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Racial Reckoning Here, Ready or Not

richard

Updated June 13

Floyd Case Emboldens Staffs, Prompts Self-Criticism
L.A. Times, NBC News, NABJ to Capitalize the ‘B’;
USA Today and Its Network Follow Suit
. . . So, What About ‘White’ and ‘Brown’ and ‘Red’?
ABC Exec for Diversity Accused, Placed on Leave
Cop Allegedly Urged Burning Hannah-Jones House
Delaware Police Detain Photographer at Protest
Harper’s Bazaar Gets First Black Top Editor
Peabody Winners Focus on Race, Criminal Justice

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The “PBS NewsHour” Thursday produced a remarkable report on the global impact of the George Floyd killing, mentioning similar incidents in other countries and how they were handled.

Floyd Case Emboldens Staffs; Prompts Self-Criticism

“Over the last week, journalists of color have been talking about the racism and discrimination they’ve faced while working in newsrooms,” Laura Hazard Owen reported Thursday for Nieman Lab.

“Many journalists have shared their stories on Twitter, often risking job security and violating NDAs [non-disclosure agreements] to do so. One story is one story, but as the stories pile on top of each other, it becomes obvious that racism in news media is institutionalized across the United States — from newsrooms large and small, in towns and cities, at legacy publications, television stations, and digital startups. . . .”

Journal-isms contributed to the story sharing, tweeting, “Angel Franco, #NYTimes photographer, to Journal-isms in 2016 upon taking buyout: ‘My most memorable memories are on my first day on the job a colleague that worked in the darkroom said to me because of you a white man [can’t] afford to feed his family.’ “

At a webinar Thursday on racial issues inside the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Michael A. Fuoco, a white, 36-year staffer who is president of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, told of a Guild member who was designing the front page a couple of years ago. “Pittsburgh had done improvements to a playground in a black community (video, minus 12:15). And we had some really striking and nice beautiful photographs of young black children playing on this new playground.

“And one of the managers told our member, who is designing the page, ‘You cannot use that picture. J.R., who’s the owner, will go crazy,’ ” a reference to J.R. Block, publisher and editor-in-chief, and member of the family that owns the newspaper.

“So you know what they did? It ran a picture of the playground without anybody on it. . . .[ Block] would go crazy if he saw black faces on the front page of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.” The webinar was sponsored by the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation. Post-Gazette management did not respond to a request for comment.

The national reckoning that is following the police killing of George Floyd is having an unprecedented effect on the news media, with the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times among the latest to feel its effects.

As previously reported, the New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer lost top editors amid the fallout.

At the Los Angeles Times, Executive Editor Norman Pearlstine announced on Tuesday the news organization is moving to “re-evaluate and improve upon our own performance as we commit The Times to documenting and fighting racism whenever and wherever we encounter it.”  (more to come).

At the Washington Post, at a “tense town hall on Friday, [Executive Editor Marty] Baron apologized for failing in a recent email to address ‘the particular and severe burden felt by black employees, many of whom were also covering the story’ of the protests, according to notes from a participant in the meeting,” columnist Ben Smith reported Sunday, updated Tuesday in the New York Times.

“The Post’s union then sent an email to the staff criticizing Mr. Baron’s response. ‘Most striking of all was that the four voices the company chose to elevate in this moment belonged exclusively to white people. There could be no starker example of The Post’s lack of diversity in management. ‘ . . .”

Washington Post Guild leadership messaged Journal-isms Wednesday, “”We asked the company to engage with us on issues of equity and diversity at The Post, and they have invited us to sit down and talk about our ideas. We are developing an action plan with our members and look forward to working with management to make The Post a more fair place to work.”

The reckoning is much wider than those news organizations:

The Tampa Bay Times, which is not a Gannett newspaper, still publishes mugshot galleries, Creative Loafing Tampa reported Wednesday. However the Orlando Sentinel announced Friday it is discontinuing them.

“In 2020, yesterday, to be specific, the new Gannett — formed after GateHouse Media bought Gannett and took its name — removed them from 26 former GateHouse sites, though some had already done it.” The company said, “Mugshot galleries presented without context may feed into negative stereotypes and, in our editorial judgment, are of limited news value. Instead, we will focus on the best ways to inform our readers by providing relevant information that will keep our communities safe and continuing to cover crime, as well as the public safety system. This policy change does not impact the use of mugshots associated with articles or other editorial content. . . .”

Illus­tra­tion by @sapnasscribbles

A church burns during the Greenwood massacre (Credit: Tulsa Historical Society)

Some see the forces underlying these changes as political.

Jonathan Easley and Marty Johnson, wrote Wednesday for The Hill, “Michael Steele, a fierce Trump critic and the first black man to lead the Republican National Committee, said he has a ‘healthy respect’ for how racial minorities in newsrooms are impacted by the events they have to cover.

“But he said reporters risk undermining their credibility if they do not remain objective and neutral by drawing a distinction between reporting and commentary.

“ ‘I think what you see happening is confirmation for a lot of us conservatives that, just as Trump has allowed the baser elements to come out and express their white nationalism, these events seem to have freed up members of the press to express their biases,’ Steele said.  . . .”

Writing Wednesday for vox.com, Ezra Klein saw the changes as generational.

“Millennials are now the largest generation, and they are far more diverse and liberal than the generations that preceded them,” Klein wrote. “. . . the center of generational gravity is changing, and institutions are changing in response.

“ ‘Organizations that have embraced the mantra that they need to diversify have not as quickly realized that diversifying means they have to be a fundamentally different place,’ says Jelani Cobb, the Ira A. Lipman professor at the Columbia Journalism School and a staff writer at the New Yorker.

” ‘If you want to bring in different perspectives, you’ll have a different culture and different environment that will lead you to make different decisions.’ . . . ”

L.A. Times, NBC News, NABJ to Capitalize the ‘B’; USA Today and Its Network Follow Suit

The Los Angeles Times, NBC News and the National Association of Black Journalists all announced this week they would capitalize the “B” in “black” “when referring to people who are part of the African diaspora,” as Los Angeles Times Executive Editor Norman Pearlstine announced on Tuesday.

Late Friday, USA Today and the USA Today Network of Gannett’s more than 260 local news organizations followed suit.

“In proposing this change, the USA TODAY diversity committee explained, ‘Black is an ethnoracial identifier that is inclusive of the collective experiences of the Black U.S. population, including recent immigrants,’ ” Michael McCarter, USA Today’s managing editor of standards, ethics and inclusion, explained..

” ‘Capitalizing Black reflects an understanding and respect that is consistent with how many Black people and Black publications describe the people and descendants of the African diaspora and reflects a rich range of shared cultures.

” ‘It also puts Black on equal footing with other ethnoracial identifiers, such as Native Americans and African Americans.'”

Pearlstine told the L.A. Times staff of the Times’ decision as one of eight steps management is taking as it moves to “re-evaluate and improve upon our own performance as we commit The Times to documenting and fighting racism whenever and wherever we encounter it.”

The others include hiring more black and Latino journalists and re-examining the use of the term “looting.”  

The Seattle Times, Boston Globe and Mother Jones are among the publications to previously announce a change to a capital “B” in “black.” The Associated Press, New York Times and Washington Post have not.

NABJ has gone back and forth.

In February, BuzzFeed said it was given this statement by NABJ:

“The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) has adopted capitalizing the letter ‘b’ in the word ‘Black’ when it is used as a proper adjective, describing a diaspora, community, group and the like — just as Caucasian, Asian, Hispanic, etc. are capitalized.

“Capitalizing the word properly recognizes the identity of Black people.

““We are in the process of updating our online style guide and have already begun capitalizing Black in our communications and publications. We have also requested that the Associated Press consider making this change in the AP Stylebook.”

However, Drew Berry, executive director, said in March that NABJ would survey its members before making a final decision.

“As you know, there are multiple opinions for and against the capitalization of ‘black,’ he told Journal-isms then.

“Although the previous administration appealed to the Associated Press to capitalize ‘Black,’ the official permanent NABJ position is undetermined.

“President Dorothy Tucker (pictured) is in the process of conducting an official quantitative and qualitative survey of our members to determine preferences. Although NABJ members and staff generally use a capital ‘B’ in many instances, the organization will issue its official style guide usage on this and a few more issues in its updated style guide.”

Then, on Thursday, NABJ issued this announcement:

“For the last year, the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) has been integrating the capitalization of the word ‘Black’ into its communications.

“However, it is equally important that the word is capitalized in news coverage and reporting about Black people, Black communities, Black culture, Black institutions, etc.

“NABJ’s Board of Directors has adopted this approach, as well as many of our members, and recommends that it be used across the industry.

“We are updating the organization’s style guidance to reflect this determination. The organization believes it is important to capitalize ‘Black’ when referring to (and out of respect for) the Black diaspora.

“NABJ also recommends that whenever a color is used to appropriately describe race then it should be capitalized, including White and Brown.”

The NBC News statement came later Thursday, in one sentence: “Effective immediately, NBC News and MSNBC will capitalize the ‘B’ in Black when referring to people or the community across all the networks’ platforms.”

It was influenced by Sarah Glover (pictured), immediate past NABJ president, who is manager of social strategy for the NBC Owned Television Stations. Glover wrote a piece advocating the change for the New York Amsterdam News.

Pearlstine did not elaborate on the “B” capitalization, but Brian McGrory wrote in January for the Globe, “After consulting with leaders in the Black community, we’re making this change to recognize that the word has evolved from a description of a person’s skin color to signify a race and culture, and as such, deserves uppercase treatment in the same way that other races — Latino being one example — are capitalized. Unless otherwise requested by a person we’re writing about, we’ll use Black, which is considered to be more inclusive, rather than African-American.“

However, that explanation is problematic, in that it places black people worldwide in the same culture and that “Latino” is not a race but an ethnicity; there are white and black Latinos. “African American” would be a more exact parallel.

The Seattle Times offered perhaps a more honest and accurate explanation: “It is increasingly clear this is the preferred term among many Black publications and presses. It seems appropriate and respectful for us to follow suit,” Ray Rivera, the Times’ managing editor, wrote in December.  

The author Touré offered a more nuanced rationale in his book, “Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? What It Means to Be Black Now”:

“I have chosen to capitalize the word ‘Black’ and lowercase ‘white’ throughout this book. I believe ‘Black’ constitutes a group, an ethnicity equivalent to African-American, Negro, or, in terms of a sense of ethnic cohesion, Irish, Polish, or Chinese.

“I don’t believe that whiteness merits the same treatment. Most American whites think of themselves as Italian-American or Jewish or otherwise relating to other past connections that Blacks cannot make because of the familial and national disruptions of slavery. So to me, because Black speaks to an unknown familial/national past it deserves capitalization. . . .”

The Native American Journalists Association launched its Red Press Initiative last year to study and report on the perception of press freedom in Indian Country by surveying managers, producers and consumers of tribal media.

. . . So, What About ‘White’ and ‘Brown’ and ‘Red’?

“Black” became a popular choice in the late 1960s precisely because it was a reference to skin color, as are white, brown, yellow and red.

The term had been considered an insult in some black circles and its adoption was meant to embrace both light- and dark-skinned under a label that applied to the darkest people. “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud” and “Black Is Beautiful” were well-known slogans of the time.

L.A. Times spokeswoman Hillary Manning said the Times did not address whether it would similarly capitalize white, brown, red or yellow. “I believe the standards and practices committee will be discussing this more broadly soon,” she said.

The NBC News and USA Today statements also are silent on that point.

BuzzFeed wrote in March, “Danielle Belton, editor-in-chief of the Root, said her site doesn’t capitalize the ‘B’ because she refuses to capitalize the ‘W.’ ‘I suppose we could just capitalize one and not the other, but for the writer/editor in me, that would, personally, drive me bananas,’ she said via email. ‘Also, race is an entirely made-up social construct designed to oppress many while elevating others. It’s all garbage. I’m not capitalizing this madness. “

The black press, however, capitalizes “White,” and so, too, does NABJ now, but Mother Jones decided against it because the capitalized “White” is used by white nationalists.

Mother Jones, NABJ and some other organizations also capitalize “Brown,” which has been adopted by some Latinos, Arabs and South Asians in the United States. It once was used by those who are now called “black.”

Those of East Asian descent have debated the term “yellow,” as Kat Chow explained in 2018 for NPR’s “Code Switch.”

The Native American Journalists Association has issued “Reading Red” reports to examine mainstream news coverage of American Indians as well as a Red Press Initiative to survey press freedom in Indian Country.

In his 1987 book, “Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America,” the late historian Sterling Stuckey (pictured, below) discusses the self-designations used for black Americans over the years, and why they have changed.

“Long before the opening of the twentieth century . . . it was evident that only when the unjust treatment of blacks and the structural inequities of perpetuating the crisis of identity end will the debate over names, too, have a chance of ending,” Stuckey wrote.

“The final resolution of the names controversy is not likely to come until African peoples as a whole have won freedom, a development inevitably linked to their status in America.”

ABC Exec for Diversity Accused, Placed on Leave

“Top ABC News executive Barbara Fedida (pictured, credit School of Communication at Texas Southern University) was placed on leave Saturday to allow the company time to investigate reports that she repeatedly used insensitive, racist and abusive language while addressing staff,” Samson Amore reported for The Wrap.

“Fedida is ABC’s senior vice president for talent, editorial strategy and business affairs. The ABC website says her wide-ranging responsibilities include ‘developing and executing ABC News’ strategic vision and planning for the next generation of both on-air and off-air talent,’  which also includes hiring and placing ABC anchors and correspondents worldwide.

The report followed an investigation published Saturday by Yashar Ali for HuffPost.

“In more than a dozen interviews, sources who spoke with HuffPost said Fedida, despite overseeing ABC’s diversity and inclusion efforts, appeared to have a clear distaste for the efforts and would often develop animus toward staffers or talent who tried to champion the efforts, including staffers she put in charge of improving diversity and inclusion. . . “

Ali also wrote, “In response to a list of 28 fact-checking questions, ABC News said: ‘There are deeply disturbing allegations in this story that we need to investigate, and we have placed Barbara Fedida on administrative leave while we conduct a thorough and complete investigation. These allegations do not represent the values and culture of ABC News, where we strive to make everyone feel respected in a thriving, diverse and inclusive workplace. . . .’ ”

The story also said, a “group of Black journalists at ABC News gathered on a conference call with [ABC News President James] Goldston and Fedida last Thursday to express frustration with coverage around the reaction to the police killing of George Floyd and with ABC’s efforts toward inclusion of black candidates for positions within the network, according to two sources who were on the call and another source who heard about it afterward. . . .”

In statement Saturday, the National Association of Black Journalists said, “We call for ABC News/Disney to immediately launch a transparent, external investigation led by a diverse law firm to examine all of the allegations detailed in the report, while conducting a thorough review of ABC News Executive Barbara Fedida, and the talent department that she has run at ABC News. . . .”

NABJ added:

Cop Allegedly Urged Burning Hannah-Jones House


A New Orleans police sergeant was decommissioned and suspended Friday after racist social media posts made to a social media account under the same name as the officer, Chris McCrory reported Friday for WWL-TV. 

“Sgt. Anthony Edenfield, a homicide detective, was stripped of all police powers and decommissioned pending the outcome of an internal investigation into his social media use, according to a statement released by NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson.

One comment “was in response to New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones’ assertion that ‘destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence.’ ‘Burn down her house,’ the comment, attributed to Edenfield, said. ‘Blow up her car and see if she still feels the same way.’ . . .”  

Delaware Police Detain Photographer at Protest

“A staff photographer/reporter for the USA TODAY Network was taken into custody by Delaware State Police on Tuesday night while covering a protest near the state’s capital,” Ira Porter, Jordan Culver and John Bacon reported Tuesday, updated Wednesday, for USA Today.

“Andre Lamar (pictured), who has covered several demonstrations for The Dover Post since the death of George Floyd, was filming a Facebook Live he was taken into custody. He was released more than an hour later without being charged.

“The protesters are seen on the ground with their hands [behind] their backs, their signs nearby. Lamar can be heard on the video saying, ‘The police have arrested protesters. We don’t know why they arrested them. They slammed them to the ground.’

“He is heard asking officers repeatedly why they were being arrested. Then he filmed himself being tackled and taken into custody.

“His camera is turned upside down and Lamar can be heard screaming, ‘I’m with the press!’ multiple times as police placed him on the ground. He is later heard saying that he can’t breathe.

“The video is a little more than two minutes long and ends with officers confiscating his press badge and a camera bag. Lamar said he was handcuffed to a wall in a waiting area inside the state police barracks and then taken to a cell before being released. Lamar said while he was treated well – police gave him a chocolate chip cookie and water – the whole incident ‘disgusted’ him. . . .

“Delaware Gov. John Carney denounced police actions. . . .”

Harper’s Bazaar Gets First Black Top Editor

“Samira Nasr (pictured) is the next editor in chief of the American edition of Harper’s Bazaar magazine, overseeing both print and digital as of July 6,” Chantal Fernandez wrote Tuesday for the Business of Fashion. “She succeeds Glenda Bailey, who stepped down from the Hearst title in January after 19 years in the role.

“Originally from Montreal, Nasr is currently the executive fashion director at Vanity Fair and has spent her decades-long career as a stylist and editor working in and around fashion magazines in New York.

“Nasr’s appointment also marks the first time a black editor will lead Harper’s Bazaar, the oldest continuously published fashion magazine in the country, a milestone in an industry where there is little if any diversity in the highest levels of leadership. . . .”

” ‘As the proud daughter of a Lebanese father and Trinidadian mother, my world view is expansive and is anchored in the belief that representation matters,’ said Nasr in a video announcing her appointment. ‘My lens by nature is colourful and so it is important to me to begin a new chapter in Bazaar’s history by shining a light on all individuals who I believe are the inspiring voices of our time. I will work to give all voices a platform to tell stories that would never have been told.’ . . .”

Ava DuVernay with Jharrel Jerome, who plays Korey Wise, co-wrote and directed “When They See Us.” (Credit: Netflix)

Peabody Winners Focus on Race, Criminal Justice

“The Peabody Awards has named Watchmen, Dickinson, Stranger Things and When They See Us among this year’s winners,”  Hilary Lewis wrote Wednesday for the Hollywood Reporter.

Lewis also wrote, “Although judged earlier this spring, seven of this year’s winners focus on racial issues within the criminal justice system, including True Justice, When They See Us, Watchmen and podcast In The Dark: The Path Home. Other winners that tackle police problems include Unbelievable, Unwarranted and A Different Kind of Force: Policing Mental Illness .”

Among the winners:

Short Takes

The Sports Journalism Institute’s annual ‘boot camp’ went virtual this year.

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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@yahoogroups.com

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