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| Here are past-weeks' Diversity Tips from 2007. (2006 Archives can be found here.) A generation later: Maynard Institute recognizes journalist who saw value in promoting race in news
The Maynard Institute is celebrating 30 years of preparing multicultural newsroom leaders by recognizing some who have been through its training programs. One is Ronnie Agnew of the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss. His position as executive editor would have been impossible years ago when the paper steadfastly supported segregation. Agnew, one of nine children born to a sharecropper, is black. A native of Saltillo, Miss., Agnew appreciated the power of the Clarion-Ledger's voice. He also knew well that it had used that power to keep things as they were -- separate. To see him standing at the paper's helm is a visible sign of how much things are changing. And Agnew keeps looking to bring more voices to the newspaper. In an article Jackie Jones wrote for the Maynard Institute News, Agnew said, "You need various viewpoints around the table including age, gender, even religion, I think, because we're becoming a world of different voices." And how did Maynard help? Agnew told Jones that Maynard "put diversity in the forefront. The emphasis placed on diversity made me understand it was okay to bring your viewpoints to the table and, in fact, we should do it. If your race helps you bring new ideas to the table and make your newspaper a better place, then you should bring it. That was a very tangible thing." You can find the Maynard site at http://www.maynardije.org/. If you click on the image of the Maynard Institute News at the bottom of the page, you can download the issue with the full article about Agnew. Race perceptions only skin deep for one journalist
In America, skin color is one of our foremost and most immutable identifying factors. What do you do when that changes? Lee Thomas, an Emmy Award-winning broadcaster, was a feature/entertainment reporter in New York City when he found a few white spots on his scalp. The spots were the first vestiges of vitiligo, a skin disorder that is turning the African American white. Vitiligo destroys melanocytes, the cells that make pigment. He writes, "Even people who have known me for years avoid eye contact when they see my face without makeup for the first time." He has written about his experience in a book, "Turning White," and in a documentary. His book recounts how the disease -- and his decision to not wear makeup except when he was on the air -- made him a prisoner in his own home. When he ventured out, afraid of how he might be received, a little girl's innocent inquiry and concern about whether he was hurt helped him deal with the changes that vitiligo was putting him through. Thomas wrote, " I doubt the little girl or her mom realized what had just happened, but that little hand and that big heart dramatically transformed my outlook about going out in public. Right there in Holiday Market, down from the bread and Wheat Thins, next to the rice cakes and soup, I regained my freedom. I found myself comfortable outside in public again without any cover." The Turning White documentary will be live on the web at www.myfoxdetroit.com at 10:30 p.m. Nov 3 and 9:30 a.m. Nov. 4.
'English only,' no way for one reporter who insists bilingual was better
It was just a little thing.
Lewis Reining lives on the air. First it was the sounds of Motown. Then his father, a car nut, turned him on to National Public Radio's Car Talk. Garrison Keillor came next. Now, Lewis Reining's hero is Ira Glass, host of "This American Life." Reining, who lives in Virginia and who will turn 18 on Christmas Day, says he is different from others his age. He loves radio -- especially magazine-style shows -- and his peers listen mostly just to music. He'd like to change that. He says they are missing in-depth stories. His first big story was for WAMU 88.5 American University Radio in Washington, D.C. It was semi-autobiographical, as it was about bi-culturalism. And it forced Reining to consider his own identity. He concluded his report this way: "And when I started thinking about what it means to be bi-cultural, I realized that, if I were given the choice, I wouldn't want to be adopted by Asian parents. Now, it's not because I have anything against Asians, far from it. It's because having parents who look nothing like me is a constant reminder that I am different, I'm not just Korean, I'm not just Asian, not just American. I'm those and I'm so much more. Being Korean and having white parents give me one more way to celebrate my whole self. And for that, I'm grateful." Global link severedIn the face of a globalizing world, some journalism organizations are choosing to cut international coverage. KQED is among the latest.
The airwaves become a little less vibrant on Oct. 11. That will be the last broadcast of "Pacific Time," a nationally syndicated radio program produced by KQED. It is a casualty in the competition for limited resources. "Pacific Time" host K. Oanh Ha said, "The mission has been really to do reporting that connects the U.S. and Asia and to cover the Asian-American community. I think the connection stories are very important because it is a window into how our world is changing." "Pacific Time" reported on social networking in Korea, an American who took a circus to Samoa and how a coup plot hurt Hmong people in America. Having been born in Vietnam, Ha says that she is like 65 percent of Asians living in America. She embodies the issues she seeks to cover. Ha was not always a radio journalist. She was a newspaper journalist at the San Jose Mercury News just a year ago. She likes radio and says she has always been more enamored of the message than the medium. Come Oct. 11, she expects to be in the KQED newsroom. She will take with her the prism through which she sees the world. She hopes she can continue to do stories about lives that bridge the Pacific ocean.
Staying in touch Newspapers that want to stay in touch with their communities may do best when they put community members in charge of the papers -- like Gannett did in Guam
When Rindraty Celes Limtiaco accepted her appointment as president and publisher of Guam's Pacific Daily News late last month, she accepted a heavy responsibility. The announcement made waves throughout Micronesia. "Becoming publisher of this newspaper is a dream-come-true, Limtiaco wrote. "I am honored that Gannett has given me this opportunity, and I am humbled by the community's reaction, which has been very positive. "When I returned to Guam after college, I never expected to stay. I thought I would work a couple of years here, spend time with family and friends after being away for so long, and then move on to 'great' things. Instead, I learned that great things needed to be done right here at home. "There weren't many local journalists here at the time I started. There was a disconnect between the community and the media. I would hear about this all the time. So the mission became even bigger than just doing a good job as a PDN journalist, it became doing a good job as a Chamorro journalist - and growing future journalists who understood the island, its culture and the issues that are important to this community. It has happened, and that is a great thing. "There is much pride here at home in having a Chamorro publisher at the helm of the newspaper. I am honored that the community has received the news this way. In all honesty, I expected nothing less. The community has high expectations, but no higher than those I have for myself. I'm excited about what the future holds for our company and for my home."
There are a lot of metaphors to describe Elizabeth Atkins. You can think of her as living in two worlds. Or, as being a bridge between them. She is the light-skinned, blond daughter of a white father and a black mother. Her appearance and background have led to no end of questions. She treats them as opportunities to talk to people about race. "There is a trust that opens up after the initial suspicion," she says. As a journalist, author and speaker, Atkins tries to both explore and embody the complexities of race. It can happen in large ways or small ones like this: She recalls when she was a reporter at The Detroit News and went to the cafeteria for lunch. There, she said, as in lunchrooms across the country, people sat together in racial groups Atkins, the bridge, would sit with a black friend on one day and a white friend the next. On the third day, she would see the two of them sitting together. "Suddenly, we're all at the same table," Atkins said. You can find some of her work on her Web site at http://www.elizabethatkins.com/ Making it big in your hometown
Mary Sanchez has made it big in her hometown paper, the Kansas City Star, where she has been a reporter and is now a syndicated columnist. But how does she know she has made it big? Awards and recognition are nice, to be sure. It is nice to be a trailblazer, too, as the first Latino to be named to The Star's editorial board. But one of the biggest signs that Sanchez had made it came from a little girl. About 10 years ago, Sanchez was speaking to an elementary school with a large Latino population. When she had finished, a little girl with big eyes asked her, "Is your name Mary Sanchez?" Sanchez said that it was. The little girl said, "That's my name, too! Can I be a reporter too?" Mary Sanchez the journalist recalls telling Mary Sanchez the elementary school student, "Of course you can, my dear. You can be whatever you would like to be." Meeting someone from your own town and with your own name who has made it big can sure help show you the way.
Immigrant stories are our stories, as well
Immigrant stories are among the most powerful. And when David Ng told his at the Asian American Journalists Association banquet this month, it wrenched tears out of people who heard their own stories in his words. We will not tell the story. No one can tell it like Ng, executive editor of the New York Daily News. We simply want to bring it to light for those who did not have the good fortune to be in the room when he spoke so eloquently that people cried. The gist of the story is that a woman came to this country and with almost nothing -- not money, not friends, not English -- raised a family in a New York City tenement. It is how one of her children became the top editor of one of the nation's largest newspapers. That editor can only be Ng, of course. And although he is the only one who can tell that story, it belongs to all of us. We'll tempt you with a morsel of it: "I tell you my story not because of what it says about me -- but what it says about us, as Asians and as Americans because the truth of the matter is this: My story is our story." You can find Ng's story, as a recording or a transcript -- oh, and an important photo -- on the AAJA Web site at http://aaja.org/ Red ants never give up, and neither should people of color
Melissa Henry earned a master's degree in visual language and the written word at the University of Maryland, but wound up doing a lot of research for other people in Washington, D.C. She decided to return to home to Gallup, N.M. "I decided to make my own films and not just make pieces for other people." Once home, she branched into Web design and development to support her new company, Red Ant Productions. The logo is derived from a Navajo sand painting. Why Red Ant? "Red ants are everywhere where I grew up. Red ants are cool, and red ants are hard workers." Henry said someone could stamp out the red ants but they would just come back. Red Ant Productions, Inc., serves people in the Gallup and Albuquerque areas. Many feel, like the New Mexico Cancer Center, that it helps to bring a Native American perspective like Henry's to bear on communication issues. Another client is the Myaamia Foundation, which supports the Miami People's efforts to revitalize their culture and language. Once a languages is stamped out, a tribal identity can be lost. But, with Henry's help, the Miami plan to be all the way back. Just like a red ant. You can find Red Ant Productions, Inc. at http://www.red-ant.net/web.html
Roots of common-sense wisdom come from our elders
Alot of people turn to Michelle Singletary for financial advice. They do it in the Washington Post, in her e-mailed letters, her syndicated column, her books, personal appearances and, soon, her own show on XM radio. Singletary says the wellspring for her advice has been her grandmother. "Big Mama" raised Singletary and four brothers and sisters on nothing more than $13,000 a year and still managed to pay off her house and car. Singletary says "Big Mama" was as frugal with her words as she was with her money. Like grandmother, like granddaughter. Singletary tries to keep it simple and real, just as her grandmother did. She says, "black, white, young, old, Jewish, Christian -- we did not receive personal finance information in a personal way." With Big Mama's advice ringing in her head, Singletary tries "to dispel all the conventional wisdom people have about how to handle their money." In addition to developing a radio show, Singletary is now working on her third book, one that will combine faith and finances. Who knew that the woman who wrote out her budget on the back of an envelope was schooling a woman whose comon-sense journalism would help millions achieve financial independence. Singletary's Web site is at http://www.michellesingletary.com/
AAJA's J Camp provides a hopeful future for journalists
As seasoned journalists face the future with doubt, 42 young people fanned out across the country from Miami this week, fueled by faith. They were leaving J Camp, held seven times now, and designed to provide journalistic inspiration to high school students as they stand on the brink of college and career selections. J Camp is rooted in San Francisco, 2001, when Asian American Journalists Association leaders Neal Justin, Mark Angeles and Josh Freedom du Lac founded it. It lives on the commitment of foundations, local AAJA chapters and more than a dozen journalists who quietly donate their time and passion. Every year's group is special, of course, but this one was different for du Lac, who stepped out of his usual director's role and swapped logistical management for a role as teacher. He focused on seven students as they spun true stories of images, audio and text. At the closing reception, it was clear that du Lac had gained as much from J Camp as the students. He recalled getting the news when one of J Camp's nearly 300 graduates had landed a big journalism job. The co-founder turned teacher spoke reflected the investment of all the mentors when he said, "I feel like a father when he hears great news about his kids."
'Dirty laundry' can be good for diversity
The relationship between Detroit's African-American people and more recent arrivals from Africa can be fractious. History and socio-economic stratification can get in the way of hoped-for racial solidarity. When Erin Chan, a reporter at the Detroit Free Press, set out to tell the story, she recalls a photographer telling her she was airing some dirty laundry, not to be done publicly. Chan interviewed people who traced recent roots to Nigeria or century-old roots to the American South. She encountered people for whom slavery was a familial legacy and those for whom it was a foreign concept. Chan believes they talked because she is neither African, nor African-American nor white. She is Chinese American. That, and the fact that she tried to approach the story with an open mind and respect, brought out the stories. "I think that people didn't feel like they had to filter as much when they talked to me, and they didn't have to be afraid of offending me. But I thought they could be comfortable with me because I was a person of color." She knew, too, about communities that wrestle painfully with immigration, assimilation and harmony. She was nervous. Chan said it helped to have her stories vetted by co-workers who were African American or biracial or part of the African community. After it ran, responses told her that, for some, it was a bridge across a gap that was hard to talk about.
Time marches on, but some things never change
Time changes many things. Ten years ago, a student named Thomas Lee walked into the newspaper project at the Asian American Journalists Association conference in Boston. He was eager to learn. Other students came with the same hunger. Some of his student colleagues were Ellen Lee, Tracy Jan, Marian Liu, Boaz Herzog and Laura Pohl. The lessons took. They began careers. Thomas Lee went to newspapers in Seattle, St. Louis and Minneapolis. Ellen Lee went to Contra Costa and San Francisco. Liu went to San Jose and Herzog went to Portland. Jan went to Portland and now Boston. And Pohl became a Dow Jones business reporter in Korea, earned a master's degree to switch to photojournalism and won a Fulbright. At the end of the month, they will all be in one place, at the AAJA convention in Miami, celebrating the 10th anniversary of their meeting and all that has changed about them.They will be at AAJA Voices. This time, they are the editors. Thomas Lee will walk into that newsroom as executive editor, but with the same goal he had in 1997: to learn. "This time, we're multimedia. That says it all. That reflects what's going on in the industry. I'm doing this not just to help the students, but to learn it myself." His co-editors likely agree. Some things never change. Being a chameleon in journalism can be very good
Kameel Stanley, an intern at the St. Petersburg Times this summer, says she'd like to get a tattoo. She's thinking about a chameleon. Why a chameleon? Well, there's her name, of course: Kameel. And she also says she loves change. She doesn't just tolerate the changes that are sweeping through journalism and all other industries. She actually likes it. As a high school senior in the lake town of Port Huron, Mich., she surprised and impressed editors at the Detroit Free Press by applying for an apprenticeship that meant she would have to drive 60 miles each way into the city to work. She got the job. For her internship in St. Petersburg, she had her hair cropped short and drove 20 hours straight through. She loves being in such a different place, where it is hot and steamy all the time. She plans to stay as long as she can before her return to Central Michigan University, where she will be managing editor of the student paper. As one of the few minority students and only African-American students at the paper, she will make diversity in staffing and coverage one of her priorities. "Hopefully, there will be a lot changes," she says. Chameleon tattoo or no, she is unlikely to ever settle for things as they are.
Everything comes together in 2008 at UNITY '08
A new journalist who was in San Jose during the National Association of Hispanic Journalists conference checked it out. It looked worthwhile. But she wondered whether there is a group for people like her. And what would that be? She is Filipino-Japanese-English-Irish-German-Welsh. Where does that fit in? A sports writer who liked the mentoring at NABJ joined that group, even though he is Hispanic. An Asian-American journalist who attended NABJ in 2006 said it was in some ways the group she liked the most. Next year, everything will be together, as in our Filipino-Japanese-English-Irish-German-Welsh friend. UNITY 2008, just a year away, July 23-27, will be a place for all.
Education key to social mobility -- and diversity
Education infuses Katherine Leal Unmuth's family. There are degrees. Her aunt teaches. Her sister teaches. Unmuth doesn't teach, but she covers education for the Dallas Morning News. But one of the Unmuth's greatest inspirations for education is her grandmother, Dalia Leal, whose own education ended at age 14 in San Antonio. Although poverty and education short-circuited Leal's education, the value she placed in it fired Unmuth's passion to cover it. "Education is the key to social mobility in this country, so it's very important to talk about and write about it, especially for Hispanics in this country," Unmuth said. This month, Unmuth wrote about the 25th anniversary of the Supreme Court's ruling in Plyler vs. Doe. It guaranteed illegal immigrants a free public education. "The case is sometimes mentioned in the same breath as Brown vs. Board of Education," Unmuth wrote, "but it enjoys none of the same fame. It is absent from Texas history lessons. People in Tyler rarely speak of it." The lead in Unmuth's article was Jose Lopez, one of the suit's plaintiff's. He said, in Spanish, "I am illiterate - I am a person that doesn't know anything," But he believed what the district did was wrong. "School is very important for all children, and they should not be discriminated against because they are Mexican or white or black," he said. "They should be equal." You can find Unmuth's article - and links to interview videos -- at http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/0611 07dnmetplyler.3a34e2f.html.
Forging a Movement A tragic fatal beating that brought together Chinese Americans gets remembered by journalists of color
This week, people remember a brutal event that helped give rise to a pan-Asian American identity. On June 19, 1982, Vincent Chin, a Chinese American, was bludgeoned in Highland Park, Mich., by two disgruntled autoworkers who blamed Japanese carmakers for the trouble of the American auto industry. Chin was Chinese American. He died days later. The men received probation and a small fine. People -- Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino -- struggled to find a voice and debated whether to raise it together. Eventually, they did. They appealed to the courts and to local media, where few people on the inside who looked like them. This week, one of the journalists writing the Chin remembrance story is Catherine Ho, an intern at the Detroit Free Press. Her senior thesis at the University of California-Berkeley was on the Chin case. One of the people she interviewed was Frank Wu, dean of the law school at Wayne State University. He is writing a book about the Chin case. Wu was, coincidentally, an intern at the Free Press 20 summers ago. Now, Asian-American people help tell the story. Ho quotes Wu: "It brought together Asian Americans as Asian Americans and forged a movement. It made this group of people who had very little in common realize that even if their ancestors hated each other, they had a common cause in America. That's why this case still matters."
21st Century Man In a quarter-century of journalism, Paul Delaney had hoped there would be more than just white boys covering the U.S. presidential race. The fact that they still dominate that press corps, keeps Delaney working into the new millenium.
He is a founding father of the National Association of Black Journalists. He helped create the National Association of Minority Media Executives. He leads the Initiative on Racial Mythology and launches careers with Kaiser Family Foundation media programs. But what Delaney thinks about now is where it has all led and who will take it from here. Delaney, who spent 23 years with the New York Times and now directs the Initiative on Racial Mythology, had just poured some inspiration on this year's Kaiser media interns. Privately, he wanted to talk about a recent full-page CNN ad touting its coverage of the debate among Republican presidential candidates. He said it horrified him. Everyone on the CNN team was white. Everyone was male. "For that to happen in 2007 for all that we have done to try to integrate the media is not only horrific, but insulting. CNN is just an example of the serious problems we thought we had resolved," Delaney said. In the '50s and '60s and '70s he expected to see teams like the one in the ad. "We would hope that by the 21st century we wouldn't be having this conversation. You do get exhausted. You get tired. But if you love this profession as we do, you have to keep fighting and let the young ones carry on. "It's as though we have to start all over again."
The science of journalism: Interdisciplinary pursuit leads Jamaican into rich writing career
But growing up in Jamaica, she had to make an early choice between science and journalism. She picked science. "One thing to know about Jamaican people," she says, "is that we're fiercely proud of where we're from. We are also fiercely ambitious." Ambition pushed Reid toward a doctoral program in inorganic chemistry in Jamaica. Ambition propelled Reid, now 35, out of her studies in Jamaica and into Emory University in Atlanta and a PhD in environmental chemistry, far, far from journalism. 'I didn't know what I wanted to do, but if you don't do anything, then you won't be ready when something comes along." But the title of another doctoral candidate at Emory struck Reid. The woman was a science writer. Reid knew what she wanted to do. Mentors and an alphabet soup of organizations helped. Reid mashed up science and journalism. Some of her early clips were in Salinas, Calif. She worked a Kaiser Family Foundation internship at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Today, she writes about HIV/AIDS and obesity for The State in Columbia, S.C. She now has a Kaiser fellowship that will help her report about how HIV/AIDS in South Carolina interacts with or can compound factors such as race, poverty and lack of insurance. Her ambition? It's still fierce.
In two worlds: By Joe Grimm Bronson Peshlakai moves between worlds.
Walking the Red Road: By Joe Grimm You could see the change. A dozen Native American journalists walked into the Spirit of Diversity job fair in Detroit last year. That in itself was remarkable. But the fact that they were the most experienced group at the event was unprecedented. Denny McAuliffe and Bill Elsen, their mentors and teachers, said this was a symbolic coming out, a sign that they had arrived journalistically. For years, Native journalists have been landing an internship here or there, but continuity into a career was less common. Now, a number of Native journalists are using several opportunities, like rungs in a ladder, to climb to journalism's heights. Some of the rungs are reznetnews.org, the American Indian Journalism Institute and the Native American Journalists Association. Other programs, such as the Chips Quinn program and the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund are also in the mix. Native American students and new graduates, whose peers from a decade ago had trouble getting started, will be showing up this summer at the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, Sports Illustrated, the Detroit Free Press and the Des Moines Register. They got there one step at a time. Read about 15 such people at http://www.reznetnews.org/news/070415_interns
Revenge can be a good thing for diversity By Joe Grimm Kevin Olivas is bent on revenge. Working out of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists office in Washington, D.C., he is taking revenge on the entire journalism industry. Yet, he is not a bitter man. The kind of revenge he exacts spells opportunity for others. Olivas is director of NAHJ's Parity Project. The initiative strengthens ties between news organizations and their communities and improves hiring and understanding. Olivas has come a long way in journalism, coming out of KYCA radio near Nowhere, Ariz., where he was a morning host and high school sports play-by-play announcer. His radio career took him through Ventura, Calif.; San Diego and then to a station in Los Angeles, which is home for him. All along the way, right up to when his position was eliminated in the largely Hispanic city of LA, he noticed how few other people there were like him. He resolved to do something about that, to -- as he puts it -- take revenge. First with the California Chicano News Media Association and now with NAHJ, he has been opening doors for other journalists. "I want to see more people do what they want to do. I know that journalists of color are among the best candidates for jobs, but they aren't always considered." Maybe, if when Olivas was a young radio journalist, someone had been looking out for him, he wouldn't have this lust for revenge. But maybe, because he does, someone else won't have to do it later.
Sometimes, being different is better By Joe Grimm Zeninjor Enwemeka and eight other students from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism went to South Africa last spring to work and learn at media companies. She reported on gender violence, child abuse and poverty in largely white Cape Town. Born in New York City to Nigerian immigrants, her identity became the subject of debate in the Cape Times newsroom. Some said she is American. No, said others, she is really African. Near the end of her stay, she heard from a Cape Times editor, a South African of Indian descent. His group is treated as distinct in South Africa. He also felt a separateness when he briefly worked in Atlanta. She recalls, "He said it was very refreshing to meet an American who didn't fit the typical American stereotype." He told her she seemed more willing than most Americans he had met in Atlanta and Africa to engage the world at large. He told her, "It was really great for me" to have worked with her. Like a lot of seniors on the brink of graduation, Enwemeka is looking for a job or an internship. You can reach her at z-enwemeka@northwestern.edu
Language can unlock doors to great stories By Joe Grimm When The Oregonian won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news this week, reporter Elizabeth Suh was one of many who shared in the honor. The staff covered the search for snowbound James and Kati Kim and their two children. James Kim did not survive. Suh says she became part of the team, in part, because she can speak Korean like Kim's family. In the end, Suh says that her journalism mattered more than her Korean. But language is often the key that unlocks stories. Just last month, Suh wrote about a grocery clerk who was shot and paralyzed from the neck down. When others interviewed the clerk's wife in English, her answers were short and spare. Suh interviewed the woman in Korean. Suh could see the woman was much more comfortable and conversational in her native language. Answers were natural, freer and longer. But language is only part of the picture, says Suh. Cultural knowledge means as much as language. The experience of being Korean in America is complex and can be harder to learn than language. On the Kim story, before Suh approached the family, she consulted with others. Her journalistic coach was her managing editor. Her cultural coach was her father.
Dropping Imus Elevates Diversity By Karen Lincoln Michel UNITY: Journalists of Color, Inc. commends NBC and CBS for pulling Imus in the Morning from their network programming. Their decisions reflect an understanding of the value of diversity in this country and a strong commitment to their roles as just stewards of the public airwaves. Their actions fall in line with the mission of UNITY and its alliance partners in striving for fair and accurate coverage of communities of color in the media. By severing ties with Don Imus, a talk-show host who publicly ridiculed and demeaned African American women, the two networks bring home the message that racism and sexism will not be tolerated over their airwaves. UNITY hopes that the actions of NBC and CBS elevate the issue of diversity to a new level within the media industry—from the newsroom to the boardroom. Finally, UNITY stands ready to work with NBC and CBS, and all media companies, to actively support efforts that will promote an accurate representation of communities of color in the media. About UNITY: Journalists of Color You can add your thoughts on the “Reporting on Race” forum at http://www.unityjournalists.org/forums/index.php.
Persevering and overcoming obstacles By Joe Grimm Appearances can say everything -- or nothing.
As a high school student attending the Crockett Vocational/Technical Center, design caught Gaylesha Simmons' eye. She decided to study illustration and design at the Center for Creative Studies (CCS). Like a lot of CCS students, she interned for auto companies -- in her case, Chrysler and Ford. She and a friend launched blackfolkapparel to design urban clothing. Simmons switched to journalism with an internship at the Detroit Free Press and settled into a permanent job as a graphic artist at The Detroit News in 2000. Co-worker Aaron Hightower said her covers, graphics and caricatures exemplify "her color combinations, attention to detail, accuracy ... the true definition of an artist." Simmons, ever interested in fashion, matched her shoes to her outfits at work and when hanging out with friends at R&B and hiphop concerts – often in the front row. With her iPod fully loaded, she was good to go. And wherever Simmons went, she did it in a wheelchair. It was one legacy of muscular dystrophy. Another was her death this week of respiratory failure. Sue Burzynski, managing editor at the News, announced it in a memo to the staff: "Gaylesha in her quiet way was truly an inspiration to everyone who knew her. Life was so much more difficult for her than for most of us who are able-bodied. Yet she never complained. Instead she persevered, overcame obstacles – and she did it with a quiet smile." Simmons was 31.
An enduring tradition: Newspapering owes much to Native Americans and to retiring news executive By Joe Grimm George Benge, who retires this month as news executive at Gannett, works beneath an image of Sequoia. The Cherokee intellectual was inspired by "talking leaves," pages with stories written on them in English. Sequoia worked 12 years to develop a syllabary of 86 figures for the Cherokee language. This gave his people a written language and they used it to start "sa la gi Tsu ehisanunhi" or "Cherokee Phoenix," the first American Indian newspaper. Benge, who grew up on a Cherokee reservation in Oklahoma, says "the spirit of Sequoia was leading me on" as his teacher, Hazel Presson, encouraged his writing in 1958. Benge freelanced sports for the Grand Rapids Press in Michigan, he worked for the Miami Herald and he became editor of the Asheville Citizen-Times in North Carolina, close to the heart of the Cherokee Nation before it was driven to Oklahoma. When he started his career, Benge says, the word diversity did not have the meaning it has today. Inclusion was not even a concept in newsrooms. In the 1960s, he saw the Civil Rights Movement bring more rights to African Americans. In the 1970s, he saw soldiers yellow, brown and red return from Vietnam and demand equity. And in the 1980s and 1990s, he helped make diversity a priority in news and newsrooms. Now, about to retire, he worries about the legacy of diversity. Sequoia left his people an enduring gift. Benge hopes his gifts endure, too.
'You've got to bloom where planted:' Detroit native never forgets his roots, and deep roots make him strong By Joe Grimm Charles Pugh always generates excitement when he is around Detroit Public High School students. They'll cheer and he'll goad them on. Pugh is one of them. He comes from their neighborhoods. He went to their schools. Raised by a grandmother because his parents died while he was still young, Pugh did not have any sort of ticket to college. Statistically, college might have seemed to be an impossibility. A $24,000 scholarship from Ford Motor in a competition for high school students in a program at the Detroit Free Press set him on his way. He got the rest of the money together and graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia, which he calls "the world's greatest journalism school" as though that is part of the name. It helped him keep a boast he made to classmates at Murray-Wright High School, where he graduated in 1989, that he would be back and on-air within 10 years. He is a loud, proud, self-confessed Detroitaholic and the students love that. His MySpace page says, "You've got to bloom where you're planted." And he keeps an eye out for today's kids for whom journalism school might not even be a dream. It happened once, to him. so he knows and they know it can happen again.
Too much diversity a bad thing? Maybe, if you harp on it all the time, says one doctoral candidate By Joe Grimm Happy Valley seems an unlikely dateline for a study of hip-hop and urban violence. But Murali Balaji, the Penn State doctoral candidate and lecturer doing the research, is practiced at exploring new connections. Balaji grew up with hip-hop and has written about how culturally important it is to some young Desis. He also saw, as a reporter at the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Wilmington News Journal, what he thought was a link between music videos and certain attitudes and behavioral patterns among young people of color. Now, he is "looking at the idea of how cultures can be commodified," who controls that and how hyper-violent messages create extreme stereotypes of masculinity and femininity. One root of the problem, Balaji says, is how minority groups are objectified by being held at arm's length. "You have to respect the differences," he says, "but when you constantly write about the differences, you keep them separate." Maybe the college of communications in Happy Valley will be the place where Balaji can explore, describe and uncouple the connections among music, objectification and violence.
A guiding light: Henry Moritsugu has helped many into journalism By Joe Grimm This week, Newsday figuratively blew out candles to celebrate 40 years of daily newspapering by Henry Moritsugu. And he lit one for another year. His light has guided many. A native of Vancouver, Canada, Moritsugu and his family were interned after Pearl Harbor. He began his career with a Japanese community weekly in Toronto in January, 1954. Then came jobs at dailies in Kirkland Lake, Ontario in 1954; then Montreal, Philadelphia and, on Feb. 26, 1967, Newsday. Henry's son, Ken, a former Washington correspondent and now a freelance journalist in India, wrote that, "because he succeeded, I never saw any obstacles or reasons why I could not succeed in the same field." "One thing I admire is how my father has embraced AAJA and the diversity cause. Whatever battles or demons he may have faced, he fought alone. My father was in his late 40s by the time AAJA was born and into his 50s by the time it reached him on the East Coast. Today, AAJA is like a second family to him, and to be able to embrace a new cause at that stage in life shows a real ability to change with the times and remain young at heart." Ken added that his father, a news editor who has worked on the UNITY paper, reaches out to young journalists, introducing himself to interns and working with METPRO, a training program for journalists. And there is always a light at their table.
A place at the table: Unless all are invited to participate, obvious news stories will get overlooked By Joe Grimm He broke into journalism in 1981 at the Baltimore Afro-American where he covered City Hall and handled all aspects of the high school sports section, from writing to photography to headlines, captions and layout. Evans moved on to a Maryland local and then to the Baltimore News-American, where he covered City Hall again. Baltimorer's big paper, the Sun, hired him In 1986, the year the News-American closed, and he stayed there until he went to a one-year Asia studies fellowship at the University of Hawaii. Evans, one of the comparatively few journalists to jump from the black press to major metros, went on to the Orange County Register and then to Newsday, where he is on the projects team. In 1998, one of his first projects for Newsday was an analysis that showed 40 percent of Long Island school districts did not have a single black teacher, that black representation was declining, and that districts mostly ignored the recruitment of black teachers. It drew a lot of reaction. A white colleague had known about the disparity, Evans said, but didn't think it was an important story. The best conversations happen, he says, when all viewpoints have a place at the table.
Godfather of public radio: Next time you can't find a journalist of color, call NPR's Doug Mitchell By Joe Grimm
About the same time, he got an e-mail from someone he had mentored at the 2003 National Association of Black Journalists convention. She was telling him she would soon accept a job producing a two-hour magazine-format radio show. Doug hears from qualified minority journalists all the time. He helped teach them. As project manager for NPR's Next Generation Radio, http://www.npr.org/nextgen, Mitchell runs weeklong training projects that show students how to report and produce radio stories. Since his first one at the first UNITY convention in 1994, Mitchell has worked at dozens of conventions. He and NPR are committed to the cause. Some Mitchell protégés call him "El Padrino" (The Godfather) and invite him to their weddings. How many has Mitchell schooled? He doesn't know. But he has kept track of some working at NPR, public radio, television, print and the web. There are 160 on his list. The next time someone says they can't find any minorities in media, have them call "El Padrino." Better yet, challenge them to get involved in training.
On the train of life, knowing where you came from and where you're going is important By Joe Grimm On the 7 Train between Manhattan and Queens, a rumble of conversation that might have eluded other ears caught Erica Shen's.
Ready for work: International student demonstrates both business and journalism acumen By Joe Grimm Katerina Valdivieso moved from Peru to Philadelphia to further her journalism career. But she couldn't find a decent job with a Spanish-language publication. She can partner internationally. And newspapers will have to decide whether they would rather work with her or compete with her.
Finding motivation in heroes, an aspiring sportswriter from Mexico heads to the LA Times By Joe Grimm As a boy in Tijuana, Mexico, Jaime Cárdenas knew just what he wanted
to become: a sports writer.
Proof is in the numbers: Even in real-estate trends, how race affects life can be tracked By Joe Grimm Alysia Tate is editor and publisher of the Chicago Reporter. Thirty-five this year, the magazine often examines property ownership. It's mission, however, is that it "identifies, analyzes and reports on social, economic and political issues." So why the real estate stories? From the boss' perspective, that is a very good way to touch the larger subjects. In an issue on home ownership, Tate wrote about how her mother's white parents used real estate to build a family inheritance, while her father's black parents did not have that tool. Growing up, Tate saw both sides on this and other issues. Speaking at the "Let's Do it Better" workshop at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in 2006, she said, "Race is lived by everyone. It is not just lived by black people or poor people it is lived by everyone." And the way race is lived changes from one generation to the next. Tate contrasted her view with her father's. "In some ways, I have the benefit of not having the things he experienced firsthand, so I see things differently than he might and people of his generation might." Tate said newsrooms should draw on the richness of their staffs tapping different generations so stories don't keep falling into the same old frameworks. Trading the 'sword' for the pen: By Joe Grimm
Like the pacesetters in any field, she worked and practiced to be the best. And at 19, she set the national record for women's javelin. Ordóñez' athleticism led to some publicity and the opportunity to write for El Comercio. She kept besting her record until she was 27, but decided she would make her mark on the world with the pen, rather than the javelin. "I always loved to tell stories. I have always been the translator, the one who goes between." She earned a bachelor's degree in journalism at Universidad Central del Ecuador and for three years freelanced in Mexico City. After Mexico City, she came to the United States, where she is completing a master's degree in journalism at the University of Missouri at Columbia. In the United States, Ordóñez sees a lot of stories that need a go-between. She wants to write about women and and Latin American people in the United States and immigrants in general. She says, "immgrants have a value, but no one listens to them." But Ordóñez does. She sees the great changes they are leading and believes America's language barrier prevents most journalists from hearing and telling some incredible stories. That is what she strives for now, to beat her marks in journalism. This summer, she will be an intern in Los Angeles for the Wall Street Journal. back to top |
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