Articles Feature

Reporter Arrested at News Conference

by richard02995

Governor Says He Had Nothing to Do With It
ABC Producer Choked to Death While Drunk
Texas Journalist Restoring Black Cemetery
27 Detained in Killing of Cameroon Journalist

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Evan Lambert said, “I got arrested because I was doing a live report about what people need to know!” (Credit: News Nation/YouTube)

Governor Says He Had Nothing to Do With It

“A NewsNation reporter was released from jail late Wednesday after being arrested earlier in the day during a news conference being held by Ohio’s governor about a train derailment,” Tyler Wornell reported for NewsNation, which calls itself “the fastest growing national cable news network.”

Correspondent Evan Lambert (pictured), a Black journalist, “was giving a live report during NewsNation’s ‘Rush Hour’ when he was told by law enforcement personnel at the news conference to be quiet because Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine was speaking,” Wornell continued.

“Lambert finished the live report but was then asked to leave by authorities, who tried to forcibly remove him from the event. The charges Lambert is facing are disorderly conduct and criminal trespassing.”

Pittsburgh station WTAE added, “Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 reporter Sheldon Ingram asked Lambert why he was being taken away in handcuffs. Lambert replied, ‘I got arrested because I was doing a live report about what people need to know!’

“The Columbiana County Jail told Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 soon after the arrest that Lambert was in custody and being charged with disorderly conduct and criminal trespass. . . .”

Worrell continued:

“After Lambert was taken into custody, DeWine said he didn’t personally order the arrest.

“ ‘It has always been my practice that if I’m doing a press conference, someone wants to report out there and they want to be talking back to the people back on channel, whatever, they have every right to do that,’ DeWine said. ‘If someone was stopped from doing that, or told they could not do that, that was wrong. It was nothing that I authorized.’

“As Lambert was being placed in the back of a squad car, he said, ‘It’s tough to do your job in America in 2023, but we’ll keep doing it.’

“Preston Swigart, a photographer who was with Lambert, said Lambert was approached by police who asked him to stop talking. The news conference was being held in a gymnasium at East Palestine Elementary School,” Worrell reported.

“ ‘From their standpoint, he didn’t obey orders when he was told to stop talking,’ Swigart said. ‘Gymnasiums are echoey and loud and sound kind of carries, so I’m guessing that they just didn’t like the fact that there was sound competing with the governor speaking, even though it was all the way at the other end of the room.’

“Lambert is a Washington, D.C., correspondent and was in Ohio to cover the news conference, where DeWine was giving an update on evacuation orders that have been in place since a train derailed in East Palestine, a small town on the border with Pennsylvania. . . .”

Eduardo Medina reported for The New York Times, “Mr. Lambert is heard saying in a video from WKYC Studios, a television station, ‘I’m doing my job.’

“He told the four officers not to touch him as they circled around him. Then the officers and Mr. Lambert moved toward a hallway, where two officers placed Mr. Lambert on the ground on his stomach, video of the encounter shows. A witness can be heard saying, ‘Oh my God, you guys this is bad, stop.’ ”

Worrell also wrote, “Mike Viqueria, NewsNation’s Washington Bureau chief, called the arrest a violation of the First Amendment that infuriates him.

“ ‘I was watching the press conference stream … and the only thing I heard that was disruptive was when this altercation with the police — which apparently they have instigated — was unfolding,’ Viqueria said. ‘I did not hear anything of Evan’s voice when he was quietly speaking on live television. … As his boss, as his colleague, as a fellow journalist, it’s really infuriating.’ ”

Lambert, a Baltimore native, “has reported local and national news stories in the nation’s capital since 2017,” according to his bio. He has also worked in Tampa, with stops in Orlando and Myrtle Beach, S.C.

“Evan is a proud graduate of the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism. He is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and has participated in conferences hosted by NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists,” the bio continues.

CBS-owned KWY in Philadelphia had tried to hire Lambert, according to Margaret Cronan, a former KWY news director, but she told the Los Angeles Times’ Meg James in 2021 that her higher-ups blocked “efforts to hire and retain Black journalists,” specifically naming Lambert. Those higher-ups were then-CBS Television Stations President Peter Dunn and a top lieutenant, David Friend.

Within months of the report, Dunn and Friend were removed from their positions.

NABJ applauded the removals.

Dax Tejera and family (Credit: Instagram)

ABC Producer Choked to Death While Drunk

“Dax Tejera, an ABC News producer known for his work with George Stephanopoulos, choked to death while intoxicated in New York City last December, contradicting a previous statement by his network that he’d suffered a heart attack,“ AJ McDougall and Matt Young reported Wednesday for the Daily Beast.

“Tejera, 37, died of ‘asphyxia due to obstruction of airway by food bolus complicating acute alcohol intoxication,’ the city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner told The Daily Beast.

“The manner of death, the office said, was an accident.

“The exact timeline of the events of Dec. 23 remains unclear, with earlier claims that Tejera ‘collapsed’ only after leaving the Park Avenue steakhouse where he’d been dining that night appearing to refuted by new reports.

“An unnamed employee told the New York Post that while at the steakhouse, Dax appeared so ill that servers were prompted to check on him.

“He then ‘got up and started walking like he was going to the men’s room, but he made a right instead and went out the front door and the server followed him outside.

“ ‘The server said that he collapsed in the corner, right here outside the restaurant,’ the employee said. ‘It was terrible and a terrible shame they left little, little children alone like that.’

“Complicating what Tejera’s widow called a ‘terrible tragedy’ is the fact that, hours later, she was charged with child endangerment after it emerged that the couple had left their young daughters alone in a hotel room to dine out that evening. . . .”

As A.J. Katz reported in December for TVNewser, “Prior to overseeing This Week as its executive producer, Tejera managed newsmaker interviews and covered major breaking news, including the ongoing pandemic, the 2020 presidential election and the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

“In addition, Tejera worked on numerous broadcast and streaming special events for ABC News. In September 2021 he co-executive produced Corazón de América – Celebrating Hispanic Culture, a primetime special for ABC that honored the contributions and achievements of the more than 60 million people who claim Latino and Hispanic heritage in the U.S. . . . “

“All of us African Americans in this country should be able to look back into our history in some shape or form,” said Rodney Hawkins. (Credit: CBS/YouTube)

Texas Journalist Restoring Black Cemetery

“”Journalist Rodney Hawkins says he didn’t get a full picture of African American history from school,” Galilee Abdullah reported Friday for the Dallas Morning News.

“I grew up in Plano and so I read in the history books in large part about slavery, it wasn’t that long of passages, maybe a chapter if we got that in the book,” said Hawkins, a former producer at CBS News who now has his own production company. “But it never really registered with me that the history I was reading in those books, my direct connection to it.”

Abdullah continued, “Hawkins (pictured) discovered his own history when his family was one of the first to participate in the Lone Star Slavery Project, which researches records to build an archive of enslaved people in Texas. For Hawkins, that discovery started with an interview with his great-grandmother, Elise Powell Hurd. The conversation was the catalyst for a three year journey, which included the uncovering of his family’s nearly 200-year-old ancestral burial site.

“ ‘We were able to find out relatives that we didn’t know were relatives, we thought were neighbors, friends,’ he said. ‘But through this cemetery, we’re able to connect so many dots that even looking in ancestry and looking into our history and records, we wouldn’t have been able to if we didn’t have the actual physical piece.’

“The Old Mount Gillion Cemetery had been abandoned for over 30 years when Hawkins learned of it. Many historic Black cemeteries in the country have been neglected, which Hawkins says reflects how little our society appreciates Black history.

“ ‘All of us African Americans in this country should be able to look back into our history in some shape or form,’ he said.

“Hawkins, along with 50 family members and volunteers, spent two years restoring the cemetery. . . . “

Journalists pay their last respects to colleague Martinez Zogo, who was found dead after being abducted, in Yaounde, Cameroon (Credit: Reporters Without Borders)

27 Detained in Killing of Cameroon Journalist

“Authorities in Cameroon say 27 people, including senior police officers and a well-known media mogul, have been detained in connection with the killing last month of popular journalist Martinez Zogo,” Moki Edwin Kindzeka reported Tuesday for the Voice of America.

“The mutilated body of radio host Zogo was found on January 22 in Yaounde, five days after he was abducted. On February 2, Jean Jacques Ola Bebe, a Catholic priest and radio host, was also found dead in the capital.

“Two days earlier, Bebe, who had called for justice for Zogo, told Cameroon’s Galaxy FM Radio he was receiving regular death threats that he suspected were from authorities.

“The president of the Cameroon Journalists Trade Union, Marion Obam, told local media Tuesday at a press conference in Douala that Cameroonian journalists will wear dark clothes every Wednesday to show they want all suspected killers of journalists arrested and brought to justice. She said in the past four years, four journalists have either been killed or have died in suspicious circumstances, while at least 20 experienced severe violations of their rights.

“The president’s office on Friday said more than 20 people had been detained over Zogo’s killing, including senior police intelligence officers.

“The statement did not elaborate and officials declined requests for comment.

“On Monday, police detained seven more people, including media mogul Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga at his Yaounde home.

“They also detained Belinga’s chief of security, who is a former presidential guard commander, and the head of his Vision 4 TV channel. . . .”

UNC Loses Ida B. Wells Group to Morehouse

Feb. 4, 2023

UNC Loses Ida B. Wells Group to Morehouse:
Action Recalls Tenure Controversy of ’21
Miami’s Richardson Promoted to McClatchy V.P.
Questions Remain on Almaguer’s Paul Pelosi Story
‘To Be Honest, I Don’t Know Who the . . . You Are’
Board Fights Media Narrative on Black Studies Move
Faulty Premise for a Sweeping Headline
MSNBC Is Tops Among Black Cable News Viewers
Arab Americans, Latinos Could See Census Changes

Short Takes: Diversifying N.Y. Times culture section; Roy Wood Jr.; Peter Bhatia; “Middle Eastern or North African” census category? changes in counting Latinos?; “objectivity” with Leonard Downie Jr. and Kevin Merida; Nykia Wright; Chicago Tribune’s mayoral endorsement; Bina Venkataraman; Deborah D. Douglas; Rashida Jones and Hampton University; “Bad Press” film wins at Sundance; “Black in the NFL” podcast; Brazil’s Gloria Maria; Rwanda’s slain John Williams Ntwali

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Donations are tax-deductible.

Ron Nixon, standing, and Nikole Hannah-Jones, co-founders of the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Journalism, conduct an investigative reporting workshop in 2019 at Morgan State University. (Credit: Ida B. Wells Society)

Action Recalls Tenure Controversy of ’21

The Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Journalism, dedicated to bringing diversity to investigative reporting, is moving from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill to Morehouse College in Atlanta.

“The move comes after the controversy over the university’s board of trustees denying one of the society’s founders, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, a vote on tenure after the university courted her to join its faculty,” as Joe Killian reported Thursday for NC Policy Watch.

“Intense pressure from students, faculty, staff and alumni as well as some of the top names in journalism from around the country, forced a tenure vote on the university’s board of trustees. Though the board ultimately offered her tenure, Hannah-Jones decided instead to take a position at Howard University. There she created the new Center for Democracy and Journalism at one of the nation’s most prestigious Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

“The university reached a settlement with Hannah-Jones last year.

“ ‘I am very excited to announce that Morehouse College will be the new home of the Ida B. Wells Society,’ Hannah-Jones said in a statement released by Morehouse. ‘This partnership helps our young organization settle more deeply into our mission, which is to increase the number of investigative reporters of color. Being located on the campus of a historically Black college located in Atlanta in proximity to other HBCUs and coming to Morehouse just as it gets its journalism major off the ground provides a tremendous opportunity for us to increase our impact on the field and society.’ ”

The Morehouse announcement added, “Founded in 2007 with a generous grant from alumnus Spike Lee ’79 and the late pioneering Black sports columnist Ralph Wiley, the Journalism and Sports program became an official degree-granting major in July of 2021, offering a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism in Sports, Culture and Social Justice.

“Students participate in foundational courses such as news writing, sports reporting, multimedia and visual storytelling, and mass media law. Allied with the Society, both entities share the belief that investigative reporting can help reporters go beyond the headlines to find the stories that define current issues and problems.

“Through the partnership, students will be educated about advanced technology, open records laws, advanced interviewing techniques, fact checking, backgrounding, data reporting, finding government data, story pitching, organizing projects, and following paper trails. The partnership also will teach students how to write compelling investigative narratives as well as provide guest lectures, career development opportunities, educational programs, and general support. (Photo: At Alabama State University in 2020)

“ ‘Our journalism program intentionally tries to fill the gaps in media that rarely are populated by Black reporters and editors,’ said Ron Thomas, chair of the Morehouse Journalism in Sports, Culture and Social Justice department. “Investigative reporting is one of those areas in which Black faces are seldom seen . . . .”

Killian continued, “In an email to faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill’s journalism school, Dean Raul Reis said the school was grateful for the opportunity to have worked with the society since 2019.

“ ‘Carolina is committed to an inclusive and equitable community for all,’ Reis said in the Thursday e-mail. ‘We look forward to the future work of the Society and wish their team all the best.’

“Last year the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC) demoted UNC-Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media to ‘provisional’ status, finding the school fell short of its standards for diversity, equity, and inclusion. The school was given two years to resolve the problem before officially losing its accreditation. . . .”

Separately, The Washington Post’s Style section published an unusual 3,100-page piece by former Post reporter Wesley Lowery about, as Lowery put it on social media, “a friend of mine, the 1619 Project, the role of journalists as historians, and who gets to frame the American story.”

At a Journal-isms Roundtable last May, Miami Herald Executive Editor Monica Richardson explains the efforts that won the Herald a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news. (Credit: Sharon Farmer/sfphotoworks)

Miami’s Richardson Promoted to McClatchy V.P.

“Monica Richardson, executive editor of the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald, has been named vice president of news for large markets for parent company McClatchy,” the Herald reported Wednesday.

“Richardson will oversee all news operations for McClatchy’s six largest newsrooms, including the Herald. Kristin Roberts, McClatchy’s chief content officer, made the announcement Wednesday.

“In a memo to the company, Roberts said having Richardson in this new role ensures ‘that we achieve the highest ambitions of local journalism, extend our unmatched record of audience growth and establish our newsrooms as the preeminent local media brands.’

“Richardson joined the Miami Herald two years ago, and supervised the Herald’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Surfside condo collapse. As Florida regional editor, she also has overseen the Bradenton Herald newsroom on Florida’s Gulf Coast.

“ ‘From a Pulitzer Prize to organizing on-the-spot trauma sessions for journalists working the Surfside condo collapse and her focus on innovation and strengthening community engagement efforts, Monica has paired compassion and commitment with experience and skill to become a leader who embodies the best of our profession,’ Roberts said in her announcement.

“In her new role, Richardson will oversee newsrooms in Florida, Missouri, California, North Carolina and Texas. The senior editors in each of the six large-market newsrooms will report to her.

“Herald Managing Editor Alex Mena (pictured) has been named interim executive editor of the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald.

“Mena, who has been with the Herald for more than 25 years, has been involved in nearly every part of newsroom operations, including sports and production.

“Roberts said the company will conduct a national search for a new executive editor for the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald.”

Screen grab from bodycam video following the alleged assault on Paul Pelosi by David DePape in San Francisco on Oct. 28. (San Francisco Police Department)

Questions Remain on Almaguer’s Paul Pelosi Story

“Newly released bodycam video of the October attack on Paul Pelosi sheds light on what appeared to be right and wrong with the NBC News report that was mysteriously retracted last year,” Brian Flood reported Jan. 27 for Fox News.

“NBC News reporter Miguel Almaguer (pictured) went viral days after the attack when he implied Pelosi, husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, might not have been in immediate danger when police arrived at his San Francisco home the night he was assaulted by suspect David DePape. Almaguer’s report contradicted the mainstream narrative and was quickly scrubbed from the internet by NBC News without an explanation aside from a brief line about it not meeting standards.

“Almaguer was then vanished from NBC News for several weeks, but the network refused to confirm he was suspended with an on-the-record comment, and media insiders were baffled by NBC News’ lack of transparency on the issue. . . .

“NBC News did not respond to a series of questions, and it remains unclear what portion of Almaguer’s piece resulted in it being retracted, or if the network felt the tone around a sensitive topic was misleading. . . .”

Josh Dickey added for The Wrap, “In lieu of comment, NBC News referred TheWrap to the note originally published with the retracted story: ‘Editor’s note: This piece has been removed from publication because it did not meet NBC News reporting standards.’ ”

“Which, to be fair, may have been very much true at the time.

“Almaguer’s original reporting did not indicate that he, or anyone at NBC News, had seen the footage; though it did at one point cite ‘court documents,’ the report did not specify whether those documents had been obtained by NBC, or if its details from court records were being relayed second-hand. . . .”

Perhaps Jake Paul, right, does not watch much sports television and never saw Bomani Jones before, but the two put on an incredible performance taking jabs back and forth with one another, Luke Kane wrote for Mediaite.

‘To Be Honest, I Don’t Know Who the . . . You Are’

“Jake Paul and Stephen A. Smith are going to be guests on Friday night’s edition of Game Theory with Bomani Jones on HBO, and the network released a brief clip of Jones’ interview with Paul,” Joe Lucia reported Thursday for Awful Announcing.

“Jones asked Paul what happens if he loses one of his fights, and Paul did not respond favorably to the question.

“Jones: After Tommy Fury, where do you go from there? What happens if you lose one of these fights?

“Paul: I don’t plan on losing. I don’t train to lose. I feel like that’s probably your mindset. A lot of people try to project their mindsets…

“Jones: Ain’t no projecting of a mindset. My question is, this is work because we’re all surprised that you keep winning these fights, right? But if somebody does beat you, how much interest stays in this when it stops being surprising?

“Paul: They won’t. And I’m gonna be honest bro, I don’t know who the fuck you are. My PR team set up this interview.

“Jones: Dude, all I know about you is that people don’t like you.”

On Wednesday, David Coleman and Brandi Waters of the College Board joined co-anchor Geoff Bennett on the “PBS NewsHour” to discuss the Advanced Placement course on African American Studies and the controversy. (Credit: PBS/YouTube.)

Board Fights Media Narrative on Black Studies Move

The College Board is defending the latest version of its Advanced Placement course on African American Studies, saying it had nothing to do with politics, but the predominant media narrative is that it did.

“The College Board Strips Down Its A.P. Curriculum for African American Studies,” reads a New York Times online headline. “After heavy criticism from Gov. Ron DeSantis, the College Board released on Wednesday an official curriculum for its new Advanced Placement course in African American Studies — stripped of much of the subject matter that had angered the governor and other conservatives.”

Cheyanne M. Daniels wrote for The Hill, “The College Board on Wednesday released a revised version of an Advanced Placement African American studies course following criticism from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who refused to allow the program to run in the state’s schools. In a new framework for the course reviewed by The Hill, Black writers and scholars associated with critical race theory have been scrubbed from the curriculum, as have those who touch on the Black queer experience and Black feminism.

“Other topics, like Black Lives Matter, are now optional. The Board also added ‘Black conservatism’ as a potential research topic.

“David Coleman, CEO of the College Board, told The New York Times that these changes were not made to bow to political pressure. ‘At the College Board, we can’t look to statements of political leaders,’ Coleman said. The changes, he said, came from ‘the input of professors’ and ‘longstanding A.P. principles.’ But last week, when changes were first announced, DeSantis’s administration took credit for the move. . . .”

On NPR, Mary Louise Kelly asked Coleman and Brandi Waters, the board’s director of Advanced Placement African American Studies, “For people trying to follow all this, let me just put a basic question, a yes or no question, and you can each take it. Was the curriculum changed to appease Governor DeSantis or other critics who have accused the College Board of being woke, yes or no?

“COLEMAN: No.

“WATERS: Absolutely not.

“KELLY: If I may just push you on this one more time, to those who look at the changes and how they track very closely to the changes that Ron DeSantis was arguing for, it’s a coincidence?

“COLEMAN: Let me try to explain. What was attacked were secondary sources and all the secondary sources. What was not discussed in all the political commentary was the core facts and evidence of the course. Everyone’s in agreement. It seems that that was brilliantly handled.

“There were some commentators that were attacked, but those were all part of secondary sources we never list. We took out all the secondary sources, including ones that never got comment ’cause we don’t do it in any AP course. . . .”

Coleman also said, “There are time stamps. There’s clear evidence. So it is simply false that the changes were made after [the criticism], so just so we don’t get confused.”

On the “PBS NewsHour” Friday, Jonathan Capehart sided with the College Board, but denounced DeSantis.

“We’re talking about academics, not politicians,” Capehart said. “I mean, these sorts of things happen in academia all the time. Just because you write a book, just because you teach a course, just because you have written an important article that was big in the social discussion doesn’t automatically mean that it needs to be taught in a classroom. And I know I’m going to get in trouble with a lot of people.

“But I want to pull the camera, the aperture back here. What Ron DeSantis is doing is deeply, deeply insulting. What he’s basically saying to the nation and to African Americans, in particular, it’s that your role in the building of this country, the maintenance of this country means nothing, that, without you, we could have gotten along just fine. . . .”

Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., president of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, trade organization for Black-press publishers, speaks before the Journal-isms Roundtable at the Thurgood Marshall Center for Service and Heritage in Washington on Sept. 27, 2016. (Credit: George Tolbert IV)

Faulty Premise for a Sweeping Headline

Splashed across the home page of blackpressusa.com, a project of the National Newspaper Publishers Association that features stories subsequently used by Black newspapers nationwide, is the headline “While Black Newspapers Reveal Serial Rapists, Mainstream Turns to Comedy.”

The references are to stories in the nonprofit digital-only startup the Kansas City Defender that a serial killer was targeting Black women and girls, and by the website Samafor, which reported that CNN “could fill the primetime 9 to 11 p.m. hours with a nontraditional version of the news, five people familiar with the planning said.” No sources were identified by name.

Stacy M. Brown wrote Jan. 29 that “The latest news is that CNN, which once held itself as the leader in cable news, is looking for a comedian to fill its crucial 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. time slot.”

Brown’s point was that “critical news about people of color is only found in the Black Press,” while the mainstream media, with CNN as his exhibit, was turning to comedy.

But in an on-the-record, source-named interview published the next day in the Los Angeles Times, Stephen Battagilo asked Chris Licht, chairman and CEO of CNN Worldwide, whether it was true that “you’re looking to do some type of topical comedy show in prime time.”

Licht replied, “No. I worked on a comedy show. And it took over 200 people to produce an actual comedy show. So no, I would not be so foolish as to, in one fell swoop, hurt the brand of comedy and news by trying to do a comedy show on CNN.”

Source: Nielsen. January 2023. Rank among cable news programs (MSNBC, CNN, Fox News; regularly scheduled programs). Based on Live+SD P2+ average audience, excluding repeats. Race = Black.

MSNBC Is Tops Among Black Cable News Viewers

“Among Black Americans, MSNBC was the #2 most-watched cable network in January (behind ESPN),” MSNBC announced Thursday, citing January Nielsen ratings.

“MSNBC averaged 173K Black viewers (ahead of CNN’s 115K and FOX News’ 20K), ranking #1 among cable news networks for the 24th consecutive month. MSNBC is home to the 10 highest-rated cable news programs among Black Americans.

“ ‘The ReidOut’ has been the most-watched cable news program among Black Americans for four straight months (and 19 of the past 24). Across all of cable, MSNBC had two of the Top 10 programs among Black viewers in January: ‘The ReidOut’ (#7) and ‘The Rachel Maddow Show’ (#9). In addition, ‘Morning Joe’ was the #1 cable program in its time slot among Black viewers.”

Pro-Arab sentiment about the importance of the “Middle Eastern-North African” is summarized as, “White without the privilege. We’re counted as white, but we’ve never had the privilege that comes with it.” (Credit: WKRG, Mobile, Ala.)

Arab Americans, Latinos Could See Census Changes

“A Middle Eastern and North African category could be added to U.S. federal surveys and censuses, and changes could be made to how Hispanics are able to self-identify, under preliminary recommendations released Thursday by the Biden administration in what would be the first update to race and ethnicity standards in a quarter century,” Mike Schneider reported Jan. 26 for the Associated Press.

“Other proposed changes include eliminating the use of certain outdated and offensive terminologies, as well as discontinuing the use of the terms ‘majority’ and ‘minority,’ ” Samantha Artiga and Drishti Pillai reported Monday for the Kaiser Family Foundation.

In 2020, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists declared, “For decades, the term ‘minority’ has been used to refer to groups of people that are outnumbered by non-Hispanic whites — a word that for too long has perpetuated an ‘us vs. them’ narrative.”

Schneider continued, “The federal government’s standards haven’t been changed since 1997, two decades after they were created as part of an effort to collect consistent race and ethnicity data across federal agencies when handling censuses, federal surveys and application forms for government benefits.”

John Mason wrote Wednesday for Arab America, “Under President Obama, in 2015, a question for the 2020 U.S. Census Bureau survey included the identification of a respondent as ‘Middle Eastern or North African’ (MENA). Importantly, MENA as a response would not be aggregated to the much broader ‘White’ category. The Trump administration killed the question. In 2022, some Congress members requested renewal of the MENA category for the 2030 Census. Pro-Arab sentiment about the importance of the MENA tag is, captured as follows, ‘It’s like we always say, “White without the privilege.” We’re counted as white, but we’ve never had the privilege that comes with it.’ . . .”

Meanwhile, “Among the Hispanic population, the share who were identified as some other race grew from 28% to 35% between 2010 and 2021, and there was a ten-fold jump in the share reported as multiracial, from 4% to 44%. During this period, the share of Hispanic people identified as White plummeted from 64% to 16%,” Artiga and Drishti Pillai reported for Kaiser.

Schneider wrote for the AP, “Some advocates have been pushing for combining the race and Hispanic origin questions, saying the way race is categorized often confuses Hispanic respondents who are not sure how to answer. Tests by the Census Bureau in the 2010 census showed that combining the questions yielded higher response rates.”

In 2014, the revelation that more Hispanics were identifying as white on the census forms prompted such pieces as “Who and What the Hell Is a White Hispanic?”

Short Takes

  • “I and former CBS News president Andrew Heyward, a colleague at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, investigated the values and practices in mainstream newsrooms today, with a grant from the Stanton Foundation,” Leonard Downie Jr., former executive editor at the Washington Post, wrote for the Post Monday. “What we found has convinced us that truth-seeking news media must move beyond whatever ‘objectivity’ once meant to produce more trustworthy news. We interviewed more than 75 news leaders, journalists and other experts in mainstream print, broadcast and digital news media, many of whom also advocate such a change. This appears to be the beginning of another generational shift in American journalism. . . .”
  • “. . . At the Los Angeles Times, [Executive Editor] Kevin Merida (pictured) is open to the possibility that reporters might cover issues on which they actively engage, Downie also wrote. ” ‘We’re trying to find that line,’ he said. “We’re trying to create an environment in which we don’t police our journalists too much. Our young people want to be participants in the world.”
  • “Bad Press,” a film documenting the role of a free and independent press in tribal governments, won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Freedom of Expression at the Sundance Film Festival. The film comes from Rebecca Landsberry-Baker, Native American Journalists Association executive director, and Joe Peeler, a documentary editor and director whose work has appeared on Netflix, HBO and FX.

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Richard Prince’s Journal-isms originates from Washington. It began in print before most of us knew what the internet was, and it would like to be referred to as a “column.” Any views expressed in the column are those of the person or organization quoted and not those of any other entity. Send tips, comments and concerns to Richard Prince at journal-isms+owner@groups.io

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