Coverage decisions by mainstream media can help explain the gulf that sometimes exists between whites and people of color, Also, the lack of diverse representation on important issues can skew perceptions about who is affected. The mainstream’s reliance on celebrity, sports, crime and politics to reflect people of color creates a funhouse mirror.
The mainstream’s skewed view of life for people of color wouldn’t be so objectionable if a clear alternative wasn’t obvious. The aggregation that supports online coverage proves the point. The ethnic sites do a good job of pulling in stories that capture issues affecting people of color, rather than just seeking out stories about the famous or infamous.
Here’s a look at the mainstream view:
There are strong follows – though somewhat sensationalized – on that
In New Orleans, Broadband Goes to Whites, Affluent
Grad Student From Syria Killed Filming in Homeland
Actor's Biopic Will Join Canon of Bizarre Racial Tales
Thomas-Lester, El-Bashir Leaving Washington Post
Philly News Director Out After 26 Years at NBC
Blitzer Calls Trump "Ridiculous" on Birther Claim
Fox Airs Anti-Obama Video Resembling "Propaganda"
"The 14 graduate students in Syracuse University's master of fine arts in film program come from all over the world: the Gaza Strip, Greece, Mexico, the U.S., China, Taiwan and South Korea," Charles Ellis reported Tuesday for the Post-Standard in Syracuse, N.Y.
"Despite their wide range of backgrounds, the students are 'a close, tight-knit community,' said SU film professor Owen Shapiro.
"The students are shocked and saddened by the death of Bassel Al Shahade,
a film-making graduate student at SU who had returned to his homeland of Syria to film that country's revolution, Shapiro said. Shahade was killed Monday working as a citizen journalist by government forces while filming the attacks by Syrian government forces in the city of Homs.
" 'We're saddened by this, and we're angry that there are governments of the world that kill their citizens for any reasons,' said Shapiro, who taught Shahade in a film class last fall and was his academic adviser. Al Shahade, a native of the Syrian capital of Damascus, was a Fulbright Scholar pursuing a master of fine arts in film degree in the College of Visual and Performing Arts."
Horror stories about race are sometimes so bizarre that they challenge the imagination. Journalists will have the opportunity to tell one such tale when actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje's film of his life story is completed. Britain's Guardian newspaper related the narrative this month under the headline, "Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje: 'I didn't want to be black. So I joined the skinheads…'"
"The name Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje is not one that slips easily off the tongue but it's worth mastering because we're likely to be hearing a lot more of it in the future," Andrew Anthony wrote. "Followers of the [willfully] perplexing American fantasy series Lost may recall its owner as Mr Eko, the former drug lord turned fake priest who was killed by the Man in Black, otherwise known as the Monster. Or perhaps not.
"Some will know him as Simon Adebisi, the intimidating African convict in the cult HBO prison series Oz; others may recognise his contributions to films such as Congo and The Bourne Identity; and no doubt his role as an American spy in the forthcoming BBC-HBO series Hunted will further raise his profile. But it may well be as the screenwriter and film director of his own life story that Akinnuoye-Agbaje becomes a name to remember."
About the film: "Entitled Farming, it refers to the practice of handing out children to informal fostering that many Nigerian parents followed in 1960s and 1970s Britain. Akinnuoye-Agbaje was one such case. In 1967, when he was six weeks old, his parents — a Nigerian couple studying in London — gave him to a white working-class couple in Tilbury, then a fiercely insular dockside community."
". . . If it was crowded and chaotic within the home, outside the young boy was in constant danger of physical attack from local kids who, encouraged by their parents, nurtured a violent fear of blacks. He learned to feel the same way himself, running away from the black sailors who occasionally visited the docks from far-off locations.
". . . Such was his eagerness to fit in that, although his skin clearly told another tale, he thought of himself as white. And if his sense of self wasn't already damaged enough, he knew nothing of his African parents until one day, when he was eight, they turned up out of the blue and took him back to Nigeria."
". . . his natural parents were not prepared to bring him up" and ". . . foster parents were ill-prepared." He returned to England as a 9-year-old, where ". . . He became a skinhead.
"He didn't just adopt the haircut and clothes but the racist attitudes too. He fought alongside his new skinhead comrades, who treated him at first like some brutalised pet to be unleashed in battle. 'I was like a little dog that followed them around,' he says. . . ."
The Washington Post's Dan Steinberg, left, and Tarik El-Bashir discuss the Washington Capitals hockey team in April. El-Bashir is joining Comcast. (Video)
Two more black journalists are leaving the Washington Post: Avis Thomas-Lester, a 22-year veteran, is taking a buyout and is becoming executive editor of the Afro-American weekly newspapers in Washington and Baltimore, and Tarik El-Bashir, assigned to the Washington Capitals hockey team, has been hired to cover the NFL's Washington Redskins for ComcastSportsNet.
El-Bashir, 37, told Journal-isms he did not take the Post buyout. "The opportunity came together after the deadline," he said.
A note to the staff Wednesday from Sports Editor Matt Vita and Deputy Sports Editor Matt Rennie said:
". . . Tarik started with us as a high school sports writer in 1999 and took over the Capitals beat in 2005. It just so happened that another rookie named Alex Ovechkin also came to the Capitals that year, and over the ensuing five seasons Tarik was on the scene to document Ovechkin's and the Capitals' exciting rise to prominence in the National Hockey League. 
The two most recent seasons, Tarik has been our lead writer on Georgetown men's basketball, one of our most important college beats, and added auto racing to his portfolio. He also served as our resident hockey analyst, joining forces with lead beat writer Katie Carrera to provide an added dimension to our Caps coverage.
"While we will dearly miss Tarik's gregarious nature and good spirit, we wish him well in this new phase of his career."
Thomas-Lester, a general assignment reporter at the Post who specializes in African American affairs and culture, said she was excited by the Afro-American position.
"As some of the major newspapers reduce their staff, the black press is poised for a resurgence," Thomas-Lester told Journal-isms. "As we leave major newspapers, the black papers have a wonderful opportunity to fill the gap. It was like a blessing for me," Thomas-Lester said. "My son went to college this year. I have time to free up and fly. The Post was a wonderful place to be."
The Washington edition of the Afro has an average circulation of 12,363 and the Baltimore edition 7,416, according to March 31 figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
In Philadelphia, "NBC 10's VP of News Chris Blackman is shown the door," less than three months after the station welcomed a new general manager, Tom Petner reported Thursday for the247newsroom.com.
"Here's the memo that he distributed to the staff Wednesday last night:
" 'I have a bit of news. Eric (Lerner) and I have come to the mutual 
conclusion that it's time for new leadership in the newsroom — time for new ideas and a fresh perspective on what we do.
"So after 11-years at NBC10 I will be moving on to see what other adventures life has to offer. I truly wish you nothing but success under Eric's leadership. You deserve it and I'm confident you will achieve it.
"When I first came to NBC10 in 2001 I honestly thought I'd be lucky to last two-years in this job. Now 11-years on, I just feel lucky — to have had the chance to call you my colleagues and friends. I've had wonderful jobs over my 26-years at NBC, but none that I enjoyed as much as this one. . . ."
In his own note, General Manager Eric Lerner said, ". . . For over a decade, Chris Blackman has been our remarkable Vice President of News. He has led this team with class, courage, and compassion. In a business that can be tough and unforgiving, Chris has been an exception to that rule. He has nurtured and grown top talent. Treated employees with respect and gotten results. And most of all, Chris Blackman is a great guy."
According to his bio, Blackman WCAU in July 2001 as assistant news director and was promoted to news director in January 2002.
"Blackman was born in Ghana, West Africa and grew up in Barbados and New York City.
"Prior to joining NBC 10, he spent 4 ½ years in Asia as Vice President of News Programming for CNBC Asia in Hong Kong and Singapore, where he created several award winning programs.
"Blackman has been with NBC for 23 years, including ten years at the NBC owned station in Chicago where he worked as a news writer, producer and executive producer. While working in Chicago, Blackman earned a number of Emmy and Associated Press Awards. He views his trip to South Africa and the Emmy he won for writing about the apartheid and the release of Nelson Mandela as one of the highlights of his career." [May 31]
"Wolf Blitzer and Donald Trump just had a ridiculous conversation on CNN," Chris Ariens wrote Tuesday for TVNewser. "With each calling the other 'ridiculous,' and Trump also taking a shot at CNN's ratings. The two sparred over the 'birther' controversy during a live interview on 'The Situation Room.'
"TRUMP: Well, a lot of people don't agree with that birth certificate. A lot of people do not think it's authentic.
"BLITZER: But if the state of Hawaii authorizes it, if the state of Hawaii says, this is official, he was born in Hawaii on this date, here it is, why do you deny that?
"TRUMP: A lot of people do not think it was an authentic certificate.
"BLITZER: How can you say that if the…
"TRUMP: Now, you won't report it, Wolf, but many people do not think it was authentic. His mother was not in the hospital. There are many other things that came out. And, frankly, if you would report it accurately, I think you would probably get better ratings than you're getting, which are pretty small."
Meanwhile, Eric Hananoki reported Tuesday for Media Matters for America, "During today's Squawk Box, CNBC co-anchor Joe Kernen assisted guest Donald Trump's effort to push debunked claims about President Obama's birthplace by citing a supposed quote from Obama in which Obama purportedly suggested that he wasn't born in the United States. The quote is an internet hoax and was never said by Obama, who was born in Hawaii."
"With Mitt Romney now officially President Obama's opponent, it truly appears to be game on at the Fox News channel —at least, if this morning's 'Fox & Friends' is any indication," David Zurawik wrote Wednesday for the Baltimore Sun.
"Today's version of the morning show featured an anti-Obama video that resembled propaganda films from 1930's Europe more than it did responsible TV politics of today.
"And the remarkable thing was the witless crew on the couch that serves as hosts for this show had the audacity to present it as journalism and congratulate the producer who put it together."
Alex Weprin of TVNewser reported this statement from Bill Shine, executive vice president of programming for Fox News: "The package that aired on FOX & Friends was created by an associate producer and was not authorized at the senior executive level of the network. This has been addressed with the show's producers."
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Joshunda Sanders will appear on the SisterSpeak show on 1230 AM WDBZ The Buzz, to discuss her piece Media Portrayal of Black Youth Contributes to Racial Tension, published last week on our Structural Inequity site and picked up by The Grio.
2010 Maynard Multimedia Editing Program grad Christopher Johnson is a finalist for 54th SoCal Journalism Awards from the Los Angeles Press Club.
Christopher produced the radio feature "Bring Your Game," broadcast by the KCRW show Unfictional on October 25, 2011. Fellow nominees for this piece include Miguel Coleman, Jacob Conrad and Bob Carlson.
Category:
News
Position/Title:
News Photographer/Video Journalist
Details:
KMPH TV News seeks a talented and agressive News Phtographer/Video Journalist.
Vacancy Type:
Full Time
Salary:
Commensurate with experience.
Date Posted:
5/31/2012
Closing Date:
6/30/2012
City:
Fresno - 93727
State:
California
URL:
http://www.kmph.com
Experience:
Prior experience preferred.
Requirements:
Difficulties and indignities are front and center in today’s coverage. The Huffington Post and The Daily Beast post on a judge’s decision not to charge an Asian-American honor student with contempt after she had 10 unexcused absences.
This month’s employment numbers are in and they aren’t good. The mainstream posts are fairly general, with emphasis on the politics around the numbers and the impact on the presidential race. Although The Daily Beast, Slate and Salon use photos that include people of color on the homepage, the stories don’t delve into race and ethnicity . .
Mayor "Unappoints" Deputy Who Slapped Away a Mic
ESPN Backs Hugo Balta's Race for NAHJ President
Clinkscales to Launch "Digital Sports Platform"
Ed Gordon Debuts Radio Show in Detroit, D.C.
Native Press Wants Answers From Elizabeth Warren
Denver Post Rejects Criticism of Online Birther Poll
Producer of Anti-Obama Video Loses Job Offer at CNN
Hugo Balta, a coordinating producer at ESPN, said Friday he had secured the permission and endorsement of his employer to run for president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
"The nomination process officially ends on 6/9," Balta said in a message to Journal-isms. "I expect to hear from NAHJ about the guidelines (to campaign). Afterwards — it's laying out the argument to members as to why I am the best candidate for President."
Associated Press writer Russell Contreras, NAHJ's vice president for print and chief financial officer, had been the only declared candidate for president until members urged Balta to run last week and circulated nominating petitions. Balta thanked them on Friday, notifying them of ESPN's approval, and said, "now, on to Las Vegas!," the site of the Aug. 1-4 Unity Journalists convention.
Contreras said last week he welcomed Balta into the race. "I'm running on my record and expect other candidates who get on the ballot to do the same," he said. Balta, a former NAHJ vice president/broadcast, lost the presidential race to Michele Salcedo two years ago by 13 votes.
Keith Clinkscales, who left ESPN last year after supervising ESPN's publications and a media incubator that produced such prize-winning movies and specials as "30 for 30," is ready to launch his next project, "a digital sports platform with the unique mission of delivering sports news with the real... Insights, commentary and analysis."
"The Shadow League" will be fully launched in late summer, Clinkscales told Journal-isms on Friday. As reported in this space on Wednesday, Vincent Thomas of SLAM Magazine, ESPN.com and formerly of NBA.com, has been hired as editor-in-chief.
"Keith is my boss. We work very closely," Thomas told Journal-isms by email on Thursday. "And that was definitely a factor in taking the gig. I have confidence in his vision and he has confidence in mine, as well." Thomas has an essay on the site, "All Stacks, No C'hips: Can Generation Y finally crack the championship code?" Clinkscales called that a preview for the site.
Clinkscales was chairman and CEO of Vanguard Media, publishers of Savoy, Honey and Heart & Soul magazines, from 2000 to 2003 and from 1992 to 1999 was president and CEO of Vibe/Spin Ventures, which included Vibe magazine.
"Currently he is producing a four-part documentary on Hip Hop, entitled 'The Message' with Jac Benson of BlacJac Productions for Black Entertainment Television (BET)," Clinkscales says on his LinkedIn profile.
"This project is being developed through Shadow MediaWorks, also home to a digital content producer entitled, Shadow Digital. SD is currently developing digital content for the Alchemy Digital Network (a YouTube Premium Channel), among other outlets. Later in the summer SD will launch The Shadow League (www.theshadowleague.com). The Shadow League is a digital sports platform with the unique mission of delivering sports news with the real…Insights, commentary and analysis."
![Promotion for "Weekend With Ed Gordon"](http://mije.org//sites/default/files/imagecache/two-thirds_column/edgordontop.jpg "Promotion for "Weekend With Ed Gordon"")
Ed Gordon, the anchor-host of news and interview shows whose return to Black Entertainment Television two years ago caused less of a splash than some anticipated, is turning his attention to radio.
"First two cities to get new radio show, Weekend with Ed Gordon, DC and Detroit," he messaged on his Facebook page Friday. "Look for the show this Saturday @ 7AM on WHUR and this Sunday on 92.3 FM in Detroit noon-2 PM!!!! I promise you're going to love this show!!! More cities to come. Next week you'll be able to find it online...stay tuned."
Gordon told Journal-isms by telephone Friday, "It's not a news show or a conventional public affairs show. It's like the 'Today' show on the radio." Regulars include comedian Joe Torry, judges Lynn Toler (relationship tips) and Glenda Hatchett (legal advice), and Boyce Watkins (hot topics).
Gordon announced more in the past few days via Facebook: "Our new radio show Weekend with Ed Gordon will have a segment called 'That's My Jam' where celebrities/newsmakers tell us their favorite song from back in the day," he wrote on Wednesday. "Some of the people who tell us their 'Jam': Whoopi Goldberg, Anthony Anderson, Eddie Levert, Lamman Rucker, Vivica A. Fox and even Condoleezza Rice & Louis Farrakhan plus many more! You'll also get a chance to share you favorite song!"
On May 22, Gordon wrote, "In studio working on our first 'Star's Story' for the new radio program Weekend with Ed Gordon...up close and very personal with Charlie Wilson" of the Gap Band. "He has a fantastic story and is very candid about his life, his comeback and past drug use. REAL radio on the way."
Gordon and BET spokesman Luis Defrank said Gordon's weekly public affairs show, "Weekly With Ed Gordon," is off the schedule, but that Gordon would be part of BET's political convention coverage.
Gordon said he is producing the radio show himself, working with fellow Detroiter Gerald McBride of Voice Over Productions.
"The campaign of U.S. Senator Scott Brown, Republican of Massachusetts, has done something that Elizabeth Warren, his main Democratic challenger for his seat in Congress, has failed to do for the past month as a major controversy has swirled over her self-reported Cherokee ancestry: it responded to inquiries from the American Indian press," Rob Capriccioso reported Friday for Indian Country Today.
"Jim Barnett, campaign manager for Scott Brown, said in an interview with Indian Country Today Media Network on June 1 that Warren should have reached out to American Indians by now to explain herself.
" 'Elizabeth Warren has a lot of explaining to do to everyone, but I would think in particular to the Native American community, since that is the heritage that she has claimed without any evidence,' Barnett said. 'It seems to me that any time a person tries to attach themselves to a group of people without rationale for doing so, except for maybe personal gain, it seems very seedy to me.' "
The Warren campaign did not return a call from Journal-isms on Friday.
Denver Post Editor Gregory Moore is rejecting criticism from Columbia Journalism Review about an online poll the Post conducted on whether readers agree with the "birthers" that President Obama was not born in the United States.
The poll was conducted after Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., said to supporters: "I don't know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don't know that. But I do know this, that in his heart, he's not an American. He's just not an American."
Greg Marx wrote Friday in CJR, "An online poll . . . has no useful purpose; it's pure junk data. When the questions are about people's opinions or preferences, that just makes for a harmless diversion, and maybe a cheap and easy opportunity for reader engagement. In this case, however, the poll involves a newspaper — an institution whose core function is to learn and communicate facts about the world — suggesting that there is legitimate disagreement or difference of opinion about what is, simply, a fact. There may be harmful consequences to public knowledge as a result. There are certainly consequences for the Post's credibility."
Marx continued, "That credibility took a further hit thanks to the paper's decision to publish on Thursday a column by Mike Rosen, an AM radio host at Denver's KOA, under the headline 'Mike Coffman was right about Obama in the first place.' Much of the column is devoted to agreeing with Coffman's statement that Obama is not an American 'in his heart,' and to pillorying the president with a barrage of culture-war epithets. . . . "
Asked for comment, Moore told Journal-isms by email Friday:
"It is silly to be criticized for an online poll. No one thinks they are scientific, we don't use the results in our news coverage and it is a fun way for readers to engage and register feelings about issues in the public square. To suggest anything else is ridiculous.
"As far as Rosen, he is a freelance columnist, who is entitled to his opinion and our readers are just as smart as the CJR reporter in making up their minds about Rosen's point of view. Much ado about nothing in our estimation."
"The Fox News producer behind a provocative four-minute anti-Obama video that aired Wednesday and caused the network considerable embarrassment has found his career on ice," Jeremy W. Peters reported Thursday for the New York Times.
"The producer, Chris White, had been offered a job by CNN before the video was broadcast. But on Thursday, a CNN spokeswoman said that the network would not be hiring him.
". . . The video, which aired twice on the morning show 'Fox & Friends,' was widely criticized as a thinly veiled attack ad. In it, President Obama is depicted as a failed leader who has not delivered on his 2008 campaign theme of hope and change."
On Friday, Chris Ariens of TV Newser quoted Bill Shine, Fox News executive vice president of programming. "Chris White will remain employed with FOX News. We've addressed the video with the producers and are not going to discuss the internal workings of our programming any further."
 A South African television station showed footage of an unidentified man defacing a controversial portrait of South African President Jacob Zuma at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg. (Credit: eTV) (Video) |
Under pressure from the ruling African National Congress, South Africa's City Press newspaper pulled from its website an image of a painting showing President Jacob Zuma as Lenin with his genitals exposed.
The Vienna-based International Press Institute, a press-freedom organization, condemned the pressure that led to the removal, as did the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, which called it "harassment and intimidation."
Steven M. Ellis of IPI reported on Tuesday:
"City Press Editor and IPI Executive Board Member Ferial Haffajee wrote yesterday that the newspaper decided to take down the controversial image, which had accompanied a review of a satirical art exhibition in a Johannesburg gallery, 'Out of care and as an olive branch to play a small role in helping turn around a tough moment'.
"The image had inflamed tensions in South Africa and the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party last week called for a boycott of City Press until the 'insulting portrait' was removed from the newspaper's website.
"IPI Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie said the pressure City Press faced was 'exactly the type of thing we fight against', adding: 'While we understand the sensitivity of the subject, City Press' reporting was on a matter of public interest. The actions taken by the ANC — which we again condemn as abuse and harassment — will lead only to future self-censorship by journalists. Worse, it will add fuel to the disturbing belief by those in power that they can muzzle the media to stifle unwelcome or embarrassing critiques of their behaviour.'
"Haffajee explained her decision yesterday in a column posted on City Press' website.
" 'We take down the image in the spirit of peacemaking — it is an olive branch,' she said. 'But the debate must not end here and we should all turn this into a learning moment, in the interest of all our freedom.' "
"She added, however: 'Of course, the image is coming down from fear too. I'd be silly not to admit that. The atmosphere is like a tinderbox: City Press copies went up in flames on Saturday; I don't want any more newspapers burnt in anger.' "
On May 22, the Associated Press quoted Sophia Morren, a ceramicist who saw the painting defaced after she brought her 17-year-old daughter to see artist Brett Murray's show. Morren said Zuma had shown little respect for himself. "She referred to Zuma's six marriages — he currently has four wives, his 21 children, and his acknowledgement in 2010 that he fathered a child that year with a woman who was not among his wives.
" 'He's famous for all his women, all his children. I get exactly what the artist is saying,' Morren said. 'Zuma shouldn't be complaining. Really.' "
In a column Sunday, "How a painting divided a nation," Haffajee asked herself if she would publish the artwork knowing what she does now.
"I would think 10 times before publishing because this week has caused me to pause and think about our nation," Haffajee wrote.
"Our common national dignity is a paper-thin one; a chimera in parts. It is in the process of being knitted and the media holds at least one knitting needle.
"The exposure of black genitalia is still a raw and festering wound – its resurrection in any form a painful flashback to the various and many indignities inflicted on the black body from colonialism to its later manifestation as apartheid. . . ."
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There’s little in the mainstream today that is exclusive to the experiences of people of color. There’s much ado about Queen Elizabeth’s Jubilee celebration, “Mad Men” continues to make news and, of course, there’s politics. But there are few relevant posts in the void:
Would-Be Candidates Question Motivations
"More than 70 business and civic leaders and organizations have joined together to express frustration at a recently announced plan to reduce print publication of The Times-Picayune," Jaquetta White reported Monday for the newspaper.
"Calling itself the Times-Picayune Citizens' Group, the body said in a press release issued today that its purpose is to 'ensure the continuation of the delivery of a high quality, seven-day-a-week newspaper, with access to the entire community.'
"The group is hoping to begin communicating with Advance Publications Inc., owner of The Times-Picayune, and other interested parties to achieve that goal. The press release does not detail how the group believes that would be accomplished."
Separately, Kevin Allman reported Friday for Gambit, an alternative newspaper, "As Times-Picayune employees were preparing to leave work early this evening, word came down that the individual meetings set for Monday and Tuesday — at which staff reductions were expected to take place — would not be happening on those dates. Nor would they be happening at all next week."
"A Tampa Bay Times investigation has found that Florida's 'stand your ground' law is being used in ways never imagined — to free gang members involved in shootouts, drug dealers beefing with clients and people who shot their victims in the back," the Florida newspaper reported on Sunday, introducing a story by Kris Hundley, Susan Taylor Martin and Connie Humburg.
"Defendants have invoked the law to excuse all manner of mischief, from minor fistfights to drug possession to killing an endangered species.
"And who goes free can sometimes depend as much on where a case is heard as its merits."
In Part Two, which ran Monday, Martin, Hundley and Humburg reported, "A Tampa Bay Times analysis of nearly 200 cases — the first to examine the role of race in 'stand your ground' — found that people who killed a black person walked free 73 percent of the time, while those who killed a white person went free 59 percent of the time."
The February shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teen, by a Hispanic neighborhood watch captain has prompted a renewed look at the state's "stand your ground" law.
Meanwhile, "Richard Land, a prominent Southern Baptist leader, saw his weekly radio show canceled Friday after he used it to criticize President Obama and black pastors' response to the Trayvon Martin shooting," Molly Hennessy-Fiske reported Friday for the Los Angeles Times.
". . . The move comes as the convention, which split from northern Baptists in 1845 in defense of slavery, prepares to elect a black preacher from New Orleans as its president. The Rev. Fred Luter Jr. will become the first African American to head the convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination."
President Obama was roundly bashed in the national news media over the weekend — at least by those originating in New York and Washington.
In the New York Times, the Sunday Review section began a Maureen Dowd column on its section front. "The president who started off with such dazzle now seems incapable of stimulating either the economy or the voters," Dowd wrote. ". . . Once glowing, his press is now burning."
The Washington Post's Outlook section was dominated by "Still waiting for our first black president" by Fredrick Harris, a political science professor and director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University. Harris wrote, "Obama may be our first gay president, but if a focus on racial inequality matters at all, we're still waiting for our first black one."
On the Sunday talk shows, Republicans were well-disciplined, sticking to their anti-Obama talking points. Journalists echoed their view that a report Friday from the Labor Department showing that the economy added only 69,000 jobs in May, the lowest number in a year, put Obama's reelection at risk. Democrats on the programs seemed outgunned.
Precious little time was spent on explaining how much of the economy is within the president's control. David Leonhardt, Washington bureau chief of the New York Times and Pulitzer Prize-winning economics writer, wrote Friday, "Some combination of problems — Europe's new troubles, the rise in gas prices from several months ago, the continued cuts in government employment, the continued hangover from the financial crisis — has clearly slowed the economy. . . . Perhaps most important, the decisions of European policy makers loom even larger now."
Obama found defenders Monday in Jonathan Capehart, Washington Post editorial writer, and Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson, each of whom responded to Harris' Outlook piece.
". . . the Columbia University professor makes a stunningly false argument," Capehart wrote. ". . . Those are all important issues. They must be addressed. The problem for Harris is that they are being addressed by the president. Not in the theatrical way Harris would like. But in the actions-speak-louder-than-words way of Obama."
On MSNBC, Dyson said on a panel that he believes "Bill Clinton has more freedom to be black in public than Barack Obama."
"So I got a new gig," Jozen Cummings wrote Friday on his blog, untiligetmarried.com.
"For those who follow me on Twitter, I've been talking around it for the 
better part of a week, not divulging the complete details because I wanted to be careful, but since I start on Monday, I decided to let all my loyal readers know the good news and what it entails.
"Every Sunday, The New York Post has a dating section in their paper called 'The Meet Market.' If you've never read it before, now would be a good time to start because I am the new features reporter for the section.
"Kind of cool, right? Yeah. It's like I'm a hybrid of Will Smith and Eva Mendes' characters in Hitch. Or as one of my friends put it, I'm the date whisperer. I laughed at that one, but I'm also running with it."
[Cummings' editor, Sara Lieberman, deputy Sunday features editor, explained Tuesday that Cummings had been hired as a part-time features writer for the "Meet Market."] [Updated June 5]
Bradley C. Bennett, a member of the inaugural class of the Maynard Media Academy and former assistant city editor of the Miami Herald's Broward Edition, left the Herald in 2007 to become executive editor of the Broward Times, a black weekly later renamed the South Florida Times.
Bennett is now in the Middle East as senior editor at the National, an English-language broadsheet based in the former desert fishing village of Abu Dhabi.
He told Journal-isms by email: "I would say that my experiences as a black man in America, and as the editor of a newspaper covering multiculturally black South Florida, prepared me well for my international experiences here, and the ability to respect people of other cultures.
"I now supervise journalists who hail from India, Bulgaria, the Palestinian Territories (in dispute with Israel) and — of course — the United Arab Emirates.
"I would encourage more black journalists who are seeing fewer opportunities in America to spread their wings a little, and try for a job in the Middle East or the Far East, where newspapers are generally thriving.
"The best part of moving here is that my twin daughters, who were born in South Florida and now attend a school of predominantly Emirati citizens, now speak Arabic and Spanish, as well as English."
The National was featured in a May 22 story by Tsitsi D. Wakhisi in Editor & Publisher.
Bennett moved to the Middle East after "his wife, Adeyela Bennett, was offered a teaching job in the UAE," the United Arab Emirates. "He heard about The National from a friend and decided to apply," the story said.
"The couple arrived in Abu Dhabi on Sept. 11, 2010, with their then 3-year-old twin daughters. Bennett, a former assistant city editor at The Miami Herald, said he sees the opportunity to work in the UAE as a way to wait out the U.S. economic crisis while gaining international experience and keeping his journalism career alive.
" 'The environment for doing journalism in the United States has been very difficult,' Bennett said. 'I have more friends who were formerly in journalism than are working in journalism now. When I was at the Herald, there were constant layoffs and threats of layoffs. A lot of people thought it would be a matter of time before their number came up.' "
Richard Pretorius, a former copy editor at the Washington Post, is a senior editor on the National's foreign desk. "Many of us came to see another part of the world and explore a different culture," Pretorius, who is not a journalist of color, said by email. "Sure, the pay is relatively good, but money was not the primary motivation.
"If you get out, Abu Dhabi offers a wonderful window on the world. You make friends from all over. You can be sitting in a coffee shop or bar, and the seats next to you will be filled with Russians, Lebanese, Turks, Egyptians, just about anywhere. The place is not only rich in oil, but also in opportunities to meet the rest of the world."
"Somewhere along the timeline that began with Paul Robeson, followed by Jackie Robinson, and stretched to Jim Brown and Muhammad Ali, a pattern of disconnect developed between the black athlete and his community," Branson Wright wrote Sunday in the Plain Dealer of Cleveland.
"What was once commonplace has often been reduced to turkey giveaways, and sponsorship-induced, made-for-television opportunities. Let's be honest, foundations for many athletes are used to shuttle funds for tax breaks, or a way to put cousins on a legitimate payroll.
"Back in the day, guys like Robeson, Robinson, Ali and Brown made it their business to help the underprivileged. They were also not afraid to make a public stand when it came to defending or supporting social issues.
". . . The media's role in this indoctrination comes in how it rewards athletes who are focused more on being an entertainer, than on speaking about social issues. Who cares about political views, or social change? Stay silent and just hit the damn ball. In many players' minds, speaking out could cost endorsement money."
In a new "sports journalism" entry for the Oxford African American Studies Center, an online encyclopedia edited by Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., sports journalist Kevin Blackistone says that "African American newspapers and sports writers changed the narrative of the African American athlete in particular and sports in the United States in general."
Blackistone is a longtime national sports columnist who holds the Shirley Povich Chair in Sports Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park and is a panelist on ESPN's "Around the Horn."
Here is an excerpt:
"The lens constructed by white sports media to view sports was built primarily to serve white audiences, not the black athletes so often the subjects of sports coverage. As such, white sports journalists often supported rather than challenged stereotypes steeped in beliefs of racial superiority. Most infamously, studies of sports broadcasts in the second half of the twentieth century have shown how the success of black athletes was credited to their perceived natural athletic ability, while the success of their white counterparts was tied to diligence and, most important, intelligence. The basketball star Michael Jordan was lauded for his athleticism; the white basketball star Larry Bird was lauded for making brilliant plays.
"That same lens also more often treated black athletes in a pejorative manner than it did white athletes. Black athletes have been presented as more self-centered, arrogant, and mercenary. They are more often described with words and phraseology that infantilized them. For example, a 2009 study of differences in the coverage of black and white athletes who engaged in contract holdouts found that the black athlete was 'emasculated' and that sports writers treated him 'like a moody adolescent incapable of making significant decisions on his own.' The white athlete who held out escaped criticism and instead was said to be a victim of his employer's 'history of inept negotiating.' Black athletes have continued to be portrayed more as deviants, drug abusers, women-beaters, and menaces to society, or, in general, as 'black men misbehaving.'
". . . African American newspapers and sports writers changed the narrative of the African American athlete in particular and sports in the United States in general. They celebrated rather than derided African American athletes, most notably black baseball players who started their own leagues after being barred from playing in the white-operated major leagues. African American sportswriters also engaged heavily in advocacy journalism, in particular by questioning the legitimacy of whites-only sports."
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As adults, we watch children grow up and declare: “That boy (or girl) is going to be something someday.” Elawrence Jaishun “Jai” Blackmon was one of those kids. A member of Anderson United Methodist Church since the age of 4 months, Jai is now 17. He will graduate fromJohn W. Provine High School on May 30 in the top 10 percent of his class.
I have fallen and I can’t seem to get back to the track! Something seems to come up every afternoon with work, church, end of school programs and just life in general. Take my advice: work out early in the morning…the earlier the better. There are no staff meetings or parent-teacher conferences at 6:00 a.m.
Around two years ago, Victoria Rayburn experienced a mild shock when she stood on the scale at her doctor’s office. She weighed in at 196 pounds. “I couldn’t believe it,” Victoria says, thinking back on the moment. Starting that day, Victoria made a drastic change to her diet: she cut out all carbonated drinks and tea, even those made with artificial sweeteners. The weight began to fall off.
The smell of rotisserie chicken, fresh cut flowers in every color of the rainbow, and people waiting in line to take good things home. Are we leaving a party with favors? No, we’re in my local grocery store. To me, grocery shopping is a great social event.
Diabetes is for folks who are overweight. Well, that’s what I used to think anyway. I’m a person with a small frame and a healthy weight, and quite frankly I thought diabetes was never anything I had to worry about. Several months ago, I noticed a lot of headaches and feeling odd after eating certain types of foods. My doctor suggested a blood test.
My name is Emanuel Harmon and I’m a diabetic. I don’t want you to become one, too. Switching to a healthier diet is one of the best ways to prevent diabetes.
Growing up in St. Croix, I never really had a problem with finding fresh fruit and vegetables. However, I’ve noticed Jackson has a a lot of grocery stores, but not all of them have a nice, complete selection of fresh produce that we need to sustain a healthy lifestyle.
In New Orleans, broadband goes to whites, affluent; grad student from Syria killed filming in homeland; actor's biopic will join canon of bizarre racial tales; Thomas-Lester, El-Bashir leaving Washington Post; Philly news director out after 26 years at NBC; Blitzer calls Trump "ridiculous" on birther claim; Fox airs anti-Obama video resembling "propaganda" (5/30/12)
people in Doha wanted answers
Victims of police brutality typically remain in the public consciousness long after cases that made them famous fade from the airwaves and headlines. Rodney King, Oscar Grant and Sean Bell will forever be remembered as symbols of police abuse. Rarely, however, does the public hear about men, women and children who have been abused or killed by U.S. Border Patrol agents. 
2010 Maynard Multimedia Editing Program grad Christopher Johnson is a finalist for 54th SoCal Journalism Awards from the Los Angeles Press Club. 
Mayor "unappoints" deputy who slapped away a mic; ESPN backs Hugo Balta's race for NAHJ president; Clinkscales to launch "digital sports platform"; Ed Gordon debuts radio show in Detroit, D.C.; Native press wants answers from Elizabeth Warren; Denver Post rejects criticism of online birther poll; producer of anti-Obama video loses job offer at CNN; S. African paper yields, pulls controversial image (6/1/12)
Jeannine Hunter, "a key player on the homepage" for three years and two months, has decided to take the Washington Post's buyout offer, Post editors told staffers in a memo on Wednesday. "However, she isn't going far just yet. The one time overnight editor, weekend editor and night desk producer will spend the next six months as a producer for On Faith," a web and weekly print section. "Before coming to the Post, Jeannine reported on religion for The Tennessean and the Knoxville News Sentinel, and she has been a moderator for a community blog and for discussion forums on Beliefnet.com. While her extensive experience dealing with religion issues, as well as her knowledge of Methode [content management system] and production skills, will make her an asset to the On Faith team, it's her calm, helpful and perpetually upbeat attitude that will ensure her continued success." 
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"Long-time WBZ NewsRadio 1030 AM personality 
Would-be candidates question motivations; New Orleans leaders oppose Times-Picayune cutback; series finds racial disparity on "Stand Your Ground"; Obama bashed in weekend news media; bachelor takes over "meet market" for New York Post; black journalists urged to try Middle East, Far East; what happened to socially conscious black athletes?; black scribes changed narrative of black athletes (6/4/12)
Monitor newspaper in McAllen, Texas, later at the Brownsville (Texas) Herald, died Saturday
Reporter (THR) hosted an Emmy roundtable panel with six talented actresses
