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‘I Wish More Blacks Were Covering Me’

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Sens. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker. (Photo via Kamala Harris)

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
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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 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. . . .”

Cassimy once released his own CD single and was advertised as “TV News’ FIRST R&B recording artist,” this column noted in 2013.

. . . 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, in 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.’ ”

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 on 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. . . .”

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, 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.’ “

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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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