Rush Limbaugh Flees Hurricane He Dismissed

Richard Prince

PublishedSeptember 10, 2017

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Roker Scolded Radio Host for Calling Storm ‘Hype’
NAHJ Report Sees Little Progress on Evening News
Eric Bolling Out, Charles Payne Back at Fox
38 Ebony Freelancers Seek $70,000 in Back Pay
UNC Editor: DACA Students Still Welcome on Staff
‘Additional Hoops’ Asian American Journalists Face
Editorials Debate Statues of Rizzo, Foster, Columbus
Sessions Wrong in Argument for Police Military Gear
Short Takes

Al Roker Scolded Radio Host for Calling Storm ‘Hype’

“After spending much of this week telling his listeners that Hurricane Irma was fake news, Rush Limbaugh [has] fled his home base in Palm Beach, Florida, in anticipation of landfall,” Lindsay Kimble reported Friday for People magazine.

NAHJ Report Sees Little Progress on Evening News

The “neglect of the coverage of Latinos” has “remained practically frozen in time or has worsened,” according to a study released Friday at the convention of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, meeting as part of the Excellence in Journalism conference in Anaheim, Calif.

The study, by retired professor Federico Subervi, a fomer NAHJ board member, analyzed how “the national television half-hour evening network news programs on ABC, CBS, NBC, and the one-hour evening news program on CNN covered Latinos and Latino issues in the years 2008-2014.”

It said, “Albeit Latinos represent a population of over 54 million that now surpasses 17 percent of the U.S. national total, stories about Latinos and Latino issues constitute less [than] .78 percent of the news in the studied networks.

“This percentage is a meager .41 percent regarding stories exclusively about Latinos.

“Moreover, that coverage continues to remain significantly focused on Latinos as people with problems or who cause problems.

“In addition to the counting of stories and their topics, other measures of that coverage — which included minutes per story, placement of stories, number and balance of sources, among others — also showed little variation from previous similar content analyses.

“Meanwhile, the participation of Latinos as anchors, co-anchors or reporters of Latino stories also remains scarce and with little or no change from decades past. . . .”

The scarcity of Latinos might have diminished somewhat since the study, dated 2015.

ABC News in March of 2015 named Cecilia Vega and Tom Llamas anchors of the weekend edition of “World News Tonight,” for example. Jose Diaz-Balart was named in 2016 to anchor the Saturday evening edition of “NBC Nightly News.”

And in a 2015 interview with Journal-isms when he officially became anchor of “NBC Nightly News,” Lester Holt named Jacob Rascon and Miguel Almaguer as among “our go-to rock-star correspondents. Any one of them could be in line the next time that [anchor] job opens up,” Holt said.

NBC pledged to increase its diversity as a condition of NBCUniversal’s merger with Comcast, which won approval from government regulators in 2011.

Subervi’s report conceded that NBC benefited from its affiliation and collaboration with Spanish-language TV network Telemundo. But, it continued, “CNN, in contrast, is worse given that it has almost an hour worth of nightly news in which Latinos could be covered significantly better. As for ABC and CBS, the patterns of coverage are not only limited, but practically unchanged in comparison to what was observed decades ago. . . . “

The report concluded: “Previous NAHJ commissioned studies akin to this one have invariably been critical of the networks’ news coverage of Latinos, while also expressing a desire to help those media outlets improve their coverage of that community and hire more Latino journalists.

“Those reports were then followed by press releases with highlights of the findings, and occasional brief presentations by the authors of the reports (usually at NAHJ conventions). To this author’s knowledge, no action plans were developed and carried through to bring about prompt, positive change. If specific plans were put into place, the findings of this seven-year study suggest that the findings and recommendations of the NAHJ studies or efforts to change the networks’ modus operandi, may have ‘fallen on deaf ears,’ or simply ignored by the decision-makers at the networks.

“Therefore, the first recommendation of this report is a call for advocacy that promotes, encourages, or somehow actually leads to positive change. Such an advocacy role certainly should be on the agenda of the NAHJ leadership and should also be embraced by other national Latino and non-Latino organizations. It is far beyond time that the networks not only acknowledge their coverage patterns but also and most importantly develop internal assessments and training programs [that] will produce more inclusive, reliable and balanced news about Latinos and Latino issues. . . .”

CCNMA: Latino Journalists of California: CCNMA NAHJ MOU Timeline and Corrections on NAHJ claims

National Association of Hispanic Journalists: NAHJ and Latino Media, Communication Scholar Brings Back Study of Analysis of Coverage on Latino and Latino Issues

Stephanie Tsoflias Siegel, TV Spy: Annual Journalism Conference Overshadowed by Hurricane Irma

Eric Bolling Out, Charles Payne Back at Fox

“Sexual harassment investigations at Fox News had on-air hosts coming and going on Friday,” Stephen Battaglio reported Friday for the Los Angeles Times.

“The network has cut loose Eric Bolling, who was suspended on Aug. 5, and has also canceled his daily program ‘Fox News Specialists.’

“The law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, investigated allegations that Bolling used his cellphone to send unsolicited photos of male genitalia to current and former female colleagues at the network. The firm has been handling harassment claims at the 21st Century Fox unit.

“Fox News Channel is canceling the ‘Specialists,’ and Eric Bolling and Fox have agreed to part ways amicably,” a Fox News spokesperson said in a statement. ‘We thank Eric for his 10 years of service to our loyal viewers and wish him the best of luck.’

“Earlier Friday, Fox News confirmed that Fox Business host Charles Payne is returning to his job at the network after he was cleared in an internal investigation of sexual harassment claims lodged by a female political analyst who was a frequent guest on his program.

“A Fox News representative confirmed that the company’s review of the allegations against Payne has been completed and that he would return to his nightly program ‘Making Money’ on Friday night.

“Bolling’s program, ‘Fox News Specialists’ was to have its final airing Friday. His co-hosts, Kat Timpf and Eboni Williams, will remain with Fox News as contributors. An hourlong newscast will fill the 5 p.m. Eastern hour starting Monday. . . .”

38 Ebony Freelancers Seek $70,000 in Back Pay

“A group of 38 Ebony freelancers filed a lawsuit against the magazine Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court, claiming they are collectively owed more than $70,000 for their work,” Robert Channick reported Wednesday for the Chicago Tribune.

“The plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Ebony Media and its owner, Texas-based private equity firm CVG Group, include writers, photographers, videographers and graphic designers, all of whom are represented by the National Writers Union.

“The freelancers were ‘regular contributors’ to both Ebony and co-owned Jet magazine, but the publisher ‘failed and/or refused’ to pay the amounts due for their work, according to the lawsuit.

“ ‘They had contracts to provide content or services, did that, and weren’t paid,’ said Joshua File, a Chicago-based attorney representing the freelancers. . . .”.

“Michael Gibson, co-founder and chairman of CVG Group, in June blamed the unpaid freelance invoices on an accounting error, and he pledged to pay everyone ‘100 percent’ of what was owed by the first week in July. . . .”

Gibson told Journal-isms by email Friday, “Ebony has no comment on the legal matter.”

Asked about personnel changes, he said, “we will have an update on Ebony in the next couple of weeks. “

Ernest Owens, Morgan Global Journalism Review: A Journalist Stands Up for Unpaid Freelancers (Aug. 31)

E. R. Shipp, Morgan Global Journalism Review: Ebony’s Still Here (Sept. 1)

UNC Editor: DACA Students Still Welcome on Staff

“The only requirements I have for people wanting to join The Daily Tar Heel are that they work hard, are willing to learn about journalism and contribute to the nearly 125-year-old mission to accurately report the news,” Tyler Fleming, editor-in-chief of the Tar Heel, student newspaper at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, wrote Wednesday.

“If you have those three things, our editing staff can teach the rest.

“We welcomed over 100 new writers yesterday, at the same time that Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Trump Administration would be suspending DACA — an act which helped thousands of students obtain a degree of higher education.

“As the editor of this newspaper and leader of a student organization, I cannot remain silent as powers well above my own aim to limit the people who could potentially work at this paper or attend UNC.

“As long as I am editor of this paper, we will be a home for anyone wanting to tell valuable stories, take photos, design layouts or write opinions — regardless of background, orientation or any other identity.

“I am speaking for myself as the leader of this paper in defense of the values I hold most dear about this paper: an educational mission, a drive to give voice to ignored or marginalized groups and the willingness to be controversial when the time calls for it. . . .”

Jarvis DeBerry, NOLA.com | Times-Picayune: DACA’s end will give ‘dreamers’ nightmares

Caitlin Dickerson, New York Times “Race/Related”: For DACA Recipients, Losing Protection and Work Permits Is Just the Start

Sam Fulwood III, ThinkProgress.org: By ending DACA, Trump is trying to appease his base while leaving room to blame others

Keegan Hamilton, vice.com: ICE Was Going After Dreamers Even Before Trump Killed DACA

Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: Trump says ‘rest easy,’ but DACA recipients need more than a promise

Plain Dealer, Cleveland: The end of DACA or a new beginning? Editorial Board Roundtable

Sheryl Posadas, Latino Reporter: Trump’s DACA decision throws NAHJ members into limbo

Laura Washington, Chicago Sun-Times: What about sanctuary for us?

‘Additional Hoops’ Asian American Journalists Face

“The issue, when it comes to Asian-Americans and journalism, is whether we count when people talk about diversity,” Michael Luo, a former New York Times metro-desk editor now overseeing the New Yorker magazine’s website, told David Uberti of splinternews.com.

“This was an issue at The Times. The Times was making a big push around diversity as I was leaving, and still is now. But one question that a lot of Asian-Americans at The Times had was, “Are Asian-Americans part of that diversity push?”

“We were doing better, in terms of number of reporters and editors, than African-Americans and Latinos, specifically. But the biggest beats at the newspaper are overwhelmingly white: Covering the presidential campaign, the White House, Congress.

“When I was on Capitol Hill, I was one of the only Asian-Americans in that place. When I was on presidential buses and planes, there weren’t very many Asian-Americans. One of the things we were trying to make sure of at The Times was that Asian-American representation was still an important concern.

“Do you think that’s how it permeates into coverage as well? Not being counted?” Uberti asked Luo in the Aug. 31 interview.

“The thing with Asian-Americans is this sense of being the other — not quite feeling like we belong. That’s very real. Jay Caspian Kang had this great piece in The Times magazine about a hazing death at an Asian-American fraternity. He wrote about how being Asian-American is a bit of an artificial construct — that different people within that category often have very little in common, other than a shared experience of discrimination. It’s obviously a different kind of discrimination than what African-Americans or Latinos have experienced, but it’s definitely there.

“I moved a bunch of times as a kid, but I always lived in these mostly white suburban areas. And even though I was captain of the soccer team or had a lot of friends, that lingering sense of otherness was always there. That’s a social feeling.

“When I first started in a newsroom, I was part of this minority training program at The Los Angeles Times. And a big thing they taught us was that the work is important, but so is how you navigate the newsroom. It’s like any other social ecosystem. There is an in-crowd. And there has always been, for me at least, this nagging sense that, as an Asian-American, there’s just additional hoops you have to jump through. I don’t want to overstate it. But it makes a difference when you’re building relationships and trying to navigate an organization. . . .”

Editorials Debate Statues of Rizzo, Foster, Columbus

“We applaud the Dallas City Council for its brave and historic decision to finally remove Confederate memorials from this city,” the Dallas Morning News editorialized Wednesday.

“It was important for city leaders to make a strong statement that these tributes to our country’s racist past no longer belong in our public spaces. They voted to immediately remove one of the most visible of these towering relics — the Robert E. Lee statue in Lee Park. Another — the Confederate War Memorial near City Hall — shouldn’t be far behind. . . .”

The editorial was followed by a temporary restraining order preventing the removal of the monuments, lifted a day later, and a column by Leona Allen, a native of the city, member of the editorial board and an African American.

“What those statues represent is not what I want my city to stand for,” she wrote. “I love this place because I’ve experienced the good of people of all races here, seen them working together to make this city better. There are serious problems that need to be addressed. . . .”

Confederate statues were not the only ones opinion writers were denouncing or defending, though. Elsewhere, debates took place over those of Christopher Columbus, Stephen Foster and former Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo.

Ross Andersen, the Atlantic: Nature’s Disastrous ‘Whitewashing’ Editorial

Michelle Boorstein, Washington Post: Washington National Cathedral to remove stained glass windows honoring Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson

Henry Brean, Las Vegas Review-Journal: Confederate monuments fight prompts move to rename Nevada’s Jeff Davis Peak

Derrick Darby, Detroit Free Press: Confederate monuments are visible, but racial injustice is embedded in American history

Editorial, Boston Herald: Goodbye, Columbus

Editorial, Buffalo News: What to do with statues celebrating flawed men is a question for our times (Sept. 1)

Editorial, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Keep them there: Let Stephen Foster and ‘Uncle Ned’ remain in public view

Editorial, Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch: McAuliffe gives extremists veto power over your right to free speech

Christine M. Flowers, Philadelphia Daily News: Rizzo’s not the only important Italian that America wants to vilify

James Ragland, Dallas Morning News: Right now, Dallas is showing us how not to remove a Confederate statue

Fabiola Santiago, Miami Herald: No city should have to live with a street named after a Ku Klux Klan founder (Aug. 29)

Sessions Wrong in Argument for Police Military Gear

“The Trump administration made false assertions to justify an executive order expanding police forces’ access to military equipment such as tanks and grenade launchers,” Isaac Arnsdorf reported Sept. 1 for ProPublica.”Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced . . . that President Trump would make defensive gear available to police again by undoing a policy from the Obama administration. Trump then signed an executive order whose title emphasized that branding: ‘Restoring State, Tribal, and Local Law Enforcement’s Access to Life-Saving Equipment and Resources.’

“ ‘He is rescinding restrictions from the prior administration that limited your agencies’ ability to get equipment through federal programs, including life-saving gear like Kevlar vests and helmets and first-responder and rescue equipment like what they’re using in Texas right now,’ Sessions said in the speech.

“But that’s not what the Obama administration’s restrictions did, according to documentation from a unit inside of Sessions’ own Justice Department, the Bureau of Justice Assistance.

“Kevlar vests were never subject to any restrictions. Most helmets weren’t, either. Riot helmets (defined as those with shields over the face), Humvees and helicopters that are sometimes used in rescue missions, were still available to police forces as long as they explained why they needed them and certified that they had protocols and training in place so officers would use them safely. That requirement was dropped for riot helmets last October.

“ ‘Kevlar vests were never on any lists. That part is simply lying about what we did,’ said Roy Austin, who worked on the Obama policy as a deputy assistant to the president for the Office of Urban Affairs, Justice and Opportunity. ‘He was being untruthful about helmets as well.’ . . .”

Editorial, News & Record, Greensboro, N.C.: Do police really need tanks and grenades?

Editorial, Philadelphia Inquirer: Why [Police Commissioner Richard] Ross must speak out when police are accused of racism

Adeshina Emmanuel, Columbia Journalism Review: Q&A: Andrea J. Ritchie on missing narratives around police violence, incarceration (Aug. 31)

Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: When police are equal-opportunity offenders

Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald: Wish black lives mattered as much to this cop as football does

Short Takes

“The future for Richard Prince’s Journal-isms is looking much brighter now than it did than 18 months ago, when Prince was notified the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education would no longer provide institutional support for the influential column that is a must-read for employers, employees, students and consumers,” begins one of the articles in the digitally relaunched Morgan Global Journalism Review, edited by E.R. Shipp at Morgan State University School of Global Journalism & Communication. Among the other pieces: “Herb Boyd on Detroit: Black v. Hollywood” “Black Press on Exhibit in National African-American Museum” and “Black Journalists Navigate Bumpy Trump Landscape.” Streaming headlines keep the site fresh. Shipp is an associate professor and journalist in residence at the school.

About “three-quarters of nonwhites (74%) get news on social media sites, up from 64% in 2016,” Elisa Shearer and Jeffrey Gottfried reported Thursday for the Pew Research Center. “ This growth means that nonwhites are now more likely than whites to get news while on social media. . . .”

“FCC Chairman Ajit Pai today announced the appointment of 31 members to the Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment (ACDDE), which will meet for the first time on Monday, Sept. 25,” Mark K. Miller reported Friday for TVNewsCheck. Miller also wrote, “Pai has designated Julia Johnson, president of NetCommunications, to be ACDDE chair, and Diane Sutter, president-CEO of ShootingStar Broadcasting, as vice chair. . . .”

“Our viewers on the Gulf Coast have long known how incredible Chief Meteorologist Alan Sealls is at his job,” J.B. Biunno and the staff of WKRG-TV in Mobile, Ala., reported on Thursday. “. . . . A post titled ‘Best weatherman ever, very articulate and educational’ by user ‘Stellarnan7' became the top trending post in the country this morning on Reddit, the fourth most-visited website in the world. . . . “

“Television reporter Tamron Hall, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a strip-club boss and a model whom Jesse Jackson Jr. has acknowledged was a ‘social acquaintance’ — are among 12 people Sandi Jackson is seeking to make part of her intensifying divorce case in Washington, D.C., new court filings show,” Tina Sfondeles reported Wednesday for the Chicago Sun-Times.

“The Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) issued a new tool for newsrooms covering Indigenous communities: a Bingo board,” the association announced on Thursday. “Bingo: Reporting in Indian Country Edition was developed by NAJA in partnership with High Country News to bring attention to cliches and stereotypes that often appear in stories focused on tribal affairs in the United States. . . .”

Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley began a weekday hourlong radio show at 6 p.m. Tuesday with Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert as her guest. The Free Press reported that Riley “will interview guests, analyze current events and parse local and national issues with local and regional leaders.” The show is online at 910amsuperstation.com.

“Inspiration porn . . . often focuses on the altruism of those who help people with disabilities,” Wendy Lu wrote Tuesday for Columbia Journalism Review. She also wrote, “Perhaps it’s not that inspirational articles about people with disabilities shouldn’t be written at all. Rather, we should do our best to cover disability communities using the same fundamentals of journalism we would use to cover any other group: Get to know your sources well, consider the many different angles of a single story, and find out how your story can serve readers and subjects alike beyond simply ‘inspiring’ them.. . .”

“Univision Communications and multicast network Justice Network said today that they have partnered to bring the diginet to 11 Univision markets,” Mark K. Miller reported Wednesday for TVNewsCheck. “The addition of Justice to Univision’s subchannels adds 25% of the United States, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco and Miami. . . . The societal initiative recently hit a milestone with the news that more than 100 missing children and 100 most-wanted fugitives that had been featured on the network have been returned home safe or captured. . . .”

“As more stations across the country add news in the mid-afternoon, Lexington’s WLEX is doing away with its 4 p.m. newscast and replacing it with the Canadian lifestyle series Cityline,” Chris Ariens reported Thursday for TVSpy, referring to the Kentucky city. He also wrote, “Cityline has been on the air for more than 30 years in Canada and will be syndicated in the U.S. beginning this fall in markets including Chicago, Kansas City, and Birmingham. Tracy Moore hosts the series from Toronto which includes panel discussions on fashion, parenting, food and beauty. . . .”

“Various unions have lined up against the Sinclair/Tribune merger, concerned, among other things, that the meld’s synergies will mean job losses,” Broadcasting & Cable reported on Sept. 1. “Asking the FCC to deny the $3.9 billion merger were the Communications Workers of America, the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians and The News Guild. . . .”

“A series of initiatives that have emerged in Brazil in recent years have sought to increase the presence of women and experts of color as journalistic sources,” Carolina de Assis reported for the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. De Assis also wrote, “since 2014, initiatives such as Entreviste uma Mulher (Interview a woman), Entreviste um Negro (Interview a black person), Mulheres Também Sabem (Women also know) and Intelectuais Negras (Black women intellectuals) have created databases with names, biographies and contact information for experts on various subjects who journalists can consult when searching for sources other than white men. . . .”

Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte “ordered police on Tuesday to let journalists join raids in his crackdown on illegal drugs to disprove growing allegations of extrajudicial killings, but warned reporters they could get shot,” Jim Gomez reported for the Associated Press.

“Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called for more protection for journalists and more efforts to combat impunity when it met Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos last week, while President Santos regretted that Colombia was ranked no better than 129th in RSF’s World Press Freedom Index,” the press freedom group reported on Wednesday.

Reporters Without Borders said Wednesday it “condemns attempts by the Iranian judicial system and intelligence services to influence the Persian-language sections of international media outlets by putting pressure on Iranian journalists based abroad and on their families still in Iran. . . .”

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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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Journal-isms is originally published on journal-isms.com. Reprinted on The Root by permission.