Articles Feature

Turmoil at Black News Channel

by richard07583

CEO Pledges Workplace Changes

‘Whiteness Is a Hell of a Drug’

Homepage photo: CEO Princell Hair, seated, with primetime on-air personalities Charles Blow, left, Yodit Tewolde and Marc Lamont Hill.

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CEO Princell Hair said of the Black News Channel workplace, “you will witness several changes that we will implement to help ensure that our work environment empowers our employees to be innovative and motivated. . . .”

CEO Pledges Workplace Changes

Black News Channel is in such turmoil that management has “engaged a team of independent consultants to help our leadership team better understand the complexities of our workplace environment,” Princell Hair (pictured), president and CEO of the channel, which now calls itself simply “BNC,” to include “brown” audiences, has written to staffers.

A top news manager has been suspended, and at least three staffers have quit, sources told Journal-isms, one of whom described the network as “in complete disarray.”

As reported last month, two terminated employees have filed a class-action suit in Cook County (Ill.) Circuit Court claiming gender discrimination (scroll down).

“Women at Black News Channel are routinely paid less than men in equivalent positions, and forced to conform to sexist or misogynistic stereotypes about how women are supposed to behave,” Ashley Flete and Claudia Jean said in their Aug. 2 class action suit. “This action seeks to vindicate the rights of women employees at Black News Channel.”

Lawyer Sheryl Ring, who is representing the women, told Journal-isms by telephone Wednesday that the channel has asked for additional time to respond and that she plans to add more plaintiffs.

Tim Buckman, spokesperson for the channel, declined to talk on the record.

The channel launched on Feb. 10, 2020, the project of former Rep. J.C. Watts, R-Okla., and received positive coverage from media outlets rooting for its mission of providing round-the-clock news from a Black perspective.

But there were internal problems, and in July 2020, Hair was brought in as president and CEO. Three months later, Hair announced that Gary Wordlaw, vice president of programming and news, would transition to vice president of syndicated programs, documentaries and investigations.

Bryan Dobson wrote in September for the Tallahassee (Fla.) Democrat, “Hair, a native of Fort Lauderdale and veteran executive at major broadcast operations such as CNN, Comcast, CBS and NBC, has turned Black News Channel into the country’s fastest growing cable news network, increasing its access from an initial reach of 2 million households to now more than 50 million homes and its workforce more than six-fold.” The channel is based in Tallahassee.

However, newsroom employees complained of growing workloads and unpleasant working conditions. They took their concerns to Hair, who pledged in the Oct. 28 letter, “Over the course of the next few weeks, you will witness several changes that we will implement to help ensure that our work environment empowers our employees to be innovative and motivated. Let me be clear — I hear you. Your collective voice is driving our actions. Some of our upcoming changes will include the following:

“1. Management training;

“2. Disciplinary action of select management personnel;

“3. Distribution of an updated Employee Handbook;

“4. Implementation of an HR private reporting system;

“Beyond these changes, we will also be implementing a thorough assessment of our policies, procedures and practices, which is an initiative that I will personally oversee. . . .”

Hair’s letter hinted at the internal issues, but “that’s the tip of the iceberg,” one source said.

‘Whiteness Is a Hell of a Drug’

From Tuesday’s “Short Takes”:

Can Denver Attract Black Journalists?

Nov. 2, 2021

Managers Say It Takes More to Draw More
When ‘We Do a Race Column We Lose Subscribers’
Impunity Is the Rule When Police Kill Drivers
Black Website Collateral Damage in Trump Project
Jan. 6 Supremacist Claimed to Be Journalist
‘Seeing the Chickens Come Home to Roost’
NAHJ Honors Coverage of COVID, Working Children

L.A. Times Names 9 to Program Replacing Metpro
Don’t Lump in Businesses of Color With Ozy
Start-Up Plans Close Coverage of Black, Brown Tech
New Institute to Address Diversity Pipeline Issue
Activists Praise Biden’s Pick for FCC Chair
Kip Branch, HBCU Journalism Prof, Dies at 74
Press Freedom Prospects Bleak After Sudan Coup

Short Takes: Dorothy Tucker; Afropunk; Jonathan Capehart; Byron Allen; Fox News; beatings and killings by Border Patrol agents; Janet Jackson; CBS stations’ new “impacting communities” positions; Ebony’s new emphasis; Kimi Yoshino; Miami Herald’s local journalism drive; Theresa Vargas; Lester Holt; David Muir, climate change and Madagascar; college football broadcast in Navajo language; Lori Lightfoot on crime coverage; latest on television diversity; Meredith D. Clark; Yong Volz and AAJA history; full-tuition scholarship for graduate school sports journalism;

The Crisis seeks editor; Nikole Hannah-Jones; Kim McLarin; grants for “minority publishers/senior executives”; directory of Black sites in Sacramento, Calif.; William Monroe Trotter and Woodrow Wilson; CBS News Washington bureau; Daniel Pearson; Telemundo’s morning show; Geoff Bennett; Washington Post’s Spanish-language opinion section; Vietnamese journalists sentenced; government spying on Colombian journalist; ViacomCBS’s Latin American expansion; Ethiopia suppression; Pakistan’s smear and hate campaign.

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Denver’s Black American West Museum “preserves the history and culture of those African American men and women who helped settle and develop the American West.” It is  located in the former home of Dr. Justina Ford, the first Black woman doctor in the city. Pictured: Museum founder Paul Stewart.

Managers Say It Takes More to Draw More

The news managers in Denver say they are eager to further diversify their newsrooms, but that their low numbers have turned off potential applicants, who would prefer to go places where more diversity already exists.

That’s what they told board members of the National Association of Black Journalists, who met in the city over the weekend and fanned out in groups of two or three to more than a dozen news outlets there on Friday.

The board members reported back to their colleagues on Saturday at a meeting open for members to watch via Zoom. Some of the news managers were more candid than they are when they speak through corporate spokespeople.

Lee Ann Colacioppo, a white journalist who succeeded Gregory L. Moore as editor of The Denver Post, acknowledged that she did not have the contacts of Moore, a Black journalist, when seeking to attract journalists of color to Denver County, where 2019 census estimates show that 9.8 percent are Black or African American, 29.3 percent are Hispanic or Latino, 4.1 percent are Asian alone, 1.7 are American Indian and Alaska Native alone, 3.3 percent said they were two or more races and 54.9 percent identified as white alone, not Hispanic or Latino.

The Denver Post newsroom had 300 people at its peak, and about 100 when the Alden Global Capital hedge fund, known for slashing costs, bought the operation in 2018.

Now the newsroom has 60, including one Black journalist, 3 Latinos and 1 Native American, Colacioppo told the NABJ delegation. The editor said she advertises on the NABJ job boards, has now joined NABJ and plans to meet with the local NABJ chapter when it reconstitutes.

The Tegna station, KUSA, attracted unwanted attention in March when Lori Lizarraga wrote for the alternative newspaper Westword under the headline, “LatinXed: 9News Got Rid of Three Latina Reporters This Past Year, Including Me.” The National Association of Hispanic Journalists paid the station a visit, and in August KUSA appointed Jesse Ogas (pictured) to the newly created position of executive director of social responsibility and community affairs.

KUSA executives told the NABJ group that they are “trying to elevate minority voices in the newsroom,” looking for executive producers, and now conduct a weekly audit of how many people of color appear in news reports and whether they are shown portraying negative stereotypes.

Lizarraga messaged Journal-isms Monday, “If potential hires don’t see themselves in a newsroom, or in the stories that that newsroom is telling, they are wise to see that as a red flag. Newsroom leadership should, too. Representative newsrooms aren’t just for the two months of the year that celebrate Black and Latino stories. Representative newsrooms are for exactly that — the representation of all communities, all the time.”

Tim Wieland, general manager of KCNC-TV, the CBS affiliate, was described as “passionate about his commitment to diversity.” KMGH, the ABC affiliate known as Denver7, was called “one of the most proactive stations.”

The NABJ reps were told that KMGH had a goal of making one-third of its contracts with minority business owners. Having more account executives of color would help minority businesses in the city, the station execs said. KMGH is also looking for a Black meteorologist. NABJ said it wanted “Black anchors on the desk in prime time, and challenged them with Black managers at the top,” the board members said.

In visits to The Five Star (formerly Five Points) News and the Denver Weekly News, part of the Black press, the NABJ members heard that they were thought of as an organization for “Blacks who made it.” Assured that that was not the case, three at those papers signed up to become NABJ members.

The Colorado Sun staff on Sept. 10, 2018, the day the news website launched. It wants to be “less white and less 50.” (Credit: Jesse Paul, Colorado Sun)

At the Colorado Sun, launched on Sept. 10, 2018 by 10 people let go from the Denver Post, senior editor Dana Coffield told the group it aimed to be “less white and less 50,” according to the NABJ board members. The Sun’s staff of 20 includes four Asian Americans, one Cuban American and one whose first language is American Sign Language, in addition to Tatiana Flowers, its inequality and general assignment beat reporter. In addition, multi-dimensional artist R. Alan Brooks, son of veteran business journalist Rodney Brooks, draws a comic strip.

In July 2020, in the midst of the racial reckoning prompted by the killing of George Floyd, Lee Hill, then executive director of public radio’s “The Takeaway,” opened up on the widely broadcast program about his time as the first Black journalist at KRCC, Colorado Public Radio, where he worked from 2011 to 2013. Today he is the first executive editor at WGBH News in Boston, another public radio station.

“I think that people relegated any sort of diversity work to the only Black guy,” Hill said on “The Takeaway” last year.

“I actually fell into a deep depression during my time there because I felt incredibly lonely. Hill talked about feeling “otherized.” He said he had “never felt so torn apart” by some who criticized his on-air delivery, and he felt damaged by the experience. “We need to reflect the country in the people we hire and the people that are making decisions. It’s just good business,” he said about newsroom diversity. “We are made better when we’re working alongside people who don’t always look like us or who have different life experiences,” Corey Hutchins reported for the Colorado Independent.

During the NABJ visit, Colorado Public Radio acknowledged that while it has journalists of color on staff, including LaToya Linzey (pictured), senior vice president, people & culture, it had no pipeline or support structure for journalists of color. However, representatives said the station was open to partnering with Black press in the area and said staffers would join the local NABJ chapter when it is revitalized. As with the other outlets, the association urged the news managers to take advantage of NABJ’s producer database.

After Hill’s comments, Hutchins reported that CPR’s CEO and president, Stewart Vanderwilt, said the station “had been considering plans for ‘new positions focused on these issues, diversity training staff wide and improved recruiting practices,’ which he said ‘felt like positive movement’ and he thought CPR was ‘addressing the needs of our staff and our organization. But we were circling the issues without first listening.’ ”

Nov. 8 update: Jesse Ogas of KUSA messages, “I’d change the ‘weekly audits’ to ongoing audits because we are building a culture here that we’re proud of today and into the future.”

Lee Ann Colacioppo of the Denver Post messages: The Denver Post has not asked its employees how they identify [in the last few years] but we will do so in the near future and make those numbers public.”

“There are a lot of Utah Dixies, though there’s movement to change some names: Dixie National Forest, Dixie State University, and Dixie Downs Drive. Saint George is a retirement community, and Chamber of Commerce signs on the highway [extol] the many virtues of retiring to the Dixie area.
“But here’s what I notice: Every sign, no matter how often it gets replaced, always features white couples.”

When ‘We Do a Race Column We Lose Subscribers’

“Black Americans get a lot of messages about who matters and who does not in this country, and the question is: Are the messages intentional or unintentional?” Wayne Hare (pictured), a retired park ranger who is African American, wrote Oct. 14. “I lean towards unintentional but they have become deeply ingrained.”

Hare wrote for Writers on the Range, a nonprofit organization and syndicated opinion service for newspapers in the West. “I’ve driven Interstate 15 in Utah dozens of times over the course of two decades, traveling from my home in western Colorado to one of my favorite adventure playgrounds in Zion National Park and nearby,” he continued. “The route takes me through Saint George, Utah, an area referred to as the state’s ‘Dixie.’ ”

Hare concluded, “So now, here we are — a country tearing itself apart with hate, distrust and dysfunction. Over time I’ve come to realize that racism, intentional or not, is the ladle that stirs this dangerous, unpleasant brew. Do we want a better country for everyone? Recognize racism. Fight it. We’re all in this together.”

The next day, Dave Marston (pictured), the Writers on the Range publisher, tweeted, “Every time we do a race column we lose subscribers to our newsletter….a lot. Let me say this: Hey people.. Talking about racism can be uncomfortable, that’s change. Face it, don’t run. Make this country better for everyone.”

Marston messaged Journal-isms on Sunday, “We’re not a very big newsletter — about 1300 subscribers and about 450 open our emails on a typical week. For us to have 3 unsubscribes is a big number, usually its one or two and a bounced email and I update the list.

“For Wayne’s column we lost 20 and for the column we did about ‘Willing workers are at the border,‘ about how we should let Latinx folks in for the numerous job openings and for the column I did about Durango’s volunteer vaccination effort which was also about Latinx, illegal immigrants getting vaccinated we lost between 10-15 subscribers.

“The numbers are so consistent as far as losing subscribers it stands out in sharp relief when they drop you at that level.

“The good thing about tweeting out, ‘we’re losing subscribers’ is we ended up getting a lot of subscribers to our newsletter — a lot is 20 or so I think we picked up from Wayne’s column. We ended up where we started.

“In our hearts we’re an opinion service about public lands and climate change, water, fire, and yes race. The West. We stir it up — that’s our brand.

“This week we’re publishing a piece about how former Japanese internment camp Amache should and probably will be a national park.

“About this country’s periodic episodes of xenophobic behavior and how we need a park to remind us of where that inhumanity and cruelty can lead.

“I look forward to a dozen ‘unsubscribes,’ come Monday. Otherwise, I’m not doing my job.”

“Found asleep in the front seat.” (Credit: New York Times)

Impunity Is the Rule When Police Kill Drivers

“Over the past five years, a New York Times investigation found, police officers have killed more than 400 drivers or passengers who were not wielding a gun or a knife, or under pursuit for a violent crime — a rate of more than one a week,” David D. Kirkpatrick, Steve Eder, Kim Barker and Julie Tate reported Sunday, updated Monday, for the Times.

“Most of the officers did so with impunity. Only five have been convicted of crimes in those killings, according to a review of the publicly reported cases. Yet local governments paid at least $125 million to resolve about 40 wrongful-death lawsuits and other claims. Many stops began with common traffic violations like broken taillights or running a red light; relative to the population, Black drivers were overrepresented among those killed.”

The news organization also said, “The Times examined video or audio from more than 180 encounters; interviewed dozens of chiefs, officers, trainers and prosecutors; analyzed information from the U.S. Census Bureau; and reviewed hundreds of lawsuits, municipal audit reports, town budgets, court files and state highway records. The investigation built on data collected by The Washington Post and the research groups Mapping Police Violence and Fatal Encounters.”

A sidebar by Michael Levenson concluded:

“Criminologists call it officer-created jeopardy when the police put themselves in harm’s way by stepping in front of a moving car or reaching inside a car window.

“Many courts do not consider those circumstances, focusing only on the ‘final frame’ when an officer pulled the trigger at a moment of imminent harm. That standard has given the police broad protection from legal accountability.

“Some argue that judges and juries should scrutinize the actions of officers before they opened fire. The Times’s visual investigations team did just that, rewinding video from more than 100 deadly traffic stops and breaking down three cases in minute detail. The footage suggests that dozens of deaths could have been avoided had police officers not put themselves in danger.“

Video promotes “Our Black Truth” social platform, confused with Donald Trump’s planned site. (Credit: YouTube)

Black Website Collateral Damage in Trump Project

Donald Trump’s decision to start his own social platform meant headaches for an African American firm that says anti-Trump trollers have bombarded its site with comments because the names of the two platforms can be confused.

Tony Regusters, a documentarian and producer who is acting as media outreach director for Our Black Truth, said the site has received “thousands” of comments meant for Truth Social, the Trump site.

The genuine Trump site became the target of so many trollers that it had to shut down, Claire Goforth reported for the Daily Dot.

In a news release, Our Black Truth said, “With Trump’s launch of his ‘Truth Social platform, hackers and trolls immediately attempted to undermine Trump’s latest online venture, striking with a vengeance, but alarmingly, because of the similarity in names (‘Our Black Truth Social vs. Truth Social’), they also attacked the WRONG target with sustained attacks that have negatively impacted the integrity of OBT Social’s infrastructure and its Google ratings, sending those ratings plummeting from a high of 4.5 stars to a low of 2.1 stars.”

CEO Michael Thompson, an engineer by training, explained the Google flap in this video.

In September, a trip to Ghana billed as “Coming Home: The Journey of a Lifetime” gifted two of the last remaining survivors of the “Black Wall Street” Massacre that destroyed Tulsa, Okla.’s prosperous, Black, Greenwood district in 1921.

DeNeen L. Brown wrote in The Washington Post that the trip “was co-sponsored by the nonprofit Our Black Truth, a Virginia-based social media platform, and the Diaspora African Forum, an African Union-sanctioned embassy in Accra established to create a bridge between the global African diaspora and their native lands. It was organized with the help of Ambassador Erieka Bennett, who is the chief of mission at the embassy, and Our Black Truth’s Toni Luck. . . .”

Matthew Thomas Purse’s ‘legitimate news organization’ is called Happening Center, and it is an unabashedly white nationalist website. (Credit: Reddit)

Jan. 6 Supremacist Claimed to Be Journalist

“On Jan. 6 Matthew Thomas Purse, a 45-year-old Navy veteran from Irvine, California, arrived at the Capitol with a red patch reading ‘DON’T SHOOT — PRESS’ sewed to the back of his black tactical vest,” Christopher Mathias wrote Thursday for HuffPost. “Big, white letters on his helmet screamed ‘PRESS,’ too. And a press pass declaring his credentials as a member of the media dangled from a lanyard around his neck.

“But later that day, as he took hold of a microphone on the steps of the Capitol building, it was clear that Purse was actually a participant at the anti-democratic ‘Save America’ rally — which had just exploded into a deadly attempted insurrection.

“Moreover, it was clear that he hated journalists.”

Mathias also wrote that months later in July, “after being arrested and charged for being part of the horde that invaded the Capitol building, Purse once again tried to pass himself off as a journalist, telling The Associated Press he was in the Capitol as ‘part of a legitimate news organization,’ which he declined to name. ‘The record will show I was not there in any illegal capacity,’ he said.

“But HuffPost has learned the name of Purse’s ‘legitimate news organization.’ It’s called Happening Center, and it is an unabashedly white nationalist website which hosts livestreams and a private message forum. It gained thousands of followers throughout the political tumult of 2020. Videos and social media posts produced by Happening Center — archived and preserved by anonymous anti-fascist researchers — show it at times embracing outright neo-Nazism and praising mass murderers. . . .”

‘Seeing the Chickens Come Home to Roost’

Astead W. Herndon (pictured), national political reporter for The New York Times and a CNN political analyst, was asked on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” Sunday about the growing threat to democracy posed by supporters of Donald Trump.

“This is a democracy that has often excluded a lot of people, that has often used the false narrative of fake elections to exclude people of color, to exclude rising constituencies that a lot of people didn’t think had a real say in this democracy,” Herndon replied.

“So I think instead of thinking [of] this as an outlier moment for the country, we are really seeing the chickens come home to roost of a democracy that’s always been very fragile. I think it’s kind of easier for me to see as someone who’s black and who has known [it] to be true their whole lives. But I think it’s important for media to understand that also.

“This isn’t a 200-year stable democracy that is now just coming under threat. This is something that’s been not applied to many people for a long time, and we are seeing those narratives bubble up and be embraced by higher and higher profile figures, in a more explicit way certainly, in a more challenging way, certainly, but not in a way that is unique to the American story. . . .”

NAHJ Honors Coverage of COVID, Working Children

A CBS News examination of the impact of the coronavirus on the Latino community and an NBC News-Telemundo team’s report on children who work as farmworkers won top awards from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Saturday night.

“In ‘Pandemia: Latinos in Crisis,’ CBS News spoke with several celebrities and activists along with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees and undocumented immigrant farm workers about the ongoing impact of the coronavirus on the Latino community,” CBS said in announcing its special, which streamed on July 19, 2020, featuring CBS News contributor and “Pandemia” host Maria Elena Salinas.

The effort won the NAHJ Al Neuharth Award for Investigative Journalism, whose purpose is “Recognizing groundbreaking work by a journalist or a team that uses investigative journalism in the role of being a community’s watchdog.” Luis Giraldo of CBS News acknowledged his colleagues on the CBS team on the awards program, streamed on NBC and Twitter platforms.

The NAHJ Elaine Rivera Civil Rights & Social Justice Award, “Recognizing excellence in coverage of civil rights of Latino Americans and/or issues of social justice for Latinos,” went to a report on those whom Christine Gomez Romo called “America’s forgotten children.” It was titled, “Hay que seguir adelante”: adolescentes agricultores enfrentan el dilema de trabajar o estudiar (” ‘We have to move on’: adolescent farmers face the dilemma of working or studying.”)

The Telemundo website said, “Jimena and Leslie have worked in agricultural fields to support themselves and their younger siblings since their parents were deported. Their story is similar to that of half a million peasant minors, and this is what organizations try to do so that children do not have to abandon their studies.”

The 2021 NAHJ Ñ Awards also featured a poem from actor Pepe Serna honoring underappreciated Latino farmworkers, and a plea from Estuardo Rodriguez, president and CEO of the Friends of the National Museum of the American Latino, for community and corporate leaders to step up their support for the proposed Washington, D.C., repository.

The 2021 inaugural Los Angeles Times fellows, top row from left: Angel Carreras, Anumita Kaur and Ashlea Brown; middle row: Jaimie Ding, Jason Sanchez and Jonah Valdez; bottom row: Kenan Draughorne, Melissa Hernandez and Salma Loum.

L.A. Times Names 9 to Program Replacing Metpro

The Los Angeles Times Thursday named the first nine participants in a new yearlong fellowship program that replaces the Times’ 37-year-old Metpro training program, which many young staffers complained had become overly competitive.

“We’re proud to announce the Los Angeles Times Fellowship, a one-year program for early-career journalists to train and work alongside some of the best in the world,” a Times announcement said on behalf of Assistant Managing Editor Angel Jennings and Deputy Editor Joseph Serna. “The new program, which was created over the last year by the Metpro Advisory Committee, will continue to foster deep connections with our communities through fellows who bring a diversity of life experiences and perspectives.”

In the wake of the racial reckoning prompted by the George Floyd murder, then-editor Norman Pearlstine last year met for more than four hours with aggrieved newsroom staff members examining the mistreatment of Black and brown editorial staff members past and present.

“One of the flashpoints in the discussion has been Metpro, originally known as the Minority Editorial Training Program, which the paper has relied on since 1984 to develop a pipeline of working journalists, including copy editors and photographers, from underrepresented groups,” the Times’ Meg James and Daniel Hernandez reported on June 24, 2020, updated June 25.

“But many young staffers complained about how Metpro had been mismanaged and abused. Staffers said a program that has produced world-class journalists, including Pulitzer Prize-winners and high-ranking editors, had turned into a ‘Survivor’-like competitive culture where young journalists were pitted against one another.”

Under the new program, “These fellows will receive six weeks of instruction on how to operate, navigate and succeed in a major newsroom, with training geared toward their specific interests. The next stage of their training includes multiweek rotations across the newsroom, where they will write, produce, edit, create data projects and more with coaching from seasoned L.A. Times staff.”

The new fellows are Angel Carreras, Anumita Kaur, Ashlea Brown, Jaimie Ding, Jason Sanchez, Jonah Valdez, Kenan Draughorne, Melissa Hernandez and Salma Loum.

Don’t Lump in Businesses of Color With Ozy  

“All of us have watched the bouncy-castle known as Ozy deflate and then collapse. But there’s one lesson I hope we don’t take away from this: that Black- and POC-led businesses are unworthy of investment,” Farai Chideya (pictured), a journalist, nonprofit media funder and researcher, wrote Oct. 22 for Columbia Journalism Review. “Ozy was a rogue unicorn in the worst of senses, and also highly funded in ways inconceivable to most diverse media startups.”

Chideya also wrote, “One little secret is that diverse-led nonprofit media organizations often were much more financially stable in the pandemic/reckoning era than other longstanding nonprofits, including NPR and many juggernaut public radio stations. I don’t have and can’t have the same sense of investment and viability in Black- and POC-led for-profits, since most of the numbers are never made public. But I’d urge shy investors to take a second look at diverse media. We’re in a multi-layered crisis — of disinformation, public health, climate, and voting rights. Under-serving people of color not only leaves money on the table but lives on the line. . . .”

Separately, Tracie Powell (pictured), founding manager of the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund, wrote Oct. 13 that “For those who haven’t tuned in, here’s a brief plot summary: Ozy, a digital media company co-founded by former MSNBC anchor Carlos Watson, has been embroiled in scandal since the New York Times reported that a top Ozy official impersonated a YouTube executive during a conference call to try to secure an investment from Goldman Sachs. Watson is now battling a lawsuit from at least one investor and fending off claims that he’s been inflating Ozy’s audience size, among other questionable business practices.”

Writing in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Powell continued, “all too often journalism donors fail to ask the tough questions or acknowledge what they don’t know. They need to do more than check a box, especially when it comes to investing in news organizations that claim to reach underserved people.”

“To a large degree, that’s why so many people were fooled by Ozy Media,” Powell wrote in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, outlining steps that potential funders should take before providing support.

“Ben Smith of the New York Times wrote convincingly about Carlos Watson’s magnetic personality. I’ve met and interviewed Watson and have to agree. Watson is a charismatic, charming guy with the right Harvard-Stanford pedigree. But just because a founder is impressive and cool doesn’t mean donors should invest in him.

“Watson is an easy, readily available foil in this drama. But those who invested in him and his organization also need to take a hard look at the role they played. As philanthropy increasingly seeks to protect our democracy by supporting journalism, honest conversations about what works and what doesn’t are critical. Without them, donors will continue to make the wrong choices and news outlets that need and deserve help most will miss out.”

Start-Up Plans Close Coverage of Black, Brown Tech

“Meet The Plug, a news outlet and research company focused on covering the ways that ‘Black people are affected by and engaged with the innovation economy,’ ” Hanaa’ Tameez reported Wednesday for Nieman Lab.

Data journalist Sherrell Dorsey (pictured) “launched The Plug in 2016 as a daily, curated newsletter that shared stories about Black startups. By 2018, just after Dorsey graduated from Columbia’s computational journalism program, she delved into original reporting.

“ ‘The conversations that I was seeing five or six years ago were either these magical minority stories or they were profile pieces, but you would never see a ton of rigorous reporting in the way in which you would see Microsoft, Tesla, and Facebook covered in detail,’ Dorsey said. ‘Journalism related to Black and brown founders has always been intellectually lazy when we’re talking about coverage within business and tech news. [With The Plug, I] really wanted to step in and to say we still deserve great, strong, intellectually challenging, targeted, rigorous, and data-driven reporting.’

“The Plug is funded through grants, brand partnerships, advertising, payments for its original research, and subscriptions. Non-paying readers can get the daily newsletter and certain stories for free. Subscribers to The Plug PRO get access to weekly reports, The Plug’s data library, access to a private community and member events, and discounts to its live summit, for $300 a year. . . .”

New Institute to Address Diversity Pipeline Issue

The Diversity Pledge Institute, a nonprofit organization that intends “to address the diversity pipeline issue from both the organizational and individual perspectives,” in the words of founder and executive director Larry Graham (pictured), launched Thursday.

Graham has been deputy director of local news transformation at the American Press Institute, assistant managing editor of digital strategies at The Blade in Toledo, Ohio; executive sports editor at the San Diego Union Tribune and chair of the Associated Press Sports Editors diversity committee.

“DPI provides media organizations with a bespoke service that improves recruitment, retention and advancement of employees from diverse backgrounds, with a goal of increasing profitability, employee satisfaction and audience growth,” the announcement said.

“The new organization also offers a free mentorship, training and advancement program for journalists, with an emphasis on journalists of color and members of the LGBTQ community. By providing hands-on training and coaching on career advancement at all levels, DPI is helping journalists find jobs, get promoted, become leaders and navigate newsroom politics.”

Participants are volunteers for the time being, but the organization said “DPI will be hiring for full-time, part-time and consulting positions throughout the coming year.”

It also said, “The team at the Diversity Pledge Institute wouldn’t have reached this milestone without the support of media experts such as Sara Lomax-Reese, S. Mitra Kalita and URL Media, Cheryl Carpenter, Emma Carew Grovum, Jim Iovino, Douglas K. Smith, Brenda Velasquez and Orlando Watson.”

Activists Praise Biden’s Pick for FCC Chair

President Biden’s nomination of Jessica Rosenworcel (pictured), acting chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission, to the permanent job last week won praise from broadcasters and advocates of net neutrality and access to broadband. She would become the first woman to lead the agency.

“If she is confirmed by the Senate, Ms. Rosenworcel would lead an agency whose responsibilities include ensuring that millions of Americans have internet access,” Elizabeth Williamson reported Oct. 26 for The New York Times. “The F.C.C. promotes competition among providers, scrutinizes mergers between telecommunications and broadcast companies, and regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable.

“Mr. Biden also named Gigi B. Sohn to the seat on the five-member commission vacated by Ms. Rosenworcel when she became the acting chairwoman. Ms. Sohn, a distinguished fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy, served from 2013 to 2016 as counselor to Tom Wheeler, a former F.C.C. chairman. If confirmed by the Senate, Ms. Sohn would be the F.C.C.’s first openly L.G.B.T.Q. commissioner, the White House said in its announcement. . . .”

Alan Davidson was chosen to head the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Davidson is a senior adviser at the Mozilla Foundation, which “works to ensure the internet remains a public resource that is open and accessible to us all.”

The advocacy group Free Press said, “This is a dream team for anyone who cares about the future of the internet and the media. Nominating Rosenworcel, Sohn and Davidson would demonstrate the Biden administration’s commitment to making media and tech policy that will actually serve people.

“While these choices were worth the wait, there’s no time to waste and so much to get done: ensuring the billions being invested in broadband actually reach those who need it most, restoring Net Neutrality and Title II, reckoning with media regulators’ history on race and repairing the damage of the Trump years. We urge the Senate to move as quickly as possible to advance all of these nominees.”

Robert E. Branson, president and CEO of the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC), said, “Working with Acting Chair Rosenworcel has given us an opportunity to work on common issues including bridging the digital divide, broadband access and availability, equity and inclusion, and bridging the ‘homework gap,’ [PDF] her signature initiative. Ronald Johnson, MMTC chair and treasurer, said, “We look forward to continuing to engage with Acting Chair Rosenworcel on the Emergency Broadband Program (EBB) to help people who are struggling to pay their broadband bills during the pandemic, and to support remote learning.”

Kip Branch, second from right, with, from left: Charles Harris, executive director of the Howard University Press; tennis great Arthur Ashe, and research assistant Sandra Jamison at 1983 announcement that Howard University Press would publish “A Hard Road to Glory: The History of the Black Athlete.”

Kip Branch, HBCU Journalism Prof, Dies at 74

Kip Branch, who taught at four historically Black colleges and universities, was an Educator of the Year for the National Association of Black Journalists and a co-author of tennis great Arthur Ashe’s three-volume “A Hard Road to Glory” series on the history of the African American athlete, died Oct. 22.

Branch, 74, was at his Chesapeake, Va., home and succumbed after a long illness, his daughter, Aria Branch, told Journal-isms.

“In the mid-1980s he taught at North Carolina Central University (NCCU) in Durham, NC where he helped to build the foundation for a now-thriving communications program, encouraging budding journalists there to have ‘big eyes and ears’ and to pursue the truth,” according to the family obituary.

“He often used his extensive media connections to help ignite the careers of young journalists. At NCCU, Kip was an adviser to the student newspaper, The Campus Echo. He was a popular professor and students often sought him out for advice. He remained a friend and mentor to many of them long after their college careers.”

Ernie Suggs, a reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution who attended NCCU, recounted on Facebook about his mentor:

“The greatest lecture I ever heard as a college student, the kind that sticks with you forever and reinforces why you picked a black college occurred on Dec. 2, 1987. I know the date, because that was the day after Kip’s friend and mentor, James Baldwin died. Branch had just brought Baldwin to campus the year before and never failed to remind us that he knew the great man. On this day, I am not even sure what we were supposed to talk about, but Branch, without taking a breath, spent the whole class talking about the importance of valuing our lives and understanding our worth as young black men and women about to enter the world.

“At the end of the lecture, he just walked out of the classroom, leaving those of us who were there . . . spellbound and spent. If one lecture could change someone, this one did. All of us who were there, still talk about it.”

The family obituary added, “Here’s what Kip told The Raleigh News & Observer in 2006 about teaching philosophy: ‘I promised myself that I would give them everything I think somebody should have given me when I was an undergraduate student — and I live up to that,” he said. ‘You’ll never find me telling them what they can’t do. I tell them what they can do.’

“Kip retired from [Elizabeth City State University] in 2017. He also held teaching positions at Wilson College, Shaw University, the University of Hartford, and Hampton University.”

Press Freedom Prospects Bleak After Sudan Coup

“Yesterday — after two years of promising, fragile transition toward democracy — Sudan fell victim to a military coup,” Jon Allsop wrote Oct. 26 for Columbia Journalism Review.

“Military leaders seized power, arresting Abdalla Hamdok, the civilian prime minister in a transitional government; Hamdok’s office called on the Sudanese people to take to the streets, where soldiers met protesters with violence, fatally shooting at least seven people and injuring well over a hundred more.

“According to the information ministry, soldiers also raided the state broadcaster and detained staffers there; the Sudan Journalists Network reported that other journalists have been arrested, too. As the coup unfolded, the internet went down across swathes of the country — a tactic that recalled the intense censorship tactics of Omar al-Bashir, who held power in Sudan for thirty years prior to being toppled in 2019.

“The work of transitioning to press freedom in Sudan was far from complete even prior to the coup, and its prospects now look bleak. ‘At a critical moment in the country’s history,’ Justin Shilad, a Middle East and North Africa researcher at the Committee to Protect Journalists, said, ‘journalists must be free to report the news and have full access to telecommunications services to do it.’ . . .”

Short Takes

  • If Republican Glenn Youngkin wins the gubernatorial contest in Virginia Tuesday, “It would show that fear and anger win the day,” commentator Jonathan Capehart (pictured) said Friday on the “PBS NewsHour.” “The fact that we’re having a conversation about Critical Race Theory that is not taught in public schools in Virginia, it just goes to show how Republicans have decided that picking at white grievance and tap-dancing with white supremacy is their way back into power. And if Glenn Youngkin wins, yes, the Democrats should be afraid, because fear works. And I like to say, whiteness is a hell of a drug. . . . “ Nov. 3 update: Exit polls show wide gap between Black, Latino and Asian American voters on one side, and whites on the other:

  • “Afropunk is an artful experience where Black music intermingles with a nonconformist attitude,” ebony.com reported Oct. 1. “It’s a come-as-you-are party, where enthusiasts dress their souls that day — whether influenced by Afro-inspired gods or anarchist divas of the past, like the sister with the paper clip headpiece (pictured). Black Women Photographers is a community of talented female photogs from around the globe, which aims to disrupt the notion that it is difficult to discover Black creatives. The platform seeks to ensure that more Black female photogs are empowered to make the industry as colorful as it can be. Recently, the visual arts collective teamed with Afropunk to highlight the festival’s bad-ass spirit from a woman’s point-of-view. . . .” ( Photo credit: Megan Sumpton/ebony.com)
  • “All next week, Lester Holt will travel ‘Across America,’ anchoring NBC Nightly News from five different cities,” NBC announced Wednesday. “Holt will report from the ground, beginning Monday, Nov. 1, taking the pulse of Americans on the highs and lows they are facing almost two years into the global pandemic. The ‘Across America’ series kicks off its sixth installment in Austin, Texas on Monday and continues in St. Louis, Missouri, Washington, D.C., Nashville, Tennessee and Phoenix, Arizona. . . .”

  • “There is no literal translation of the word ‘touchdown’ in Diné, but that hardly mattered,” Hannah Bronkema reported Oct. 14 for Cronkite News at Arizona State University. “History was made in the ‘Land of Enchantment’ in September as two men from the Navajo Nation broadcast a college football game in their native language. Known as the ‘Rio Grande Rivalry,’ the Division I game between the University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University marked a pivotal juncture with the sport and the way it is called over the radio. While Cuyler Frank and Glenn King reveled in their historic moment, the road following the momentous occasion matters the most to the Navajo Nation duo, with a desire to preserve their native language at the epicenter of what they do. . . .”
  • MSNBC’s Morning Joe co-host Mike Barnicle asked Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (pictured) how she feels when the shooting by Alec Baldwin on a movie set receives “such massive publicity” when “every day in Chicago the combination of gangs, guns, and young people dying is a, sadly, everyday occurrence, given very little note?” Jackson Richman reported Thursday for Mediaite. Lightfoot replied, “What I’d like to see more of is recognizing the human toll that is taken with the guns and violence that we’re experiencing in Chicago and in cities across the country. The victims are forgotten. We can’t forget them. But I’d like to see the media tell those stories and not just report statistics like they’re calling a ballgame. It is disheartening to victims. I meet with victims’ groups on a regular basis, and the heartache that they experience, the devastation and losing a loved one and being injured themselves, I’d like to see more of those stories told because they’re real and the trauma that they experience for a lifetime is real.”
  • In Sacramento, Calif., “SacObserver.com is home to a newly launched directory of some of the important places in the community, created by Maya Lee, a high school senior and a Girl Scout Ambassador with Troop 2381,” the Sacramento Observer reported Oct. 14. “Her troop meets on the campus of Center of Praise Ministries in Sacramento. She has been a Girl Scout since kindergarten and this project is part of her Girl Scout Gold Award. . . .”
  • “CBS News’ Washington D.C. bureau chief Ingrid Ciprian Matthews announced multiple promotions in her bureau on Tuesday,” A.J. Katz reported for TVNewser. “The network has named Arden Farhi a senior producer on the White House team; Allyson Ross Taylor becomes senior producer, Capitol Hill; John Nolen is now coordinating producer, Capitol Hill; Andres Triay becomes senior producer, Homeland Security and Justice; and Julia Kimani Burnham is being promoted to coordinating producer, Homeland Security and Justice. . . .”
  • “The Washington Post recently announced the addition of two regular contributors to the ranks of its opinion section in Spanish,” Post Opinión, Paola Nalvarte reported Oct. 20 for LatAm Journalism Review. She also wrote, “Since it was launched in August 2019, the readership of the section has been growing in more than 50 countries, with the largest audiences in Mexico, Peru, Colombia and the Spanish-speaking community in the United States, Elías López Gross, the Post’s Global Opinions editor, told LJR. . . .”

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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

About Richard Prince

View previous columns (after Feb. 13, 2016).

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