Sean Combs Said to Be in Solitary After NBC Story

“After the report was published, Combs was removed from his dormitory-style quarters and placed in a special housing unit, better known as solitary confinement or the SHU, according to the source.”

TMZ broke the story of the solitary confinement a day after NBC’s initial report.

That story, by Schapiro and Melas, began, “Inside the walls of Fort Dix federal prison in New Jersey, no one is living quite like inmate #37452-054.”

“There are men who cook for him and men who clean for him. There are men who make his bed and men who do his laundry. There is even a man who gives him Chinese-style massages.

“This is how Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs has been living in prison, according to four men who have spent time in the same unit as the disgraced hip-hop mogul. They were granted anonymity to speak freely about life inside the prison. . . .”

TMZ followed up the next day, updated Thursday, reporting, “Diddy is headed back to the hole … FCI Fort Dix is sending him back into the Special Housing Unit, better known as solitary confinement … TMZ has learned.
“Multiple sources tell TMZ … Diddy is returning to SHU in response to this week’s NBC News report about his alleged VIP prison stay — a lavish lifestyle that allegedly featured massages, fancy meals, contraband booze, and inmates doing his chores. . . .

“This isn’t Diddy’s first trip to solitary … he was tossed into SHU back in July after getting into a prison fight, and sources later told us he spent his time there with limited movement, little contact, and plenty of time alone.”

“Combs, 56, is serving a 50-month sentence for prostitution-related offenses. But he is still living a privileged life, the sources said, and it’s not just because of the inmates willing to perform even the most basic tasks for him for the right price.

“Multiple sources said he uses contraband cellphones to scroll Instagram and scan nude and sexually explicit photos that an old girlfriend sends him. He’s been able to buy from other inmates an antidepressant drug sought out for its mood-boosting effects — Remeron, or ‘rem-roms’ as they are known in prison. On weekend nights, he’d often tap into a secret stash of premium liquor, which would be smuggled in by guards and shared with a tight group of fellow inmates.

“ ‘Hell yeah, I drank with him,’ said one of the men, who recounted drinking Hennessy with Combs. . . .”

“A spokesperson for Combs downplayed the details of his prison life.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 2222 into law Wednesday. (Credit: California News Publishers Association)

Newsom Signs Law Extending Lifeline to News Outlets

“Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday signed a landmark bill that would give a financial boost to California’s struggling newsrooms,” Hannah Fry and Dakota Smith reported Tuesday for the Los Angeles Times. The bill won praise from news companies and journalists serving people of color.

“Assembly Bill 2222 will create refundable tax credits for California local news organizations based on the number of journalists they employ. It passed through both houses. It marks an innovative yet controversial attempt to slow the decline of local journalism.

“The bill, called the Community Newsroom Employment and Workforce Sustainability Act, works by assigning a ‘job retention credit’ of $20,000 per journalist for up to five positions, and after that $15,000 for every additional journalist. Part-time positions will be awarded half-credits. It also stacks an additional $15,000 credit for each new hire to incentivize expanding journalist head counts.”

Arturo Carmona, president of Latino Media Collaborative, said in a news release, “Unlike Trump who kicks journalists out of rooms, Governor Gavin Newsom boosts and embraces the importance of local journalism.”

“AB 2222 represents a historic investment in the future of local news,” said Martin G. Reynolds, co-executive director of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, based in Oakland. “Together with the California Local News Fellowship, the Civic Media Program and the Propel Initiative — our collaboration with California Black Media, American Community Media and the Latino Media Collaborative — it builds on the state’s efforts to strengthen a more equitable local news ecosystem. We’re deeply grateful for Governor Newsom’s affirmation of just how essential local news is to the health of our communities and our democracy.”

According to Rebuild Local News, which pushed the legislation, “The law is funded by eliminating the corporate tax deductibility of executive compensation over $1 million. New research finds that it could also help save California local governments and taxpayers an estimated $47.6 million a year in borrowing costs. . . .

“Since 2002, the United States has lost more than 81 percent of its local journalists, including more than 12,000 local journalists in California. The state ranks among the 10 worst states for the number of journalists per 100,000 residents, with 37 counties — home to 30.5 million people — falling below the national average for local reporting capacity. . . .”

• Steve Waldman, Editor & Publisher: Opinion: 6 overlooked reasons California’s Community NEWS Act is ‘a big deal’ 

. . . . New Local-News Purveyors in Need of Business Skills

“The entrepreneurs rebuilding local news know how to report — but building a lasting business around that journalism remains an open question,” according to a new study from Syracuse University’s Institute for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship, “A Hard Reality: Independent Local Journalism in the United States.”

Visiting fellow Merrill Brown, longtime journalist and media executive, and researcher Jacob Spudich said they based their conclusions on a survey of 112 independent local news publishers across 37 states and Washington, D.C., along with follow-up interviews.

• Kristen Hare, Poynter Institute: What does it take to make an independent local newsroom work? More than good journalism.

• Journal-isms: NABJ Wants Members Raking Care of Business (Aug. 12)

Megyn Kelly on Joe Pags’ podcast, speaking of Kamala Harris: “Honestly, we’ve heard her talk a million times and she doesn’t talk like that.” (Credit: YouTube)

Megyn Kelly Hears a ‘Blaccent’ From Kamala Harris

“A recent appearance by former Vice President Kamala Harris caught the attention of Megyn Kelly, who questioned the former’s ‘blaccent’ while speaking to conservative talk show host Joe Pags,” Stephanie Kaloiwrote Monday in an opinion piece for Mediaite.

“ ‘What’s with the blaccent?’ Kelly asked of Harris, who is Black and South Asian (her father immigrated to the United States from Jamaica, and her mother immigrated from India).

“The slang term ‘blaccent‘ is commonly defined a portmanteau of ‘Black’ and ‘accent,’ and as ‘a speaking style used by people who are not Black Americans to mimic, stereotypically, a style of speech associated with some Black Americans,’ including ‘not only inflection, tone, and pronunciation, but also the grammar and vocabulary of African American English, also known as African American Vernacular English or AAVE.’ The term ‘is almost always used disapprovingly,’ the Merriam-Webster discussion section adds. . . .

“In a handful of minutes, as she is wont to do, Kelly managed to offer racist commentary and trot out tropes that she has no business exploring. She’s also wrong. . . .”

@kenndanii edit 9/16: this has been very difficult for me to even do, my comments are off due to the overwhelming amount of support and hate. i am taking time for myself because this is a lot. i am surround by many friends helping me through this time. Thank you all for listening to my story ! fyp #lsu #storytime ♬ original sound – KENDALL DANIELLE

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Cornell Case Has Some Raising Racial Dynamics

The days since a former Cornell student identified as Jane Doe sued the university over its handling of her allegations that she was drugged and gang-raped by seven fraternity members “have led to an outpouring from women, including several prominent Black voices, sharing their own experiences, frustrations, and calling out the racial and gender dynamics at play,” Kay Wicker reported Tuesday for the Grio.

“ ‘But when it was the falsely accused Central Park 5, y’all wanted them killed,’ a user on Threads posted.”

Louisiana State student Kendall Francis went public on Sept. 18, four days after “Jane Doe” at Cornell, with allegations that a football player sexually assaulted her in 2025. She had filed a formal Title IX complaint with the university in January, reported WAFB in Baton Rouge, La., Wicker continued.

“Francis’ case brings up another racial conversation entirely. Black women have long faced misogynoir, the collision of anti-Blackness and misogyny that can cast them as less innocent, less vulnerable and more capable of absorbing harm. More than one in five Black women have experienced rape in their lifetime, according to CDC data, while substantially more have experienced other forms of sexual violence.”

Separately,  Tomika Anderson, a sexual assault survivor, wrote Wednesday for Essence, “when I read the recent allegations coming out of Cornell University involving a young woman who says she was sexually assaulted by multiple fraternity members, I thought about her courage. But I also thought about everybody else: the friends, the fraternity brothers, the people in the group chats, the people who may know something.

“And I found myself wondering: If she can find the courage to speak up after allegedly being violated, why can’t some of the people around the people accused of harming her find the courage to speak up, too?”

•  Maya Boddie, Real Times Media: Sunny Hostin Faces Backlash Over Cornell Comments, Black Figures Speak Out 

• City Biz, Detroit: SASHA (Sexual Assault Services for Holistic Healing and Awareness) Center Hosts Culturally Specific Training for Social Workers, Offering 4.5 CEUS

• Renee Graham, Boston Globe: It’s not all men. But it’s too many men. 

• S. Mitra Kalita, Columbia Journalism Review: A big dart to the reflex that turns a woman reporting a sexual assault into an “alleged victim,” as many outlets did (second item)

• Santul Nerkar, Benjamin Oreskes and Hurubie Meko, New York Times: Hochul Names Letitia James as Special Prosecutor in Cornell Case

Juan Williams Sours on Old Friend Clarence Thomas

Columnist Juan Williams, who considered himself a friend of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, defended him during his contentious nomination in 1991 and later called Thomas “the most influential thinker on racial issues in America today.”

Williams, who has worked at such outlets as NPR and the Washington Post and as the liberal voice on Fox News, wrote of Thomas Monday for The Hill, “If he remains on the bench for the next two years, he will be the longest-serving justice in American history.

“But his singular place in history is now tragic.”

Williams previously wrote of his disappointment of his old friend’s involvment in corruption allegations, but said, he “always represented the best ideals of what Black men … could achieve in modern America”

Now,  Williams writes,Thomas “will go into history books as the Black justice who voted to weaken the Voting Rights Act, opening the door to eliminating Black-majority districts this year as part of a GOP effort to hold the House.

“History will also note that several Democrats running in the midterms appear focused on Thomas as they propose ethics codes, term limits and even adding more seats to the court to restore ideological balance.

“That political push began after investigative reports showed Thomas accepted, without disclosure, luxury vacations, help with tuition for a relative and real estate funding for his mother from a wealthy Republican.

“That legacy is at the heart of declining trust in the Supreme Court. . . .”

Nikole Hannah-Jones told Geoff Bennett Tuesday on the ‘PBS News Hour,’ “I get people saying they would have taken their child out. If you read the essay, we struggled with it. We had many conversations, emotional conversations, and all we kept thinking is, we can rescue our child from this, but what about the other kids? There were 300 other children in that school. . . . We had to try to fight for the other kids in our community.” (Credit: YouTube)

Mamdani Calls Hannah-Jones Piece ‘Devastating’

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani “on Tuesday acknowledged that New York City’s public education system ‘failed’ Nikole Hannah-Jones’s daughter after the Brooklyn-based civil rights journalist reflected on her choice of enrolling her child into a high-needs school — but the mayor revealed little about his plan to truly integrate the nation’s largest school district,” Cayla Bamberger reported Tuesday for the Daily News in that city.

“Hannah-Jones sparked a national debate over school segregation with her personal essay in 2016 about her selection of a low-income school, where the majority of students were Black, for her daughter. But writing a decade later for a follow-up feature in The New York Times Magazine, she revealed her daughter, Najya, feels she made the ‘wrong choice.’

“Like the original, Hannah-Jones’s Sept. 20 article went viral and reignited the conversation on racial and economic inequality in the city’s public schools.

“ ‘I read her piece, and it was a devastating piece,’ Mamdani told WNYC’s Brian Lehrer. ‘It is an articulation … of the systemic … way that the public school system in our city failed her child. And the sad truth is that she is not alone in that. That there are families across our city with similar stories.’

“Lehrer had Hannah-Jones as a guest on his show on Monday, in which the radio host offered to relay a school integration question on the writer’s behalf.

“ ‘Mayor Mamdani went back on his promise to end mayoral control of the schools,’ Hannah-Jones said during her WNYC appearance on Monday. ‘He’s the mayor. I want to know when we’re going to see a plan to address and dismantle school segregation in the city.’

“ ‘We could eliminate middle school screens. We could actually zone children to schools,’ she said. ‘There are many levers we can pull’ ”

“ ‘It should not be that a child or a family can only come to expect that if they are in the right school,’ he said. ‘Every school should be the right school.’

“But the mayor did not say when that plan will be released. . . . ”

• Dr. Shauna D.A. Knox, The Root: Black Parents Don’t Have to Choose Between Their Children’s Potential and Their Well-Being, Here’s How to Build What Few Schools Offer (Sept. 23)

• Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: Why parents sometimes need to go to school, too

• Nedra Rhone, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Nikole Hannah–Jones and the difficult school choices Black parents have faced for 150 years

Austin Llerandi, director of the media outlet “Amanecer Habanero,” of the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and Press, with his wife. (Credit: Facebook)

Independent Cuban Journo Exits, Was Told to Leave or Face Jail

“Austin Llerandi, director of the community bulletin Amanecer Habanero, left Cuba on Tuesday for Brazil with his pregnant wife, weeks after state security agents warned him to leave the country or face jail for his journalistic work,” the Spain-based digital outlet CiberCuba reported Tuesday.

“The Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and Press (ICLEP) condemned the departure of Llerandi, which he called ‘forced exile,’ and blamed the Cuban authorities for the pressures that preceded his departure.

“The exit ends more than two months of increasing harassment also documented by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).”

The Committee said Thursday,  “Cuban journalists working outside state media have been persecuted for decades in Cuba. CPJ has documented a surge in the emigration of Cuban journalists in the last five years following mass street protests in July 2021 and the introduction of new repressive laws.

“Cuba’s penal code considers it a crime to defy ‘socialist law’ or work as a journalist outside of state-controlled media. These laws violate the Cuban constitution which recognizes freedom of press as well as freedom of thought and expression, while also establishing the people’s ‘right to the free development of their personality. . . .’

“Amanecer Habanero is one of several media outlets belonging to the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and the Press (ICLEP), a Cuban exile media group which has received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a non-profit foundation that manages U.S. government-funded democracy and press freedom programs around the world. ICLEP has been publishing newsletters since 2012.”

CiberCuba’s report continued, “On 14 July, Llerandi was questioned for more than an hour at a police station in Marianao. According to his testimony, an agent identified as ‘Rodrigo’ had on his phone the latest edition of Habanero Dawn and warned him that he could be imprisoned if he continued to distribute the bulletin.

“ ‘If you distribute the bulletin, the next call of mine gives a kiss to your wife in the belly, that you are in prison,’ the officer . . . told him, according to the account documented by ICLEP. The agency also recorded that the agent had come the day before to Llerandi’s father’s house to locate him and knew details about the couple’s visits to the hospital due to pregnancy.

“Llerandi later explained to CPJ that the interrogation was related to the general content of Habanero Dawn, a bulletin that addresses problems of daily life in Cuba and is distributed independently of state media. . . . ”

•  Kate Linthicum and photographer Lisette Poole González, Los Angeles Times: Is Cuba on the brink of collapse? A photographer took a road trip to find out 

• Shelby Talcott, Semafor: Trump tightens chokehold on Cuba

A Journalist Succeeds Uganda’s ‘Boy King’

“A journalist on Tuesday was crowned king of a traditional monarchy that lost its onetime ‘boy king’ last month, triggering widespread grief and a succession dispute in Uganda’s Tooro Kingdom,” Rodney Muhumuza reported Tuesday for the Associated Press.

“The journalist is a prince who had long been employed as a broadcaster and editor with Uganda Broadcasting Corp. He picked the regnal name of Edward Rukidi Nyabongo. He performed rituals overnight, was ushered into the palace and was formally unveiled to his followers on Tuesday.

“Traditional kingdoms were banned in the 1960s, after Uganda’s independence from British colonial rule, by a republican president who said that he wanted to unify the country. They were restored in 1993.

“Traditional leaders don’t wield any formal authority in this East African country and are legally barred from engaging in partisan politics. But they wield immense authority among their people as guardians of traditional culture. . . . .”

In “The Outcast,” an album released in 1963, the year of the March on Washington, the Mighty Sparrow sang “Martin Luther King for President.” (Credit: YouTube) 

Calypso Fans or Not, Media Give Mighty Sparrow His Due

It might be expected of the U.S. Virgin Islands delegate to Congress, or of CARICOM, the association of Caribbean countries, but even U.S. mainstream media reported on the passing of the legendary Calypsonian known as The Mighty Sparrow, born Slinger Francisco, Sunday at age 91.

A sampling of the coverage is here and on Facebook:

The New York Times framed its story this way on Monday:

The Mighty Sparrow, Trinidadian Titan of Calypso, Is Dead at 91

“He was sometimes described as the last of the true calypso singers. But in fact he simultaneously preserved calypso tradition and invented it anew.

“By Margalit Fox