Articles Feature

Read Your Way Through the Pandemic

by richard04671

Richard Prince’s Book Notes™: Isolation Edition

Howard Bryant
Ed Gordon
Zahra Hankir
Ron Howell
Lawrence Jackson
Wanda Smalls Lloyd
Óscar Martínez and Juan José Martínez
Charlton McIlwain
Alex Tizon

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Lawrence Jackson, former official White House photographer, has “Yes We Did: Photos and Behind-the-Scenes Stories Celebrating Our First African American President.” Here, President Obama holds Arianna Holmes, 3, before taking a departure photo with members of her family in the Oval Office, Feb. 1, 2012. (Credit: Lawrence Jackson/White House)

The New York Times ran an essay a few days ago by Scott Kelly, a retired NASA astronaut who spent nearly a year on the International Space Station. Headlined, “I Spent a Year in Space, and I Have Tips on Isolation to Share,” the essay was tied to the unprecedented precautions we are undertaking in the coronavirus crisis.

“Some people are surprised to learn I brought books with me to space,” Kelly wrote. “The quiet and absorption you can find in a physical book — one that doesn’t ping you with notifications or tempt you to open a new tab — is priceless. Many small bookstores are currently offering curbside pickup or home delivery service, which means you can support a local business while also cultivating some much-needed unplugged time. . . .”

Some book publishers, such as Verso, are offering deep discounts. Here is the first installment of our annual list of nonfiction books by journalists of color, or work that they would especially be interested in. These are not necessarily endorsements, and prices online are often lower than those of the publisher, listed below. More will follow in the coming days.

Howard Bryant

Howard Bryant, senior writer for ESPN.com and ESPN: The Magazine, and commentator for NPR’s “Weekend Edition,” has “Full Dissidence: Notes from an Uneven Playing Field” (Beacon Press, $24.95 hardcover; $15.99 ebook.)

“He’s written a deeply personal book of urgent and eloquent essays about racism in American life on and off the field,” NPR’s Scott Simon said in introducing an interview with Bryant. Dave Zirin wrote in The Nation, “It is a searing look at race, power, and the real world beyond the sports world.”

Bryant messaged Journal-isms, “I think the true purpose of the book was to empower us to think about both anti-blackness as a precondition in our culture, for us to look at the different ways distance from black people is a prerequisite for our success and to realize 1) we need not measure ourselves through [these] metrics, and 2) for the times we do, knowing that we’re the only black on staff or in the meeting, acknowledge that anti-blackness is being practiced. We can write what we see without having to constantly redeem them.”

Ed Gordon

Broadcaster Ed Gordon has “Conversations in Black: On Power, Politics and Leadership” (Hachette, $28 hardcover). 

For years, Gordon has been interviewing celebrities, but as he says in this book, “I’ve often been most intrigued by the conversations that transpired just after the camera’s red light was turned off. I’ve always wished that others might be privy to what is said behind closed doors.

“I started thinking about how powerful and transcendent it could be if a number of these voices were in the same room at the same time. So I decided to put together a series of virtual conversations between Black influencers, in the hope of moving our community forward.”

Thus, the premise of the book. Not least, Gordon said in a recent appearance, each conversation deepened his own worldview as a journalist. The chapters all end with questions for group discussion.

Some of the participants: Stacey Abrams, Harry Belafonte, Brittney Cooper, Michael Eric Dyson, Alicia Garza, Jemele Hill, Eric Holder, D.L. Hughley, Hakeem Jeffries, Van Jones, Van Lathan, Malcolm D. Lee, Tamika Mallory, DeRay Mckesson, Mark Morial, Angela Rye, Bakari Sellers, Al Sharpton, Shermichael Singleton, Michael Steele and Maxine Waters.

With so many ideas being surfaced, some of them are bound to provide a new way of thinking about topics that have become standard whenever African Americans get together.

Zahra Hankir

Zahra Hankir, a Lebanese British journalist, has edited “Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World” (Penguin, $17 paper; $20 audio).

Veteran international journalist Christiane Amanpour wrote the foreword and Hannah Allam and Jane Arraf of NPR appear in this collection of essays by 19 female journalists reporting from the Arab world.

“Female journalists in the Arab world gain unparalleled access to civilian corners that men cannot,” Judith Matloff wrote for Britain’s Chatham House policy institute. “They win the elusive trust of other women at refugee camps, clinics and mosques and in doing so enrich the public’s understanding of the tumult. But breaking norms presents continual challenges. Even buying a sandwich in repressive Saudi Arabia can become an ordeal. . . .”

Writing for NPR, Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, a war correspondent herself, added in August, “I’m hardly alone in appreciating the value of story telling by journalists who don’t need interpreters to explain what is being said and why it’s relevant or how it fits into the bigger picture. Never mind that a woman journalist in a region prone to segregating women from men has access to half the population that her male counterparts do not. . . .”

Ron Howell

Ron Howell, former Newsday journalist and associate professor of journalism at Brooklyn College, has “Boss of Black Brooklyn: The Life and Times of Bertram L. Baker” (Fordham University Press, $29.95 hardcover; $19.95 paper).

Howell puts his writing style on display in introducing this story about his grandfather, the first black man to hold public office in Brooklyn, elected to the New York State Assembly in 1948 and retiring in 1970. He enlists former Massachusetts Gov. Deval L. Patrick, who married into the family, to amplify the story with his own recollections.

“Knowing whence we came can help us figure out where to go,” Howell writes. “When I ask myself who I am and what I should do with my remaining time, ancestry inevitably presents itself in the rising answer. I hear a now-softened voice that once screamed to set me on a path. I will listen and try to be true, processing what I hear and passing it along to those who come behind, my son and his family, and all those who love Brooklyn for what it was and will be.”

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle wrote, “The story Howell shares is not merely political; it’s also . . . poignantly personal. Howell penetrates the inner life of the man he and his cousins called ‘Daddy B.’ and reveals themes that have great significance today — black fatherhood, relations between black men and black women, faithfulness to place and ancestry. . . .”

Brenda M. Greene wrote for the African American Literature Book Club, “Howell writes about the impact of Caribbean/African American relationships, racial and ethnic politics, immigration, the back stories on appointments of judges and government leaders, and the ‘strange alliances’ that form and dismantle as politicians interact in the community, civic and political organizations of Brooklyn. . . .”

However, Kevin Winter dissented in Manhattan Book Review. “This book is written by a relative, his grandson, and it feels that way most of the time. There are digressions throughout the book that take the book off the rails . . .” Winter wrote.

Lawrence Jackson

Lawrence Jackson, official White House photographer during the Obama administration, has “Yes We Did: Photos and Behind-the-Scenes Stories Celebrating Our First African American President” (Tarcher Perigee, $28 hardcover).

Everyone will have a favorite photo or two or three from this coffee table book, buttressed by a narrative from a photographer who felt a kinship with his subject. Not to mention our nostalgia for a presidency that did not feel as though the nation were being turned upside down.

Barack Obama says of Jackson in the book’s foreword, “He and I had similar upbringings as black men in America, each of us raised by an extraordinary single mom, both of us knowing what it’s like, at times, to feel as if we might not belong. Many of his photos are informed by that sensibility, an added awareness of the meaning that certain moments may hold for those who were so long dispossessed.”  

Before he joined the White House in 2009, Jackson worked for the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk and for the Associated Press, based in Boston and New York. He remains based in Washington as an independent photographer.

Wanda Smalls Lloyd

Wanda Smalls Lloyd has “Coming Full Circle: From Jim Crow to Journalism” (New South Books, $28.95 hardcover)

Lloyd worked at the Washington Post, USA Today, the Greenville (S.C.) News and the Miami Herald, among newspapers, and was founding executive director of the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute in Nashville, Tenn., which trained people from other professions to cross over into journalism.

Active in the professional journalism organizations, she acknowledges that in 1989, when she was asked to join the American Society of Newspaper Editors, predominantly white and male, “I just didn’t see myself becoming part of a group that was so different from my cultural experience.

“I had grown up and gone to school in a segregated society and I was still carrying a lot of baggage from that part of my life. I was confident of my professional skills, but not my social skills.” She ended up chairing several committees and serving on the board.  

Lloyd retired in 2013 as the first African American woman to serve as editor of the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser and went back to her Savannah, Ga., hometown to lead the journalism and mass communications department at Savannah State University. She had lived in eight states.

A proud Spelman alum, the foreword to her book was written by her college sister-friend, novelist Tina McElroy Ansa.

Kirkus Review calls the book “inspiring reading for aspiring journalists and students of civil rights” and notes that it “offers hundreds of anecdotes and scenarios about how she managed to ascend to the top spots at major newspapers in an industry dominated by white males.” Among those hundreds, you might open by chance to an anecdote in which she secured Cornel West to appear before the American Society of News Editors, only to have “hundreds of white men” leave during the introduction, before West could begin his speech.

“Though Lloyd is not always self-effacing about her accomplishments, it’s not bragging if you have done it -— and she has done a lot,” Kirkus wrote.

Last year, Lloyd was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame. She has posted excerpts of the book on her blog.

Óscar Martínez and Juan José Martínez

Óscar Martínez, award-winning Salvadoran investigative journalist, and Juan José Martínez, his anthropologist brother, have “The Hollywood Kid: The Violent Life and Death of an MS-13 Hitman.” (Verso, $26.95 hardcover; on sale now for $16.17 with free ebook.)

In an email in October announcing the book’s publication, Juan wrote, “Together with my brother Óscar, for more than two years we interviewed a killer of the Mara Salvatrucha 13 [MS-13], until he was killed by other hitmen in November 2014 in El Salvador.

“For six years we continued to investigate his story, talking to other gang members, prosecutors, police, politicians, victims. We weren’t interested in the morbidity of how he murdered 56 people, but understanding how we created a person like that. In the answer we find the responsibility of the oligarch states of El Salvador, with the civil war that devastated the country between 1980 and 1992, but also with the US administrations and their plans for deportation in the late eighties. There are chapters that begin in California and others in a rural town in western El Salvador. This is, in part, the explanation of a violent country, of an international mafia, through the story of a miserable murderer from a lost town in a lost country. . . .”

In the book, the brothers write, ” ‘Shithole’ is how Trump once referred to our country, speaking as if removed from what US politicians helped create, or helped destroy.”

Charlton D. McIlwain


Charlton D. McIlwain has “Black Software: The Internet and Racial Justice, from the AfroNet to Black Lives Matter” (Oxford University Press, $24.95 hardcover).

Some journalist-internet pioneers make appearances in McIlwain’s study of the intersection of race and computer technology: Barry Cooper, Farai Chideya, Omar Wasow and Lee Bailey, for example. Readers might recognize early black products for the web mentioned here, such as NetNoir, AfroNet, GoAfro, Black Geeks Online and Black Voices.  

McIlwain, vice provost of faculty engagement and development at New York University, and founder of its Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies, writes that he has divided the book into two parts. The first is about “the Vanguard” formed in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. They included creative black techies, and “positioned black folks, black content, and black culture to occupy the leading edge of the Internet’s popular social development.”

But McIlwain says “Black Software” is also “a story about how computing technology was built and developed to keep black America docile and in its place.”

McIlwain told Journal-isms by email, “If I had any message for journalists it would be simple: history is important. Technological change happens so rapidly today. Thus, it is tempting to treat today’s technological problems, challenges and opportunities as ‘new’ problems, challenges and opportunities. Making the effort to consider our history of technology, particularly the history of race and technology brings so much needed context.

“If nothing else, it tells us — we’ve been here before. We’ve faced these problems before. We’ve made these decisions before. It is entirely within our power to make different decisions that lead us to very different outcomes.” He promises to correct annoying copy editing lapses in the next edition. 

Alex Tizon

Alex Tizon, the late Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Los Angeles Times and the Seattle Times, has “Invisible People: Stories of Lives at the Margins” (Temple University Press, $25 hardcover, $25 ebook).

Tizon, a Filipino American, was last in “Book Notes” for his 2014 memoir “Big Little Man: In Search of My Asian Self,” in which we said, “Tizon, who came to the United States from the Philippines as a 4-year-old, has written a fascinating book that will be revelatory for those who are not Asian American men (scroll down to Dec 15) . . . Tizon articulates the toll that the prevailing white male standard takes on others’ psyches. . . .”

In March 2017, Tizon died at unexpectedly at 57 of natural causes, two months before The Atlantic published his best-known work, “My Family’s Slave,” which bore the teaser, “She lived with my family for 56 years. She raised me and my siblings, and cooked and cleaned from dawn to dark — always without pay. I was 11, a typical American kid, before I realized she was my family’s slave.”

Now Tizon’s one-time colleague Sam Howe Verhovek and Tizon’s wife, Melissa Tizon, have published “Invisible People,” a collection of Tizon’s work highlighted by “My Family’s Slave.” Jose Antonio Vargas wrote the foreword and a number of journalists, including Dean Baquet, executive editor of the New York Times, have written an introduction to each piece.

The collection has inspired such rave reviews as this from Erica Browne Grivas for the Seattle Times:

“In a world with an internet-afflicted attention span, one obsessed with blustering tweets and cat videos, news sometimes comes packaged like fast food: chicken nuggets pumped with synthetic flavor but lacking nutrition. The rich and raw stories written by Alex Tizon, in contrast, were more like a top-notch hole in the wall with no menu, where the chef surprises you with each curated course. Each word earns its place, and the result is satisfyingly powerful. . . .”

Jaime Herndon added in Foreword, “Tizon’s talent was in seeking out those with stories to tell outside of the mainstream: those who don’t quite fit in, whether because of their race, religion, ethnicity, or lifestyle. Easy answers don’t exist in Invisible People; each piece leaves the audience a little bit unsettled, wanting more. The collection may focus on those who are invisible, but Tizon’s writing was anything but.”

Author/editor proceeds are to benefit the scholarship fund of the Asian American Journalists Association.

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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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‘I Wish More Blacks Were Covering Me’

Kamala Harris, Cory Booker Reflect on Campaigns
An ‘Oh, No’ Encounter With Bison Goes Viral
Houston, Detroit Anchors Test Positive
. . . Virus Linked to Loss of 300 Media Jobs
Hundreds of Bias Reports From Asian Americans
Dollars Available for Coverage of COVID-19
Writers Say People of Color Bear Virus Burden
. . . Abroad, Unprecedented Limits on Media
Essence Delays Annual New Orleans Festival
Short Takes

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Only journalists of color received an invitation to the hourlong event at the U.S. Capitol. From left, Sen. Doug Jones, D=-Ala., Tim Kaine, D-Va., Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Cory Booker, D-N.J., Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., (Credit: NNPA)

Kamala Harris, Cory Booker Reflect on Campaigns

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., speaking with about 20 of her Senate colleagues, told a panel of black journalists at the Capitol that her presidential candidacy was hampered by the dearth of black reporters covering the campaign.

“I wish more blacks were covering me,” Harris said, according to news reports of the March 11 meeting.

“I can’t stress the importance of black journalists and black journalism,” Harris continued.

Led by Harris and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., “the frank one-hour conversation tackled everything from voter suppression to the coronavirus,“ Stacy M. Brown reported for the National Newspaper Publishers Association.

“Only journalists of color received an invitation to the event, which included remarks from Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Doug Jones (D-Ala.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), and several others.” In addition to Brown, who represented the black press, the journalists came from niche media and mainstream outlets such as BET, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.

“The senators immediately noted that the focus for this meeting is to discuss how badly it is needed for Black people to tell our own stories and to add the context of the Black experience to larger social and cultural contexts,” Jamila Bey reported for BET.com. The point, according to Harris and Booker, also a former Democratic presidential candidate, “is that only 7.5% of newsroom staff are Black people, and this dearth of Black faces has a direct impact on the stories that are covered and the way that those stories are often told.

“The California Senator started first by reminding the room of the time when a white journalist reported that she ‘screeched’ at an event in which a number of her Howard University AKA sisters returned her skee wee greeting. Harris explained that it’s necessary to call out those organizations who hire people to cover candidates but don’t have measures in place that serve to help those reporters understand the backgrounds and experiences of the people they’re covering.

“Harris went even further by calling out news outlets for not prioritizing hiring staff who understand how to cover Black people. She shared with the group, ‘I was asked, “You have family members who attended prestigious colleges like Stanford and Harvard, but yet you decided to go to Howard?’

“While lamenting about the overly political way that the Trump administration is handling its duties, Senator Booker shared his hope that getting more Black people in newsrooms would bring improvements in the way we talk about issues important to American families.”

Bey continued, Schumer “addressed what he believes are the issues that aren’t being properly addressed by most reporters.

“Schumer explained that while the current White House is concerning itself with reelection, the issues that concern most Black people today seem to have fallen out of most headlines, including the ideas of reparations. . . .”

Writing for BuzzFeed, Kadia Goba and Molly Hensley-Clancy wrote, ” ‘We have a whole lot of analysis that shows the disparities in terms of how we were covered as compared to other candidates, a whole lot of objective analysis, including the fact that the brother to my right is a Rhodes Scholar,’ Harris said, pointing to Booker. ‘Did anyone write about that?’

“Two of the dozen or so reporters in the room raised their hands. A HuffPost analysis during Booker’s run found that the media mentioned far more frequently that Pete Buttigieg was a Rhodes Scholar than that Booker was. . . .”

An ‘Oh No’ Encounter With Bison Goes Viral

“Deion Broxton says he grew up in an area with a fair share of rodents,” McKenna Oxenden reported Thursday for the Baltimore Sun. “This week it was a mammal of a different size that brought him national exposure.

“As the East Baltimore native was filming a teaser Wednesday for his latest KTVM NBC Montana story, a large visitor got a little too close for comfort. And the internet’s latest video sensation was born.

“ ‘I’m used to rats, not bison,’ Broxton said. . . .”

“Oh my god,” he says in the video. “Oh no, I’m ain’t messin’ with you. Oh no.”

“

“The 27-year-old TV reporter had been assigned to go to Yellowstone National Park to interview the park superintendent after the protected area had been ordered closed Tuesday to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

“Since starting at the Montana TV station almost two years ago, Broxton said he’s been sent to Yellowstone at least 25 times and almost always sees bison. But they’ve never gotten close, let alone made direct eye contact with him. . . .”

Maddie Capron reported Friday for the Idaho Statesman that the National Park Service took a special interest in Broxton’s message.

“ ‘A perfect example of what to do when approached by wildlife!’ the Twitter account for the park said. ‘Thanks Deion for putting the #YellowstonePledge into action!”

“Later in the week, the National Park Service made a poster that showed Broxton’s words with the illustration of a bison. . . .”

Top: Houston anchor Chauncy Glover says, “Today is the best day I’ve had.” Glover is also founder of the Chauncy Glover Project, a program to mentor and empower young black and Hispanic boys. Below: Detroit anchor Evrod Cassimy says he doesn’t know how he contracted the coronavirus because he hasn’t traveled recently and remained diligent about washing his hands. He said he received the diagnosis at the emergency room.

Houston, Detroit Anchors Test Positive

“ABC 13 week-day anchor Chauncy Glover says he has tested positive for the coronavirus, COVID-19,” Joy Sewing reported Thursday for the Houston Chronicle.

“Glover took to twitter on Thursday, detailing his symptoms. He woke up one night disoriented and in a ‘horrible sweat,’ he says. . . .”

On Friday, Glover tweeted that he had improved.

In Detroit, meanwhile, WDIV anchor Evrod Cassimy told his station, “For me, coronavirus has been excruciating pain.”

“Cassimy said he went to work last Tuesday with minimal pain that he felt he could sleep off, WDIV reported. “He said he felt better, but by Wednesday morning the pain was more severe.

“ ‘That’s when the nightmare began,’ he said. ‘It was excruciating pain all over my body, crippling pain, that I couldn’t even roll over in bed.’

“He said he was taking pain medication to ease it because doctors were telling him he wasn’t showing COVID-19 symptoms and that he might have a different kind of virus.

“He said Monday night the pain shifted and that’s what made him go to the emergency room.

“ ‘That’s when we found out,’ he said. . . .”

. . . Virus Linked to Loss of 300 Media Jobs

“At least 100 people have lost their jobs in media over the past two weeks, with most outlets citing coronavirus as the direct cause,” Kerry Flynn reported March 22 for CNN Business.

Later, Flynn updated the figure. “By Friday, that number shot up to at least 300 people as the impact of coronavirus continues to roil newspapers and digital media companies,” she wrote.

“Meanwhile,” Flynn’s March 22 piece continued, “local newspaper conglomerate Gannett’s stock has been plummeting. When the newspaper conglomerate merged with GateHouse on November 19, the stock opened at $6.70 the next day. On Friday, it closed at $1.61.

“Local newsrooms have been struggling for years to secure new revenue streams as Google and Facebook gobbled up much-needed ad dollars. The last thing they needed was a pandemic. The bitter irony of it is that the hit to revenue and jobs is coming at a time when readers urgently need these papers for reliable information about coronavirus in their own communities. . . .”

Separately, a piece in The Conversation Thursday was headlined, “News media sounded the alarm for months – but few listened.” Jacob L. Nelson wrote that, “some researchers believe that the news industry itself is to blame for its credibility crisis. As journalism researcher Meredith Clark has found, newsrooms are behind when it comes to employing people of color.

“And journalism researcher Andrea Wenzel has found that this lack of newsroom diversity is a problem when it comes to public trust. When citizens do not see themselves reflected in a media outlet’s reporters, editors or sources, they are less likely to see that outlet as accurately representing their communities, and are less likely to trust it as a result. . . .”

Patrick Epino connects the dots between “Chinese Virus” and Vincent Chin, slain Chinese-American symbol of violence against Asian Americans, for the National Film Society.

Hundreds of Bias Reports From Asian Americans

“Seattle resident Kari was at her local grocery store in mid-March when another shopper told her own child she couldn’t be in the same line as the Korean American,” Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil reported for NBC News. “She would get them sick, the shopper said. A week later at the same store, a cashier refused to check her out, saying she was going on break.

“The encounter is one of hundreds of racist and xenophobic incidents that have been reported over the past week, new data reveals. The online reporting forum Stop AAPI Hate shared exclusively with NBC Asian America that since its inception March 18, it has received more than 650 direct reports of discrimination against primarily Asian Americans. . . .

“People have reported being coughed at or spit on and being told to leave stores, Uber and Lyft drivers refusing to pick them up, verbal and online harassment and physical assault, according to the site, which was launched by the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council (A3PCON) and Chinese for Affirmative Action. . . .”

For the investigative publication Searchlight New Mexico, Christian Marquez wrote about being quarantined for two weeks after attending the Investigative Reporters & Editors conference in New Orleans. An attendee presumptively tested positive for COVID-19. (Credit: Searchlight New Mexico)

Dollars Available for Coverage of COVID-19

The National Geographic Society “is launching an emergency fund for journalists all over the world who wish to cover COVID-19 within their own communities,” the society announced.

“This fund will place particular emphasis on delivering news to underserved populations, particularly where there is a dearth of evidence-based information getting to those who need it. We are interested in local and even hyper-local distribution models. This fund is designed to quickly deliver support so that both individual stories and longer series of content may be created.

“The fund will distribute support ranging from $1,000–8,000 USD for local coverage of the preparation, response, and impact of this global pandemic as seen through evidence-based reporting. Beyond reporting on medical and physical health related to COVID-19, we especially encourage reporting that covers social, emotional, economic, and equity issues.

“Narratives around the Pandemic necessarily include facts and numbers, but ultimately, must also go deeper — telling the stories of inequities that COVID-19 has brought to light. . . .”

Writers Say People of Color Bear Virus Burden

“Black doctors say the burden of the coronavirus crisis weighs exponentially on them,“ Curtis Bunn wrote Thursday for NBCBLK. “They harbor concern about the history of health care inequities in underserved communities and worry about how testing and services will play out as the virus spreads from coast to coast.

“And so, they go about their business with multiple responsibilities: do their jobs, make sure black communities are not left behind in the process of treatment, and convince people of color to trust the services they hope will become accessible. . . .”

It was just one of several pieces relating the pandemic to its effect on people of color.

“People of color make up a disproportionate share of workers in the industries where layoffs are the most intense and only expected to get worse,” Janell Ross wrote Wednesday for NBCBLK. “And while all of America will feel the economic effect of the pandemic, experts warn that lower-income workers of color could be hit particularly hard. . . .”

“The coronavirus has exposed the great inequities in our society for everyone to see,“ Joseph Torres wrote Friday for the advocacy group Free Press.

Torres also wrote, “This pandemic should also force our nation to address how political leaders, especially right-wing politicians, have long used racist narratives to launch disinformation campaigns — all in an effort to pass racist policies that benefit corporations but hurt working people and harm our social-safety net. . . .”

On theundefeated.com, Lonnae O’Neal interviewed Georges C. Benjamin (pictured), executive director of the American Public Health Association, on March 13.

“ ‘We get a lot of misinformation circulating through our communities,’ Benjamin said. ‘We fundamentally don’t trust some of the [non-black] institutions because they do not serve us well. We need to make sure our trusted institutions, clinicians of color, churches, community organizations, are better educated.’ ”List

Last year, Ruth Michaelson reported from Cairo for France 24 on the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron to Cairo, where Macron met with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. Last week, Egypt expelled Michaelson, reporting for the Guardian, after she cited a study that challenged the official count of coronavirus cases in the country. (Credit: France 24/YouTube)

. . . Abroad, Unprecedented Limits on Media

“Global press freedom is entering uncharted waters. As governments around the world scramble to stop the spread of the COVID-19 and protect the health of their citizens, states of emergency are being announced and extensive restrictions put in place,” the International Press Institute declared March 20. “Wide-ranging limits on freedoms are being implemented on a scale not seen in peacetime.”

The IPI continued, “As the death toll rose and news broke of government cover-ups, reports were blocked, news websites shut down and interviews with doctors censored. Meanwhile, social media posts containing health information or criticism of President Xi Jinping have been widely supressed. Access to foreign news reports through VPNs have also been increasingly blocked by China’s Great Fire Wall.

“Where these tactics failed, the authorities began targeting citizen journalists directly. . . .”

Reporters Without Borders zeroed in on the Middle East. The press freedom group said it was “concerned to see Middle Eastern governments taking advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic to step up state censorship and to reaffirm their monopoly of the dissemination of news and information.

“Ever since the start of the pandemic, many journalists in the Middle East have expressed doubts about the official figures for coronavirus cases in their countries and have criticized the lack of governmental transparency. . . .

“In Egypt, the government has stepped up censorship via the Supreme Council for Media Regulation (SCMR) and the State Information Service (SIS). The SCMR announced that it was closing news websites for ‘spreading fake news’ about the epidemic and that it planned to block webpages and the social media accounts of people ‘arousing public concern.’

“Two foreign reporters, Guardian correspondent Ruth Michaelson and New York Times Cairo bureau chief Declan Walsh were called in for questioning by the SIS.

“Michaelson was forced to leave Egypt on 20 March, three days after her accreditation was withdrawn over an article questioning Egypt’s then official figure of around 100 coronavirus cases and citing Canadian medical researchers who estimated that Egypt must already have more than 19,000 cases. . . .”

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In the Democratic Republic of Congo, “TV reporter Tholi Totali Glody was run down by police in Likasi, the second-largest city in Haut-Katanga province, on 24 March while using a motorcycle taxi to cover compliance with a two-day lockdown declared in the province by the governor on the evening of 22 March as a result of two suspected coronavirus cases,” Reporters Without Borders reported Thursday.

In Niger, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported, “On March 5, police arrested Kaka Touda, an independent journalist who publishes news reports on his Facebook and Twitter pages, at his home in Niamey, Niger’s capital, according to the journalist’s lawyer, Boudal Effred Mouloul, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app, and news reports.

“His arrest stemmed from a complaint filed by the local General Reference Hospital, which alleged that Kaka Touda’s posts on social media on March 4 about a suspected COVID-19 case at the hospital posed a threat to public order. . . .”

CPJ also reported coronavirus-related harassment of journalists in Hungary, Russia, India, Thailand and Brazil and the Philippines.

“The ladies of the Southern University ‘Dancing Dolls’ dance team always bring it,” Essence said in promoting its festival last year. (Credit: Essence)

Essence Delays Annual New Orleans Festival

“The 2020 Essence Festival is being postponed and moved ‘closer to the fall’ amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in Louisiana, organizers announced Friday on their website,” NOLA.com reported Friday.

“It’s the latest festival change in the New Orleans area as COVID-19 cases in the state swelled to 2,746 with 119 deaths, with the highest concentration in Orleans and Jefferson parishes. . . .

“Previously announced talent, which includes headliners Janet Jackson and Bruno Mars, will remain on the lineup for the postponed dates, and tickets sold for the originally scheduled performances will still be honored on the new dates. . .

“The 26th edition of the Essence Fest is set to include two extra days of activities to commemorate the 50th anniversary year of Essence magazine, along with the annual three-night evening concert series in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. Tens of thousands of attendees fill the Morial Convention Center for free daytime activities that include panel discussions and product presentations.

NOLA.com reported last year, “Attendance for Essence’s paid and free events numbers in the hundreds of thousands, with an annual economic impact estimated in hundreds of millions of dollars.

Last year, Essence and the city of New Orleans announced a five-year contract extension, keeping the festival in the city at least through 2024.

In his story then for NOLA.com, Keith Spera quoted Michelle Ebanks, CEO of Essence Communications.

“In early 2018, Richelieu Dennis, the founder of the personal care products company Sundial Brands, announced that he had bought Essence Communications from Time Inc. Once again, Essence magazine and its namesake festival were black-owned.

“That bodes well for the festival’s future, Ebanks said.

“When Essence was owned by Time Inc., she said, ‘We were handcuffed. They didn’t understand what we’re doing here.’ “

Short Takes

  • “Looks like changes are afoot at Tamron Hall’s talk show,” Dawn Onley reported Friday for theGrio.om. “Longtime TV producer Bill Geddie and Hall reportedly fell out over differences in show programming and Page Six says he has not returned to the show since the holidays.” Onley also wrote, “Hall and Geddie’s differences apparently came to a head after Geddie wanted Hall to interview Bill O’Reilly and she refused unless the topic included sexual harassment claims against him. . . . Candi Carter, executive producer on The View is leaving [that] Emmy-winning show to join Hall as a showrunner. . . .”

  • “Hispanicize Wire, the nation’s only Latinx-owned and operated, multimedia press release distribution service reaching U.S. Hispanic journalists, influencers and thought leaders, has rebranded as Latinx Newswire,” the company announced on Thursday. . . .”

  • “Hispanicize Wire, the nation’s only Latinx-owned and operated, multimedia press release distribution service reaching U.S. Hispanic journalists, influencers and thought leaders, has rebranded as Latinx Newswire,” the company announced on Thursday. . . .”

  • “Created in March 2018 by journalist Mara Luquet and actor and screenwriter Antonio Tabet, the Brazilian journalism channel on YouTube, MyNews, completed two years in 2019 with a growing audience of 345,000 subscribers, about 30 people on staff and more than half a million Reais in profit (about US $99,000),” Marina Estarque reported Wednesday for the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. “The channel was one of four Brazilian initiatives that received investment from YouTube News Innovation Funding in 2018, which distributed US $25 million dollars globally. . . .”

  • “I came here to rest for a few days and found myself in the middle of it all,” Patricio Espanoza of the Associated Press wrote from Sisal, Mexico, on Facebook. Because of the coronavirus, “The US has called for its citizens to come home. I have been gathering supplies here and have decided to stay. After all Sisal has been my home away from home for years. A US citizen, a journalist, a visitor. Born in Ecuador and fluent in Spanish I blend easily. And it so happens that after making Mexico my second visiting home for two decades, just 10 months ago I got resident status. Who knew. . . .”

  • In Liberia, “The Government of President George Weah, little over two years in office — 2018-2020 — has already spoilt its name within the nation’s media because of its continued harassment and brutality against the press and Liberian journalists,” the Daily Observer editorialized on March 13 “What kind of government do we have in Liberia that seems to have no idea of how to treat the press with civility and respect? Instead, the government, led by its many security forces, are in the constant habit of brutalizing journalists while performing their professional journalistic duties. . . .”

  • In Liberia, “The Government of President George Weah, little over two years in office — 2018-2020 — has already spoilt its name within the nation’s media because of its continued harassment and brutality against the press and Liberian journalists,” the Daily Observer editorialized on March 13 “What kind of government do we have in Liberia that seems to have no idea of how to treat the press with civility and respect? Instead, the government, led by its many security forces, are in the constant habit of brutalizing journalists while performing their professional journalistic duties. . . .”

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