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Unhappy Ebony Freelancers Hijack Promotional Campaign

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#EbonyChallenge Brings More Bad Publicity

Sinclair Distances Itself From Border Comments

‘Tragedy of Mental Illness’ in U.S. Prisons

Lori Waldon Named President, G.M. in Albuquerque

Retired General Ditches Robert E. Lee Painting

‘Being a Black Journalist Covering Local D.C. News’

Trymaine Lee Touted as Amplifying the Unheard

N.Y.-Based Photographer Missing in China

Mixed Coverage in Fatal Shooting of Wrong Man

Africans Receive High Degree of Misinformation

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Lawrence Ross’ satirical cover of Ebony magazine

#EbonyChallenge Brings More Bad Publicity

A Twitter user’s idea to have readers of Ebony magazine post a photo of the Ebony cover from the month and year they were born has had unintended consequences.

The idea led to a backlash among freelance writers, with Lawrence Ross delivering a blistering column on theRoot.com Wednesday headlined “Dear Ebony Magazine: FU, Pay Your Writers!”

Ebony is in fact in compliance with a court-ordered payment schedule for the 45 writers who joined a lawsuit filed by the National Writers Union. However, not all writers are part of the suit.

“We have a settlement in place. We are ahead of schedule and have fulfilled the year, before the Dec. 31 deadline,” Katrina Witherspoon, senior vice president for marketing of Ebony Media Operations, told Journal-isms Wednesday by telephone.

Larry Goldbetter, president of the National Writers Union, said by email Thursday, “After getting slammed again on social media and the union having filed in court for enforcement, [Michael] Gibson [of Ebony’s parent company] contacted us yesterday to say the Q4 checks will go out this week instead of the end of December. . . . The final group is about a dozen-15 writers for roughly $15k.”

Ross accompanied his piece with his own version of an Ebony cover for December showing the publication’s co-owners. “Cheat your black writers by not paying? Ebony owners Michael Gibson & Willard Jackson show us how!” reads a faux cover line.

Writers took to social media echoing those sentiments, urging friends and colleagues not to participate in what has been dubbed the #EbonyChallenge until the freelancers are paid.

TheGrio.com put fuel on the fire Tuesday by accusing the magazine of ignoring a heroic 11-year-old in putting together its “Power 100” gala this weekend. The piece was pulled Wednesday night after Ebony protested it as inaccurate. However, the disputed assertions are still circulating, having also been mentioned in Ross’ piece.

“One 2018 influencer whose invite seemed to have gotten lost in the mail is Mari Copeny, an industrious 11-year-old who is known as ‘Little Miss Flint,’ Blue Telusma wrote for theGrio.com. “She has gained national attention for launching a campaign to provide free bottled water for Flint residents impacted by their ongoing water crisis. Her Pack Your Back charity is dedicated to improving the quality of life for Flint children. . . .”

The actual Ebony for December

Mari tweeted Monday, “After receiving 24k votes and being the #2018EbonyPower100 people’s choice award winner @EBONYMag has told me the Gala is not ‘open to the public.’ Shout out to everyone who voted for me, I was really excited about this, maybe next year I’ll actually make it onto the real list.”

Ebony denies that it stiffed Mari, attributing the flap to a misunderstanding.

Witherspoon said that no one from Ebony was quoted for publication in the stories or social media posts and that Mari was never promised a seat at the gala, an event that is part of Ebony’s revenue strategy, not merely an exercise in self-indulgence, as its critics have portrayed it.

The publication has reached out to “Little Miss Flint” to “offer a seat if we have capacity,” Witherspoon said. The gala accommodates 700 people and “we basically have no seats.”

For writers with bills to pay, the issue is money.

“Writing is a craft,” Ross wrote for the Root. “I spend a lot of time perfecting my voice, my style. It doesn’t just happen.

“It’s also a discipline. I write every single day. And when I’m not writing, I’m thinking about writing. And then I write what I thought about. And then I erase what I wrote, and start again from scratch in order to rewrite it.

“You want, you pay. When I finish this piece, I’ll fill out an invoice, and The Root will deposit my fee directly into my bank account. Thems the rules, and as a writer, if you’re dealing with a reputable publication(s), then you can scratch out a living. . . .”

Writing in Columbia Journalism Review’s special fall issue on race, Jamilah Lemieux put it another way.

“During my Ebony days, the writer Michael Arceneaux, a Howard classmate and most recently the author of the essay collection I Can’t Date Jesus, would often say to me or my colleagues, ‘It feels so good to be edited by black folks.‘ It was a common refrain from black freelance writers who also contributed to outlets largely staffed by white editors who would assign them stories about race but lacked the cultural competency to adequately edit their work. Often the results were frustration, disappointment, and killed stories — which were then sometimes offered to us at Ebony.

“Of course, there were reasons those writers didn’t bring us their pieces first — namely our low budgets. To attract established writers like Arceneaux as well as the photographers and artists who created our covers and editorial spreads, we leaned on the legacy of the iconic brand, our own personal networks, and the idea that supporting black media is a cultural obligation. . . .”

Despite the backlash, Witherspoon called the #EbonyChallenge a boost for the publication. It demonstrates that “the Ebony brand continues to be relevant.

“We’ll definitely continue to highlight those participating,” she said.

(Credit: Fox News)

Sinclair Distances Itself From Border Comments

The Sinclair Broadcast Group Wednesday distanced itself from a commentary it deemed “must run” by Boris Epshteyn, the broadcaster’s chief political analyst and a former Trump White House official.

Epshteyn argued that American authorities “had to use tear gas” on hundreds of migrants at a border crossing near San Diego on Sunday to guard against an “attempted invasion” of the United States,” as Niraj Chokshi described it in the New York Times.

“We’d like to take a moment and address some concerns regarding a commentary segment by @borisep that was aired on Sinclair stations this week,” the company said on Twitter. “The opinions expressed in this segment do not reflect the views of Sinclair Broadcast Group.”

Among the critics of the Epshteyn commentary was the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, which said in a statement, “This morning, NAHJ reached out to SBG leaders Chief Executive Officer Christopher Ripley and Senior Vice President of News Scott Livingston, for a chance to discuss the disturbing mandate. Neither individual has responded to the request for a meeting. . . .”

“In addition to concerns over the credibility of local stations and news organizations, the decisions mandated from the corporate level are negatively impacting local journalists.

“ ‘While we may not have seen eye to eye throughout the years, NAHJ and Sinclair Broadcasting Group have always maintained an open dialogue making for a respectful relationship,’ said [NAHJ President Hugo] Balta. ‘If that respect is not continued, we will have to consider limiting their presence at any future NAHJ led events.’ . . .”

Also among the critics was Geraldo Rivera, who, appearing on “Fox and Friends,” “hot with feeling, broke in to offer himself as a ‘designated piñata,’ due to receive a rhetorical beating for his contrarian thoughts,” Troy Patterson reported Tuesday for the New Yorker. “ ‘I am ashamed,’ he said. ‘The tear gas choked me. We treat these people, these economic refugees, as if they’re zombies from ‘The Walking Dead.’ . . . We suspend our humanity when it comes to this issue, and I fear that it is because they look different than the mainstream.’ . . .”

Patterson added, “The Internet noted this departure from Fox News orthodoxy with an amalgam of confusion and glee. We are familiar with Shepard Smith, the host of ‘The Fox Report,’ who applies the fact-based fig leaves that lend journalistic cover to Fox’s propagandistic suasion. But the sight of such stridency from Geraldo Rivera created a tizzy. . . .”

Also earning praise was CBS correspondent Paula Reid, who fact-checked President Trump in real time on Monday. When he said “Obama had a separation policy,” she said “it was different” and explained why.

‘Tragedy of Mental Illness’ in U.S. Prisons

“In February 2015, The Marshall Project and the New York Times published my lengthy investigation into staff violence against inmates in the infamous Attica prison,” Tom Robbins wrote Tuesday in a promotional email. “During my many months of reporting that story, I learned that this problem afflicted many of the state’s toughest prisons.

Karl Taylor

“At the time, the commissioner of the state’s correctional department told me that he was determined to confront the issue: his department had a ‘zero tolerance’ policy regarding staff abuse, he said.

“But on April 13, 2015, less than three months after the Attica story appeared, another prisoner died violently in a different maximum security prison. So once again, I started on the long and difficult journey of uncovering why a prisoner — Karl Taylor, a mentally ill man doing time for rape — had died following a clash with the guards whose job was to protect him.

“My reporting took me on repeated journeys to Sullivan Correctional Facility, hidden away in the picturesque Catskill Mountains. I visited with an inmate who told me that, days before Taylor’s death, he had written to the prison’s warden and top state officials warning them about one widely feared officer.

“In New York City I found a recently released prisoner who tearfully recalled how had witnessed the incident. And I tracked down Taylor’s sister in Albany who gradually overcame her skepticism of why a white reporter like me would care about her brother, because she, too, urgently wanted to understand the circumstances of his death.

“Three years [have] passed since Taylor died. A civil suit filed by attorneys from a top New York City law firm .   .  . is moving to trial.

“Based on depositions and records obtained for the case, together with my own interviews and research, I’ve been able to piece together much of what happened back in April, 2015.  My resulting investigation — ‘Why Is Karl Taylor Dead?’ — is published today, in partnership with The Atlantic.

“It’s a troubling story, a painful illustration of how ill-equipped prisons are to deal with the mentally ill. It’s also a reminder of how such tragedies are often hidden from public view.”

Lori Waldon (Credit: Hearst TV)

Lori Waldon Named President, G.M. in Albuquerque

“Albuquerque’s KOAT-TV, Channel 7, has a new woman at the helm,” Rick Nathanson reported Monday for the Albuquerque Journal.

“On Monday, Hearst Television, which owns ABC affiliate KOAT, announced that Lori Waldon, Hearst’s regional director of news and longtime news director at Hearst stations KCRA and KQCA in Sacramento, Calif., has been named president and general manager of KOAT.

“Her appointment is effective Jan. 1. Waldon succeeds Mary Lynn Roper, who officially retired Nov. 9 after 41 years at the station, 25 of them as general manager.

“Roper, as a woman, accomplished firsts as an on-air anchor and then as a member of management. Waldon will be the first black woman to head a major TV station in the Albuquerque market, according to the New Mexico Broadcasters Association. . . .”

Statue of Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Va. (Credit: Wikipedia)

Retired General Ditches Robert E. Lee Painting

“From my earliest days, Robert E. Lee felt close at hand,” Stan McChrystal, a retired Army general who led the Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq
during the wars in the Persian Gulf and was top commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, wrote Nov. 21 in the Washington Post.

“I attended Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Va., and began my soldier’s life at Lee’s alma mater, the U.S. Military Academy. Today, if Lee still lived in his childhood home in Alexandria, Va., we would be neighbors. So it felt appropriate, when I was a young Army lieutenant, that my wife bought me an inexpensive painting of the famed Southern warrior. And from the wall of the many quarters we occupied over 34 years, Lee’s portrait was literally watching over me. Through the lens of military history and our seemingly parallel lives, he was my hero — brilliant, valiant and loyal.

Stanley McChrystal

“As early as his days at West Point, Lee stood out. His classmates nicknamed the studious, near-perfect cadet the ‘Marble Man.’ But over time, even marble’s flaws become more visible.

“In the summer of 2017, my wife, Annie, urged me to take down the picture. Disgusted by the images of hate and white supremacy that had descended on Charlottesville in the form of angry, torch-bearing men, she felt that Lee’s picture risked offending guests to our home by sending an unintended message of agreement with the protesters who had sought to preserve a statue of the Marble Man.

“Initially, I argued that Lee was an example of apolitical loyalty and stoic adherence to duty. But as days passed, I reflected on the way that Lee’s legacy looked to people who hadn’t grown up with my perspective or my privilege. So, on an otherwise unremarkable Sunday morning, I took the painting off the wall and sent it on its way to a local landfill for its final burial.

“Hardly a hero’s end.

“Why did it take me so long to reconsider my thinking on the Marble Man? While I’ve spent my life studying leaders and leadership, abandoning long-held beliefs, some based on comfortable myths, requires a journey that I suspect never ends.

“Our heroes, in addition to their strengths, almost always harbor profound imperfections. I still admire much about Lee, his integrity included. But to see him as I long had, through a single lens, was to fundamentally misunderstand the kaleidoscopic nature of leaders — and, more broadly, the nature of our past. No matter how much we study or how long we’ve lived, the hardest work we can do is to rotate the kaleidoscope, to see the world in a new light and to evolve our beliefs accordingly. . . .”

‘Being a Black Journalist Covering Local D.C. News’

One of the most comprehensive stories about newsroom diversity on the local level appears Thursday in the Washington City Paper, headlined, “The Reality of Being a Black Journalist Covering Local D.C. News.

“Many editorial staffs around town, including Washington City Paper, could use a heavy dose of melanin — to document D.C.’s historically black culture and preserve the wellness of its black journalists,” writes Christina Sturdivant Sani, a native Washingtonian.

“Over the past few months, I’ve sought to find out why the landscape looks this way, how that impacts news coverage and other reporters, and what needs to happen to reach racial parity in our local news media. . . .”

Kayla Randall (Credit: Darrow Montgomery)

Among the more insightful quotes: “You don’t want to only pitch black stories because you don’t want to get pigeonholed as the black writer, but it’s tough because you want to be the one who covers the things that involve your community,” says Elliot Williams, 25, a black assistant editor at Washingtonian magazine.

“You already feel like if someone scoops a good story, ‘that should have been me,’ but I think the feeling intensifies if my white colleague writes about some really cool black event. But at the same time, you don’t want to be the go-to black reporter.”

Kayla Randall, 24, who as City Lights editor for the arts section is the only full-time black staffer on the paper’s 11-member editorial team, says, “Other people will never know or understand the black experience — it doesn’t matter how much you tell them, how many stories you write, how many Ta-Nehisi Coates books you give them. They’re not going to know what it’s like to be black in this world.

“That’s why we need to be in these spaces, otherwise you’re erasing us, you’re erasing our culture — whether you mean to or not.”

“She also acknowledges that not everyone carries this burden,” Sturdivant writes. ” ‘Some black people move through life without being conscious of their own racial makeup and how the world sees them, but I can’t do that.’ . . .”

This columnist references the 1972 complaint against the Post before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by staffers known as the Metro Seven, providing a basis for comparison with today’s newsroom.

Trymaine Lee Touted as Amplifying the Unheard

Trymaine Lee

“It is not often you see positive images of black men in mainstream media . . .,” Lydia Blanco reported Saturday for Black Enterprise.

“Fortunate enough, we have a keen sense of what black male excellence looks like,” Blanco continued. Trymaine Lee . . . has had the unique experience of amplifying the voice of unheard and underprivileged communities as a black man in America.

“In 2012, Lee joined NBC and MSNBC as a National Reporter. Now, as a correspondent for MSNBC, he covers social justice issues and the role [that] race, violence, politics, and law enforcement [play] in America.

“Prior to his current position, he worked for the New York Times, Huffington Post, Philadelphia Tribune, and a host of other outlets, where he earned his [chops] as a journalist.

“Lee says his journey as a black man in this country has shaped him into the reporter he is today. . . . ”

Lu Guang (Credit: World Press Photo)

N.Y.-Based Photographer Missing in China

“Lu Guang, an award-winning Chinese photographer and resident of New York, has gone missing while visiting China, his wife says,” Emily Sullivan reported Tuesday for NPR.

“Lu was invited to a photography event in the heavily controlled region of Xinjiang. He flew to Urumqi, the region’s capital, on Oct. 23.

“His wife Xu Xiaoli said in a detailed Twitter post Monday that she last heard from her husband on the evening of Nov. 3.

“National security officers took the photojournalist away, she wrote, saying she heard the news from the wife of the person who invited Guang to the event.

“Lu, one of China’s most well-known photojournalists, has been active since the 1980s. His award-winning photos shine a light on problems the Chinese government would prefer to keep in the dark, such as intense pollution and AIDS. . . .”

(Credit: Melissa Joskow/Media Matters)

Mixed Coverage in Fatal Shooting of Wrong Man

“On Thanksgiving Day, a police officer shot and killed Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford Jr., known as EJ, during a mall shooting in Alabama,” Grace Bennett reported Monday for Media Matters for America.

“The police initially claimed that Bradford was the gunman, but later admitted the officer had likely shot the wrong man. In the days after the revelation, CNN offered significant coverage of the murder and conducted multiple interviews with Bradford’s family. Fox News offered markedly less coverage, and most of it occurred before the police admitted Bradford was not the shooter.

“MSNBC has covered the shooting the least, but has spoken to Bradford’s family and has largely discussed it in the wake of the police’s admission. . . .”

Africans Receive High Degree of Misinformation

“The rise of false information has complex cultural and social reasons,” Dani Madrid-Morales of the University of Houston and Herman Wasserman of the University of Houston reported Nov. 21 for the Conversation: Africa. “Until now, though, the phenomenon has been studied mostly as it happens in the US and Europe, with relatively little attention to the situation in African countries.

“This is despite the fact that disinformation on the continent has often taken the form of extreme speech inciting violence or has spread racist, misogynous, xenophobic messages, often on mobile phone platforms such as WhatsApp.

“To fill the gap in information about ‘fake news’ in sub-Saharan Africa, we conducted an online survey in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa earlier this year. Our study had three goals: to measure the prevalence of disinformation, to learn who people believe is responsible for stopping fake news, and to understand the relationship between disinformation and media trust.

“Our survey, in which 755 people took part, reused questions from another study on the topic conducted in 2016 by the US-based Pew Research Centre. In this way we are able to compare our results with those in the US.

“Our findings suggest that African audiences have low levels of trust in the media, experience a high degree of exposure to misinformation, and contribute — often knowingly — to its spread. . . .”

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