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What if Trump Were Out and We Got Pence?

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Authors: V.P. Gave Racial Issues ‘Benign Neglect’

Trump Adviser Almost Quit Over Charlottesville

Sinclair Stations Must Run Praise of Kavanaugh

Journalists Rally Behind Sentenced Reporters

Politics in Aretha Service Shouldn’t Be Missed

Howard Lets Go Another at Communications School

Craig Melvin Promoted to News Anchor for ‘Today’

Ahtone Named NAJA President After Pollard Moves

Asian Americans on Both Sides of Affirmative Action

Detained by ICE, Journalist Describes His Hell

Short Takes

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Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb pardoned Keith Cooper on an armed-robbery conviction last year after his predecessor, Mike Pence, refused. Cooper had maintained his innocence since his arrest in 1997. He served more than eight years in prison. (video) (Credit: Dwight Adams/Indianapolis Star)

Authors: V.P. Gave Racial Issues ‘Benign Neglect’

Political reporters say the Democrats don’t want to talk about impeaching President Trump just yet because it might energize Trump’s base before the midterm elections. But what if impeachment came to pass and Trump were forced to leave office? What would the nation get if Vice President Mike Pence were in the top job?

For people of color, Pence’s record as governor of Indiana suggests they could expect “benign neglect” of their issues, according to Michael D’Antonio and Peter Eisner, journalists who have written the new “The Shadow President: The Truth About Mike Pence,” published Friday.

Journal-isms asked Eisner, an author who has worked at Newsday, the Associated Press and the Washington Post, what journalists should make of their findings. Here is his edited response:

At a Washington, D.C., march (Credit: Lakeshore Public Radio)

“Pence’s time as governor of Indiana does give us hints about who he is. He treated controversy, in cases that happened to involve African Americans and other minorities, with benign neglect. He would deny this with a turn of the cheek, but would he explain himself? He never has.

“Pence in all cases stands in the shadows, employing deniability, and hiding behind professions of faith. Nonbelievers, he says, are attacking him unfairly. But he never answers the questions of policy. He would deny charges of bias — but it just so happens that the most high profile acts he is criticized for involve inaction to alleviate the suffering of minorities in his home state and now immigrants to the United States.”

Eisner also noted, “Pence did not criticize Trump for his outrageous statements in Charlottesville — ‘some of them are good people’ — nor did he say anything about a government policy that separates parents from their children on the Mexican border. . . .”

Trump Adviser Almost Quit Over Charlottesville

Gary Cohn, the president’s former top economic adviser, came to regard President Trump as “a professional liar” and threatened to resign in August 2017 over Trump’s handling of a deadly white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., according to Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book “Fear,” Philip Rucker and Robert Costa reported Tuesday in the Washington Post.

“Cohn, who is Jewish, was especially shaken when one of his daughters found a swastika on her college dorm room,” they continued, reporting on just one of many revelations in the book.

“Trump was sharply criticized for initially saying that ‘both sides’ were to blame. At the urging of advisers, he then condemned white supremacists and neo-Nazis but almost immediately told aides, ‘That was the biggest fucking mistake I’ve made’ and the ‘worst speech I’ve ever given,’ according to Woodward’s account.

“When Cohn met with Trump to deliver his resignation letter after Charlottesville, the president told him, ‘This is treason,’ and persuaded his economic adviser to stay on.” White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly “then confided to Cohn that he shared Cohn’s horror at Trump’s handling of the tragedy — and shared Cohn’s fury with Trump.

“ ‘I would have taken that resignation letter and shoved it up his ass six different times,’ Kelly told Cohn, according to Woodward. Kelly himself has threatened to quit several times but has not done so. . . .”

Sinclair Stations Must Run Praise of Kavanaugh

“Conservative TV giant Sinclair Broadcast Group is requiring its local news stations across the country to air multiple ‘must-run’ segments praising ‘perfectly qualified’ Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh and encouraging a quick confirmation,” Pam Vogel reported July 30 for Media Matters for America, updated Aug. 27.

“As of August 27, Sinclair has produced at least six ‘must-run’ commentary segments about the open Supreme Court seat, including three that feature excerpts from interviews with Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX). The segments either laud Kavanaugh’s qualifications, dismiss real concerns about what’s at stake if he is confirmed, or push for a quick confirmation process. Some do all three.

“Sinclair designates that certain news and commentary segments, produced in its national studios, must air on its local news stations across the country — including all four of the Kavanaugh-related segments. According to a Media Matters search of the iQ media database, one or more of these segments have aired in at least 22 states, including those with potentially key senators in a confirmation vote like Alabama, Maine, Nevada, and West Virginia. . . .”

The confirmation hearings opened Tuesday. “Senate Democrats tore into President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee on Tuesday, painting Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh as a narrow-minded partisan as the opening day of his confirmation hearings verged on pandemonium,” Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Adam Liptak reported for the New York Times..

Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Kamala Harris, D-Calif., both of color, raised racial issues. Harris said she might not have attended the schools she did were it not for the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision ordering school desegregation. Booker invited Carlotta Walls LaNier, the youngest of the Little Rock Nine who integrated Central High School in 1957 in Little Rock, Ark. He said some of Trump’s judicial nominees have refused to acknowledge that the Brown decision is settled law.

Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state under President George W. Bush and the second African American to hold that post, vouched for Kavanaugh’s character.

Reuters’ Washington bureau stands in solidarity with @Reuters colleagues Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo (Credit: Twitter)

Journalists Rally Behind Sentenced Reporters

“Reuters journalists in bureaus around the world on Tuesday voiced support for a pair of reporters for the news service who were sentenced this week to seven years in jail in Myanmar,” Joe Concha reported for the Hill.

“Free speech advocates have decried a Myanmar judge’s ruling Monday that Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, broke the law by obtaining confidential documents for a report on the persecution of Rohingya Muslims.

“U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley slammed Myanmar’s government over the ruling Monday on Twitter, saying it was ‘another terrible stain’ on the country and calling for the reporters’ immediate release.

“Reuters employees in Washington, D.C., New York and bureaus in multiple other countries shared photos on social media on Tuesday showing journalists standing in solidarity with the jailed reporters. . . .”

Reuters President and Editor-in-Chief, Stephen J. Adler said in a statement, “We will not wait while Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo suffer this injustice and will evaluate how to proceed in the coming days, including whether to seek relief in an international forum.”

International press freedom groups also expressed outrage.

 

Michael Eric Dyson said of President Trump, “You lugubrious leech! You dopey doppelgänger of deceit and deviance! You lethal liar, you dim-witted dictator, you foolish fascist!” (Credit: Detroit Free Press)

Politics in Aretha Service Shouldn’t Be Missed

The eight-hour “homegoing” for Aretha Franklin in Detroit Friday was such a cultural and civic celebration that commentators often overlooked its political elements.

Some did notice, however.

“In speech after speech, Ms. Franklin in death became a rallying point for speakers who used her example to address political and social frustrations, and to vow to persevere,” Ben Sisario and Steve Friess wrote Friday for the New York Times. The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. “noted that there were long lines for her viewings but short lines at voting booths. Pastor William J. Barber II described Ms. Franklin’s voice itself as being vital to the civil rights movement.

“ ‘Before [Barack] Obama said, “Yes we can,” ‘ Pastor Barber announced, ‘Aretha sang, “We can conquer hate forever, yes we can,” ‘ alluding to her song ‘Wholly Holy.’

“Mr. [Stevie] Wonder cited similar themes before a rousing musical performance near the end of the ceremony. ‘We can talk about all the things that are wrong,’ he said, ‘and there are many, but the only thing that can deliver us is love. So what needs to happen today, not only in this nation, but throughout the world, is that we need to make love great again. Because black lives do matter’. . . .”

E.R. Shipp noted Tuesday in the Baltimore Sun, “Among the many constituencies that have suffered as the president tries to recast the United States as a white supremacist ‘America First’ plutocracy, black people have a growing list of grievances. So honoring the Queen of Soul became an outlet for venting frustration, anger, longing and loss while reasserting pride and honoring resilience. Yes, her reign stretched far beyond black America, but Aretha Franklin was unapologetically black.

“In her music, the scholar Michael Eric Dyson said in remarks more meaningful than the drivel the official eulogist later spewed, she conveyed ‘the reality of the hurt and pain, the ardor, the ecstasy, the suffering and the reality that we had to confront as a black people.’ And in her quiet commitment to justice, he said, from supporting Martin Luther King Jr. and Angela Davis to playing secret Santa to Detroit families who’d suffered tragedies, “she was about transforming the existence of black America.”

Those who heard Dyson won’t soon forget his takedown of President Trump.

“And then this orange apparition had the nerve to say she worked for him!” Dyson said.

Dyson told the audience. “You lugubrious leech! You dopey doppelgänger of deceit and deviance! You lethal liar, you dim-witted dictator, you foolish fascist!

“She ain’t work for you!” he exclaimed. “She worked above you! She worked beyond you! Get your preposition right!

“Then he got the nerve to say he gonna grab it!” Dyson continued. “That ain’t what Aretha Franklin said — I’mma give you something you can feel.

“Like the brothers in the streets say, tap lightly! Like a woodpecker with a headache!” he concluded.

Mildred Gaddis, beloved Detroit talk radio host, told the crowd that Franklin followed the news. She would call WJBK-TV anchor Huel Perkins and ask “Why did you have to run that story?” In addition, however, “Aretha would see a family, a family that had been burned out, a child that had been hit on the head, she would say to Huel Perkins, ‘I want to send a check, and don’t you tell anybody about it.’ That’s who our Aretha was.”

Meanwhile, Essence magazine repackaged its “bookazine” on Franklin, first launched last year in honor of the 50th anniversary of the song, “Respect.” “We printed around 250,000 for the original run (edited by Patrik Henry Bass),” spokeswoman Sheila Harris told Journal-isms. “For the re-issue we printed about 275,000 copies. It’s 96 pages long” and sells for $12.

Howard Lets Go Another at Communications School

Robin Thornhill

Within days of Carol Dudley losing, then regaining her job mentoring students at Howard University’s Cathy Hughes School of Communications, Robin Thornhill, another longtime faculty member at the school, was let go.

“It blindsided me. I technically was dean of students,” Thornhill, a 18-year veteran of the school who was assistant dean for student affairs and assessment, told Journal-isms by telephone on Friday. “I do all things students. I never imagined they would terminate that person because it’s so central.”

Thornhill also taught advertising and public relations. She also said the university let go six others in the School of Communications, mostly administrative assistants. Thornhill questioned the timing of the layoffs, as school had already begun.

Asked what she wanted to do next, Thornhill replied, “I don’t know. I’m still sort of trying to get my feet back under me.”

Craig Melvin Promoted to News Anchor for ‘Today’

Craig Melvin

Craig Melvin, who recently stepped down as co-anchor of Saturday Today, is moving to the weekday side of NBC News’ morning show as news anchor,” Patrick Hipes reported Tuesday for Deadline: Hollywood. “His new Today role was announced Tuesday morning by co-anchors Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb.

“Melvin had been a busy guy. In addition to co-hosting the Saturday edition of Today, he had been a correspondent and fill-in anchor on the weekday edition. He anchors MSNBC Live at 1 PM ET weekdays for the cable news network. . . .”

Brian Stelter reported for CNN that Melvin’s promotion “is the latest sign that NBC is still treading carefully with its morning show nearly one year after Matt Lauer was fired. . . . some executives at NBC News have believed that ‘Today’ needed more of an ensemble feel — which meant having more supporting players next to Guthrie and Kotb.

“Melvin has basically been playing that role for months, and now it’s been formalized. Carson Daly and Al Roker also appear on the show every morning. . . .”

Ahtone Named NAJA President After Pollard Moves

Tristan Ahtone

Less than six weeks after being elected to a third term as president of the Native American Journalists Association, Bryan Pollard (Cherokee) resigned his seat on the board and became a staff member at the organization, NAJA announced on Tuesday. Board member Tristan Ahtone (Kiowa) was named president during NAJA’s monthly board meeting meeting Aug. 30.

“Pollard will join NAJA in the new full-time staff position of director of programs and strategic partnerships, where he will oversee programming including annual conference training, awards, the Native American Journalism Fellowship (NAJF) and the RED Press Initiative,” an announcement said.

“He will also be responsible for developing partnerships and assisting with fundraising, in accordance with the organization’s 2018-2020 strategic plan.

“Pollard joins NAJA after serving as the communications director and AmeriCorps VISTA Coordinator at the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative at the University of Arkansas. Prior to joining the U of A, he was executive editor of the Cherokee Phoenix, the tribal news media for the Cherokee Nation based in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. . . .”

“Ahtone is a citizen of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma, a lifetime NAJA member and associate editor for tribal affairs at High Country News. His stories have won multiple honors, including investigative awards from Public Radio News Directors Incorporated and the Gannett Foundation. He is a graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts and Columbia School of Journalism.

In 2017 Ahtone was awarded a Nieman Fellowship to study at Harvard University. . . .”

(Credit: AAPI Data)

Asian Americans on Both Sides of Affirmative Action

“Some of the headlines read: ‘DOJ sides with Asian Americans against Harvard admissions.’ They could easily have said, ‘DOJ goes against Asian Americans in Harvard admissions, ‘ ” As Am News reported on Friday.

“Asian Americans were on both sides of the controversy over Harvard’s admissions procedures.

“The Department of Justice sided with the plaintiffs challenging Harvard when it filed a Statement of Interest on the side of the plaintiff in Students For Fair Admissions’ discrimination case against Harvard in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

“Also Thursday, civil rights advocates Asian Americans Advancing Justice (Advancing Justice) alongside the National Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Boston-based Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice, and pro bono counsel Arnold & Porter, filed a second amicus curiae, ‘friend of the court,’ brief on behalf of a diverse group of students, including Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who support Harvard’s race-conscious holistic admissions policy. The students have special status in the case, which allows them to submit evidence and participate in oral argument. . . .”

In June, the group AAPI Data reported:

“Asian Americans have consistently supported affirmative action policies, with some differences in support depending on question wording;

“Support among Chinese Americans has declined dramatically over four years, while it has remained stable for other Asian Americans;

“Despite declines due to opinion change among Chinese Americans, nearly two-thirds of Asian Americans still support affirmative action. . . .”

Mexican journalist Emilio Gutiérrez Soto on his release day in El Paso, Texas. (Credit: Julian Aguilar/Texas Tribune)

Detained by ICE, Journalist Describes His Hell

“Emilio Gutiérrez Soto, a Mexican journalist based in the United States, has twice been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” Columbia Journalism Review reported on Tuesday. “In late July, he was released from his second round of detention. For the first time, he has written a first-person account of the experience.”

“I need to spell out some of my recent experiences, so that others will not go through these extremely degrading hardships in a foreign place where universal liberties are proclaimed and then inhumanely denied to those who would seek protection,” Gutiérrez wrote.

“Ten years ago, in spite of the danger of working as a journalist in my home country, Mexico, and President Felipe Calderón’s “War on Drugs,” I never imagined that I would cross the border to the US, seeking the protection of the authorities, or that I would twice be imprisoned in holding camps, the second time with my son Oscar at my side.

“But the decision to request asylum was quick. Crossing the armed forces of my country, the executing arm of the Mexican state under the control of Calderón, was not something to think twice about. I had received serious threats from the Mexican government. Because of my work, I lost access to my true heritage, lost a family, lost a beloved woman, lost a community, lost a Motherland, and was forced to venture out in search of charity.

“When I crossed the border to El Norte from my small community in the northeast of Chihuahua, to save my life and that of my son, I requested political asylum.

“I remember the moment of crossing.

“ ‘What are you bringing?’ La Migra (the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer) asked when we crossed that morning through El Berrendo to the US.

“ ‘Fear,’ I responded right away.

“ ‘Of whom?’

“ ‘Of the military officials who want to kill me. I’m a journalist.’

“ ‘And what do you want here?’

“ ‘Political asylum,’ I answered.

“La Migra slid his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose to peer over them at me inquisitively. ‘But aren’t soldiers there to look after you?’

“ ‘Not those ones!’ I said. I turned white.

” ‘Okay! Please step down to the office,’ La Migra said.

“That’s when the way of sorrows began, and would last more than ten years.

“I was sent to a holding camp, and my son — just 15 years old — to a youth center. Jail! And with jail came separation from Oscar, who is my life, my very breath. Our separation was a disgrace. The limbo began, and it was without mercy. . . ”

Gutiérrez also wrote, “the criminalization of those of us seeking political asylum has just begun. . . .”

Short Takes

Madhulika Sikka

The Washington Post has hired award-winning journalist and veteran audio storyteller Madhulika Sikka as an executive producer on The Post’s audio team” the Post announced Tuesday. Sikka was public editor at PBS. Public editor opening

 

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