L.A. Times to Hire 5 With Ford Foundation Grant

"The Los Angeles Times will use a $1-million grant from the Ford Foundation to expand its coverage of key beats, including immigration and ethnic communities in Southern California, the southwest U.S. border and the emerging economic powerhouse of Brazil," James Rainey reported for the Times.

"Times Editor Davan Maharaj announced the gift Thursday, calling it 'great news' that will bolster coverage of subjects vitally important to readers.

"A Ford Foundation spokesman said that, as media organizations face challenges funding reporting through advertising and traditional revenue streams, 'we and many other funders are experimenting with new approaches to preserve and advance high-quality journalism.'

"The Times plans to use the two-year grant to hire journalists who will focus on the Vietnamese, Korean and other immigrant communities, the California prison system, the border region and Brazil. Maharaj said that although The Times already covered those beats, the reporting was typically done by journalists who also had other responsibilities. The five new reporters will provide more robust coverage of those topics."

". . . Ford Foundation spokesman Joe Voeller said the nation's second-largest foundation would consider extending the grant beyond two years. The Foundation and Times editors said the money comes with no strings attached and the newspaper will have complete editorial control over the new reporters and their coverage."

Donna Summer a Part of Boston, and Vice-Versa

The surprising death of pop star Donna Summer, who rode the 1970s disco wave to prominence, was worldwide news. But the hometown paper can provide a perspective that no one else can, and so it is with the editorial in the Boston Globe for Saturday, "Donna Summer’s powerful voice was the soul of Dorchester." Editorial Page Editor Peter Canellos told Journal-isms it was the result of a "combination of all of the ideas" in Friday's editorial meeting, attended by six staff members.

"Every dance track on the radio today, every wedding that ends with the anthem 'Last Dance,' owes a debt to Donna Summer, the Dorchester-born singer and songwriter who died this week at 63," the editorial began. "Summer's big, smooth, confident voice, honed through years of singing gospel as a child at Grant AME Church in the South End, helped catapult her to stardom. As a singer and a lyricist, Summer channeled emotion and empathy. To generations of young people in dance clubs, her songs represented power, sensuality, and freedom.

"Summer also represented Boston, though that wasn't always known to the larger world. To many people outside New England, the image of the Boston music scene is bound up with white artists such as Aerosmith, the Cars, or New Kids on the Block. Summer was as much a product of her hometown, if not more so: a symbol of the many urban children who grow up singing, and never stop. She visited her old church over the years and sang at the 2004 World Series. As recently as 2010, she raised money for Action for Boston Community Development, the antipoverty agency that provided her with services as a child. In 2008, Summer told the Globe that Boston 'is a part of me.' The opposite is just as true, and always will be."

• Mesfin Fekadu, Associated Press: Donna Summer, Queen of Disco, dies at 63
  
  
• Patrice Gaines, BlackAmericaWeb.com: Honoring Disco's Pioneer
  
  
• Jed Gottlieb, Boston Herald: Boston gal Donna Summer became disco 'Hot Stuff'
  
  
• Annette John-Hall, Philadelphia Inquirer: Donna Summer, a disco diva who defined an era
  
  
• Jeremy Kinser, the Advocate: Donna Summer: The Music Legend Dies At 63
  
  
• Bob Lefsetz, Lefsetz Letter: Donna Summer
  
  
• Frances Martel, mediaite.com: Touré On Donna Summer: Anti-Disco Movement Pushed People To 'Get Back In The Closet'
  
  
• Peter Ogburn, FishbowlDC: POTUS Mourns Donna Summer
  
  
• Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: Last dance for Donna Summer and Chuck Brown
  
  
• Marc Schneider, Billboard: Rock Hall Blames Voters for Donna Summer Snub, Calls Omission an 'Error'
  
  
• Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone: Dim All the Lights for Donna Summer
  
  
• Tavis Smiley, "Tavis Smiley Show," Public Radio International: Donna Summer (audio)
  
  
• TMZ: Donna Summer: 9/11 Gave Me Cancer
  
  
• Jacqueline Trescott, Washington Post: Donna Summer: Intimate and Untouchable, Trying To Cool Her Image (April 3, 1978)

For Journalism Schools, a Call for "Radical Reform"

In 2005, the Carnegie Foundation of New York and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation created a national initiative led by five of America's leading research universities. The goal was to advance the U.S. news business by helping to revitalize schools of journalism.

"This was before Facebook got big," Eric Newton, senior adviser to the president at Knight Foundation, explained in a May 11 speech before a conference of journalism educators. "Before Twitter, Instagram, Groupon or Pinterest. Before the iPhone or the iPad. Before the largest collapse in American newsroom history, with vanishing local journalism jobs totaling more than 15,000," Borderzine reported.

"Radical change requires radical reform," Newton said at the "Journalism Education in the Digital Age" conference at Middle Tennessee State University. "The digital age is turning journalism and communication upside down and inside out. It should be doing the same to journalism and communication education. You tell me: Is it? Has your program turned upside down and inside out?

"In my opinion it should, if you want to ride the four transformational trends demonstrated by Carnegie-Knight schools, and all top tier schools. To be relevant in the future, here’s what universities should do:

"1. Expand their role as community content providers. University hospitals save lives. University law clinics take cases to the Supreme Court. University news labs can reveal truths that help us right wrongs. Based on the teaching hospital model, they can provide the news people need to run their communities and their lives.

"2. Innovate. No longer must you be the caboose on the train of American media. You can be an engine of change. You can create both new uses of software and new software itself. Anyone can create the future of news and information. Anyone includes us.

"3. Teach open, collaborative methods. No longer must students be lone wolf reporters or cogs in a company wheel. In small, integrated teams of designers, entrepreneurs, programmers and journalists, students learned to rapidly prototype news projects and ideas.

"4. Connect to the whole university. This can mean team-teaching a science journalism class with actual scientists. Or creating centers with engineers or entrepreneurs. Or diving so deeply into topic expertise our colleagues at Harvard call it, as they did for Carnegie-Knight, 'knowledge journalism.' "

The initiative is formally called the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education.

New Leader Wants Journalists Back in Press Club

The Capital Press Club, founded in 1944 in the nation's capital when the National Press Club did not accept black journalists as members, lately has been an organization of marketing, public relations and other "communications professionals." But Hazel Trice Edney, its new president, told Journal-isms this week, "The strongest aspect of my vision is to return the historical Capital Press Club to its original mission and purpose."

". . . the CPC was initially founded by journalists. As stated in the original history, there is still 'very important unfinished business of American democracy — civil rights and equal opportunity.' "

Edney was elected by the press club board April 19 and took office on May 1. She is president and CEO of Trice Edney Communications, editor-in-chief of Trice Edney News Wire, former editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service and Blackpressusa.com and former interim executive director of the NNPA Foundation.

"Although we will continue to include strong membership and networking opportunities for all disciplines in the media/communications field, we are currently working to draw professional journalists back to the organization in order to re-establish the balance," she told Journal-isms by email.

"We are also discussing a long-range vision of expanding nationally. I have already reached out to Dr. Barbara Reynolds, Denise Rolark Barnes and other journalists . . . who I hope will serve as advisors on some of these matters. I also intend to form a group of CPC journalists who will specialize in interviewing high-level government officials, etc., such as President Obama — breaking barriers that have either never moved or seem to have been reset by forces of habit or antiquated policies."

According to a news release, "The new leadership team also includes First Vice President Robyn Wilkes, Director of Communications, Greater Washington Urban League; Second Vice President Sherrie Edwards-[Lassiter], Senior Account Manager, Campbell and Company; Treasurer Joan Davion of The Davion Group; Immediate Past President Nyree Wright, Senior Vice President, MSLGROUP Americas; and [Derrick] Kenny, who is also Digital Media Manager, Montgomery County Office of Cable and Broadband Services." Kenny is press club president emeritus and owner of Bold American Marketing.

Reporters' Right to Protect Sources Under Attack

"The Obama administration Friday morning continued its headlong attack on the right of reporters to protect their confidential sources in leak investigations," Michael Calderone and Dan Froomkin reported for the Huffington Post.

"Before a panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, a Department of Justice lawyer argued that New York Times reporter James Risen should be forced to testify in the trial of former CIA agent Jeffrey Sterling, who is charged with leaking classified information to Risen about a botched plot against the Iranian government.

"Rather than arguing the specifics of the case, DOJ appellate lawyer Robert A. Parker asserted that there is no reporter's privilege when a journalist receives an illegal leak of national security secrets."

Mixed Response in Covering Anti-Romney Ad

"One of the moments in the 2012 presidential race that we all know was coming arrived this week: the Obama campaign launched its first round of attacks on Mitt Romney [video] over his tenure at Bain Capital," Jay Jones reported Friday for Columbia Journalism Review.

"Unsurprisingly, there was a swing-state emphasis to the offensive. In addition to new TV commercials and a website targeting 'Romney economics,' the President's people organized news conferences in three battleground states — Iowa, Nevada, and Ohio — using labor leaders and prominent Democrats to attack the record of the presumptive Republican nominee. Their focus was Stage Stores, a chain of clothing stores that filed for bankruptcy and reportedly shed 6,000 jobs after Bain sold most of its interest in the company at a huge profit in the late 1990s.

"The Obama campaign's strategy also posed a challenge for reporters at local media outlets: Would they take the story served up on a silver platter, or get deeper into the complexities and provide the necessary balance? A look at some of the coverage shows a mixed response."

• Derrick Z. Jackson, Boston Globe: Mitt Romney failed to man up on bullying
  
  
• Allen Johnson blog, News & Record, Greensboro, N.C.: Romney and Ricketts and racial politics
  
  
• Jonathan Martin and James Hohmann, Politico: Race issues return with Rev. Jeremiah Wright
  
  
• Ruben Navarrette Jr., Washington Post Writers Group: The fight for Hispanic votes
  
  
• Sophia Nelson, USA Today: Why Romney should pursue black voters
  
  
• Wendy Weiser, Nieman Watchdog: The mean-spirited, massive drive to cut down the vote, state by state 

1 in 14 Black Men From New Orleans Is Behind Bars

"Louisiana is the world's prison capital," Cindy Chang wrote Sunday for the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, beginning an eight-part series.

"The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana's incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran's, seven times China's and 10 times Germany's.

"The hidden engine behind the state's well-oiled prison machine is cold, hard cash. A majority of Louisiana inmates are housed in for-profit facilities, which must be supplied with a constant influx of human beings or a $182 million industry will go bankrupt.

"Several homegrown private prison companies command a slice of the market. But in a uniquely Louisiana twist, most prison entrepreneurs are rural sheriffs, who hold tremendous sway in remote parishes like Madison, Avoyelles, East Carroll and Concordia. A good portion of Louisiana law enforcement is financed with dollars legally skimmed off the top of prison operations. . . .

"Meanwhile, inmates subsist in bare-bones conditions with few programs to give them a better shot at becoming productive citizens. Each inmate is worth $24.39 a day in state money, and sheriffs trade them like horses, unloading a few extras on a colleague who has openings. A prison system that leased its convicts as plantation labor in the 1800s has come full circle and is again a nexus for profit.

"In the past two decades, Louisiana's prison population has doubled, costing taxpayers billions while New Orleans continues to lead the nation in homicides.

"One in 86 adult Louisianians is doing time, nearly double the national average. Among black men from New Orleans, one in 14 is behind bars; one in seven is either in prison, on parole or on probation. Crime rates in Louisiana are relatively high, but that does not begin to explain the state's No. 1 ranking, year after year, in the percentage of residents it locks up."

NABJ Says Convention Sponsorship Exceeds 2011

When the National Association of Black Journalists pulled out of the Unity: Journalists of Color, Inc., coalition last year, some convention supporters said they would not be part of NABJ's stand-alone convention, scheduled for this coming June 20-24 in New Orleans.

NABJ President Gregory H. Lee Jr.'s own employer, the New York Times Co., was one of them. Lee works at the Boston Globe, a New York Times Co. property. The Globe will be at the convention, he said, but Desiree Dancy, the parent company's vice president, diversity and inclusion, told Journal-isms then, "We are supporting Unity. We're disappointed in the fact that NABJ pulled out of Unity and yet this is a time where the organizations are needed to come together more than ever."

Asked Monday how registrations and sponsorships are in place a month from the convention, Lee gave Journal-isms this statement; by email:

"I am happy to report that the 2012 NABJ Convention planning is going well. Because we are in the middle of processing registrations while closing out the pre-registration deadline which ends Friday, I am not releasing any registration counts at this time. However, I am pleased to say that our hotel room block is nearly sold out with almost 3400 room nights booked to date. Our Career Fair and Exhibit Hall is sold out completely and our sponsorship levels have already exceeded our 2011 numbers. We could not ask for more.

"Journalists and vendors are excited about the convention. If the hotel bookings and vendor participation [are] any indication, this year will be another exciting year. I can say with certainty that our volunteer convention and programming chairs, and their committees, along with our staff are working day and night to ensure that members are enthused about registering and attending this year's convention."

Unity Journalists, the new name for the reconfigured Unity coalition, did not respond Monday to a similar request for a report on the progress of its convention, scheduled for Aug. 1-4 in Las Vegas. On a floor plan for its exhibition space, red areas appear to show spots that have been sold, yellow those "reserved" and blue those unsold. (Move mouse over the areas to see specific sponsors).

[Onica Makwakwa, executive director of Unity Journalists, said by email on Tuesday, "With regards to the convention, at 70 days out, we are about 60% to our overall projected goals for revenue. We have a registration deadline in 37 days so it's a little premature to tell where our attendance numbers will fall."]

The NABJ home page features a list of its sponsors.

Reporter's Career Is as Dead as Tupac and Biggie

"A remarkable essay has been published on the Village Voice website," Richard Horgan wrote Sunday for FishbowlLA. Under the headline 'Tupac Shakur, the Los Angeles Times, and Why I’m Still Unemployed: A Personal History by Chuck Philips,' the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist details for the first time his version of the events leading up to, and following, March 26, 2008.

"That's the day The Smoking Gun exposed as fake court documents referenced in a Calendar front-page story by Philips about a 1994 assault in Queens, NY on rapper Tupac Shakur. He says it was not his idea to web-publish and liberally source the FBI-302 documents, but rather that of his LAT editor and the paper’s lawyer. Philips also accuses the paper of failing to properly support one of their own by refusing to litigate against the target of his piece (and subsequent accuser) James 'Jimmy Henchman' Rosemond:

" 'Lawyers and editors rejected my recommendations, arguing it would be foolhardy to fight the case. The Times refused to defend the story in court. Instead, the paper crafted a retraction that sounded as if I had made up the entire story and sneaked it into print behind management's back, without the knowledge, consent or guidance of senior editors and lawyers directly involved in its publication. . . . ' "

The Voice reported that the L.A. Times replied in a statement, "We retracted Chuck Philips' March 17, 2008, article concerning an attack on rap star Tupac Shakur because we learned that documents and sources he relied on didn't support the article. Specifically, supposed FBI documents regarding the 1994 attack on Shakur turned out to be forgeries. The man who supplied the documents, James Sabatino, also provided significant additional information that was included in the article, attributed to an anonymous source. As Chuck and his editors later discovered, what Sabatino had told him was fabricated.

"Under these circumstances, we had no alternative but to acknowledge the mistake, apologize to our readers and retract the article. Nothing has happened since then to warrant withdrawing or revising the retraction. No new information has emerged that bears on the mistakes for which we apologized and which we retracted."

Rush to Latino Programming Could Feed Isolation

"As recently as five years ago, I was gnashing my teeth because the television networks catering to Hispanics in the U.S. were offering only Spanish-language programs, further isolating a population that many Americans thought didn’t care about fitting in enough to bother learning the language," Esther J. Cepeda wrote for NBC Latino.

"Today I fear the pendulum is swinging too far to the other side. I worry that the proliferation of advertising, entertainment and news organizations hoping to engage predominantly English-speaking Hispanics will also isolate a continuously assimilating community from a mainstream that seems to view Latinos as newcomers who don’t quite want to blend into the crowd.

"The list of news and entertainment companies jumping into bilingual or English-only programming aimed at Latinos is long and ever-growing, the two most recent examples being Cosmopolitan magazine and Univision-ABC News. . . ."

Limbaugh Took Ratings Hits Over "Slut" Remark

"Rush Limbaugh took a significant ratings hit in some key radio markets last month in the wake of the Sandra Fluke controversy, Dylan Byers wrote Monday for Politico.

"The conservative radio host's ratings fell 27 percent in the key 25-54 demo in New York City, 31 percent in Houston-Galveston, 40 percent in Seattle-Tacoma, and 35 percent in Jacksonville, according to a selection of the March 29-April 25 Arbitron ratings provided by an industry source.

"Limbaugh's detractors attribute the losses to a rejection of the show following his controversial comments about the Georgetown law student.

" 'Clearly Sandra Fluke isn't the only one who didn't like Rush calling her a "slut" given how many viewers that comment incinerated,' one radio insider said.

"But defenders say that what looks like a decline actually represents a leveling out following increased attention from the controversy. In late March, Limbaugh boasted that his ratings had increased by as much as 60 percent in the month since he had called Fluke a 'slut' and a 'prostitute' on air."

Two weeks ago, David Hinckley of the Daily News in New York quoted Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey, as saying the spring's advertiser boycott of Limbaugh over the Fluke controversy cost Cumulus Media "a couple of million dollars." Cumulus owns just 38 of the more than 600 stations that carry Limbaugh, suggesting that the impact of the boycott was much greater.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney told reporters that a proposed ad featuring the Rev. Jeremiah Wright would be the "wrong course." (Video)

Invoking Wright Could Make Mormonism an Issue

"CNN political analyst Roland Martin says the GOP will make Mormonism's treatment of African-Americans fair game for criticism if it [pursues] a new line of attack against President Obama's ties to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright," Dylan Byers reported Thursday for Politico.

"The new proposal, commissioned by conservative billionaire Joe Ricketts, aims to link Obama to Wright's controversial statements about race relations. But Martin said the proposal is one Romney, whose own religion has historically excluded African-Americans, would want to avoid.

" 'If Ricketts wants to do that, if the GOP they want to do that, you're now putting Mormonism on the table. You're now putting on the table how African Americans were treated by the Mormon religion,' Martin said. 'I don't think Mitt Romney really wants to have that conversation, considering he was an elder and his dad was an elder, and they really did not embrace African Americans. It is a ridiculous conversation.' "

As Beth Fouhy and Philip Elliott reported Thursday for the Associated Press, ". . . Romney pushed back against a proposal being weighed by a conservative super PAC, Ending Spending Action Fund, to run a $10 million ad campaign drawing attention to racially provocative sermons Wright delivered at a church Obama attended in Chicago. But with super PACS operating under significantly looser campaign finance restrictions than in past presidential contests, there was no guarantee Romney's words would be heeded by other groups eager to make Wright — and, by extension, race — a factor in the campaign.

" 'I want to make it very clear: I repudiate that effort,' Romney told reporters after a campaign stop in Florida. 'I think it's the wrong course for a PAC or a campaign. I hope that our campaigns can be respectively about the future and about issues and about vision for America.' "

• Wayne Bennett, the Field Negro: Loose lips sink campaigns.
  
  
• Charles M. Blow, New York Times: 'Metrosexual Black Abe Lincoln'
  
  
• Tim Giago, Indianz.com: Rocky history of Natives and the Mormon Church (April 23)


• Allen Johnson blog, News & Record, Greensboro, N.C.: Romney and Ricketts and racial politics 
  
  
• Alec MacGillis, the New Republic: The Book On Cory Booker
  
  
• Roland S. Martin, Creators Syndicate: The GOP's Sad Infatuation With Rev. Jeremiah Wright
  
  
• Bill McKeever, Mormonism Research Ministry: Black Skin and the Seed of Cain
  
  
• Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: GOP ad strategist wrong about Wright
  
  

"SNL" Does Stephen A. Smith

ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith received the "Saturday Night Live" treatment over the weekend in an impersonation by Jay Pharoah, who is in his second season on the NBC show. Pharoah is most known for his impressions of such celebrities as Will Smith, Eddie Murphy, Denzel Washington and Kanye West. (Video)

5 Black Sports Journalists Laid Off at USA Today

Five black sports journalists were laid off at USA Today on Wednesday, staffers told Journal-isms.

They are: G.E. Branch, assignment editor; J. Michael Falgoust, NBA reporter; Gene Farris, web and video editor; Gary Graves, NFL reporter; and Dixie Vereen, design editor.

Branch was a USA Today founder, joining the operation in 1982. He worked there until 2004, returning full time in September. He started as a copy editor but worked the majority of his time there as an assignment editor. Farris started at USA Today in 2005, arriving from the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal as international edition sports editor. Graves has been an NFL writer at the paper since 1997 and covered motorsports since 2001. Falgoust has been an assignment editor since 2000 and an NBA writer since 2010.

Eric Fisher and John Ourand of Street &Smith's SportsBusiness Daily reported:

"USA Today Sports Media Group has enacted a significant restructuring of its editorial roster that has resulted in the departures of about a dozen veteran staffers of the media outlet, including sports business and media writer Michael McCarthy and 'Game On' blogger Tom Weir.

"Company officials declined to say how many staffers overall were affected in the move. But ultimately, the company's sports editorial staff is expected to post a net increase, particularly with the arrival later this year of its joint venture with MLBAM," the interactive media and Internet company of Major League Baseball.

" 'This process was about redefining and reimagining Sports and the roles within it to create a center of excellence and build a great sports franchise,' said USA Today Sports Media Group President Tom Beusse. 'With this new structure, we are now well-positioned to operate in a 24-7 digital environment. This is a major step forward.' "

NABJ Lauds TV One Series on Missing Blacks

The TV One series "Find Our Missing," "an hour-long, docu-drama series that puts names and faces to people of color — young and old — who have disappeared without a trace," has won the Best Practices Award of the National Association of Black Journalists, the group announced on Wednesday.

"The Best Practices Award is given to a news organization for exemplary work in covering issues of great significance to the black community or the African Diaspora," the group said. " '[Find] Our Missing' fits the bill.

"This series counters the media's tendency to not focus on missing people of color. Local outlets in these cases usually make a good effort to publicize these stories, but the cases rarely rise to the level of national media attention. 'Find Our Missing' allows us do something about that," said NABJ President Gregory H. Lee Jr. in a news release. "TV One deserves this recognition for making sure these stories get told."

Jacqueline Trescott Leaving Washington Post

Jacqueline Trescott, a reporter in Washington for 42 years and for more than three decades at the Washington Post, is leaving the newspaper at the end of June, she told Journal-isms on Wednesday.

Trescott was an active member of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education in the 1970s and 1980s. She served as director of the Summer Program for Minority Journalists in 1982 and 1984, and worked several summers as an instructor.

Trescott's departure — she took a buyout in 2006 but remained at the paper on a contract basis — adds to the disproportionate number of journalists of color leaving the Post this year after accepting buyout offers.

"It has been a rewarding career going from typewriters to computers to blogs and tweets," Trescott said, "but no matter what the format or platform, the coverage of celebrities, writers, entertainers, exhibitions and a broad line-up of talented and interesting people behind the scenes in museums and arts agencies, has been unsurpassed fuel for a daily reporter."

For the last 20 years, Trescott has covered the arts news beat at the Post, which includes the Smithsonian museums, the Kennedy Center and the National Gallery of Art, as well as the federal cultural agencies and oversight committees on Capitol Hill. The coverage has ranged from breaking news to features to investigative reports. She, along with Post reporter James V. Grimaldi, was a finalist in the Freedom of Information Act Award category of the Investigative Reporters and Editors contest in 2009 for a series of stories on the Smithsonian Institution. Grimaldi recently took a buyout and moved to the Wall Street Journal.

Trescott said she plans to stay in the Washington area.

Grant to L.A. Times Raises Question on Foundations

"Expect to see and hear and read media types dissect this bit of news: the Ford Foundation has donated $1 million not to charity but to the for-profit Los Angeles Times," Joe Mathews wrote Monday for KNTV-TV, the NBC station in the San Francisco Bay area.

"The donation is designated to cover the costs of hiring reporters to cover Southern California communities, prisons, immigration, as well as to post a correspondent in Brazil.

". . . The collapse of the business model for media makes such foundation support incredibly important to sustaining quality coverage. But the trend also is a cause of concern.

"Even as someone who knows the work of these foundations and some of their staff, I have very little sense of how these organizations work, how they set their agendas, who their [decision makers] are, how they exercise power, how they interact and make deals with powerful officials and institutions.

"The public knows even less than I do. That's because California media don't cover foundations and their work routinely, [aggressively] and critically. . . . "

Davan Maharaj, editor of the Times, did not respond to a request for comment.

• Michael Meyer, Columbia Journalism Review: The Ford Foundation's unprecedented grant to The Los Angeles Times
  

Clark Howard, left, Isha Sesay and Ryan Smith are principals on HLN's "Evening Express." (Video)

HLN's "Evening Express" Features Two Black Co-Hosts

"HLN is launching a new late afternoon/early evening program called 'Evening Express,' " Alex Weprin reported Wednesday for TVNewser. "As the name suggests, the format is based on the channel's successful morning program, 'Morning Express with Robin Meade.'

"The show will originate from Atlanta and will air from 5-7 PM, beginning Monday, June 4. Ryan Smith will host the show, joined by Clark Howard and [Isha] Sesay, who joins HLN from sister network CNN. Angie Massie will serve as EP," executive producer.

Two of the three on-air principals are black. Smith, a sports and entertainment lawyer with a degree from Columbia Law School, was a familiar HLN on-air presence in 2011 as a result of his reporting during the Casey Anthony and Conrad Murray trials. Sesay is an anchor for CNN International, hosting the daily news program "CNN NewsCenter" and weekly program "BackStory," and serving as the nightly "360 Bulletin" correspondent on "Anderson Cooper 360°".

Scot Safon, who heads HLN and is executive vice president of CNN Worldwide, was last in this column in September after he participated in a conference on diversity hosted by the American Society of News Editors. "The idea of diversity driving innovation is really, really important," Safon said.

Times-Picayune, Ala. Papers Scale Back Print Editions

"The Times-Picayune, a 175-year-old fixture in New Orleans and a symbol of the city's gritty resilience during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, has buckled under the pressures of the modern newspaper market," David Carr reported Friday for the New York Times.

"Advance Publications, owned by the Newhouse family, said Thursday it would scale back the printed edition to three days a week and impose staff cuts as a way to reduce costs as well as shift its emphasis to expanded online coverage.

"The decision will leave New Orleans as the most prominent American city without a newspaper that is printed every day. But it also reflects the declining lure of the paper as a printed product. In 2005, before Katrina struck, the paper had a daily circulation of 261,000; in March of this year, the circulation was 132,000."

Other Newhouse papers followed. "Three of Alabama’s largest newspapers, The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times and the Press-Register in Mobile, will drop daily circulation this fall and distribute printed editions three days a week," the Associated Press reported on Friday.

"Meanwhile, all three will put new emphasis on their al.com website.

"The three newspapers will be delivered to homes and sold in stores on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

"Cindy Martin, president and CEO of al.com, said rapid advances in how readers engage news content is driving the change and should 'position us to be a healthy, growing company.'

"Employees of three Advance Publications newspapers were informed of the changes Thursday morning and were told there will be unspecified staff reductions. Employees said they had been hearing speculation about a big announcement for a couple of weeks, but the scope of the announcement was a surprise. All expressed concern for the future of their jobs in the restructured publications."

• Birmingham News: Birmingham News Editor Tom Scarritt stepping down this fall
  
  
• Eric Deggans blog, Tampa Bay (Fla.) Times: As New Orleans may become biggest U.S. city without daily paper, I remember lessons about [Times-Picayune] and Hurricane Katrina
  
  
• John McQuaid, Forbes: The Digital Future of The Times-Picayune
  
  
• Steve Myers and Andrew Beaujon, Poynter Institute: David Simon: End of daily publication for Times-Picayune 'grievous news'
  
  
• Rem Rieder, American Journalism Review: An Important City without a Daily Paper
  
  
• Brittany Taylor, New York Times Student Journalism Institute: Twitter Responses to Times-Picayune Cutbacks
  
  
• Times-Picayune, New Orleans: New digitally focused company launches this fall with beefed up online coverage; The Times-Picayune will move this fall to three printed papers a week
  
  
• Tablet Computers Called Newspapers' Future (April 2)

USA Today Says It's Adding in Sports, Not Subtracting

"It's never fun to let go of employees, and it's even less fun being portrayed as the bad guy on Twitter and elsewhere," Ed Sherman wrote Friday for the Sherman Report.

" 'It's a difficult process. I’m not getting around it,' said Dave Morgan, the editor-in-chief for USA Today's sports group in an interview Friday morning.

"A total of 15 sports staffers were trimmed this week, including Michael McCarthy, who wrote on sports media, Tom Weir, Tom Pedulla and Mike Dodd."

As reported in this space on Wednesday, the 15 also included five black sports journalists: G.E. Branch, assignment editor; J. Michael Falgoust, NBA reporter; Gene Farris, web and video editor; Gary Graves, NFL reporter; and Dixie Vereen, design editor.

Sherman continued, "Morgan said the moves were made as part of a reorganization of the USA Today sports group among its many platforms, and that includes a dramatic upcoming renovation and upgrade of its website.

" 'This is about us resetting our priorities and redefining our roles going forward,' he said.

"Among key points, Morgan stressed, 'This isn't a cost-cutting exercise. We're probably adding 20 positions over where we started.'

"He said this move isn't a case of dumping old, expensive journalists in favor of young, cheap journalists." Sherman published a Q-and-A with Morgan.

Andy Harvey, Navajo Ex-TV Journalist, Dies at 35

Andy Harvey, a Navajo former television journalist and board member of the Native American Journalists Association, was found dead early Thursday in his Phoenix apartment, police said. He was 35 and had worked since March as senior public information officer for the Navajo Nation Department of Diné Education. Diné is the Navajo word for "Navajo."

Sgt. Tommy Thompson, a spokesman for the Phoenix Police Department, said that foul play was not suspected and that the case was referred to the Maricopa County Medical Examiner's Office. "We're considering it as a death unknown," Thompson said by telephone.

Mark Casey, vice president and news director of Phoenix's KPNX-TV, known as 12 News, said Harvey worked there from 2006 to 2011 and brought a special perspective. "He looked different. He was a Native American," Casey said. "He had hair down to his waist that he would pull back into a ponytail. He was over 6 feet. He was a warm figure, and he loved to go home," to the Navajo reservation. "He was always pitching stories about the tribe and the reservation."

Casey said he told Harvey to bring back stories about life on the reservation. "Give us a look at something that many of us don't experience. We miss that perspective. I wish he was still with us and with 12 News," Casey said.

Harvey's tenure overlapped with that of another Native reporter, Mary Kim Titla, a San Carlos Apache who worked at 12 News for almost 20 years. She ran for Congress in 2008 and is now pursuing tribal office.

"What Andy had and Mary Kim has is a real . . . public affairs sense of responsibility for their communities, a sense of public service," Casey said. "They see journalism as public service. They get it.

"He was real gifted in dealing with everyday people," Casey said of Harvey. "He was able to get people to trust him, and so he was able to get those stories, very good."

According to the Radio Television Digital News Association, Native Americans comprised .4 percent of the broadcast television workforce [PDF] in 2011.

Asked about prospects for another Native journalist at his station, the news director told Journal-isms, "There aren't many Native American journalists who are doing large-market television news." But, he said, "I would love to have another Native American journalist." 

Harvey was born and raised on the Navajo reservation near the Four Corners area in Shiprock, N.M. He graduated from Northern Arizona University with a master of arts in rhetoric and composition and a bachelor of science in broadcast journalism.

He worked at KNAZ-TV in Flagstaff, Ariz., on the floor crew, doing production and on-air work before leaving for KELO-TV in Sioux Falls, S.D., where, Casey said, "He was all over the place."

Harvey wrote on his KPNX profile, "I had dreams of becoming a nurse like my mom, but decided to go into broadcast journalism. I did, however, work as a certified nurse assistant for two years while in college. I had a great opportunity to hike up Mount Rushmore while working as a reporter in South Dakota. Not too many people can say they stood on a president's head," the Navajo Post reported.

Harvey was ending his first three-year term on the NAJA board, NAJA said in a statement. He was a member of NAJA student projects in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in 2000 and was recently a mentor for NAJA student projects in St. Paul, Minn., in 2010. He was elected to the NAJA board during the 25th annual conference in Albuquerque, N.M., in 2009.

Funeral arrangements are pending. Casey said journalists interested in working at KPNX-TV should go to 12news.AZCentral.com and click on the "Jobs" tab. The applications "come right to me," he said.

• Joe Dana, KPNX-TV Phoenix: Remembering Andy Harvey (Video)

New York Times Fills a Void: a Black Sports Reporter

The New York Times will have a black reporter in its sports section again, columnist William Rhoden notwithstanding. Nate Taylor of the News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., told Journal-isms that he has accepted a job in the department under a program that hires young reporters on a probationary basis.

A section that once had six African American reporters was left with none in March when Jonathan Abrams departed after three years to join Grantland, a startup website backed by ESPN.

Sports Editor Joe Sexton did not respond to messages from Journal-isms, but Taylor told Journal-isms by email, "I will be an intermediate reporter in sports with the New York Times through its 8i program. I will be covering a variety of sports. I'll start the new job June 18."

Doree Shafrir of the New York Observer wrote of the 8i program in 2007 when the Times hired Brian Stelter, then 21, as a media reporter. "Mr. Stelter was hired under The New York Times' '8i' program, which for years hired young reporters on a probationary basis, rotating them around usually to several different desks and then opting to make them permanent (union) employees if they proved themselves," she wrote. "No one was expected to start in the program with a specialty already developed (at least, developed to Times specifications)."

According to a brief N&O bio, Taylor is a sports reporter at the News & Observer and sports editor for the North Raleigh News and the Midtown Raleigh News. He has written for the Boston Globe, the Star Tribune in Minneapolis and his hometown newspaper, the Kansas City Star. He graduated from the University of Central Missouri in 2010 and is a 2009 Sports Journalism Institute alumnus.

Tara Wall Joins Romney as Senior African American

Tara Wall, a former newscaster, Republican National Committee senior adviser, George W. Bush appointee, conservative columnist and deputy editorial page editor for the Washington Times, was hired recently as a senior communications adviser to the Mitt Romney campaign to handle outreach to African Americans, Nia-Malika Henderson and Philip Rucker reported Thursday for the Washington Post.

"Mitt Romney's campaign team has been quietly laying plans for an outreach effort to President Obama's most loyal supporters — black voters — not just to chip away at the huge Democratic margins but also as a way to reassure independent swing voters that Romney can be inclusive and tolerant in his thinking and approach," they wrote.

Henderson and Rucker described Wall as the most senior African American on Romney's team, reporting that she "spent this week meeting with other top advisers crafting an outreach plan."

They quoted Wall: "From a messaging standpoint, we need to be able to communicate and relate to these communities about how they are being impacted by Obama's policies. It's the right thing to do, and it's an important part of the process. It's not a ploy, it's not a tactic, it's part of who we are. We have to show up."

Perry Bacon Jr. added for theGrio.com: "In an interview with theGrio, Wall said her role would not be just outreach to blacks, but women and other groups, as well as shaping Romney’s overall communications strategy."

According to a bio, Wall "joined the RNC in May 2004 after spending 13 years as a news reporter, anchor and host for local ABC, NBC and CBS affiliates in Michigan.

"Wall created, executive produced and hosted a talk show for the CBS affiliate in Detroit called 'Street Beat,' a weekly, half-hour political affairs program featuring top lawmakers, political, community and business leaders. As a reporter, Wall produced numerous investigative, series and documentary pieces. She was first to uncover and exclusively report the infamous 'Mayor's Memo' story that involved Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and governor-elect Jennifer Granholm in 2002."

• Wayne Bennett, the Field Negro: BREAKING NEWS! Mitt Romney touches a black person.
  
  
• Linda Chavez, Lisa Garcia Bedolla, Matt A. Barreto, Arturo Vargas, New York Times: Room for Debate: Securing the Hispanic Vote
  
  
• Ta-Nehisi Coates blog, the Atlantic: White Resentment, Obama, and Appalachia
  
  
• Jelani Cobb, the New Yorker: Conservatives and the Professional Black Friend
  
  
• Carlos Harrison, en.terra.com: Romney between a conservative rock and a Latino hard place. Or is he?
  
  
• Bob Herbert, theGrio.com: Obama, Romney both shy away from the plight of poor kids
  
  
• Steve Peoples, Associated Press: Mitt Romney Faces Tough Questions From Black Leaders Over Education Proposal
  
  
• Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald: Goofy GOP plans against Obama's re-election
  
  
• Steve Rendall, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting: If GOP Was Anti-Racist, Why Wasn't Buckley a Democrat?
  
  
• Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: Why Bain questions matter
  
  
• Edward Wyckoff Williams, theRoot.com: Will Real Race-Baiters Please Stand Up?

Hal Jackson Death Makes Next Day's Amsterdam News

When Chuck Brown, the "godfather of go-go music," died a week ago Wednesday, the news came too late to make that week's black newspapers. But when black-radio legend Harold "Hal" Jackson died at 96 this Wednesday, the weekly New York Amsterdam News was able to lead its Thursday edition with it.

"We found out at 5 p.m., Elinor Tatum, editor in chief and publisher, told Journal-isms. "Our deadline to be in the printer is 7 p.m." While Tatum was trying to reach reporters, she received an email about the death from entertainment reporter Flo Anthony and asked Anthony if she could write a story quickly. She did.

• Flo Anthony, New York Amsterdam News: Radio icon, Hal Jackson, passes at 97
  
  
• Statement of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Death of Harold B. Jackson
  
  
• Marc Fisher, Washington Post: Hal Jackson, black radio pioneer and civil rights activist, dies at 96
  
  
• Mark Anthony Neal, NewBlackMan: A Sunday Classic: Thanking Hal Jackson
  
  
• Edmund Newton, theRoot.com: End of an Era for Hal Jackson and Radio
  
  
• Paul Porter, theGrio.com: Michael Baisden is dead wrong about black radio (May 10)
  
  
• Mel Watkins, New York Times: Hal Jackson, 96, New York Broadcaster Who Broke Racial Barriers in Radio, Dies

ProPublica, Radio Show Team on Story of Massacre

"Thirty years ago, at the height of the civil war in Guatemala, a group of government soldiers led an assault on the northern village of Dos Erres, massacring more than 250 men, women, and children," David Abel reported for the Boston Globe.

"They left just two survivors: two light-skinned, green-eyed young boys.

"Last year, more than a decade after he moved to Framingham to seek work, Oscar Alfredo Ramírez Castañeda received a call from his hometown in Guatemala that would change his life.

"The 32-year-old father of four learned that he was one of those two survivors, and that he had been kidnapped and raised by the family of one of the commanders who led the raid on Dos Erres.

"He also learned that there was another survivor who happened to be away from the village on that bloody day in 1982: his father.

"The slaughter in Dos Erres was one of 600 mass killings in a 36-year-long war that left more than 200,000 people dead.

" 'Before, I thought the guerrillas and the army killed each other in the war. But I didn't know that they massacred innocent people,' Ramírez Castañeda told ProPublica, a nonprofit online news site, which on Friday published a long story titled 'Finding Oscar: Massacre, Memory, and Justice in Guatemala'. 'I imagine there is a connection between the violence of the past and the present. If you don't catch these people, it keeps spreading. People do whatever they want.'

"The story, a version of which also aired this weekend on the radio program 'This American Life,' recounts how Ramírez Castañeda is coming to terms with his true identity."

"This American Life" noted: "This story was co-reported with Sebastian Rotella of ProPublica, Ana Arana of Fundación MEPI, independent journalist Habiba Nosheen and This American Life producer Brian Reed. Their essay 'Finding Oscar,' which is accompanied by a timeline, slideshow and character guide, can be read at propublica.org and is also available as an eBook. Annie Correal helped with research and translations."

• ProPublica: How We Reported Oscar's Story

Times-Picayune Staffers Updating Resumes

"Individual meetings with Times-Picayune employees, at which they will learn whether they have lost their jobs or will be offered new positions with the new NOLA Media Group, are set to begin in about a week — probably starting Monday, June 4 or Tuesday, June 5, according to sources with knowledge of Advance Publications' plans," Kevin Allman reported Sunday for Gambit, an alternative newspaper in New Orleans.

"Many newsroom employees spent their Memorial Day weekend updating resumes, obtaining copies of their clips, networking by telephone and social media and following job leads in New Orleans and elsewhere.

"At the meetings, Advance, which owns The Times-Picayune, will reportedly offer severance packages to some employees, while tendering job offers to others. Job descriptions will likely be revised, and those who receive offers to stay will likely have to reapply for the new positions within the newly created NOLA Media Group."

• John Archibald, Birmingham (Ala.) News: It's not about the Alabama newspaper jobs. It's about the job 

• David Carr, New York Times: A Doomed Romance With a New Orleans Newspaper 

• Jeff Jarvis, buzzmachine.com: The (not so) daily news 

• Sascha Segan, pcmag.com: Why The Times-Picayune's Online Move is Bad for America
  
  

Right Wing Stokes Stories of Black-on-White Crime

". . . If you've spent much time consuming conservative media lately, you've probably learned about a slow-burning 'race war' going on in America today," McKay Coppins reported last week for BuzzFeed. "Sewing together disparate data points and compelling anecdotes . . . conservative bloggers and opinion-makers are driving the narrative with increasing frequency. Their message: Black-on-white violence is spiking — and the mainstream media is trying to cover it up.

"This notion isn't necessarily new to the right, which has long complained about stifling political correctness in the media and the rising tide of 'reverse racism.' But the race war narrative has gained renewed traction during the Obama years, as various factors — from liberals' efforts to paint the Tea Party as racist, to the widely-covered Trayvon Martin shooting — have left conservatives feeling unfairly maligned, and combative.

". . . The conservative media's in-your-face reporting of black-on-white crime is a sort of demonstration project — a rebellious response to decades of fielding charges of racism from the cultural elites who run the mainstream press. . . ."

Jamal Watson Resigns From College Teaching Job

Jamal Eric Watson, a former executive editor of the New York Amsterdam News, has resigned as an assistant professor of English at Mercer County Community College in New Jersey, the college president told Journal-isms on Friday.

The Mercer County prosecutor's office had taken over an inquiry related to Watson, the Times of Trenton, N.J., reported in March. But the Times also reported then, "Neither the college nor law enforcement officials will say exactly what allegations have been levied against Watson."

Dr. Patricia C. Donohue, the college president, said in a statement to Journal-isms, "Mr. Eric Watson has resigned from Mercer County Community College as of May 18, 2012. The investigation has ended."

Watson told Journal-isms by telephone that he did not consider that he had resigned. "I did not have tenure. I was on a year by year" contract. "You serve at the pleasure of the college. My contract ended in May." Asked what he planned to do next, Watson said, "The same thing I've been doing for the last seven years," apparently a reference to his freelance work.

In 2006, Watson pleaded guilty to a felony charge of third-degree grand larceny after being accused of cashing checks made out to Amsterdam News summer interns.

• Laura Pollack and Noelle Gilman, MCCCVoice: Prof. Jamal Eric Watson resigns following probe into his credentials and criminal record
  
  

ABC News Offers Fellowships in Diversity Program

ABC News has announced a new fellowship program "to attract and develop aspiring journalists from diverse backgrounds for a rigorous and rewarding year-long opportunity," Michelle Levi wrote Thursday for ABC News.

"Starting this July, future news leaders will rotate through several ABC News departments and broadcasts while mastering editorial, production, and newsgathering skills. Participants from a variety of racial, ethnic, socio-economic and geographic backgrounds will work closely with an experienced ABC News mentor."

ABC News is accepting applications for a July 2 start date.

Outsider Status Called Good Journalism Training

As a question for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Les Suzukamo, a business reporter covering technology, energy and local media for the Pioneer Press in St. Paul, Minn., was asked, "What do you love most about being Asian American?"

Suzukamo told Paul Cheung of the Asian American Journalists Association:

"As an Asian far from the coasts, I have often felt conspicuous here in Minnesota. You can't hide, but that was a good thing for a shy person like me. It forced me to grow and establish myself and to help define the idea of what is 'Asian.' The outsider status that Asians have long held on the mainland actually helped prepare me for journalism, where we journalists are usually outsiders looking in."

A Q-and-A with Suzukamo was the May 17 entry among AAJA's profiles for the heritage month. Suzukamo was a founding member of AAJA's Minnesota chapter.

Tamron Hall Urges Speaking Out on Negative Hip-Hop

MSNBC anchor Tamron Hall told ebony.com that she is among journalists who have a responsibility to educate younger black women about the negative aspects of hip-hop.

Hall said to Kristin Braswell, "I do believe more women in positions of spreading information such as journalists have to find a way to connect with younger Black women and say 'look, I have TI on my iPhone and I love Jay Z and even Young Jeezy, but some of these messages the music sends has got to be balanced in your head, because this is not a way of life.'

"This notion that you can have everything you want if you can drop it low enough and the objectification that we're seeing I believe adds to low self-esteem in women which can sometimes contribute to domestic abuse. Then some women find themselves in situations where they are too afraid to leave or unable to find support.

"We are presented with a unique situation in the Black community in that we have embraced the beauty of hip hop, the real rawness of it, the real fun of it, but we also have to address the damage it has done. We have to look at what it's done to our black girls, especially when it comes to domestic violence."