March 16, 2007
Veteran Says He's Not Decided on Next Move
Veteran journalist George E. Curry, who as editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service brought increased credibility and visibility to the black press, has resigned and is leaving at the end of the month.
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| George Curry |
“I have submitted my resignation as Acting Executive Director of the NNPA Foundation and Editor-in-Chief of the NNPA News Service and BlackPressUSA.com, effective March 30," Curry told Journal-isms on Friday. "It has been an exciting and interesting six years and this seems like the right time to leave. I am weighing several possibilities, including whether to fully concentrate on my professional speaking and media coaching business, but have made no decision about what I am going to do next.”
Curry, 60, a one-time reporter for the Chicago Tribune, was editor of Emerge magazine for seven years, from 1993 until its demise in 2000. He was the National Association of Black Journalists' Journalist of the Year in 2003 and reported from Qatar in the early days of the war in Iraq. He also accompanied Charles Steele, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, to Torino, Italy, in February, and went with Jesse Jackson this month to Ghana to celebrate that country's 50th anniversary of independence. He spoke at NNPA events, moderated discussions there, and represented black journalists on the National Mall in 2005 at the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March. He also writes a column.
"He was very, very visible for the NNPA," Jake Oliver, publisher of the Afro-American newspapers and a former NNPA president, told Journal-isms. "Everybody knows George and everybody respects George. He was a positive image for NNPA not just nationally, but internationally." When he went to Qatar, "that rocked," impressing the national press organizations, Oliver said.
However, NNPA and its news service endured cutbacks. At the news service, Curry lost his managing editor, Florestine Purnell, who had been Curry's deputy at Emerge, and correspondents left without being replaced. A group of eight or nine publishers, while supportive of NNPA, organized separately as the Black Media Solutions Group, for those who wanted to focus on needs that "may not have been effectively addressed by NNPA," Oliver said. Among its members are Robert Bogle of the Philadelphia Tribune, Elinor Tatum of the New York Amsterdam News, Oliver and Donald M. Suggs of the St. Louis American.
The NAACP's Crisis magazine, like Emerge a publication addressing African American social and political issues, has been seeking an editor to replace the departing Victoria Valentine. There are about 30 applicants, Crisis business manager India Artis said Friday.
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Michael Eric Dyson Leaves Syndicated Radio Show
Celebrity professor Michael Eric Dyson said goodbye Friday to listeners of his year-old talk show on Syndication One, the collaboration between Radio One and radio host Tom Joyner's Reach Media.
The show is heard in 25 cities, including Chicago (WVON-AM), Boston (WILD-AM), Philadelphia (WHAT-AM), Atlanta (WAMJ-AM), Washington (WOL-AM), Detroit (WCHB-AM), Seattle (KZIZ-AM), Cleveland (WERE-AM) and Miami (WTPS-AM), according to a December news release.
Lee Michaels, national program director of Syndication One, told Journal-isms that Dyson was interested in doing television, and "we can't offer him that."
Dyson already "has a signed deal to do television work for TV One which is separate from any Radio One activities," Johnathan Rodgers, CEO of TV One, told Journal-isms.
Dyson, whose show airs from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Eastern time, praised Syndication One for the freedom and platform it gave him and told listeners he was "moving on to other positions." A prolific author, he said was working on "a big book about the black church" and "weighing other offers in the media." He is on tour promoting a book that collects transcripts of his public debates and said he has another book on hip-hop due in July. He said there would be "more radio, more television."
The Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania, Dyson has striven to identify with and defend the hip-hop community and has been a fierce critic of Bill Cosby's crusade to redirect the values of those black parents and children who devalue education, saying Cosby is blaming the victim.
"Thank you for having a positive impact on our race," one listener told him.
Amos Brown, a 30-year radio veteran, has been filling in for the past two weeks and will continue to do so until a replacement for Dyson is selected, Michaels said. Star Jones Reynolds substituted for a few days before Christmas.
The two other Syndication One shows are the "Al Sharpton Show," from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern time, and sports talk with "The 2 Live Stews," weekdays, 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Eastern.
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Obama Covers Sold Magazines for Time, Newsweek
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"Three years ago, except for his Illinois state senate constituents, Barack Obama would have generated a giant 'Who's he?'" the publication said. "The rest is 'Horatio Alger 101.' Obama keynotes the 2004 Democratic National Convention (August 2004), gets elected to the U.S. Senate (November 2004), writes the best-selling 'The Audacity of Hope' (October 2006), and declares for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination (February 2007).
"That he is 'hot' is seen by his being the best-selling 2006 newsstand covers for both Time (under managing editor Rick Stengel) and Newsweek (with rival Hillary Rodham Clinton) last year. But for his camp, it is
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As reported last month, the February 2007 issue of Ebony magazine, with Obama and his wife, Michelle, on the cover, sold significantly better than recent past issues.
The Obama cover was Time's best-seller under Richard Stengel, who was named managing editor in June. Under Jim Kelly, who was promoted to managing editor of Time Inc., the best-seller was an April 3 cover on global warming featuring Al Gore.
MIN plans to run lists of the best- and worst-selling covers for monthly magazines over the next two weeks.
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Readers Critical of Story on Obama's Ancestors
"The Sun's March 2 report on a genealogical study indicating that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's forebears had owned slaves quickly became one of the most controversial articles the newspaper has produced in some time," Paul Moore, ombudsman of the Baltimore Sun, wrote on Sunday. "The Sun's online version of the front-page article, 'A new twist to an intriguing family history,' was linked to a number of heavily trafficked national Internet sites — and the online readership was phenomenal."So was the volume of e-mail comments — both local and national — received by the newspaper. The vast majority were critical of the article. As many readers know, Obama's father was an African from Kenya and his mother was a Caucasian from Kansas.
"Some readers believed the article reflected an effort by The Sun or Obama's political opponents to harm his image. Others questioned why it was played on Page One with a 'Sun Exclusive' label. Some said they believed the report was trivial.
". . . In my view, the article . . . should have more prominently displayed reservations about the validity of the genealogical study.
". . . I also think a passage by the author and essayist Debra J. Dickerson questioning Obama's racial makeup deviated from the tone of the rest of the article. Dickerson was quoted as saying: ' "Black," in our political and social reality, means those descended from West African slaves.'"
Meanwhile, the Project for Excellence in Journalism reported that Hillary Clinton remained a big topic among conservative talk-show hosts. "But an examination of the talk outlets revealed an interesting twist to that pattern. Whatever the motivation, some of those conservative hosts are not only using their microphones to blast away at Clinton," it said in a weekly report. "They are also embracing, or at least saying nice things about, Barack Obama, a liberal Democrat whose primary virtue in their eyes may be that he can defeat Clinton for the nomination."
- Henry C. Jackson, Associated Press: Obama:
Fox News chief's name joke doesn't rile him
- Sheryl McCarthy, Newsday: Hooked
on Obama, without bait
- Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: Dueling
stories define today's politics
- Ron Walters, NNPA News Service: Obama
Begins to Move
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Latino Activists Meet with PBS on Burns Film
PBS has rejected a demand by Hispanic activists that Ken Burns' upcoming seven-part documentary on World War II be delayed until it is re-edited to include the Latino experience, the activists said.PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger told the group "that PBS is supporting community outreach and educational initiatives attached to the Burns documentary. That local programming is intended to 'bring forth the many stories that are not part of the Ken Burns series.' PBS will consider programs produced by local stations [for] possible national airing, she said," according to a news release from the activists.
On National Public Radio's "Fresh Air" on Thursday, host David Bianculli asked Burns about the Latino concerns.
"Well, I think the way we constructed it sort of renders a little bit of the protest moot," Burns said. "I mean, I can understand, particularly in the Hispanic community, after 500 years of having so much of their history marginalized on this continent, how important it is to be told. But we knew going in we weren't going to be able to tell the whole story. And, in fact, we limited the film to four geographically distributed towns and a handful of people from those towns. And we're actually not — with the exception of Japanese Americans and to a much lesser extent African Americans, who had an amazingly different kind of American experience, i.e., they were interned and in segregated regiments, looking for any type of people in the film. We were looking for universal human experience[s] of battle, of what was it like to be in that war and not try to cover every group. We left out lots of people in many, many different kinds of groups because we weren't looking at it in that way."
The activists include Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin and director of the U.S. Latino & Latina WWII Oral History Project; Gus Chavez, a Latino community development and education advocate based in San Diego; Marta Garcia, founder and co-chair of the New York Chapter of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, and Angelo Falcón, president and founder of the National Institute for Latino Policy, based in New York.
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Rodrigo Perez, Texas TV Producer, Dies at 46
"When Rodrigo Perez enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin after high school, his intention was to study engineering," Carmina Danini wrote Wednesday in the San Antonio Express-News."But Perez, who was born in Coahuila" in Mexico "and came to San Antonio when he was in middle school, soon discovered it wasn't for him and changed his major to journalism.
"His first job after graduating from UT in 1983 was with KWEX-TV, the San Antonio affiliate of the Spanish-language Univision Television Network.
"He later worked at KSAT, KMOL (now WOAI) and KENS, the local ABC, NBC and CBS affiliates, respectively.
"Eighteen years ago, he returned to Channel 41," or KWEX, the Univision affiliate, "where he was an executive news producer.
"Perez, 46, died at University Hospital on Sunday, five days after suffering a stroke at home.
"His wife said she was told by hospital officials that donation of his organs benefited 150 people."
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Black Caucus Seeks U.S. Action on Cherokee Vote
"Black leaders in Congress asked the federal government yesterday to weigh in on the legality of a vote by the Cherokee Nation earlier this month to revoke citizenship from descendants of former tribal slaves," the Associated Press reported on Wednesday."Saying they were 'shocked and outraged,' more than two dozen members of the Congressional Black Caucus signed a letter to the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs questioning the 'validity, legality, as well as the morality' of the March 3 vote.
"'The black descendant Cherokees can trace their Native American heritage back in many cases for more than a century,' said Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.). 'They are legally a part of the Cherokee Nation through history, precedent, blood and treaty obligations.'
"More than 76 percent of those casting ballots in the special election voted to amend the tribal constitution to limit citizenship to descendants of 'by blood' tribe members, removing an estimated 2,800 freedmen descendants."
- Ed Barber, High Springs (Fla.) Herald: Sad
to say, racism exists in Cherokee nation
- Tim Giago, Notes from Indian Country: Cherokee
Nation votes out Freedmen
- William Loren Katz, The Black World Today: Racism
and the Cherokee Nation
- Mike Shelton, Muskogee (Okla.) Phoenix: Freedmen
vote may haunt Cherokees in the future
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Steve Henderson Returning to Detroit Free Press
Stephen Henderson, who in 2003 became the first person of color assigned to cover the U.S. Supreme Court for a general-circulation newspaper, is returning to his Detroit hometown as deputy editorial page editor at the Detroit Free Press. |
| Stephen Henderson |
Henderson, 36, covers the Supreme Court for the McClatchy, formerly Knight Ridder, Washington Bureau.
"Steve was an intern on the Free Press editorial page under legendary [Editorial Page Editor] Joe Stroud and also worked at the paper as an editorial writer and an education writer, Ron Dzwonkowski told Free Press staffers on Monday. "In fact, he was covering the Detroit Public Schools when they first talked about floating a $1.5 billion bond issue and we wrote editorials telling the public that in 10 years, you won't be able to find out what happened to the money."
" . . . In addition to his duties as deputy EPE, Steve will be undertaking a weekly political column and other assignments intended to increase the Free Press voice on the many critical political issues facing our community and state."
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"If It's Sunday, It's Still Conservative"
"For the second year in a row, conservative voices dominate the broadcast networks' politically driven Sunday newsmaker shows despite the Democrats taking control of Congress in January, a media watchdog group charges," Ira Teinowitz and Michele Greppi reported Tuesday in TV Week."Media Matters for America held a press conference Tuesday in Washington to hit the high points in its latest report, titled 'If It's Sunday, It's Still Conservative.' The complete report is available at www.SundayShowReport.com.
"The group said ABC's 'This Week With George Stephanopoulos' was the only show to have improved its overall balance since the last report but that the debate still 'skewed to the right.'
"The group characterized CBS's 'Face the Nation With Bob Schieffer' and NBC's 'Meet the Press With Tim Russert,' as well as 'Fox News Sunday,' as 'dominated by more right-leaning voices' since last year's report.
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Group Opposes Fox-Black Caucus Partnership
Color of Change, an African American online activist group modeled on MoveOn.org, was to launch a campaign Wednesday to persuade the Congressional Black Caucus Political Education and Leadership Institute not to make Fox its partner for a presidential candidates debate, something the Caucus is considering, Ben Smith reported on his blog on the Politico.com Web site."The group's founder, James Rucker, said he'll be sending out an email to about 70,000 people" on March 14, "making the case that, according to a draft, 'Fox's record is horrible. Their on-air personalities and regular guests consistently marginalize Black politicians, culture, and institutions.' The central point echoes last week's MoveOn campaign: 'Validating Fox News as legitimate hurts Black America, and undermines the CBC's credibility,'" Smith reported.
In a news release on Wednesday, the Caucus said it "will sponsor four (4) presidential primary debates for the 2008 election — two for Democratic candidates and two for Republican candidates, and that it has reached an agreement with cable news leader CNN to broadcast two of these debates." It added, "The CBC Institute is also in discussions with the Fox News Channel to broadcast two debates."
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Issac J. Bailey blog, Myrtle Beach (S.C.) Sun-News: Fox News is bad for "Black America"
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Short Takes
"New York Times Metro wunderkind Sewell Chan racked up 422 bylines in a twelve-month period ending last spring, as the Observer pointed out then," the New York Observer reported on Wednesday. "So far in 2007, he's got 107 bylines, according to our pal Nexis, which works out to nearly 1.5 per day. If that's not enough Sewell for you, then today's your lucky day. The Times is set to launch 'City Room,' a new online project to cover the five boroughs, and Chan will be its founding bureau chief, according to a memo Metro editor Joe Sexton sent to his staff this morning. It's 'a way that the readers of The New York Times can get as much Sewell Chan as he has to give,' Sexton explains in his memo."
Sewell Chan
- "Former Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. has joined FOX News
as a political contributor to the network's news programming, announced Roger
Ailes, Chairman and CEO of FOX News. He will be under contract with
FOX News to provide political commentary and analysis on international events
and the 2008 election," Fox announced
on Wednesday.
- An older brother of veteran journalist Earl Caldwell, a
co-founder of the Maynard Institute, was shot in the head and killed inside
his Pittsburgh home March 9 during an apparent burglary, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. Police said 79-year-old Nathaniel Caldwell was
found around 5 p.m. inside the home he had lived in for seven years. One of
Nathaniel Caldwell's daughters found him unresponsive, sitting in his favorite
chair, the newspaper reported. Services were held Thursday. The newspaper
posted a guestbook.
- Aldore Collier, who wrote for Jet and Ebony for 26 years
and covered Los Angeles for the last 25, was let go last month by Bryan
Monroe, vice president and editorial director who joined the company
last summer, Collier, 51, told Journal-isms. "I don't know what his reasoning
is. I've had minimal contact with Bryan," Collier said. Monroe told Journal-isms:
"We wish him well, but I cannot talk further because it is a personnel matter."
- Tolly Glenn Carr, 32, a news anchor with WXII-TV in Greensboro,
N.C., faces one count of driving while impaired in the death of Casey
Ryan Bokhoven, who lived within sight of where he was killed, Eric
J.S. Townsend reported
Tuesday in the Greensboro News & Record. "The wreck appeared Monday to take
an emotional toll on station employees, from the reporter assigned to cover
the story to Hank Price, general manager at WXII. Price declined
to speculate on Carr and his future role with the station, let alone his career."
Valerie Morris is leaving CNN after 11 years of financial reporting and anchoring, Morris confirmed on Friday. In an e-mail to colleagues, Morris said: "I was offered a new, two year contract by CNN but I've known for some time since CNNfn went off the air that my passion truly is financial literacy — especially for women and people of color — two segments of the population for whom there needs to be a consistent and deliberate message about how to get into the wealth-building game. That's my purpose." She told Journal-isms she would be ready to announce in about 10 days where she would be anchoring a new syndicated weekly program.
Valerie Morris
- Kerra L. Bolton, Raleigh, N.C.-based columnist with the
Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times, told
readers on Wednesday that it would be her last column for the paper. "I'm
leaving to become the communications director of the NC Democratic Party.
I don't know whether I am the first African American woman to take the post,
but I'm assuming so," Bolton told Journal-isms.
- Jeff Rivers, who worked for the Hartford Courant in various
roles from 1989 to 2004, when he was laid
off, has returned to newspapers. Since Jan. 22, he has been the editorial
page editor and a weekly columnist at the Herald News, a 30,000-circulation
daily in West Paterson, N.J., he told Journal-isms. Rivers had been
a public relations specialist for the Hartford Housing Authority.
- Media mogul and philanthropist Ted Turner apologized Tuesday
for a comment he made before an audience of 1,000 business and community leaders
March 8 about how to win China's cooperation in reducing greenhouse gases,
Vanessa Hua wrote
Wednesday in the San Francisco Chronicle. Turner said: "The Chinese are very smart.
Just think: Have you ever met a dumb Chinaman?" Many consider the word "Chinaman"
offensive.
- "Actor Danny Glover — best known for playing the
less combustible cop in the 'Lethal Weapon' movies — suddenly punched
a Daily News photographer yesterday, shocking onlookers," John Marzulli
reported
Tuesday in the New York Daily News. "As Glover, 60, emerged from Brooklyn
Federal Court, he flipped out and threw a roundhouse punch at News photographer
Gary He, connecting with a glancing blow to his jaw. 'What
gives you the right to come out here and photograph me and have your camera
up in my face?' Glover growled, according to He."
- "Latinos are not going online as much as non-Hispanic whites and blacks,
even at younger ages where Internet use is far greater, according to a report
released Wednesday," the Associated Press reported.
"Fifty-six percent of adult Latinos use the Internet, compared with 70% of
whites and about 60% of blacks, according to the Pew Hispanic Center and the
Pew Internet & American Life Project."
- The NAACP "has written FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and the
other commissioners registering their opposition to a la carte cable pricing,"
John Eggerton reported
Thursday in Broadcasting & Cable. "It was responding to reports that a violence
report the commission is preparing to give to Congress suggests TV violence
justifies imposing per-channel pricing as a way to give viewers more control
over the programming in their homes. Saying many of its constituents live
in communities affected by violence, NAACP Director Hilary Shelton
said the FCC needed to review the 'negative impact of dramatically reducing
the diversity of cable and satellite programs targeting racial and ethnic
minorities.'"
- "CNN en Español, the innovative and top-rated Spanish-language news
network in Latin America, marks its 10th anniversary with a series of initiatives
and programming throughout the year highlighting the events and personalities
that have made major news in Latin America and throughout the world over the
past decade." the network announced.
The network began on March 17, 1997, and now reaches more than 21 million
Spanish speakers throughout Latin America, which includes 3.6 million in the
United States, it said.
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"Winthrop Jordan, the historian whose groundbreaking investigation of
early American attitudes on race shed light on centuries-old roots,
died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's
disease, on Feb. 23 at his home in Oxford, Miss. He was 75," Jocelyn Y. Stewart wrote Monday in the Los Angeles Times. His 1968 book, "White Over Black," "forever changed our understanding of the roots of racism in the
United States," Robert Haws, former chairman of the history department
at the University of Mississippi, said in a prepared statement.
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One college student and one teacher will be chosen to accompany New York
Times columnist Nicholas Kristof on an all-expenses-paid
reporting odyssey to Africa this summer, the Times announced
this week. "What you see on this rugged journey will open your eyes in a way
that will quite possibly change your own life and priorities forever —
and if you are an educator, those of the students you teach. And you won't
merely be Nick's traveling companion — you may bring a fresh perspective
to his reporting via your very own blog or vlog on NYTimes.com and MySpace."
The application deadline is April 6.
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