Front-Page Immigration Battle

White House Arranges Access for Black, Hispanic Media

Members of the White House press corps do in fact complain about access and the thin-skinned nature of some White House aides, as Politico reported last week, but to a small group of journalists of color, there is at least one saving grace: For the last year, the White House has arranged on-the-record sessions for them to talk with key administration figures.

The sessions are arranged by media aides Corey A. Ealons, director of African American media, and Luis Miranda, director of Hispanic media.

"The black press doesn't always get the access that we have asked for," April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks told Journal-isms. "It's a good way to help balance the situation."

Ryan is quick to point out that mainstream network correspondents and anchors have far greater access — "a lot of network people have cell phone numbers and home numbers" of key administration figures; "it's not fair and it's not balanced."

But because of what she learned in the meetings, Ryan said, she was able to follow up on a complaint by John Boyd, head of the National Black Farmers Association, that the administration had not earmarked money to pay a $1.25 billion discrimination settlement with the farmers. On Wednesday, she took the question to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and advanced the story: "There’s legislative and there’s financing decisions that are being looked through," Gibbs said, as Ryan wrote on her blog.

On Thursday, Michael H. Cottman of BlackAmericaWeb.com wrote a column based on a session with Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to President Obama, in which she "suggested that the president is indeed pressing ahead with a broad agenda for black Americans — but is simply not blowing his own horn."

"The White House sessions with President Obama's Cabinet Members and senior advisors, like Valerie Jarrett, have given us a glimpse into the president's thinking when it comes to lobbying for legislation and creating policies designed to improve the quality of life for black Americans," Cottman told Journal-isms via e-mail. He said he had attended every session. "We ask the hard questions, and, for the most part, we get straightforward answers. I think it's critical for African American journalists to have access to White House advisors so we can raise issues that black folks in the community are raising with us."

The black group also includes Cynthia Gordy of Essence magazine and James White of the weekly Washington Informer. "We extend invitations to the African American journalists in the area who cover the White House including NNPA, BET, and The Root.com, among others," Ealons said. Miranda declined to discuss the Hispanic group.

Gordy agreed with Cottman. "The roundtables have been a great opportunity for having extended conversations about the challenges facing many African-Americans, and what the administration is doing to address them. Having access to Cabinet-level officials, to talk about the Black community and the thinking that goes into their policy decisions, is invaluable," she said in an e-mail.

"That said, Black reporters still have to be tenacious, along with the rest of the press corps, for access to the President and other exclusives. It’s still very competitive. But about once a month, there’s a block of time to discuss issues specific to the communities on which we report — the education achievement gap, employment disparities, health disparities, the Black farmers settlement — and that’s been really helpful."

Ealons said, "We'll keep working to open doors and increase access for all members of the media."

NBC News Wins NABJ's "Best Practices Award"

NBC News and its local stations have been selected for the annual Best Practices Award of the National Association of Black Journalists, and Paula Madison, NBC Universal executive vice president, will receive its Legacy Award, the association announced on Thursday.

"NBC News and its owned and operated stations nationwide have done tremendous work promoting diversity in its management positions as well as in its coverage. NABJ has championed such issues in news for 35 years," NABJ President Kathy Times said in an announcement.

The award comes as good news for a network whose parent company, NBC Universal, is seeking approval for a merger with Comcast ‚Äî one that has been opposed by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and sharply questioned by some members of Congress, in part because they said both companies had insufficient diversity in programming and personnel.

However, Bob Butler, NABJ vice president/broadcast, said in the release, "According to NABJ's annual survey of broadcast news management, NBC Universal contains the most African-American Vice Presidents, General Managers, News Directors, Senior and Executive Producers in its Network News Division and in its owned-and-operated stations than any broadcast or cable network in the country."

Madison, a longtime NABJ member and a board member of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, "was also the first person to hold the position of executive vice president of diversity at NBC Universal and is a member of its board of directors," NABJ noted.

"Throughout her career Madison has promoted the fair inclusion and representation of minorities in the media. She has built a reputation as a strong leader who is committed to quality journalism and community involvement."

In 2007, Steve Capus, president of NBC News, won the Ida B. Wells Award  from NABJ and the National Conference of Editorial Writers, in part for his actions after radio host Don Imus described the Rutgers women's basketball team in racist and sexist terms. Capus ended MSNBC's simulcasting of the Imus show from CBS-owned WFAN radio in New York. CBS pulled the plug on Imus the next day.

AP Objected to Making Paterson E-Mails Public

"The Associated Press, normally a vigorous defender of sunshine laws, appears to have lobbied behind the scenes to quash the release of e-mails that circulated among its reporters and press aides for New York Gov. David Paterson under New York's Freedom of Information Law (FOIL)," John Cook, senior national reporter/blogger for Yahoo! News, wrote on Friday.

"I reported yesterday that Hearst Corporation, which owns the Albany Times-Union, was threatening to object to a FOIL request I filed earlier this year seeking e-mails among Paterson's former communications director Peter Kauffmann, his former press secretary Marissa Shorenstein, and representatives of a variety of news organizations. The Hearst Corporation's justification for that stance was that the identities of confidential sources could have been revealed in the e-mails — a highly unusual position for a news organization that usually fights on the other side of freedom-of-information disputes.

"Late yesterday, the governor's office denied my request (and a similar one filed by the Columbia Journalism Review), on the grounds that New York's shield law for journalists prevented the e-mails' release. Since then, I've learned that in recent weeks the governor's office alerted all the news organizations whose reporters' e-mails would have been released under my request and gave them an opportunity to object. Among the outlets raising such objections was the AP — and the wire service also refuses to deny a report that it took the extra measure of bringing in an outside attorney to shut down my request."

Hispanic Journalists to Honor Suarez, Campos

"Veteran journalists Ray Suarez, senior correspondent for PBS’ 'The NewsHour,' and Gloria Campos, anchorwoman for WFAA-TV, Dallas’ ABC affiliate, have been selected for induction into the Hall of Fame of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists," NAHJ announced on Friday.

". . . A seasoned newsman with more than 35 years in the business, Suarez joined 'The NewsHour' in 1999 following a six-year stint as host of National Public Radio’s nationwide call-in news program, 'Talk of the Nation.' He also hosts 'Destination Casa Blanca,' the weekly program on Latino politics, for HITN-TV.

" . . . After earning a degree in journalism from Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, Gloria Campos landed a job at KGBT-TV in her hometown of Harlingen, Texas. She joined WFAA in 1984, where she became Dallas’ first Latino anchor.

"Campos also hosts and serves as co-producer of 'Wednesday’s Child,' an adoption feature segment, which helps find permanent homes for Texas’ foster children.

Chicago Magazine Profiles "Always On" Roland Martin

Roland Martin "has some choice words for major media players," according to a profile of the multiplatform journalist by Cate Plys in the April 29–May 5 issue of Time Out Chicago. "They all go to the same parties, they all talk to each other . . . so what happens is they now decide that ‘Oh no, this is what’s important.’”

The profile of the CNN, "Tom Joyner Morning Show," Creators Syndicate and TV One contributor also quotes Chicago columnist Laura Washington saying of Martin's time as editor of the Chicago Defender, “He was astute in using [the Defender] to raise his own profile.”

The piece also includes this anecdote about an interview Martin gave to Diann Burns for Burns’ website, diannburnslive.com:

"After about 90 minutes of softball questions, Burns gets to the meat of the interview: She wants Martin’s take on the floundering Chicago-based Ebony/Jet publishing empire. They spar for nearly a half hour, somehow agreeing and disagreeing simultaneously, until Martin finally says Ebony/Jet gave its competition a ten-year head start because now-deceased founder John Johnson wasn’t interested in the Web.

"Bingo. Burns instantly wraps the interview in her signature low, silky broadcast voice, then yells, 'I just want everybody to sign a piece of paper that says it took me three hours for him to say in one long sentence what I was trying to get him to say two hours ago!'

"Peace is made before he exits. 'I gotta mess with her!' he chuckles."

Gates Piece on Reparations Stirs Hornet's Nest

If Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. intended to stir controversy with an op-ed piece on reparations and slavery, he did it with his April 23 piece in the New York Times, "Ending the Slavery Blame-Game."

Gates asserted that, "While we are all familiar with the role played by the United States and the European colonial powers like Britain, France, Holland, Portugal and Spain, there is very little discussion of the role Africans themselves played."

He argued that "thanks to an unlikely confluence of history and genetics — the fact that he is African-American and president — Barack Obama has a unique opportunity to reshape the debate over one of the most contentious issues of America’s racial legacy: reparations, the idea that the descendants of American slaves should receive compensation for their ancestors’ unpaid labor and bondage."

Pan-Africanist columnist Ron Daniels said he was urging like-minded scholars to write about the Gates piece, and he did so himself in the strongest terms, citing those of similar philosophy as he attacked Gates in his "Talking Points" column:

"When leading scholars like Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Dr. Leonard Jeffries, Dr. Charshee McIntyre, Dr. James Turner, Sonia Sanchez, Dr. [Molefi] Kete Asante, Dr. Maulana Karenga and a host of others were contending that the goal of Black Studies/Africana Studies must be 'education for liberation,' it was Professor Gates who sided with the academic establishment in castigating this approach. Indeed, he became the 'darling' of conservative White academia by denouncing African-centered Black Studies programs as 'separatist' enterprises, lacking in scholastic rigor and objectivity. It was also from this perspective that he advanced the notion of African culpability for enslavement in a television documentary."

Daniels told Journal-isms his Institute for the Black World 21st Century "is working with a group of scholar/activists who are preparing a major statement for release in next 10 days."

• BVX staff, AOL Black Voices: Race, Blame & Reparations -- Why Henry Louis Gates Jr. is Wrong
• Ta'Nehsi Coates blog, the Atlantic: Inverse Nationalism
• Stanley Crouch, theRoot.com: Gates' Cold Shower on the Reparations Debate
• Max Fisher, theAtlanticwire: Henry Louis Gates Sets Off Slavery Reparations Debate
  
• Field Negro: The re-education of Skippy Gates.
• Eric Foner, Herb Boyd, Lolita Buckner Inniss, letters to the New York Times: Africa‚Äôs Role in the U.S. Slave Trade
• Michael A. Gomez, theRoot.com: When It Comes to the Slave Trade, All Guilt Is Not Equal
  
• Abdul Arif Muhammad, globalgrind.com: The Mis-Education of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
  
• Boyce Watkins, theGrio.com: Henry Louis Gates lets US off the hook in 'slavery blame game'
  
• Jack White, theRoot.com: Reparations? Forget About It!

Black Blog Sites "Educate While They Gossip"

"While Sandra Bullock's post-Oscar split from husband Jesse James may be the biggest celebrity news in the last month (or two), it's probably not surprising it's the adopted brown baby that really got the African-American blog sites going." Allison Samuels wrote Friday in a Web story for Newsweek.

"The funny thing is, black Web sites such as MediaTakeOut.com, Bossip, and Young, Black and Fabulous have been following Bullock for years. Part of the reason is her connection to the black community. 'They know about her support for victims of Katrina and Haiti so they care about what happens to her, which we thought about when we gave her coverage,' says Fred Mwangaguhunga, owner of the black entertainment site MediaTakeOut.com. But part of it is that black blogs look at the world differently than the often segregated mainstream. (How many black faces did you see on this year's Vanity Fair Oscar issue?) 'Sandra Bullock's story about her marriage got a lot of pickup from our readers,' said Mwangaguhunga, whose site gets 700,000 hits per day and nearly 6 million views per month. "Her story of [marital] betrayal hit a nerve with our female readers for sure. It wasn't a race thing because everyone can relate to that type of betrayal.

". . . Black blogs are, in many ways, more serious-minded than their mainstream counterparts. Sites such as MediaTakout.com care very much that its readers are primarily ages 18 to 34. The editors feel an obligation to educate while they gossip, running items on White House policies, the murder rate in Chicago — hardly news lite.

But, she adds, with understated justification, "Don't be fooled — it's not all high road for these sites."