Posted January 22, 2003
AP's Jesse Holland Integrates Credentials Group
Jesse J. Holland of the Associated Press was elected to the congressional Standing Committee of Correspondents – the group that credentials daily print reporters for covering Congress and the presidential conventions – becoming likely the first black journalist to be elected to the group.
Also elected were Jim Drinkard of USA Today and Mary Agnes Carey of Congressional Quarterly.
The five-member group also credentials reporters for presidential inaugurations, and supervises the allocation and distribution of media space for those events.
The AP reports that Drinkard was named on 484 ballots, Holland received 462 votes and Carey got 422. Other committee members are Scott Shepard of Cox Newspapers and Jack Torry of the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch. The pool of reporters covering Congress and the White House has been notorious for its poor representation of people of color.
In 1996, Holland, then 25, won the Associated Press Managing Editors award for the best reporter with less than three years' experience. He was the first to write about the Susan Smith case in South Carolina, in which Smith claimed a black man had stolen her car and drowned her two children. Holland is a graduate of the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), and with a partner, drew cartoons on the side while an AP reporter. The strip,"Hippie and the Black Guy," is still online. Also in 1996, Presstime magazine named him one of its "20 Under 40" to watch.
AAJA President Critical of Shaq Remark Coverage
The lack of news media coverage of NBA superstar Shaquille O'Neal's taunt of the Houston Rockets' Yao Ming is indicative of "a profession where Asian American contributions have not been valued," Mae Cheng, president of the Asian American Journalists Association, said today on CNN's "Talkback Live."
Cheng, a Newsday reporter, recalled headlines four years ago implying that Olympic figure skater Michelle Kwan wasn't an American. Last year, the Seattle Times apologized for making the same mistake, writing, "American outshines Kwan, Slutskaya in skating surprise." "We're looked upon as outsiders," Cheng said.
Last June 28, O'Neal told a reporter in a derisive tone, "Tell Yao Ming, 'ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-soh.'" However, the remark didn't win media attention until Dec. 16 and 17, when Fox Sports Radio's 'Tony Bruno Morning Extravaganza' played a recording of the taunt several times to its nationwide audience.
Cheng called O'Neal's remark racist, but retired NBA superstar Charles Barkley, with whom Cheng was paired, said "we've lost all common sense," become too "politically correct" and failed to take O'Neal's comments as a joke.
Transcript (last topic)
Rice on Washington Post Story: "Not Accurate"
In a front-page story headlined "Rice Helped Shape Bush Decision on Admissions," the Washington Post on Friday wrote that:
"National security adviser Condoleezza Rice took a rare central role in a domestic debate within the White House and helped persuade President Bush to publicly condemn race-conscious admissions policies at the University of Michigan, administration officials said yesterday."
The story, which did not quote Rice, reportedly upset Rice so much that she issued her own statement, saying that in fact she does believe that race can be taken into consideration in admission policies. The Los Angeles Times wrote Saturday that:
"As national security advisor, Rice has not spoken out on domestic policy matters. But she issued her statement to clarify her position after a story appeared Friday in the Washington Post about her discussions with Bush on the University of Michigan case, in which white students have challenged the school's admissions policy.
". . . Angered by the characterization, according to a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity, Rice decided to spell out her views in a written statement. She did so with Bush's encouragement, the official said.
"It's not as if she could remain silent when her views are being mischaracterized on the front page of a major daily newspaper," the aide said.
On "Meet the Press" the following Sunday, moderator Tim Russert asked if the story was accurate.
"No, it's not accurate," she said, though she said that "I think that the president has come out in exactly the right place here."
Who's Writing About Michigan's Pro-Diversity Side?
The lead counsel for the student defendants in the University of Michigan Law School affirmative action case says that "while we have occasionally been covered in national media outlets . . . we have had a hard time getting the attention our people, our arguments, and the new movement deserve."
"The students [she says only a slight majority are black] are brilliant young leaders and would have made an excellent counterpoint to the excessive coverage last week of the spuriously upset white plaintiffs," says Miranda Massie.
"Most people in America still think this is about diversity alone. We proved at trial that affirmative action is needed to maintain progress toward the integration of higher ed; that its elimination would result in immediate resegregation; and that standardized test scores and grades are not race-neutral measures of merit but rather reflect and capture bias and discrimination."
Excerpts from her e-mail to Journal-isms is at the end of today's posting.
Chicago Defender Finally Sold
"After five years of family discord and legal haggling, a deal has been reached to sell the Chicago Defender, the nation's lone black-owned daily newspaper," the Chicago Sun-Times reports. The new publisher is David Milliner.
The family-owned Sengstacke Enterprises Inc., longtime owner of the Defender, sold the newspaper to Real Times Inc., a company headed by Sengstacke relative Thomas Picou.
Was Journalist the Force Behind King?
A professor at Southern Oregon University is working on a book that holds that without the influence of the late black journalist and civil rights leader Emory Jackson, editor for 34 years of the Birmingham (Ala.) World, Martin Luther King's efforts would not have been as far-reaching.
In a profile of D.L. Richardson, the only African American on the faculty, the Ashford (Ore.) Daily Tidings reports that the book has the working title of "The Weight of the World" and is slated for completion in the next 18 months.
"When you look at the key figures in the civil rights movement, certain names keep coming up. And it was Emory that counseled King on some of the better things to do. In that way, he was a kingmaker -- and I don't mean that as a pun," Richardson told the newspaper.
"What made him so special was that there were other black newspapers, but they didn't get into altercations with local governments. Emory didn't care. He got into it with everyone - even King." Jackson died in 1975 at age 67.
On Progress, Maybe Papers Aren't Best Example
Columnist Dick Feagler of the Cleveland Plain Dealer cites the progress newspapers have made in hiring black journalists as an argument against affirmative action programs such as those at the University of Michigan.
"When I first broke into the newspaper business in 1963, the Cleveland Press had maybe one black reporter on its staff of more than 100. The people who ran the place didn't want any more. In those days, there was 'black news' and 'white news.' The black news, what little we gathered of it, was confined to one page in one edition of the paper called the Community Page. The thinking, as I recall it, was that blacks don't advertise, so to hell with them," he writes.
"But that was before Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement and fires in all the cities, including two in this one. These events shook the white editors (reluctantly) out of their comas. They began to reach out and recruit black reporters who would make their reporting staff look like the city.
"That kind of affirmative action was called for and needed and successful. The newspaper you hold in your hands was a forerunner for that kind of affirmative action. It meant that editors had to try harder to go out and recruit talented black journalists. And they reached out and they found them."
Problem is, newspapers have still not reached parity with the number of people of color in the population, even with the American Society of Newspaper Editors having set that as a voluntary "goal."
Newsday Writer Kalita Heads South Asian Journalists
S. Mitra Kalita, a Newsday business reporter who joins the staff of the Washington Post in February, covering education, has been elected president of the South Asian Journalists Association for a one-year term. Deepti Hajela of the Associated Press was elected vice president and convention chair. SAJA counts more than 800 members.
Stephen Buckley Named AME in St. Pete
Stephen Buckley, a national reporter for Florida's St. Petersburg Times and a former foreign correspondent for the Washington Post, has been named assistant managing editor at the Times for world news. The appointment makes him the highest-ranking black person on the paper's editorial side and the newspaper's first black assistant managing editor.
Buckley, 35, oversees the national and international report. He also will assume overall responsibility for the A section, the Times reported.
"Buckley, a graduate of Duke University, grew up in St. Petersburg and worked as an intern in the newspaper's sports section when he was a teenager.
"He rejoined the Times in 2001 after 12 years with the Washington Post as a metro reporter and foreign correspondent. At the Post, he covered police, courts and education before he went overseas. He was Africa bureau chief, based in Nairobi, Kenya, and Brazil bureau chief, based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil," the story says.
Duchesne Drew a "Leader" at Star Tribune
Duchesne Drew, a former education reporter and assistant metro editor, has been named the new leader of the Star Tribune's St. Paul newsroom, the Minneapolis newspaper reports.
"Duchesne will lead our effort to improve coverage of St. Paul and the east metro," Managing Editor Scott Gillespie said. "This is an important step for the newspaper as we continue to expand and improve our coverage."
Located in downtown St. Paul, the Minnesota newsroom is staffed by seven reporters who cover news and issues in St. Paul and Ramsey County.
Drew, 35, joined the Star Tribune in 1993 as a general assignment reporter and left in 1997 to join the Dallas Morning News as an education reporter. He returned in 1999 to cover education in the Twin Cities area before becoming an assistant metro editor in August 2001, the paper said.
Right before the announcement, Drew made the paper's ombudsman's column over a decision to racially identify city council candidates.
'N' Word in Play Title Gets Ads Banned in Boston
The Boston Metro, a free publication aimed at young transit riders, has pulled an advertisement for the play "No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs," according to the townonline.com Web site, which includes stories from the Boston Herald.
"I killed [the ad], right or wrong," says Russel Pergament, publisher of The Metro. "I just thought it had the potential to disturb a lot of people. It was strictly a gut instinct: I didn't like it, and I didn't want to run it. We've got a lot of young people reading the paper. Going to school or going to work in the morning, why should they have to see something like that? I just had a bad feeling about it."
The Metro has subsequently agreed to a revised ad that doesn't include the n-word, the story says. Meanwhile, officials at the Boston Globe and Boston Herald haven't decided what to do about the ad.
Message from Plaintiff in University of Michigan Case
I am lead counsel for the student defendants in Grutter v. Bollinger, the University of Michigan Law School affirmative action case. The students are 41 young people of all races (a slight majority black) and both genders (a slight majority women), as well as three coalitions. We intervened in the case to make arguments for affirmative action based on equality – not just diversity – and to link the legal defense to the growing new civil rights movement to defend affirmative action and equality.
While we have occasionally been covered in national media outlets, including in a long piece by Trevor [Coleman] in The Crisis [magazine of the NAACP], we have had a hard time getting the attention our people, our arguments, and the new movement deserve.
The students are brilliant young leaders and would have made an excellent counterpoint to the excessive coverage last week of the spuriously upset white plaintiffs.
The arguments are compelling to those who hear them, but most people in America still think this is about diversity alone. We proved at trial that affirmative action is needed to maintain progress toward the integration of higher ed; that its elimination would result in immediate resegregation; and that standardized test scores and grades are not race-neutral measures of merit but rather reflect and capture bias and discrimination.
Finally, the students and one of the intervening coalitions, the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action and Integration and Fight For Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), are playing a leading role in the redevelopment of the civil rights movement. The photo gallery for the MLK Day events spearheaded by BAMN, including a march of several thousand, is at http://www.bamn.com/gallery/gallery-launch.asp?18. This week a civil rights summit and conference is taking place at University of Michigan and you can find the impressive program at www.bamn.com.
Students arrived yesterday from all over – as far west as LA and as far east as Washington DC.
The cases will be heard on April 1. On that day, there will be a Civil Rights March to the Supreme Court. In the next two months we must raise the profile of this issue as high as possible and make clear that the outcome will determine whether we as a nation stand on Plessy or on Brown.
Please feel free to contact me at any time.
Sincerely,
Miranda Massie
work (313) 963-1921, ext. 2
Send tips and comments to Richard Prince rprince@maynardije.org.
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