Debbie Douglass is a Maynard Institute Multimedia Editing Program 2011 graduate. She will be hosting her first art showing of over 100 of her original paintings. The event will take place Friday, September 14th from 6:00 to 9:00 pm, at the Woodland Community Center.
Address:
Woodland Community Center
2120 Gwynn Oak Avenue
Woodland, MD 21207
Veteran Diversity Professional Returns to Coalition
September 5, 2012
"Not Quite" the Image Presidential Campaign Paints
Clinton Speech Scores With Highest Tweets Per Minute
Are Americans Better Off Than in '08? It's Semantics
Courant Scraps Embarrassing Google Translate
Former Columnist "Proud" to Be With Castro Twins
Reporter Says Question to Jarrett Got Him the Boot
Writer Gains Access to Karl Rove Fundraiser
MSNBC Wins Cable News Race on DNC Opening Night
Ryan to Fact-Checking Critics: "Read the Speech"
Pundits Swoon Over Michelle Obama Speech
ESPN Names New Team for "Numbers"
". . . Governor Deval Patrick, speaking Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention, assailed his predecessor’s economic record, pointing to anemic job growth and deep budget cuts that affected education, transportation, and other programs that support the state’s economy," Megan Woolhouse and Michael Rezendes reported Wednesday for the Boston Globe. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's campaign "responded that the former governor turned a wide budget deficit into a surplus, held the line on taxes, and left office with fewer unemployed in Massachusetts than today."
Who's right?
In another example of news organizations responding quickly to varying assertions of the truth, the Globe answered the question quickly online and in the morning paper:
"In many ways, Romney inherited a state economy in 2003 similar to the one President Barack Obama found entering the White House in 2009, one marked by a deep recession, huge job losses, and a widening budget deficit," Woolhouse and Rezendes continued.
"And like Obama, Romney struggled mightily, delivering at best a modest recovery dictated less by his political leadership than by sprawling global forces beyond his control.
"Like Obama, Romney could also point to an economy that was much improved from the worst of the recession. But, as with the US economy today, progress was slow, painstaking, and for many, disappointing.
"At the end of his term, Romney could claim a small net job gain and a lower unemployment rate, but the pace of job growth lagged the nation badly and only a huge outflow of Massachusetts workers to faster growing states kept the unemployment rate from climbing higher.
"It is not quite the image of a turnaround painted by Romney's presidential campaign.
". . . But Romney's handling of the Massachusetts' economy was more complicated than the unemployment rate or state's credit rating would indicate. His budgetary and economic decisions offer insight into his personal and political priorities. There were unexpected foes, victories, and lost opportunities. . . ."
Bill Clinton's electrifying speech Wednesday night nominating President Obama for reelection topped Twitter, seeing the night's highest spike in tweets per minute, Anita Li reported early Thursday for Mashable.
"At 22,087 TPM, the end of Clinton's 50-minute-long address Wednesday beat Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's peak last week in Tampa, but was lower than First Lady Michelle Obama's Tuesday night, according to Twitter's official blog," Li reported.
To mark the first time a former president has nominated an incumbent one, the Washington Post deployed David Maraniss, author of biographies of both men, to write a stage-setter that was published on Monday.
". . . The relationship between Clinton and Obama has evolved in stages," Maraniss wrote. "The earliest step toward reconciliation might be the most telling: when Obama, as president-elect, asked Hillary Clinton to serve as secretary of state. She needed persuading, and in this case Obama and Bill Clinton were co-conspirators, both pushing the idea that she should take the job. If there were political calculations involved on either side, the simple fact that Hillary Clinton joined the Obama administration changed the dynamics; that she proved to be indefatigable and adept as Madam Secretary at once heartened her husband and deepened the appreciation of the president.
"After two years during which they rarely spoke, the first public sign that Bill and Barack were teaming up on domestic policy issues came shortly after the 2010 midterm elections that proved disastrous for the Democrats, who lost control of the House and barely kept the Senate. Obama found himself making deals with House Republicans even before they took over, agreeing to some tax cuts in exchange for an extension of unemployment insurance.
"On the afternoon of Dec. 11, Clinton visited the Oval Office, where he and Obama spent a long session discussing the policy and politics of the situation and how to explain the president's position. It was, Obama said later, a 'terrific conversation' — so stimulating that he thought 'it might be useful' for Clinton to share his thoughts with the media and the public. Obama and Clinton seemed like tourists from Des Moines as they scrambled to find out how to open the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room in the White House and then round up enough reporters and cameras to make it worthwhile.
"When the scene was finally ready, Obama entered with Clinton at his side. With a smile, he called Clinton 'the other guy,' as in 'I thought I'd bring the other guy in.' The word 'guy' made it a term of affection and respect, marking a change from an earlier time when Obama would more often regard Clinton as simply 'the other' — an unpredictable and occasionally hostile alien force. . . . "
On Monday, Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan told a campaign rally audience in North Carolina that "the president can say a lot of things, but he can't tell you you are better off," the staff of NPR's "Fresh Air" said on Wednesday. "Later that day in Detroit, Vice President Joe Biden responded 'America is better off today than they left us.' "
David Leonhardt, the New York Times Washington bureau chief who won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary last year for his columns on economics, was asked about those comments on "Fresh Air" Wednesday. He said that both Ryan and Biden are right: It's partly semantics.
"The country itself is better off," Leonhardt told host Terry Gross. The economy has stabilized since the recession in 2008, which was "a little bit worse than 1929. And yet, of course, we don't have anything that looks like the Great Depression. As bad as the economy is, we don't have unemployment at 20 percent."
But, Leonhardt said, when looking at measures such as household income and median wealth, "a typical American household is worse off than it was four years ago."
Financial crises inflict their damage "over many months and then there are long, slow, disappointing recoveries," he said.
"Ultimately, it is difficult to evaluate Ryan's and Biden's assertions, Leonhardt said, because the Republicans might have acted differently from the Democrats in the wake of the recession," the show summarized.
The Hartford Courant late last week stopped using Google Translate to translate its pages into Spanish, and instead has developed Noticias, "a 100-percent Spanish language news site produced by our newsroom," Gary Weitman, spokesman for the parent Tribune Co., told Journal-isms on Wednesday.
The Courant had started using free software developed by Google to translate its stories into Spanish.
In July, former Courant columnist Bessy Reyna compiled some of the gaffes that resulted.
"It's hard to imagine that the Courant, the oldest continuously-published newspaper in the country, would think so little of its readers as to publish a poorly worded computer generated translation, without anyone verifying that the versions are grammatically correct," Reyna wrote. "Or does the paper think that Latinos are going to be ever so grateful to have to guess the meaning of the news in Spanish?"
The National Association of Hispanic Journalists added its voice last month, and offered to help the Courant better reach Spanish-speaking readers.
As Andrew Beaujon first reported Wednesday for the Poynter Institute, Weitman said, "The Courant has also hired a part-time local editor, Marysol Saldana-Knipper, who will assist in translating Courant-produced stories into Spanish. The Courant also recently launched Mi Comunidad, produced by Courant Photojournalist Patrick Raycraft, it's a multimedia news package highlighting stories from our growing Latino community. Patrick is fluent in Spanish and his stories will be appear regularly on Noticias."
Weitman added for Journal-isms by email, "In addition to locally produced content, Noticias will also feature Spanish written national and international stories that will primarily come from news feeds provided by Tribune papers in Florida and Chicago. Our new video partner, NDN, also offers a Spanish language video service we're using as well."
Weitman said, "This was a local decision made in Hartford."
In an email message written in lower case, NAHJ President Hugo Balta told Journal-isms, "i am encouraged by the changes the hartford courant has implemented. it's a positive step in the right direction in not only producing content that meets the journalistic standards of the newspaper, but also reflects the needs of the latino community. i look forward to further positive progress."
[Reyna messaged on Thursday, "I think they finally did the right thing. I am sure they would not have gotten the message without Poynter's and NAHJ's involvement in supporting my blog. I am very happy they will provide this service to the Latino community in the professional manner it should have had from the beginning. . (and, by the way, Courant never contacted me about the change, even though I had spoken with the person in charge of the Espanol web.)"]
Joaquin Castro, right, introduces his twin brother, Julian, Tuesday at the Democratic National Convention (Video)
Last October, Cary Clack left his hometown paper, the San Antonio Express-News, where he had been a columnist for 17 years, to become communications director and senior adviser for Texas State Rep. Joaquin Castro's congressional campaign.
This week, Clack is at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., where Joaquin and his twin brother, Mayor Julian Castro of San Antonio, created buzz Tuesday as Julian became the first Latino to deliver a DNC keynote.
"Things are going great," Clack told Journal-isms Wednesday by email. "When I left the paper, it was a gamble because Joaquin was in a tough primary fight and if he'd lost I would have been without a job.
"Now, he's the prohibitive favorite (and has been since December) and Julian delivering the keynote and Joaquin introducing him was something that was thought about a year ago. It was surreal to be on the floor last night and see both of them on stage and on the big screen. I've never regretted leaving the Express-News. I owe so much to them — they made my career — but I've never regretted leaving. I'm touched immensely that three days don't go by without someone saying or writing how much they miss me. I wasn't expected to be missed this long but it was time.
"But I must say that this is the first big event I've been to which I wasn't covering and, instinctively, I find myself framing columns and stories in my head. But I'm proud to be associated with one of the big stories this week: the stepping onto the national stage of Julian and Joaquin Castro. They are as good and real as they appear."
An independent journalist wrote Wednesday that authorities threw him out of the media section at the Democratic National Convention after he asked presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett, who had just concluded a television interview, about the Obama administration's use of drone strikes. Jarrett told him to schedule an interview.
Michael Tracey, who writes for salon.com and the American Conservative, told Journal-isms by telephone, "My assumption was that her staff and the event staff were working in concert" when he was thrown out.
However, Clo Ewing, director of constituency press, who was present during the incident, told Journal-isms by telephone that calling the authorities "was not something I asked to happen." Nor did Jarrett, Ewing said, adding that she was still trying to determine what had taken place.
Tracey posted his account on theamericanconservative.com. Salon spokesman Liam O'Donoghue told Journal-isms by email, "I've been informed that Mike Tracey is not attending the DNC as a representative or correspondent for Salon."
Tracey's piece began, "Top Obama aide Valerie Jarrett's staff called the cops to kick me out of a media area last night when I questioned her about drone strikes.
"As I sat up in the rafters listening to some Democratic National Convention speech — I don't even particularly remember which one — Jarrett suddenly appeared to my right. She was being interviewed on camera by some television hack; I don't even particularly know whom. So I rose from my seat and observed. There was an unnerving coldness about Jarrett's demeanor — naturally, she laughed and smiled for the camera, bantering obligingly. But callousness underlain this guise of mainstream jocular propriety. I could see it in her eyes. . . ."
Jack Mirkinson of the Huffington Post cited the Tracey incident Wednesday under the headline, "Journalists Confronted By Police, Undercover Agents While Covering The DNC."
". . . In a post on Tuesday night, Kevin Gosztola, a journalist for the Firedoglake blog, wrote about the police intimidation that he and fellow journalist Steve Horn had encountered during one of several protests that have been carried out by undocumented immigrants over the course of the convention," Mirkinson wrote.
"On the final morning of the Republican National Convention, Karl Rove took the stage at the Tampa Club to provide an exclusive breakfast briefing to about 70 of the Republican Party's highest-earning and most powerful donors," Sheelah Kolhatkar wrote Friday for Bloomberg Businessweek. She was the only reporter in the room.
What emerged from focus group data, Rove told the donors, "is an 'acute 
understanding of the nature of those undecided, persuadable' voters. 'If you say he's a socialist, they'll go to defend him. If you call him a "far out left-winger," they’ll say, "no, no, he's not." ' The proper strategy, Rove declared, was criticizing Obama without really criticizing him — by reminding voters of what the president said that he was going to do and comparing it to what he's actually done. 'If you keep it focused on the facts and adopt a respectful tone, then they're gonna agree with you.'
" . . . Rove spoke almost exclusively about defeating Barack Obama and retaking control of the White House. There was sparse praise for Mitt Romney — either as a candidate or as a future leader and policy maker."
Michael Calderone wrote for the Huffington Post, "Kolhatkar's piece about the Rove breakfast — published the following day by a business magazine rather than any of the myriad non-stop news sites and broadcast outlets — stood out amid reams of convention reporting, punditry, and Clint Eastwood-related tweets. It was an out-and-out scoop, an important window into Rove's role as the Republican Party's Daddy Warbucks, and the only piece Kolhatkar wrote before flying back to New York the next day. "
" 'I think it's an important reminder of what's really driving this entire election," Kolhatkar said. 'It gave us a real look at how these guys talk and how they see this whole thing, which is almost a big game they're very determined to win.' "
'MSNBC president Phil Griffin is a happy man," Michael Calderone wrote Tuesday for the Huffington Post.
"On Wednesday afternoon, Griffin learned that MSNBC was the top-rated cable network for the opening night of the Democratic National Convention, a first in its 16-year history and a validation of the network's progressive shift in recent years. . . . "
"Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan aggressively defended himself Tuesday against allegations that his GOP convention speech last week stretched the truth, saying that opponents and fact-checkers accusing him of false or misleading statements should 'read the speech,' " Jerry Markon and Felicia Sonmez wrote Wednesday in the Washington Post.
"Democrats are seizing on Ryan's remarks, seeking to link them to his earlier errors about his personal marathon time and whether his congressional office sought economic stimulus dollars. On the campaign trail this week, Ryan also misstated the number of bankruptcies filed during President Obama's tenure. . . ."
"Members of the media immediately praised First Lady Michelle Obama's 2012 Democratic National Convention speech on Tuesday night," Rebecca Shapiro wrote Wednesday for Huffington Post. "Obama, who stunned in a custom Tracy Reese dress, took the stage just after 10:30 p.m. EST.
"Across the cable news networks, pundits swooned over Obama's delivery. There seemed to be some mixed reviews over the strength of the speech itself, but the media seemed to agree that Obama nailed the performance."
"Numbers Never Lie will get a new look on Monday, September 10, when ESPN commentators Jalen Rose and Hugh Douglas join host Michael Smith in fulltime roles," ESPN reported on Wednesday. "The show, which launched in September 2011, offers lively debate and roundtable discussion with quantifiable answers. Numbers Never Lie has one host, two athletes, three opinions, but the analytics will end the debate."
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The President’s speech as the Democrats wrapped up their convention is, of course, a common theme in today’s dialogue. But moving beyond politics, there are some clear distinctions between the offerings on the sites. The ethnic sites, for instance, give a broader view of the issues and news involving people of color.
Loop21 leads with a look at black unemployment.
Poverty Issue "Nearly Invisible" in Election Coverage
Latinos Author Only 1/2 of 1% of Big-Paper Op-Eds
Pundits Mixed on Obama's Convention Speech
BET's Lee Says GOP "Pandered" to Blacks, Women
Bill Clinton's Role Seen as Shoring Up Whites
At Key Points, Spanish Networks Aired Novelas
Jeremy Lin Stars in Impromptu "60 Minutes" Short
"Since 1990, the Latino population in the United States has more than doubled to 16 percent, but English-language U.S. news media outlets are simply not keeping up," Julie Hollar wrote for the September edition of Extra!, a publication of Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting. "While people of color and women have always been underrepresented in U.S. media, Latinos consistently stand out — in the coverage as well as inside the newsroom — for their exceptionally paltry numbers relative to their population size.
"In Extra!'s recent study of the opinion pages of the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal (4/12), Latinos were granted less than half a percent of the op-ed bylines over the two-month study period — writing two columns in the Times, one in the Wall Street Journal, and none in the Post. None of these papers has a Latino among their staff columnists.
"In more than a year of political book interviews on [C-SPAN's] After Words and reviews in the New York Times Book Review (Extra!, 8/10), not a single U.S. Latino appeared among the 432 authors, reviewers and interviewers.
". . . Even when the coverage directly involves and impacts Latinos, their voices are scarce. In a year's worth of cable coverage of Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio — who was recently sued by the Justice Department for unlawful discrimination against Latinos — those actually targeted by his policies were included in the conversation only two out of 21 times (Extra!, 6/09)."
". . . As companies like Fox and NBC begin to target Latino audiences with special channels and websites (see 'Latinos in New Media,' Extra!, 9/12), will those audiences feel better served, or just ghettoized and exploited? And will that provide just one more excuse for those outlets to continue to marginalize Latino sources and reporters in their other news? . . ."
"Pundits had a mixed reaction to President Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night," Katherine Fung reported Friday for the Huffington Post. "Overall, the rapturous reception given to Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton was left at the media doorstep.
"Most agreed that, rhetorically, Obama delivered a solid speech, saying that it was typical of the president's strong oratorical skills. Not surprisingly, MSNBC was home to some of the most glowing commentary. Chris Matthews remarked that Obama 'did it again' and delivered 'a home run speech.' Al Sharpton said the address was 'epic,' and speculated that 'Barack Obama won the election tonight.' Rachel Maddow called it a 'big, big speech.'
". . . At CNN, former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer labeled the address a 'hit and a miss.' He criticized Obama for giving what he said was the 'same old... same speech' that he said contained 'many of the promises' from four years ago. . . ."
Meanwhile, the president's speech "fueled a outpouring of tweets," Cory Bergman wrote Thursday for lostremote.com. "Twitter called it a 'record political moment,' adding that Obama's next two biggest spikes (43,646 and 39,002) surpassed Romney's peak at 14,239," referring to Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate. "In all, 9 million tweets about the DNC this week were sent by the conclusion of the president's speech."
"The Republican Party may have featured women like Ann Romney and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in prime slots at its convention in Tampa last week, but that was just 'pandering' and 'disingenuous,' according to Debra L. Lee, chairwoman and CEO of BET Networks," Katie Glueck reported from Charlotte, N.C., Thursday for Politico.
" 'They're pandering,' she said on a POLITICO LIVE show filmed here. 'That's the word that comes to mind.'
" 'I thought some of what went on at the RNC was very disingenuous,' she added. 'Ann Romney has to [give a] shout-out to women? We're over 50 percent of the population. We need a shout-out? It was the craziest-looking thing.'
"Lee said it was 'nice' that Rice sat next to Mitt Romney at the GOP convention, 'but does the RNC really embrace African-Americans, really embrace women?' "
"Wednesday night, reporter John Frank tweeted that North Carolina delegates to the Democratic National Convention were sharing high-fives after former President Bill Clinton's epic 45-minute address," Chris Kromm wrote Thursday for the Institute for Southern Studies.
"No surprise there: Clinton's tour-de-force was a huge hit with Democrats of all flavors in Charlotte and nationally.
"But the speech also had a specific goal: to help sell President Obama and the Democratic brand to whites — including Southern whites — who have been an increasingly challenging demographic for the party.
"A pre-convention Gallup poll found Bill Clinton has a 63 percent approval rating among whites, compared to just 43 percent for Barack Obama. And as Richard Harpootlian, a Democrat from South Carolina told the Associated Press, '[Clinton] resonates with Southern white folks dramatically . . .' "
Michael Oreskes wrote Wednesday for the Associated Press: "The numbers tell a story. President Obama was viewed favorably by 43 percent of white men in an AP-GfK poll last month. It is a key reason this race is so close. Overall, [Mitt] Romney beat Obama 54 to 39 percent among white voters in that poll." As for Clinton, "12 years out of office, he is viewed favorably by 63 percent of white men, according to a Gallup Poll in July."
A Journal-isms reader messaged Wednesday, "Would love to see you write and ask why the largest Spanish-language networks in the country, time after time, continue to take Spanish-speaking viewers for granted. Tonight the first undocumented immigrant to speak in a political convention took the stage... Last night the first Latino to address a DNC.... but you wouldn't know if you are watching Univision or Telemundo playing novelas instead... Yet complaining anchors like Jorge Ramos are asking for a Presidential debate and Latino journalist inclusion?
Journal-isms posed the question to Univision and Telemundo on Thursday.
Monica Talan, a Univision spokeswoman replied by email, "We have offered comprehensive coverage, here is a link to the release with our plans, which included airing both acceptance speeches.
Alfredo Richard, a spokesman for Telemundo, said by email, "All I can tell you is we have been covering and reporting from both the RNC and DNC on the ground every day. Jose Diaz Balart and the Telemundo News team, working closely with NBC News, [have] been covering in detail all aspects of the conventions throughout the whole day starting with our morning show Un Nuevo Dia, our news magazine Al Rojo Vivo and broadcasting our Noticiero directly from Tampa and Charlotte. In addition, tonight, just like with [GOP candidate Mitt] Romney, we're presenting a recap and highlights of the speech at 11:30pm ET and mun2, our young Latinos cable network, carried both acceptance speeches."
Isabel Bucaram, a spokeswoman for CNN en Español, said her network did broadcast the Republican and Democratic convention speeches with simultaneous translations.
"While in Taipei reporting a 60 Minutes story on Houston Rockets point guard Jeremy Lin, CBS producer Pete Radovich found himself with some downtime and an idea for a short film," the CBS "60 Minutes Overtime" staff wrote on Thursday, posting a video.
"So Pete teamed up with Lin and Golden State [Warriors] forward David Lee to make this flick. It's about Lin and Lee making a late-night escape from the press and paparazzi, in pursuit of a real-life pick-up ball game on Taipei's Xingsheng courts.
"The first part of the film is scripted and acted as Lin, going stir-crazy in his hotel room, dons a disguise to sneak by the press camped out in the hotel lobby. As the pro players head to the local courts, the action is real. There's no script here, just five cameras lying in wait, not visible to any of the Xingsheng players, who are still unaware of the surprise guests headed their way.
". . . Our 60 Minutes profile on Jeremy Lin will air later this fall. Charlie Rose is the correspondent and Pete Radovich, creative director of CBS Sports, is the producer."
"Other than stories about poverty and crime on reservations, mainstream media coverage of Native Americans and issues they confront is often steeped in stereotypes that portray Indians as lawless and living in the distant past," Joshunda Sanders wrote Aug. 30 for the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education.
"While large media outlets such as The New York Times and The Associated Press sometimes have the resources to research and produce comprehensive stories, Native Americans must rely largely on tribal newspapers and alternative outlets for content about themselves and their communities.
"Mary Hudetz, a member of the Crow Tribe of Montana, an AP editor in Phoenix and a board member of the Native American Journalists Association, says lack of time and resources at media outlets contribute to fewer stories about Natives. In particular, she cites lack of reporting on how health care reform will impact them and lack of reporting in general, particularly in Indian Country and on reservations.
"Moreover, Hudetz says, the mainstream media largely handle tribal governments gently, in part because the open-government laws that allow reporters to hold entities accountable don't apply to sovereign tribal governments. . . . "
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The School of Communication at American University, Washington, D.C., seeks to fill a position at the level of tenured Professor or Associate Professor in Journalism beginning August 2013. We seek a candidate with deep journalistic accomplishments and national professional stature, someone who is excited about the future of journalism and not nostalgic about the past. The successful candidate will have a proven record of leadership in cutting-edge practice, media innovation and collaboration. Evidence of excellence in teaching at the college level is highly preferred.
Enter the Think Outside the Box essay contest… Make your voice heard!
Every dollar spent on prisons is not spent on something you care about more!
We want to know:
Rules:
The Huffington Post and The Grio report that Bank of America is being accused of neglecting its foreclosed homes in black or Latino neighborhoods, while doing a better job marketing and maintaining foreclosed homes in white neighborhoods.
It’s a quiet day for people of color on the mainstream sites. The day’s representation includes posts about nasty photographs sent to a Congressional candidate, the profits of private prisons, and Samuel L. Jackson’s profanity-laced video in support of the President.
NPR Hiring for New Race-Relations Reporting Team
Tom Arviso Jr., publisher of the Navajo Times in Window Rock, Ariz., and member of the Native American Journalists Association, is the sole candidate for president of Unity Journalists, the group announced this week.
The coalition of Hispanic, Asian American, Native American and lesbian and gay journalists groups meets next weekend to elect officers who, some of the candidates say, plan to make the return of the National Association of Black Journalists to Unity their top priority.
The group must also select a new executive director. Walt Swanston is 
filling the job on an interim basis after the recent departure of Onica N. Makwakwa. NABJ left the group last year over financial and governance issues, and attendance at the summer Unity convention dropped sharply without NABJ's participation.
Arviso said he had been nominated by the presidents of the Asian American Journalists Association, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the Native American Journalists Association and the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association.
Elections for president of the Unity board are rarely contested. However, two board members of the Asian American Journalists Association are vying for the vice president's slot: Doris Truong, outgoing AAJA national president and multiplatform editor at the Washington Post, and Janet Cho, a business reporter for the Plain Dealer in Cleveland who is a former AAJA national secretary and national vice president for print. She lost to Paul Cheung in the summer's election for national AAJA president.
Truong wrote:
". . . I am committed to restarting the conversation about bringing NABJ back to the UNITY fold. I will work with NABJ to outline areas that need mutual agreement and will keep alliance members apprised of progress.
Cho wrote that she was ". . . concerned that we are falling short of our potential as the foremost coalition for media diversity and inclusion.
"As a UNITY officer, I would strive to better communicate with our members; work toward reconciliation and reunification with our founding member, the National Association of Black Journalists; and boldly remind the media industry that the strength of this alliance is much greater than a quadrennial convention."
In April, Arviso and Cho voted against changing the name of the coalition from "Unity: Journalists of Color" to "Unity Journalists," saying that consultation with members was needed before such a decision.
Truong voted for the change, saying it "sends a clear signal that we welcome our brothers and sisters in NLGJA. UNITY continues to be an organization that strives for inclusiveness, which is even more clearly reflected now."
David Steinberg, immediate past president of NLGJA, is running for Unity treasurer. "This is a critical time for UNITY, with our longtime executive director having left and issues raised by NABJ's departure still unresolved," Steinberg wrote. "We have an opportunity to remake this alliance in a way that will benefit all our organizations while also providing the leadership that's needed to focus our industry on the value and necessity of newsroom diversity."
There are no candidates for secretary, but an NAHJ member is expected to fill the post.
Arviso became managing editor of the Navajo Times in October 1988, editor and publisher in 1993, and was named CEO of the Navajo Times Publishing Company in 2004.
In 2003, when the Navajo Nation Council voted for the newspaper to become Navajo Times Publishing Inc., Arviso said no other tribally owned newspaper had ever succeeded in gaining its independence from its tribal government. Last week, he accepted a Robert G. McGruder Award for Diversity Leadership from the Associated Press Media Editors.
"The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any wealthy nation, with about 2.3 million people behind bars at any given moment," Peter Coy, Bloomberg Businessweek's economics editor, wrote on Friday. "(That's 730 out of 100,000, vs. just 154 for England and Wales.) There are more people in U.S. prisons than are in the country's active-duty military. That much is well known.
"What's less known is that people who are incarcerated are excluded from most surveys by U.S. statistical agencies. Since young, black men are disproportionately likely to be in jail or prison, the exclusion of penal institutions from the statistics makes the jobs situation of young, black men look better than it really is.
"That's the point of a new book, Invisible Men: Mass Incarceration and the Myth of Black Progress, by Becky Pettit, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington. Pettit spoke on Thursday in a telephone press conference. . . ."
"On his first full day in office, President Barack Obama ordered federal officials to 'usher in a new era of open government' and 'act promptly' to make information public," Jim Snyder and Danielle Ivory reported Friday for Bloomberg News.
"As Obama nears the end of his term, his administration hasn't met those goals, failing to follow the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act, according to an analysis of open-government requests filed by Bloomberg News.
"Nineteen of 20 cabinet-level agencies disobeyed the law requiring the disclosure of public information: The cost of travel by top officials. In all, just eight of the 57 federal agencies met Bloomberg's request for those documents within the 20-day window required by the Act."
Meanwhile, Margaret Sullivan, the new public editor at the New York Times, wrote of Obama Thursday that ". . . it's worth acknowledging that he has also authorized the federal government to engage in an unprecedented crackdown on journalists and whistle-blowers here in the United States, relentlessly pursuing and initiating new cases against journalists and their sources.
"Consider the Times reporter James Risen, whose 2005 work with Eric Lichtblau on the federal government's use of warrantless wiretapping was perhaps the most important national security journalism of the last decade. Mr. Risen has been under constant pressure from the Justice Department to reveal his confidential sources. Federal prosecutors say one of those sources is the former C.I.A. official Jeffery Sterling, whom they accuse of leaking secrets about American efforts to sabotage Iran's nuclear program to Mr. Risen for his 2006 book 'State of War.'. . . "
Last December, the American Society of News Editors noted that Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and Openthegovernment.org issued a joint report that reviewed several aspects of Freedom of Information Act compliance by the 15 largest independent agencies and cabinet-level departments. "Their answer appears to be that the improvement has been slight, at best" [fifth item], ASNE said.
"The consequences of the controversial 'Fast and Furious' undercover operation put in place by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in 2009 have been deadlier than what has been made public to date," Univision News announced on Thursday. "The exclusive, in-depth investigation by Univision News' award-winning Investigative Unit — Univision Investiga — has found that the guns that crossed the border as part of Operation Fast and Furious caused dozens of deaths inside Mexico.
"Univision’s Investigative Unit identified massacres committed with guns from the ATF operation, including the killing of 16 young people attending a party in a residential area of Ciudad Juárez in January of 2010. This and many other shocking new revelations about Fast and Furious will be presented in a special edition of Univision Network's newsmagazine 'Aquí y Ahora' (Here and Now) this Sunday, September 30, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. ET/PT (6 p.m. Central). The Univision News special will be aired with closed captioning in English to expand the reach and impact of this eye-opening investigation.
"Univision News' Investigative Unit was also able to identify additional guns that escaped the control of ATF agents and were used in different types of crimes throughout Mexico. Furthermore, some of these guns – none of which were reported by Congressional investigators – were put in the hands of drug traffickers in Honduras, Puerto Rico, and Colombia. A person familiar with the recent Congressional hearings called Univision's findings 'the holy grail' that Congress had been searching for."
Eugene Kane has changed his mind about giving up his Metro column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to return to reporting, covering the Milwaukee Public Schools. Instead, he is taking a buyout.
Thomas Koetting, deputy managing editor/local news, wrote in a staff memo on Wednesday, ". . . Eugene Kane also will work his last day at the newspaper this Friday, but his 31-year association with the Journal and then Journal Sentinel will not come to an end. Eugene will write a weekly column for the Sunday Crossroads section, and will continue to maintain his blog. He has been a valuable voice in our community, particularly in his nearly two decades as a local columnist. He took principled stands on lightning-rod issues, and for many readers was a singular advocate for matters close to their hearts and minds. He handled more challenging exchanges with readers than the rest of us combined, and did it with grace and honesty. His community outreach, especially with young people, was exemplary."
Kane told Journal-isms by email that he had discussed his situation with family members and concluded, "The buy-out is the best deal going and they will also pay me to write a Sunday Op-ed column. Like one of my advisers told me: 'That's a no-brainer!' "
He wrote on Facebook Friday, "Lots of love from FB friends about my decision to leave Journal Sentinel. I really appreciated it! Many younger FB folks congratulated me on my 'retirement'. C'mon; a middle aged black man like me can't afford to retire. I'm still going to be in the mix with my Sunday column and more. Bet."
Don Terry, whose career includes stints as a writer for the Chicago Tribune magazine and as part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team for the New York Times, started work this week at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which investigates and publicizes hate crimes from its base in Montgomery, Ala.
"I'm a senior writer for the Center, primarily for our magazine, Intelligence Report," Terry wrote Journal-isms by email on Friday. "My first day was Monday and they put me right to work following up on a murderous militia."
"Before heading South, I was freelancing since March when the Chicago 
News Cooperative — and my job there — vanished. While I was reluctant to leave Chicago and my family, the minute I walked into the SPLC newsroom, which overlooks the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, I knew I was in the right place. As I said in announcing my move, I just can't get over that my ID badge quotes Martin Luther King: '...Until Justice Rolls Down Like Waters And Righteousness Like a Mighty Stream.' "
Terry told his Facebook friends, "I'm still doing journalism and fighting for social justice. What more can a guy from Hyde Park want in a gig?"
As a magazine writer, Terry was honored for such pieces as "Hiding in Plain Sight," in which he and photographer Terrence James "followed the trail of an alleged mass killer from the dusty streets of Kigali, Rwanda, to tree-lined suburban Chicago," as his editor, Elizabeth Taylor, described it to readers in 2005, and "User Friendly" in 2003, about the Chicago Recovery Alliance, one of the largest needle-exchange programs in the country.
He was also based in his Chicago hometown for much of his 12-year tenure at the Times.
At that paper, he was part of the "How Race Is Lived in America" team that won the Pulitzer in 2001 for national reporting. He wrote "Getting Under My Skin," a memoir of growing up biracial.
"The government took a big step on Friday to aid the creation of new high-speed wireless Internet networks that could fuel the development of the next generation of smartphones and tablets, and devices that haven't even been thought of yet," Edward Wyatt reported Friday for the New York Times.
"The five-member Federal Communications Commission unanimously approved a sweeping, though preliminary, proposal to reclaim public airwaves now used for broadcast television and auction them off for use in wireless broadband networks, with a portion of the proceeds paid to the broadcasters."
The Minority Media and Telecommunications Council hailed the move. It said in a statement, "Demand for commercial wireless spectrum is increasing so rapidly that it soon will overtake the supply.
"That phenomenon, 'spectrum exhaust,' would be especially detrimental to minorities, who have led the nation in the rate at which they have adopted mobile wireless and its applications to job search, health care, education and civic engagement. In all of American history, wireless is the first technology for which minority consumers have a head start – an encouraging high tech and civil rights development that MMTC has named the 'Minority Wireless Miracle.'
"There is no time to lose. To ensure that consumers can enjoy the use of new wireless spectrum as rapidly as possible, MMTC strongly encourages the FCC to expedite the rulemaking process so that the auctions can conclude by December 2013."
The FCC plans to invite public comment on auction procedures, including how to structure ownership opportunities for designated entities such as minority entrepreneurs.
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The usual categories are trending on mainstream homepages, as people of color are represented as criminals, celebrities and politicians.
The Huffington Post is out of the gate with Soledad O’Brien challenging Delaware Gov. Jack Markell when he doesn’t answer her question.
The Working Group's Not In Our Town Project seeks a Community Engagement Director. Not In Our Town is a multi-media program that presents stories about community response to hate and innovative examples of diverse groups of people working together for safe, respectful and inclusive communities for all. NIOT seeks to increase the capacity of local communities and schools to prevent hate crimes and create safer, more inclusive and accepting environments for all.
Responsibilities:
Presidential polls and campaign strategies are trending on both mainstream and ethnic sites . . .
Publisher Enabled Evolution Into Maynard Institute
. . . Black Times Alumni Remember Sulzberger
A 2nd Try After Forum for Black Voters Fails
"Racial Preferences" Still a Pejorative Term
Female Top Editors Make $15K Less Than Men
Times-Picayune Ends Run as Daily Print Newspaper
T.J. Holmes: "I Finally Made It"
Paul Delaney, former senior editor at the New York Times:
"He was not a good journalist at the beginning, but he grew into a great publisher. He headed the paper at the start of its most turbulent period. For blacks, that included the efforts to integrate the operation, the newsroom, in particular, the company's heart and soul. Punch was known to allow editors and managers to run their departments. That meant the all-whites in charge could continue in their old ways, hiring and promoting those who mirrored themselves. I always thought he let Executive Editor Abe Rosenthal bully him, especially regarding minority hiring and promotion. Abe moved with deliberately slow speed.
"A minority lawsuit filed in 1971 was settled nine years later. Punch allowed his lawyers to fight the suit to eventual agreement. I always thought he was embarrassed by it, that it sullied the Times' reputation, and he was right. Afterwards, I was on a committee he appointed with the purpose of implementing the agreement. (It called for hiring, promotions, training, and assigning blacks to all major beats.) I was pleased that Punch told us to continue enforcing the agreement after the expiration date. But, again, he didn't put muscle behind it and let his managers remain in charge & change was as slow as ever. Well, not really, things began to move faster than they had, and I credit him and his son, Arthur Jr.
"Regarding another matter, I was in the Washington bureau when Punch announced to us at a party that he'd hired William Safire as columnist. Along with most others in the office (I was the sole black reporter for years), I was furious and we all let him know. My fury extended beyond the fact that Safire was conservative, but that there were no black editors on the paper and that Safire represented the real truth that it would be a long time before the paper really changed. At that time, Safire was an example that the paper would open up even for conservatives, but not nonwhites."
C. Gerald Fraser, former Times reporter and cultural columnist: 
"I have always had conflicts with uniformed authorities and this includes New York Times's security guards who, among other things, especially in the late 1960s, always demanded to see my Times ID. Of course, I resisted. I had worked at The Times for quite some time when, one morning the publisher, Arthur 'Punch' Sulzberger, and I had entered the building, more or less together. He approached the security guards first, took out his Times ID, and held it in his open palm for the guards to see. I imagined then that he was trying to tell me, coming in behind him, 'It's no big deal, Gerald, even I, the publisher . . .' I laughed to myself.
"Sulzberger was everything they say about his being low-keyed and a gentleman. He greeted all level of employees by name. He had so much power in New York and I never saw or heard of him using it inappropriately.
"Charles Brown, the longtime newsroom receptionist, told me today that soon after Punch took over the publisher's job, he made life better for the Times's black porters. Previously, they ate their lunch in the men's room and they also changed clothes there after finishing their shifts. Punch had a recreation room and showers installed.
"Two anti-discrimination class action suits occurred during Sulzberger's reign. His obituary, which I have read only online, referred in passing to the women's class action anti-discrimination suit, but never mentioned the minorities's suit. . . . During 'our' suit, I never heard Sulzberger's name mentioned in connection with any of the negotiations."
Reginald Stuart, McClatchy Co. corporate recruiter, former Times reporter: 
"Punch had class and a real appreciation for the important role serious newspapers play in society.
"He stuck by serious journalism in the face of all kinds of darts and arrows, even when the paper's fortunes were at a low point in the mid-1970's. When the paper was taken to court over its affirmative action practices with respect to women and people of color, he maintained his respect once the battles ended. He was a tough business executive with a real appreciation for news. I think publishing a great paper was foremost in his mind. He knew if he did, the profits would follow. For years they did."
Roger Wilkins, former editorial writer at the Times and Washington Post:
"Arthur Ochs Sulzberger was a real gentleman with a powerful determination to preserve and improve the enormous gem that he inherited. You could call him 'Punch' — a childhood family nickname, I believe, but when you brought him a tough issue, he could become a very steely gentleman who was determined to preserve and enhance that gem.
"I recall that when he first hired a black member for the Editorial Board (me), he invited me to his office and spend almost an hour with me alone and then brought in some of his favorite Times journalists to let them know that he intended for this move to be successful. It was gentlemanly and it was clear.....he expected this to work and the people he had brought in to meet me were to make sure that this would work out.
"As time wore on, I realized I had a very smart boss who was clear in his mind about what good journalism was and the quality expected in his paper every morning. He understood life in America. And as I worked, I realized that he had made sure that everybody needed to know that this step in integrating this part of his family inheritance was going to work. He was a good man — fair and determined that the great institution that had been handed would grow and maintain the high values of that institution.
"Punch was a very good man devoted to his work and to the people who he had brought in to help him achieve that goal.
"In all, he was one SWELL boss and a very good guy."
A proposal for a televised, black-oriented presidential candidates forum next week that would be co-sponsored by MSNBC, American Urban Radio Networks, the NAACP, the National Newspaper Publishers Association, Lincoln University and the Grio has been scuttled after the Obama campaign said President Obama would not be available. The Mitt Romney campaign also turned down the offer.
However, Jerry Lopes, president of program operations & affiliations for American Urban Radio Networks, told Journal-isms by telephone on Monday that he has another proposal. Lopes said he has offered the Obama and Romney campaigns 15 minutes each to say whatever they want to the black community. The presentations would be included in an hourlong special that would be offered to black radio stations around the country. A panel of journalists would analyze the remarks as part of the hour.
A similar program aired during the 2004 contest between President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the Democratic challenger. The journalists were DeWayne Wickham of USA Today, April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks and Juan Williams, then of Fox News and NPR.
Some commentators have complained that the Spanish-language network Univision's forums with the presidential candidates last month were a success, but that there has been no counterpart on issues of particular concern to African Americans.
After journalists of color were shut out of the upcoming debate questioning of the presidential and vice presidential candidates, Michael D. McCurry, co-chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates and press secretary to President Bill Clinton from 1995 to 1998, accepted a suggestion from Hugo Balta, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, that the commission receive questions from the journalists of color and the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association for presentation to the moderators.
The associations of Hispanic, Asian American and Native American journalists submitted their questions, Balta said on Sept. 13, while NLGJA deferred to the journalists of color.
Over the weekend, the National Association of Black Journalists submitted 15 questions on domestic policy directly to Jim Lehrer of PBS, who is moderating the first debate Wednesday in Denver, according to Sonya Ross, who chairs NABJ's political task force.
Ross said the questions concerned unemployment and the economy, particularly black joblessness; the Affordable Health Care Act; education; crime and law enforcement, specifically the stop-and-frisk laws; and the nation's changing demographics.
Ross said NABJ would be following up with moderators for the subsequent debates.
"All questions submitted to the CPD have been forwarded to the moderators," Nancy Henrietta of the Commission on Presidential Debates told Journal-isms by email on Monday.
With another affirmative action case before the Supreme Court, journalists are again facing the temptation to use the pejorative term "racial preferences" in lieu of "affirmative action." Some have already succumbed.
"Next week, the Court will get to affirmative action in a case involving the University of Texas, as the justices consider a suit brought by a white woman who had her admission application rejected; race can be one of the factors in that decision," Jamie Dupree, radio news director of the Washington Bureau of the Cox Media Group, wrote in the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman, published in the city at the center of the dispute.
" 'Most people think the Texas plan may be gone,' said Russell Wheeler, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C."
That the terms are not synonymous is evident by examining who chooses to use which term.
The Project on Fair Representation, which represents Abigail Fisher, the plaintiff in the Texas case, repeatedly hammers at "racial preferences."
A Feb. 21 news release from the group begins, "Today, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in Abigail Noel Fisher v. University of Texas, a case challenging the constitutionality of UT's reintroduction of racial preferences in the undergraduate admissions process in 2004."
However, Gary J. Susswein, director of media relations for the university, told Journal-isms Monday, "We generally refer to 'the use of race as a factor in admissions.' " Same holds true for the U.S. government brief [PDF].
An Aug. 6 news release from the university says, "The plaintiff in the case claims that she was denied undergraduate admission to the university in 2008 because she is white. But the facts show otherwise. In its brief, the university argues that its admissions system, which considers an applicant's race along with many other factors in an individualized, holistic review, is a constitutional practice that promotes the educational benefits of diversity at the university."
The National Association of Black Journalists weighed in on the terminology in 1995. "Since polls have shown that the public supports affirmative action, but opposes 'preferential treatment,' using the terms interchangeably, under the guise of objective reporting, unfairly characterizes affirmative action," the NABJ report said.
". . . Race-based remedies are intended to counter 'preferences.' "
"The only thing equal is the job title. Even though there are stories of editors like Anna Wintour and Janice Min pocketing seven-figure salaries, Folio magazine's annual compensation survey found that on average, male editors-in-chief made about $15,000 more than their female counterparts last year," Alexander Abad-Santos reported Wednesday for the Atlantic.
"Men with the titles of editor-in-chief or editorial director received an average of $100,800 compared to women with the same titles who received $85,100. The survey included 513 editors.
"The pay gap was bigger at the next position on the masthead, with male executive editors getting paid an average of $84,200 while women with the title were paid an average $65,700. That continued down to next highest position with male managing editors making $5,000 more than female ones. . . . "
"Reaching out from across the country and across the decades, former and current Times-Picayune staffers packed into The Howlin' Wolf on Saturday night to celebrate the daily paper that was," Maya Rodriguez reported Sunday for WWL-TV in New Orleans.
" 'It is very gratifying to see the bond between the people who work at this paper because we love working here,' said former Times-Picayune reporter Matt Scallan. 'It was a great place to work.'
"Scallan speaks in the past tense because after 22 years as a reporter there, he lost his job. The paper is moving to increase its online presence and decrease its printed publication to three days a week.
" 'This is very tough on a lot of people,' he said. . . ."
(Photo Credit: BET)
BET launched "Don't Sleep" Monday night, its news/talk show vehicle for longtime CNN newsman T.J. Holmes. "We are promoting this show on-air, in-market — we have a Don't Sleep Tour bus that has been to nearly 20 cities including the RNC, DNC and CBC!" spokeswoman Jeanine D. Liburd told Journal-isms by email Monday, referring to the Republican and Democratic national conventions and the recent Congressional Black Caucus legislative conference in Washington.
The Times Square promotion, shown above, "started last week and continues throughout this week. It's a major billboard on 45th street and Broadway AND from 10-11p we have a billboard video roadblock across several screens. It's a BIG deal!!"
Holmes tweeted on Saturday, "Just drove through Times Square and saw myself on the big screen. Gotta call my mom and tell her I finally made it. #ArkansastoNY" Watch online.
by Earl Caldwell
Over the last few days since word came of the death of Arthur Sulzberger, a lot of stories have been told about his life and his time as publisher of the New York Times newspaper. Here's a story not told. It has to do with what Punch Sulzberger did to save the Summer Program for Minority Journalists.
This was 1974 and by then, SPMJ was a stunning success. The program was the brainchild of Fred Friendly, the legendary builder of CBS News on television. The idea was simple. (1) Comb the country to find bright young people who wanted to become reporters but couldn't because they were not white. (2) Bring these people to Columbia University during the summer and in 10 weeks of intensive training get them prepared for street level reporting. (3) Match those who completed the program with newspapers who were looking to hire minorities but were lamenting that they "couldn’t find anybody qualified."
Friendly had been motivated by the report of a commission President Johnson appointed to investigate the causes of the civil disorders, known as the riots that swept black communities in cities across the country during the mid 1960s. The commission targeted the news media with a lot of the blame. Media were accused of not reporting on conditions, complaints and growing rage in black areas. But the report offered that the media couldn’t have done the job had it wanted because the newsrooms were overwhelmingly white and male and thus, only delivered a story of America through the eyes of white men only.
Friendly was compelled to act. "During the war, the Air Force trained pilots in 90 days," he roared. "We can train reporters in three months." He was at the Ford Foundation then and secured a grant to do the job. He took the resources to Columbia and by 1969; he had his idea, the Summer Program for Minority Journalists, up and running.
By 1972, Friendly wanted black reporters to lead the program and he summoned the late Bob Maynard and myself to Columbia and installed us as co-directors of SPMJ. The program grew. We kept finding bright young people, and after pushing them through the heat of New York during the summer, they were ready to do the jobs by fall and then went off to the newspapers where they had been hired and launched their careers. Then, in 1974, without warning, there was no more money. The grant ended and there was no renewal.
The group Maynard and I had put together to run the program was known as the Institute for Journalism Education. We confronted officials at Columbia and after some prodding, the school agreed that if we raised the money, then SPJ could continue. But we were warned, "there isn't much time." We had little more than a month and no prospects. As it happened, I was nominated to lead the emergency drive to raise the money. I had no plan and no experience at raising money. But I did have an idea. I was a reporter at the New York Times. I went to see my boss, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger.
We met in his office in the building on West 43rd Street in Manhattan. I outlined the problem. He told me that he was sure that it was a worthy program that we had but he made it clear that the New York Times would not be able to underwrite the grant that was needed to continue. As he talked, I could see what I took to be the hint of a smile on his face and as I watched he grabbed a pen and began making some notes on a piece of paper.
He looked up to say, "I've got an idea" and he slid the piece of paper across his desk. On the paper he had written a list of big news organizations and at the top was the New York Times. Alongside the name of the company, he had written a name. He then leaned across his desk, pointed to the paper and announced, "Now here's the way you're going to get the money." Then he detailed the plan that was right there, in the front of mind.
"The New York Times will give you some money," he said. "It doesn't matter how much. What we give you says that we support your program. You have our name and that will help you. Then he came to the other names — Time magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes magazine and maybe three or four others. I'm going to call these people and I'm going to tell them to see you and each one of them, they will give you some support. And when you go out to foundations, looking for a big grant, they say to you, 'who is supporting this program?' You will have all of these people and this will help you."
In a few days I began to make the rounds and just as Punch had promised, everywhere that I went, the support was there. And just as he had said, when we sought a larger grant, we were asked about our supporters and we had the list Arthur Sulzberger had put together. It was genius. In two weeks we had the money to continue the program. Only problem was, Columbia said that it was too late. "Not enough time for this summer," we were told. "Maybe next year." We would not wait. We had the money. We were invited to the University of California at Berkeley and we accepted and whole new chapter in the history of the Summer Program was written and it was because of what Punch Sulzberger did when we were in a pinch.
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Pennsylvania’s voter ID saga makes headlines as a judge orders state officials not to enforce it in November. Campaign ads, Wednesday’s debate and immigration policy are also part of the presidential campaign story on both mainstream and ethnic sites.
A state judge has ordered Pennsylvania not to enforce its tough new law requiring voter IDs for November’s general election . . .
A video of President Obama talking at Hampton University in 2007 -- before he was elected president -- is making the rounds again. Matt Drudge, Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity are promoting his comments as divisive; Juan Williams is dismissing them. Other buzz from the campaign trail focuses on expectations about the first presidential debate and the latest polling information . . .
Aly Antonio Colón has been appointed Director, Standards & Practices at NBC News. As a journalist and trainer specializing in ethics, diversity, reporting, writing and editing, he has worked with the Maynard Institute (The Voices project) , the Poynter Institute, The American Society of News Editors and PRI.
Updated Oct. 4
CNN Poll Has Romney Winning Round, 67%-25%
Poll: Blacks Watch TV News More Than Whites, Hispanics
Conservatives Hype 5-Year-Old Obama Speech
George Will: Voters Don't Want to Fire a Black Man
CNN's "Latino in America" Back With Look at Voters
A greater percentage of black consumers watches television news than do whites or Hispanics, according to a study of news consumption trends by the Pew Research Center for the People & The Press.
Sixty-nine percent of blacks said they received their news the previous day from television, compared with 56 percent of whites and 43 percent of Hispanics.
Forty-one percent of blacks said they watched the nightly network news 
regularly, and 50 percent watched cable news channels, compared with 26 percent of whites for the nightly news and 34 percent for cable news, and 21 percent of Hispanics for the nightly news and 27 percent for cable news.
African Americans have traditionally spent more time in front of the television than others.
The survey said Hispanics consumed news less than whites or blacks. When asked how they had received their news the day before, 33 percent responded "no news yesterday." Fourteen percent of whites and 15 percent of blacks responded "no news yesterday." No comparison with previous years was immediately available.
Overall, "The transformation of the nation's news landscape has already taken a heavy toll on print news sources, particularly print newspapers [PDF]," the center said in a report Thursday. "But there are now signs that television news — which so far has held onto its audience through the rise of the internet — also is increasingly vulnerable, as it may be losing its hold on the next generation of news consumers.
"Online and digital news consumption, meanwhile, continues to increase, with many more people now getting news on cell phones, tablets or other mobile platforms. And perhaps the most dramatic change in the news environment has been the rise of social networking sites. The percentage of Americans saying they saw news or news headlines on a social networking site yesterday has doubled — from 9% to 19% — since 2010. Among adults younger than age 30, as many saw news on a social networking site the previous day (33%) as saw any television news (34%), with just 13% having read a newspaper either in print or digital form."
The Pew Research Center provided Journal-isms with a breakout of blacks and Hispanics this week. Some 3,003 people were in the sample; 281 were black and 300 were Hispanic.
"One night before the first presidential debate, conservatives Matt Drudge, Sean Hannity, and Tucker Carlson hyped footage of a five-year-old speech by then-Sen. Barack Obama, widely covered at the time, in which the presidential candidate suggested the George W. Bush administration was discriminating against the victims of Hurricane Katrina," Dylan Byers reported Wednesday for Politico.
"But when footage finally aired on Hannity's Fox News program and on Carlson's Daily Caller website at 9 p.m., following hours of anticipation spurred by Drudge's promise of controversy and Hannity's promise of a 'bombshell', it fell flat.
" 'What's the "So what" of this video? I don’t think it's going to really go anywhere,' Republican Rep. Allen West said on Fox News.
" 'I don't think this particular speech is definitive,' said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, though he added that it was at least a 'reminder' of Obama's 'pattern of dishonesty.'
"If the footage failed to impress, it may be because Sen. Obama's remarks were widely covered — by Carlson, by Fox News, and by the mainstream media — when they were made on June 5, 2007. . . ."
"Washington Post columnist George Will has a novel explanation for why President Barack Obama continues to lead challenger Mitt Romney in the polls: it's because Obama is black," Joy-Ann Reid wrote Tuesday for the Grio.
"Seriously, that's Will's reasoning.
"The idea is this: the country, its economy, and the Obama administration are in 'shambles,' to quote Will. Unemployment is at 8 percent. Durable goods orders are down! And who among us doesn't hinge our vote on the metric of durable goods? Tesla Motors isn't doing well — TESLA! — despite a major cash infusion from the Department of Energy, and as we all know, as goes Tesla, so goes the nation. Therefore, Romney should be mopping the floor with Obama.
"So why isn't Mitt ahead in the polls? Will's explanation starts with his 
favorite metaphor: baseball…
" 'A significant date in the nation's civil rights progress involved an African American baseball player named Robinson, but not Jackie. The date was Oct. 3, 1974, when Frank Robinson, one the greatest players in history, was hired by the Cleveland Indians as the major leagues' first black manager. But an even more important milestone of progress occurred June 19, 1977, when the Indians fired him. That was colorblind equality.
" 'Managers get fired all the time. The fact that the Indians felt free to fire Robinson — who went on to have a distinguished career managing four other teams — showed that another racial barrier had fallen: Henceforth, African Americans, too, could enjoy the God-given right to be scapegoats for impatient team owners or incompetent team executives.'
"And how is Barack Obama like Jackie Robinson? I think you can guess. . . "
State Sen. Ruben Kihuen, D-Nev., left, is among those interviewed in the next "Latino in America" episode. Kihuen had hoped to be Nevada's first-ever Latino U.S. congressman. He dropped out of the race in February. (Video)
CNN's "Latino in America" series returns on Sunday as Soledad O'Brien, CNN anchor and special correspondent, "reports on how Democrats and Republicans are reaching out to the swing voter demographic of Latinos, with a lens on the pivotal state of Nevada, a state with both the fastest-growing Latino community in the nation, and a state that has voted for the last 24 of the last 25 U.S. presidents," CNN announces.
Asked what message there would be for fellow journalists, O'Brien told Journal-isms by telephone on Wednesday, "We take a very nuanced approach to this important population. I was surprised by the degree that both parties have serious challenges. Latinos are feeling very unheard. Some of it is immigration and some is the message carried out in the GOP primaries."
O'Brien, daughter of a white Australian father and a black Cuban mother, was named "Journalist of the Year" by the National Association of Black Journalists in 2010. NABJ called her "the impetus of CNN's acclaimed 'In America' franchise, which began with CNN's "Black In America" in 2008." Later the series looked at "Latino in America" and "Gay in America."
In March, CNN laid off dozens of employees in its two documentary units, including the "In America" unit. But it promised the "In America" series would continue. The last "Latino in America" aired aired Sept. 25, 2011.
"Latino in America: Courting Their Vote" debuts on CNN/U.S. on Oct. 7 at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET and PT, repeating Saturday, Oct. 13 at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET and PT on CNN/U.S.
Kimberly Arp-Babbit is the senior producer. Cameo George, Robert Howell, Tina Matherson, Elizabeth Nunez and Dave Timko are the producers. Jennifer Hyde is the managing editor and Bud Bultman and Geraldine Moriba executive produced the documentary for CNN. Howell and Timko are no longer with CNN.
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Sona Patel, 2009 Multimedia Editing Program grad, was named Social Media Producer in the Interactive News Team of The New York Times.
Debbie Douglass is a Maynard Institute Multimedia Editing Program 2011 graduate. She will be hosting an art show to display over 100 of her original paintings.
Veteran diversity professional returns to coalition (9/6/12); Boston Globe rates Romney as governor; Clinton speech scores with highest tweets per minute; are Americans better off than in '08? It's semantics; Courant scraps embarrassing Google Translate; former columnist "proud" to be with Castro twins; reporter says question to Jarrett got him the boot; writer gains access to Karl Rove fundraiser; MSNBC wins cable news race on DNC opening night; Ryan to fact-checking critics: "Read the speech"; pundits swoon over Michelle Obama speech; ESPN names new team for "Numbers" (9/5/12)
Poverty issue "nearly invisible" in election coverage; in big papers, Latinos author only 1/2 of 1% of big-paper op-eds; pundits mixed on Obama's convention speech; BET's Lee says GOP "pandered" to blacks, women; Bill Clinton's role seen as shoring up whites; at key points, Spanish networks aired novelas; Jeremy Lin stars in impromptu "60 Minutes" short; coverage of Native Americans steeped in stereotypes (9/7/12)
NPR hiring for new race-relations reporting team; Tom Arviso Jr. sole candidate to lead Unity board; joblessness of young black men worse than it seems; Obama administration scored for lack of openness; Univision says "Fast and Furious" caused Mexican deaths; Milwaukee's Kane decides to take buyout after all; Don Terry joins Southern Poverty Law Center; FCC move could add to minority-owned mobile space (9/28/12)
was named editor in chief at Brides magazine, becoming the first African American to head a magazine in the 103-year history of Conde Nast magazines, said that as a general matter her goal is to produce a magazine that "reflects all of our readers
Publisher enabled evolution into Maynard Institute; . . . black Times alumni remember Sulzberger; a 2nd try after forum for black voters fails; "racial preferences" still a pejorative term; female top editors make $15K less than men; Times-Picayune ends run as daily print newspaper; T.J. Holmes: "I finally made it"; by Earl Caldwell: A story not told: How Punch Sulzberger saved SPMJ (10/1/12)
become a producer with the Adcom Group, also in Cleveland. He "has been a consummate visual storyteller at The PD for 23 years," David Kordalski, assistant managing editor/visuals, told staffers on Wednesday. 
Maynard Faculty, Aly Antonio Colón, Appointed Director, Standards & Practices at NBC News.
CNN poll has Romney winning round, 67%-25%; Poll: blacks watch TV news more than whites, Hispanics; conservatives hype 5-year-old Obama speech; George Will: Voters don't want to fire a black man; CNN's "Latino in America" back with look at voters (10/3/12)
Sona Patel, 2009 Multimedia Editing Program grad, named social media producer at The New York Times.
