‘disgusting’ during a Tuesday editorial meeting, according to a source with knowledge of the matter,” Michael Calderone reported Tuesday for the Huffington Post.

But rather than finding an amen corner, Zucker is receiving pushback from media commentators who say the Brazile affair is a mess of Zucker’s — and his colleagues’ — own making.

“The decision by ABC News to hire George Stephanopoulos in 1996 tripped alarms throughout American journalism,” Jim Rutenberg wrote Tuesday in the New York Times.

“Mr. Stephanopoulos, a top aide to President Bill Clinton, was so fresh from the political battlefield that he still had blood on his shoes. Would he track it into newsrooms and broadcast studios, leaving a trail for others to follow?

“ ‘Government-to-press switcheroos do not bode well for news objectivity,’ The Los Angeles Times television critic Howard Rosenberg wrote at the time. In The New York Times Magazine, Max Frankel called Mr. Stephanopoulos’s move another step in ‘the progressive collapse of the walls that traditionally separated news from propaganda,’ which had been erected ‘to guard against all kinds of partisan contamination.’

“Network news executives brushed it off as sanctimony from graybeards who didn’t get it. Their hiring of political operatives — who were becoming telegenic stars in their own right — continued apace.

“Well, here we are. This week brought the news that CNN had cut ties to Donna Brazile, the interim chairwoman of the Democratic Party and a longtime paid political analyst for the network. They parted ways after leaked emails indicated that she had shared with Hillary Clinton’s campaign some possible questions for CNN-sponsored candidate events during the primaries.

“It took 20 years, but the warnings have come true — the contamination has spread and the patient is looking sickly. . . .”

Similar reactions came from Michael Arceneaux on The Root (“Really, CNN? You’re Hot With Donna Brazile, but Cool With Corey Lewandowski Being on Trump’s Payroll?”), Chez Pazienza of the Daily Banter (“CNN’s Jeff Zucker Seriously Needs To Spare Us His Outrage Over Donna Brazile”), David Folkenflik on NPR (“Donna Brazile’s Resignation Illustrates Cable TV’s Pundit Problem”), and David Bauder of the Associated Press (“Use of campaign surrogates puts CNN on the defensive“.) Others weighed in earlier in the week.

Vandals spray painted graffiti on and set fire to Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church in Greenville, Miss., which has a black congregation. (Credit: Angie Quezada, Delta Daily News, Greenville)

‘This Election Has Brought Out the Worst in People’

“Authorities investigating a historically black church burned Tuesday night in Greenville also found ‘Vote Trump’ spray-painted on the side,” Jerry Mitchell reported Wednesday for the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss.

“Mayor Errick D. Simmons called the attack on the century-old Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church ‘a heinous, hateful and cowardly act,’ which is being investigated as a possible hate crime.

Mitchell also wrote, “Sarah Kramer, editor of The Delta-Democrat Times, worries about the river city she loves.

“ ‘We are retreating, and racial divides are heightened,’ she wrote in a column. ‘This election has brought out the worst in people. Families are fighting; friendships have ended. But to let that anger and hatred resonate in our community, our home, is not the answer.’ . . .”

Detroit Anchor Retires, Will Champion Medical Pot

Anqunette Jamison Sarfoh

“After 22 years on television, Fox 2 Detroit morning anchor Anqunette Jamison Sarfoh has announced plans to retire,” Elissa Robinson reported Tuesday for the Detroit Free press.

“In a Facebook video post Tuesday morning, Sarfoh, best known as ‘Q’ to Fox 2 watchers, said that she would leave the business and join a leadership role with MILegalize, in an effort to help legalize marijuana in Michigan.

“Most recently, Sarfoh was on a leave of absence because of medical issues related to her multiple sclerosis.

” ‘I loved my job but multiple sclerosis was making it harder and harder to do it,’ she said in the video. ‘I spent my first year of having MS sicker than I have ever been in my entire life. And then I became a medical marijuana patient.’ . . .”

Dakota Pipeline Workers Found Native Artifacts

“The company building a controversial oil pipeline north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation failed to immediately notify state regulators after finding four stone cairns and other artifacts during construction in Morton County as tensions grew among pipeline opponents, documents show,” Amy Dalrymple and Mike Nowatzki reported Tuesday for Forum News Service.

“Dakota Access LLC, a subsidiary of Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, waited at least 10 days to notify the Public Service Commission about an unanticipated discovery found in mid-October, a potential violation of the state permit that authorizes pipeline construction. . . .”

Meanwhile, “President Obama addressed the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy for the second time Tuesday, saying his administration is looking for ways to reroute the pipeline,” Caitlin Yilek reported for the Hill.

“ ‘We’re monitoring this closely, and you know I think that as a general rule my view is that there is a way for us to accommodate sacred lands of Native Americans,’ Obama said in an interview with NowThis News, shared with MSNBC’s ‘The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell‘ Tuesday.

“ ‘I think that right now the Army Corps [of Engineers] is examining whether there are ways to reroute this pipeline. . . .”

Venezuela Blocks Washington Post Reporter

“Venezuelan authorities stopped a Washington Post reporter at the Caracas airport late Monday night and denied him entry, in the latest case of blocking a foreign correspondent from covering the mounting political and economic turmoil in the South American country,” the Post reported on Tuesday.

“Immigration officials told Joshua Partlow, 38, a dual U.S.-Canadian national, that he lacked a required work visa. Partlow and many other foreign correspondents with non-U.S. passports had routinely visited Venezuela in the past without work visas.

“Venezuela is mired in its worst recession in decades, and opposition groups have organized protests in recent weeks that have drawn hundreds of thousands of people. Another demonstration had been called for Thursday, although it was postponed late Tuesday.

“Carlos Lauria, program director for the Americas at the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, said Venezuela adopted a regulation in 2004 requiring visiting correspondents to apply in advance for authorization from the Communications Ministry. But that has rarely been enforced in recent years.

“ ‘They are enforcing this selectively now, I think, because they don’t want coverage of the protests,’ Lauria said in a telephone interview. . . .”

Lionel Morrison, right, with Nelson Mandela. (Credit: The Voice)

U.K.’s Lionel Morrison Fought for Black Journalists

“I am sad to record the death of Lionel Morrison, aged 81, a tireless activist for the National Union of Journalists and for the cause of black people,” Roy Greenslade wrote Wednesday for Britain’s Guardian.

“I am unsure whether he was the first black journalist in Fleet Street, but I cannot recall another who worked for a national popular newspaper in the early 1970s.

“He was certainly the NUJ’s first black president, having been elected to the post in 1987, and worked hard for the union for more than 40 years.

“I think Seamus Dooley, the NUJ’s assistant general secretary, summed up his character well in noting that he ‘made a remarkable impression on all who met him’.

“He sure did. Quiet, persistent and patient, he preferred to argue his case one-to-one, face-to-face rather than ranting from the microphone.

“I had met him several times before I knew anything of his background in South Africa, where he was born in 1935.

“At 21, he was the youngest of the 155 people to face the court in the infamous treason trial that resulted in the jailing of Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu.

“Morrison, who had previously spent five months in Johannesburg’s notorious prison, The Fort, for his opposition to apartheid, was acquitted.

“While working as a reporter for the Golden City Post, South Africa’s first black weekly, he helped to found the South African National Union of Journalists, a non-racial organisation in contrast to the whites-only South African Society of Journalists.

“Following the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, he went into exile. He spent time in Europe, Asia and Africa, helping to found the Afro-Asian Journalists Association, before beginning to look for work in Britain in 1968. . . .”

In 2007, Morrison published “A Century of Black Journalism in Britain: A Kaleidoscopic View of Race and the Media (1893-2003)“ (scroll down), a reference book that liberally uses documents and papers from his own work in the push to desegregate the British media.

Short Takes

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