Articles Feature

Trump Shamed Into Calling Out Racists

by richard2 2357

‘You Saw the Press Totally Turn on’ White House

Trump Campaign Video Attacks April Ryan

‘Haven’t You Spread A Lot of Fake News Yourself, Sir?’

‘The Hardest Part of My Job. . .’

Kaepernick Dilemma Deserves Black Cultural View

NABJ, NAHJ Announce Joint Convention in 2020

Maynard Institute Plans Education, Pipeline Projects

From the South, ‘Movement Journalism’

Venezuela’s Spike in Violence Against Journalists

Short Takes

Support Journal-isms

In this widely circulated photo, a vehicle plows into a group of protesters at the "Unite the Right" demonstration in Charlottesville, Va., on Saturday. (Credit: Ryan J. Kelly/Daily Progess, Charlottesville)
In this widely circulated photo, a vehicle plows into a group of protesters at the “Unite the Right” demonstration in Charlottesville, Va., on Saturday. (Credit: Ryan J. Kelly/Daily Progess, Charlottesville)

‘You Saw the Press Totally Turn on’ White House

President Trump’s tardy decision to name white nationalists as culprits in the deaths and injuries resulting from their violent Charlottesville, Va., demonstration Saturday followed a steady shaming from the news media as well as from everyday citizens and politicians of all political persuasions.

NPR media reporter David Folkenflik described that pressure Sunday on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.” “You know, what struck me in some ways is that there was a bit of a sense of what we had after Katrina, different kind of disaster, different kind of scope of tragedy, (video) and at the same time you saw the press totally turn on the White House in a way that was direct and focused, and you saw it through the tweets and the statements and the commentary of the conservative members of the press,” Folkenflik said.

“You saw ‘The New York Post’ had a cover today that called it terrorism, talked about white supremacism, which very explicit in the way — this was Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid, right — very explicit in the way Trump himself would not be.

“You saw people basically, reporters who are — straightforward reporters as well as folks on the left and the right almost beseeching the president and the administration to get in front of this or at least get in the moment and it didn’t happen. . . .”

Many did not let up after Trump finally called out some members of his base. On the “CBS Evening News” Monday, reporter Major Garrett put Trump’s initial perfunctory remarks in the context of Trump’s false claims (video) that former president Barack Obama was not born in the United States, his slowness to denounce former Klansman David Duke and his hiring of Sebastian Gorka, who has been described as a white nationalist, as have White House staffers Steve Bannon and Steven Miller.

Garrett also noted the contrasting swiftness with which Trump took to Twitter to criticize Kenneth C. Frazier, the head of Merck Pharmaceuticals and one of the country’s top African American executives. Frazier announced Monday morning that he was resigning from a presidential business panel to protest Trump’s initial equivocal statements on Charlottesville.

On the “NBC Nightly News” Monday, anchor Lester Holt portrayed the episode as a “major test of moral leadership.” Reporter Hallie Jackson compared Trump’s reaction with that of George W. Bush after 9/11 and Obama after the slayings of churchgoers in Charleston, S.C.

Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman had written Saturday for the New York Times, “President Trump is rarely reluctant to express his opinion, but he is often seized by caution when addressing the violence and vitriol of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and alt-right activists, some of whom are his supporters.

“After days of genially bombastic interactions with the news media on North Korea and the shortcomings of congressional Republicans, Mr. Trump on Saturday condemned the bloody protests in Charlottesville, Va., in what critics in both parties saw as muted, equivocal terms. . . .”

That is not to say that the news media were unanimous in criticizing Trump.

The pugnacious Ruben Navarrette Jr. of the Washington Post Writers Group, the most widely circulated Latino columnist in the mainstream media, posted a meme on Facebook reading, “After a hate-filled African-American shooter killed white cops in Dallas, remember how the media blamed the president? Me neither.”

Challenged as presenting “a desperate attempt at a false equivalency,” Navarrette cited the case of Van Jones, who resigned his job as “green jobs czar” early in the Obama administration after apologizing “for calling Republicans A-holes a month before joining the White House staff in March 2009,” as Thrush reported at the time for Politico.

On his Fox News “Media Buzz” program on Sunday, Howard Kurtz asked, “by making Donald Trump the focus of this protest that turned utterly violent, protest that he had nothing to do with, aren’t some critics in the media also being divisive?”

On Fox News’ noontime “Outnumbered,” co-host Harris Faulkner said Monday of Trump’s critics, “If the critics out there can’t accept anything ever, ever, ever, they’re not on our side as Americans. Shame on them,” Erik Wemple reported in the Washington Post.

Others pondered the implications of Trump’s comments and of the Charlottesville violence.

“The case for removing Baltimore’s monuments to the Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. ‘Stonewall’ Jackson and to Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney — author of the infamous Dred Scott decision — has long been clear,” the Baltimore Sun editorialized Monday. “Both were products of post-Civil War romanticization of the Confederacy and of the subjugation of African-Americans. They had no place here when they were erected (in 1948 and 1887, respectively), and they definitely have no place in 21st century Baltimore.

“But the violent clashes in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend, when neo-Nazis, white nationalists and other deplorables gathered to protest the removal of Confederate [statues] there, makes the case irrefutable. . . .”

A.C. Thompson, who has been tracking hate crimes and criminal justice issues for ProPublica, and Karim Hajj told reades, “The victory of Donald Trump in last year’s presidential election has energized a whole wave of young people who were previously apathetic or apolitical, rally organizer Eli Mosley told ProPublica. The president has served as ‘megaphone’ for far-right ideas, he said. . . .”

Echoing that theme, the Dallas Morning News editorialized, “How is it that so many of the Friday night protesters, the ones with torches, were so young? More than 60 years after Rosa Parks made her stand by staying in her Montgomery bus seat, we are still reminded that racism persists, like a calcified tumor we’re unable to cut away. . . .”

The Kansas City Star took it further. It said of Trump, “it is time for Republicans to repudiate not just his word choice or timing, but the president himself. . . .”

Trump Campaign Video Attacks April Ryan

“The morning after Donald Trump’s despicable reaction to the white supremacist terror that struck Charlottesville, Virginia, his presidential campaign released a video ad that attacks Trump’s ‘enemies,’ which include National Association of Black Journalists Journalist of the Year winner April Ryan,” Tommy Christopher reported Monday for Independent Journal Review.

“The ad pits Trump against ‘enemies’ in the media who ‘don’t want him to succeed’ and features a collage of news figures that includes Ryan:

(Credit: Screenshot/Trump for President)
(Credit: Screenshot/Trump for President)

“The remainder of the ad consists of Trump taking credit for President Barack Obama’s accomplishments on jobs, the stock market, and the military. Tellingly, while the ad features a prominent attack on Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) in addition to Ryan, here’s who the ad pictures when the narration claims to reveal what ‘Americans are saying: . . .

“As it turns out, though, April Ryan and Maxine Waters are both openly American.

“The ad has drawn criticism as much for its timing as its content, including from Ryan herself:

‘Haven’t You Spread A Lot of Fake News Yourself, Sir?’

Jim Acosta
Jim Acosta

CNN’s Jim Acosta, an aggressive presence at presidential news briefings, is to be honored by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the association announced last week. On Monday, Acosta demonstrated that he has not changed his style.

“Pres. Trump held his second live appearance before news cameras today, and it got contentious at the end when CNN’s Jim Acosta asked the president a question,” Chris Ariens reported Monday for TVNewser.

“First, for background, the event was an announcement and executive order on trade with China. But after the signing, several members of the press asked questions, including Acosta. Here’s the back and forth:

“Acosta: Mr. President, can you explain why you did not condemn the hate groups by name over the weekend?

“Trump: They have been condemned. They have been condemned.

“Acosta: And why are we not having a press conference today? You said on Friday we’d have a press conference…

“Trump: We had a press conference. We just had a press conference.

“Acosta: Can we ask more questions?

“Trump: It doesn’t bother me at all. But I like real news, not fake news. You’re fake news. Thank you. Thank you everybody. (walks away)

“Acosta: Haven’t you spread a lot of fake news yourself, sir?”

Acosta is to receive the NAHJ Presidential Award at the group’s annual convention on Sept. 9.

“For the past years, I’ve seen Jim Acosta in action,” Brandon Benavides, NAHJ president, said in the release. “He’s covered President Obama and President Donald Trump, always pushing both sides to answer the tough questions. As a voice for the people, Acosta is not afraid to hold our elected leaders accountable. Regardless of criticism, he remains focused in a pursuit of truth for our communities. Acosta is among an elite group of journalists covering the White House.”

‘The Hardest Part of My Job. . .’

Eugene Scott
Eugene Scott

“We asked CNN’s Eugene Scott to elaborate on something he said earlier in the day:” Brian Stelter and the CNNMoney Media team wrote Monday in their “Reliable Sources” newsletter.

“I do quite a bit of public speaking and audiences — especially students — often ask me what is the most challenging part about my job as a CNN Politics reporter. Most of the time, I give an answer so generic that I can’t even remember in this moment what I usually say. Probably something about accuracy.

“But this Monday, I started my day at 5am on CNN’s ‘Early Start’ talking about Charlottesville. Literally just the day before, I was at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in New Orleans discussing why newsrooms need more people of color telling America’s stories. HLN’s Michaela Pereira was at the conference too, and she reminded me of our weekend when she had me on her show midday to discuss the president’s widely criticized response to Charlottesville.

“So when I walked out of the flash studio to remove make-up — thankful that I got through another hit discussing this story without tearing up — I realized that I finally had an answer to all of those college students who wanted to know the most difficult thing about being a national politics reporter. And I tweeted:

” ‘Pretty sure that the hardest part of my job may be repeatedly going on TV to discuss the fact that some people hate me because I am black.’ ”

Kaepernick Dilemma Deserves Black Cultural View

Colin Kaepernick
Colin Kaepernick

Each day that quarterback Colin Kaepernick remains unsigned by an NFL team ratchets up the outrage among sportswriters who believe that NFL owners are punishing him for his refusal to stand for the National Anthem last year in a protest for racial equality and against police brutality.

Kaepernick’s status dominated “A Conversation on the Intersection of Sports, Social Justice and Activism,” a panel discussion Thursday at the New Orleans convention of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Tapping into a theme expressed in other settings at the assembly, Roxanne Jones, a founding ESPN editor, said from the audience that “the stories that we have to tell, we have to . . . be bold and tell them from our culture and our history.” In other words, Kaepernick is one more African American sports figure paying a price for challenging the system, as were others discussed in William C. Rhoden’s 2006 book “Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete.”

Rhoden, a longtime New York Times columnist now with theundefeated.com, was on the panel. He cited other examples, among them Muhammad Ali, blackballed from boxing in 1967 after he refused to be drafted, and  center fielder Curt Flood, who in 1969 refused to accept a trade and sued Major League Baseball. The MLB rules were eventually changed, but Flood never benefited. Rhoden urged the NFL Players Association to take up Kaepernick’s case. “It’s a fairness issue,” he argued.

Charles Barkley, the NBA Hall of Famer and television analyst, maintained that while he sympathizes with Kaepernick, the quarterback wasn’t being picked up because owners consider him a headache and he “has not played well these last couple of years.” Barkley also told fellow panelists, “95 percent of the fans are white. He’s paid $12 million and he don’t want to stand for the National Anthem. Those people are pissed.”

Meanwhile, NABJ’s Sports Task Force honored “Eight of the greatest sports figures produced by the state of Louisiana” with Sam Lacy Pioneer Awards on Friday.

They are Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, an All-American at LSU who became “the Colin Kaepernick of his day,” refusing to stand for the National Anthem; James “Shack” Harris, who with the Buffalo Bills in 1969 became the first black quarterback to start a season-opening game; the NBA’s Robert Pack, who started a foundation to aid disadvantaged children; James Rodney Richard, a “Tower of Power” as a pitcher for the Houston Astros; running back Deuce McAllister, who spent nine seasons with the New Orleans Saints; Chanda Rubin, winner of the 1996 Australian Open doubles title with Arantxa Sánchez Vicario; Collis Temple Jr., LSU’s first black basketball player; and Arthur Triche, first black director of media relations in the NBA.

Brandon Benavides of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and Sarah Glover of the National Association of Black Journalists.
Brandon Benavides of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and Sarah Glover of the National Association of Black Journalists.

NABJ, NAHJ Announce Joint Convention in 2020

“The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) are pleased to announce the two organizations will come together again and host a joint convention in 2020,” the associations announced on Aug. 8. “NABJ President Sarah Glover and NAHJ President Brandon Benavides have signed a Memorandum of Understanding demonstrating their commitment and to officially begin planning. . . .”

They also said, “The two organizations held the joint #NABJNAHJ16 convention in Washington, D.C. last year, known as #NABJNAHJ16. The gathering garnered nearly 4,000 attendees and attracted major newsmakers and celebrities, including Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Convention partners responded with enthusiasm on the quality of the programming and registrants and the career fair booths were sold out. . . .”

Separately, NABJ announced a $150,000 Ford Foundation grant “to help further the organization’s strategic plan implementation.

“The two-year restricted grant is targeted to executive level staffing and will enable NABJ to continue focusing on issues often ignored by the mainstream media. The association’s priorities include jobs for journalists of color, professional development, social justice and advocacy,” the Aug. 8 announcement said.

Also at the NABJ convention:

Maynard Institute Plans Education, Pipeline Projects

“For the past year, the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education has been renovating the organization from the ground up through a major ‘Maynard Re-Imagined’ project, during which it reconsidered what the Institute could and should offer to the media sector in the way of programming, training, and diversity resources; what audiences it might serve over the next several years with a growing digital sphere; and new sources of funding to support its new initiatives,” Shan Wang wrote Wednesday for Nieman Lab.

“’Rather than asking what can we do to change Maynard, we asked, what is needed from us?’ said Maynard co-executive director Martin G. Reynolds, who helped lead the organization through its rethink process. ‘Through conversations, we came up with new key areas of focus and initiatives that we are going to begin to really drill down on.’

“On Wednesday, the Institute announced the fruits of these labors . . . .

“It’s developing a new training to teach students how to report more thoughtfully on stories that involve issues such as race or class, so that colleges and universities can be better prepared to ‘navigate the nuances of a more diverse society,’ Reynolds told me. The curriculum will be developed with Arizona State University’s Cronkite School, the University of Arizona’s School of Journalism, Louisiana State University’s Manship school, and Morgan State University’s School of Global Journalism and Communication, and the Knight Foundation is supporting the pilot with a $134,000 grant (disclosure: Knight also supports Nieman Lab).

“The Institute is also embarking on an initiative it’s calling Maynard 200, which will focus on supporting and promoting around 200 people of color in media over the next five years in hopes of ‘replenishing the pipeline.’ Google News Lab will serve as a launch partner for the Maynard 200 project, and will sponsor some of the pilot work with $100,000 in initial funding. . . .”

From the South, ‘Movement Journalism’

“Civic journalism, advocacy journalism, engagement journalism: All are buzzwords in the industry right now, particularly as the Internet allows groups underrepresented in the mainstream media to stake their own claims and amplify their own voices,” Christine Schmidt wrote Monday for Nieman Lab.

“But Anna Simonton, an Atlanta-based freelance reporter and researcher for racial and economic justice nonprofit Project South, hopes that ‘movement journalism’ creates a strong impact — and she plans to lead it by starting her own collaborative media organization. (Simonton also edits Scalawag, a magazine of Southern politics and culture and is on the board of a community radio station, WRFG, in Atlanta.)

“Simonton recently took a deep dive into the community and minority-owned media landscape of the American South — so deep, in fact, that she spent over a year researching and reporting her findings in a 62-page report called Out of Struggle. Her report takes stock of the independent media landscape in the 13 states of the traditional South, from Texas to Florida to West Virginia, and was commissioned by Project South.

“ ‘We have good stuff that people are doing, [but] it’s very localized. How do we strengthen that and expand that impact?’ she told me. ‘That’s what we think we can bring to the mix: finding some ways to offer services, support, training, et cetera, to increase the amount of journalism that’s going on in these already existing media outlets.’

“This endeavor is geared toward connecting existing media groups and community and minority-owned news outlets, as well as producing original reporting about social justice movements in the region. It also aims to cross the digital divide that separates many news organizations, especially those who are exclusively online, from potential audiences. . . . ”

Venezuela’s Spike in Violence Against Journalists

Elyangélica González
Elyangélica González

“Veteran Venezuelan reporter Elyangélica González’s 20-year career in journalism came to an inflection point in late March, when covering her country’s ongoing crisis unexpectedly turned her into the story,” Diego Senior and Jonathan Schienberg reported Thursday for Columbia Journalism Review.

“González, a reporter for Univision and Colombia’s Caracol Radio, was covering a protest in Caracas where thousands of students had gathered in front of the Supreme Court, calling on the government to respect the constitution. The National Guard began pushing the students away, and a group of pro-government civilians, known as colectivos armados, started attacking the students.

“At that point, González received a call from her radio station asking her to go live on her cell phone to cover the attacks on the students. A female National Guard officer overheard González reporting and started screaming at her to leave.

“What happened next was captured on a video that quickly went viral across Latin America. The footage not only showed a fearful González being surrounded and manhandled by the Venezuelan military simply for trying to do her job, it revealed the dangerous escalation of violence against Venezuelan press covering weekly (sometimes daily) mass protests that have left more than 100 people dead in a country teetering on the brink.

“The situation has gotten so dire that the Committee to Protect Journalists published a special report for Venezuela with a comprehensive list of specific threats and precautions for media covering the disintegrating state. . . .”

Short Takes

  • “When a white person kills a black man in America, the killer often faces no legal consequences,” Daniel Lathrop and Anna Flagg reported Monday for the Marshall Project, published in collaboration with the New York Times’ Upshot. “In one in six of these killings, there is no criminal sanction, according to a new Marshall Project examination of 400,000 homicides committed by civilians between 1980 and 2014. That rate is far higher than the one for homicides involving other combinations of races. . . .”
  • “A recent survey by GenForward looks at what millennials feel about issues affecting our country,” Nicole Lewis reported Thursday for the Washington Post. “The poll found that young people are divided along racial and ethnic lines in their concerns about racism and police brutality. When asked to list the top issues facing the country today, white and Asian American millennials were far less likely than their African American and Latino peers to list racism or police brutality as one of their top three. The poll offered respondents 22 issues to select from; health care ranked highly for all groups, and immigration was the top issue for Latinos.. . . “
  • J.A. Adande
    J.A. Adande

    “J.A. Adande has confirmed to The Big Lead that he and ESPN are mutually parting ways,” Ryan Glasspiegel reported Wednesday for the Big Lead. “Adande, who last year became Director of Sports Journalism and an associate professor at Northwestern University’s Medill school, will be focusing on his academia roles. . . .”

  • “In February, Current shared stories from our archives focusing on African-American people and culture in public media,” April Simpson reported Thursday for current.org. “In addition to reflecting on their achievements, we wanted to look forward to identify rising black talents poised to make a big impact on public media. We asked readers to help recommend up-and-comers whose names we may not know but should. Current highlighted Hana Baba and Leila Day, hosts of a new podcast who led a workshop at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in New Orleans Wednesday. Below are the other names you submitted. . . .”
  • Among those honored by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication at its annual conference Aug. 9-12 in Chicago were: Dr. George Daniels, assistant dean of administration at the University of Alabama College of Communication and Information Sciences, for “Transforming Mass Media Students into Problem Solvers: A Mass Communication Diversity Service Learning Course”; Maria Soledad Segura and Silvio Waisbord, for their book “Media Movements: Civil Society and Media Policy Reform in Latin America”; Keith Woods, NPR’s vice president for newsroom training and diversity, the Gerald Sass Award for Distinguished Service to Journalism and Mass Communication; Jieun Shin of the University of Southern California, for her dissertation; Osita Iroegbu of Virginia Commonwealth, the Lionel C. Barrow Jr. Scholarship Award; Loren Ghiglione of Northwestern University, the Lionel C. Barrow Jr. Award for Distinguished Achievement in Diversity Research and Education. The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Arizona State University, won the AEJMC Equity and Diversity Award.
Lottie Joiner
Interim editor of the Crisis

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2 comments

Greg Thrasher August 15, 2017 at 2:54 pm

The ACLU betrayed us. The ACLU opened the gates for the Nazi

http://planeideas.blogspot.com/2017/08/allies-no-more-aclu-betrayal.html

Reply
richard August 18, 2017 at 3:57 pm

Comments From The Root

theburners

8/18/17 4:52am
“Martin noted that Trump had not even called the family of Heather Heyer, who was run over by a car and killed during Saturday’s protests.”

What a mercy for them.

poo javelin

8/18/17 8:14am
“Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein said on Wednesday’s ‘AC360’ on CNN, ‘I think there’s considerable evidence that there is a consensus developing in the military; at the highest levels in the intelligence community; among Republicans in Congress; including the leaders in the business community’ that Trump ‘is unfit to be the president of the United States.’ ”

So, they think he’s out of his element?

Meyer Lansky Sqarrs

8/18/17 1:05am
Media Accurately Portray Reality For Once

8/18/17 10:25am
It seems way before this point in Bill Clinton’s presidency one couldn’t convene a pundit show without the secret handshake and the password, and they’d get down to the business of discussing two oppposing viewpoints:

—Should Bill Clinton resign?

or

—How long ago should Bill Clinton have resigned?

Vertical Flim-Flam
Richard Prince
8/18/17 10:15am
Can I just say, real quick, please keep doing this article format when you can! This was a dense and well-organized deluge of info, complete with all the sources and I really appreciate this.

ISaysISays

8/17/17 10:27pm
Omarosa is first and foremost a reality TV show personality.

Reply

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