Blacks Weren't Writing the B.B. King Story

Geraldo Says ABC Fired Him but Not Stephanopoulos

"Geraldo Rivera sees a double standard at work in ABC News' decision to stand by George Stephanopoulosafter the network's chief anchor apologized for failing to publicly disclose $75,000 in donations to the Clinton Foundation over the last three years,"Matt Wilstein reported Friday for Mediaite.

"In a Facebook post Friday morning, Rivera claimed he was fired by ABC News in 1985 for making a $200 political donation and wondered why Stephanopoulos isn't getting the same treatment.

"'In 1985, after fifteen great years, I was fired by ABC News,' Rivera wrote. 'The official reason for my firing was a non-disclosed $200 donation to a family friend running in a non-partisan mayoral campaign in New Bedford Massachusetts.'

"He went on to say that the 'real reason' he was fired was a dispute with network head Roone Arledge over a spiked 20/20 story involving Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys.

"'The point is ABC treated my undisclosed $200 donation harshly because the network wanted me out for that unrelated reason,' Rivera continued. 'Now ABC is bending over backward to minimize and forgive George Stephanopoulos' $75,000 donation to the Clinton Foundation because he is central to the network's recent success.' . . .”

• Dylan Byers, Politico: George Stephanopoulos discloses $75,000 contribution to Clinton Foundation
  
  
• Joe Concha, Mediaite: ABC Must Bench Stephanopoulos on Sunday Mornings for Failure to Disclose Clinton Donation
  
  
• Lloyd Grove, Daily Beast: George Stephanopoulos Makes a Passive-Aggressive Non-Apology for Clinton Donation
  
  
• Howard Kurtz, Fox News: Why Stephanopoulos tarnished his credibility by hiding his Clinton Foundation donations
  
  
• Jack Shafer, Politico Magazine: The Great Stephanopoulos Mess
  
  
• Catherine Taibi, Huffington Post: Media Critique ABC News' Knee-Jerk Defense Of Stephanopoulos

Why So Few Are Covering the War in Yemen

"More than 1,200 people have died since Saudi Arabia and its allies launched a military operation in Yemen in March, but the country has become so hard to access that news organizations are finding it almost impossible to cover the conflict,"Jared Malsin reported Wednesday for Columbia Journalism Review.

"At the same time, a lack of electricity and poorly developed internet infrastructure are hampering the citizen journalism and online activism that have offered a window into other recent conflicts.

"Yemen's political turmoil has gone underreported for years, but journalists say the current conflagration has made reporting on the country more difficult than at any other time in memory. There are vanishingly few foreign journalists in Yemen as a result of the violence on the ground, access restrictions, and wavering commitment on the part of international news organizations.

"Yemeni journalists, meanwhile, face power outages for days at a time, the threat of food shortages, and the problem of finding sources in a polarized country where violence has hardened attitudes. . . ."

Short Takes

• The Native American Journalists Association is seeking to raise $15,000 to provide 10 college students with travel, lodging, food, onsite transportation to cover stories, and for other expenses during the week of NAJA's annual National Native Media Conference, held this year in the Washington area in July. The training is part of a one-year project in which students cover stories about the 2016 presidential race, largely through online and digital communication.
  
  
• "Television reporter Brittany Noble-Jones today was named the 2015 Emerging Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists," NABJ announced on Thursday. It also said, "Noble-Jones — a general assignment reporter at KMOV-TV, a CBS affiliate in St. Louis — was one of the first journalists to cover the aftermath of the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. Her interview with Brown's mother shortly after his death — using the app Instagram — trended worldwide. . . ."
  
  
• "Bill Cosby almost responded to the rape allegations against him in a new interview with ABC's 'Good Morning America' on Friday," Jessica Goodman reported for the Huffington Post. "The interview, conducted by Linsey Davis, received little promotion. When Davis asked him about allegations that he drugged and raped many women, Cosby dodged the question. . . ."
  
  
• "A multimedia journalism cooperative in Detroit is receiving an additional $500,000 in support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for reporting on the city's financial challenges and recovery,"Mike Janssen reported Friday for Current.org. "The Detroit Journalism Cooperative comprises Detroit Public Television, public radio station WDET, Michigan Radio, New Michigan Media and Bridge, an online magazine. . . ."
  
  
• "The MOVE bombing was a cataclysm for my hometown, a part of the collective memories of Philadelphians of a certain age," Gene Denby reported Wednesday for NPR's "Code Switch.""I grew up in South Philly, about a 20-minute drive from ground zero, but I was just 4 when it happened, too young to remember the actual day. But as I got older, I would learn in bits and pieces about it, and the central role it played in the history of policing in my hometown. I started revisiting the story of MOVE in earnest again last fall, when the issue of race and policing had started to become a regular feature of the news. . . ."
  
  
• "Ivan Penn, business reporter for the Tampa Bay Times for the past nine years, has resigned to accept a job covering energy for the Los Angeles Times,"Chris Roush reported Thursday for Talking Biz News. "His last day at the Florida paper will be June 12. He will start in Los Angeles on July 13. . . ."
  
  
• "ESPN's 'SportsCenter' has produced a lot of catchphrases over the years, but perhaps none is as memorable as 'Boo-yah,' "Marissa Payne reported Friday for the Washington Post. "Made famous by Stuart Scott, who died of cancer in January, the hyphenated word will live on forever on ESPN's wall of catchphrases. The network unveiled a memorial plaque to Scott on Thursday. . . ."
  
  
• Paulo Rogério Nunes, an Afro-Brazilian and former Fulbright scholar, and his team of nine "have built an organization that produces Afro-Brazilian content and journalism on its site Correio Nagô, trains citizen journalists and teaches entrepreneurship,"Kiratiana Freelon wrote Wednesday for the International Journalists' Network. "On the eve of the 127th anniversary of slavery's abolition in Brazil— May 13 — Nunes explains why he started the Instituto Mídia Étnica 10 years ago, how it's evolved and where he [sees] it heading. . . . "
  
  
• "Indonesian President Joko Widodoannounced over the weekend that his government would allow foreign journalists to report unrestricted from the country's eastern Papuan provinces, breaking a virtual 50-year blackout of international news coverage of the restive region,"Shawn W. Crispin reported Monday for the Committee to Protect Journalists.
  
  
• Reporters Without Borders on Tuesday called on Burkina Faso's Higher Council for Communication "to rescind the three-month ban on live radio and TV broadcasts announced last week, which constitutes a grave act of censorship in the run-up to next October's elections. . . ."
  
  

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