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Writer Sorry in Dreadlocked Wrestler Case

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‘Team Player’ Forced to Cut Hair or Not Compete

More Than Two Dozen Advertisers Boycott Carlson

Peter Alan Harper, A.P. Reporter, Poet Dies at 68

Predators Lurk in Immigrant Children’s Shelters

More Details on Russian Targeting of U.S. Blacks

Muscogee Council Votes to Reinstate Free Press

A ‘Song Stylist’ Makes a Front Page

Two Votes for ‘Racist’ Over ‘Racially Charged’

Number of Journalists Killed in Reprisal Up Sharply

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“A referee wouldn’t allow Andrew Johnson of Buena @brhschiefs to wrestle with a cover over his dreadlocks. It was either an impromptu haircut, or a forfeit. Johnson chose the haircut, then won by sudden victory in OT to help spark Buena to a win,” Mike Frankel of SNJ Today tweeted Thursday. The video went viral. (Credit: SNJ)

‘Team Player’ Forced to Cut Hair or Not Compete

New Jersey authorities are investigating the case of a black high school wrestler who was forced to cut off his dreadlocks if he wanted to compete, but one thing has already been settled: the writer who initially said the wrestler’s compliance makes him the “epitome of a team player” has apologized.

Outrage over the incident — and the writer’s description — had gone viral.

Mike Frankel, sports director of SNJ Today, the local outlet that covered the event, initially tweeted Thursday, “Epitome of a team player. A referee wouldn’t allow Andrew Johnson of Buena @brhschiefs to wrestle with a cover over his dreadlocks. It was either an impromptu haircut, or a forfeit. Johnson chose the haircut, then won by sudden victory in OT to help spark Buena to a win.”

Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., was among those who responded. “Andrew Johnson’s teammates and coaches protesting on his behalf would have been a true reflection of ‘team’ and dignity, @MikeFrankelSNJ,” she tweeted Friday. Please discontinue framing this as a ‘good’ story. It’s actually a reflection of bias and acquiescence to bias.”

Frankel returned to Twitter to declare that he was not a racist and apologized for his description of the incident.

“Obviously it was naive of me to run with the ‘consummate team player’ angle,” Frankel wrote. “In my mind, it was just the ultimate selfless move from a high school athlete. I know now I missed the bigger picture, and for that I apologize.

“Things can be ‘framed’ in a number of ways. According to many of you, I missed the correct ‘framing’ here. I understand many of you watch this video and feel strong emotions. I do too. I’d just like to remind you that I didn’t cause the action, I documented the action. And my method of delivery fell short in many ways.”

To many, the ultimatum by referee Alan Maloney was racist, pure and simple, buttressed by a 2016 report that Maloney had called a black fellow official, Preston Hamilton, the ‘n-word,’ as Ricardo A. Hazell recalled Friday on the Shadow League website.

“Black hair is at the center of yet another controversy because white people apparently cannot deal with non-mainstream cultural expression,” a secondary headline over Hazell’s report read.

“State Assemblyman John Armato (D., Atlantic), whose district includes Buena, said Maloney should be immediately banned from officiating scholastic wrestling matches,” Melanie Burney and Phil Anastasia reported Friday for the Philadelphia Inquirer. They published a statement from school superintendent David C. Cappuccio Jr. stating that “although the investigation in the matter is ongoing, the assigned referee will no longer be permitted to officiate any contests that include any Buena Regional School District student-athletes.”

“This was without a doubt a clear act of racial discrimination,” Armato said in a statement.

However, Burney and Anastasia went on to report that there was more behind the referee’s action.

“During competition, ‘all wrestlers shall be clean shaven, with sideburns trimmed no lower than earlobe level and hair trimmed and well groomed,’ according to rules from the National Federation of State High School Associations, based in Indianapolis,” they wrote.

“ ‘If an individual has hair longer than allowed by rule, it may be braided or rolled if it is contained in a cover so that the hair rule is satisfied. The legal hair cover shall be attached to the ear guards,’ the guidelines state.

“The covering must be made of a solid material, be nonabrasive, and attach to the wrestling ear guards. The wrestler is required to bring the covering for inspection by the referee at weigh-in.

“Camden High School wrestling coach Sandy Thame said none of his current wrestlers [has] long dreadlocks. But he has had some members with dreadlocks in previous seasons. He has three head coverings in stock to meet the new regulations, just in case.

“ ‘That’s a hard one,’ said Thame, a retired science teacher who has been Camden’s coach since 1976. ‘I think I might have taken the forfeit. Imagine that kid going home and telling his mom he cut his hair.’

“During a tournament last weekend at Southern High School in Manahawkin, Ocean County, Buena wrestling coaches and Johnson complained about the new hair covering, and Johnson was allowed to compete with a version that did not comply with the guidelines,” Howie O’Neill, a member of the Southern Chapter of the New Jersey Wrestling Officials Association, said.

“ That’s the problem. That was wrong. And because somebody else didn’t do their job, our guy looks like the bad guy,’ said O’Neill, an official for more than 40 years. ‘Alan did everything right. He followed the rules. I would have done exactly the same thing.’ . . .”


Vox.com prepared this video in 2017.

More Than Two Dozen Advertisers Boycott Carlson

“Fox News host Tucker Carlson will go on a previously planned Christmas vacation next week while his bosses contend with an exodus of advertisers that threatens to financially damage his top-rated program,” Stephen Battaglio reported Friday for the Los Angeles Times.

“More than two dozen advertisers have publicly announced that they won’t run commercials on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ following pressure from Media Matters for America, Sleeping Giants and other liberal activist groups upset over the host’s recent on-air comments that described mass immigration as making the country ‘poorer and dirtier and more divided.’

“Negative reactions to Carlson comments — largely delivered through organized tweets — have had a devastating effect on the program’s lineup of advertisers. Lexus, Pfizer, Takeda, Voya, IHOP, Jaguar, Pacific Life, Ancestry and SodaStream are among the brands that have publicly said they have removed their commercials.

“Since the advertiser flight, Fox News has cut the number of commercials carried in the 8 p.m. Eastern hour when Carlson airs. Only a handful of major brand-name companies have been running ads in the program, with other spots taken by direct marketing advertisers known to look for opportunistic prices that are lower than the typical rate. Five companies — Bayer, John Deere, AstraZeneca, My Pillow and Sanofi — have said they will remain in the program.

“Fox News has said that the advertiser fallout will have no negative financial effect on the cable network as the commercials bought for Carlson’s time period have been moved to other programs. That may be the case for a while. But running fewer or cheaper spots on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ over a long period will eventually cut into the program’s profitability. . . .”

Peter Alan Harper, seated, with Yafah Rai at the 2015 Summer Preview of Exhibitions and Projects at the Studio Museum in Harlem (Credit: Sean Zanni/ © Patrick McMullan)

Peter Alan Harper, A.P. Reporter, Poet Dies at 68

Peter Alan Harper, a retired Associated Press national business writer and co-founder and co-director of high school journalism workshops in New York, Kansas City and Memphis, died Dec. 13 at New York’s Albert Einstein Hospital. He had a stroke and was hospitalized for renal failure. He turned 68 on Dec. 2, his younger sister, Radiah Amy Harper, told Journal-isms.

He described himself on LinkedIn as “a performing poet who loves the arts, current events, discussions, exploring new worlds, Africa, and museum and gallery hopping.”

“Harper,” as he liked to be known, was part of the civil rights generation, an avid fan of this column and a member of the Journal-isms Strategy Committee.

“This is not niche work, this is not diversity work, this is getting down and pulling the oars of journalism itself. This ship will crash if we are not involved . . .,” he said in a January 2017 testimonial.

A native of New York, Harper taught a class in black history at the public library when he was a high school junior in Westbury, Long Island. That same year he was an exchange student in Chile.

He said in his LinkedIn profile, “After dropping out of college five times, used ESC [Empire State College, from which he graduated in 2010] to wrap up previous learning and explore new worlds: museums and art, economics, flash writing, poetry, the blues, Africa. Just loved pulling together all my interests. Previously attended Wesleyan, Morehouse, Adelphi and ESC.”

Harper was a reporter at the Commercial Appeal in Memphis from 1980 to 1984, then worked for the Associated Press in Kansas City and New York, covering New York’s financial crisis and emerging markets, international business, bankruptcy, foreign exchange, race and economics and the New York economy while a transportation and labor reporter and a business writer. He held a Knight-Bagehot fellowship in economics and business journalism at Columbia University from 1994 to 1995.

After leaving the AP in 2000, Harper dealt with health challenges and pursued his artistic interests.

A 2004 article in the New York Times began, “No sooner was Peter Alan Harper, 53, given the diagnosis of attention deficit disorder last year than some of his family members began rolling their eyes.

“To him, the diagnosis explained the sense of disorganization that caused him to lose track of projects and kept him from completing even minor personal chores like reading his mail. But to others, said Mr. Harper, a retired journalist in Manhattan, it seems like one more excuse for his inability to ‘take care of business.’

“He didn’t care. ‘The thing about A.D.D. is how much it affects your self-esteem,’ Mr. Harper said. ‘I had always thought of myself as someone who didn’t finish things. Knowing why is such a relief.’ . . .”

Harper freelanced, went back to school and in 2014 earned a master’s degree in fine arts from City College of New York.

In addition to his sister, survivors include his mother, Lovette W. Harper of Sarasota, Fla. (herself an artist), sons Onaje Harper (Katrina) and Dyami Jennings; and a grandchild, Kiara Harper.

A homegoing service and celebration of life are planned in the coming months at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York. Condolences may be sent to Mrs. Lovette W. Harper, 3761 Glen Oaks Manor Drive, Sarasota, FL 34232.

Predators Lurk in Immigrant Children’s Shelters

“Over the past six months, ProPublica has gathered hundreds of police reports detailing allegations of sexual assaults in immigrant children’s shelters, which have received $4.5 billion for housing and other services since the surge of unaccompanied minors from Central America in 2014,” Michael Grabell, Topher Sanders, Silvina Sterin Pensel reported Friday for ProPublica.

“The reports, obtained through public records requests, revealed a largely hidden side of the shelters — one in which both staff and other residents sometimes acted as predators.

“Several of the incidents have led to arrests of shelter employees or teenage residents. And in one particularly heinous case, a youth care worker was convicted in September of molesting seven boys over nearly a year at an Arizona shelter. The employee had worked for months without a full background check.

“Coverage of such incidents by ProPublica and other media triggered demands for investigations.

“Arizona’s governor ordered a statewide inspection of the shelters, leading to the shutdown of two centers run by Southwest Key after the nonprofit failed to provide proof that its employees had completed background checks.

“And late last month, federal investigators warned that the Trump administration had waived FBI fingerprint background checks of staffers and had allowed ‘dangerously’ few mental health counselors at a tent camp housing 2,800 migrant children in Tornillo, Texas.

“But ProPublica’s review of the hundreds of police reports showed something else about the assaults. Something that went beyond background checks. Kids at shelters across the country were, indeed, reporting sexual attacks in the shelters, often by other kids. But again and again, the reports show, the police were quickly— and with little investigation — closing the cases, often within days, or even hours.

“And there are likely even more such cases. ProPublica’s cache of records is missing many police reports from shelters in Texas, where the largest number of immigrant children are held, because state laws there ban child abuse reports from being made public, particularly when the assaults are committed by other minors. . . .”

More Details on Russian Targeting of U.S. Blacks

“Blactivist” Twitter site

“The Russian influence campaign on social media in the 2016 election made an extraordinary effort to target African-Americans, used an array of tactics to try to suppress turnout among Democratic voters and unleashed a blizzard of activity on Instagram that rivaled or exceeded its posts on Facebook, according to a report produced for the Senate Intelligence Committee,” Scott Shane and Sheera Frenkel reported Dec. 17 for the New York Times.

“The report adds new details to the portrait that has emerged over the last two years of the energy and imagination of the Russian effort to sway American opinion and divide the country, which the authors said continues to this day. . . .”

The report, produced by New Knowledge, a cybersecurity company based in Austin, Texas, along with researchers at Columbia University and Canfield Research LLC., says that while “other distinct ethnic and religious groups were the focus of one or two Facebook Pages or Instagram accounts, the black community was targeted extensively with dozens.”

Shane and Frenkel added, “In some cases, Facebook ads were targeted at users who had shown interest in particular topics, including black history, the Black Panther Party and Malcolm X. The most popular of the Russian Instagram accounts was @blackstagram, with 303,663 followers.”

A second report prepared for the Senate committee said Russian’s Internet Research Agency “created an expansive cross-platform media mirage targeting the Black community, which shared and cross-promoted authentic Black media to create an immersive influence ecosystem,” Craig Timberg and Tony Romm wrote Dec. 17 for the Washington Post. That report was prepared for the committee by researchers for New Knowledge, Columbia University and Canfield Research.

Muscogee Council Votes to Reinstate Free Press

“The Muscogee (Creek) Nation is another step closer to restoring the editorial independence of its media outlets,” Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton reported Dec. 17 for the Journal Record in Oklahoma City.

“The Muscogee (Creek) National Council voted 9-6 Saturday morning to reinstate the tribe’s Free Press Act as previously written and re-seat the three-member editorial board that served as a firewall between the Mvskoke Media newsroom and government officials.

“ ‘We need to get back on track,’ Okfuskee District Rep. Travis Scott said. ‘Communications was one of the compliance issues the executive branch had, but I’d like to see us move forward and allow the Mvskoke Media staffers to do their jobs.

“Citing negative coverage, the council voted 7-6 five weeks earlier to repeal the tribe’s Free Press Act and place . . . its newspaper, radio show, weekly television show and graphic design shop under the auspices of the executive branch’s Department of Commerce. . . .”

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A ‘Song Stylist’ Makes a Front Page

In the Washington Post, this story ran inside: “Nancy Wilson, an award-winning singer whose beguiling expressiveness in jazz, R&B, gospel, soul and pop made her a crossover recording star for five decades and who also had a prolific career as an actress, activist and commercial spokeswoman, died Dec. 13 at her home in Pioneertown, Calif. She was 81.”

On the Dec. 14 front page, however, appeared the accompaniment to Adam Bernstein’s story: A photo of Wilson in the center of the front page, one of the very few newspapers to give her front-page treatment.

“Nancy Wilson was accomplished across jazz and other genres for so many years,’ Post Deputy Managing Editor Barbara Vobejda, whose idea it was for the display, told Journal-isms through a spokeswoman. “Sometimes the news pushes obituaries off the front, but when it’s possible to note important deaths, we try to do that.”

Wilson, a native of Chillicothe, Ohio, also graced the front page of the Chillicothe Gazette and the Columbus Dispatch, both of which mentioned her Chillicothe roots in their headlines.

Her photo was also in the box at the bottom of the New York Times front page, keying to the obituary inside.

Did Dean Baquet, 62, the Times’ first African American editor, grow up listening to Nancy Wilson?

“I certainly did,” he told Journal-isms by email. “But I didn’t even have to weigh in. There was no question she deserved prominence.”

Times obit writer Jim Farber agreed. “Nancy Wilson, whose skilled and flexible approach to singing provided a key bridge between the sophisticated jazz-pop vocalists of the 1950s and the powerhouse pop-soul singers of the 1960s and ’70s, died on Thursday at her home in Pioneertown, Calif., he wrote.

“In a long and celebrated career, Ms. Wilson performed American standards, jazz ballads, Broadway show tunes, R&B torch songs and middle-of-the-road pop pieces, all delivered with a heightened sense of a song’s narrative.

“ ‘I have a gift for telling stories, making them seem larger than life,’ she told The Los Angeles Times in 1993. ‘I love the vignette, the plays within the song.’ . . .”

Two Votes for ‘Racist’ Over ‘Racially Charged’

Errin Haines Whack

“While I’m not much for New Year’s resolutions, here’s one I’m definitely encouraging for 2019: It’s time for all of us in journalism to pledge to not just report on racism, but to call it out,” Errin Haines Whack, the Associated Press’ national writer on race and ethnicity, wrote for Nieman Lab’s “Predictions for Journalism 2019.”

“Many of us know racism when we see it, and we’ve seen plenty of it in recent years, from the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville to white people repeatedly calling the police on black people for doing everyday activities. But we haven’t always reported it that way, and we should be asking ourselves and our colleagues why race continues to be treated like a four-letter word.

“We don’t say ‘gender-tinged’ when we mean sexist. If we’re honest, talking about race makes white Americans — including journalists — uncomfortable. We see constant proof of this in the journo-gymnastics of our headlines and ledes, with toothless phrases like ‘racial rhetoric,’ ‘racially charged’ or ‘racially tinged.’ They mean little, and do even less to convey what it is that we’re actually trying to report.

“But more than that: Such phrases have risen to terms of art for our profession that often feel like a wink and a nod to viewers, readers and listeners that assumes a shared set of values, putting the onus on them to figure out what we mean instead of being explicit. It’s a ‘both sides’ approach that leaves room for doubt and dismissal. . . .”

The Angry Grammarian

Whack was not the only one to weigh in.

“It’s the adverbs that are the most insidiously racist. As usual,” Jeffrey Barg wrote Dec. 14 in the Philadelphia Inquirer’s “Angry Grammarian” column.

“The past month has been especially dark for the weaker modifier. While adjectives do the dirty work of telling it like it is, adverbs give cover to those who would soften language to weave a gentler story.

“When George H.W. Bush’s funereal hagiographies recounted the 41st president’s attack ads featuring Willie Horton, the ads were always ‘racially charged’ or ‘racially inflected.’

“Days earlier, Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith won a ‘racially charged’ runoff against Democrat Mike Espy, which followed the ‘racially charged’ gubernatorial races in Florida and Georgia, with their ‘racially coded’ messages. But rarely were those elections, comments, or individuals just ‘racist.’ . . . ”

Number of Journalists Killed in Reprisal Up Sharply

“At least 53 journalists were killed on the job this year, 34 of whom were targeted for murder in reprisal for their work, the Committee to Protect Journalists found in its annual analysis. The numbers, which represent those killed between January 1 and December 14, make 2018 the deadliest year for journalists in the past three years, according to CPJ data,” the press freedom group said Wednesday.

“Afghanistan, where extremists have stepped up deliberate attacks on journalists, was the deadliest country, followed by Syria and India. . . .”

“The recent uptick in killings comes as the jailing of journalists hits a sustained high — adding up to [an] ongoing global crisis of press freedom. Amid the physical dangers to journalists, many world leaders are doubling down on anti-press rhetoric. . . .”

Short Takes

Vernon Odom of WPVI-TV retired Dec. 15 after more than four decades covering the news in Philadelphia (Credit: Tim Tai/Philadelphia Inquirer)
Luke Dunn talks to a homeless man and takes down his contact information to make sure he gets entered into the homeless database, and promises to return for a referral for an I.D. (Credit: Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)

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