Mourners Aid Victimized U.S. Journalists

A multiracial family living in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, one of the whitest places in America. In the third episode of "America by the Numbers," host Maria Hinojosa reported that while whites account for only 8 percent of total U.S. population growth, they make up 73 percent of growth in exurban areas. Coeur d’Alene ousted the Aryan Nations in 2000 but remains more than 94 percent white. (Credit: PBS) (video)

PBS Series on America's Browning Also Showing Online

If you have been missing "America by the Numbers," a series of eight-half hour episodes that examine the demographic shifts that will culminate in the United States becoming majority people of color by 2043, the episodes may still be viewed online.

The series, hosted and led by journalist Maria Hinojosa, premiered the first week of October.

Viewers may watch past full programs on this program page.

The episodes are also are streaming at the PBS video portal: video.pbs.org.

• Carolina Moreno, HuffPost LatinoVoices: Why Maria Hinojosa Is 'Less Afraid' Of How The U.S. Will Deal With Demographic Change(Oct. 9)
  
  
• Jeff Selle, Coeur d'Alene (Idaho) Press: Idaho: A lack of diversity? (Oct. 14)

How Rev. Al Became the Incredible Shrinking Sharpton

"There were 60 candles on the cake — but none of it in Al Sharpton's stomach,"Justin Rocket Silverman wrote Tuesday for the Daily News in New York.

"Even at his own birthday party at the Four Seasons this month, surrounded by the governor, the mayor and Aretha Franklin, the Rev didn’t take a bite of the sugary treat.

"It's not simply that he hasn't had any sweets in years. He hasn't had dinner in years, either.

"Call it 'the Al Sharpton Diet,' but this once-rotund reverend has dropped from 305 pounds to exactly 129.6 pounds. The precise weight was recorded this week on Sharpton’s bedroom scale at 5 a.m., when the man of the (much less) cloth begins his day.

"Sharpton has shed 60% of his much-mocked weight — and he did it without surgery, diet pills or a single Weight Watchers meeting.

"'I could take all the cartoons in the tabloid newspapers, but I couldn't take my daughter punching me in the belly and asking why I was so fat,' Sharpton recalled. 'That was my inspiration to lose the weight. And probably the last time anyone hurt my feelings.'

"That incident with his daughter happened nearly 15 years ago, when she was 12. But it wasn't until more recently that Sharpton devised his strategy to drop the pounds — just stop eating.

"That's only a minor simplification. . . ."

Short Takes

• "Hugo Balta, a Coordinating Producer for ESPN’S SportsCenter since 2011, has been promoted to a new role within the company,"Veronica Villafañe reported Thursday on her Media Moves site. Balta, immediate past president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists "has been named Senior Director, Multicultural Content for ESPN's Digital & Print Media team. He officially starts the new position on December 1. In his new role, Hugo, has been assigned to help raise the quality, profile and delivery of content targeting English and Spanish-speaking U.S. Hispanics for all of ESPN's digital and print properties. . . ."
  
  
• "When an event becomes news, there is often an implication that it is an exception — that the world is mostly working as it should and this event is newsworthy because it's an aberration,"Chris Ip wrote Wednesday for Columbia Journalism Review in a profile of Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic. "If the race-related stories we see most often in the media are about personal bigotry, then our conception of racism is limited to the bigoted remarks or actions — racism becomes little more than uttering the n-word. If we see each shooting as an isolated case of fear or provocation, without being told that young African-American men are 21 times more likely than their white counterparts to be shot dead by the police, according to a recent ProPublica report, then we miss the real question of why there is a systemic, historical difference in the way police treat blacks versus whites. . . ."
  
  
• "The winner and loser of the lawsuit between Al Jazeera America and former Current TV CEO Al Gore is yet to be determined, but ratings comparisons between the two show a clear winner," Jordan Chariton reported Wednesday for the Wrap. "After buying Current TV in early 2013, and debuting over the summer that year, Al Jazeera has lost almost half of Current TV's audience. . . ."
  
  
• Summarizing the newly published "Respect: the Life of Aretha Franklin" by celebrity biographer David Ritz, Caroline Howe reported Tuesday for Britain's Daily Mail Online that Jet and Ebony magazines were tools the Queen of Soul used to create the image she desired. "Franklin liked to create a narrative about her life, especially in the pages of Jet magazine, the weekly targeted towards African-American readers. It made her a frequent cover girl, but some of the stories were part of how she saw her life as a soap opera," the publication reported. Howe also wrote, "She tried to bury rumors about going crazy and having breakdowns by using Jet Magazine to clean up her image, something she had done for decades. . . ."
  
  
• "A new video ad titled 'No Honor in Racism'denounces the name of the Washington Redskins, comparing it to other racial slurs," the Grio reported on Thursday. "The video is a joint project between Red Circle Agency and the National Coalition Against Racism in Sports and Media. The 30-second spot was uploaded to YouTube and starts with a black woman staring at the camera and saying, 'I am a N*****.' . . ."
  
  
• "After allegations of rape resurfaced, The Queen Latifah Showhas opted not to have comedian Bill Cosby on the show,"Philiana Ng reported Thursday for the Hollywood Reporter. "Cosby, prepping a stand-up comedy tour, was originally scheduled to appear on the daytime talk show, but has postponed an interview with Queen Latifah two weeks after comedian Hannibal Buress called the 77-year-old comedian 'a rapist' during an Oct. 16 Philadelphia show. . . ."
  
  
• "Edna Schmidt returns to Univision Chicago… but this time, as part of a story,"Veronica Villafañe reported Friday on her Media Moves site. "Starting next Monday, November 3, the station will be running a 5-part series with a half-hour Saturday special about women and alcoholism, and Edna is the centerpiece. Edna, the founding anchor of Univision Chicago's newscast, shares her story about her own struggles with alcohol on 'Mi Verdad: Edna Schmidt.' . . ." 
  
  
• "Veteran broadcaster Rafa 'El Alcalde' Hernández Britowill be doing the play-by-play Spanish-language narration of the Cleveland Cavaliers 2014-15 regular and post-season games,"Veronica Villafañe reported Wednesday on her Media Moves site. "This will mark the first time in club history that Cavs games will be broadcast in a second language. . . ."
  
  
• Sean Jensen, former Chicago Bears/NFL beat writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, was last in this space in December, when he became executive editor of a Minneapolis-based startup sports site, Thrive Sports. Jensen started in September as an NFL columnist for the Bleacher Report and in October as a columnist for RantSports.
  
  
• The French-American Foundation is accepting submissions for its third annual Immigration Journalism Award for best immigration reporting, the first of its kind to honor excellence in coverage of immigration worldwide. Deadline for submissions is Nov. 13.
  
  
• In Mexico, "Jesús Antonio Gamboa Urías, a journalist and editor of the weekly online news site Nueva Prensa, was found dead last week in the north-western state of Sinaloa, considered one of Mexico's most violent regions," the International Press Institute reported on Thursday.
  
  
• "Two Cameroonian journalists face military court charges of failure to report a destabilization plot," Reporters Without Borders reported on Wednesday. "Journalists Felix Cyriaque Ebole Bola of the daily Mutations and Rodrigue Tongue of Le Messager, were charged following a 28 October military court hearing in Yaoundé with 'non-denunciation' of facts potentially endangering state security. Baba Wamé, a former journalist and professor was accused of the same charges. . . ."
  
  
• Reporters Without Borders Tuesday joined Journalist in Danger, its local partner, in calling for a thorough investigation into a shooting attack on a TV cameraman in the eastern Congolese city of Goma on Oct. 25. The local group said reporter/cameraman Philémon Gira"was clearly the victim of a targeted attack because of his work as a journalist. JED calls on the authorities to take this threat seriously in a province that has become a minefield for media personnel, one where ten journalists have been killed in the past decade."
  
  
• The U.S. State Department said it was "deeply concerned by the October 27 sentencing of Ethiopian journalist Temesgen Desalegn to three years in prison for 'provocation and dissemination of inaccurate information.'"Temesgen becomes the first journalist who's accused and found guilty only for what he's written in a newspaper," lawyer Ameha Mekonnen told William Davison of Bloomberg News on Oct. 14. "The evidence was only his writing, nothing else." 
  
  

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