Posted February 3, 2003

Russ Mitchell Anchors Breaking News on Shuttle

Russ Mitchell co-anchors CBS-TV's "The Saturday Early Show" from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. Eastern Time, but shortly after 9 last Saturday, Mitchell got word that Mission Control had lost contact with the space shuttle Columbia, and was told to get back in the chair. He stayed until 4 p.m., joined about 10:20 a.m. by Dan Rather, who replaced Mitchell's co-anchor Gretchen Carlson. Mitchell thus became the only black journalist anchoring television network coverage of the disaster, which killed all seven aboard.

For Mitchell, 42, the watchword was caution, a trait he says he learned in part from two people he calls his major influences in covering breaking news -- Rather and Bryant Gumbel.

"What I learned from this was something that was reinforced," he told Journal-isms. "Taking a step back. Very early on, about 9:20, the reporter on the scene was calling it, saying 'these people are gone.' An anchorperson has to be the one to step back, if nothing is confirmed, and say, 'wait a minute,'[and] 'that's good information.' There's a natural desire to say 'this is what happened,' but you have to be careful. Dan Rather calls it 'context and perspective.'

"But there's nobody better at a breaking news story than Bryant Gumbel," he continues. I just marvel at how this guy is able to juggle a thousand things and be calm on the air, to be the person on camera in control."

As for Rather, Mitchell said one always learns from working with him. "He's the last of his breed. He's covered every major story in the last 43 years." The St. Louis native says he would rather have been at the scene, but that covering any breaking story gets the adrenaline flowing. "When you see a breaking news story, you get a sense of what kind of broadcaster this is. There is no preparation you can have, other than to do it. This sounds sexist, but it separates the men from the boys. People at cable are very good at that stuff -- that's what they do. That's why most of us go into this business -- to cover breaking news."

Mitchell, winner of an NABJ award in 1995 and a past co-host of the NABJ convention awards program, is also a primary anchor of the "CBS Evening News" Saturday Edition, and a CBS News correspondent, contributing to many broadcasts, including the CBS Evening News With Dan Rather, first from Washington, D.C. (1993-99) and currently from New York. He has also covered such other breaking stories as the Elian Gonzalez affair, the President Clinton impeachment hearings and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Essence's Lewis, at Awards Dinner, Pushes Diversity

Essence magazine publisher Ed Lewis used a Manhattan awards dinner held in his honor to promote hiring more nonwhite journalists, Newsday reports.

Lewis told a crowd of more than 700 industry honchos, including Martha Stewart and Cosmopolitan's Helen Gurley Brown, that "diversity must be embraced as a central business objective and indeed as a central business imperative."

He reminded magazine owners and editors that by 2050, half of the U.S. population would be nonwhite. "Affirmative action has been politicized . . . we should focus on diversity within our companies," he said in accepting a lifetime achievement award from the Magazine Publishers of America, Newsday reported, adding that his comments were unusual because award winners often confine acceptance speeches to their work.

Press release

AAJA President Gets USA Today Platform

"When Asian males watch television, they see a world that largely excludes them," Asian American Journalists Association President Mae Cheng wrote in an op-ed piece in the weekend edition of USA Today, noting CNN's failure to renew the contract of James Hattori, CNN's San Francisco-based correspondent, the anchor of its weekly science and technology program and a past veteran of CBS News.

"News purveyors' coverage could be more nuanced and audiences' viewpoints expanded if more Asian-American men were in the ranks of TV journalists, just as when other groups are fully represented," wrote Cheng, a reporter for Newsday.

"Being accepted as a visible part of America's fabric is important. Would Japanese-Americans have seemed so foreign during World War II if they had been a public presence in the U.S. press corps? Would a Pakistani-American anchoring the news in a midsized city help other Americans judge South Asians as individuals, not solely as would-be terrorists?"

Navarrette: Latino Census Milestone Shortchanged

"The media bungled a story that should have been -- and should continue to be -- the talk of Everytown, USA": the recent census figures "suggesting that what really matters is how blacks and whites alike get along with Hispanics," writes Dallas Morning News columnist Ruben Navarrette.

"A historic demographic shift that was supposed to occur by 2010 is seven years ahead of schedule: Due in large measure to immigration and higher-than-average birthrates, Hispanics have inched past African-Americans to become the nation's largest minority group. The Hispanic population in the United States is now roughly 37 million. The black population now clocks in at about 36.2 million.

"This is a huge deal -- the sort of thing that happens once every couple of centuries in the life of a nation. It is history in the making, and it commands respect.

"And yet it got short shrift from the media. In most newspapers, it was a one-day story. Some television networks missed it altogether. . . . The nation's largest minority deserves much better."

Some at Paper Didn't Get Word on "Redskins"

Since last week's announcement that the Journal Star in Lincoln, Neb., would no longer use the term "Redskins," the paper, "at least on its Web site, has used the term twice, both in news briefs from The Associated Press," says Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist John Levesque, writing a day before his own paper named Mark Trahant the first Native American editorial page editor in memory at a major daily.

Levesque wonders aloud whether newspapers should alter reality by not using the team names that some find offensive. Then he answers his own question:

"What about a newspaper's conscience? We make decisions every day on whether something is appropriate for the reader. We'll omit from stories and advertisements the name of a rock group or the title of a fringe-theater production if it's considered profane or explicitly offensive. We'll clean up a quotation or avoid using it altogether if its colorful nature isn't deemed essential to the story.

"Is that any different from eliminating references to Redskins? Or Chinks?"

Meanwhile, the Journal Star published reader reaction to its decision.

Shakeup at Alaska Native Broadcast Company

Changes under way at an Alaska Native-owned company could spell the end of the nation's first daily Native newscast, sources and employees told Indianz.com.

Citing cost concerns, Jaclyn Sallee, CEO of Koahnic Broadcast Corp., announced a reorganization and consolidation initiative. In a memo to KBC employees, she said KBC's programs -- including "National Native News" -- were being shifted to a producer based in Albuquerque, N.M.

The change was coupled with the reported departure of "National Native News" producer Bernadette Chato. Sources yesterday said Chato, a member of the Navajo Nation, was laid off by KBC. She currently works out of Anchorage, Alaska.

Terrence Samuel, Lopez-Escobar Win Fellowships

Terrence Samuel, congressional correspondent for U.S. News & World Report, and Esteban López-Escobar, a native of Spain who is president of the World Association for Public Opinion Research, join political satirist Al Franken, New England Cable News anchor Marge Reedy and New York magazine political columnist Michael Tomasky as spring fellows at the Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

Samuel's research project "will examine the political parity that defines the current national debate, whether it is an aid or a menace to our traditional notions of democracy, and what changes can be made," according to the center, while Lopez-Escobar "will study how the Internet is changing the professional mind and journalistic understanding of social, political, and communication changes in a new global civil society."

McCain Reintroduces Bill for Minority Tax Incentives

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has reintroduced legislation that would give owners of telecommunications firms, including broadcast stations and cable systems, tax incentives to sell to women, minorities and other small-business interests, Media Week reports. "This legislation is designed to ensure that more Americans have an opportunity to provide their distinct voices in today's telecommunications marketplace," the senator said.

News release

Just One FCC Hearing on Media Ownership

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael K. Powell says the agency's Feb. 27 hearing in Richmond, Va., will likely be its only one on ownership rules this year. However, Powell said that the FCC's four other commissioners will attend a Feb. 18 University of Southern California forum on ownership regulations, Media Week reports.

Public Broadcasters Blast Bush Budget

The $2.2 trillion budget President Bush unveiled today "would, if enacted, seriously compromise our ability to deliver the services we are required by law to provide to the American people," says a statement signed by the heads of the major public broadcasting services. Text of statement at end of today's posting.

Judge Throws Out Wrongful-Firing Lawsuit

A federal judge conditionally threw out former Dayton, Ohio, WDTN-TV reporter Angela Nunn's lawsuit claiming she was wrongly fired after her employers refused to make "reasonable accommodation" for her "mental disability" that included "murderous thoughts" directed at her news director, the Dayton Daily News reports.

Chief U.S. District Judge Walter H. Rice also found meritless the claims by Nunn, who is black, that her employers discriminated against her on the basis of race and gender, the paper said.

"Before a final ruling, Rice ordered Sunrise Television Corp.'s Channel 2 to file within 20 days an affidavit attesting to the truth of information in exhibits and depositions it submitted to refute Nunn's claims.

"Nunn filed the lawsuit, seeking more than $2.25 million in damages, on July 17, 2000," the story reports.

MTV, Maxim Apologize Over Gandhi Portrayals

MTV US has apologized for offending Indians by airing in the United States a show that lampooned India's revered independence leader, Mohandas K. Gandhi, reports the Associated Press. Maxim magazine did likewise over a Gandhi cartoon in its February issue, says the Southern Poverty Law Center.

"MTV US apologizes if we have offended the people of India and the memory of Mahatma Gandhi," the music channel said in a statement faxed to news media. "Mahatma" means great soul and is an honorific often attached to Gandhi's name, AP said. Nearly 150 lawmakers and political activists had fasted at Gandhi's memorial Thursday to protest against the MTV show they said insulted Gandhi.

The show, "Clone High, USA," has not been aired in India, but a newspaper report about it has upset many Indians who revere Gandhi as a hero and an advocate of nonviolence. "Clone High, USA" introduces a character called G-Man -- a fictitious Gandhi clone who wears dangly earrings, eats junk food and is the ultimate party animal.

Maxim magazine's editor-in-chief Keith Blanchard, working through the magazine's public relations firm, issued this statement after using an image of Gandhi as a punching bag for its "Kick-Ass Workout":

"We apologize if our cartoon depicting Mahatma Gandhi in the February 2003 issue of Maxim was interpreted as offensive. An edgy sense of humor, laced with irony, has always been a central element of Maxim's editorial. For some people, this piece may have gone one step too far. We at Maxim do, in fact, believe in Gandhi's teachings of peace. In fact, we chose Gandhi as the subject of our workout cartoon specifically because he is the least likely target of aggression imaginable. No offense was intended to anyone."

Student's "BET Forgets MLK" Makes TV Tip Sheets

A commentary by a student journalist at Florida A&M University noting that Black Entertainment Television virtually ignored Martin Luther King's birthday was picked up in the Jan. 29 "Shop Talk" and the Jan. 27 tvbarn.com tip sheets.

Augustine Rho's commentary, made available on the Black College Wire, was also discussed on the syndicated Tom Joyner radio show.

Meanwhile, film producer-director Spike Lee urged black people to step into "gatekeeper" roles, telling an audience in Bermuda that "if you get everything from BET you are getting the wrong thing," the Associated Press reported.

"I was told BET was big here and I shook my head," Lee said.

Statement by Public Broadcasters

Statement of Public Broadcasters

We in public broadcasting understand that the combination of a war on terrorism and a weakened economy will have a serious impact on federal appropriations, including our own. Nonetheless, the President's budget would, if enacted, seriously compromise our ability to deliver the services we are required by law to provide to the American people.

Public broadcasting is at a critical technological crossroads. The May 2003 federal deadline for public television to convert to digital transmission is rapidly approaching. That conversion also requires that television's satellite distribution system be replaced. Public radio stations must now begin the final phase of their transition to digital due to strong marketplace and technical pressures. This combination of urgent deadlines and competitive pressures demands substantial investment now.

Although the President's budget recognizes these pressing needs, it provides no funding for these purposes. It recommends no further special appropriations to fund the transition to digital technology, and it "suspends" funding for the Department of Commerce's Public Television Facilities Program, which has funded public broadcasting infrastructure since 1962. Instead, the budget would authorize CPB to spend up to $100 million of its general appropriation for these priorities. Not only would this fall far short of the need, it would reduce federal support by $100 million.

The vast majority of CPB funds go directly to more than 1,000 local public radio and television stations. These cuts would hit them at an already difficult time, when they are eliminating programming and cutting other services due to the weakened economy and deep cuts in state funding. Beyond that, they are facing a possible rescission in FY 2003 funds, that is, funds that have already been committed or provided to stations this year.

For 35 years, public broadcasters have met the federal mandate of providing universal service, meaning that every community in America has access to a wealth of independent, non-commercial programming and educational resources, as well as local services that are highly valued by their citizens. This service is deeply threatened by this budget proposal, as is CPB's investment in new national programming for TV and radio.

In addition, this budget proposal makes no provision for advance funding, ending a 29 year tradition that has allowed public broadcasters leverage for raising non-federal funding; adequate lead time to plan, design, create and support the programs and services we are mandated to provide; and a buffer from the political process. We hope that Congress will continue to recognize public broadcasting's unique needs by providing an advance appropriation. The bottom line is that public broadcasters are able to set priorities and live within strict budget parameters, but without additional funding, we cannot build an entirely new, federally mandated technological infrastructure while also delivering the public services required of us by the Public Broadcasting Act.

We look forward to working with the Administration and Congress to ensure that viewers and listeners continue to receive the public broadcasting services on which they depend.

Robert T. Coonrod, President and CEO, Corporation for Public Broadcasting; Pat Mitchell, President and CEO, Public Broadcasting Service; Kevin Klose, President and CEO, National Public Radio; John Lawson, President and CEO, Association of Public Television Stations

Contacts: CPB: Carole Florman 202-879-9811 or Jeannie Bunton 202-879-9687; PBS: Lea Sloan 703-739-5021 or Jan McNamara 703-739-5028; NPR: Jessamyn Sarmiento 202-513-2307; APTS: Jeffrey Davis 202-654-4209

Richard Prince's Book Notes-- 10 to Start February

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