Articles Feature

Reporters Expose Prison Guards’ Cover-Ups

by richard03093

Officers Lie, Then Retaliate Against Victims
In Rare Move, Birmingham Gives $150,000 to NABJ
After a Year in Uvalde, ABC Offers Nuanced Portrait
AI, Disinformation Among Fellowship Topics
A.P. Finds Bias in Victims’ Compensations

Too Bad, Groups Say: Cops Can’t Take Back Records
Writer Finds Black Reporters Afraid to Voice Unease
Majority of Blacks Would Be ‘Angry’ if Trump Won
Outlets Humanize Migrants — Black Ones, Too
Vexing: Are People From Brazil, Belize ‘Latino’?
Morehouse Awards Its First Journalism Degrees

Short Takes: Tina Turner; automobiles’ AM radios; CNN’s Spanish-language efforts; Anna Gomez; Anh Do; journalism and youth violence; firing of Oakland A’s broadcaster; Blacks and Writers Guild strike; Tim Scott’s sex life; hope for imprisoned Native man; recruiting more Black male teachers for Black students; Jim Trotter; Cheryl Corley; Tayna Black; Emerson Coleman; Mark Russell; Maynard Eaton; Chronicle of Higher Education scholarship for students at “minority-serving” institutions;

Departure of Australia’s high-profile indigenous anchor; El Salvador newspaper’s refuge in Costa Rica; arrest of Nicaraguan journalist; indictment in Brazil in journalist’s killing; U.N.’s Permanent Forum on People of African Descent; spotlighting injustices of Nigeria’s police killings; hostility of Uganda’s media space; DRC’s restrictive new press law; release of Tunisia radio exec; nearly 1,000 attacks on journalists in Russia-Ukraine war.

Homepage photo credit: Dion MBD for the Marshall Project

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“Shattered teeth. Punctured lungs. Broken bones,” the Marshall Project reported. “Over a dozen years, New York State officials have documented the results of attacks by hundreds of prison guards on the people in their custody. But when the state corrections department has tried to use this evidence to fire guards, it has failed 90% of the time, an investigation by The Marshall Project has found.” (Credit: Dion MBD for the Marshall Project)

Officers Lie, Then Retaliate Against Victims

“The way the prison guards described it in their paperwork, there was a minor disturbance the day they took Chad Stanbro to a dental clinic at a regional hospital,” Joseph Neff, Alysia Santo and Tom Meagher wrote Monday for The New York Times and the Marshall Project.

“Mr. Stanbro, a prisoner, had been sedated but became agitated during surgery, took a swing at a dentist and kicked a correctional officer in the stomach, they wrote. The guard and a colleague had quickly restrained him and had driven him back to Fishkill Correctional Facility, where, according to the senior officer’s account, Mr. Stanbro had ‘reported no injuries.’

“But critical details were missing — including that Mr. Stanbro had been paralyzed during the incident. A third officer had rushed into the clinic’s operating room and had knelt on Mr. Stanbro’s neck until he couldn’t move, according to later court testimony. That guard had asked his colleagues to leave him out of their reports, they acknowledged at trial, and they had done so.

“Even though Mr. Stanbro’s injuries were obvious — he could not walk or move his body from the neck down — the officer who injured him avoided discipline. Mr. Stanbro, however, was accused of assault and after he left the hospital was put in solitary confinement. In July, a federal jury awarded him $2.1 million in damages.

“Such cover-ups are commonplace across New York State’s prison system, according to a Marshall Project review of thousands of pages of court documents, arbitration records and officer disciplinary data.

“At Auburn Correctional Facility, west of Syracuse, guards kicked a man, called him a racial slur and broke three of his ribs in what a judge called a ‘barbaric assault.’ At Elmira Correctional Facility, near the Pennsylvania border, officers beat a handcuffed man and threw him down a flight of stairs, fracturing his skull. At Clinton Correctional Facility, near the Canadian border, guards kicked and punched a handcuffed man, breaking his rib. In all three cases, the staff members filed false reports to cover up the assaults, court records show, and faced no discipline.

“The records illustrate how cover-ups can make it difficult to hold officers accountable for using excessive force. They also reveal a typical playbook: Guards often work in groups to conceal violent assaults by lying to investigators and on official reports, and then they file charges against their victims and have them sent to solitary.

“The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization, obtained disciplinary data on more than 290 cases in which the corrections department tried to fire guards or supervisors accused of abusing prisoners. In nearly three-quarters of those cases, the agency also accused the officers of covering up misconduct, often by acting in concert. The department tried to discipline guards for incidents in which one or more were accused of committing abuse while others lied to hide it, bringing a case on average every two months over 12 years. . . .”

The Birmingham Association of Black Journalists threw a promotional party for the 2023 National Association of Black Journalists convention at last year’s joint gathering of NABJ and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists in Las Vegas. Christopher Quintel, “the Voice of the South,” narrated the video. Comedian Roy Wood Jr., raised partly in Birmingham, hosted the party. (Credit: YouTube)

In Rare Move, Birmingham Gives $150,000 to NABJ

The city of Birmingham, Ala., is contributing $150,000 to the National Association of Black Journalists for its convention in that city this summer. It is a rare donation for an organization that most often will receive trinkets or touristy mementos from the host city.

“This group, they worked their butts off,” NABJ Executive Director Drew Berry told a meeting Saturday of the NABJ board of directors, speaking of the Birmingham Association of Black Journalists. “They had to go through political hoops to get that.”  

[Carla Wade, president of the Birmingham Association of Black Journalists, messaged May 30, “Our chapter leadership has been in regular contact with our mayor’s office and city council over several years, explaining the potential economic impact of the convention — which city leaders grasped immediately — as well as answering questions and keeping city leadership updated on convention-related developments.

[“Although there was no specific funding request from BABJ, the City of Birmingham has been an enthusiastic partner in this process (as they have been with numerous other events that were poised to positively impact the city) and we are grateful for their support of this year’s NABJ convention.”]

Only the ABC/Disney/ESPN conglomerate, which is giving $201,000, is outspending the city of Birmingham, Berry told the board. It is followed by General Motors, $128,000; CNN/Warner, $126,500; CBS, $125,000; Fox, $120,000 and NBC, $119,000.

Berry also said that sponsorships for the Aug. 2-6 convention and career fair are outpacing last year’s, and that the registration to date of 937 is exceeded only by two other NABJ conventions — New Orleans in 2010 and Miami in 2019 — this far ahead of the event. New Orleans ultimately drew 3,273 and Miami, 4,105.

Birmingham announced last year that “For the entire year of 2023, the City of Birmingham – in partnership with area churches, arts organizations, activists, businesses and nonprofits –  will honor the challenges, lessons and triumphs of the 1963 Birmingham civil and human rights movement. The 60th commemoration will include programs, events, workshops, and entertainment that will be open to the entire community.

” ‘The eyes of the world were on Birmingham in 1963 while a battle was waged for the equal rights of all of its residents,’ said Birmingham Mayor Randall L. Woodfin. ‘We plan to spend 2023 remembering and reflecting on the people and events that helped to break down segregation not only in Birmingham, but in our country.’  . . .

“The year 1963 was pivotal in our history, featuring several marches and demonstrations as African Americans demanded the rights promised to them as American citizens. Youth as young as eight years-old participated in a Children’s Crusade where youngsters marched and were jailed for freedom.

“Under the leadership of college students, a selective buying campaign was launched where Black residents only bought from businesses that provided equal access to all. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and penned his famous ‘Letter from the Birmingham Jail.’ Domestic terrorism also rocked the city. The A.G. Gaston Motel was bombed on Mother’s Day, and on Sept. 15, 1963, four little girls were killed in a tragic bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church.”

August, the month of the NABJ convention, was designated as a month for “storytelling.”

Wade (pictured), who is also morning news anchor at WVTM-TV, said the convention site would be minutes away from the civil rights district, including the 16th Street Baptist Church. She said side trips to Selma and Montgomery, sites of other civil rights landmarks, might be arranged, and that sports aficionados might be interested in Birmingham’s Negro Southern League Museum.

The convention hotels are sold out, but according to the NABJ website, “Overflow Hotel Rooms Available First-Come, First-Served Until 7/6!”

NABJ is planning “Black Journalists Magic” T-shirts, in line with the city’s nickname, “the Magic City,” NABJ President Dorothy Tucker said, and expects to provide hand fans inscribed, “I’m a fan” of NABJ.

Tucker also mentioned that the NABJ news project, Black News and Views, has more than 30 media organizations as partners and is now targeting advertisers. The site has received nearly 10,000 visitors since its launch last year, she said. Melanie Eversley is editor.

Mothers who lost their daughters at Robb Elementary in Uvalde join Gloria Cazares in front of Jackie Cazares’ mural with the Eiffel Tower. (Credit: Ismael Estrada/ABC News)

After a Year in Uvalde, ABC Offers Nuanced Portrait

“After most mass shootings that capture the public’s attention, national news organizations will send reporters for a few days, a week maybe, before moving on. There’s always another community, another tragedy,” David Bauder wrote May 18 for the Associated Press.

“ABC News tried something different after 19 elementary school students and two teachers were shot and killed in Uvalde, Texas, last May.

“The journalists stayed.

“For a year, ABC News kept a team in Uvalde. The result is a nuanced portrait of what happens over time to a suffering community, as seen in the two-hour documentary, ‘It Happened Here — A Year in Uvalde.‘ ” It aired May 19 on ABC and the next day on Hulu.

“ ‘What we discovered has been profoundly moving and inspiring and, we hope, useful,’ said ABC News President Kim Godwin.

“The story’s richness is in the details: There are the children’s rooms left undisturbed since May 24, 2022, the brush a parent can’t give up because it contains a dead girl’s hair, the survivor made upset by the sound of a block of ice being cracked, and the once-carefree boy who worries a lot. And we see a father who sits at his daughter’s grave each night to talk to her. . . .”

In a separate first-person story, ABC producer Ismael Estrada (pictured) wrote Wednesday, “In spending so much time with the families, I understand more clearly things that I only thought I knew in covering other shootings. There are little things that can turn their days upside down. A smell, a memory, or a song. They can go from laughter to tears in an instant. . . .

“They say the bond they’ve formed with other families of this tragedy is paramount in getting through each day. They say they are the only ones who completely understand, and they rely on and look out for each other.

“I witnessed a pain that I didn’t fully understand until I witnessed it firsthand.”

Meanwhile, “in a FRONTLINE documentary with Futuro Investigates and The Texas Tribune, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa probes lingering questions about why this tragedy happened and explores how some of the Robb Elementary school families have responded,” Futuro Investigates announced Monday.

“ ‘For the last year, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about these families and about Uvalde,’ Hinojosa says in the documentary, After Uvalde: Guns, Grief & Texas Politics. ‘I need to know: What does a place like Uvalde do after a horrific tragedy like this?’

“Premiering Tues., May 30, 2023, on PBS and streaming platforms, After Uvalde: Guns, Grief & Texas Politics offers answers. The documentary tells the story of how some families have channeled their grief into a push to raise the purchase age of assault-style weapons in Texas from 18 to 21. . . .”

Top row, from left: Ben Curtis, Annie Jieping Zhang, Johanna Wild, Sonya Groysman. Second row: Cristela Guerra, Julia Barton, James Barragán, Elsie Chen. Third row: Andrea Patiño Contreras, Andrew Ryan, Julian Benbow, Denise Schrier Cetta, Manasseh Azure Awuni, Ilya Marritz, Sarah Varney, Beandrea July. Fourth row: Javier Lafuente, Jikyung Kim, Rachel Pulfer, Yana Lyushnevskaya, Lebo Diseko, Denise Hruby, Jaemark Tordecilla, Surabhi Tandon.

AI, Disinformation Among Fellowship Topics

The next classes of Nieman, John S. Knight and Knight Wallace fellows at Harvard and Stanford universities and the University of Michigan, respectively, have been named. Artificial intelligence, disinformation and threats to democracy are among the topics those chosen plan to study.

The programs are intended for mid-career journalists to get a break from the daily grind, taking classes at these universities and participating in seminars, workshops, training sessions and collaborations with scholars and students.

“The Nieman class of 2024, which arrives on campus this fall, includes investigative reporters, podcasters, documentary filmmakers, an open-source researcher, writers, video and photojournalists, a film critic, a television news producer, a media analyst and senior editors and newsroom leaders who direct innovative journalism ventures in the U.S. and abroad. . . .,” the program announced May 11.

“In two semesters of study at Harvard, the fellows will examine the growing threats to democracy and the free press; the use of AI in reporting; innovations in storytelling; political polarization; trauma; climate destabilization; scientific advances in health care; reporting under repressive regimes; solutions journalism; media trust; and journalism collaboration. . . .”

For identifications, see this page.

At Stanford, the U.S. fellows join seven international counterparts. They “are veteran and emerging journalism leaders from big and small newsrooms; they are entrepreneurs and investigative data journalists, documentarians, nonprofit innovators and public media journalists,” the program announced May 4. “They will come to Stanford University for 10 months to explore and test practical solutions to urgent and systemic problems facing journalism.

“Before coming to Stanford, these journalists have taken the initiative to begin efforts to address news and information gaps in underserved communities, the promise and perils for journalism of generative AI and the creator economy, systemic racism in news coverage, and the deterioration of legacy local news outlets. Journalists in this year’s fellowship cohort include leaders from The Arizona Republic, Consumer Reports, El Tímpano in Oakland, Lede New Orleans, OpenNews, The TRiiBE and WBEZ public radio in Chicago and WURD Radio in Philadelphia. . . .”

For identifications, see this page.

The Knight Wallace announcement said, ” ‘These journalists and their compelling range of projects reflect the breadth of challenges journalists must understand – from the far-reaching societal impacts of climate change, to the rise of social media-fueled disinformation, to the unique challenges of reporting from countries ensnared in media crackdowns, wars or rampant violence,’ said Lynette Clemetson, Director of Wallace House. ‘Now more than ever, the work of these and all journalists is essential to protecting and expanding democratic values. We are honored to support them.’

“After a three-year pause on international news tours caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Wallace House plans to travel with this year’s cohort to South Korea in February 2024 to learn more about the country’s changing media environment and engage with its political and social landscape. . . .”

“Every state has a program to help victims of crime with lost wages, medical bills, funerals and other expenses, awarding hundreds of millions in aid each year,” the Associated Press said. “But an Associated Press examination found that Black victims and their families are disproportionately denied compensation.” (AP video credit: David R. Martin)

A.P. Finds Bias in Victims’ Compensations

“The cold formality of the letter is seared in Debra Long’s memory,” Claudia Lauer and Mike Catalini reported May 17 for the Associated Press.

“It began ‘Dear Claimant,’ and said her 24-year-old son, Randy, who was fatally shot in April 2006, was not an ‘innocent’ victim. Without further explanation, the New York state agency that assists violent-crime victims and their families refused to help pay for his funeral.

“Randy was a father, engaged to be married and studying to become a juvenile probation officer when his life was cut short during a visit to Brooklyn with friends. His mother, angry and bewildered by the letter, wondered: What did authorities see — or fail to see — in Randy?

“ ‘It felt racial. It felt like they saw a young African American man who was shot and killed and assumed he must have been doing something wrong,’ Long said of the decision from what was known as the New York Crime Victims Board. ‘But believe me when I say, not my son.’

“Debra Long had bumped up against a well-intentioned corner of the criminal justice system that is often perceived as unfair.

“Every state has a program to reimburse victims for lost wages, medical bills, funerals and other expenses, awarding hundreds of millions in aid each year. But an Associated Press examination found that Black victims and their families are disproportionately denied compensation in many states, often for subjective reasons that experts say are rooted in racial biases.

“The AP found disproportionately high denial rates in 19 out of 23 states willing to provide detailed racial data, the largest collection of such data to date. In some states, including Indiana, Georgia and South Dakota, Black applicants were nearly twice as likely as white applicants to be denied. From 2018 through 2021, the denials added up to thousands of Black families each year collectively missing out on millions of dollars in aid.

“The reasons for the disparities are complex and eligibility rules vary somewhat by state, but experts — including leaders of some of the programs — point to a few common factors:

“— State employees reviewing applications often base decisions on information from police reports and follow-up questionnaires that seek officers’ opinions of victims’ behavior — both of which may contain implicitly biased descriptions of events.

“— Those same employees may be influenced by their own biases when reviewing events that led to victims’ injuries or deaths. Without realizing it, a review of the facts morphs into an assessment of victims’ perceived culpability.

“— Many state guidelines were designed decades ago with biases that benefited victims who would make the best witnesses, disadvantaging those with criminal histories, unpaid fines or addictions, among others.

“As the wider criminal justice system — from police departments to courts — reckons with institutional racism in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd, compensation programs are also beginning to scrutinize how their policies affect people of color. . . .”

Journalist Ben Camacho and his legal team have asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit against Camacho, alleging he released photos of undercover LAPD officers given to him under a public records act request. (Credit: Emily Holshouser/South California News Group)

Too Bad, Groups Say: Cops Can’t Take Back Records

“The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and 21 news organizations are urging a California court to deny the city of Los Angeles’s attempt to force a local journalist and community advocacy group to return and/or destroy lawfully obtained police records,” the committee reported.

“In September 2022, as part of a settlement agreement in a public records lawsuit, the city of Los Angeles provided journalist Ben Camacho with information about thousands of Los Angeles Police Department officers, including photograph headshots. Camacho then shared the records with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, a community advocacy organization, which published the records online.

“The city sued both Camacho and the coalition to reclaim headshots and other records concerning undercover police officers that it said were mistakenly given to the reporter.

“In a friend-of-the-court brief filed with the Los Angeles County Superior Court on May 17, 2023, Reporters Committee attorneys argue that the city’s request is an unconstitutional prior restraint.”

Supporters, according to the brief and the Orange County Press Club, include CCNMA: Latino Journalists of California; the Associated Press; the Gannett Co.; the Los Angeles chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists; Media Guild of the West and The NewsGuild-CWA Local 39213; the Asian American Journalists Association, Los Angeles; and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Radio Television Digital News Association, Society of Professional Journalists, the National Press Photographers Association and the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, Los Angeles chapter, among others.

Writer Finds Black Reporters Afraid to Voice Unease

“I sent interview requests to about a dozen Black reporters at white-owned outlets asking if they could talk to me about how supported they feel in their newsroom,” Anissa Durham wrote Tuesday for Word in Black. “One reporter after another declined to comment on the record. All of them said they were afraid of retaliation in their newsroom.

“Except one.

“His story highlights the ways in which white-led newsrooms are failing. And how the racial reckoning in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd was just another way newsrooms tried to save face.

“Some of those promises include increasing diversity in newsroom leadership, reporting on race and equity topics, anti-racist stance, and building a better newsroom culture.

“In reality, many of those promises are falling short.

“But because so many Black journalists were afraid of going on the record, I got to thinking about what Black-led newsrooms are doing to support each other and their staff. Black news outlets aren’t necessarily Nirvana for Black reporters. There are still times when a Black journalist working for a Black news outlet might be afraid of retaliation for speaking frankly.

“However, there is a definite difference in the culture. So, I talked to two journalists that make up the Word In Black collaborative about how they continue to amplify the voices of our community — and support each other.

“The two are Gabe Schneider, 26 (pictured, top), who “works in operations and strategy for L.A. Public Press and is the co-director of The Objective, a nonprofit newsroom examining the power structure and inequity in journalism, “and “Sam P.K. Collins (pictured, bottom), 33, who has worked at the Washington Informer, a Black publication that’s a part of Word In Black, since 2012. He underscores the importance of creating space for our experiences and ideas in a newsroom. . . .”

Majority of Blacks Would Be ‘Angry’ if Trump Won

While President Biden “continues to receive relatively high marks from Black voters, he has not yet convinced most that his policies have improved their lives,” according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll of more than 1,200 Black Americans,” Toluse Olorunnipa, Scott Clement and Emily Guskin reported Thursday for The Washington Post.

“In a potentially positive sign for Biden, opposition to another [Donald] Trump term is particularly strong among Black voters, the Post-Ipsos poll finds. More than half say they would be ‘angry’ if Trump were to return to the White House and nearly 8 in 10 say they would not consider voting for Trump against Biden.

“At the same time, excitement for another Biden term is muted, with 17 percent saying they would be ‘enthusiastic’ if Biden were reelected and 48 percent saying they would be ‘satisfied but not enthusiastic.’ Only 8 percent of Black Americans say they would be ‘angry’ if Biden were reelected.

“About two-thirds of Black Americans (66 percent) approve of how Biden is handling his job as president, down slightly from the 70 percent who said the same in 2022. For comparison, a recent Post-ABC News poll of Americans overall found that 36 percent approved of Biden’s job as president, while some other polls show him in the low 40s. . . .”

Sixty-five Black undocumented people attended UndocuBlack Network’s first event, “The Undocumented and Black Convening,” which was the first-of-its-kind national convening held Jan.15-17, 2016, in Miami. The convening was a three-day event of facilitated workshops, strategizing, intersectional caucus spaces and healing spaces. (Courtesy UndocuBlack Network)

Outlets Humanize Migrants — Black Ones, Too

Last fall, the group Define American, whose purpose is to use “the power of storytelling to humanize conversations about immigrants,” urged the news media to stop the stereotypes. [PDF]

The group offered such advice as “Report on immigrants as people with agency, not just as victims or criminals,” and “Ensure reporting on immigrants encapsulates the full spectrum of foreign-born residents. That includes Asian American and Pacific Islander immigrants, as well as recent immigrants from Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.”

Two developments in Chicago last week spoke to those recommendations:

Borderless magazine announced Friday that “To help show the diversity of Black immigrants living in Chicago and the challenges they are facing here, Borderless is launching a new series: Black Immigrants Today. Reported and photographed by four members of Black immigrant communities in Chicago, our team spent over four months talking to community members and organizations like RefugeeOne, United African Organization, GirlForward, and the Haitian American Museum of Chicago.

“Those organizations helped them start talking to folks who had immigrated from Senegal, Togo, Haiti, and more in January. And we look forward to sharing their stories with you in the coming weeks. In the meantime, you’ll hear from some of them throughout this Q & A. . . .”

And Nell Salzman of the Chicago Tribune wrote May 21 under the headline, “As migrants move into shelters, surrounding communities respond: ‘They have value.’ “

Salzman reported that when the city decided to open a temporary shelter for recently arrived migrants “at the former Wadsworth Elementary School in February, there was serious pushback from the community. At the time, Ald. Jeanette Taylor, 20th, said opposition from the neighborhood should not be seen as anti-immigrant sentiment but rather as residents feeling disrespected by the city’s plan to repurpose a school that they had fought to keep open in a community that’s been through ‘decades of racist disinvestment.’

“And residents in South Shore voiced similar objections at a fiery meeting to discuss another proposed site over two weeks ago, with some South Shore residents filing a lawsuit against the city to stop the use of a shuttered high school there as a temporary respite center.

“But more than three months since the Woodlawn shelter opened its doors to migrants, residents are adjusting to the newcomers. An uneasy truce has settled over the neighborhood as migrants adapt to their new surroundings and begin the work of creating a life for themselves in the U.S. . . .”

Vexing: Are People From Brazil, Belize ‘Latino’?

“ ‘Latino’ is typically defined as someone from Latin America. Given that Brazil is easily the largest nation in Latin America — home to about 1 in 3 of its residents, according to the World Bank — it seems reasonable for Brazilians to consider themselves Latino,” Andrew Van Dam reported May 19 for The Washington Post.

“But as a former colony of Portugal, Brazil (flag) has no Spanish heritage. It therefore doesn’t meet the government definition of ‘Hispanic or Latino.’ So for decades, as [demographer Jeffrey] Passel, and his Pew colleague Jens Manuel Krogstad discovered, the folks at Census had been excluding Brazilians who claimed to be Hispanic or Latino from the official count.

“Brazil wasn’t the only nation affected. People from Belize — a former British colony where English is the official language — and a few other non-Spanish places, mostly in the Caribbean, also failed to make the cut.

“Few noticed this behind-the-scenes bookkeeping until 2020, when the astonishingly assiduous and all-but-infallible folks at Census neglected to reclassify the responses. As a result, the 2020 survey offers a window into how Brazilians and other folks view their identity, before Census overrides their choices. . . .”

“It feels like history is watching me right now,” said Jalen Brown, the first to be awarded a journalism degree from Morehouse College. “I’m being watched by other people, by the universe and other eyes are on me.”

Morehouse Awards Its First Journalism Degrees

“When Jalen Brown tweeted out a picture of him wearing his Commencement cap Sunday, all he was trying to do was show that he was proud to be the first Morehouse student to receive a degree in journalism in the 156-year history of the college. He never imagined that millions of people would care,” Ron Thomas (pictured, below), director of Journalism in Sports, Culture and Social Justice at Morehouse College, wrote Journal-isms last week.

“Three days later, Brown said that his tweet had been viewed 15 million times and his Twitter account now has 1,500 more followers, including journalists from The Associated Press, NPR and The Washington Post.

“ ‘I wasn’t expecting the tweet to blow up in that manner,’ said Brown, an Atlanta native and aspiring political reporter. ‘But it feels like history is watching me right now. I’m being watched by other people, by the universe and other eyes are on me. I feel very excited for what’s to come.’

“By the end of the Commencement exercises, five other students – Christopher Doomes, Clifton Dutton, Andy Harris, Shawn Johnson and Dantez Simpson – had joined Brown as Morehouse’s first degree holders produced by the Journalism in Sports, Culture and Social Justice Department. Those first six degree holders reflect the curriculum’s range of interests.

“Brown has been hired as a fulltime junior reporter for Bloomberg Industry Group and eventually hopes to cover Capitol Hill, the White House or the Supreme Court. Doomes is focused on a professional career as a visual journalist using photography and videography. Harris will enter NYU’s master’s program called ‘Reporting the Nation – Reporting New York.’ Dutton, Johnson and Simpson all were Communications Studies/Journalism double majors who aspire to careers in sports media relations. . . .”

Short Takes

  • News of the passing of Tina Turner (pictured) Tuesday at 83 was a hot topic on social media, and posts by Portland-Ore.-based poet, musician and screenwriter Will Stenberg went viral. Among other points, Stenberg wrote, “In 2016, after a barrage of health problems, Tina’s kidneys began to fail. A Swiss citizen by then, she had started preparing for assisted suicide when her husband stepped in. According to Tina, he said, ‘He didn’t want another woman, or another life.’ He gave her one of his kidneys, buying her the remainder of her time on this earth and perhaps closing a cycle which took her from a man who inflicted injury upon her to a man willing to inflict injury upon himself to save her from harm.” Others wrote that they thought her Buddhism deserved more attention. “I have no way of knowing when a post is going to go viral,” Stenberg wrote Friday. “These magical calculations are beyond my feeble reasoning. As for the Tina post, I write eulogies out of some kind of instinct and if you have followed me for a while you know I do it pretty consistently when someone I admire passes away, whether it’s a well-known artist or a friend. Sometimes I feel I am here primarily as a witness.”
  • “CNN will shift the bulk of its operations behind its Spanish-language efforts to Mexico City, scaling back production of content for linear television in favor of work aimed at reaching a younger audience that favors mobile video,” Brian Steinberg reported Thursday for Variety. “The move is likely to mean the elimination of jobs in Miami and Atlanta, but will also result in a ramp-up of jobs in Mexico and Los Angeles, where CNN will aim to add more than staffers, according to a person familiar with the plans, which were disclosed to employees Thursday afternoon. . . .”

  • “Missing documentation for the alleged murder weapon in a 45-year-old case could provide a boost to a Monache man’s attempt to finally gain release from prison for a crime he has maintained he did not commit,” Richard Arlin Walker reported Monday for ICT, formerly Indian Country Today. “In response to an open records request from ICT, the Sacramento Police Department said it has no chain-of-custody records to show when or to whom a stolen handgun turned over to the department was released. Investigators in Fresno, nearly 170 miles southeast, say the gun was used in a 1978 murder in their jurisdiction. Attorneys for Douglas ‘Chief’ Stankewitz, a Big Sandy Rancheria man convicted of killing a young newlywed with the gun after a carjacking, say the lack of a documented chain of custody bolsters their belief that the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department had the gun as a ‘backup or ‘throwaway’ weapon’ and used it to send Stankewitz to San Quentin Prison. . . .”

  • The Chronicle of Higher Education is in its second year offering its $10,000 Scholarship for Diversity in Media. The scholarship is available for undergraduate or graduate students at an historically Black college or university, a Hispanic-serving or other minority-serving institution, or to graduate students who attended HBCUs, MSIs and HSIs for undergraduate studies. Deadline is June 20. More here.

In Australia, “Q+A” host Stan Grant, an Indigenous man, made an emotional final appearance on the show before stepping away for an indefinite break. The veteran journalist announced that he had “had enough” after being the target of sustained racial abuse, and accused the Australian Broadcasting Corp. of not publicly defending him. Grant said the hateful messages had succeeded in hurting him. (Credit: ABC News [Australia]/YouTube)

  • “It’s the biggest week for Black people all around the world,” says Djibril Diallo, president and CEO, African Renaissance and Diaspora Network Inc., who has often worked with the National Association of Black Journalists. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is organizing the second session of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent from May 30 to June 2. “The overarching theme of the second session is ‘Realizing the dream: A United Nations Declaration on the promotion, protection and full respect of the human rights of people of African descent.” A press breakfast is scheduled Friday. For more information on the breakfast, contact Arlene Katzive, African Renaissance and Diaspora Network, director of external relations, at < arlene.katzive (at) ardn.ngo >.
  • “Police killings have been on the rise in Nigeria for over two decades,” Mohammed Taoheed reported Tuesday for the International Journalists’ Network. “Since 2000, the country’s police force has shot and killed more than 8,000 citizens, either intentionally or by accident, according to Human Rights Watch. In 2016, the World Internal Security and Police Index deemed the country’s police the ‘worst in the world.’ . . . Determined to find a way to spotlight these injustices, investigative journalist Abdullah Tijani founded the Liberalist Centre for Education in 2021. Through the center, Tijani trains reporters on how to conduct what he calls pro-freedom reporting, which seeks to protect the civil rights of individuals in a bid to ensure a more just and democratic society. . . . “

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