Not Enough Connecting the Dots With Trump

Is FCC’s Repeal Good or Bad for People of Color?

To the End, Fats Domino Was a New Orleanian

Chicago’s Black Poor Pay 20 Percent More for Water

Study Shows Racial Disparities in Plea Deals

Writer Subpoenaed in Laquan McDonald Case

Telemundo Announces Investigative Unit

Female Editors, Too, Were Silent on Harassment

Kaepernick Book Deal Spotlights a Black Editor

Blacks Take Discrimination as a Fact of Life

Short Takes

Not Enough Connecting the Dots With Trump

“In the 2016 election, which age ranges of white supporters did Trump win?,” David T.Z. Mindich, chair of the journalism department at the Klein College of Media and Communication at Temple University, wrote Monday for the Poynter Institute.

“Which economic brackets? And which gender? If you answered all, all and both, you are correct. If you did not, what does your mistake say about the ability of journalism to paint an accurate picture of reality?

“One of the most sweeping and thoughtful critiques of the media comes in Ta-Nehisi Coates’ just-released book, ‘We Were Eight Years in Power’. Coates argues that journalists missed an essential truth when we diminish Trump’s support among whites.

‘Coates argues that after the recent election, journalists lessened the consequences of whiteness and by extension, white supremacy. The reason why journalists discount the enormity of Trump’s support among whites is because to do otherwise would call into question the American self-image of goodness. This is a similar argument to the one Coates made in his writings about the shootings of unarmed black men: Many white Americans need black victims to be guilty because it protects an image of a fair America.

“This misperception grips even thoughtful, enlightened writers like Nicholas Kristof and George Packer, Coates writes, and he suggests that the mainstream news media suffers from widespread delusion about whiteness. Can a democratic nation’s free press operate under a mass delusion about race? . . .”

Mindich also wrote, “If Coates is right, Trump’s advocacy of white privilege and his erasure of [President] Obama are the central features of his presidency. Imagine for a second that Trump’s perceived advocacy of white rights is not considered by his supporters to be a bug, but a feature.

“That would explain why his outrageousness never seems to hurt his base. If many among his wide, white base voted for a racial realignment, then the wackier Trump is, the more muscular a white supremacist he could be. . . .”

After recounting an anecdote from the lynching era of the 1890s in which whites clung to myths about black men’s lasciviousness despite the reporting of anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells, Mindich wrote, “When a writer as careful and probing as Coates tells us that we might be suffering from a widespread delusion, we should pay attention to the charge and understand that historical precedent suggests it is possible, that journalism as a whole can suffer from a widespread insensitivity to racial issues.

“What should journalists do today? First, unlike the mainstream journalists of the 1890s — who rejected charges of bias — we should use the charges of Coates and others to goad ourselves to examine our perspectives.

“When the media of a majority culture sees the world, it often perceives it as race-neutral, the ‘color of water,’ to borrow a phrase, used in a different context, in James McBride’s best-selling memoir. But today’s journalists, with less overt racism and far more access to different perspectives, need to face the issue of race forthrightly.

“The second thing today’s journalists should do is to connect the dots. The 1890s saw a relentless string of lynchings, and the era’s press was better at listing the horrors than finding the golden threads.

“Journalism has often been a better strobe light than a searchlight. But when we list Trump’s endless tweets, proclamations and imbroglios, we could do a better job of seeing them as pieces of a whole.

“When Trump maligns an American judge of Mexican heritage; defends neo-Nazis; attacks two Gold Star families, one Muslim and one black; or views Puerto Rico’s population as being too lazy to help themselves after a hurricane, we must avoid seeing these as distinct incidents.

“Connecting the dots of white supremacy would challenge journalistic objectivity and require a level of self-awareness that is difficult to achieve, but reporters, above all else, are charged with creating a true picture of the world. And we must not avoid grappling with all the racial issues that hide in plain sight. . . .”

• Wayne Bennett, the Field Negro: How we lost our moral authority.
• Andy Borowitz, New Yorker: Trump Says He Is Only President in History with Courage to Stand Up to War Widows (satire)
• Philip Bump, Washington Post: America’s big issue is ‘black Africans’ killing each other, Sebastian Gorka says
• Jonathan Capehart, Washington Post: There’s a ‘poisonous dynamic among white people’ over who’s to blame for racism
• Elvia Díaz, La Voz | azcentral.com: Jeff Flake quit. Trump won. And civility lost
• Matt Gertz, Media Matters for America: How Steve Bannon and Sean Hannity’s ginned up Hillary Clinton uranium story became a congressional investigation
• Ian Haney-López, the Nation: This Is How Trump Convinces His Supporters They’re Not Racist. (Aug. 2, 2016)
• Stephen Henderson, Detroit Free Press: Bush speech marks another dark “first” for Trump
• Solomon Jones, Philadelphia Daily News: Trump’s ugly behavior towards women and people of color
• Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: President Trump needs his own ‘Luther’
• Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald: Inability to accept facts proves an America gone bananas
• Brian Stelter, CNNMoney: Trump has granted Fox News 19 interviews since inauguration
• Erik Wemple, Washington Post: Trump sends his insults directly to the American people, then blames the media for them

Is FCC’s Repeal Good or Bad for People of Color?

“Federal regulators have voted to eliminate a longstanding rule covering radio and television stations, in a move that could ultimately reshape the nation’s media landscape,” Brian Fung reported Tuesday for the Washington Post. The vote was 3-2 with the two Democrats strongly dissenting.

“The regulation, which was first adopted almost 80 years ago, requires broadcasters to have a physical studio in or near the areas where they have a license to transmit TV or radio signals,” Fung explained. “Known as the ‘main studio rule,’ the regulation ensured that residents of a community could have a say in their local broadcast station’s operations.

“Tuesday’s vote by the Federal Communications Commission lifts that requirement. With the rise of social media, the agency said, consumers now have other ways to get in touch with their local broadcasters. . . .”

There was division over whether the repeal would help or hurt people of color.

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, a Democrat who is African American, said that by voting to eliminate the rules for all stations, regardless of size, location and financial circumstances, the FCC had signaled that it no longer believes broadcasters need to have a local presence in their communities.

“Instead of taking a sledgehammer to the main studio rule, the FCC majority could have exacted a more measured approach, such as a revised waiver process, that considers market size and economic hardship,” Clyburn said.

“Doing away with the rule, which was established in 1940, benefits the largest broadcasters, especially Sinclair, which is set to swallow Tribune Media to become even more of a behemoth. The commissioners voted 3-2 along party lines to eliminate the rule,” Dade Hayes wrote Tuesday for Deadline: Hollywood.

Dana Floberg of the advocacy group Free Press added Wednesday, “Sinclair is a perfect case study of how rampant broadcast consolidation can harm communities. For years, Sinclair has leveraged its enormous size to shutter newsrooms, pioneer shady sharing-agreements that allow the company to evade ownership limits, and force local stations to air propaganda-style ‘must-run’ right-wing commentaries.

“Eliminating the main studio rule will make all of that worse. Already, we know traditional and new media outlets alike are failing to adequately invest in marginalized communities, especially communities of color, low-income communities and rural areas. . . .”

However, the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council said in a statement Tuesday that “the rule disproportionately worked to the deep disadvantage of diverse broadcasters [PDF].”

“Diverse entrants into the broadcasting industry were relegated to serving large markets with inferior, often suburban stations each requiring its own main studio, while non-minority broadcasters who got into broadcasting decades earlier could serve these markets with several stations each operating from a single downtown studio. MMTC demonstrated that this ‘tax on Blackness and Brown-ness’ drove capital away from multicultural entrepreneurs.

“Second, through its operation of donated stations that were used to train multicultural and women broadcast managers for ownership, MMTC has come to realize that the Main Studio Rule is unnecessary. While the FCC should ensure that all broadcasters provide program service that meets local needs, the methods by which they do so should be left to the discretion and creativity of broadcasters. Public broadcasters, LPFM [low power FM] stations, and internet stations have chosen to invest in programming rather than in ‘brick and mortar’ studio buildings that few visit or utilize. Technology has rendered the rule unnecessary and overdue for repeal.”

Meanwhile, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai “said he’ll move to weaken or kill local media ownership restrictions next month, potentially clearing the way for more consolidation among companies that own TV and radio stations,” Todd Shields reported Wednesday for Bloomberg.

• John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable: Divided FCC Eliminates Main Studio Rule
• Andy Kroll, Mother Jones: Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News
• Jay Meyers, Radio Ink: Debunking The Myth Of Minot
• Radio Ink: Rosenworcel Uses Minot To Blast Local Radio

To the End, Fats Domino Was a New Orleanian

“We can all be sure that the Lord called Fats Domino home Tuesday morning; otherwise, he’d still be around New Orleans,” Jarvis DeBerry wrote Wednesday for NOLA | the Times-Picayune.

“In 1998, when the R&B and rock ‘n’ roll pioneer was 70 years old, President Bill Clinton invited him to the White House to give him the National Medal of Arts. That’s a pretty big deal.

“Domino didn’t budge. His spirit, he said, didn’t tell him to travel.

“Domino, who was one of the original inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, died Tuesday morning at 89.

“Back in 1998, reporter Keith Spera made the mistake of assuming that Domino didn’t go to Washington to accept the award because he didn’t want to go to Washington to accept the award. ‘I didn’t say I didn’t want to go,’ Domino corrected him. ‘My spirit told me not to leave New Orleans until I make up my mind to travel again. We’ve got to pay more attention to the spirit, and pay more attention to God.’

“As most New Orleanians know, the legendary musician Antoine Dominique Domino Jr. didn’t voluntarily leave his home in the Lower 9th Ward even when the biggest, strongest storm in a generation seemed to be headed the city’s way. He was one of many people who was trapped by rising waters when the levees fell apart, and he was eventually pulled out of a second-story window into a rescue boat. The man who sang ‘Walking to New Orleans’ never seemed to want to go away. . . .”

NPR veteran Gwen Thompkins, another black New Orleanian, delivered a tribute on that network. “Between 1950 and 1963, Domino hit the R&B charts a reported 59 times, and the pop charts a rollicking 63 times. He outsold Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly — combined. Only Elvis Presley moved more records during that stretch — and Presley cited Domino as the early master,” she said.

“So how did a black man with a fourth-grade education in the Jim Crow South, the child of Haitian Creole plantation workers and the grandson of a slave, sell more than 65 million records?

“Domino could ‘wah-wah-waaaaah’ and ‘woo-hooo!’ like nobody else in the whole wide world — and he made piano triplets ubiquitous in rock ‘n’ roll. . . .”

Thompkins also told this story: “By 1960, Domino’s audience was overwhelmingly white. In South Carolina, the Ku Klux Klan gave his band directions — by the light of a burning cross.

“The late saxophone player Herbert Hardesty was driving the Domino bus on that occasion.

” ‘So I had to make it tight,’ Hardesty recounted. ‘In about five minutes, I came to Ku Klux Klan. They said, “Well, where’s Fats Domino?” I said, “He’s not here.” They said, “What are you guys doing?” I said, “I’m lost, I’m trying to get back to the highway.” And they were very nice — the Ku Klux Klan treated us very nice!’ . . .”

New York public television station WNET-TV announced that filmmaker Joe Lauro’s 2016 documentary “American Masters: Fats Domino and the Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll” was streaming on the American Masters website.

The documentary is to be shown on WNET on Sunday at 11 p.m. Check local listings for repeat broadcasts nationwide on PBS.

• Hillel Italie, Associated Press: ‘Benson’ star Robert Guillaume dead at 89
• Randy Lewis, Los Angeles Times: Fats Domino put the joy in rock ‘n’ roll
• Amanda Petrusich, New Yorker: The Inescapable Fats Domino
• John Pope, NOLA.com | Times-Picayune: Fats Domino, piano-playing prodigy and rock and roll legend, dies at 89
• Elana Simms, South Florida SunSentinel: Fats Domino and Robert Guillaume: Stars that won’t dim in my eyes
• Daniel E. Slotnik, New York Times: Robert Guillaume, Emmy-Winning Star of ‘Benson,’ Dies at 89

Chicago’s Black Poor Pay 20 Percent More for Water

“Lake Michigan water rates have been surging throughout the Chicago region in recent years, squeezing low-income residents and leaving them with little, if any, recourse, a Tribune analysis shows,” Ted Gregory, Cecilia Reyes, Patrick M. O’Connell and Angela Caputo reported Wednesday for the Chicago Tribune.

“In this tangled network that delivers water to the vast majority of the region’s residents, the Tribune found an upside-down world, one where people in the poorest communities pay more for a basic life necessity than those in the wealthiest.

“And the financial pain falls disproportionately on majority-African-American communities, where residents’ median water bill is 20 percent higher for the same amount of water than residents pay in predominantly white communities, the Tribune’s examination revealed. . . .”

Study Shows Racial Disparities in Plea Deals

“A new study from Carlos Berdejo of Loyola Law School demonstrates for the first time that there are significant racial disparities in the plea deals that white and black people receive on misdemeanor charges — with black people facing more severe punishment,” Jenn Rolnick Borchetta and Alice Fontier of the Bronx Defenders wrote Monday for the Marshall Project. The group provides public defense services to low-income people in the Bronx, N.Y.

“Berdejo analyzed 30,807 misdemeanor cases in Wisconsin over a seven-year period and found that white people facing misdemeanor charges were more than 74 percent more likely than black people to have all charges carrying potential prison time dropped, dismissed, or reduced. And white people with no criminal history were more than 25 percent more likely to have charges reduced than black people who also had no criminal history.

“This suggests, as Berdejo concludes in his report, that prosecutors use race to judge whether a person is likely to recidivate when deciding what plea to offer.

“Prior studies have found racial disparities in the plea bargaining process. The Berdejo study differs, however, in that it analyzes a detailed statewide data set of the entire life of criminal cases, from charging to sentencing, making it more reliable and expansive. . . .”

Writer Subpoenaed in Laquan McDonald Case

“Journalist Jamie Kalven was instrumental in blowing open the story about Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke fatally shooting Laquan McDonald,” Yana Kunichoff reported Friday for Chicago magazine. “In an award-winning story published in Slate more than two years ago, ’16 Shots,’ he detailed the vast discrepancy between official police accounts and witness testimony — as well as autopsy records that revealed the young man had been shot 16 times.

“At the center of his story was a secret source.

“Now Van Dyke is facing trial for murder, and this week his attorneys subpoenaed Kalven to get him on the stand. Implicit in attorney Dan Herbert’s comments to the press is that they want Kalven to reveal his source.

“While ‘shield laws,’ or a concept called reporter’s privilege, exist in some states to protect journalists and their sources, not all situations qualify. Reporters around the country, including in Illinois, have faced the threat of jail time for not revealing who gave them information essential to their stories.

“Chicago caught up with Kalven to discuss his reaction to the subpoena and the responsibility of journalists to their sources. . . .”

Telemundo Announces Investigative Unit

Telemundo announced Tuesday the creation of “Noticias Telemundo Investiga,” “its first-ever investigative unit for the production of multiplatform in-depth original reporting. ‘Noticias Telemundo Investiga’ will be tasked with the production of exclusive breaking news stories, investigative segments, exposés and documentaries on key Hispanic topics for all Noticias Telemundo platforms,” an announcement said.

“Investigative journalism has never been more critical for our viewers,” said Luis Fernández, executive vice-president of Noticias Telemundo, said in the announcement. “Allocating resources to long-term, in-depth reporting is a demonstration of our commitment to empower Latinos with useful information and the news that really matters to them. ‘Noticias Telemundo Investiga’ will reinvigorate our linear and digital platforms with original and exclusive content under Noticias Telemundo’s banner ”Telling It Like It Is’ (‘Las Cosas Como Son’ in Spanish).

“ ‘Noticias Telemundo Investiga’ stories will be part of ‘Noticias Telemundo’ newscast airing Monday to Friday at 6:30 PM/5:30 C and the current affairs show ‘Enfoque con José Díaz-Balart’ airing on Sundays at 12PM/11AM C. Viewers will also be able to access the segments on NoticiasTelemundo.com, Noticias Telemundo digital properties on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and the Noticias Telemundo mobile app.”

Female Editors, Too, Were Silent on Harassment

“For too long, the Baby Boomer generation has been silent about the issue of sexual harassment,” Julia Wallace wrote Monday for the Arizona Republic. “And we have let our daughters down.

“Back in 2002, I had just been named the first woman editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and was visiting the city’s key leaders. I met with one of the top developers and community leaders in town. We had a cordial talk about Atlanta’s strengths and opportunities.

“As I prepared to leave, he grabbed me and kissed me on the mouth. I must have had a look of shock and/or horror. He stepped back and said ‘that’s how we say goodbye in the South.’ I just smiled and left. I chalked it off to the good ol’ boy nature of my new city. Now, I regret that I didn’t speak up in that moment and many others.

“#MeToo

“Many of us in our 50s and 60s broke many barriers and became ‘the first woman’ to hold a variety of jobs. We were celebrated for breaking the glass ceiling.

“But there was a dirty little secret under all that glass breaking. By our silence and smiles, we were complicit.

“The newspaper business, Hollywood, the health-care business, retail. The story is all the same; as women we were demeaned, objectified, ignored, belittled and more. . . .”

Wallace is the Frank Russell Chair and professor of practice at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

• Renée Graham, Boston Globe: Support all victims of assault, whether they’re celebrities or not
• Renée Graham, Boston Globe: Toxic masculinity is killing us (Oct. 17)
• Suzette Hackney, Indianapolis Star: A rape survivor’s story — why she broke her silence after 17 years
• Allen Johnson, News & Record, Greensboro, N.C.: Weinstein, O’Reilly …. Trump: Sexual misconduct scandals spread like kudzu
• Soraya Nadia McDonald, the Undefeated: How do we prevent another Harvey Weinstein? Burn down the system that created him

Kaepernick Book Deal Spotlights a Black Editor

“Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has signed a book deal estimated over $1 million, NBC Sports reported Tuesday,” Foluke Tuakli wrote for NBCBLK.

“According to reports, the book will be published under One World, an imprint under Penguin Random House led by Chris Jackson. Jackson, one of only few black editors in the publishing industry, is known for his works with author Ta-Nehisi Coates, civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson, and hip-hop mogul Jay-Z. . . .”

Jackson was the subject of a Feb. 2, 2016, profile in the New York Times Magazine.

“The facts of his life in publishing speak to his inevitable place on the inside: the glass-enclosed office; the bookstore — McNally-Jackson in SoHo, which he helped open with Sarah McNally, who was then his wife — that has now become a New York literary institution; his naming last year as a Publishers Weekly Notable of the Year,” Vinson Cunningham wrote.

“Still, he has also acted as a one-man A.&R. unit: He spends much more time corresponding with emerging writers than with the agents who are prone to sending him their most generic ‘black’ offerings.

Cunningham also wrote, ‘‘ ‘Chris is very independent,’ says Rachel Klayman, vice president and executive editor at Crown Publishers. Klayman worked with Jackson at Crown in the early 2000s, and has remained one of his closest friends in publishing since then. ‘At this point,’ she said, ‘he’s sort of an autonomous region. His list is so distinctive.’ To Klayman, who remembers the time — not too distant — when the conventional wisdom was that black books don’t sell,’ Jackson’s intellect and curatorial instincts have made room for new, original voices.

‘He’s just been so steadfast and consistent in pursuing these books,’ she said. ‘Over time, he has proven that there is a market for them. A very substantial market.’

“Despite his success, he still senses a certain condescension within the industry. . . . ”

• J.R. Gamble, Shadow League: Screwing The NFL Is Donald Trump’s Real Agenda
• Roy S. Johnson, al.com: Whether NBA, NFL players kneel or not, sports protests are accomplishing Colin Kaepernick’s goal (Oct. 22)
• Solomon Jones, Philadelphia Daily News: NFL owners’ slavemaster mindset underscores their reaction to anthem protests (Oct. 17)
• Soraya Nadia McDonald, the Undefeated: America is comfortable with protesting athletes on their screens, but not in their stadiums
• Jason Reid, the Undefeated: NFL hasn’t done all it can to persuade players not to protest, but it’s getting started

Blacks Take Discrimination as a Fact of Life

“Black Americans take the existence of discrimination as a fact of life,” Gene Demby reported Wednesday for NPR.

“That’s according to a new study conducted by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, which asked black respondents how they felt about discrimination in their lives and in American society more broadly.

“Almost all of the black people who responded — 92 percent — said they felt that discrimination against African-Americans exists in America today. At least half said they had personally experienced racial discrimination in being paid equally or promoted at work, when they applied for jobs or in their encounters with police.

“But within that near-consensus, the respondents reported having different kinds of experiences with discrimination, which varied considerably depending on things like gender, age and where they lived. . . .”

• Editorial, Native Sun News Today: Racial prejudice: One step forward two steps back in South Dakota
• Richie Richards, Native Sun News Today: Student speaks out about racism in South Dakota school (Oct. 19)

Short Takes

• “Veteran correspondent Jeff Glor will be the next anchor of ‘CBS Evening News,’ ” Stephen Battaglio reported Wednesday for the Los Angeles Times. “Glor, 42, was named to the post Wednesday by CBS News President David Rhodes. He has been with the news division for 10 years in various capacities, including as lead anchor for CBSN, the division’s streaming video service. . . .”
• The Undefeated was named best sports website, an interactive feature on Pittsburgh hip-hop in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette won for best entertainment/cultural news; and Splinter’s The Fight at Standing Rock on Facebook was chosen for “Best Social Media/Crowd Sourcing” in the EPPY Awards announced by Editor & Publisher.
• “In what one would hope was just a terrible oversight, Fox & Friends this weekend aired a Halloween segment that featured children in various cute costumes — including a black child dressed as a watermelon slice,” AOL.com reported on Sunday.
• “Laura Rollins Hockaday, a longtime writer for The Kansas City Star credited for adding diversity to the society pages, died early Tuesday at St. Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City from complications associated with viral pneumonia,” Rick Montgomery and Donald Bradley reported for the Kansas City Star. “She was 79. Well-liked and well-connected, Hockaday worked at The Star from 1962 to 2000, cultivating countless friendships along the way. . . .”
• “As Major League Baseball continues to be a leader in finding creative ways to promote diversity and inclusion, the league has announced a new Front Office Diversity Initiative through a masterfully constructed MLB Diversity Fellowship Program,” J.R. Gamble reported Oct. 12 for the Shadow League. Gamble also wrote, “In response to criticisms and a June LA Times article, Major League Baseball is ‘failing’ in its attempt to increase front-office diversity and the issue could get worse, the long overdue initiative was put into motion. . . . “

• 

  “The future of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is inextricably linked to the future of African Americans and [it’s] incumbent upon the nation’s oldest civil rights organization to work with the Black Press to get that message out, said new NAACP President Derrick Johnson,” Stacy M. Brown reported Wednesday for the National Newspaper Publishers Association. “On October 21, the executive committee of the NAACP National Board of Directors announced that the Detroit-born Johnson would lead the organization as the president and CEO. . . .”

• “Last month, ProPublica published a deep examination of how struggling black Americans are much less likely to gain lasting relief from bankruptcy than their white peers,” Paul Kiel reported Tuesday for ProPublica. “The story focused on Memphis, where the racial gaps in the system are starker than anywhere else in the country. . . . Spurred by this reporting, two Memphis City Council members, Kemp Conrad and Patrice Robinson, announced a long-term commitment last week to examining and finding solutions to the problems highlighted in the story. . . .”.
• “When it comes to mass incarceration, men get most of the attention — and for obvious reasons. Men commit roughly 80 percent of violent crimes, and they make up over 90 percent of prisoners,” Ryan Cooper reported Monday for The Week. “However, by industrialized country standards, America’s imprisonment of women is arguably even worse than it is for men — and as new analysis from Aleks Kajstura at the Prison Policy Initiative shows, a great many of those women do not need to be behind bars. . . .”
• The Surdna Foundation awarded $200,000 to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis in June in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. next April. Half the amount is to go to MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a yearlong digital journalism project centered around the issues of economic justice in Memphis, Shawn Escoffery, foundation program director, said by telephone on Thursday. “MLK50 uses journalism to engage Memphis and the broader community with Dr. King’s vision of economic inclusion,” the MLK50 project said in announcing the grant on Wednesday. Founder and editor is Wendi C. Thomas, former columnist at the Commercial Appeal in Memphis. [Updated Oct. 26]
• “I’m tracking details of further downsizing at WEHCO Media and its flagship property, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette,” Max Brantley reported Tuesday for the Arkansas Times. Brantley also wrote, “Lynn Hamilton, president and general manager of the Little Rock edition of the Democrat-Gazette (the Northwest edition is a separate operation), said the company was ‘responding to economic realities all newspapers are facing’ with a reduction in force. Twenty-nine people were to lose jobs, but the layoffs actually will number 27. . . .”
• “Travel the world and get paid for it? Sounds like a dream job to us,” Natalie Gontcharova wrote Wednesday for refinery29.com. “No wonder a recent posting for a yearlong travel-journalist stint on The New York Times ignited such a tweetstorm and so much discussion in every corner of Journalist Internet — and beyond. . . . As of this morning, New York Times Travel Editor Monica Drake says the publication has received 3,100 applications to the position. The deadline to apply is October 31. . . .”
• “In a time where the relationship between journalism and social media is hotly debated, the New York Times announced a program for reporters to create ‘social-first’ content to publish directly on social platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, Whatsapp and Reddit,” Shira Hanau reported Monday for MediaFile. “The one-year residency, which will hire at least three journalists, is the result of a partnership between the Times and the snack company Mondelez, though the Times will not reveal the terms of the partnership. . . .”
• “How fitting that Texas-born Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla will soon receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame,” the Dallas Morning News editorialized Tuesday. “In our eyes, it was never so much a question of whether as it was when. Seriously, what took so long? . . .”
• “Alabama, a deadbeat jurisdiction for the wrongly convicted,” the Marshall Project wrote Monday, summarizing a report from Beth Shelburne of WBRC-TV in Birmingham. “State officials proudly point to a law that permits the exonerated to apply for and receive compensation for years of wrongful incarceration. Less known is the part of the law that allows legislators to simply refuse to fund even those compensation settlements that state officials have agreed to pay. The result is that men and women trying to rebuild their lives after long prison stays are left in financial limbo. . . .”
• Paco Fuentes, the celebrity reporter with Univision’s “El Gordo y La Flaca” who was slapped by Mexican soap star Eduardo Yanez this month, is suing Yanez for assault and battery and emotional distress, according to TMZ, Madeleine Marr reported Monday for the Miami Herald.
• Focus groups of news users in the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain and Finland see the difference between fake news and news as one of degree rather than a clear distinction, according to Rasmus Kleis Nielsen and Lucas Graves of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. Their findings were reported Tuesday in Columbia Journalism Review.
• “Over the past decade, Long Island’s blacks, Hispanics and other minorities were far more likely than whites to be arrested and wind up behind bars for a group of crimes that experts say are the suburban equivalent of ‘stop and frisk’ charges, a Newsday investigation shows,” Thomas Maier and Ann Choi reported Oct. 19 for the Long Island, N.Y., news operation. “Nonwhites on Long Island were arrested at nearly five times the rate for whites, according to an analysis of police and court records from the years 2005-2016. . . . Newsday reviewed more than 100,000 Long Island separate cases involving charges identified as the primary ones resulting from ‘stop and frisk’-like tactics.  . . .”
• “A number of major western news organisations whose coverage has irked Beijing were excluded from [Chinese President] Xi Jinping’s unveiling of China’s new ruling council on Wednesday — in some cases for the first time in more than two decades,” Tom Phillips reported Wednesday for the Guardian. “Those refused access to Xi’s statement to the media include the BBC, the Financial Times, the Economist, the New York Times and the Guardian. Chinese officials offered no formal explanation for the decision. . . .”
• “The government has banned a Swahili tabloid Tanzania Daima for 90 days for allegedly publishing false information,” Louis Kolumbia wrote Tuesday for the Citizen in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. . . .Tanzania Daima becomes the fourth local newspaper to be banned from publication this year. Others are Mawio, Mwanahalisi and Raia Mwema.”

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• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2009
• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2008
• Book Notes: Books to Ring In the New Year
• Book Notes: In-Your-Face Holiday Reads
• Fishbowl Interview With the Fresh Prince of D.C. (Oct. 26, 2012)
• NABJ to Honor Columnist Richard Prince With Ida B. Wells Award (Oct. 11, 2012)
• So What Do You Do, Richard Prince, Columnist for the Maynard Institute? (Richard Horgan, FishbowlLA, Aug. 22, 2012)
• Book Notes: Who Am I? What’s Race Got to Do With It?: Journalists Explore Identity
• Book Notes: Catching Up With Books for the Fall
• Richard Prince Helps Journalists Set High Bar (Jackie Jones,BlackAmericaWeb.com, 2011)
• Book Notes: 10 Ways to Turn Pages This Summer
• Book Notes: 7 for Serious Spring Reading
• Book Notes: 7 Candidates for the Journalist’s Library
• Book Notes: 9 That Add Heft to the Bookshelf
• Five Minutes With Richard Prince (Newspaper Association of America, 2005)
• ‘Journal-isms’ That Engage and Inform Diverse Audiences (Q&A with Mallary Jean Tenore, Poynter Institute, 2008)