The Questions That Haven't Been Asked

"Debate Ends Abruptly as Obama Punches Romney in Face"

"BOCA RATON (The Borowitz Report) — The third and final Presidential debate ended in dramatic fashion tonight as President Obama punched Republican nominee Mitt Romney in the face, knocking him unconscious before a national television audience. . . ."

So began a satire by Andy Borowitz Monday in the New Yorker.

Romney Wants Cabinet Reflecting "Fabric of America"

Derek T. Dingle, senior vice president and editor-in-chief of Black Enterprise magazine, landed an interview with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, "although polls show that his support from African Americans is almost nil."

"Diversity is a large part of business," Dingle asked. "Looking at your 25 years of business experience, including Bain Capital, how did you apply diversity to recruiting executives?"

Romney replied, "In hiring, we try to hire the best person we could possibly get without regard to the gender, race, or the sexual orientation of the person involved. I can tell you that when I became governor [of Massachusetts] I noted that government by and large drew from the same pool of applicants. I wanted to get more diversity in my senior administration members. So, I tasked our team with reaching out to other sources of résumés and to bring in people of a broader background. So, in my cabinet I had a number of minority members."

Dingle asked, "So how would your presidential cabinet look?"

Romney said, "I would hope to have the most capable people that I could find across the country. I would expect a number of them would have business backgrounds. I would hope a number would also have experience in the public sector. I recognize that you're looking to see if there would be representation of various ethnic groups and genders. The answer is yes. I would love to have a cabinet that reflected the fabric of America."

Obama Hopes for End to GOP Obstruction if He Wins

In separate post-debate radio interviews, President Obama said he was counting on congressional Republicans to end their obstructionism if he wins re-election, named health-care reform as his longest-lasting legacy and addressed the issue of Latin America, an area of the world not discussed in Monday's debate on foreign policy.

On his syndicated morning show, Tom Joyner asked Obama Tuesday, "How can you get the economy straight without the cooperation of the Republicans? Or will this time will it be another four more years of them just saying 'no, no, no' to everything you try to do?"

Obama replied, "You know it will be interesting to see how they respond. Obviously our first job is to win. And if we win, when we win, I think what you'll see is that initially there may be some resistance, but you know, they've been obsessed over the last four years with defeating me. After the election I will have won my last race. And hopefully they'll recognize that the kind of obstruction that they've engaged in is not good for them politically and it's certainly not good for the country."

On Univision Radio's "The Fernando Espuelas Show" on Wednesday, Espuelas asked, "if reelected, and now looking forward, what do you hope will be your greatest accomplishment as president?"

Obama said, "Well I think the most consequential thing that I have done as president has been to make sure that our economy didn't slip into a Great Depression. But I think the long-lasting legacy is going to be health care because we are the only industrialized nation on Earth that did not have basic coverage for millions of people. And that disproportionately included Latinos who work every day very hard but because they may be in low-wage jobs are not getting benefits on the job. And to make sure that our families are healthy, that they are not going to go bankrupt when they get sick, that they are not putting off preventive checkups and care that could prevent diseases, that is going to make a huge impact on people's lives over the long term."

Espuelas asked Obama to comment on the assertion by Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney that the president had made the United States "weaker across the globe."

"Well, if you take a look at what we have done, not only in ending the war in Iraq, refocusing on al Qaeda, we are now transitioning out of Afghanistan," Obama replied. "But look at the regional alliances that we have built, areas that had been neglected for so many years. You take an example of Latin America, where during the Bush years the U.S. image in Latin America and the Caribbean was terrible. We immediately embarked on work starting with the first Summit of the Americas that I attended to create partnerships around education, around energy, small business exchanges that allow more products to be sold throughout the region. We made sure that we signed and completed trade deals with Colombia and Panama.

"And in addition to that, we have also been working on our infrastructure that allows us to increase trade throughout the region. For example, Florida obviously is a gateway for a lot of shipping into Latin America. We are expanding the Jacksonville port so that it is going to be equipped to deal with increased cargo. Those are the kinds of things that we just weren't doing, and it's part of the reason why our reputation is better around the world than it was when I came into office."

• Khalil Abdullah, New America Media: Voter Suppression Laws Cast Chill on Af-Am Community
  
  
• Associated Press: MTV devoting platform to Obama interview Friday
  
  
• Perry Bacon Jr., theGrio.com: On his signature set of issues, Obama puts Romney on defensive
  
  
• Wayne Bennett, Field Negro: Ann's R word, and Mitt gets a beatdown.
  
  
• Michael Calderone, Huffington Post: New York Times Stands By Iran Report That President Obama Dismissed
  
  
• Monica Campbell, "The World," Public Radio International: Romney Alienates Latino Mormons 
  
  
• CBS News: Colin Powell endorses Barack Obama for president (Oct. 25)
  
  
• Sasha Chavkin, Columbia Journalism Review: The Ad Wars: Obama's special message in Spanish
  
  
• Des Moines Register:  After editor's blog, President Obama releases transcript of Register interview Earlier: Editor Rick Green: Obama off-the-record comments deserve to be shared with voters
  
  
• Elise Foley, HuffPost LatinoVoices: Ohio Latino Vote Could Prove Influential, Strategists Say
  
  
• Daniel Garza, Fox News Latino: There Was Something Foreign About This Debate
  
  
• Mike Hoyt, Columbia Journalism Review: Let Detroit do what?: New interest in an old Op-Ed
  
  
• HuffPost BlackVoices: BET Airs Pro-Romney Commercial (VIDEO)
  
  
• La Opinión, Los Angeles: La Opinión Endorses Obama
  
  
• David Leonhardt, New York Times: Standard of Living Is in the Shadows as Election Issue
  
  
• Pew Research Center for the People & the Press: Republicans Increasingly Positive About Campaign
  
  
• Roque Planas, HuffPost LatinoVoices: Latin America Ignored At Third U.S. Presidential Debate
  
  
• Joy-Ann Reid, theGrio.com: Final presidential debate exposes the real Mitt Romney
  
  
• Nicholas Riccardi, Associated Press: Obama Immigration Stance Locks In Hispanic Support
  
  
• Rick Sanchez, Fox News Latino: Obama on the Ropes
  
  
• Lauren Williams of theRoot.com, C-SPAN: African American Voters and the 2012 Election (video)

Whites Write 93% of Front-Page Political Stories

The 4th Estate, a non-partisan project to aggregate data around the 2012 elections, released Thursday an infographic, "Bleached: Lack of Diversity on the Front Page," "that shows that over 93% of front page print articles covering the 2012 Presidential Election were written by white reporters.

The percentage of articles written by Asian Americans is 3.3%, by African Americans is 2.9%, and by Hispanics is 0.7%," the election-year monitoring organization said.

" 'I was shocked when I saw these numbers,' says Michael Howe, 4th Estate's co-founder. 'Our data shows there is a large disparity between the representation of minority reporters writing the most influential stories in our society and the 2010 Census data numbers.'

"Earlier this year, the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) released a survey of the 2012 minority representation at various print organizations. 'The delta between our infographic and the ASNE survey is a fascinating study,' says Jonas Eno-Van Fleet, 4th Estate's Director of Operations.

" 'Some of the data matches very closely, such as the percentage of New York Times reporters who are Hispanic (4%), while some of the data is quite different, such as the numbers for the San Francisco Chronicle. We found no minority reporters for the San Francisco Chronicle writing front page election stories, while the overall minority representation of their staff is over 20% according to the ASNE survey.'

"The most striking under-representation of minorities in the 4th Estate data is that of Hispanic journalists. . . . While the ASNE study reports that 27% of the Miami Herald staff is Hispanic, the 4th Estate data found none of the Miami Herald front page election articles were written by Hispanic journalists. . . . There are a few bright spots such the percentage of front page articles written by African American reporters at Dallas Morning News."

NAHJ Wins RTNDA, SPJ Approval for Joint Meeting

"The National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) will partner with the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) and the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) at the annual Excellence in Journalism Conference in 2013 in Anaheim, Calif.," the organizations announced on Thursday.

"Earlier this week, the SPJ and RTDNA boards both voted to approve the partnership. NAHJ's board met on Oct. 19 and voted unanimously to approve its participation at EIJ13. . . ."

Alfred Liggins Replaces Wonya Lucas as CEO of TV One

After less than 15 months in the job, Wonya Lucas is out as president and CEO of TV One, and will be replaced by her boss, Alfred C. Liggins III, CEO and president of Radio One, the network announced on Tuesday.

Liggins "will add oversight of all daily network operations for TV One to his portfolio as CEO of TV One effective November 1," a release said. "As a result, current President and CEO Wonya Lucas will step down at the end of the month. 'Wonya has created a strong foundation for TV One's future success with the launch of two new hit series, R&B Divas and The Rickey Smiley Show,' Mr. Liggins commented. 'I and the Radio One family thank her for her leadership and guidance and wish her well in her next endeavor.'

"Ms. Lucas remarked, 'It has been my pleasure to have had the opportunity to be a part of TV One and work with Alfred Liggins, Cathy Hughes, and the TV One staff. I am extremely proud of what has been accomplished during my time with the network and am confident that the senior team under Alfred's leadership will continue to thrive and succeed.' "

Asked whether Liggins would remain in the job permanently, TVOne spokeswoman Monica Neal said by email, "Mr. Liggins is not offering comment at present but I will certainly add you to the press request list when he is giving interviews and can address your queries at that time."

Andrea Williams of MadameNoire.com asked Lucas in January, "What major challenges and opportunities do you foresee for yourself and the future of TVOne?"

She replied, in part, ". . . in the end, if we had this conversation a year from now, you'll see what I mean by really being relevant in the black community and being informing while still being entertaining. At the end of the day people watch television to be entertained and to be informed, and that’s our goal."

2 Stations Explain Why They Dropped "Smiley & West"

Two of the four public radio stations that recently dropped Tavis Smiley and Cornel West's "Smiley & West" say they are still running "The Tavis Smiley Show" and dropped the "Smiley & West" portion for programming or ratings reasons. Smiley, meanwhile, returned to the subject of whether he should be considered a journalist.

Smiley issued a blistering open letter to WBEZ-FM in Chicago last week, calling its reasons for dropping "Smiley & West" "demeaning, derogatory and dead wrong."

WBEZ, known also as Chicago Public Media ran the program at noon Sunday. It "explained the decision by citing audience erosion (noting a decline in weekly listenership from 37,900 to 13,200) and expressing concerns about the program's fairness and balance," Robert Feder reported last week for Time Out Chicago. " 'The show had developed much more of an 'advocacy' identity, which is inconsistent with our approach on WBEZ,' a spokesman said."

Tracey Powell wrote Wednesday for the Poynter Institute, " 'The Tavis Smiley Show' (with just Smiley) airs on 85 stations nationwide, while 'Smiley & West' airs on 72 stations. 'Smiley & West' is being marketed as the second hour of 'The Tavis Smiley Show' so that stations can test it out, a PRI spokeswoman told Poynter by phone."

Sam Fleming, managing director of news and programming at WBUR-FM in Boston, told Journal-isms his station ran "Smiley & West" for a week or two but replaced it with "Snap Judgment," an NPR show that calls itself "storytelling with a beat." "We thought it would appeal to young listeners," Fleming said by telephone. "I like Tavis but I like having a variety of voices."

With "Smiley & West," WBUR was running a two-hour block of Smiley on Saturday nights, Fleming said.

Robert Peterson, director of radio programming and operations at KWMU-FM, St. Louis Public Radio, said of "Smiley & West," "The audience to us was not as strong or devoted as it was for the second hour," which was just Smiley. "It continued to show decline." "Smiley & West" was replaced by "Snap Judgment," which fit better in a Sunday night lineup that included the storytelling "This American Life," Peterson told Journal-isms by telephone.

Candice Breedlove, program director of KMOJ-FM in Minneapolis, an African American-oriented public station, did not respond to an inquiry about why that station dropped "Smiley & West."

In his interview with Powell, Smiley returned to the subject of whether he should be considered a journalist.

"I am not Brian Williams, Bob Schieffer, Scott Pelley, or Diane Sawyer. I am not trying to be a journalist," said Smiley.

"If people want to use the word journalist with me in the title, they have to call me an advocacy journalist in the tradition of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Monroe Trotter. What I try to do is raise issues that unsettle people, unhouse people, that challenge folks to re-examine their assumptions, expand their inventory of ideas and give them a new way of seeing the world, a new prism from which to look."