Articles Feature

Latinos Advance to Lead SPJ

by richard06066

Historic Infusion of Diversity at the Top
‘Internal Failures’ Cited at Miami Herald
Stanley Crouch, Curmudgeon and Critic, Dies at 74
​64 Groups Protest L.A. Reporter’s Arrest
NAJA Elects Its First Canadian President
Wickham to Retire as Morgan’s Founding J-Dean
Facebook Investing $5 Million More in Local News
Turner Addresses Diversity at Bleacher Report
.  . . Athletic Hires Diversity, Inclusion Director
Sometimes It’s Necessary to ‘Call In Black’
L.A. Times Hires Latin Music Expert 
Short Takes

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Rebecca Aguilar tells SPJ members, “I have a deep passion for journalism and still have fire in my belly.” (video)

Historic Infusion of Diversity at the Top

Rebecca Aguilar, a Texas freelance journalist who has been active in both the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the Society of Professional Journalists, has become the first Hispanic person to be elected SPJ’s president.

Aguilar became president-elect over the weekend as the 6,000-member SPJ, the oldest association representing journalists in the United States and go-to arbiter of journalistic ethics, held a virtual convention. About 800 people attended, spokesperson Jennifer Royer said.

Two other Hispanic journalists were elected as well: Ivette Davila Richards (pictured, below), freelance regional assignment editor, National Desk, Fox News Channel, as secretary-treasurer; and Rafael Olmeda (pictured, below), reporter with the South Florida SunSentinel, as an at-large member.

 Davila Richards is a former NAHJ vice president of broadcast; Olmeda a former president.

The infusion of diversity into the SPJ board is historic. For years, when members of associations of Black, Hispanic, Asian American or Native journalists were taunted with “Why is there no ‘National Association of White Journalists’?” a handy retort was “There is one.

“SPJ.”

“The board is getting more inclusive,” board member Yvette Walker told Journal-isms by telephone Wednesday. “We’re getting different voices, both in gender and ethnicity. That will be reflected” in SPJ’s work going forward, Walker said.

SPJ’s strategic plan adopted Saturday says, “We proactively design initiatives that amplify new and diverse voices for both SPJ and journalism overall.”

A diversity breakthrough came in February 2018, when the SPJ board named veteran journalist Alison Bethel McKenzie as the first African American to serve as SPJ’s executive director, although she resigned 14 months later, in April 2019.

This election will be marked as another. Aguilar included in her platform, “George Floyd’s death changed the landscape in journalism too. It opened our eyes to systemic racism, stereotypes, and unconscious bias. SPJ still lacks diversity. My goal is to work with our various committees and explore ways to bring diversity and inclusion to all our committee projects — more details to come.”

Aguilar also wrote, “In September 2018, the new SPJ president asked me to take over the SPJ Diversity Committee. I did not hesitate to say ‘yes.’ She wanted the Dori Maynard SPJ Diversity Fellowship revamped from top to bottom because it was in drastic need of improvement.

“When I took over, I reduced the committee to seven members. I knew we had our work cut out for us. In 10 months, the committee created a new application and a more efficient process to apply. We received 21 applications, the most in the history of the program. We selected six outstanding journalists.”

Aguilar received 674 votes (62.3%) to 407 (37.7 percent) for Sue Kopen Katcef, a freelance reporter for Maryland Public Television who told members, “I’ve been an active member of SPJ (since my sophomore year in college) with leadership roles at the local and national level.”

In other results:

Secretary-treasurer

*Ivette Davila Richards – 473 votes (44.7%)

Andrew Schotz – 458 votes (43.3%)

Elle Toussi – 91 votes (8.6%)

Bernadette Garden – 35 votes (3.3%)

At-Large Director (two open seats)

*Claire Regan – 538 votes (29.8%)

*Rafael Olmeda – 497 votes (27.5%)

Andrew M. Seaman – 347 votes (19.2%)

Haisten Willis – 219 votes (12.1%)

Alex Veeneman – 205 votes (11.4%)

*Denotes winner

Roberto Luque Escalona’s column said, “Nazi thugs rampaged through Jewish shops all over Germany? So do the BLM and Antifa, only the Nazis didn’t steal; they only destroyed. . . .”

‘Internal Failures’ Cited at Miami Herald

The Miami Herald is citing “internal failures” for distributing a Spanish-language supplement that ran a column comparing Black Lives Matter activists to Nazis. Editors told readers Monday, updated Tuesday, that “we are ending our relationship and will never publish, print or distribute its content again.“

In a “Dear Readers” statement, Mindy Marquez, publisher and executive editor of the Herald and el Nuevo Herald, and Nancy San Martín, managing editor of el Nuevo Herald, wrote, “The fact that no one in leadership, beginning with us, had previously read this advertising insert until this issue was surfaced by a reader is distressing.

“It is one of a series of internal failures that we are investigating in order to prevent this from ever recurring.”

The website Because Miami tweeted that Marquez told staff via email she’s “taking some time off.” It said that Marquez’s email, sent Sunday at 9:53 p.m., continues: “In my absence Kristen [@KLR_Editor],” a reference to Kristin Roberts, vice president of news for McClatchy Co., which owns the Herald, “will be minding the store — as will Rick [@rickhirsch] and Nancy [@nsanmartin].” Rick Hirsch is the Herald’s managing editor.

Jeanne Segal, a spokesperson for McClatchy Co., told Journal-isms that Marquez “is actively participating in the review” of the Libre situation but would not confirm or deny contents of the email.

In the column appearing in the Libre supplement carried in El Nuevo Herald, Roberto Luque Escalona asked, “What kind of people are these Jews? They’re always talking about the Holocaust, but have they already forgotten Kristallnacht, when Nazi thugs rampaged through Jewish shops all over Germany? So do the BLM and Antifa, only the Nazis didn’t steal; they only destroyed.”

Stanley Crouch, Curmudgeon and Critic, Dies at 74

“Stanley Crouch (pictured in 1992 on ‘The Charlie Rose Show’), a former Daily News columnist and a renowned jazz critic, whose searing — and controversial — commentary on race kept readers enthralled for years, has died,” Leonard Greene wrote Wednesday for the Daily News in New York. “He was 74.

“His death was announced by his wife Gloria Nixon-Crouch. Crouch died at New York’s Calvary Hospital Wednesday, following nearly a decade of serious health issues.

“Crouch, through his work in The News and other publications and his appearances on television and radio, became one of the most controversial commentators around, whose opinions about culture and music generated a range of opinions about him.

“Crouch, a Black man who preferred the term Negro, was a harsh critic of several revered Black artists including director Spike Lee and writer Toni Morrison. When Morrison received the 1993 Nobel Prize in literature, Crouch was not among those celebrating.

“ ‘She has a certain skill, but she has no serious artistic vision or real artistic integrity,’ he told The Washington Post. “ ‘Beloved’ was a fraud. It gave a fake vision of the slave trade, it didn’t deal with the complicity of Africans, and it moved the males into the wings.’

“In several articles and in interviews, Crouch called Lee ‘a middle-class would-be street Negro,’ whose films reflected ‘fantasy’ versions of black communities and ‘the fundamental shallowness that you get from a propagandist.’

“Even Crouch’s most ardent critics, like Princeton University scholar Cornel West, said Crouch’s ‘brilliant jazz criticism’ was overshadowed by his cutting commentary on race.

“It was there, in the realm of musical art, that Crouch was most appreciated. . . .”

One of Crouch’s last appearances in Journal-isms was in 2013, when his “Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker” was published.

“More than any book on this list, ‘Kansas City Lightning’ draws attention to its writing (scroll down), and reviewers have noticed,” the column said.

Josie Huang was violently arrested while she was reporting on a Sept. 12 protest in Los Angeles. (Credit: KCAL-TV) (video)

​64 Groups Protest L.A. Reporter’s Arrest

“Today the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and a coalition of 64 media organizations called on the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to drop all charges against Josie Huang, a journalist for the National Public Radio member station KPCC, who was violently arrested while she was reporting on a Sept. 12 protest,” the Committee said Wednesday.

“The media coalition also urged the department to take immediate steps to prevent such an arrest of a member of the news media from occurring again.

“In a letter sent to Sheriff Alex Villanueva on Sept. 16 condemning the actions of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies, Reporters Committee attorneys note that Huang was arrested and cited for obstruction despite wearing a visible press lanyard and badge, as well as verbally identifying herself as a journalist who works for KPCC multiple times.
​​
“ ‘The right to record police activity in public is clearly established, and an officer who violates that First Amendment freedom — especially through the use of force — enjoys no legal immunity,’ the letter states.

The website LAist, one of the outlets for which Huang reported, wrote Monday, “The incident occurred outside St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood, where the two deputies were being treated for gunshot wounds. Huang had just finished covering a 10 p.m. news conference by Sheriff Alex Villanueva and other department officials.

“Sheriff’s officials allege that Huang, an award-winning journalist, obstructed justice. The department initially refused to provide details of what happened, but later, Deputy Juanita Navarro of the Sheriff’s Information Bureau confirmed that deputies took Huang into custody on suspicion of obstruction of justice by ‘interfering with a lawful arrest.’ Huang said she was trying to document the arrest of a protester, an account in line with her video from the scene.

“Navarro also said Huang ‘didn’t have proper credentials,’ but she was clearly wearing press credentials around her neck. A tweet from the Sheriff’s Department at 2:19 a.m. Sunday includes a false claim that Huang did not identify herself as a journalist. Huang told deputies at least five separate times that she was a reporter and KPCC staffer in less than a minute, according to the recording.”​

NAJA Elects Its First Canadian President

Francine Compton (pictured), executive producer of APTN News, a project of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, has become the first Canadian president of the Native American Journalists Association.

Compton (Sandy Bay Ojibway First Nation) was re-elected to the board in an election held virtually last week, and chosen in a vote among board members to be president, NAJA announced Monday.

Also elected were Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton (Cherokee Nation), vice president; Christine Trudeau (Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation), treasurer; and Graham Lee Brewer (Cherokee Nation), secretary.

“One priority of mine that will stand out from past presidents is growing our membership across Turtle Island,” Compton messaged Journal-isms, employing a term used by many Algonquian- and Iroquoian-speaking people to describe the continent.

“I want to see us represent all Indigenous journalists. A priority for NAJA this year is to expand to Canada and represent First Nations, Metis and Inuit journalists and I will lead us down that path.”

According to Rebecca Landsberry, NAJA’s executive director, “NAJA currently has a record 720 active members. In May 2020, we extended all current annual memberships at no cost due to the pandemic. This is a milestone for the organization — we exceeded our goal of 600 total members, set as part of the 2018-2020 strategic plan when we were hovering around 500.”

In an April story on APTN’s 20th anniversary, Brittany Hobson wrote for the news outlet, “From the beginning APTN News has strived to tell stories others won’t – whether that’s reports of police dropping Indigenous men outside of city limits in what is known as ‘starlight tours’ or families fighting to get justice for the thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in the country. All experiences First Nations, Métis and Inuit groups were living but when they voiced these truths they often fell on deaf ears.

“Francine Compton began her career at APTN News in 2000 when she was 19-years-old. Over the years Compton has taken on many roles and is now the executive producer for the national news program.

“She remembers the news team hustling [every day] to tell these stories, but it would be [a while] before others paid attention.

“ ‘We were on the block for at least a decade before starting to have our issues noticed, before starting to see our issues lead the top story on other mainstream national news networks,’ said Compton. . . .”

Last year, Compton played a leading role in protesting a New York Times story headlined, “Drawn from Poverty: Art was Supposed to Save Canada’s Inuit. It Hasn’t.” Critics said it played into stereotypes of Indigenous people.

DeWayne Wickham, center, Morgan President David Wilson and Kwesi Mfume, chairman of the Board of Regents, cut the ceremonial ribbon for the School of Global Journalism & Communication. (Credit: Morgan State University)

Wickham to Retire as Morgan’s Founding J-Dean

DeWayne Wickham is stepping down next summer as founding dean of the School of Global Journalism & Communication at Morgan State University, the university announced Wednesday.

“I’m not sure of what I’ll do next,” Wickham messaged Journal-isms on Thursday. “As a tenured full professor I have the option of hanging around Morgan ’till death do us part.’ But I told the president it was time for me to move on, and [that’s] what I really want to do.”

Citing the j-school’s achievements,  Morgan President David Wilson said in his announcement, “Dean Wickham came to Morgan at my invitation in 2012 to lead the effort to transform the University’s Department of Communication Studies into just the fifth journalism school among the nation’s 107 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).”

The school offers degree programs in multimedia journalism, multiplatform production and strategic communication, the university noted when the school achieved accreditation in April. “The School has 23 faculty members and currently serves 414 students. Since its inception, SGJC has awarded a total of 486 degrees. Morgan now ranks 13th nationwide and 1st in Maryland in the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded to African Americans in journalism and communications-related programs.”

Wickham came to Morgan as a columnist for USA Today and a founding member and former president of the National Association of Black Journalists. He had been interim chairman of North Carolina A&T State University’s journalism department and also held academic positions at the University of Pennsylvania and Delaware State University.

He immediately started hiring faculty with real-world journalism experience, such as Pulitzer Prize winner E.R. Shipp, as opposed to academics whose primary work had been on campuses. His right hand has been Jackie Jones (pictured), a veteran journalist named assistant dean for programs and chair in the Department of Multimedia Journalism.

Wickham’s shakeup of WEAA-FM, the campus radio station, ruffled feathers. “First Edition” host Sean Yoes, Baltimore editor of The Afro newspaper, resigned in 2017. Yoes said he was troubled by “the level of disrespect shown” to hosts who were “unceremoniously gotten rid of.” Michele Williams, a former director of broadcast operations, filed a wrongful termination lawsuit that was dismissed by a federal judge.

Wickham maintained that the station did not fit his vision. “The radio station is in fact a learning lab here at the university, a place where students can get hopefully a high-quality education in the production of news and public affairs content.” he told the Baltimore Sun’s David Zurawik.

U.S. News & World Report’s latest rankings show that “Morgan State University admissions is less selective with an acceptance rate of 68%.”

In addition, the school has complained that Morgan is disadvantaged by funding inequities by the state and by private giving when compared with predominantly white schools.

Still, as dean, Wickham has been able to secure grants previously untapped and to begin innovative partnerships. This year it won accreditation from the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.

The accrediting group concluded, “If the Dean and the Associate Deans were not leading the school, it would not have achieved the great progress for which it is now known nationally. [PDF] Indeed, it is doubtful that the enormous number of outstanding internships that are now available to students and all of the private funding that has been received would have been a reality for the school if these outstanding professionals were not leading the school.

“Thus, the team was saddened to hear a number of faculty acknowledge the effectiveness of the leadership, but say that faculty governance was not present.

“Members of the team have done many accreditation reviews in the U.S. and abroad, and the creation and improvement of this school has to be among a handful of the best achievements in the last 20 years. How ironic that faculty have not bought into these accomplishments with consensus. Students have been the benefactors, and that is the objective of every good school.”

Wilson said in his statement, Wickham “is one of the best hires that I have ever made in my career in higher education. In the coming months, I am asking Provost Lesia Crumpton-Young to begin the process of conducting a national search for a new dean to lead the next chapter in the school’s history.”

“A Pew study finds advertising revenue plunged by nearly a third in the past decade for media outlets,” CBS News reported in 2017. “The industry now wants Congress to take action by allowing them to renegotiate how content is shared on Facebook and Google. David Chavern, president and CEO of the News Media Alliance that represents around 2,000 digital and print outlets, joins ‘CBS This Morning’ to discuss the threat to an economically-squeezed industry.” (video)

Facebook Investing $5 Million More in Local News

The Facebook Journalism Initiative plans to invest $5 million more in programs for local news, focusing on diversity and entrepreneurship, the company announced Tuesday.

This follows $16 million provided earlier this year.

“We will start by investing in local news organizations that serve historically marginalized communities,” the announcement said. “These organizations and newsrooms ensure that important stories and perspectives that reflect the diversity of our communities are told. Through grants and training programs we will partner more deeply with local news organizations led by and for people of color.”

The initiatives come as news industry representatives have come to view Facebook and Google as competition.

“For over a decade, regional publishers have been battling with Google, and more recently Facebook, to reimburse them for distributing publisher content on their free platforms. Those spats seem to be heating up as publisher pursuit of revenue during the coronavirus-induced recession becomes increasingly fraught,” Lucinda Southern reported Sept. 7 for Digiday.

The News Media Alliance is seeking passage of the Journalism Preservation & Competition Act, which “would allow publishers to band together to collectively negotiate with the tech platforms,” Alliance CEO David Chavern told Journal-isms on Friday. “Current antitrust laws protect Google and Facebook FROM us!”

Facebook said its “premier business training program will help more than a dozen Black, Indigenous, Latinx and other news organizations of color from around the United States through coaching and grants. Learn more about the Sustainability Accelerator here.

“This Accelerator will begin accepting applications starting today, Sept. 15th, and will close on Sept. 30th at 11:59 PM ET. Please apply here.

“The Facebook Journalism Project will be hosting a webinar on Wednesday, September 23, 2020 at 4 PM ET for interested newsrooms to learn more about how to apply and understand the eligibility criteria. Register for the webinar here.”

Additionally, “we’re proud to support Robert C. Maynard Institute’s Digital Education Initiative, allowing the Institute to bring on a director of education initiatives to scale their world-class training programs to more local news companies across the country. These programs ensure that all segments of our diverse society are fairly, accurately and credibly portrayed in the news media. See their analysis of COVID-19 news coverage here.“

 

From a Bleacher Report diversity summary. (Credit: Digiday)

Turner Addresses Diversity at Bleacher Report

“On Aug. 19, Turner Sports president Lenny Daniels sent an email to all Bleacher Report employees to update them on the steps the lifestyle sports publication’s parent organization was taking to address the diversity and inclusion issues inside B/R that boiled over in June,” Tim Peterson reported Monday for Digiday.

“In the email, which was reviewed by Digiday, Daniels wrote, ‘Growth in all aspects of diversity and inclusion is paramount to our success, but in order to do so it must become much more than words.’

“Turner Sports’ efforts to address B/R’s D&I problem are starting to become just that. The company has reformed its People Advisory Council to become involved in B/R’s hiring and employee retention practices.

“It has installed multiple Black executives from Turner Sports within B/R’s leadership ranks. It has hired a Black vp of sales that will work across Turner Sports and B/R. And the company has other efforts in the works, as detailed in the Turner Sports and Bleacher Report diversity and inclusion plan that Daniels shared with B/R employees on Aug. 19. Digiday obtained a copy of the D&I plan. . . . “

Peterson also wrote, “There is real urgency for that needle to move. For starters, B/R risks losing employees frustrated by the publication’s lack of diversity and inclusion. In June, B/R creative executive Bryan Graham (pictured, above) resigned over the publication’s failings. Those failings have also hurt B/R’s business.

“In mid-July, financial services firm Zelle canceled a deal with B/R to sponsor a YouTube series after Digiday reported on the publication’s lack of diversity and inclusion, according to a screenshot of an internal B/R Slack thread obtained by Digiday. Zelle did not respond to a request for comment by press time. . . .

“In connection with the diverse storytelling team’s formation, B/R has elevated two of its Black employees. According to an email that Daniels sent to B/R employees on July 30, which was reviewed by Digiday, B/R’s senior director of social strategy Julian Patterson (pictured, above) has been appointed the team’s creative lead. ‘Additionally, Lakia Holmes (pictured, above) is being promoted to Senior Producer and she will be an integral member of this newly formed team, reporting to Julian,’ Daniels wrote. . . .”

.  . . Athletic Hires Diversity, Inclusion Director

Tina Marie Sturdevant (pictured), who spent six and a half years at Bleacher Report, has been hired by The Athletic as talent, diversity and inclusion director, the subscription-only sports news outlet announced on Monday.

“In this newly established position, Tina will play a key role on the company’s talent team and will be responsible for all newsroom diversity and inclusion efforts including supporting and promoting existing talent, helping build talent pipelines consisting of diverse voices, and bolstering the work being led by The Athletic Communities, the company’s newsroom advocacy groups.”

The Athletic launched in 2016 and soon faced criticism for its lack of diversity, then attempted to address the issue with high-profile hires of color.

Sometimes It’s Necessary to ‘Call In Black’

“Once upon a time, if I was reporting on, say, anti-Muslim bias and struggling to process my emotions, my editor would have probably said, ‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.’ But to do that now is to deny reporters their right to own their feelings and apply that to their work,” Dilshad D. Ali (pictured) wrote Tuesday for Nieman Reports.

Ali is an editor at Haute Hijab, “a hijab company with an editorial arm where I have the freedom to coordinate comprehensive coverage of Muslim women and Muslim communities.”

She continued, “With Black Lives Matter and ongoing coverage of other charged issues, reporters and writers are speaking up about racism they’ve faced on the job, opportunities denied them, how the stories they reported affect them, and the stress they endure in their work. These are necessary conversations. We are not automatons.

“Not only is it OK to have feelings about your work, it’s essential to do so to elicit deeper storytelling, thorough reporting, and impactful writing. How we manage those emotions within the reporting/writing/editing process is how we build more empathetic, honest, and grounded newsrooms where better stories are told.”

Ali also wrote, “Besides in-house writers at Haute Hijab, my team consists of four dynamic contributing freelance writers/reporters, all Muslim women, one of whom is Black. A lot of articles focusing on Black Muslim women and issues fall on her, some out of choice, some out of necessity. A few weeks after BLM protests erupted nationwide, with so many of us reckoning with our implicit and explicit biases as a society and in our coverage of these issues, I had my monthly one-on-one assignment meeting with this particular writer.

“She told me, ‘Please don’t assign me those kinds of stories for a while. I’m calling in Black.’

“And so, I didn’t, because her emotional well-being matters to me and because I know how exhausting it can be to write on issues and stories that are also yours to deal with when you come home.”

Suzy Exposito arranged and wrote a cover story for Rolling Stone on Bad Bunny, the first cover feature in the magazine’s history to be written and photographed by Latinas. 

L.A. Times Hires Latin Music Expert 

The Los Angeles Times has hired away Latin music editor Suzy Exposito from Rolling Stone, continuing its effort to raise its profile among readers and potential readers of color.

Exposito will be a music reporter. “Suzy comes to us from Rolling Stone, where she was the publication’s first-ever Latin music editor,” Editor Norman Pearlstine and Julia Turner, deputy managing editor for entertainment, audio and strategy, wrote to the staff on Monday. “In her five years at Rolling Stone, Suzy significantly expanded their coverage of Spanish- and Portuguese-language music and has profiled many top artists, including J Balvin, Juanes, Rosalía and Ricky Martin.

 “Suzy’s deep dives on the cultural significance of Jennifer Lopez and Shakira’s Super Bowl halftime show and on the growing commodification of Latin music by white pop artists led the critical conversation around those topics. In June 2020, Exposito arranged and wrote a cover story on Bad Bunny; it was the first cover feature in the magazine’s history to be written and photographed by Latinas. In addition to her coverage of Latin music, she has also written extensively about emo, punk, metal and pop music.”

As one of the demands it issued in July, the Latino Caucus of the L.A. Times Guild wanted the Times to “Invest in having The Times brand present in Latino Los Angeles. Host food, music, sports and cultural events catering to Latino audiences. Highlight Latino Times writers, invite them to create conversations and town halls across Southern California.”

Short Takes


A news release reports, “Nearly two years following the launch of daily digital show #Roland Martin Unfiltered, the first daily online show in history focused on news and analysis of politics, entertainment, sports, and culture from an explicitly African American perspective, award-winning journalist Roland S. Martin’s #RMU has emerged as an influential voice on the media landscape. . . .” Although a news release, it appears as an unbylined story  dubbed “Press Room” on the website of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, for use by the Black press.

  • In his first column as president of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, Tony Norman of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (pictured) recalled his column debut in 1996. “The space once occupied by the familiar, older, working-class white guy was now occupied by the photo of a Black guy with a somewhat smirky face someone once described as the newspaper equivalent of ‘J’Accuse!’ I was a foreigner on real estate they had claimed as their own. I went to my predecessor for advice. ‘Fuck ‘em,’ Tom Hritz said while having a laugh at my expense. ‘Just be yourself. All you owe them is a good column written to the best of your abilities. Some readers will never come around, but others will love you or grow to love you.’ ” Norman’s column became an award winner.


El Tecolote founding editor Juan Gonzales lays out the paper. (Courtesy Lou Dematteis via San Francisco Examiner)

“On the first National Black Voter Day, the Democratic National Committee is launching a print ad campaign calling out Donald Trump’s failed pandemic response and directing readers to IWillVote.com — the DNC’s newly updated voter participation website,” The DNC announced Friday. The ads are to run in five African American-owned community newspapers in battleground states: Westside Gazette (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.), Michigan Chronicle (Detroit), Philadelphia Tribune, Charlotte (N.C.) Post and Milwaukee Community Journal. The DNC did not disclose how much it is spending on the ads.

  • Northwestern University is seeking to establish an endowed unrestricted graduate scholarship in honor of Darran Simon (pictured), a 2004 graduate of the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern who was found dead at 43 on April 9. Simon had worked for the Washington Post, Miami Herald, CNN, Philadelphia Inquirer, New Orleans Times-Picayune and Newsday. “We were contacted by Darran’s family as well as a number of Medill alumni who wanted to help in a fundraising effort to establish a scholarship in Darran’s memory,” Julie Frahar, Medill’s director of development, Office of Alumni Relations and Development, messaged Journal-isms. “We are still in the early days, but the hope is we will raise enough funds to endow the scholarship in perpetuity.” A minimum of $100,000 is required to establish the fund. Gifts can be made online at northwestern.edu/giving

  • “Michaela Pereira (pictured) has joined Fox 11’s Good Day LA,” Denise Petski reported Sept. 10 for Deadline. “Beginning next month, Pereira will host the morning show weekdays from 7-10 a.m. PT alongside Tony McEwing and Araksya Karapetyan, who will now also anchor from 5-7 a.m. . . . Most recently, Pereira hosted the daily, live, two-hour news show MichaeLA on HLN. Before that, she was an anchor for CNN’s morning show New Day. Previously, Pereira spent nine years as co-host of the KTLA Morning News.”


Robert C. Maynard and Nancy Maynard

  • Gilbert Bailon, editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, plans to moderate a discussion with Roll Call columnist Mary C. Curtis and Kevin Merida, editor-in-chief of ESPN’s The Undefeated, on the election, COVID-19 and racial reckoning. The occasion is a free Oct. 6 Zoom webinar hosted by the University of Arizona School of Journalism. “The forum is helping the school promote its new Nancy and Bob Maynard Diversity in Journalism Scholarship, which aims to increase diversity in media and bolster the careers of more journalists of color, while at the same time ensuring that news coverage delves into all segments of the nation’s communities,” an announcement says. The Editing Program for Minority Journalists was held at the university for 20 years. Register at https://arizona.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_K2F0r9xxRxKDeTdnVIJb6g

  • “Like everything else, the ongoing pandemic and the nation’s civil rights reckoning has completely upended this year’s Emmy awards,” Eric Deggans, NPR television critic, wrote Friday. “And it may be the best thing that has happened for the contest in quite a while. Most years — held back by groupthink, star worship and Hollywood’s unending popularity contests — the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences overlooks quite a lot in its nominees for TV’s ultimate awards, the Emmys. Which is why, years ago, I created my own TV honors, called the Deggys. . . . Here’s a look at what I would do with the Emmys if they let me – because even a pretty good slate of nominees still has plenty of room for improvement.”

  • The video of the Journal-isms Roundtable of Sept. 13 was posted Wednesday on the website of the News Media Alliance, the news industry’s largest trade organization. The topic was maximizing diversity in the news media during our racial reckoning, particularly on the business side. The Alliance shared the video in its member newsletter on Thursday. The organization has more than 2,000 news organization members, with about 7,000 people receiving the newsletter. Participating in the Roundtable were Wesley Lowery, now of “60 Minutes’” ‘ “60 in 6” on the mobile app Quibi; David Chavern, president and CEO of the News Media Alliance, and Maribel Perez Wadsworth, publisher of USA Today and president of news for Gannett Co. The 45 participants also celebrated the promotions of Angel Jennings and Kimbriell Kelly at the Los Angeles Times and retirement of Linda Shockley at the Dow Jones News Fund.


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