Post-Convention, Nevada Sends COVID Alerts

Originally published Aug. 11, 2022

Some NABJ/NAHJ Attendees Are Told of Exposure
Zealotry, Incompetence: Child Separation Revelations Hailed
Journalists ‘Lost Compass’ in Reporting FBI Raid
Uma Pemmaraju, Original Fox Anchor, Was 64

Short Takes: Eric Deggans and “Superfly”; Talib Kweli; Lamont Dozier; Larry Craig Cose; Reuters scholarships for graduate journalism programs; Greensboro News-Record; Michelle Robinson Harper; Samantha Ragland; Census Bureau Director Robert Santos; “Local Matters” newsletter; Human Rights Watch, Antony Blinken and press freedom in Rwanda.

Some NABJ/NAHJ Attendees Are Told of Exposure

Nevada health officials have sent notices declaring “You might have been exposed to COVID-19” to selected attendees of last week’s joint convention of the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists in Las Vegas.

Anecdotal evidence is pointing to more than the two or three infected people that NABJ and NAHJ officials say they know about, but a spokesperson for the Nevada Health and Human Services Department told Journal-isms the agency does not know how many notices it issued.

Meanwhile, other journalism organizations planning conventions in the next few months say they are watching developments, and the Asian American Journalists Association, whose July 27-30 convention in Los Angeles is behind it, reported good news.

Ai Uchida, AAJA director of operations and deputy director, told Journal-isms, “A week after convention we knew of about 10 cases of those who tested positive both during and after convention, out of more than 1,500 attendees. That is a fraction of 1% of all attendees. We credit this to our attendees abiding by our Covid-19 policy and masking requirement.”

The notices from the Nevada health department explain, “The Exposure Notification System on your phone constantly scans and exchanges random keys with the phones of people you are near. One of the people who you were recently near has tested positive for COVID-19.”

The message suggests, “please self-quarantine and visit < https://nvhealthresponse.nv.gov/exposure-notifications/

The notice from Nevada’s health department.

Meanwhile, attendees and non-attendees swapped anecdotes. Most expressed their happiness at being able to be with friends and colleagues again after two years of the pandemic. But others, when asked, discussed COVID.

“Our dear friend (me of 40 years) visited my Las Vegas home last Saturday during a break in the convention where we spent hours reminiscing about our early years in broadcasting and what we accomplished and the future of black journalists!” Rudolph Brewington, a retired broadcast journalist, emailed.

“I took [him] back to his hotel and we hugged knowing this could be the last time we see each other alive given the distance been us.

“I went home.

“The next day (Sunday) [he] texted me that he TESTED POSITIVE FOR COVID WHEN HE GOT HOME TO ATLANTA!”

 The friend, Greg Morrison, confirmed, “I tested negative the next morning but was feeling mild effects by afternoon and tested positive when getting home in Atlanta that night . . . . I have mild symptoms and am isolating at home.    Drinking enough fluids to fill up the Great Lakes and waiting to clear this.Thank God for access to the internet to keep me connected to the outside world.” 

Another told Journal-isms Sunday that five people had informed him that they had tested positive.

Columnist Will Sutton of NOLA.com, a past NABJ president who was in Las Vegas, asked his Twitter followers Monday, “Anyone else get a COVID exposure alert from Nevada or your state? DM, text or email me.”

In reporting the results for his column Wednesday, Sutton tweeted, “#COVID MAKES TRAVELING SCARY. I enjoyed #NABJNAHJ22 in Las Vegas, thanks to protocols. But there are too many risky gambling situations at @CaesarsPalace and beyond w/Rudy Rona lurking.” In his column, Sutton wrote, “Some NABJ-NAHJ attendees got the virus anyway, and they carried it home. I bet it was the others or the travel, not the convention.”

““I bet it was the others or the travel, not the convention,” wrote Will Sutton. (Credit: International Airport Review, 2020)

In a note sent Tuesday to convention attendees, NABJ said, “Because hotels, casinos, public transportation, and entertainment venues don’t require masks, the risk of COVID-19 exposure was beyond our conference’s control. Therefore, we encourage all of our stakeholders to self-test (learn how here) and follow prescribed medical advice if they develop symptoms. Please refer to CDC guidelines here. “

At NAHJ, a spokesperson said, “As our members return home and settle in, we encourage them to exercise personal responsibility to take care of themselves and one another. As recommended by the CDC, if someone tests positive, we advise them to contact a local health department.”

Both organizations noted that they had taken COVID precautions. In a joint message Friday, they said, “We understand this was a risk when planning our first in-person conference during a pandemic, but things happen when thousands gather in one location. NABJ & NAHJ required attendees to verify their vaccination status prior to registering for the conference. It was mandatory for all attendees to wear masks throughout the convention, though clearly, not everyone abided by the rules. (video)

“We are going above and beyond the CDC guidelines.”

AAJA, which met in the Sheraton Universal hotel, credited its precautions in reporting a low infection rate.

“We took Covid-19 very seriously throughout the planning process and made sure to have a flexible policy that allowed us to change with the guidance from the CDC and LA County,” Uchida messaged.

“It was a requirement that to attend convention one had to be up-to-date on vaccines. We stuck by this and didn’t make exceptions.

“All this was communicated in our Covid-19 Policy which we included in all correspondence leading up to the convention, not just to attendees, but also sponsors, vendors, and the venue itself.

“We didn’t have a mask requirement until mid-July but that too was communicated immediately over newsletters and social media, and again, to everyone who would be on-site, not just attendees.

“At the convention itself we made sure to have hundreds of masks and rapid antigen tests available; posted large signs regarding our covid policy and code of conduct; instructed volunteers, staff, board members, hotel staff and hired private security to remind those who were unmasked to mask (there were very few and I have not heard of anyone who didn’t comply); and we encouraged masking at dining events such [as] a Gala by being the examples ourselves — all staff would put on masks when not eating/drinking.

“We followed up with a Covid-19 update a week after convention to encourage regular testing and a reminder that one can test negative for days before testing positive.”

The Asian American Journalists Association credited strict enforcement of its COVID protocols for the low infection rate after its convention. (Credit: Twitter

Other journalism associations said they were watching.

“We will be requiring proof of full vaccination for RTDNA22, September 14-16 in Indianapolis,” Dan Shelley, president and CEO of the Radio Television Digital News Association, messaged. “We will make a decision on masking closer to the start of the conference based on the situation and whatever the CDC and local health officials’ recommendations are at that time.”

Rebecca Aguilar, president of the Society of Professional Journalists, which meets Oct. 27-30 in Washington, said, “Safety is a priority at #MediaFest22. Several SPJ board members have been to other journalism conventions this summer like AEJMC [Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication], IRE [Investigative Reporters & Editors], and NABJ/NAHJ to see how organizers have handled the COVID-19 situation. We are still in the planning stage and are considering all safety measures to ensure our convention attendees feel comfortable attending our October event.”

The Online News Association, which meets Sept. 21–24, in Los Angeles, posted its protocols, which include encouragement to self-test daily, and which declare, “Well-fitting face masks that cover your nose and mouth are required at all indoor events and programming, except when actively eating or drinking.”

At the Native National Native Media Conference Aug. 25-27 in Phoenix, the requirements approximate those at NABJ-NAHJ. “All attendees must be vaccinated and upload a copy of their vaccine verification in order to complete their registration,” messaged Rebecca Landsberry-Baker of the Native American Journalists Association, which is hosting the meeting. “NAJA will also supply masks, and hand sanitizer stations throughout the event.”

• Charles M. Sennott, Ground Truth Project: The time for more diverse leaders in newsrooms is now

Zealotry, Incompetence: Child Separation Revelations Hailed

“Today, I urge you to read The Atlantic’s new cover story by my colleague Caitlin Dickerson (pictured, below) about the origins and consequences of the disastrous decision by President Donald Trump and his advisers to curtail illegal immigration by instituting a brutal family-separation policy in which children — including infants and toddlers — were intentionally taken from their parents,” Tom Nichols wrote Monday for The Atlantic’s daily newsletter.

Jon Allsop quoted Dickerson Tuesday for Columbia Journalism Review. “‘I’m one of the many reporters who covered this story in real time,” Dickerson said. “Despite the flurry of work that we produced to fill the void of information, we knew that the full truth about how our government had reached this point still eluded us.”

Allsop wrote, “Dickerson spent eighteen months trying to reconstruct that full truth, obtaining documents using public-records laws and interviewing more than a hundred and fifty sources, including key players in the implementation of the policy who had not spoken extensively on the record to this point.

“Among many other findings, Dickerson found that Trump administration officials misled the media about child separations at almost every stage — claiming that they weren’t happening, then celebrating the fact that they were, then saying (dishonestly) that they were an unfortunate side effect of necessary border-enforcement work.

Nichols continued for The Atlantic, “Heartbreaking stories of children torn from their parents and then subjected to inhumane detention conditions should afflict the conscience of any decent person. But Americans should also be enraged by the completely dysfunctional nature of their own government. Even if you believe in taking a tough stand against illegal immigration (as I do) the combination of moral rot and bureaucratic incompetence produced outcomes that were far worse than the policy’s designers expected — and they already expected it to be bad.

“When Trump officials such as Stephen Miller and Jeff Sessions finally got the family-separation policy under way, the immigration system’s courts, shelters, and other assets were almost instantly overwhelmed by a flood of traumatized children. The fallout was so awful and so obvious that soon, even Trump’s people began to backpedal away from it. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen — who spoke with Caitlin on the record — admitted that she did not understand how bad the situation would get and that she regretted caving to the pressure to sign the order.

“The family-separation nightmare is what can happen when zealots who have no idea what they’re doing get control of the levers of a gigantic and powerful government. . . .”

Dickerson and Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg plan to conduct a live discussion of the story Friday at 2 p.m. ET. You may register here.

Sherrilyn Ifill, shown at an April 2014 Journal-isms Roundtable, tweeted Wednesday, “The story is not what Trump or his son said. Or how the search will affect the midterms.” (Credit: James Miccolo Johnson)

Journalists ‘Lost Compass’ in Reporting FBI Raid

Sherrilyn Ifill, civil rights lawyer, law professor, and now senior fellow at the Ford Foundation, has some advice for journalists covering Monday’s FBI raid on Donald Trump’s estate at Mar-a-Lago.

Ifill, who formerly led the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, delivered a series of tweets Wednesday:  

“Dear Journalists: Reporting on the search of Trump’s home? Be sure to talk to public defenders. They’ll share critical perspective & context, how rarely cops go through trouble of securing a search warrant as here, & share examples of *actual* injustices. DM me for connections.”

And:

“We’ve lost our compass. The story is not what Trump or his son said. Or how the search will affect the midterms. The story is that a very sober, careful AG, who was the Chief Judge of the D.C. Circuit authorized and a federal judge signed, a warrant to search Trump’s premises.

“The implications of this unprecedented act is that the DOJ may now have determined that the former President may have committed criminal acts. It’s a huge story. Important for our country and worthy of attention. The other story is the willingness of his party to close ranks.

“Which suggests a party prepared to abandon the rule of law. Leaders in the party have threatened retaliation against the AG. This is huge and important. What this means for the future of even rudimentary democracy in this country is alarming. That’s the story. Can we sit with it?

“I just love all [these] folks who now agree that there is such a thing as law enforcement misconduct. But these are the same folks who scuttled the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act which would have allowed citizens to hold law enforcement officers accountable for misconduct. Please.”

: 

People magazine reports on the death of Uma Pemmaraju (video)

Uma Pemmaraju, Original Fox Anchor, Was 64

“Uma Pemmaraju, who was one of the original anchors when Fox News launched in 1996, has died, according to the network,” Ted Johnson reported for Deadline. “She was 64.

“A cause of death was not immediately released.”

Suzanne Scott, CEO of Fox News Media, called Pemmaraju “an incredibly talented journalist as well as a warm and lovely person, best known for her kindness to everyone she worked with.”

Johnson added, “Pemmaraju was born in India and raised in San Antonio. She worked at stations in Dallas, Baltimore and Boston, and was named Boston’s Best Anchor by Boston Magazine 1996 and 1997. She relocated in 1996 to become an anchor on Fox News at its debut.

“At the time, she was one of the few Indian American anchors on a national outlet. She anchored the shows Fox News Now and Fox On Trends. She left the network and then returned in 2003 as an anchor and substitute host. Among her high-profile interviews was one with the Dalai Lama, and she won several Emmy awards during her career. She also had stints at Bloomberg News in New York and, early in her career, worked at the San Antonio Express News. . . .”

Short Takes

NPR television critic Eric Deggans presented a well-researched take on the 50th anniversary of the movie “Super Fly,” saying, “the movie’s gritty, authentic depiction of street life and its flamboyant lead character – a sharp dressing, karate-kicking drug dealer looking for one last, big score before leaving the game – helped create archetypes that have inspired legions of future storytellers and musicians.” But at the end, Curtis Mayfield’s “Pusherman” was broadcast with the “n” word edited out. “I made the decision to edit it out without consulting anyone,” Deggans told Journal-isms. “I did it because it was what we call ‘dead roll’ at the end of the story, and I felt it would be jarring to hear that word as the story is fading out.”

• Rapper and activist rapper Talib Kweli (pictured)”on Monday filed an angry, sprawling, and typo-riddled lawsuit with the New York Supreme Court against G/O Media, its women-focused site Jezebel, and journalist Ashley Reese,” Corbin Bolies reported Tuesday for the Daily Beast. “In the 34-page missive, which he filed without a lawyer, Kweli claimed a 2020 Jezebel story written by Reese detailing his ‘harassment campaign’ against a Black woman on Twitter left him in emotional distress and partial financial ruin because the outlet failed to fulfill its ‘duty’ to fully include his perspective. . . .”

  
  

• Songwriter Lamont Dozier (pictured), who died Monday at 81, was rightly celebrated for his Motown hits as one-third of the Holland-Dozier-Holland team. But Dozier also sang on his own. With its despair about the economy, Dozier’s “Fish Ain’t Bitin‘” (video) from 1973 could have been written today, references to “Tricky Dick” notwithstanding. The New York Times’ Gavin Edwards said that the song, “with lyrics urging Richard Nixon to resign, became a minor hit when his label publicized a letter it had received from the White House asking it to stop promoting the song.” On Twitter, civil rights law leader Sherrilyn Ifill wrote of Dozier’s “Going to My Roots,” from 1977, the year of Alex Haley’s “Roots,” “It’s 10 mins long but maybe before you go to sleep tonight. Listen to the lyrics. Sometimes we all need this — ‘going back to be with myself; I can’t live for nobody else.’ Stay for African music at the end.”

  
  

• “Larry Craig Cose, former Chicago Sun-Times reporter and a businessman and financial adviser, died Tuesday after battling Alzheimer’s disease, family members said. He was 69. Cose began his professional career at the Sun-Times, where his brother Ellis Cose, had worked as a columnist. He started as an editorial assistant and was promoted to reporter, where he “became renowned both for his legendary reporting and his talent for winning the confidence of interview subjects, who invariably opened up their hearts to the young reporter,” the family said. Cose went on to work with Illinois Bell, during which he earned his MBA. He eventually formed his own financial firm.

• Reuters announced Monday the recipients of three scholarships for graduate journalism programs at New York University, City University of New York (CUNY) and Northwestern University. “Kailyn Rhone received a scholarship at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute; Safiyah Riddle was awarded the scholarship at CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism; and Josephine Walker received a scholarship at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, awarded in partnership with the National Association of Black Journalists.”

• • “Gray Television announced Tuesday that Michelle Robinson Harper  will join Gray as the general manager of its CBS affiliate WBTV Charlotte, N.C., effective Sept. 6, reported Tuesday for TVNewsCheck. “Harper is a broadcast media leader with more than 37 years of experience in the Southeast. For the past three years, she has been GM of Cox Media Group’s WHBQ Memphis. Prior to that, she was corporate vice president of sales for Cox Media Group in Atlanta. . . .”
  •   Samantha Ragland (pictured), an experienced journalist, educator and digital strategist, will join the American Press Institute as Vice President of Journalism Programs,” the American Press Institute announced Tuesday. “Ragland is currently a member of the faculty at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies where she also serves as director of the Leadership Academy for Women in Media.”

  

  Census Bureau Director Robert Santos, first Latino in the job, says he wants to rebuild trust among marginalized communities. (Credit: Census Bureau)

  • • Noting that the Census Bureau reported that Latinos, Black Americans and Native Americans were undercounted and that white people and Asians were overcounted in the 2020 Census, the bureau’s first Latino director says that “part of his goal as director is to’ restore integrity to the Census Bureau, rebuild trust among communities and hire a more diverse staff to ensure a robust and fair 2030 Census,” public radio’s “Latino USA” reported. Maria Hinojosa, host and executive producer, interviewed the director, Robert Santos. In July, the bureau announced eight new members of its National Advisory Committee (NAC). “The NAC considers topics such as hard-to- reach populations, race and ethnicity, language, aging populations, American Indian and Alaska Native tribal considerations, new immigrant populations, populations affected by natural disasters, highly mobile and migrant populations, complex households, rural populations, and population segments with limited access to technology.”

  
  

  • • “One of the best antidotes to distrust of ‘the media’ and apathy about the journalism crisis is delivered to around 6,000 inboxes a week,” Brier Dudley wrote Friday for the Seattle Times. “Local Matters newsletter is inspiring for anyone who appreciates the importance of a robust local press system, and loves to see journalists holding the powerful to account, exposing corruption and righting wrongs. [A] no-frills newsletter, it lists a dozen or so of the week’s best local news stories, with links. It’s produced by a handful of volunteers who spend hours scanning front pages of newspapers in every state and tracking investigative work by broadcasters and nonprofits. . . .”

  
  

  • Human Rights Watch offered advice Monday for Secretary of State Antony Blinken about his trip to Africa, which was to conclude Wednesday. In Rwanda, Blinken should “raise the cases of journalists, commentators, and opposition activists jailed for exercising their rights to freedom of association and expression. On May 30, a detained commentator popular on YouTube, Aimable Karasira, told a judge that he was tortured in detention and denied medical treatment. In a July 7 court appearance, he said he had been punished for revealing his treatment in detention and beaten again. . . Commentators, journalists, opposition activists, and others speaking out on current affairs and criticizing public policies in Rwanda have been forcibly disappeared, and some have died under suspicious circumstances. . . .”

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