Los Angeles Times Hires Black Columnist

Native Angeleno Cracks Op-Ed Page Barrier

The Los Angeles Times has created an uproar with the shakeup of its editorial pages announced Friday, but lost in the commotion was that the paper also hired its first African American op-ed columnist, at least in recent years: L.A. Weekly writer Erin Aubry Kaplan.

"It took me by surprise" when the Times called Nov. 7, Kaplan told Journal-isms today. The editorial page editors saw her columns, "and I said, 'are you sure you want this?'" said Kaplan, 43. "They said, 'we'll run this exactly as is. This is the voice we want.'"

Asked how she categorized herself politically, Kaplan replied, "I'm just black." Then she added, "I'm very left. I believe in social justice and racial equality, and "My persona in the paper is between political analysis and narrative."

Kaplan, born and raised in L.A., worked briefly as a writer at the paper after Los Angeles' 1992 riots and since then has freelanced and written for the L.A. alternative press. The timing of the L.A. Times offer couldn't have been better, she said. The LA Weekly, owned by Village Voice Media, is merging with New Times Media, and "I was wondering, 'where am I going to land?'"

The L.A. Times has been one of the few top newspapers not to have an African American as a staff op-ed columnist.

"The Los Angeles Times does not have a history of columnists," said Ron Harris, a black journalist who became a Metro columnist there for a year after the 1992 L.A. riots. "For the Times, it's a big deal," he said of Kaplan's hiring. "We had Janet Clayton as editorial page editor, but they have never had a voice on the op-ed page, and the L.A. Times has always been conservative about that process."

Not until 2001, when the paper hired metro columnist Steve Lopez, who had established his name at the Philadelphia Inquirer, did the L.A. Times realize the value of columnists, said Harris, now a Washington correspondent for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Another writer, who wrote op-ed columns for the Times as a freelancer, told Journal-isms, "Erin has written about Los Angeles for a long time now; I'm delighted the Times is adding more local voices, and a voice from the black community. There's been some discussion in several neighborhoods that because the overall metro black population has shrunk, there's no need to hear from that segment of the city. Which would have been a very unfortunate, and, to my mind, wrong decision."

Meanwhile, some readers picketed the Times building over the paper's decision to drop liberal columnist Robert Scheer; some conservatives were alarmed by its letting go cartoonist Michael Ramirez; and Andrés Martinez, editorial page editor, defended those decisions in a "note to readers."

Scheer, however, found "a new home newspaper – the San Francisco Chronicle," that paper's editorial page editor, John Diaz, wrote today in his own "note to readers."

In another development, this one from the news side, the L.A. Times named Joe Hutchinson creative director of the paper, a newly created masthead position that reports directly to the editor. Hutchinson, who had been deputy managing editor, is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists.

• Is Scheer dump an age thing? (LA Observed)
• Erin Aubry Kaplan, L.A. Weekly: Price Cobbs on what it will take for African-Americans to claim their space
• Erin Aubry Kaplan, L.A. Weekly: Remembering our Ms. Parks

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L.A. Times to Cut 85 Newsroom Jobs

"I very much regret to announce that The Times will have to lose about 85 newsroom jobs before the end of the year," Editor Dean Baquet told the Los Angeles Times staff today, according to a staff memo published in LA Observed. "A few of the cuts have already been made through attrition. Some will come through a voluntary separation program. But others, unfortunately, will come through layoffs. The exact breakdown won't be known until we see how many people apply for the voluntary separation package."

Baquet's note followed one from Times Publisher Jeffrey M. Johnson.

Separately, Veronica Villafañe, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, wrote members on Monday that, "It is undoubtedly one of the worst times to be working in the news industry. . . . We should all be afraid . . . not just of losing our jobs, but losing our voice. For years we have struggled to convince those in charge of hiring journalists that Latino, Black, Asian American and Native American journalists were necessary in all newsrooms seeking to accurately reflect the world we live in and report about. Now, with so many news companies downsizing, newsrooms may regress in the progress they have made hiring journalists of color."

The American Press Institute announced on Monday "an ambitious year-long project to conceive and test new business models to help newspapers thrive in the next decade. 'Newspaper Next: The Transformation Project' will explore the trends disrupting the newspaper industry and develop practical business initiatives newspapers can adopt. API is investing $2 million into this project, which is the centerpiece of the Institute's 60th anniversary," it said in a release.

Stephen T. Gray, former managing publisher of the Christian Science Monitor, is managing director of the project. A task force of 25 "industry innovators and thought-leaders" collaborating with Gray and his team includes Peter Bhatia, executive editor, the Oregonian in Portland; Luis Alberto Ferré, editor, El Nuevo Día, San Juan, Puerto Rico; Christian Hendricks, vice president of interactive media, McClatchy Co.; Lincoln Millstein, senior vice president and director of digital media, Hearst Newspapers; and Sreenath Sreenivasan, dean of students, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, all of whom are African American, Latino or Asian American, Gray told Journal-isms.

• Daniel Gross, Slate: Why would anyone want to buy Knight Ridder?
• Phil Rosenthal, Chicago Tribune: Chicago Tribune plans layoffs; fewer than 100 `likely'

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Media Barred from Red Lake Shooting Trial

"The courtroom for a juvenile charged in the Red Lake school shootings case will stay locked under a federal judge's ruling Friday," Pam Louwagie reported Saturday in the Star Tribune of Minneapolis.

"District Judge Donovan Frank denied a motion from the Star Tribune and the Associated Press to open the hearings, saying the juvenile's interests outweigh the public's interest in learning details of what happened.

"Seventeen-year-old Louis Jourdain, son of Red Lake Tribal Chairman Floyd Jourdain, has been charged in connection with the March 21 shooting spree during which Jeff Weise killed nine people before killing himself, according to sources familiar with the case.

"Frank's ruling follows one last spring denying access to the case when other news organizations were seeking to open it.

"Attorneys for the Star Tribune and the AP argued recently that things have changed. They noted that the criminal investigation is further along and it would not be impaired by opening the proceedings, and that the juvenile's family has made statements about the juvenile's involvement. The juvenile's name has been reported, they argued, and opening the proceedings would help the public understand what happened."

On Sunday in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Ellen Tomson wrote, "Victims' families and other members of the Red Lake community say they fear they may never learn the details of what happened on the day last spring when a high school student went on a shooting spree that left 10 people dead on the northern Minnesota reservation."

The Grand Forks (N.D.) Herald editorialized on Tuesday that, "A compromise is in order here, such as keeping the trial private while releasing the bare bones of the charges and evidence against Jourdain, as well as the actual verdict. The judge should agree to the Star Tribune and Associated Press' request."

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France Slowly Trying to Integrate Television News

"Audrey Pulvar's posture straightens incrementally as a television producer counts down from five in a broadcast studio here, and at 7:30 p.m. sharp, her image flashes onto screens across the country," Craig S. Smith reported from Paris today in the New York Times.

"But there is something new about the news in France, thanks to Ms. Pulvar. She is black, one of the first minority anchors to appear regularly here on prime-time television and part of a gradual effort to mold the country's communications media into a more representative shape.

". . . The disparity between the country's monochromatic image of itself and the multicolored reality frustrates young citizens from non-European immigrant backgrounds and has added to their sense of alienation, which was expressed most graphically in the arson attacks that have swept the country this month."

• Carlos Luken, MexiData.info: Why France Is Burning -- A Mexican [Businessman's] Perspective
• David Ng, Village Voice: CNN Got It Wrong: The Paris riots weren't that bad – and the French government handled it well

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Mary J. Blige Rails at Vibe Cover at Awards Show

"Mary J. Blige was the primary honoree at the VIBE Awards, which were televised on Tuesday, but the singer had sharp words for the magazine and Editor-in-Chief Mimi Valdés," Houston Williams reported today on allhiphop.com.

"The tirade wasn't televised in Tuesday's event, but Blige's scorn reverberated through the rumor mill, prompting the magazine chief to respond.

"On Saturday, when the urban awards show was taped, the Yonkers, New York singer scalded Valdés for the cover photography in current issue of the magazine.

"'For so many years, VIBE has given me great, great, great covers, but I must say, I'm very, very disappointed at the cover this time, so Mimi, me and you really need to talk, as women,' Blige said during her acceptance speech. 'No disrespect, but I really hated the way you guys shaved off my head, pushed my forehead way back behind my ears. I'm just insulted, so that's no respect on the cover, but I thank you, and I appreciate this award.'"

"Valdés responded to Blige's accusations and suggested that . . . she wasn't appreciative of the support the publication has displayed through the years, regardless of the singer's declaration."

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"Nightline" Defends Fired Black Journalist

In his last appearance on ABC-TV's "Nightline" Tuesday night, Dave Marash, a 16-year correspondent for the show, revisited charges that General Motors sabotaged its African American auto dealers. Marash gladdened the heart of a black journalist whose 2001 firing from the Gannett Co.'s Journal News in suburban New York has been linked to stories he wrote there detailing those allegations.

Demetrius Patterson's story was told in this space in 2002, and reported then by Linn Washington Jr. He is now working as an office clerk in the information technology department of a law school in Chicago.

From the "Nightline" transcript:

Marash: "Today, Patterson has been banished from the news business. He now works in a study center at Chicago's Loyola University. He says his story caused problems at Gannett. His evidence: This national story never made it to Gannett's national wire. And he adds he was pulled from the GM story. And when he objected to the reassignment, he says he got warnings from executives at both Gannett and GM."

Patterson: "He said that I made a lot of people mad at General Motors."

Marash: "One GM executive told him the fable of a gnat bothering the backside of an elephant.

Patterson: "When the elephant gets tired of that gnat, the elephant will sit down and squash that gnat. And he said to me, he said, 'Demetrius, you should think of General Motors as an elephant and yourself as a gnat.'"

Marash: "GM officials confirm this conversation did take place. But they say the executive meant it as friendly advice and not as a threat. In fact, Patterson worked on other assignments for Gannett's Westchester papers for more than three years, before he was summarily fired in 2001."

Marash: "Both General Motors and Patterson's former employer, the Gannett newspapers, say that neither GM nor the story about them had anything to do with Patterson's firing 3 1/2 years later on unrelated charges of plagiarism. And Patterson does admit he did submit to his editors a text that lacked sufficient attributions. But Patterson says the editors all knew that the text was incomplete, which is why this senior teacher of journalism questions the plagiarism charge."

Ari Goldman, New York Times: "The charge of plagiarism seemed highly inappropriate."

Marash: "Gannett has refused all of 'Nightline's' requests for interviews, issuing a statement which reads in part, 'we are not going to respond to your questions because we've heard all of these tired claims before. Mr. Patterson brought lawsuits based on them, the courts flatly rejected his claims.' Ari Goldman, a long-time reporter and editor at the New York Times who has taught for more than a decade at Columbia University's graduate school of journalism, calls the plagiarism charge inappropriate. And worries about its effect on a reporter's career."

Patterson told Journal-isms tonight via e-mail: "Through the thorough investigation of ABC Nightline, I have finally been granted what I have so vigorously sought after for nearly five years, vindication and exoneration from being labeled a plagiarist. Some of my colleagues have quietly confided in me that they didn't believe these charges, or that something looked suspicious from the Gannett perspective.

"Few journalists, however, took the time to simply investigate these charges and decide for themselves if I truly created the greatest ethical sin in our profession. As a result, I have suffered professionally, financially and spiritually because most . . . just didn't seem to care.

"There are many more well documented details that Nightline didn't have time to include that even more [strengthen] my argument that I was harmed by both Gannett and General Motors. I welcome Gannett and GM to ask me to compare my facts with theirs in a public forum. My parents taught me a long time ago that all we truly have in this world is our name, reputation, if you will. They taught me not to do anything to tarnish that, and more importantly, not to let others smear it. If we let one reporter who dared tell the truth about two corporations get lost in a tangle of lies and innuendo, what happens when other journalists (especially journalists of color) face the same fate? I say we cannot afford to not hold these two companies accountable. This is not just about me. What happened to me is bigger than me."

• Peter Johnson, USA Today: Can anyone fill Koppel's shoes?

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Series Examines Treatment of Latino Forest Workers

"Across vast tracts of rugged ground from Maine to California, Latinos do the dirty work in America's woods. They plant trees by the millions, thin out snarls of vegetation that stunt the growth of commercial timber and slash away the dense mats of brush and spindly trees that stoke forest fires," began a three-part series Sunday in California's Sacramento Bee.

"They are pineros, the men who work in the pines. They are the major source of manual labor in America's forest industry, the muscle behind the Healthy Forest Initiative – often paid in tax dollars to work on public lands. And they are being misused and abused under the noses of government officials," the introduction continued.

The series was written by Tom Knudson and Hector Amezcua.

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Even Underground Prison Papers Fast Disappearing

"One of the most dramatic changes within American prisons is the near extinction of the penal press," Leah Caldwell wrote Tuesday in Counterpunch.

"Award-winning prison newspapers that once reached thousands – even outside of prison walls – no longer exist, and their underground counterparts are few and far between. The situation has become so dire that, according to the author of Jailhouse Journalism James McGrath Morris, 'If you talked to a prisoner today, they wouldn't even know these things existed.'"

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Journalists Comment on Passing of Vine Deloria Jr.

"Burn tobacco today for the wonderful spirit of Vine Deloria Jr., who passed into the world of the ancestors Nov. 13. Our sincerest condolences and warmest embrace reach out to his family and dear friends, and a great commiseration is extended to all of Indian country, where Deloria – author, teacher, lawyer, man – is universally respected and where his memory will live on for the generations," Indian Country Today wrote on Tuesday.

"Deloria straddled the generations and carried the perspectives and perception of the generation of leaders who saw Indian country through the Depression, World War II and termination. He often reminisced fondly about the old-timers of his formative years."

In a Washington Post appreciation today, "The Indian Who Overturned The Stereotypes," Teresa Wiltz wrote, "Some of you may not have heard of Vine Deloria Jr., Sioux, historian, attorney, theologian, best-selling author and Indian rights activist. Or maybe you remember his 1992 suit, along with six other prominent Indians, against the Washington Redskins, just one of his many activist firebombs lobbed on behalf of Native Americans. Dubbed the 'red man's Ralph Nader,' he reveled in the control of the keyboard, taking the scorched-earth approach to his writing, blasting Gen. Custer as 'the Adolf Eichmann of the Plains.'"

"At a time when Americans could use a few laughs to help a lot of bad medicine go down, we have lost one of our wisest wits," wrote columnist Clarence Page in the Chicago Tribune.

Deloria warranted an editorial today in the Charlotte Observer, which said, "Mr. Deloria was an independent, insightful thinker who made invaluable contributions not just to American Indians but to all Americans."

Deloria died at age 72 in Golden, Colo. He had been hospitalized with an aortic aneurysm.

• Art Coulson, St. Paul Pioneer Press: Have a safe journey to the Creator, uncle
• Editorial, Denver Post: Vine Deloria Jr., 1933-2005
• Rick Williams, indianz.com: On the passing of Vine Deloria Jr.

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Short Takes

• Robin Roberts, a co-anchor of ABC's "Good Morning America," "signed a contract for a $2.575 million condo in the Heritage at Trump Place, according to deed-transfer records. The deal closed in late September," Michael Calderone reported in the Nov. 21 edition of the New York Observer.
• "CNBC is revamping its morning lineup, including a worldwide business news program with anchors in New York, London and Singapore," David Bauder reported Tuesday for the Associated Press. "Michelle Caruso-Cabrera will get the early morning wake-up call in New York, Ross Westgate will anchor in London and Christine Tan in Singapore. 'Squawk Box' will air 6 to 10 a.m., anchored during the first three hours by Joe Kernen, Becky Quick and Carl Quintanilla, who's rejoining CNBC from NBC News."
• Karen E. Pride, the only full-time reporter at the Chicago Defender, is leaving the paper Nov. 23 to become assistant press secretary at the Chicago Housing Authority. Pride, who held the job for 16 months, told Journal-isms today she was recruited for the job in the course of her duties and that she appreciated the "wonderful opportunity" the Defender gave her to work in her hometown. Executive Editor Roland S. Martin is advertising for a replacement.
• John Ogen Kevin Aliro, editor of The Monitor, the only independent newspaper in Uganda, led efforts to develop the free press in the post-Idi Amin Uganda. He died Saturday at age 40 of meningitis, and in a tribute Sunday, Steve Buttry of the American Press Institute remembered Aliro and his weeklong 2003 visit to the Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald as part of a Foster Davis Fellowship at the Poynter Institute. A Ugandan colleague wrote in an obituary, "He said he often wrote lead stories for consecutive issues of the paper at a time when sourcing for stories was so hard â??- without telephones or Internet."
• West Africa Democracy Radio (WADR) started broadcasting Monday, and "will broadcast from its studios in Dakar, Senegal, on 17555 KHz on Short Wave to the whole of West Africa and beyond," the Concord Times in Freetown, Sierra Leone, reported on Tuesday.
• In comparing the sins of New York Times fabricator Jayson Blair and those of correspondent Judith Miller, Newsday columnist Les Payne wrote Sunday, "In his alienated, little world of sloth and mischief, the ambitious young Blair sneaked past his editors the fraudulently datelined lies he made up at home. The great, bald lies that the overzealous Miller forced into The Times, however unwittingly, came from the most powerful men of government, who took America to war. The unpardonable sins of Judith Miller came with a body count that is still mounting."
• "Although Chinese in California are heavy readers of Chinese-language newspapers, they far prefer television as the medium in their language, according to a survey commissioned by two Chinese-language TV stations," Mark Fitzgerald wrote Tuesday in Editor & Publisher.

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