March 9, 2007; updated March 10
S.F. Resolution Urges Pulling Government Money
San Francisco's city government is about to symbolically hit AsianWeek newspaper in the pocketbook over its publication of the "Why I Hate Blacks" opinion piece that caused a national uproar.
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| Friday's issue of AsianWeek includes columns by Phil Tajitsu Nash and Emil Guillermo on the Kenneth Eng uproar. |
The last paragraph of a resolution passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and now before Mayor Gavin Newsom states:
"That the Board of Supervisors urges all City departments and other government entities to withdraw any money spent on advertising in AsianWeek."
The mayor is expected to sign the measure, which in a rare move was sponsored by the president of the board and co-sponsored by all 10 of the other supervisors.
As it turns out, the measure is merely symbolic as regards the city government, since the city no longer spends money with AsianWeek. But it also urges other government agencies, such as Bay Area Rapid Transit, not to advertise in the publication.
"Economic boycotts have proven successful in the past to teach people a lesson about what is acceptable in the 21st century," Aaron Peskin, president of the supervisors, told Journal-isms.
"If anyone in San Francisco government had done this, they'd be held to account," he said. AsianWeek editor-in-chief Samson Wong "has not been held accountable in any way."
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| James Fang |
Peskin said the supervisors' Feb. 27 action can't be compared with government attempts to coerce the press because members of the civically active Fang family, which once owned the San Francisco Examiner, are not journalists but politicians and have been "been the antithesis of the beacon of tolerance and hope and diversity that San Francisco has been, real and symbolically." While others have portrayed AsianWeek as a mainstream publication for English-speaking Asian Americans, Peskin said it had been "a hateful publication in San Francisco for 20 years," citing some of Wong's columns as examples.
Phil Tajitsu Nash, a Washington-based civil rights attorney, raised the thorny issue of government support or nonsupport of news media outlets in Friday's issue of AsianWeek, arguing that "in cutting off AsianWeek's access to official San Francisco advertising revenues . . . the punishments went too far.
"I have written for community papers since the 1970s, and have seen many come and go. It is easy to start one, but very hard to keep one going. Look at the number of nationally focused pan-APA," or Asian Pacific American, "publications that were around when AsianWeek started 27 years ago and which have survived to this day (none), and you will understand the enormity of this dilemma.
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| Aaron Peskin |
"Cutting off funding for one transgression, even if a major one, negates 27 years of good work, and makes the economic health of the paper very precarious."
As his brother, Ted Fang, did last week, James Fang apologized repeatedly for the publication of the opinion piece by Kenneth Eng and told Journal-isms, "AsianWeek needs to be criticized." He said he told Newsom "he has to do what he has to do" about signing the resolution.
Fang said that editors thought in running Eng's piece that it would show "the diversity of opinion" in the Asian American community, and that the rest of the paper would balance it out, "but that was wrong. Diversity of opinion is important, but it should not include hate speech," he said.
Fang repeated that new procedures were being put in place to prevent such a recurrence, and said it would be problematic to fire anyone over the incident. "It's not like the Washington Post. It's me and my brother and three other people. We understand that we were wrong, but were disappointed that 27 years of advocacy for Asian Americans was eclipsed by one very serious lapse of editorial judgment."
For example, Fang said, the publication broke the story of the innocence of Wen Ho Lee, the U.S. nuclear scientist once identified in news reports as the target of a spying investigation, who last year won $1.6 million in a lawsuit against the federal government and five media organizations. It also has reported on Asian American figures who proved correct in challenging the administration's policy in Iraq, he said
Fang, who sits on the BART board, said AsianWeek was working on projects with the Oakland Post and the San Francisco Sun-Reporter, African American publications in the San Francisco Bay Area.
- Lawrence Aaron, the Record, Hackensack, N.J.: Fanning
the flames of intolerance
- Emil Guillermo, AsianWeek: Some
Perspective Before Putting Eng To Rest
- Earl Ofari Hutchinson, syndicated: Was
the Uproar Over Kenneth Eng's Column Worth It, Amid More Pressing Issues?
- Erin Aubry Kaplan, Los Angeles Times: Unfit
to Print
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Dudley Brooks Named Photo Director at Ebony/Jet
Dudley M. Brooks, assistant managing editor/photography at the Baltimore Sun, is joining Johnson Publishing Co. as director of photography, the latest from the mainstream media to join the venerable African American enterprise since Bryan Monroe came to the company from Knight Ridder last summer to lead its editorial operations. |
| Dudley M. Brooks |
"Since joining The Sun in 2005, Dudley has brought energy, passion, dedication, camaraderie and teamwork to his position. The Sun's photography staff has been at its best under his leadership," Sun Editor Tim Franklin told the staff on Friday.
"As important, Dudley has been at the forefront of the newsroom's transformation for increased content online. He has worked tirelessly with his staff over the past nine months to coach, mentor and supervise their production of video projects, interactive photo stories and special presentations on The Sun's website."
Brooks, 49, a Baltimore native who graduated in 1980 from Morgan State University, joined the Sun from the Washington Post, where he was a photographer for 22 years. He covered China's crackdown following the Tiananmen Square massacre, Nelson Mandela's release from prison in South Africa and Pope John Paul II's first visit to Cuba.
"Domestically, his work includes powerful documentation of stories, such as the life of a 6-year-old who was forced to live in a Washington, D.C., crack house run by his mother," Franklin said when Brooks was hired. "Dudley's comprehensive images on the mass murder/suicide of more than 900 members belonging to the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments cult in Uganda won him the 2001 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for International Photojournalism, as well as the Visa d'or for Daily Press for one of the top three entries at the Perpignan International Photojournalism Festival."
Brooks also co-directed and photographed the book and exhibition "Songs of My People: African Americans: A Self-Portrait" in 1992.
Monroe, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, was assistant vice president for news at Knight Ridder Inc. He joined Johnson Publishing as vice president and editorial director after Knight Ridder, the nation's second-largest newspaper chain, went out of business.
Among Johnson's hires since Monroe's arrival have been Sylvester Monroe, longtime Time magazine correspondent, as senior editor of Ebony magazine; Eric Easter, formerly of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, to direct the company's new-media efforts as chief of digital strategy; Terry Glover, who had been managing editor of Savoy magazine and was an online editor at Playboy.com, as senior editor/online, in charge of digital content; Harriette Cole, author, columnist and life coach, as creative director for Ebony; Corinne Walker, art director for Uptown magazine, as an art director for Ebony; Adrienne Samuels, Boston Globe reporter, as senior writer for Ebony; and this week, Mira Lowe, Newsday's associate editor for recruitment, as assistant managing editor for Ebony and Jet.
Brooks said he was assuming a newly created position.
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Little Mention of U.S. Combat Team in Africa
"A few weeks back, we commented on the further shrinking, or outright abandonment, of American news bureaus around the world, and lamented the effect that this will have on foreign news coverage in the United States, which is already pretty paltry," Paul McLeary wrote Thursday in the Columbia Journalism Review's CJR Daily."Case in point is a debate over the American military's presence in Africa that has hardly received word one in the American press, despite its critical importance. The issue is the new American combat command, AFRICOM — announced in early February — which will oversee military, humanitarian, and good governance programs on the continent."
". . . While ignored at home, (the only references we could find came from brief articles in the Toledo Blade and the [South Florida] Sun Sentinel in late February), even the Brits are discussing AFRICOM. In early February, the Guardian's Simon Tisdale wrote that 'Africom marks the official arrival of America's "global war on terror" on the African continent. It is a wonder it took so long.'"
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A Journalist Admits "Addiction" to "the 'N' Word"
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| Madison J. Gray |
"I chuckled with my old man when he said it . . . a familiar rhyme among black men, the cliche being especially endearing between father and son . . . but still, he used it in reference to me," Madison J. Gray, 36-year-old homepage producer/wire editor for TIME.com, wrote last week on his blog.
"And it stuck with me for a long time.
". . . Words are like drugs. Humans become addicted to them and are even gratified by them. For black people, 'nigger' is a form of linguistic crack. You know how a crackhead continues to smoke, even though he knows he's hurting himself more each time he takes a hit? Well, that's what 'nigger' is for us. And that's really how I became addicted.
"I, like much of Black America, am addicted to the N-word.
"And, like most other
brothers and sisters, I need to cleanse myself."
- Stanley Crouch, New York Daily News:
He tries to N-d it all in city
- Merlene Davis, Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader: N-word
ban should be adopted everywhere
- Erika Hayasaki, Los Angeles Times: N-word
is still spoken in N.Y.
- Anahad O'Connor, New York Times: In Bid to Ban Racial Slur, Blacks Occupy Both Sides
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In Caldwell Era, Reporters were "Proudly Outsiders"
"In the 35 years since the United States Supreme Court ruled, in Branzburg v. Hayes, that reporters have no right under the First Amendment to refuse to answer questions from a grand jury, press protections against Justice Department subpoenas have existed largely as a matter of prosecutorial grace. That is over," Adam Liptak wrote Thursday in the New York Times.He was writing about the conviction of I. Lewis Libby Jr., who was Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, on charges that he had lied to FBI agents and a federal grand jury, and the journalists who testified.
"An earlier generation of reporters had maintained that there were no circumstances under which they would testify against their sources and that the flow of important information to the public could only be guaranteed by taking an absolutist position.
"What the public learned from the Libby trial, said Jane Kirtley, who teaches media law and ethics at the University of Minnesota, is that the modern journalist is not nearly as tough.
"Earl Caldwell, a reporter for The Times who was involved in the Branzburg case, would not cooperate even after the Supreme Court's decision, and the government never pressed the point. In 1978, another Times reporter, Myron Farber, spent 40 days in jail rather than identify his source," the Times story continued.
"'I wonder,' Professor Kirtley said, 'if part of it is that Caldwell and Farber were proudly outsiders.' By contrast, the journalists who testified at the Libby trial were Washington insiders, and they gave the public a master class in access journalism. It was not always a pretty sight."
Caldwell, now a writer-in-residence at Hampton University, is a co-founder of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education.
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N.Y. Times Sides With Cherokee Freedmen
"The Cherokee Nation's decision to revoke the tribal citizenship of about 2,800 descendants of slaves once owned by the tribe is a moral low point in modern Cherokee history and places the tribe in violation of a 140-year-old federal treaty and several court decisions. The federal government must now step in to protect the rights of the freedmen, who could lose their tribal identities as well as access to medical, housing and other tribal benefits," the New York Times said in an editorial on Thursday."Advocates for the expulsion," citing last weekend's vote, "say it is about self-determination," the editorial said. "But the tribal history makes clear that it is about discrimination — and that it is illegal. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, which has been curiously silent, should bring the Cherokee government into compliance with the law and require it to restore the tribal rights of the expelled members," known as Cherokee Freedmen.
The editorial was by written Brent Staples, who has produced a number of "Editorial Notebook" columns on issues between African Americans and Indians.
- Tommy Felts, Coffeyville (Kan.) Journal: Cherokee
voters say 'yes' to self-righteous racism
- Mark Anthony Rolo, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education
Cherokee
Nation Votes to Oust Freedmen From Tribal Rolls
- Michelle Tsai, Slate: What's
so good about being a Native American?
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CNN
Barack Obama launched his presidential campaign without his pastor. |
Obama's "Disinvitation" of Pastor Called a Blunder
"When Barack Obama launched his presidential bid last month, he did so without the public blessing of his pastor, Jeremiah A. Wright," Mary Mitchell wrote Thursday in her Chicago Sun-Times column. "Wright, an activist and the senior pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, had prayed for Obama when he won his U.S. Senate seat in 2004, and Wright was in the [gallery] when Obama gave his electrifying speech at the Democratic National Convention that same year."But when Obama made his big announcement, Wright was forced to pray with him behind closed doors.
"At the time, Wright's church was under attack by conservatives as being 'separatist' and too 'Afrocentric,' pushing the skittish Obama camp to 'disinvite' Wright's participation. On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that 'some black leaders are now questioning Obama's decision to distance his campaign from Wright.'"
In another development, Perry Bacon Jr. reported in the Washington Post Saturday that, "The Nevada Democratic Party canceled yesterday an August debate in Reno it had been scheduled to co-sponsor with Fox News, after weeks of complaints from liberal groups and a controversial remark by the network's chairman.
"Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes said Thursday while accepting an award from the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation: 'It is true that Barack Obama is on the move. I don't know if it's true that President Bush called Musharraf and said, 'Why can't we catch this guy?'
"Democrats said the comment, which referred to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, likened Obama, a senator from Illinois, to Osama bin Laden."
Mitchell wrote of the decision to exclude Obama's pastor, "Obama took some bad advice from campaign staff who underestimated the impact such a slight could have on a candidate who [has] to woo the black vote. Now, the shuttered prayer has come back to haunt him."
"This entire incident provides some insight into a missing ingredient in Obama's campaign stew.
"'First of all, I don't know who you would call in Barack Obama's campaign,' Conrad Worrill told me.
"Worrill is the national chairman of the National Black United Front, and a longtime grass-roots political organizer across the country. If he doesn't know who to call, that's a problem."
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Jasmyne A. Cannick, BlackCommentator.com: Clinton pledges to support gays — will Obama do the same?
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Cary Clack, San Antonio Express-News: Say
it! Give Hillary Clinton a little slack
- Eugene Kane, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Slave
era link to Obama is a reminder
- Jerry Large, Seattle Times: More
to culture than color
- Joseph C. Phillips, BlackAmericaWeb.com:
Obama May Be a Great Communicator, But the Jury’s Still Out On If He Could Fill Bush’s Shoes
- David Roybal, Albuquerque Journal: Dark
Horse May Need Mud Flaps
- Kristal Brent Zook, Women's Media Center: Black Enough? Obama’s Dilemma and Mine
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Exit of NAACP's Gordon Said to Be Taking Toll
"Dissident NAACP board members are so upset with the resignation of President Bruce Gordon that more than two dozen of them are caucusing in an effort to oust longtime board chairman Julian Bond, several sources have told me," Roland S. Martin wrote Tuesday in his column for Creators Syndicate."But the organization has an even bigger problem: corporate supporters backing away from financial commitments. I learned late Monday night that several Fortune 100 companies that were close to giving multi-million dollar gifts have now backed away as a result of Gordon's departure after 19 months at the helm of the 98-year-old civil rights organization. Other corporate partners have also pulled multi-million dollar commitments off the table, according to a board member, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the deliberations."
- Tammy L. Carter, Orlando Sentinel: Exit
shows NAACP board is out of touch on relevant issues
- Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: A
dream dies at the NAACP
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March 15 is Deadline for Editorial-Writing Seminar
March 15 is the deadline to apply for the 12th annual Minority Writers Seminar, which "provides an opportunity for 20 experienced minority journalists to explore the nuts-and-bolts of the profession of opinion writing," according to Doug Lyons of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, who is directing the program.The seminar takes place May 3-6 at the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute in Nashville, and is sponsored by the National Conference of Editorial Writers Foundation in partnership with the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute.
The NCEW Foundation pays for lodging and food and reimburses participants up to $200 each for their transportation to and from Nashville. Enrollment is limited to 20 and includes those who have been writing opinion less than two years.
James F. Lawrence, editorial page editor at the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle for the past 14 years, is to address the seminar participants at a closing session May 5.
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
Short Takes
- The National Association of Hispanic Journalists is canceling its Student
Campus program, a week-long journalism boot camp, for its 2007 convention,
Christine Show, student representative to the NAHJ board,
said in a memo. "The decision to cancel the program is completely a financial
one as the board had to trim some of its programs in order to fit certain
budget restraints for 2007," she wrote. The program began in 1995 to teach college freshmen about journalism.
- John Diaz of the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington
Post's "Being a Black Man" series and Shirley
Staples Carter, director of the School of Journalism and Mass
Communications, University of South Carolina, were among the Scripps Howard
Foundation's National Journalism Award winners announced
on Friday. Diaz, Pati Poblete and Caille Millner
won for a series of editorials exposing a failed foster care system, washingtonpost.com
won for the online version of "Being
a Black Man," and Carter was administrator of the year, an award given
in cooperation with the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
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Miami Herald columnist Ana Menendez, Herald photographer Carl Juste and the Austin
American-Statesman's online rendition of "Leave or Die," about the explusion of African Americans around the country, were
among the winners at the 73rd annual National Headliner Awards, sponsored by the
Press Club of Atlantic City, N.J., it was announced on Wednesday. The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution won a first place and grand award in photography for its coverage of the Coretta Scott
King funeral, and CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta won in the health/science reporting category for his
prime-time special,
"Genius."
- "Did anyone besides me find it a little odd that CNN convened an all-white
panel to do color commentary on the Selma black church speeches by Sens. Obama
and Clinton?" Marty Kaplan wrote
Sunday in the Huffington Post.
- "If there's any good news about the businesses of newspapering these days,
it can be found at the industry's littlest papers, which are doing well even
as their bigger brothers founder," Frank Ahrens wrote
Thursday in the Washington Post.
- "Three of the five commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission
heard this message over and over: Ohio's minority population is not being
well-served by policies that allow consolidation of media," Paul E.
Kostyu reported
Thursday for Copley News Service. "And two of the commissioners, Jonathan
S. Adelstein and Michael J. Copps, agreed. They
and fellow commissioner Robert M. McDowell attended a Columbus
town meeting Wednesday night on the 'Future of Media.'"
- "News10 will pay back wages to employees Friday as compensation for missed
meals over the past three years, employees at the station said Tuesday," Sam
McManis reported
Wednesday in the Sacramento Bee. "The move by KXTV comes after several editorial
employees had approached Russell
Postell, News10's president and general manager, claiming that
some workers had not been reimbursed for working through lunch."
- A court in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi convicted Mburu Muchoki,
editor of the private weekly The Independent, of libel on Tuesday and sentenced
him to a year in prison over a 2004 story critical of Justice Minister Martha
Karua, according to local journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists
reported
on Thursday. Reporters Without Borders also condemned
the sentence.
- "The World Association of Newspapers has rejected a request by the China
Newspaper Association (CNA) to withdraw the 2007 Golden Pen of Freedom that
was awarded to journalist Shi Tao. Shi was imprisoned after
writing about Chinese restrictions on the media and is serving a 10-year sentence,"
the Editors Web Log reported
on Thursday. "If the law does indeed make it possible to send a journalist
to jail in such a case, the law should be abolished without delay, since it
would be in contradiction with every conceivable international standard and
convention on freedom of information and human rights," said the association's
CEO, Timothy Balding.
- "The Committee to Protect Journalists is troubled by the arrest of Atiqullah
Khan Masud, editor and publisher of the popular Bengali-language
daily Janakantha, in a military raid on the Dhaka newspaper's office Wednesday
night. Bangladeshi police today accused Masud of corruption, criminal activities,
and 'tarnishing the country's image abroad' through his newspaper's reporting,
according to local news reports," the Committee said
on Thursday.
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