Reporter's Persistence Helps Free Inmate

Taliban Threatens Journalists Who Don't Toe Its Line

The International Federation of Journalists and the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists said Thursday they "strongly condemn threats made to a Peshawar-based journalist and media rights activist by the Taliban."

Both groups "call on the Pakistan Government to take immediate steps to ensure the safety of this journalist and the entire media profession in Pakistan.

"Recently, the Taliban's central spokesperson Ihasan Ullah Ihsan issued death threats to Zia ul Haq, the Peshawar-based assistant general secretary of the PFUJ and news bureau chief of ARY News. Ihsan, using an international mobile number . . . called Haq's personal mobile and warned him of severe consequences if ARY News continues to not propagate the Taliban’s views and the PFUJ continues its opposition of the Taliban.

"The IFJ and the PFUJ is seriously concerned about the safety of Haq and urge the Government of Pakistan, and the Interior Ministry, to [provide] security to Haq. . . .

"In a letter to the Interior Minister, Mr Chaudhry Khan, the IFJ Asia Pacific said: 'We also want to notify to you and the Government of Pakistan that Pakistani journalists have been continuously receiving death threats from the Taliban and living under the continuous danger of being attacked or killed for performing their duties as journalists.' . . ."

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Jim Moss, 72, Realized Dream of Becoming Publisher

"Jim Moss, who as publisher of the Times Herald-Record from 1996 to 2006 devoted much of his life to bettering the community the newspaper served, died Tuesday,"Steve Israel reported Friday for the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y.

"Moss, one of the only black publishers of a major American newspaper, was 72. The cause of his death was throat cancer.

"Moss, who lived in a Town of Newburgh home overlooking the Hudson River, led the Record during a time of transition from print to digital. Yet, even as the industry changed, he remained committed to community journalism, twice hiring the ultimate community journalist, the late Mike Levine, as executive editor. Moss spent a lot of money to cover that community – even sending reporters and photographers to faraway places such as India and Mexico to cover stories with local connections. . . ."

Israel also wrote, "Early in Jim's career, he was inspired by his relationship with Donald Graham, who was, at that time, the publisher of The Washington Post. I remember Jim saying to me that his dream was to be a newspaper publisher. He set out to make that dream a reality, and achieved it as one of the first African-American publishers of a daily newspaper in the country. Newspapers were Jim's passion, his life and his legacy."

Sheldon Scruggs wrote for the Times Herald-Record in 2007,"Moss was born and raised in Norfolk, Va. He graduated from American University in 1967 with degrees in government and public administration. After teaching for two years, he joined the Washington Post Company in 1969 and worked in sales. He stayed there for 11 years.

"In 1980-81, Moss was the director of advertising for Black Enterprise magazine in New York City. Then he worked for the Knight-Ridder Newspaper organization. Within two years, he became the president and publisher [of] the Centre Daily Times in State College, Pa.

"When Moss became the publisher of the Record, he was one of a handful of black publishers of major newspapers in the country. . . ."

Wonder to Produce Series on Underground Railroad Love

Adapting former Detroit News columnist Betty DeRamus' 2005 book "Forbidden Fruit: Love Stories From the Underground Railroad,"NBC announced that it is producing "Freedom Run," an eight-hour miniseries about love stories on the Underground Railroad, Esther Zuckerman reported Friday for Entertainment Weekly.

Stevie Wonder is executive producer. DeRamus' book is also being developed as a stage musical, with Wonder composing the score, Zuckerman wrote.

DeRamus left the Detroit News temporarily to write "Forbidden Fruit," published by Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster. She took a buyout in 2006 after 17 years at The News.

"The book is mostly about enslaved and free black people who went to extraordinary lengths to stay together, fighting bloodhounds, bounty hunters, wolves, mobs and traitors," DeRamus said in the press material. "I'm talking about people like John Little, who carried his wife to freedom, and Joseph Antoine, a free black man who became a slave to stay with his wife, and James Smith, who searched for his enslaved family for 17 years. Many African Americans don't want to confront this part of American history. It's too drenched in pain.

"I wanted to write a book about slavery that would stress triumph as well as tragedy, achievement as well as suffering and love in a time of hate. I wanted young African Americans, in particular, to understand that our slave ancestors did far more than transform scraps of tossed-away food into delicacies and turn field hollers and chants into powerful music."

"Forbidden Fruit" was named one of Black Issues Book Review's "best history books" of 2005. She followed up in 2009 with "Freedom by Any Means: Con Games, Voodoo Schemes, True Love and Lawsuits on the Underground Railroad."