‘Including, but Not Limited to, Comparing Me to a Chia Pet’
Reshuffling of Roles at NBC, CNN
Adriana Diaz Broke Story on Biden Documents
2 of 3 Kidnapped Mexican Journalists Freed
Sharpton Film Called ‘Self-Serving Spin’
New Details on Acquittal of Emmett Till’s Killers
Randy Hagihara Dies, L.A. Times Editor, Recruiter
Gregory Yee, L.A. Times Reporter, Dies at 33
Charles Taylor, Va. Reporter, Classical Music Host
Short Takes: RTNDF honorees; Robert Samuels; media industry job cuts; Gov. Ron Desantis and Florida colleges; Elizabeth Vargas; Mará Rose Williams; “missing white woman syndrome,” looted Native American remains; Laura Mayer and Eric Ortega; Jayson Blair; racist Torrence, Calif., police; NAHJ, Arizona Republic and Pedro Gomez; KYW Philadelphia-Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists scholarship; Hispanics and Federal Communications Commission;
Byron Allen and Black-targeted media leaders; Sahan Journal; Veralyn Williams; KRON San Francisco and HBCU basketball; “Chicago Tonight”; Black real estate agents and brokers; Black dads; aggressions against journalists in Peru; attacks on journalists in Ghana; erosion of press freedom in Senegal; detention of South Sudan journalists over footage of president appearing to wet himself.
Homepage photo: Royce Jones and fellow anchor-reporter Erika Stanish of KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh.
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‘Including, but Not Limited to, Comparing Me to a Chia Pet’
The way Black women wear their hair for news broadcasts has been an issue for decades, but Royce Jones, a Black male freelance anchor/reporter at KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, wrote this week that it’s been an issue for him, too.
“Some fireworks are probably going to go off for what I’m about to say,” Jones wrote Monday on Facebook. His post was approaching 1,000 comments by Sunday.
“But this[is] a topic that needs to be addressed.
“So, here it goes.
“I get a lot of comments about my hair.
“Many people (most notably those who look like me) often thank me for the representation and for not being afraid to rock my super fab head of curls, on TV.
“This is not a movement I can take credit for. People have been advocating and making space for natural hair in TV and media for eons.
“Other not so cool people (who typically tend NOT to look like me) have had some pretty interesting critiques and comments including but not limited to comparing me to a chia pet. (See photo . . . that someone sent me)
“They’ll make jokes or ask questions like ‘What is going on with your hair?’ or ‘What are you going to do with it?’
“Comments such as these have caused a great deal of introspection, sadness, stress and disappointment for me.
“It’s really hard to understand how something (my hair) that has been celebrated for my entire life by myself, family and members of my community, has become something that instead of celebrating, I sometimes find myself in the position of having to defend.
“It’s troubling that people continue to express these micro aggressions and in my opinion, anti-Black sentiments. But it’s unfortunately not surprising.
“I try not to respond to trolls.
“But these aren’t trolls or bots.
“These are actual human beings who lack the knowledge and understanding about the significance and beauty of Black hair texture and styles.
“So, I’m going to use this moment, which is the ONLY time I’m going to publicly address this, to educate.
“My choice to grow my hair was initially just that, my choice. No statement. No political undertones. Nothing.
“BUT it’s clear to me now more than I ever that I need to use my voice + platform to further the discussion about hair equity for [BIPOC] folks.
“Below is a link to the official website for the ‘Crown Act’ which is a piece of legislation aimed at ending hair discrimination. . . .
“All Love, Royce”
Reshuffling of Roles at NBC, CNN
Restructurings at NBC and CNN this week gave new roles to Latinos such as Cesar Conde, Janelle Rodriguez and Jim Acosta and African Americans such as Sara Sidner, Jonathan Capehart, Victor Blackwell and Laura Coates.
The restructuring at NBCUniversal News Group was announced by Conde, chair of the group. He was born in Miami to immigrant parents who are Cuban and Peruvian.
“On Wednesday he also appointed himself as the effective president of NBC News,” Oliver Darcy wrote Thursday for CNN’s “Reliable Sources” newsletter.
“After Noah Oppenheim — who has led the network during a tumultuous period in the media industry and through Donald Trump’s chaotic presidency — told staff that he would vacate the role of NBC News president in favor of returning to screenwriting, Conde disclosed his succession plan.”
“Rebecca Blumenstein, a deputy managing editor of The New York Times, will assume a swath of Oppenheim’s duties, taking on a newly created role as president of editorial at the network. Blumenstein has a lengthy history working in print, but glaringly lacks experience in television news. She will oversee some of NBC News’ television portfolio, such as ‘Meet the Press,’ but will not have purview over the two cornerstone programs, the ‘Today’ show franchise and ‘NBC Nightly News.’
“Those duties will fall to the other two executives that Conde has elevated to run the NBC News portfolio: Libby Leist and Janelle Rodriguez, two longtime network executives who both received promotions to executive vice president. Leist will continue to oversee ‘Today’ and Rodriguez will oversee ‘Nightly’ and NBC News NOW.” Rodriguez is Puerto Rican.
“All three executives — Blumenstein, Leist, and Rodriguez — will report directly to Conde, making him the ultimate network boss. . . .”
Separately, “MSNBC is expanding Hallie Jackson’s daily anchoring duties on streaming as the network retools its weekday and weekend lineups heading into the new year,” Dominick Mastrangelo reported Thursday for The Hill.
“José Díaz-Balart will move in his anchoring duties from 10 am to 11 am,” according to a memo from Rodriguez, Mastrangelo wrote.
“Anchor Katie Phang will begin MSNBC’s live programming on weekends beginning at 8 a.m., while Jonathan Capehart will expand his hosting duties to include both Saturdays and Sundays, beginning at 9 a.m. . . .”
Meanwhile, correspondent Gadi Schwartz has been named anchor of a new Los Angeles-based 8 p.m. program on NBC News’ streaming network News Now, Veronica Villafañe reported Monday for her Media Moves site. “NOW Tonight with Gadi Schwartz is launching next month. He replaces Joshua Johnson,” who left the network in November.
Meanwhile, “CNN said it would shuffle anchors across its weekday and weekend daytime schedules, grouping them together in new ways the network hopes will attract viewers as it attempts to work its way out of a longtime ratings shortfall,” Brian Steinberg wrote Wednesday for Variety.
“John Berman, Kate Bolduan and Sara Sidner will lead a three-hour mid-morning program from New York that lasts from 9 a.m. to noon, while Brianna Keilar, Boris Sanchez and Jim Sciutto will anchor a three-hour Washington, D.C. broadcast between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. . . .
“There are other changes in store. Victor Blackwell, who moved to New York from Atlanta to lead a mid-afternoon broadcast with Alisyn Camerota, appears to be moving back south. He is expected to anchor the 10am hour on Saturdays and co-anchor the weekend edition of “CNN This Morning” with Amara Walker. Jim Acosta will expand his role on the weekends, anchoring 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday and 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Sunday. . . . Laura Coates, who was promised a roost on the evening schedule well before the pandemic, finally gets a spot at 11 p.m.”
Blackwell anchored CNN’s “New Day Weekends” for the last nine years before getting the more visible weekday job in 2021.
Among his memorable moments was, as a Journal-isms reader messaged in 2019, when the Baltimore native “just broke down on live television . . . as he rebuked Donald Trump for saying Blackwell’s hometown, also known as Baltimore, is an ‘infested’ city. Victor must have repeated the word ‘infested’ about 10 times.”
Last month, Ana Cabrera, who had risen steadily since joining CNN in 2013, announced she was leaving the network, and did. She is expected to join NBC.
- Michael Malone, Broadcasting and Cable: Tony Canales Named GM of NBC’s Dallas Stations, Hank Guerrero the GM at Hartford Stations (Jan. 5)
Adriana Diaz’ story about the found documents begins at 5:40 in this video of Monday’s “CBS Evening News.” (Credit: CBS News)
Adriana Diaz Broke Story on Biden Documents
CBS News’ Adriana Diaz broke the story Monday that all week made headlines in the media and headaches at the White House: “roughly 10 documents with classified markings had been found at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington. The documents were from President Biden’s vice-presidential office at the center.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed former U.S. attorney Robert Hur as special counsel to investigate the storage of the documents.
Diaz is a CBS News correspondent based in Chicago and is the anchor of Saturday’s edition of the “CBS Weekend News.”
From her bio: “Diaz was previously CBS News’ Asia correspondent based in Beijing, where she used her Mandarin skills to report from China on U.S.-Chinese relations, Chinese politics, science, and culture. Diaz reported from inside North Korea twice, documenting the country’s political pageantry and isolation. Her Asia assignments also took her to the Korean Demilitarized Zone, South Korea, Japan, and Laos.”
“Diaz was Miss New York USA 2006 and Miss New York Teen USA 2003. Her family is from the Dominican Republic, and she speaks Spanish, French and Mandarin . . .”
Diaz has been updating the story all week. Her initial report was attributed to “sources,” but a White House counsel supplied a timeline and Scott Fredericksen, a former federal prosecutor, said there was an important difference between Biden’s case and Trump’s. The Biden team self-reported the situation, “indicating a lack of intentional conduct,” he said.
Diaz attended the joint convention last summer of the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists, which featured a panel, “Two Worlds — Afro-Latinx in the Newsroom,” organized by NAHJ’s Afro-Latino Task Force. Diaz told the Latino Reporter that she had attended multiple NAHJ conferences over the years, but “this convention has felt different for me from an Afro-Latina perspective because we had programming focus on the Afro-Latino experience.”
- Zeeshan Aleem, MSNBC: Trump’s and Biden’s documents scandals are different. That may not matter.
- Sarah Ellison and Elahe Izadi, Washington Post: The Biden documents scandal is a test for the media — and an opportunity
- Glenn Kessler, Washington Post: Biden, Trump and classified documents: An explainer
- Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: Here are the Biden document questions we need answered
2 of 3 Kidnapped Mexican Journalists Freed
Two of three journalists kidnapped in the stronghold of a Mexican drug cartel have been freed after an operation involving the military and National Guard, according to the state’s prosecutor’s office, Graham Keeley reported Friday for the Voice of America. The status of the third journalist was unclear.
On Monday, a chilling video of Fernando Moreno Villegas, later freed, and Alan Garcia Aguilar, whose status is undetermined, was posted on social media. It showed the two chained hand and foot. The second freed journalist is Jesus Pintor Alegre.
“In the 41-second clip, Moreno stated that they were ‘paying the consequences of the publications against those people in the region of Tierra Caliente and Guerrero of Mexico,’ ” Keeley wrote.
“Jan-Albert Hootsen, the Mexico representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which had called for their release, said Friday that he was still trying to reach the families of the journalists.
“Victims being released is a pretty unusual situation in terms of journalists being kidnapped in Mexico. Usually, the outcome is not such good news, he told VOA.
“This seems to have happened because of the local and international media attention which this case attracted. But we cannot say this means that the outcome in other cases will also be the same. This was a very local situation.”
“Paula Saucedo, of the media rights group Article 19, told VOA that the website the journalists worked on mainly reported stories about the Familia Michoacana drug cartel. . . .”
Keeley also reported, “Hours after Pintor was released, he called on Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, known as AMLO, to change the country’s policy to tackle the endemic problem of kidnapping by drug gangs of journalists and human rights activists.
” ‘Hugs, not bullets’ does not work, and the population lives in a state of barbarism, totally unprotected,’ Pintor told Radio Formula, a local station.
“The president’s ‘hugs, not bullets’ policy has involved tackling the social causes of drug violence and reducing the military presence on the streets.
“It has been widely criticized because it has not resulted in a decline in murders related to [drug] gangs. . . .”
Keeley also wrote, “Mexico remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world in which to be a journalist, with killings, threats and kidnappings common. Media watchdogs say the country saw its most deadly year on record last year for journalists, with UNESCO recording 19 killings.”
- Reporters Without Borders: Abduction of three men highlights climate of terror for local reporters in Mexico
Sharpton Film Called ‘Self-Serving Spin’
“This is the first time a civil rights leader has lived to see their story told on the big screen,” activist and MSNBC host Al Sharpton messaged supporters of the National Action Network, which he heads, last month.
“Friday’s premiere will be a historic event, which is why you see more theaters eager to screen ‘Loudmouth’ from coast to coast and everywhere in between. I encourage all young loudmouths who want to change their community to go see this film. Dec 9, 2022.”
“Loudmouth” debuted Tuesday on Apple TV and Amazon Prime, and is to be released on DVD on Tuesday. Journal-isms supporter Todd Steven Burroughs, public historian, media consultant and contractor, wrote this short review.
“As a Newarker who constantly watched Sharpton from my senior year in high school in the mid-’80s to a journalist who covered Sharpton in Jersey City for The Star-Ledger to my first year in graduate school at the University of Maryland in 1992, I had to watch ‘Loudmouth’ three times so I could really understand his argument.
“In this very sympathetic documentary, this story of a winner who outlived and out-hustled his critics evades and obscures a lot about his long career — particularly when he deals with the explosive Tawana Brawley case.
“Still, he makes good points about how editorially white the mainstream media was back then, locally in New York and nationally.
“In today’s culture, where MSNBC and CNN carry Black liberal commentary every day that attempts to explain the Black experience, the talk show and news-interview clips that the documentary uses — from ‘The Richard Bey Show’ to ‘Donahue’ on the white syndicated televised side and [in New York,] WLIB’s ‘The Mark Riley Show’ on the Black radio side — show that many of the ideological and cultural chasms have mainly been filled in 2023.
“Interestingly, it could be argued with some justification that he and the documentarians subtly argue that the gap was closed largely by his civil rights efforts — daring, dangerous work that, according to him, resulted in his elevated status which, in turn, resulted in his 2023 seven-days-a-week media empire! Little credit is given to other activists, and zero — none! — to any Black or Latino journalists.
“Even The City Sun, the [New York] Black weekly newspaper that championed him the most, is relegated, like most things in ‘Loudmouth,’ to the deep background.
“I wish Les Payne were alive and WCBS-TV’s Mike Taibbi, the latter Sharpton’s nightly news arch-enemy, was still active because they would be writing Op-Eds calling Sharpton out about this extraordinary work of revisionist history.
“Perhaps the most important thing he says about the news media is his admission that it was the growing tabloid-television culture that put him on the stage. If you check the documentary on Morton Downey Jr., Downey’s people made it very clear that Sharpton was in on Downey’s racket — one that contributed greatly to the dumbing-down of American culture and disgraced the serious (albeit white hegemonic) tradition of discussion of civil rights issues on television.
“In America, winners never have to explain their tactics, particularly if they are rich and famous. In this film, Sharpton comes the closest to doing so, but he does so in the absence of any facts and perspectives that would halt his strongly self-serving spin.”
A trailer for the WMAQ one-hour special, “The Lost Story of Emmett Till: The Universal Child,” that aired March 19, 2022.
New Details on Acquittal of Emmett Till’s Killers
“In an exclusive interview with NBC Chicago, new information about what led to the verdict in the decades-old murder of Emmett Till, a Black teenager from Chicago, may change what the world knows about the acquittal of two white men that marked a pivotal moment in American history,” Marion Brooks, DS Shin and Tom Jones reported Tuesday for WMAQ-TV.
“Till’s death in 1955 sparked the modern-day Civil Rights Movement, his face no longer forgotten, along with the words, courage and tenacity of his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, who did not rest in her pursuit of justice for her son. . . .
“Decades after the trial, the world has always thought the jury had reached a quick ‘not guilty’ decision, based on deliberations reportedly lasting less than an hour, and by the added boasting of some jury members, who told the press at the time, ‘If we hadn’t stopped to drink pop, it wouldn’t have taken that long.’
“But according to new details, the jury’s initial vote was not unanimous.
“In fact, three members of the jury required convincing by other jurors after first voting to convict Till’s killers, according to Stephen Whitaker, Ph.D., one of the first people to extensively research Till’s murder and the trial that followed.
“In an exclusive interview with NBC Chicago, his first-ever television interview, Whitaker also said he discovered ways that the murder trial may have been fixed from the start, including one of the suspects’ defense attorneys, John Whitten, in his role as the county attorney for Tallahatchie [Miss.], hand-picking the jury pool to ensure each person was ‘racist’ and willing to set the white men free.
“There were other forces influencing the trial, Whitaker learned, including key witnesses who were kept from testifying and hidden from view by the local Tallahatchie Sheriff at that time, H.C. Strider. . . . “
Randy Hagihara Dies, L.A. Times Editor, Recruiter
“Randy Hagihara (pictured), a longtime Los Angeles Times editor known for his no-nonsense demeanor, as well as for being a sharp-eyed recruiter who delighted in finding and mentoring young journalists, has died at his home in Huntington Beach,” Christopher Goffard wrote Jan. 8 for the Times. “He was 72.
“Hagihara’s death Saturday followed a battle with esophageal cancer, according to Sean Kawata, his stepson.
“Hagihara spent more than 21 years at The Times starting in 1990, with stints as deputy city editor, city editor and night city editor in the Orange County bureau when the paper was engaged in a fierce circulation war with the rival Orange County Register.
“ ‘Randy communicated toughness as an editor. And he was, in fact, damn tough,’ said Martin Baron, who was editor of the Orange County edition in the 1990s and later became editor of the Washington Post. At the time Hagihara worked under him, Baron recalled, there were 165 staffers in the edition’s news department.
“ ‘He pressed for hard work, aggressive reporting, unequivocal truth-telling, clear writing and the most rigorous standards,’ Baron said in an email. ‘He was allergic to nonsense. And yet there was a genuine softness inside. He was abundantly empathetic and generous in spirit, and forever willing to give professional guidance to reporters who were early in their careers.’ . . .
“In 1979, Hagihara joined the tiny staff of the short-lived Koreatown Weekly, which became known as the first English-language newspaper for Korean Americans. Hagihara worked out of the newspaper’s office in downtown Los Angeles, reporting stories, taking photographs and developing them in the darkroom. He also sold ads, pursued advertisers for unpaid bills, and made trips in a Ford Pinto station wagon to collect bundles of the newspaper from the printing presses in Sacramento. . . .”
Gregory Yee, L.A. Times Reporter, Dies at 33
“Los Angeles Times breaking news reporter Gregory Yee (pictured) has died at the age of 33, the newspaper reported on Jan. 5,” Rafu Shimpo, the bilingual Japanese-English language newspaper based in Los Angeles, reported Friday.
“Yee died on Jan. 4 at the Hollywood bungalow where he lived. ‘His family said the cause appeared to be complications from a respiratory issue,‘ according to The Times.
“Born and raised in the Los Angeles area, Yee attended UC Irvine, where he was editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, New University. After his 2012 graduation with a double degree in Spanish and literary journalism, Yee worked at a New Mexico newspaper, covered crime for The Long Beach Press-Telegram and criminal justice for The Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C.
“ ‘Yee covered an assortment of issues — gun violence, extreme weather, clowns — with enthusiasm and composure,’ according to The Post and Courier. He brought attention to deplorable living conditions in a public housing building on the upper Charleston peninsula for senior citizens and people with disabilities; documented how racial justice protests in the summer of 2020 devolved into rioting in South Carolina’s oldest city; and led the newspaper’s coverage of an April 2021 mass shooting in Rock Hill by a former NFL player. . . .”
Charles Taylor, Va. Reporter, Classical Music Host
Charles H. Taylor III (pictured), freelance writer, journalist and community leader, died Jan. 7 “from a blood clot due to COVID-19 infection” just eight days before what would have been his 71st birthday, according to a death notice placed in the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va.
“For more than 30 years, Mr. Taylor applied his many skills to a series of media-related jobs and services. Starting out as a radio news reporter, he went on to host a classical music program and then became a reporter for Richmond Newspapers Inc. He later worked as a corporate communications representative and media and community relations manager for Dominion Power in both Norfolk and Richmond. During this time, he was a member of and served as president of Hampton Roads Black Media Professionals, an affiliate chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists. . . .”
George Copeland Jr. added for the Richmond Free Press, “Mr. Taylor had ended his retirement last year to work with the Richmond Free Press as a freelance reporter and editor. Bonnie Newman Davis, Free Press managing editor, said she’d known Mr. Taylor for more than 30 years, having previously worked with him at another Richmond newspaper.
“ ‘I was thrilled when Charles called to ask “How may I help?” ‘ she said. ‘His first story for us chronicled a Richmonder who last year climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s tallest mountain at 19,341 feet. When the Free Press was approached about writing the article, I instinctively knew that the story had Charles’ name all over it. He wrote an excellent story!
“I am devastated that Charles is no longer with us, but I am at peace knowing that his body of work and legacy will be with us forever.”
Short Takes
- The RTDNA Foundation plans to honor nine people at the 32nd annual First Amendment Awards, “recognizing their efforts to promote responsible journalism and preserve the constitutionally guaranteed rights to do so,” the foundation announced Thursday. Honorees include Rashida Jones, president of MSNBC; Maria Hinojosa, journalist and founder of Futuro Media; Jordan Wertlieb, president of Hearst Television; Keith Woods, chief diversity officer at NPR; Hilde Lysiak, 16, a junior at Nogales High School in Selingsgrove, Pa., and former publisher of the Orange Street News; Connie Walker, Okanese First Nation, investigative journalist and host of the Gimlet Media podcast “Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s”; and Boyd Huppert, reporter/producer at KARE-TV in Minneapolis and national storytelling coach for the 49 newsrooms of Tegna. The RTDNA Foundation is the charitable arm of the Radio Television Digital News Association.
- Washington Post national enterprise reporter Robert Samuels, co-author of “His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice,” with his colleague Toluse Olorunnipa, is joining the New Yorker as a staff writer in March, the magazine announced Thursday. Samuels wrote on Facebook, “It is a rare, awesome opportunity that I never thought would be offered to me. I still cannot believe it. . . . To answer some big questions: Yes, I am staying in DC. Yes, I will continue to travel the country in search for America. And yes, a part of the deal is that they’ll send me to Milan to cover figure skating at the next Olympics!” (Photo by Sharon Farmer/sfphotoworks)
- “Job cuts across the media industry were up about 20 percent in 2022 compared to the previous year, according to a new study,” Dominick Mastrangelo reported Tuesday for The Hill. “Data from outplacement research firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas found jobs in the ‘news,’ category — a sector the firm tracks as a subset of media that includes digital, broadcast and print news — announced 1,808 cuts in 2022. That number is up 20 percent from the 1,511 news job cuts announced in 2021. . . .”
- “A group of Florida college professors on Wednesday asked a federal judge to block Gov. Ron DeSantis from requesting spending data on diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory programs in state universities,” the Associated Press reported. State journalism schools such as that at Florida A&M University, would have to follow state directives, FAMU spokesperson Andrew Skeritt told Journal-isms. “At the University of Florida, department chairs were asked to begin compiling the information DeSantis requested through a spreadsheet, said Meera Sitharam, vice president of the university’s United Faculty of Florida chapter,” Kathryn Varn reported for the Tallahassee Democrat. At best, Sitharam said, it would be included in the state’s response to a court ruling blocking DeSantis’ efforts to restrict how K-12 schools, universities and colleges, and workplaces talked about race, gender and sexuality. At worst, it’s a “direct attempt at smothering academic freedom via state purse-strings,” she said.
- “Elizabeth Vargas (pictured) is the latest news veteran to join Nexstar’s NewsNation, with plans to launch a weekday news program on April 3,” Ted Johnson reported Tuesday for Deadline. “The hourlong Elizabeth Vargas Reports will be based in New York and will air at 6 PM ET/5 PM CT. Vargas also will serve as a regular contributor to daytime and primetime news, analysis and talk programming. . . .”
- “The Kansas City Star has promoted Mará Rose Williams (pictured), a journalist whose voice has been a part of The Star for 25 years, to take on a new role as the newspaper’s assistant managing editor for race and equity issues,” Bill Lukitsch reported Monday for the Star. “Working alongside reporters and editors across the newsroom, Williams will be tasked with helping The Star better represent historically marginalized communities in Kansas City through its news coverage.” In 2020, a suggestion from Williams quickly turned into a full-blown examination of the Star’s coverage of race and the Black community dating to its founding in 1880.
- “Thirteen news organizations are starting 2023 as part of a cohort assembled by the American Press Institute to track the diversity of people quoted in their stories through Source Matters, API’s award-winning source diversity tracking and analysis tool,” Liz Worthington reported Wednesday for the institute. “Included in this cohort are 10 news organizations that received a free one-year license to use Source Matters through API’s Election Coverage & Community Listening Fund announced last year. . . .”
- “The case of Ana Walshe (pictured) is reviving the conversation about whether news outlets devote too much time to covering the disappearances of white women, [which] the late Gwen Ifill dubbed ‘missing white woman syndrome,’ ” Oliver Darcy wrote Tuesday for CNN’s “Reliable Sources” newsletter. “California State University, Sacramento professor Danielle Slakoff, who studies how the media covers crime, believes that to be at play. Slakoff said Walshe’s case is saturating media coverage, while similar stories of other missing people, are not covered . . . .”
- “The remains of more than 110,000 Native American, Native Hawaiian and Alaska Natives’ ancestors are still held by museums, universities and federal agencies,” Logan Jaffe, Mary Hudetz and Ash Ngu of ProPublica, and Graham Lee Brewer of NBC News, reported Wednesday. “Do you know about how museums and other institutions are handling the repatriation of Native American human remains and cultural items under NAGPRA?” ProPublica asked readers, referring to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990. “We want to hear from you.”
- “ABC News has appointed Laura Mayer as executive producer of podcast programming at ABC Audio, while Eric Ortega has been named executive producer of ABC News Live Prime with Linsey Davis,” Mark Mwachiro reported Jan. 5 for TVNewser.
- Jayson Blair (pictured), whose fabrications at The New York Times led to a scandal in 2003 that forced his own resignation and that of the Times’ top two editors, tarring other Black journalists in the process, is hosting a podcast in his role as a life coach in Northern Virginia. Blair announced on LinkedIn that it “will focus on psychology and the workplace. Among our early guests will be Hogan Chief Science Officer Ryne Sherman, Executive Coach and Venture Capitalist Jerry Colonna, Retired Vice Admiral Raquel Cruz Bono, MD, MBA, FACS and Former Professional and College Football Player Jihad Abdur-Rahman™️ ICP, CSPO, CAL-E/O/T and John ‘The Purple Coach’ Mitchell.”
- “Several Torrance police officers linked to a racist text messaging scandal — including two who shot and killed a Black man in a controversial 2018 incident — are no longer employed by the troubled law enforcement agency, records show,” James Queally reported Saturday for the Los Angeles Times. “Eight of the 12 Torrance police officers whom The Times has publicly identified as taking part in the horrific text exchanges were not listed on the department’s active roster as of last November, records show.”
- “The National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the Pedro Gomez Foundation are partnering to offer a summer internship at The Arizona Republic in honor of Pedro Gomez (pictured), a former Republic baseball writer and sports columnist who died in 2021,” Brenda Muñoz Murguia reported Jan. 6 for the Republic.
- “CBS Philadelphia is proud to partner with the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists to award the annual Trudy Haynes Scholarship to a college student pursuing a career in journalism or communications,” the station, KYW, announced Tuesday. The scholarship is $10,000. “In 1965 Trudy Haynes became the first African-American TV reporter in Philadelphia when she started working at Channel 3. Before joining KYW-TV, Haynes was the first Black TV reporter and weathercaster when she debuted on WXYZ-TV in Detroit, Michigan in 1963. Haynes remained at Eyewitness News for more than 30 years, retiring in 1988. . . .” She died last June at 95. The station asks interested parties to download and complete the application by Jan. 15, adding, “The Contest Submission Period begins at 12:00 a.m. ET on January 12, 2023, and ends at 11:59 p.m. ET on February 12, 2023.”
- “A coalition of Hispanic groups is renewing calls for President Biden to ‘name a person of Latino descent’ to the Federal Communications Commission, according to a letter shared with The Technology 202,” Cristiano Lima reported Jan. 6 for The Washington Post. “The campaign comes as the White House forges ahead with the long-stalled nomination of Gigi Sohn. Over a dozen civil rights and advocacy groups wrote in a letter to Biden on Monday that tapping a Hispanic nominee for the agency would represent ‘a powerful sign of your commitment to our community.’ . . . ”
- “Black-owned and Black-targeted media leaders continue to maintain that their companies are treated like second-class citizens in an advertising market that denies them their fair share and pays them rates significantly lower than those earned by larger media outlets,” Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group wrote Jan. 5. To underscore their point, Allen and Louis Carr, president of media sales at BET Networks, “will step to the microphone on Jan. 25 for a candid conversation about the state of a campaign, now in its third year, to nudge the industry to equity. . . .”
- In Minnesota, Sahan Journal is challenging the traditional newsletter format by making its outreach vehicle audio only, Hanaa’ Tameez reported Wednesday for Nieman Lab. Sahan Journal was founded in 2019 by CEO and publisher Mukhtar Ibrahim to serve the news needs of immigrant communities and communities of color in Minneapolis and throughout the state. The weekly newsletter, Tani waa su’aashayda, which means “This is my question” in Somali, uses the platform GroundSource to send audio files to subscribers via SMS.
- Veralyn Williams (pictured) will become permanent executive producer of NPR’s “Code Switch” podcast, network executives announced Tuesday, succeeding Steve Drummond, who “has decided to transition from the show to focus on his work as head of NPR’s Education Desk.” Williams will continue to also serve as EP for the podcast “It’s Been a Minute.” NPR describes “Code Switch” as “the fearless conversations about race that you’ve been waiting for. Hosted by journalists of color, our podcast tackles the subject of race with empathy and humor.”
- “KRON San Francisco will air 16 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) basketball games this winter,“ Michael Malone reported Jan. 6 for Broadcasting and Cable. “The games happen Saturday mornings, starting January 7, and cover eight weeks, with a doubleheader on each Saturday. All 16 games will be preceded by 30-minute pregame show HBCU GameTime.”
- “On Jan. 23, ‘Chicago Tonight,’ WTTW-Ch. 11’s flagship news and public affairs program will move from 7 to 10 p.m., the station has announced, and be cut from an hour to 30 minutes,“ Laura Washington wrote Monday for the Chicago Tribune. She also wrote, “The move to 10 p.m. means ‘Chicago Tonight’ may turn off the viewers who have been tuning in for decades. I queried family members, both older than 70 and WTTW subscribers, in an unofficial poll. They were not happy. ‘I think this is a terrible idea!’ said one. ‘I like the present time frame and a mixture of news and human-interest stories. I watch the BBC News and The Day on another channel at 10 p.m.; therefore, I will not watch “Chicago Tonight” at 10 p.m.’ ” News release
- “Today about 6 percent of real estate agents and brokers in the United States are Black, though 14 percent of Americans are Black,” Colette Coleman wrote Thursday for the New York Times real estate section. “White real estate agents make almost three times as much as their Black peers, according to the N.A.R. [National Association of Realtors]. To make it in the industry, Black agents say they are taking precautions and making concessions, including changing their names or omitting their photos from promotional materials to hide their racial identities. . . .” As reported in this space last April, When the Times named Black journalist Nikita Stewart (pictured) its real estate editor in December, Assistant Managing Editor Sam Sifton said, “The business and culture of Real Estate is the business and culture of civilization itself: where we live, where we want to live, what makes that difficult, what makes that possible, what makes that joyous” (scroll down). Stewart “will help reinvent coverage of a subject that deeply captivates our audience.”
- “Society rarely shows good examples of Black fathers,” Dana James wrote in September for the New Black Iowa blog on Substack. The piece continues to circulate, surfacing Jan. 4 in the Daily Montanan. “Social media commenters often label Blacks as fatherless and cling to stereotypes that if Black dads are present, they’re somehow unloving, uninvolved or even abusive. But the Black men I saw growing up had only ever worked toward one goal with their children — to give them a better life than they had. That’s not a fatherly aspiration only reserved for white dads. According to 2013 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 70% of Black fathers were most likely to have bathed, dressed, diapered or helped their children use the toilet every day, compared with 60% of whites and 45% of Hispanics. . . .”
- “The National Association of Journalists of Peru (ANP), an IFJ affiliate, has recorded at least 72 cases of violations of the work of media and aggressions against journalists, amid the political and social crisis gripping the country,” the International Federation of Journalists said Tuesday. “Among these assaults, was an attack by the police on photojournalist Aldair Mejía, working for EFE agency, who was first threatened and then shot in the leg. Since the outbreak of the protests that followed the dismissal of former president Pedro Castillo, 46 people have been killed. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemns the violence unleashed by the State against the population and against media workers, who are carrying out the indispensable work of exposing threats to democracy.”
- In Ghana, research from the Committee to Protect Journalists shows that since 2019, “14 journalists and media workers have been physically attacked in relation to their work – nine of them by members of Ghana’s police or military,” the press freedom group said Friday. “The attacks have continued in spite of Ghana’s police and media groups adopting a 2019 framework for improved relations and the safety of journalists. Officials involved were rarely disciplined, and when action was taken journalists said it was insufficient. . . .” International Press Institute
- “The freedom of the press which is critical to a democratic society in which the government is accountable to the people is under assault in Senegal (An investigating journalist Pap Ale Niang who just revealed a plot within the security forces with the complicity of some members of the government, is under arrest), . . . ” Souleymane Gueye wrote Tuesday for Seneplus, an information portal about Senegal. “Most of the mainstream media has been neutered and muzzled by intimidation and conflict of interests created by the sprawling conglomerates and the irruption of scrupulous businessmen in this sector that control much of Senegalese media. Maintaining a free and accessible public square for debate is crucial to defending Senegal’s democracy. Unfortunately, the current government is intent on muzzling the free press. . . .”
- “Six journalists in South Sudan have been detained over the circulation of footage showing President Salva Kiir (pictured) appearing to wet himself at an official event, the national journalists union said on Saturday,” Ayenat Mersie reported Jan. 7 for Reuters. “The footage from December showed a dark stain spread down the 71-year-old president’s grey trousers as he stood for the national anthem at a road commissioning event. The video never aired on television but subsequently circulated on social media. . . .”
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View previous columns (before Feb. 13, 2016)
- Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2018 (Jan. 4, 2019)
- Book Notes: Is Taking a Knee Really All That? (Dec. 20, 2018)
- Book Notes: Challenging ’45’ and Proudly Telling the Story (Dec. 18, 2018)
- Book Notes: Get Down With the Legends! (Dec. 11, 2018)
- Journalist Richard Prince w/Joe Madison (Sirius XM, April 18, 2018) (podcast)
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- February 2018 Podcast: Richard “Dick” Prince on the need for newsroom diversity (Gabriel Greschler, Student Press Law Center, Feb. 26, 2018)
- Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2017 — Where Will They Take Us in the Year Ahead?
- Book Notes: Best Sellers, Uncovered Treasures, Overlooked History (Dec. 19, 2017)
- An advocate for diversity in the media is still pressing for representation, (Courtland Milloy, Washington Post, Nov. 28, 2017)
- Morgan Global Journalism Review: Journal-isms Journeys On (Aug. 31, 2017)
- Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2016
- Book Notes: 16 Writers Dish About ‘Chelle,’ the First Lady
- Book Notes: From Coretta to Barack, and in Search of the Godfather
- Journal-isms’ Richard Prince Wants Your Ideas (FishbowlDC, Feb. 26, 2016)
- “JOURNAL-ISMS” IS LATEST TO BEAR BRUNT OF INDUSTRY’S ECONOMIC WOES (Feb. 19, 2016)
- Richard Prince with Charlayne Hunter-Gault, “PBS NewsHour,” “What stagnant diversity means for America’s newsrooms” (Dec. 15, 2015)
- Book Notes: Journalists Follow Their Passions
- Book Notes: Journalists Who Rocked Their World
- Book Notes: Hands Up! Read This!
- Book Notes: New Cosby Bio Looks Like a Best-Seller
- Journo-diversity advocate turns attention to Ezra Klein project (Erik Wemple, Washington Post, March 5, 2014)
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