Maynard Institute archives

Obama to Fox: “What Are You Gonna Do When I’m Gone?”

by richard0415

Returning Monday, Feb. 10

O’Reilly’s Ratings Highest Since Boston Marathon Bombing

Media Botch Report on Workforce Exits Under Health Law

Week’s Reporting Finds Privilege Extended to White Men

$25 Million Fund Created for Scholarships to DREAMers

An Attempt to Change the Subject on Morocco Trip

CNN to Shut Down CNN Latino, Created for Bilinguals

Richmond Paper Calls for Ouster of National NAACP Chair

“Kids Should Have the Opportunity to Dream in Color”

Short Takes

Is Bill O'Reilly unfair to the president? "Of course you are, Bill," President O

O’Reilly’s Ratings Highest Since Boston Marathon Bombing

“In the second part of the Super Bowl interview between President Obama and Bill O’Reilly, which aired Monday night, the president pulled no punches on Fox News’ coverage of him, Jordan Chariton reported Tuesday for TVNewser.

” ‘Absolutely,’ Obama said in response to whether O’Reilly is unfair to him. ‘Of course you are, Bill. But I like you anyway.’

“When O’Reilly asked the president to cite an example, Obama pointed out the interview they just had, and how O’Reilly focused on all negative stories that are ‘defined by you guys in a certain way.’

” ‘Regardless of whether it is fair or not, it has made Fox News very successful,’ the president said, adding some advice for the network: ‘Here’s what you guys are gonna have to figure out: What are you gonna do when I’m gone?’ “

Dominick Patten added Tuesday for Deadline Hollywood: “Things may have been testy between the participants at times, but the ratings for Bill O’Reilly’s interview with President Obama last night on Fox News Channel were full of nothing but love. With 4.204 million watching the continuation of the pre-taped White House sitdown from the Super Bowl pregame show, The O’Reilly Factor at 8 PM ET drew its best total audience numbers since its coverage of the Boston Marathon Bombing. . . .”

Media Botch Report on Workforce Exits Under Health Law

“ ‘We got a report today about Obamacare that was both surprising and widely misunderstood,’ CBS anchor Scott Pelley said on his Tuesday show,” Jack Mirkinson reported Wednesday for the Huffington Post.

“Part of the reason for that misunderstanding? Many of Pelley’s fellow members of the media.

“The Congressional Budget Office issued a report on Tuesday that said that as many as 2 million people could exit the workforce thanks to the Affordable Care Act. The reasons for this, the CBO said, were varied, but it stressed that the economy would see ‘a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than…a net drop in businesses’ demand for labor,’ thanks to, for instance, people choosing to quit jobs they didn’t like but were only staying in because of their health care benefits.

“That’s not how a lot of media outlets reported the news, however. A lot of them said that the report was warning that Obamacare would kill over 2 million jobs — a notion at [odds] with the CBO’s conclusion that some workers would choose not to work. . . .”

Wednesday's New York Post front page

Week’s Reporting Finds Privilege Extended to White Men

“This was not a great week for white men. And what we may have learned is a lesson that should be obvious but is not always apparent, with the media spotlight usually affixed on people of color and their poor choices or misfortunes,” Mikol L. Clarke wrote Tuesday for The Root.

“The lesson is that white men can succumb to drugs, even if they happen to be among the most celebrated actors in Hollywood; they can unravel and threaten lives of innocent bystanders without provocation, even if they walk the halls of Congress; and they can decisively lose a Super Bowl and not be attacked for a lack of acumen or intellect.

“White men can do all this and still awaken with the protections of privilege and entitlement and, most important, the benefit of the doubt.

“Philip Seymour Hoffman, a respected and talented white male actor, succumbed after a long battle with heroin, aka ‘smack.’ He allegedly died alone in his apartment with a needle in his arm. A few months ago, one of the stars of Glee, Cory Monteith, overdosed in a Canadian hotel room. And though you don’t hear of many black men on smack, we are often exposed to images and statistics to show that black men are disproportionately abusing drugs or serving time for it.

“Yet the reporting on these stars is more often than not tinged with sympathy over their angst-ridden struggles with rehab and relapse, a romantic longing for the lives they lost and the turmoil they lived. . . .”

New York news media reported that “Cops Tuesday night busted three men and a woman in a downtown Manhattan apartment building who might have been suppliers of the heroin that killed Philip Seymour Hoffman,” as the Daily News put it. That led some on social media to note the swiftness of the arrests. “Speedy heroin bust in Philip Seymour Hoffman’s overdose case,” a former journalist wrote. “If you think race and class don’t impact the tenacity of policing you’re smoking something. Breaks my heart. So many unsolved deaths in under-served communities.”

Meanwhile, Barry Saunders, columnist for the News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., defended himself last week from readers who objected to a column about Michael Vick, the pro football star who served 19 months for bankrolling the brutalization of dogs.

“Why, all your humble correspondent did was write a well-reasoned column this week stating that the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce shouldn’t be villainized for inviting Vick to speak at its ‘Evening of Champions’ dinner next month,” Saunders wrote.

In the New York Times last month, Juliet Macur wrote a piece urging wariness of Vick. It was headlined, “Before Signing a Strong Arm, Teams Should Heed Vick’s Dark Past.“

Another journalist replied on social media, “Would be no such carrying on had the victim been a young black man.”

$25 Million Fund Created for Scholarships to DREAMers

From the new website TheDream.US“A former owner of The Washington Post has joined a prominent Democratic fundraiser and former Republican Cabinet secretary to launch the nation’s largest college scholarship fund for students who entered the United States illegally when they were children,” Lyndsey Layton reported Monday for the Washington Post..

“Donald E. Graham has created ‘TheDream.US,’ a $25 million fund that aims to award full-tuition college scholarships to 1,000 students in the next academic year.

” ‘I’m not wise enough to know what is the right immigration policy for the United States of America,’ said Graham, who contributed an undisclosed amount to the fund, as did his brother, Bill. ‘I know these students deserve a chance at higher education.’

“While some private colleges offer scholarships to undocumented students and 17 states now allow them to receive in-state tuition rates at public colleges, undocumented students —’dreamers,’ as they have become known — are not eligible for Pell grants and other types of federal financial aid. . . .”

An Attempt to Change the Subject on Morocco Trip

The National Newspaper Publishers Association distributed a 1,100-word denunciation of this columnist Monday for his reporting on its expenses-paid trip to Morocco last month. The piece, by Floyd Alvin Galloway, is headlined, “Black Press Attacked for Efforts to Strengthen Ties with Africa.“

To clear any misinterpretations, the reporting in the columns was centered on the question of journalistic ethics — including an item giving the positions on conflict of interest held by leading news organizations and the Society of Professional Journalists — and not on whether the black press should cover Africa.

CNN to Shut Down CNN Latino, Created for Bilinguals

“Apparently, not everything was possible for CNN Latino,” Veronica Villafañe reported Tuesday in her Media Moves column. “The 8 hour news and entertainment service block that was syndicated in several stations around the country will soon be history — barely one year since its launch Jan. 28, 2013.

“CNN Latino will cease operations later this month. A CNN en Español spokesperson would not give a specific date.

” ‘CNN Latino staff will be impacted, but CNNE staff personnel will not,’ confirms Isabel Bucarám, CNNE’s spokesperson. She would not elaborate as to the number of employees that will lose their jobs with the cancellation of CNN Latino. . . .”

When the station was launched, Cynthia Hudson-Fernandez, senior vice president and general manager of CNN en Español and Hispanic strategy for CNN/U.S., said in a news release, “There is a real demand for relevant, dynamic, quality programming and CNN Latino is a unique product designed specifically for the growing U.S. Hispanic audience, representing the dual reality of U.S. Latinos today who are multigenerational and proud to be bilingual. The launch of CNN Latino is the first step to bringing this syndicated programming block to local broadcast stations in key Hispanic media markets across the country.”

Wednesday saw the unveiling of NBCNews.com, into which NBC Latino was incorporated. 

“Kids Should Have the Opportunity to Dream in Color”

Christopher John FarleyIn his day job, Christopher John Farley is editorial director, digital features and senior editor of Speakeasy, a Wall Street Journal blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts.

Farley, also a novelist, was to launch his latest, geared to middle-school students, Wednesday at a party in New York. “Game World,” which has a black protagonist and a multiracial cast, is described as “a fantasy adventure in a video game turned reality.”

Farley responded by email to a question about why journalists should be interested in the project and why it is written under the name “C.J. Farley.”

“I’ve written a number of biographical works as a journalist, including the bestseller ‘Aaliyah: More Than a Woman’ and ‘Before the Legend: The Rise of Bob Marley,’ Farley began. “I also co-wrote ‘The Blues,’ a book about some of the pioneers of American roots music that served as the companion volume to the Martin Scorsese documentary series. Scorsese called me a ‘great biographer and critic.’

“For this book, I decided to do something new and write a novel for younger readers. Taking a left turn like this in the middle of one’s career is something a lot of journalists dream of doing, and I’m happy I was able to pull it off. Kirkus Reviews called my new book ‘Game World’ “Exhilarating, thought-provoking and one of a kind’ and Ziggy Marley and his kids read the book and he said it was ‘a great read for all, we love it!’

“Some of the books that had the deepest impact on me, I read when I was just growing up — works like ‘The Iliad,’ ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ and the non-fiction book ‘Roots.’ I wrote ‘Game World’ for kids ages 10-14 because I wanted to write a book that could be formative in the experiences of younger readers. The book is a super-fun adventure but it grapples with some serious topics, including wealth inequality, global warming and the importance of friendship.

“A lot of racial difficulties have early roots. Kids turns into adults who don’t understand one another in part because they haven’t been raised to understand other perspectives and cultures. Fiction is a great way to allow people to see the world though different eyes. ‘Game World’ is a book with a black protagonist and a multiracial cast of characters that will appeal to a wide range of kids — and show them things they may have never imagined.

“Most kids books don’t look like America. According to The Cooperative Children’s Book Center, only about 3 percent of the heroes in kids books are African-American. I wrote ‘Game World’ in part to broaden out the universe of fantasy fiction. I think kids should have the opportunity to dream in color.

“Scholastic Inc.’s 2013 Kids & Family Reading Report found that about half of parents (49%) feel their children do not spend enough time reading books for fun, and that number is up from 36% in 2010. According to the report, 33% of parents say their children spend too much time playing video or computer games. ‘Game World’ has a video game theme to it that should hook younger readers into the book.

“I loved ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ when I was growing up, but most of the most publicized fantasy sagas draw from the myths of Old Europe. My book ‘Game World’ taps in the legends of the New World, specifically the island of Jamaica, where I was born.

“I wrote the book under the name ‘C.J. Farley’ in part as a tribute to some of my favorite fantasy and sci-fi writers — J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis., J.K. Rowling and H.G. Wells — as well as my late father, Rawle E.G. Farley, who published a number of seminal texts about economics, including ‘The Economics of Latin America: Development Problems in Perspective.’

“In the end, I wrote ‘Game World’ because I had a great story to tell. A thought occurred to me — what if a video game was real? That idea opened up a world of fantasy in my head that became my novel. It took me seven years to write but it was seven years well spent.”

Short Takes

  • “Latinos may be enjoying increased influence across U.S. culture and expanded buying power to go along with their population growth, but when it comes to advertising messaging and spending aimed at this group the industry continues to lag,” Mike Reynolds reported Tuesday for Multichannel News. “That was the consensus among executives on the “Attracting Multicultural TV Audiences: An Advertising Perspective” panel, moderated by Saul Gitlin, executive vice president strategic services and managing director Kang & Lee Advertising, at the Multicultural TV Summit here Tuesday. . . .” Black-owned media have voiced similar complaints.
  • William Douglas, a correspondent for the McClatchy Washington Bureau, is among the black journalists covering the winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Douglas, who also writes “The Color of Hockey” blog, appeared on NPR’s “Tell Me More” on Wednesday along with host Michel Martin and NPR reporter Sonari Glinton, another black journalist who traveled to Russia.
  • “Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck has found that eight officers who opened fire on two women in a pickup truck during a search for Christopher Dorner violated the department’s policy on using deadly force, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the case,” Joel Rubin reported Tuesday for the Los Angeles Times. The women were delivering copies of the Times.
  • Bill Easley“Billy Easley, who became The Tennessean’s first full-time black photographer, documented race riots in North Nashville and used his deep understanding of local history to chronicle the life of the city for more than two decades, died Friday,” Michael Cass reported Tuesday for the Tennessean in Nashville. “He was 88. The cause was heart failure, said Gladys Easley, Mr. Easley’s wife of 54 years. . . .”
  • “A fixture on Bay Area television screens for more than a decade is going to try her hand at politics this year by running for an open seat on the Oakland City Council,” Matthew Artz reported Wednesday for the Oakland Tribune. “Longtime news anchor Dana King, who retired from KPIX just over a year ago, says she will seek to replace Pat Kernighan, who is not running for re-election in a district that includes Chinatown, the relatively affluent Grand Lake and Trestle Glen neighborhoods and the working class San Antonio district. . . .”
  • “What a week. Just when I was recuperating from Lorne Michaels SNL’s Latino Problem, now it’s Vanity Fair and Jerry Seinfeld,” César Vargas wrote Wednesday for Fox News Latino. “If you’ve been under a rock, Vanity Fair is getting a lot of kudos for its latest ‘diverse’ cover. As Salon puts it: ‘This is the best of Hollywood — a diverse array of stars emerging and established, black and white alike.’ Let that sink in, pueblo. The same ol’ black and white paradigm. Qué cojones. You know what they’re trying to tell us, right? That we don’t exist, familia. . . .”
  • “The Obama administration has told the Egyptian government to release four Al Jazeera reporters detained in December on charges that they held ‘illegal interviews’ with members of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Evan McMorris-Santoro reported Tuesday for BuzzFeed. “At the regular press briefing Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney condemned the arrests, which have drawn outrage from reporters across the globe. . . .”
  • “It’s called The Bloomberg Media Initiative Africa. It’s set to run at least three years and, per a report by SouthAfrica.info, the intent of the $10 million program is to underwrite financial journalism across the continent and advance transparency, accountability and governance within that discipline,” Richard Horgan wrote Tuesday for Fishbowl NY. “Michael Bloomberg announced the initiative Monday in Johannesburg at the C40 Cities Committee annual conference. . . .”
  • “After initially denying rumors published by left-leaning blog ThinkProgress, a [Washington] Redskins spokesperson confirmed that the team has hired a crew of veteran political communicators to help deal with the ongoing controversy over its name,” Patrick Coffee reported Monday for PRNewser. Listed were Lanny Davis, “former adviser to President Bill Clinton turned conservative strategist and best friend to violent African dictators [and] who also worked with Penn State during its most recent crisis”; Frank Luntz, longtime public polling guru; Ari Fleischer, press secretary for President George W. Bush; and George Allen, “former governor of Virginia who also served in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives before losing his seat in 2007.”

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