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Will Black Prosecutors of Trump Get Their Due?

by richard01417

Bragg Faced Racist Dog Whistles but ‘Did My Job’

Homepage: Alvin Bragg, on X

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Bragg Faced Racist Dog Whistles but ‘Did My Job’

Updated May 31

“Black prosecutors are having a moment in America,” Georgetown University law professor Paul Butler, a former prosecutor who has written about Black men and the criminal justice system, told Washington Post readers in October.

“Of the three prosecutors who have charged the former president of the United States with crimes this year, two of them — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani T. Willis (pictured) — are African American. On top of that, Letitia James (pictured, below), New York’s Black attorney general, is pursuing a civil fraud case with the potential to crush the Trump Organization.

“These are historic cases, and the race of the people bringing them shouldn’t matter — except it clearly matters to Donald Trump, who has lambasted them all using racist dog whistles. . . . “

Trump was ordered to pay a $454 million fine in the civil fraud case that James brought.

Now, with Bragg’s historic and successful prosecution of Trump Thursday, how big a story will these Black prosecutors be?

In the words of Jonah E. Bromwich and Ben Protess in the New York Times, “Donald J. Trump was convicted on Thursday of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal that threatened to derail his 2016 presidential campaign, capping an extraordinary trial that tested the resilience of the American justice system and will reverberate into November’s election.

“Mr. Trump was convicted on all 34 counts of falsifying business records by a jury of 12 New Yorkers, who deliberated over two days to reach a decision in a case rife with descriptions of secret deals, tabloid scandal and an Oval Office pact with echoes of Watergate. The former president sat largely expressionless, a glum look on his face, after the jury issued its verdict.”

Erica Orden wrote Thursday for Politico, “The New York result is a vindication of sorts for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who once seemed unlikely to charge Trump at all and later seemed likely to postpone his case to make room for the federal ones brought by special counsel Jack Smith. . . .

Bragg was “underestimated,” anchor Nicolle Wallace said on MSNBC.

Next week’s New Yorker cover.

By contrast, Fox News’ Brian Flood reported Thursday morning under the headline, “ABC, CBS, NBC reports omitted Alvin Bragg was Democrat in NY v. Trump coverage: Study.”

Flood’s television colleague Jesse Watters, meanwhile, attacked “DEI jurors,” Media Matters for America reported.

Although the prosecutors of color were not the only ones attacked by Trump and his acolytes, Bragg “has been repeatedly targeted with death threats,” Jack Winstanley and Gideon Taaffe reported Thursday for Media Matters.

“Bragg’s office has been ‘inundated with racist emails’ and letters since he indicted Trump, including one death threat that was mailed to his office along with a white powder. Both Trump and right-wing media figures have lobbed extreme attacks against Bragg, who they have repeatedly claimed is a ‘Soros-backed’ district attorney,” a reference to George Soros, a billionaire and Democratic megadonor. (A spokesman for Soros told The New York Times that the two men had never met, nor had Soros directly given money to Bragg’s campaign.)

At a news conference Thursday evening, Bragg was “circumscribed” but professional, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., his predecessor as D.A., said on CNN, praising Bragg and his office for their “excellent work.”

Bragg told the assembled journalists, “I did my job. My job is to follow the facts and the law without fear or favor. . . . Today, we have the most important voice of all and that’s the voice of the jurors, they have spoken. . . . We have a phenomenal system. . . . This is what we do every single day.”

In assessing “five takeaways from the last day of Mr. Trump’s momentous trial,” Jesse McKinley and
Kate Christobek of The New York Times gave Bragg his props:

Bragg “had risked his reputation, reviving a prosecution that was derided by some as a ‘zombie case.’ It was alive, then dead, then alive again.

“Now, Mr. Bragg has cemented his place in history as the first prosecutor to convict a former president. That victory came after he had been viciously attacked, again and again, by Mr. Trump, who portrayed the case as politically motivated while sometimes personally insulting him.”

And on Friday night, on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut,” host Joy Reid and commentators Eugene Robinson and Basil Smikle all chose Bragg as the person “Who Won the Week.”

“The brother knew what he was doing,” Robinson said.

In a Washington Post profile in March, updated in April, Jennifer Hassan and Adela Suliman wrote, “Bragg, a Democrat, was elected as the 37th Manhattan district attorney in November 2021. He succeeded Cyrus Vance Jr. and was sworn in at the beginning of 2022.

Credit: Time magazine

“Bragg is only the fourth person elected to the position in 80 years and the first Black district attorney for Manhattan. Before assuming his role, the Harvard-educated lawyer served as a federal prosecutor and official in the New York Attorney General’s Office. . . .

“He campaigned to lower gun violence, protect survivors of domestic abuse and not prosecute some low-level misdemeanors, such as marijuana use and jumping turnstiles. However, he faced backlash when he tried to make it a misdemeanor to rob a business with a gun in some cases, forcing him to pull back on that proposal.

“Bragg has also said that he wants to change the culture of the district attorney’s office. As a former civil rights attorney who represented Eric Garner’s mother as she sought accountability for her son’s death at the hands of police in 2014, Bragg said he believes law enforcement officials must be held to higher standards. . . .”

Butler (pictured at a Journal-isms Roundtable in 2017, by Sharon Farmer) wrote in October, “I hope that Bragg and Willis’s leadership in holding Trump accountable will inspire Black people to become lawyers and to run for district attorney. As of 2015, approximately 95 percent of elected district attorneys were White, and a 2019 American Bar Association survey showed that just 5 percent of lawyers in the United States were Black.”

Butler added, “Like any accused person, Trump deserves due process — and he’s getting it many times over. Any Black defendant who spewed Trump’s violent rhetoric about judges, witnesses and prosecutors would have been locked up by now.

“Some say the prosecutions of the former president are necessary but sad. But each of the four days this year when criminal charges were announced against the former president was a good day for democracy — and for equal justice under the law. I’m proud that Black prosecutors are leading the fight.”

CBS Ties DEI to the First Amendment

May 25, 2024

‘Straight, White Man’ Takes Network to Court
Too Late to ‘Make America White Again’
Trump 2.0 Would Be ‘Disaster for the News Media’
NAHJ’s Cabrera: I’m Still Working at Nonprofit (updated)
Lester Holt Tops Poll of Most Trusted TV Anchors
Boston’s Long-Running ‘Basic Black’ Suspended
Gay Black Man Succeeds ‘Ask Amy’ as Advice Columnist
L.A. Times Among Winners of AAJA Awards

Short Takes: Media figures at state dinner; Sara Sidner; Sports Emmys; FAMU embarrassment; Wendi C. Thomas; Theresa Vargas; Reem Akkad; Carlos Watson; Blacks and residential care communities; grants from SPJ Foundation; “The Lynching of Bob Broome”;

Gary Estwick; Dee Thompson; Bonnie Newman Davis; Stephen Paul Engelberg, Maria Hinojosa, Josie Huang, Mazin Sidahmed and Sisi Wei; Jessica Dimson; Bill Hosokawa; Luther Vandross; Rep. Bob Menendez, Liz Oliva Fernández and Cuba; Cuban journalist’s hunger strike; Haiti’s press freedom challenge; Ecuadoran journalist seeks U.S. asylum; aggression against female journalists in Latin America and Caribbean; weaponizing legislation against journalists in India; Guinea revokes media licenses; restrictions on press freedom in East, southern Africa.

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Paramount, parent company of CBS, says it is “committed to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. We believe that to be the best creators and storytellers, our company must reflect, celebrate and elevate the diversity of our audiences. Our DEI approach is based on our five pillars: Leadership Engagement, Employee Investment, Workplace Initiatives, Content Diversification, and Community Linkages.” (Credit: Paramount)

‘Straight, White Man’ Takes Network to Court

“CBS filed a motion Thursday to throw out a lawsuit challenging its diversity hiring practices for writers on the show ‘SEAL Team,’ arguing that it has a First Amendment right to hire who it wants,” Gene Maddaus reported for Variety.

“Brian Beneker, the longtime script coordinator on the show, sued in February, arguing that he had been repeatedly passed over for writing jobs because he is a straight, white man.

“Beneker has the backing of America First Legal, which is run by Stephen Miller, an adviser to former President [Donald] Trump. The organization has sought to challenge diversity, equity and inclusion programs — which it terms ‘anti-white discrimination’ — in the entertainment industry and elsewhere in corporate America.”

Steven Bradley, a white male journalist from Rochester, N.Y., is making a similar claim against the Gannett Co. in a proposed class-action case proceeding in the U.S. District Court’s Eastern District of Virginia.

Maddaus continued, “CBS’s alleged decision to prioritize diversity in its writers’ rooms is protected by the First Amendment because — as Beneker’s complaint recognizes — who writes for a creative production like ‘SEAL Team’ affects the stories that ‘SEAL Team’ (pictured) tells,” wrote Molly Lens, a partner at O’Melveny & Myers. “So limiting CBS’s ability to select the writers of its choice — as Beneker seeks to do here — unconstitutionally impairs CBS’s ability to shape its message.”

“In a similar case, Disney argued last month that it had a First Amendment right to fire ‘Mandalorian’ actor Gina Carano after she made a post on social media that allegedly trivialized the Holocaust.

“Disney and CBS each cite the same cases — Boy Scouts of America v. Dale and Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston, among others — for the proposition that the government cannot force a private entity to hire someone to express views it disagrees with.

Lens is also among the attorneys representing Disney in the Carano case.

“In both cases, the defense cited a race discrimination lawsuit filed against ABC in 2011 over its failure to cast a Black man in ‘The Bachelor.’ The judge threw out that case, citing the producers’ First Amendment right to make their own casting decisions.

“In 2020, CBS set a goal of having Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) representation reach 40% in its writers rooms in 2021-22 and 50% in 2022-23.”

Efforts to thwart diversity, equity and inclusion programs have been gathering steam. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, since 2023, 85 anti-DEI bills have been introduced in 28 states and the U.S. Congress, 14 have final legislative approval, 14 have become law and 47 have been tabled, failed to pass, or vetoed, as of May 16.

It is unclear how the rest of the media industry is responding to assaults on DEI. However, Dan Shelley, president and CEO of the Radio Television Digital News Association, told Journal-isms, “While RTDNA has no comment on this matter specifically, as it does not relate to news programming, as a general matter our association has worked for decades to stress the importance of having a workforce that truly reflects society.”

Children playing outside a local market in Charlotte, N.C. The group Define American said in 2022, “More than ever, news media play a crucial role in providing the nation with strong, accurate, and culturally sensitive coverage of immigration. Without consistent reporting on growing immigrant populations, local newsrooms are abdicating their responsibility to cover their region accurately and comprehensively — and are squandering a key growth opportunity to bring in new audiences, subscriptions and advertising.” (Credit: Define American)

Too Late to ‘Make America White Again’

“Immigration has reengineered U.S. politics,” Eduardo Porter (pictured) wrote May 15 for The Washington Post, in a 3,700-word opinion piece that filled two pages in Thursday’s print edition. The headline was “How America tried and failed to stay White.”

“Non-White voters account for some 40 percent of Democrats. Eighty-one percent of Republican voters, by contrast, are both White and not Hispanic. The nation’s polarized politics have become, in some nontrivial sense, a proxy for a conflict between different interpretations of what it means to be American.’

Porter is a columnist and member of the Post’s editorial board.

“The renewed backlash against immigration has little to offer the American project, though,” Porter continued. “Closing the door to new Americans would be hardly desirable, a blow to one of the nation’s greatest sources of dynamism. Raw data confirms how immigrants are adding to the nation’s economic growth, even while helping keep a lid on inflation.

“Anyway, that horse left the stable. The United States is full of immigrants from, in [former president Donald] Trump’s memorable words, ‘s—hole countries.’ The project to set this in reverse is a fool’s errand. The 1924 Johnson-Reed immigration law might have succeeded in curtailing immigration. But the restrictions did not hold. From Presidents Johnson to Trump, efforts to circle the wagons around some ancestral White American identity failed.

“We are extremely lucky it did. . . . the nation owes what greatness it has to the many different women and men it has drawn from around the world to build their futures. This requires a different conversation — one that doesn’t feature mass expulsions and concentration camps but focuses on constructing a new shared American identity that fits everyone, including the many more immigrants who will arrive from the Global South for years to come.”

Porter also told readers, “Try as they might, policymakers have always been unable to protect the White America they wanted to preserve. Today’s ‘melting pot’ was built largely with policies that didn’t work. Millions upon millions of migrants have overcome what obstacles the United States has tried to put in their way.”

Porter added, “The nation’s polarized politics have become, in some nontrivial sense, a proxy for a conflict between different interpretations of what it means to be American.”

An unidentified White House aide attempts to take away the microphone of Yamiche Alcindor, then a PBS White House correspondent, in March 2020, during the presidency of Donald Trump. The hashtag #WeLoveYamiche trended on social media after Trump told Alcindor not to be ‘threatening’ during a news conference about the coronovirus. Trump interrupted Alcindor and said she needed to be more “positive” before adding: ‘It’s always trying to get you… and you know what, that’s why nobody trusts the media anymore’.” (Credit: Pool photo)

Trump 2.0 Would Be ‘Disaster for the News Media’

“ ‘I say up front, openly and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States, they and others of the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events,‘ Donald Trump posted on Truth Social last September in an attack on NBC News,” Leonard Downie Jr., former executive editor of The Washington Post, wrote in a Post opinion piece Tuesday. “ ‘The Fake News Media should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country.’

“What could Trump do to the news media and their ability to inform the American people? Judging by what he did in his first term, plenty.

“As president, he habitually attacked the news media and individual journalists as ‘fake news’ and ‘the enemy of the people,’ undermining public trust in the fact-finding press.

“He called for boycotts of news organizations and changes to libel laws to restrict critical reporting on public figures, including himself. His political campaign filed libel suits, ultimately unsuccessful, against The Washington Post, the New York Times and CNN over opinion columns critical of him.

New Biden-Harris campaign ad targets Black voters in disparaging Trump. (Credit: YouTube)

“He tried to deny White House press credentials for reporters and news media whose stories he disliked. He closed White House visitor logs to the press and the public. For months at a time, the White House and State Department refused to hold daily on-the-record press briefings. Federal departments scrubbed from their websites information and resources about climate change, the Affordable Care Act and women’s health, among other subjects.

“Trump’s Justice Department increased leak investigations and prosecutions of journalists’ sources of classified information, including secret seizures of phone records of reporters at The Post, the Times and CNN. ‘We only learned how invasive these probes were many months into the Biden presidency,’ said Bruce D. Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

“U.S. Customs and Border Protection aggressively screened and questioned reporters at some border crossings and recorded their movements in a secret database. Trump threatened to have the Federal Communications Commission investigate NBC, even though the FCC licenses only individual stations, not networks.

“News media fact-checkers documented tens of thousands of false and misleading public statements and claims that Trump made in office. ‘No other president has said as many false things as Trump,’ creating ‘a readiness of people to disbelieve factual reporting,’ Paul Steiger, ProPublica’s founding editor in chief, said in 2020.

“The Biden administration’s treatment of the media has been an almost complete reversal of this hostility. . . .”

Downie’s comments come amid a continuing debate about how the news media should cover the 2024 presidential contest, when Trump has made the election an existential issue for the news media themselves.

Jim Rutenberg and Michael M. Grynbaum wrote May 15 in The New York Times that the reaction of NBC’s traditional political journalists to their sister cable network, MSNBC, which calls out such Trump positions, “have cycled between rancor and resignation that the cable network’s partisanship — a regular target of Mr. Trump — will color perceptions of their straight news reporting.

“Local NBC stations between the coasts have demanded, again and again, that executives in New York do more to preserve NBC’s nonpartisan brand, lest MSNBC’s blue-state bent alienate their red-state viewers.”

In 2022, the Times wrote that its then-new executive editor, Joe Kahn, “has been clear about his view of the paper’s responsibility to the public: that Times journalists cannot be ‘impartial’ about whether the United States slides into autocracy. As he told David Folkenflik of NPR in a recent interview, ‘You can’t be committed to independent journalism and be agnostic about the state of democracy. ‘ ”

But in the New Republic this month, under the headline, “Top New York Times Editor Offers Stunning Defense of Coverage of Trump,” Greg Sargent wrote, “True, some loud social media voices just want skewed coverage. But the more sophisticated liberal critique, as I understand it, is something else entirely. It’s that the unique danger Trump poses to democracy requires a serious reevaluation of the conventions of political reporting at big news organizations — the daily editorial choices that subtly shape how readers receive information and ideas — and the ways they unmistakably obscure the true nature of that threat.

In January 2017, CNN reporter Jim Acosta yelled at Donald Trump at a news conference, “Mr. President-elect, since you have been attacking our news organization, can you give us a chance?” “No! Not you. No! Your organization is terrible,” Trump shot back. (Credit: CNN video)

“In Kahn’s formulation, the media is under no obligation to defend democracy frontally and explicitly. Brian Beutler exposes the deep problems with this notion, pointing out that democracy is foundational to a free press and that journalists should actively inform voters that democracy itself is on the ballot, because if they unwittingly choose to break it, that won’t be easily undone.

“I’d like to try another approach. Kahn believes the press’s proper role in a liberal democracy is to enlighten voting citizens on the true electoral choices they face. He just thinks the Times is doing a fine job at it already, and he reacts defensively to suggestions otherwise. . . . The threshold question should be framed . . . as follows: Does Kahn believe that at the most basic level, the choice voters face in this election is that Trump poses a fundamental threat to the system itself, and Biden just does not?”

An appeal from the union at the Center for Public Integrity.

NAHJ’s Cabrera: I’m Still Working at Nonprofit

Yvette Cabrera messaged Sunday night that “I’m still working for CPI,” the Center for Public Integrity, and called “erroneous” a headline here noting that colleagues said Cabrera had been laid off.

Cabrera is a reporter specializing in environmental justice and is the current president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

Asked to elaborate, Andrew Sherry, who is senior director of communications for NAHJ, messaged, “I’m sorry you did not receive accurate information.

 
“Yvette is still on the staff at CPI, despite these painful layoffs,”  a comment that followed a suggestion that remaining on the staff and being laid off, perhaps not to take effect immediately, were not necessarily mutually exclusive. 
 
Sherry continued, “Her employment is a personnel matter between her and CPI management.
 
“Please correct the story.”
 

According to the NAHJ bylaws, “Regular Members consist of persons whose principal means of support is earned in the gathering, editing, or presentation of news. . . [PDF]

“The board of directors may terminate the member if ‘the member ceases to meet the eligibility requirements for the membership class of which the person is a member.’ “

In February, Benjamin Mullin of The New York Times described the Center as “one of the oldest and most storied nonprofit newsrooms in the United States,” and said it was “considering merging with a competitor or shutting down amid turmoil in its top ranks and financial difficulties that have significantly sapped its reserves, according to two people with knowledge of the organization’s inner workings.

“The nonprofit fell about $2.5 million short of its budget goal of around $6 million for 2023, according to the two people, who would speak only anonymously to protect their relationships within the organization.

“This month, Paul Cheung, the organization’s chief executive, resigned after an employee accused him of unethical behavior. The board also eliminated the position of its editor in chief, Matt DeRienzo, who has left the nonprofit.” Cheung is a past president of the Asian American Journalists Association.

The organization says on its webpage, “Public Integrity went from 85% white and majority men in 2016 to now majority journalists of color and women. Across the organization, at least 10% of our team identify as LGBTQI+, and at least 10% identify as having some kind of disability.”

Cabrera (pictured) did not respond Saturday to a request for comment, but posted on X, formerly Twitter, on May 17, the day of the layoffs.

“Friends, if you can, please contribute to the GoFundMe (in thread below) that . . . our @Publici_Union launched to help laid off CPI colleagues facing financial hardships. Through our investigations, CPI helped so many. We’re so thankful to all who have stepped up to help us now.”

The Center’s union posted the same day, “In March, Center management informed us that they intended to lay off nearly all of CPI’s staff — and nearly all of our unit. The first half of those layoffs took effect on May 1. The second half takes effect today. A GoFundMe page for those laid-off has raised more than $11,000.”

Editor Mc Nelly Torres, longtime South Florida-based investigative reporter and former NAHJ board member, and senior reporter April Simpson, who covers racial equity and once was a U.S. Fulbright fellow in Botswana, are among the layoffs.

In a letter to the Center’s “readers and supporters” Thursday, co-board chairs Jim Kiernan and Wesley Lowery (pictured) said, in part:

“We had to take the heartbreaking step to layoff the majority of our staff and significantly downsize our operations. Doing so allowed us to avoid bankruptcy and to ensure every affected staff member received full severance and other benefits. Even as they faced personal uncertainty, our staff members stepped up to ensure that CPI’s journalism in progress was completed — publishing an impressive run of work in recent weeks — and that all of our obligations to funders were met.

“Meanwhile, several of our longtime foundation supporters helped to ensure we had the financial resources needed to make our departing staff members whole. Friendship is not about who flocks to celebrate your victories, but who stands with you during times of difficulty. Recent months have shown that CPI still has good friends.

“So what comes next? In short, we’re still working hard to figure that out. CPI’s board remains committed to finding a path forward and will spend the coming months exploring all available options — both for CPI’s continuation as a standalone organization or the potential of strategic partnership with another organization. In the meantime, the work continues. CPI has been able to locate funding to support several of our journalists and their work in the short term, has a major journalistic project set to publish next month, and is beginning conversations about what comes next for The Accountability Project, one of our key data initiatives. . . .”

Lester Holt is considered a straight-shooter by many. Forty percent of those surveyed “‘stopped watching a news program” because they “disagreed with a political view presented.’” Of the 18-34 age group, that figure is higher, at 46 percent in the poll. (Credit: NBC News)

Lester Holt Tops Poll of Most Trusted TV Anchors

In a poll measuring trust in the news media and those who deliver television news, “Among those several dozen high-profile names, Lester Holt, who has held the NBC Nightly News chair for nine years, has the highest share of respondents, 65 percent, saying they placed ‘a lot’ or ‘some’ trust in the anchor,” Erik Hayden reported Thursday for the Hollywood Reporter.

The THR/Morning Consult survey, “conducted May 4-5 among a sample of 2,239 U.S. adults, asked opinions about 40-plus major TV news stars, as well as surveyed trends about America’s fractured media diet during a presidential campaign year,” Hayden wrote.

“Holt’s reputation may precede him, as the last time THR partnered with decision intelligence firm Morning Consult on this media trust survey, in 2018 during the height of the Donald Trump presidency, the Nightly News anchor also claimed the most trusted distinction. And this time he improved his stature by a couple of percentage points.

“Elsewhere on the broadcast evening desk, ABC’s World News Tonight anchor David Muir (63 percent) is the runner-up while CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell sits at 53 percent on that ‘a lot’ or ‘some’ trust measure. . . .”

The promotion for the May 17 broadcast reads, “Black men in Boston and beyond face structural harms that affect every aspect of daily life from their safety to their mental health, but a look at the state of Black men today reveals a group that is paving the way for one another through leadership and mutual support.” (Credit: YouTube)

Boston’s Long-Running ‘Basic Black’ Suspended

“One segment aired the challenges of businesses owned by people of color during the pandemic,” Aidan Ryan reported Friday for the Boston Globe. “Another episode was devoted to breast cancer being harder to treat in Black women. One show was about ‘quiet quitting,’ and whether people of color can afford to do the bare minimum on the job.

“Those and other compelling discussions of issues that showcased the concerns and intellectual debates in Boston’s communities of color were the staples of ‘Basic Black’ on public television station GBH, which described itself as ‘Putting the soul in public media since 1968.’

“But after GBH suspended the TV program on Wednesday as part of cost-cutting measures, longtime viewers and contributors worry that its audience won’t find that type of programming anywhere else.

“ ‘We relied on “Basic Black” for years to have our perspective,’ said Michael Curry, chief executive of the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers who served as president of the Boston branch of the NAACP. Curry, a frequent guest on ‘Basic Black,’ added it gave experts and influencers who weren’t often seen in mainstream media ‘an opportunity to share their perspectives.’

“The show will no longer air on TV, GBH announced, but station executives said it would be reinvented as digital-first programming. GBH also suspended production of two other TV programs, citing low viewership that didn’t cover its costs, and laid off 31 employees, including two producers who worked on ‘Basic Black.’ ” [One was executive producer Delores Edwards; Also laid off was GBH’s Tessil Collins, managing producer and curator of online jazz station, Jazz 24/7.]

“Originally called ‘Say Brother,’ the show was launched in the crucible of 1968 — the year of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and passage of the monumental Civil Rights Act of 1968. ‘Basic Black’ set out to diversify public programming and highlight the perspectives of people of color in Boston and beyond. Until its cancellation, ‘Basic Black’ was the longest-running program on any public television station focused on people of color. . . .”

“In an interview Thursday, GBH News executive editor Lee Hill emphasized ‘Basic Black’ would return in a digital form, most likely on YouTube. He didn’t rule out a return to broadcast TV. . . .”

Also:

R. Eric Thomas discusses his essay collection, “Congratulations, The Best is Over!” with Alexander Rigby, social media chair for Penguin Random House LGBTQ+. (Credit: YouTube)

Gay Black Man Succeeds ‘Ask Amy’ as Advice Columnist

The newspaper advice columnist, to whom millions turned before sharing personal details became commonplace with the rise of the internet, has historically been the province of white, heterosexual women. “Dear Abby” was once syndicated in 1,400 newspapers and had 110 million readers.

Times change, and the Chicago Tribune announced Friday that R. Eric Thomas, a gay Black male playwright, screenwriter, best-selling author and a former columnist for Elle.com and Slate.com, will succeed longtime syndicated Tribune advice columnist Amy Dickinson. She has written “Ask Amy” for 21 years. Thomas’ new column is to be called “Asking Eric.”

“I’m now a writer in his 40s living on the East Coast and I’m married to a Presbyterian pastor and therapist,” Thomas told Tribune readers. “I’ve written a dozen plays, many hours of television, and four books, including a YA [young adult] novel and two best-selling comedic memoirs, ‘Congratulations, the Best Is Over!’ and ‘Here For It.’

“I’ve lived a life. I’m still living it.

“In all my work, empathy is the foundational element. Why? Because the stories of our lives are empathy engines. When I talk about what happened to me in my life — what I want, what I’ve lost — pathways open to the listener or reader, pathways that invite them to think about their own lives differently.

“Even though I’m separated from the advice-seekers, I see this space as a conversation. When you write in and share your story, you’re not asking for a decree from on high, you’re asking to be heard, understood, to feel that you’re not alone. And when you read the stories of others, you’re asking to be included in something mysterious, confounding, funny and very human.

“Like a group of people at a dinner party, we’re all leaning in, forming our own opinions and figuring out what to do.

“Here’s what’s happening on my side of the dinner party table: I consider marriage and family units as an ever-developing and changing ecosystem. I think a lot about work culture and the large and petty squabbles that bubble up. I have strong feelings about people caring for their pets. I love a wedding or party where food is abundant. I’ll absolutely give you my honest take on the kitchen backsplash you picked out, and I’m of the opinion that wallpaper is back in vogue. I wish everyone felt empowered to give voice to the big emotion, and to listen with intention and, when possible, love. . . .”

Los Angeles Times reporting of the 2023 mass shooting in Monterey Park, Calif., earned a Journalism Excellence Award from the Asian American Journalists Association. (Credit: Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

L.A. Times Among Winners of AAJA Awards

“A group of current and former Los Angeles Times reporters have won a Journalism Excellence Award from the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) for their coverage of the January 2023 mass shooting in Monterey Park and its aftermath,” the Times reported Thursday. “The AAJA’s awards honor the best in journalism among its members.

“Times Community Engagement Editor Anh Do, City Editor Cindy Chang and former Times staffers Jeong Park and Debbie Truong received the Excellence in Written Reporting, News award for their reporting on Monterey Park. Times staff writers Summer Lin, Hailey Branson-Potts and Brittny Mejia also contributed reporting to the winning entries.

“The Times’ coverage brought attention to some often overlooked issues, such as isolation and loneliness among Asian American elders and the rise in gun ownership among Asian Americans, and details, such as Chinese-speaking police officers who worked long hours to translate the survivors’ and witnesses’ testimonies. . . .”

Short Takes

  • News media figures were among the 500 or so attendees at the White House state dinner for President William Samoei Ruto of Kenya, the first for an African head of state since 2008. The attendees included White House correspondents April Ryan of the Grio and Darlene Superville of the Associated Press; Frances Draper of the Afro; Lester Holt of NBC News, Symone Sanders-Townsend and Al Sharpton of MSNBC, Michelle Miller of CBS (and wife of Marc Morial of the National Urban League); Caroline A. Wanga of Essence and Donna Byrd, founding publisher of The Root. (Credit: Forbes/YouTube)
  • “If TNT’s ‘Inside the NBA’ is winding down over the next year, it is going out a winner,” Tom Jones wrote Thursday for the Poynter Institute. “The show — which features the unparalleled cast of host Ernie Johnson and analysts Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny Smith and is generally regarded as one of the best sports studio shows of all time — won another three more Sports Emmys this week. It won for Outstanding Studio Show, Limited Run. Johnson won for Outstanding Studio Host, and Barkley won for Outstanding Studio Analyst. . . .” List of winners
  • “Wendi C. Thomas (pictured), founder of MLK50, to return to investigative work,” the Memphis-based “Justice Through Journalism” group headlined May 14. “MLK50 is switching to a shared leadership model. Adrienne Johnson Martin, MLK50’s executive editor since 2021, has been promoted to co-executive director over editorial. MLK50 is now seeking a co-executive director to lead the business operation. . . it allows Thomas to step back from being the sole leader of the organization and to concentrate once again on her own investigative reporting projects. . . .”
  • Washington Post columnist Theresa Vargas (pictured), “a dynamic and insightful journalist with a long track record of delivering distinctive and memorable coverage, will take on the role of local enterprise editor,” the Post announced Monday. The Post, whose publisher said this week it had lost $77 million over the past year, would not say whether Vargas’ columnist slot would be filled. After buyouts in December that included columnists Courtland Milloy and John Kelly, Post executive editor Sally Buzbee said, “Their reporting helped create an ongoing dialogue with our readers that we are committed to maintaining, whether through columns or other formats that deepen our engagement with the Washington region.”
  • A story by Ko Bragg in The Atlantic’s June issue is summarized thus by the Marshall Project: “The lynching of Bob Broome. He was hanged from a tree in Edwards, Mississippi, in 1888, after a violent encounter between a group of White and Black people. Newspaper reports written by White reporters quoting White witnesses told one story. Reports from Black journalists told another. Either way, the episode prompted Broome’s family to make their way north, ultimately to New Jersey, as part of the Great Migration of Black families who left what little they had in the Deep South to try to find a better, safer life. Nearly 150 years later, some Black families are returning to the communities that preyed on their ancestors. “
  • “Dee Thompson (pictured) personally interviewed Roberto Clemente. Need we say more?” Rob Taylor Jr. asked May 16 in the New Pittsburgh Courier. “But there’s plenty more. The number of sports figures Thompson interviewed probably topped 1,000. The number of reports he’s giv­en on television definitely are in the thousands. The impact he made on the community, up-and-com­ing journalists and fellow co-workers is too hard to define with a number. DeHaven ‘Dee’ Thomp­son, who truly made his mark on the Pittsburgh area media scene for nearly 60 years and was very well respected and admired in Pittsburgh’s African American community, died on Thursday, May 9. He was 84.”
  • “It’s a wrap. Two years of leading Richmond’s Black-owned weekly newspaper,” Bonnie Newman Davis (pictured) wrote April 27 on LinkedIn, referring to the Richmond (Va.) Free Press. “Looking forward to sitting on my couch eating BonBons!” Davis had been a daily news reporter for nearly 20 years at the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Richmond News Leader, and taught at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, North Carolina A&T State University, Virginia Commonwealth University, Hampton University and Washington and Lee University.
  • The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press announced the recipients of this year’s Freedom of the Press Awards, which recognize the accomplishments of leaders in the news media and legal fields whose work embodies the values of the First Amendment: Stephen Paul Engelberg, editor-in-chief, ProPublica; Maria Hinojosa, founder and president, Futuro Media; Josie Huang (pictured), reporter, LAist; Mazin Sidahmed, co-founder, Documented; and Sisi Wei, editor-in-chief, The Markup.
  • “CNN and OWN will air a documentary feature on the life and career of R&B superstar Luther Vandross in 2025, the networks said Wednesday at the Warner Bros. Discovery upfront in New York,” R. Thomas Umstead reported May 16 for Multichannel News. “The Dawn Porter-produced film, which premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, explores Vandross’s career as he charted his own course in becoming one of the most decorated and influential artists of all time, according to the networks. The project will feature archival footage of Vandross, who died in 2005, along with interviews with Mariah Carey, Dionne Warwick, Valerie Simpson and Roberta Flack. . . .” Vandross Funeral Full of ‘Jet’ Moments (2005)

  • In time for the trial of Rep. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., on bribery charges, Cuban journalist Liz Oliva Fernández and her U.S.-based group Belly of the Beast Cuba are circulating and have posted her investigative video on Menendez’s influence on U.S. Cuba policy, and how he is viewed in his district. It was previewed last fall at Morgan State University as a work in progress. (Credit: YouTube)
  • . . . Separately, CubaNet reported, “Amnesty International denounced this Wednesday, May 22, the situation in Cuba and demanded that the ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel respect human rights. ‘Enough of the abuses!’ declared Amnesty International in a publication on X, describing as outrageous the denial of rights to people deprived of liberty on the Island. [The] complaint, which is part of its #CubaSinRepresion campaign, highlighted that the detention conditions in Cuba violate the basic rights of prisoners. ‘The denial of access to medical care, poor nutrition and deplorable hygiene conditions violate the basic rights of people deprived of liberty,’ the NGO stated.”
  • On World Press Freedom Day, May 3, the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression (SRFOE) of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said Haiti “faces the greatest challenges to press freedom in the hemisphere. This Office urges the Presidential Transitional Council, as well as the other OAS Member States, within the mandate of the UN Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti, to adopt assistance mechanisms and necessary measures that take into account the safety and protection of journalists in Haiti so they can carry out their work safely and freely.”
  • “As India carries out the world’s largest-ever election this year, an alarming trend must not go overlooked: the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is weaponizing legislation to go after journalists critical of their policies,” Hanan Zaffar and Jyoti Thakur reported May 14 for the International Journalists’ Network. “Since 2014, the government has charged at least 15 journalists under the stringent anti-terrorism law, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). During this timeframe, 36 journalists have been imprisoned in the country. The jailings of journalists under the UAPA are indicative of the greater crackdown on press freedom in India under the BJP. . . .”

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