"A 50-student trip to both conventions has been canceled by administration officials of a historically black college citing security concerns," Darren Sands reported Monday for BuzzFeed.
"In a memo made available to BuzzFeed News, Hampton University's Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications (SHSJC) Dean B. Da'Vida Plummer said there were 'unresolved personnel, operational, and planning issues related to the project discovered in the final hours of vetting the safety and security of the student experience” and that the decision to skip both conventions 'was made after thoughtful consideration with the safety of our students being the university’s number one priority.'
"The school was to host a townhall on prison reform and energy at Case Western Reserve University on Tuesday. A new invite was released on Monday saying a new event would take place at the Holy Trinity Church & [Cultural] Arts Center on Thursday.
"On July 11, Case Western said it would reduce campus activity during the RNC in light of violence in Minnesota, Baton Rouge, and Dallas. 'Last week’s tragedies have horrified us all and raised profound questions for our country,' a release read, adding the RNC was 'expected to draw dozens of protests' and 'could see a significant degree of conflict.'
"The convention project is the culmination of a year of planning by assistant professor Carol Angela Davis, who is the school's Scripps Howard endowed professor. Davis also took students from High Point University in North Carolina to both conventions [in] 2012. . . ."
Plummer told Journal-isms by email, "My chief concern then and now is the safety of our students."
Students at Hampton's "HU" rival, Howard University, are covering both conventions, Yanick Rice Lamb, associate professor and chair of Howard's Department of Media, Journalism and Film, messaged Journal-isms on Tuesday. "Four students are there now. We will probably have the assistance of an additional two students who are from the Cleveland area and are working at internships there," she wrote.
Ron Harris, director of HUNewsService.com, and the four students arrived Tuesday, Lamb said. Faculty members Ingrid Sturgis, Fredric Kendrick, Milbert Brown and herself were on the road in Pennsylvania.
Ron Elving, NPR: Fears Of Violence At Cleveland Convention Stir Memories Of Chicago In 1968
Karen Farkas, cleveland.com: Case Western Reserve University will essentially shut down during Republican National Convention
Howard University: Howard Students to Provide Diverse Coverage of Republication National Convention
Gregory Krieg, CNN: Cleveland police union asks for suspension of 'open carry' in wake of Baton Rouge, ahead of RNC
Jacob Rascon, NBC News: By the Numbers: Cleveland Ramps Up Security for Republican Convention
Dixe Schillaci, Yale University/USA Today: 4 ways college students are participating in the political conventions
Journalist Spotted ‘Plagiarism’ by Mrs. Trump
A laid-off television journalist and Twitter user is being credited with spotting striking similarities between Melania Trump's opening night speech Monday at the Republican National Convention and one delivered by Michelle Obama at the Democratic convention in 2008.
Jarrett Hill "said in an interview that one of Ms. Trump’s lines — the words 'strength of your dreams' — caught his attention as he was watching on his computer from a Starbucks in Los Angeles, juggling Facebook chats and browsing Twitter," Maggie Haberman, Alan Rappeport and Patrick Healy reported Tuesday for the New York Times.
“'It kind of made me pause for a minute,' Mr. Hill said. 'I remembered that line from Michelle Obama’s speech.'
"Mr. Hill, 31, found the clip of Mrs. Obama’s speech online and noticed that parts of the two speeches sounded the same. He then realized that a larger portion appeared to have been borrowed as he continued to examine both.
“ 'I thought, "That’s legit plagiarism," ' said Mr. Hill, who described himself as a supporter of President Obama. ' "Someone took this piece and plugged in their own information." '
"Accusations of plagiarism are not unheard-of in political speeches, although the consequences have varied. . . ."
Hill's LinkedIn profile describes him as host and executive producer of the weekly "Back2Reality" podcast in Los Angeles. He has worked on television shows in Atlanta and Los Angeles.
Wall Idea Opposed on Both Sides of Border
"A major bilingual poll released today by Univision News, the award-winning news division of Univision Communications Inc. (UCI), in partnership with Arizona State University’s Cronkite News and The Dallas Morning News reveals that the overwhelming majority of residents living along both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border are opposed to the construction of a wall between their countries and do not approve of the current tone of the U.S. presidential election," Univision announced on Monday.
"The complete survey results are available in Spanish and English at UnivisionNoticias.com, Cronkite News and The Dallas Morning News.
"The Cronkite News-Univision News-Dallas Morning News Border Poll found:
86 percent of border residents in Mexico and 72 percent of U.S. border residents were against building a wall between Mexico and the U.S.
77 percent of border residents in Mexico and 70 percent of U.S. border residents described the issue as 'not important.'
"In addition, a majority of residents along both sides of the border also see the current tone of the U.S. presidential campaign as potentially damaging for relations between the two countries (Mexico: 69 percent; U.S.: 59 percent). . . ."
Chris Ariens, TVNewser: 5 Questions for Lester Holt From the NBC News Skybox at the RNC
Jenice Armstrong, Philadelphia Daily News: What does the RNC mean by Monday night's theme: "Make America Safe Again"? America was never safe!
Rekha Basu, Des Moines Register: Why it's tricky to count on Pence as Trump's 'good cop'
David Bauder, Associated Press: Media coverage highlights of GOP's first night
Charles M. Blow, New York Times: Trump’s Chance to Reboot
Lauren Victoria Burke, The Root: These Are the Black Folks Skipping Out on the RNC This Year
Jonathan Capehart, Washington Post: Wow, Hispanics loathe Donald Trump. Like, a lot. But enough to vote?
Daily Beast: Omarosa Named Trump’s Director of African-American Outreach
John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable: Trump Relies Heavily on News Media He Bashes
Sydney Ember, New York Times: G.O.P. Arena Will Highlight Trump’s Media Blacklist
Jenn Fang, reapprpriate.co: Why a Vice President Mike Pence is Bad News for AAPIs
Leonard Greene, Daily News, New York: If you support Trump and the Republican Party, then all lives don’t matter
Emil Guillermo, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund: My interview with an Asian American for Trump
Indian Country Today Media Network: ICTMN at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions
Jason Johnson, The Root: Donald Trump Picks Mike Pence as His VP and It Probably Won’t Matter
Mark Joyella, TVNewser: Journalists’ Groups Protest RNC Ban on Gas Masks, Bags
Mark Joyella, TVNewser: Ted Cruz: ‘Media Played Decisive Roles’ in Primary Victories by Trump, Clinton
Howard Kurtz, Fox News: Media greet Donald Trump in Cleveland with a Bronx cheer
Phillip Morris, Plain Dealer, Cleveland: Making America "Safe Again" starts with the police
Phillip Morris, Plain Dealer, Cleveland: RNC visitors, please leave our town like you found it
Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: The GOP’s coronation of a charlatan
Alan Rappeport, New York Times: ‘I Feel a Deep Sense of Remorse,’ Donald Trump’s Ghostwriter Says
Andrew Rosenthal, New York Times: What's Going On? Racism (scroll down)
Jim Rutenberg, New York Times: Republican Convention Will Push Limits of a Candidate and the News Media
Margaret Sullivan, Washington Post: ‘No, Mr. Trump, that’s a lie’: What Lesley Stahl should have said Sunday night
Baton Rouge Mass Killer Another Black War Vet
"There are tears on both sides of the police brutality issue these days," Les Payne, a retired editor and columnist for Newsday, wrote for that newspaper on Sunday.
"The shedding of black civilian blood in Minnesota and Louisiana reportedly moved Micah Xavier Johnson to spill some white police blood in Dallas. This double dose of pain in all its unequal measure has triggered yet another dialogue on race in this former slave republic. After killing five cops and wounding seven others plus two civilians, Johnson was cornered on the scene and executed without trial by the Dallas police who blew him to bits with a robot bomb; so much for holding the cop-killer accountable.
"However, the police officer who killed Philando Castile in Minnesota and the two uniformed executioners of Alton B. Sterling in Louisiana are walking the streets on the public payroll. So, too, are other recent killer cops walking free, such as Timothy A. Loehmann, in Cleveland; Daniel Pantaleo, in Staten Island; Darren Wilson, in Ferguson, Missouri; Peter Liang, in Brooklyn; and Jason Van Dyke, in Chicago, to say nothing of would-be cop George Zimmerman, in Florida, who auctioned off the 9-mm pistol with which he killed Trayvon Martin.
"The troubling issue in these cases is that police across the country continue to exert excessive and deadly force against African-Americans in a racially disparate pattern — and that these white killer cops are not held accountable. . . ."
Payne's column appeared before a masked man clothed in black killed three Baton Rouge, La., police officers in a gas station ambush. The man was identified as Gavin Long, like Johnson an African American war veteran.
"Black war veterans historically return with a dramatically lower tolerance for racist mistreatment at home," Payne wrote. "Widespread riots — starting with the Charleston, South Carolina, disturbance in 1919 — were triggered across America by such fed-up black veterans after World War I, for instance, and President Harry S. Truman was moved to desegregate the U.S. Army after returning black World War II veterans made it clear that they would not take it any more. Johnson’s parents said their son, who as a child wanted to be a police officer, was transformed after a seven-month stint fighting for the freedom of the Afghans.
“ 'The war was not what Micah thought it would be,' said his mother. . . ."
Coincidentally, Payne was mentioned on Facebook Monday in an essay by B.D. Colen to be published in the Huffington Post.
"I won't say that I didn't believe him, for I had never known him to prevaricate about anything. But the descriptions of his encounters with my 'friends' the police were so far from my own experience that I had trouble relating to them. Even when I saw the broadcast and rebroadcast of the, brutal, savage beating of Rodney King, I still wondered, 'what did he do to deserve that.' And then some genius decided to put video cameras in cell phones and the floodgates of truth were opened wide. . . ."
Melvin Carter, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.: Melvin Carter on Philando, protests and police: We must see our shared humanity
Mary C. Curtis, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (Foundation for Social Democracy), Germany: Spotlight Elections: What's next America?
Lewis Diuguid, Kansas City Star: Black Lives Matter movement must be viewed in the context of history to understand what it tries to convey
Editorial, Chicago Tribune: Baton Rouge and the summer of slaughter
Editorial Board, NOLA.com | the Times-Picayune: Baton Rouge police tribute: 'Don't let hate infect your heart'
Editorial Board, NOLA.com | the Times-Picayune: If police had more options and better training, Alton Sterling might have lived
Josh Feldman, Mediaite: ThinkProgress Editor: Cops Not Held Accountable So ‘No Surprise Some Are Taking Justice Into Their Own Hands’
Renée Graham, Boston Globe: US back in the bloody spotlight
Alex Griswold, Mediaite: Ebony Editor Isn’t Sure Killing White People Should Be Considered a ‘Hate Crime’
Joe Gyan Jr., the Advocate, Baton Rouge, La.: WBRZ reporter suing Baton Rouge Police and officer claims he was strip-searched, forced to watch prison rape video (March 16)
Steve Hardy and Jim Mustian, the Advocate, Baton Rouge, La.: 'Humble, kind, sweet': new dad Montrell Jackson one of Baton Rouge officers killed in attack
Harold Jackson, Philadelphia Inquirer: Black Lives Matter is more slogan than movement
Corey G. Johnson, Marshall Project: Dallas’s Deputy Chief on Race, Despair, and Learning from Police Shootings
Shaun King, Daily News, New York: Dallas, Baton Rouge massacres show need for assault rifle ban, can make trained cops think they’re under attack from small army
Michel Martin with Kedrick Pitts, brother of Montrell Jackson, "All Things Considered," NPR: For Brother Of Baton Rouge Shooting Victim, A Devastating Loss (audio)
Mary Mitchell, Chicago Sun-Times: A happy surprise when I got pulled over by a white cop
Ruben Navarrette Jr., Washington Post Writers Group: Special privileges for a special job
Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: Black Republican tackles police 'trust gap'
Rochelle Riley, Detroit Free Press: To fix our race problem, stop pretending everything is OK
Ruben Rosario, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.: When cops kill, civil lawsuits often are way justice is served
Adam Winkler, Washington Post: The right to bear arms has mostly been for white people
Kao Kalia Yang, Star Tribune, Minneapolis: In the narrative of race, why only black ink on white paper?
David Zurawik, Baltimore Sun: Rice verdict gets less play, but is put in context on larger national stories on cable
American Urban Radio Network Under New Owners
American Urban Radio Networks is transitioning to new ownership. Sheridan Broadcasting Network has lost its 51 percent stake and Access 1 Communications Corp, a New York-based firm that owns several radio and TV stations, now owns 100 of the company.
"We've been transitioning since the official takeover on May 1st and we expect that'll go on another 30-60 days, Jerry Lopes, president of program operations and affiliations at the Pittsburgh-based company, told Journal-isms by email on Monday. Chesley Maddox-Dorsey "is the new CEO."
Christian Morrow reported in May for the New Pittsburgh Courier, "Sheridan Broadcasting Network Founder Ron Davenport Sr. has confirmed that the company’s strategic bankruptcy plan aimed at giving it time to finalize the buy-out of its partner Access One and take control of the American Urban Radio Network was unsuccessful, and as a result, Sheridan has lost its 51 percent stake in AURN. . . ."
Morrow wrote on May 19, "Now that the American Urban Radio Network has severed its longtime partnership with Sheridan Broadcasting Network, it is wasting no time in making a new mark on the media landscape by bringing the Democratic and Republican Party Presidential candidates to Pittsburgh for a forum at the August Wilson Center for African American Culture" in Pittsburgh.
The National Coalition on Black Civic Participation (NCBCP) and the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB) announced on July 14 that they are inviting the Democratic and Republican presumptive presidential nominees to take part in a Conversation with Black America with American Urban Radio Network as the lead media partner for the Aug. 18 forum.
However, the candidates have not confirmed that they will attend, spokeswoman Marlene Layton told Journal-isms on Tuesday. If there is no confirmation, "then we'll probably pull the plug on it," she said.
Short Takes
"The California Second District Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that a 6-year-old Choctaw girl known as 'Lexi,' will be staying in Utah with her family," Suzette Brewer reported July 9 for Indian Country Today Media Network. "In the scathing 38-page decision, the three-judge panel ruled against foster parents Summer and Russell Page, citing their 'self interest,' their pattern of interference with and resistance to Lexi’s visits with her extended family . . . " Brewer and the Native American Journalists Association had complained that coverage of the case was skewered toward the white foster parents and was poorly reported.
Applications close Aug. 15 for the Inland Fellows Program, described as "a two-year program for early-stage employees with the potential to make a successful career in the newspaper industry — and to help newspaper workplaces better reflect the makeup of the audiences they serve." The Inland Press Association, its sponsor, is a not-for-profit organization based in Des Plaines, Ill., with more than 1,000 daily and weekly newspaper members in all 50 U.S. states, Canada and Bermuda. Inland is owned by its member newspapers and operated by a volunteer board. Inland-member managers nominate employees for the program.
"The UNC School of Media and Journalism announced today that Capitol Broadcasting Company (CBC) will support two national media diversity initiatives administered by the school," the University of North Carolina announced on Thursday. "Capitol Broadcasting's gift will support the Chuck Stone Program for Diversity in Education and Media and the CBC-UNC Diversity Fellowship Program over the next four years. . . . The CBC-UNC Diversity Program — now entering its fifth year — is a highly competitive fellowship for 12 top university seniors or graduate students within six months of graduation and pursuing broadcast journalism careers. It is an intensive, hands-on, 5-day workshop led by professionals at WRAL-TV and UNC journalism faculty. "
"For the third day in a row, people in Indian-controlled, conflict-torn Kashmir did not get their newspapers Monday because they have been banned," Rama Lakshmi reported Monday for the Washington Post. "The ban on newspapers came on top of the shutdown of cable TV operators and private cellphone service, actions imposed by the government as it struggles to control angry street protests against the killing of a popular leader of a terrorist group 10 days ago. Newspaper editors are angry and are calling it a full-blown information war. . . ."
The International Federation of Journalists said Monday that it "strongly condemned the arrest and detention of Alfred Taban, Editor-in- Chief of the Juba Monitor in South Sudan. Taban was arrested on Saturday, 16 July in the capital Juba by the agents of the National Security Service and is currently detained incommunicado. According to the Uganda Journalists Union (UJU), an IFJ affiliate, Taban was arrested in relation to an article that he wrote in his weekly column 'Let’s Speak Out.' In his article he called for the removal of President Salva Kiir and Vice President, Riek Machar, accusing both of them of failing to control troops loyal to them which have resulted in the loss of lives and property. . . ."
B.D. Colen: Police Killings Caused by Truth Revealed
By B.D. Colen
There is a headline in the New York Times this morning reading, "Anguish Deepens for Police: ‘We’ve Seen Nothing Like This," and indeed none of us have.
But what is surprising is not that we are seeing the wanton murder of police officers, but rather that it has been so long in coming. (I know my one Facebook friend who is an officer — are there others? — will find the sentiment just expressed offensive, so I will note that I not only do not condone what is happening, I unequivocally condemn it; an unprovoked attack on any police officer is an attack upon all of us, and upon the fabric of our society. But here's the thing — the weft and warp of our society are visibly separating.)
There are those who say that the widely circulated videos of the murder of African American civilians by police — and there is no other word for the deaths we have seen in most of those videos — and the demonstrations by #BlackLivesMatter are "responsible" for the murder of police officers.
They are "responsible" for those deaths in the same way that the reporting of the words of Donald Trump are "responsible" for some of us calling him a fascist: Those videos have pulled back a curtain long hiding the ugliest of truths, largely only known to those with dark skin; in many places, in many ways, the same police we were taught in elementary school are our friends are part of an army of occupation, enforcers of a kind of social apartheid.
When I was a reporter at Newsday, on Long Island, I used to hear our national editor, Les Payne, one of America's leading journalists, who is African American, tell stories of "driving while black." I won't say that I didn't believe him, for I had never known him to prevaricate about anything. But the descriptions of his encounters with my "friends" the police were so far from my own experience that I had trouble relating to them.
Even when I saw the broadcast and rebroadcast of the brutal, savage beating of Rodney King, I still wondered, "What did he do to deserve that?" And then some genius decided to put video cameras in cell phones and the floodgates of truth were opened wide.
We've all seen the videos; we've all read the stories. If we have a shred of honesty within us we know that being a black male in America can, in and of itself, be a life-threatening condition. If we have a shred of honesty within us we know that, in countless predominantly white communities all across America, there are police officers who believe they have the right, perhaps they believe they have the duty, to treat African Americans, and especially young African American men, in ways that would horrify those same police officers if they saw their own family members being treated that way.
What is shocking about the murder of police officers by deranged African American men — with legally obtained, ubiquitously available, high power, military weaponry, is not that these murders are occurring, but that their coming has taken so many decades. What happened in Dallas, what happened in Baton Rouge, was not "caused" by any group exercising its constitutional rights to protest, to speak out about certain ugly realities in our society, nor has it been "caused" by the kudzu-like spread of video cameras across the land. It has been caused by truth revealed. It has been caused by the behavior of men and women whom those innocent, dead, police officers would call their "brothers."
We caused those deaths, by our inaction, by our acquiescence in the maintenance of a social structure, by our active or passive maintenance of a national fabric that not only allowed, but supported the behavior that has inevitably brought us to the ugly place in which we now find ourselves.
We will be repeatedly told this week by those celebrating the ascendancy of America's first fascist candidate for President, that it is time to restore "law and order" in America. Indeed it is; for everyone; everywhere; in every way.
B. D. Colen is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former medical writer, editor, and columnist for the Washington Post and Newsday, who teaches science journalism and documentary photography at MIT. Colen pioneered the coverage of bioethics in the main stream media, covered the AIDS epidemic from its recognized beginning in 1981, and has written numerous books on medically related subjects.
Richard Prince's Journal-isms originates from Washington. It began in print before most of us knew what the internet was, and it would like to be referred to as a "column." Any views expressed in the column are those of the person or organization quoted and not those of any other entity.
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