Biden Quip Becomes a Rorschach Test White Reporter Fired, Called Black Mayor ‘Bruh’ Crackdown Follows Revelations on Migrant Child Labor Lies by Fox Hosts Put Board in a Bind Capehart Quits Washington Post Editorial Board Bernadette Carey Smith Gets Her Obituary
Short Takes: relatives of gun victims; imperiled Standard General and Tegna merger; Bay State Banner; Ozy Media; Kelley L. Carter; phaseout of diversity leaders; multiracial “Crabgrass” strip; diversity inside nation’s largest companies; diversity in PBS prime-time films; monitoring media response to hate crimes; the “75 greatest movies by Black directors”; 20th anniversary of African American Film Critics Association; Sports Journalism Institute; Don Lemon and “CNN This Morning”; “Jussie Smollett: Anatomy of a Hoax”; Elisabeth ‘Liz’ Petr; Monica Drake;
Belva Davis; Tamron Hall; Irving Cross; Rashida Jones, W.E.B. Du Bois; NBC stations’ collaboration on Black vets; Cherokee Phoenix; Renee Washington; Time magazine’s Black journalists in the 1970s; collaboration of hyperlocal outlets in Minneapolis; fate of journalists covering Nigeria election.
President Biden makes his comment at 14:04 in the video. (Credit: YouTube)
Biden Quip Becomes a Rorschach Test
A good-natured quip by President Biden at a Black History Month event at the White House Monday — “I may be a white boy, but I’m not stupid” — has become the latest example of the divide between the mainstream press and their right-wing counterparts.
The quip, introducing members of the “Divine Nine,” African American fraternities and sororities, drew laughs from the crowd, but was spun as “cringeworthy” in conservative media, with even the number of those laughing disputed.
Some of those outlets led their stories with the remark, while the mainstream media either left it alone or used it to add color to coverage of the event. It was the “quote of the day” item in Politico’s Playbook, rendered in context:
“ ‘From White House, Biden says ‘Black history matters,’ by AP’s Seung Min Kim: ‘He also paid tribute to the Divine Nine, the nine historically Black fraternities and sororities. [Vice President Kamala] Harris pledged one of them, Alpha Kappa Alpha, when she attended Howard University. “I may be a white boy, but I’m not stupid,’” Biden said, as the crowd laughed. ‘I know where the power is.’ ”
“You know, I know — I know real power when I see it: the Divine Nine. (Applause.) We’re honored to have presidents — all the presidents here tonight. I want to thank you for the — and, by the way, you know I’m not — I may be a white boy, but I’m not stupid. (Laughter.) I know where the power is. I know where the po- — you think I’m joking. I learned a long time ago about the Divine Nine. (Laughter.) And that’s why I spent so much time at [historically Black] Delaware State, campaigning and organizing my campaign in Delaware.
“But all the presidents are here. I think we’re — I know — I don’t think, I know we are the first administration in history to not only ha- — and to have all the presidents here at one time, but we have a permanent officer here for the Divine Nine. (Applause.)”
After more light-hearted references to Black institutions, Biden said, “We recently hosted a screening of the movie ‘Till.’ We hosted the screening because it’s important to say from the White House for the entire country to hear: History matters. History matters. And Black history matters. . . .”
Use of the term “white boy” for adult white men might be considered turning the tables after years of Black men being called “boy” by whites. “Can be used in a derogatory manner, but not always,” wrote a reader contributing to the Urban Dictionary. “Sometimes it’s just used to call out to a white person in a non derogatory way.”
During the disco era of the 1970s, the white group Wild Cherry had a hit with “Play that Funky Music” (video), a refrain followed by “white boy.”
And Michael Harriot, writing in 2019 for the Root, told readers, “The second angriest I’ve ever been was when I was suspended from school because Gray Segal [‘not his real name, but close’], a boy who happened to be white, said I called him the worst, most unimaginable, racist slur ever:
“A ‘white boy.’ “
Monday was not the first time Biden has used the term to describe himself. In 2014, as vice president, he and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, hosted a Black History Month reception at the Naval Observatory, according to the pool report at the time. Then-Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson was among the guests.
” Tim Rogers wrote Wednesday for D Magazine. “She’d previously worked the education beat in Tennessee for six years, at the Tennessean and, before that, at the Chattanooga Times Free Press. But she’s a hockey fan from Florida.
“So on Saturday, February 11, when the Tampa Bay Lightning came to Dallas for a matinee match, Mangrum headed to the American Airlines Center for her first Stars game. A little before 1 p.m., running late for the puck drop, she saw that Mayor Eric Johnson(pictured) had criticized local media for, in his view, not fully reporting the good news about Dallas’ crime numbers dropping for the second consecutive year. The mayor opined that reporters were interested only in bad news.
“In a tweet that would change the trajectory of her career, Mangrum wrote the following: ‘Bruh, national news is always going to chase the trend. Cultivate relationships with quality local news partnerships.’
“ ‘He was going after local media for their coverage of crime,’ Mangrum tells me two weeks later, ‘and I saw some of my colleagues responding to him, tweeting out stories the Dallas Morning News has done, saying, ‘Hey, Mr. Mayor, you know this isn’t quite fair.’
“Mangrum adds, ‘Standing up for my colleagues and the work that we do, when I know we’re doing good and honest work, is something I pride myself on and something that I look for in my colleagues and in my workplace as well.’
“That’s not the way her workplace saw it. Three days after she sent that tweet, she was fired for addressing the mayor as ‘bruh.’
“The Lightning beat the Stars 3-1. Later that day, Mangrum got an email from an editor saying her presence was requested at a Monday meeting. An HR rep got looped in. And that’s how Mangrum found herself getting grilled by the paper’s executive editor, Katrice Hardy (pictured). According to Mangrum, Hardy, who is Black, asked her if she would have used the word ‘bruh’ if the mayor were White. Mangrum, who is White, said yes. Her Twitter feed is littered with the word ‘bruh’ directed at all sorts of accounts, including those belonging to hockey fans and the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife.
“Mangrum says she knows it’s not her place to tell people how they should feel. ‘I would never tell a person of color, “Oh, it wasn’t racist. You shouldn’t feel that way,” ‘ Mangrum says. ‘But I know my intent, and it was not at all about race. I use that word with my friends and when I tweet about hockey. It’s just part of my vernacular. I grew up in Central Florida, and, you know, I’m a millennial.’ . . .”
Hannah Dreier said on the “PBS NewsHour,” “When I first started this reporting a year ago, I thought that this would really be an agriculture story. I thought that kids would be working, but mostly on farms, maybe in restaurants. And I was shocked that I actually found most of these kids outside of factories . . . several of these children told us that they ended up in real trafficking situations, called the hot line and never heard back.” (Credit: PBS/YouTube)
Crackdown Follows Revelations on Migrant Child Labor
“The White House laid out a host of new initiatives to investigate child labor violations among employers and improve the basic support that migrant children receive when they are released to sponsors in the United States. Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, called the revelations in The Times ‘heartbreaking’ and ‘completely unacceptable.’
“As part of the new effort, the Department of Labor, which enforces these laws, said it would target not just the factories and suppliers that illegally employ children, but also the larger companies that have child labor in their supply chains. Migrant children often use false identification and find jobs through staffing agencies that do not verify their Social Security numbers.
“Companies have escaped fines in the past by blaming those agencies or other subcontractors when violations are discovered. . . .”
Fox Corporation board members are facing scrutiny for not doing enough to prevent executives at Fox News from allowing lies about the 2020 election to be knowingly promoted to the network’s millions of viewers. One of them is Ramon Hernandez (pictured), a Los Angeles-based businessman who was CEO of Telemundo Group, Inc. from 1995 to 2000 and was its chairman from 1998 to 2000.
In the latest legal filing Monday from Dominion Voting Systems, it was revealed that behind the scenes, Fox Corp. board member Paul Ryan, former House speaker, pleaded with chairman Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan Murdoch, the Fox Corp. CEO, to prevent Donald Trump’s bogus election claims “from being broadcast to Fox News’ audience of millions,” Oliver Darcy reported Wednesday for CNN. “Ryan, according to messages uncovered in the case, said that Fox News should ‘move on from Donald Trump’ and ‘stop spouting election lies.’ ”
Hernandez could not be reached for comment, so it is not known what part he is playing in the scandal. But Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, the renowned professor and senior associate dean for leadership studies at the Yale School of Management, told CNN that Ryan’s actions were not enough.
“That’s not what a director is supposed to do,” Sonnenfeld said on “AC360.” “That is a failure of management oversight.”
Darcy wrote in his “Reliable Sources” newsletter, “The Dominion lawsuit, which has already caused massive reputational damage to the Fox News brand, is still in the pre-trial phase of the case. There’s no telling what could emerge from a weeks-long trial in which prominent executives and hosts such as Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity are called to the stand. And it remains to be seen whether outside forces, such as potential shareholder lawsuits, come into play and exert added pressure on Murdoch to take action.”
Hernandez said, “Based on my inquiry into the matter, and in reliance upon your representations to me . . . I believe that you did not make any racially motivated comments to our station management. Further, I believe you and the Houston Astros strongly support Hispanics.”
Marco Camacho, general manager of KTMD-TV, and sales manager Rod Rodriguez had alleged that McLane made belittling remarks about Hispanics.
Then-NAHJ president Hugo Balta said the group made the move because Fox News Radio host Todd Starnes had repeatedly used prejudiced language toward immigrants.
Jonathan Capehart told The Wrap, “MSNBC has put a premium on covering key topics, including voting rights, police reform, the economy and health care, “not just in the abstract, but in ways where the audience feels a connection to the story that’s been told,” by, for example, inviting a slate of diverse guests to speak about everything from the war in Ukraine to the debt ceiling.”
Capehart remains associate editor, columnist, host of the “Capehart” podcast and anchor of “Post Live” virtual events, but his December departure from the editorial board, which took place after the dispute over the assessment of the Ralph Warnock-Herschel Walker senatorial contest — leaves no person of color on the board.
Several columnists of color remain on the Post’s opinion pages, however. Among them are Eugene Robinson, Colbert I. King, Perry Bacon Jr. and Karen Attiah.
Despite the Post’s becoming an international news source, Capehart is most visible to many as host of MSNBC’s “The Saturday Show” and “The Sunday Show.”
In a story in The Wrap Tuesday about MSNBC’s dominance among Black cable news viewers, Loree Seitz quoted Capehart on the network’s 25-month hold on the No. 1 spot with African Americans.
The Post said in a statement, “The Post’s Opinion section is committed to diverse representation in all its pages. Writers like Keith Richburgand Mili Mitraregularly contribute editorials. In recent months, the section also announced the addition of several contributing columnists includingTheodore Johnson,Natasha Sarin and Bina Venkataraman, among several others. The section plans to further expand the range of voices in the months to come.”
Bernadette Carey Smith in 1966 as a reporter for a women’s news section of The New York Times. She spoke to Norman Hartnell, a noted British designer, at a cocktail party. (Credit: The New York Times)
Bernadette Carey Smith Gets Her Obituary
When this column reported in February the death of journalist Bernadette Carey, a pioneer at both the New York Times and Washington Post, it included the fact that her passing took place “without benefit of an obituary in either of the two major newspapers where she worked.”
The Times provided greater context: “The Times hired her to work on its women’s news section, called Food, Fashions, Family, Furnishings. . . .The women who worked for the section said they were overlooked by the rest of the paper. For most of its life span the department was set apart from the main newsroom — relegated to ‘some dark little corner of The Times,’ as Phyllis Levin, another alumna of the section, put it in 2018 in a Times article.” A link to the Feb. 12 “Journal-isms” column was included.
Behind the scenes, a collection of journalists had worked to alert the Times and Post about Carey’s significance. Times managing editors Marc Lacey and Carolyn Ryan immediately recognized it.
A letter to the Post, which had rejected the family’s request for a news obituary, was delivered Friday and signed by these Post alumni:
Karlyn Barker, Bobbi Bowman, Ivan C. Brandon, Leon Dash, Joel Dreyfuss, Dorothy Gilliam, Martha McNeil Hamilton, Jesse W. Lewis Jr., Wanda S. Lloyd, Myra MacPherson, Judith Martin, Penny Mickelbury, Richard Prince, Megan Rosenfeld, Ronald A. Taylor, Hollie I. West and Jack E. White.
MacPherson, an alumna of the Style section, saw a lesson to be passed along: “If you get this obituary in the Post, I think we should publish the fact that it happened only through people like you and former staff members who put pressure on them to do so.”
Melvin B. Miller, former Bay State Banner editor and publisher, with new owners Ron Mitchell, left, and Andre Stark, right, at the Banner’s office in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood. (Credit: Erint Images)
“Ozy Media is not in Kansas anymore. Or in any other jurisdiction. The company has decided to cease operations, according to a Twitter post today,” Bruce Haring and Jill Goldsmith reported Wednesday for Deadline. ” ‘In light of its current operational and legal challenges, the OZY board has determined that it’s in the best interests of its stakeholders to suspend operations immediately,’ the tweet said. The decision comes shortly after Ozy Media founder Carlos Watson was arrested and charged with fraud by federal investigators, according to multiple news reports. . . .”
“We’ve selected a comic strip to replace Dilbert, and one reason we chose it is the number of you who said we should have looked for a new voice when we replaced Funky Winkerbean with Beetle Bailey. Chris Quinn, editor and vice president of content, cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer, wrote readers Saturday in a “letter from the editor.” “The new strip is called Crabgrass by artist Tauhid Bondia. . . . Crabgrass is a comic strip about a multiracial childhood friendship by a Black artist. We dropped Dilbert because its creator, Scott Adams, went on a racist rant in a video that circulated widely. Crabgrass portrays the very opposite of Adams’ hateful advice to white people that they get away from Black people. . . .”
Oscar Micheaux’s “Within Our Gates,” from 1920, “has earned its own place in history as agitprop at its most necessary,” Slate reports. “Through its mixed-race protagonist Sylvia (Evelyn Preer), the film starkly portrays lynching and the attempted rape of a Black woman by a white man at a time when such crimes were everyday fears for Black people. It’s daring, dangerous filmmaking, and a must-see for anyone attempting to unpack the history of racial conflict in America.”
In “partnership with NPR, Slate polled a group of experts — a mix of industry and critical authorities from our previous list, as well as some newcomers — and we’re thrilled to present the results in our New Black Film Canon. (Listen to us discuss those new entries on NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour.) Use it as an opportunity to appreciate the breadth of artistry Black filmmakers have brought to the movies — and as an unbeatable viewing list deep with surprising treasures. The headlin’s deck promised, “From Touki Bouki to Friday, the 75 greatest movies by Black directors, as chosen by our special panel of filmmakers and critics.”
In 2003, “the (AAFCA) African American Film Critics Assn. emerged. Co-founded by Gil L. Robertson, Daryle Lockhart, Kathy Williamson, and Kevin ‘Chill’ Heard, the organization’s purpose was clear: to amplify Black voices in film criticism and arts entertainment journalism from across the African Diaspora,” Dominique Fluker reported Wednesday for Variety. “Today, the AAFCA actively reviews and spotlights cinema at large, with a particular emphasis on film and TV highlighting the Black experience. The association’s members are also engaged in AAFCA’s advocacy work, which includes programming for students interested in film criticism and journalism and general community outreach. . . .”
“Almost a week after CNN’s Don Lemon (pictured) made waves with a controversial on-air comment regarding Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley’s age, ‘CNN This Morning’ saw a double digit rating increase for the co-anchor’s return to the show Wednesday after a brief hiatus, according to official live plus same-day Nielsen data,” Loree Seitz reported Feb. 23 for the Wrap. Viewers tuned in to watch Lemon return to the show with the possibility of addressing the controversy.
“Twenty-four-year city resident, attorney and author Elisabeth ‘Liz’ Petry (pictured), a longtime newspaper reporter and daughter of a best-selling Black author, died Feb. 22 after a brief battle with cancer, her family said,” Cassandra Day reported Wednesday, updated Thursday, for the Middletown (Conn.) Press. “She was 74.” Petry worked for the Middletown Press, Meriden Record-Journal and Hartford Courant. “Petry’s mother Ann Petry is author of ‘The Street,’ written in 1946. It is still in publication today. She was the first Black author to sell one million copies of a book. . . her husband of 18 years, Vietnam veteran Larry Riley, was part of Secret Service detail for presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Petry was compiling her Black family’s Civil War-era letters into a documentary, ‘For Dear Mother’s Sake.’ . . .”
Monica Drake(pictured) “is being promoted to a deputy managing editor,” New York Times Executive Editor Joe Kahn announced Wednesday. “She will expand her portfolio to become our newsroom leader for culture and talent, oversee our growing Culture and Careers department, and continue her strategic role as the coordinator of new journalism initiatives. . . .” Kahn also said, “One of our top priorities is to make The New York Times the best place to work in journalism, ensuring that we have the talent and diversity it takes to cover the world with authority and sensitivity. . . . In her expanded role Monica will join the senior masthead to oversee and advance these efforts. . . .”
” ‘Tamron Hall‘ has been renewed for a fifth season with leading broadcast groups including Hearst, Scripps, Nexstar, Cox and Gray, ABC News president Kim Godwin announced, Natalie Oganesyan reported Thursday for The Wrap. “The groups join the ABC Owned Television Stations Group, which previously announced a two-year renewal of the Daytime Emmy-winning nationally syndicated talk show through the 2023-2024 season.. . .”
Accepting the Leonard Zeidenberg First Amendment Award Thursday from the Radio Television Digital News Foundation, MSNBC President Rashida Jones(pictured) said, “We grew up in the small town of York, Pennsylvania, and I remember walking with my parents along George Street as they marched for causes championed by organizations like the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. They admired civil rights leaders like Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali who used the power of the press to challenge the status quo and stand up to hatred and discrimination. It’s one of the reasons I was inspired to go to Hampton University, an HBCU, to better understand our history and to pursue a career in the public service of journalism. As a Black woman, a wife, a mother, a daughter and the president of MSNBC, I am firmly committed to social commentary and analysis that better informs our nation and leads to a better and more just society.” More from TVNewser
. . . W.E.B. Du Bois (pictured), the activist, scholar and journalist, might have been ahead of his time, but who knew he was decades ahead? In an MSNBC transcription of Rashida Jones’ remarks was this line: The First Amendment “has empowered an extraordinary lineage of civil rights and social justice reformers — people like Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du-boyz, and Maya Angelow [Angelou] — to write with passion, persuasion and conviction about deep injustices and inequities. . . .” DeWayne Wickham: Official moved to silence W.E.B. DuBois for publishing anti-lynching editorial
“NBC News partnered up with our owned stations for another American Vets segment on Black Vets, which is airing on NBC News NOW tonight at 8pm ET, as well as five of our owned stations — NBC Philly, DC, Connecticut, San Diego and Bay Area — with a digital component now up across 11 of our owned station websites,” an NBC spokesperson messaged Monday. “What really sets this apart is it wasn’t just a piece produced for the owned stations, it was a collaboration, with those five [owned] stations helping in the reporting and production of the report, led by Lucy Bustamante. They will each have their own localized piece running in their own newscasts, as well as the national story airing on NBC News NOW tonight. . . .”
“Cherokee Nation veterans and at-large citizens can now apply to receive a free one-year subscription to the Cherokee Phoenix,” the Phoenix announced on Monday. “There are no income guidelines for the Cherokee Phoenix Elder/Veteran Fund or Cherokee Phoenix At-Large Fund, and free subscriptions will be given as long as funds last. Money for the elder/veteran subscription fund was donated by Cherokee Nation Businesses. Money for the at-large subscription fund was allocated during the tribe’s fiscal year 2023 budget process. . . .”
The new film “Jesus Revolution” takes on the late ’60s-early ’70s origin of the “Jesus Movement” and the individuals who contributed to its widespread success, Savannah Taylor wrote Monday for ebony.com. That West Coast movement was “an Evangelical movement that centered Christian youth, referred to as hippies.” “Producer, author, and now actor DeVon Franklin (pictured) stars in the film as Josiah, a journalist for Time magazine who is sent to cover the phenomena of the movement’s emergence.” The Black journalists at the real Time magazine of that era included Wallace Terry, who reported on Black soldiers in Vietnam; Paul Hathaway in Washington; Jacob Simms and Joe Boyce in Chicago and Sam Washington,James Randall, Bryant Mason and himself in New York, Jack E. White told Journal-isms. The publication put out a special issue on race dated April 6, 1970, pictured above. Also in the issue: An essay from Ralph Ellison on “What America Would Be Like Without Blacks.”
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. Send tips, comments and concerns to Richard Prince at journal-isms+owner@groups.io
Marketers of hoodies, T-shirts and coffee mugs catering to the right-wing crowd rushed to put the phrase on their products.
“
“So on Saturday, February 11, when the Tampa Bay Lightning came to Dallas for a matinee match, Mangrum headed to the American Airlines Center for her first Stars game. A little before 1 p.m., running late for the puck drop, she saw that Mayor Eric Johnson (pictured) had criticized local media for, in his view, not fully reporting the good news about Dallas’ crime numbers dropping for the second consecutive year. The mayor opined that reporters were interested only in bad news.
“The Lightning beat the Stars 3-1. Later that day, Mangrum got an email from an editor saying her presence was requested at a Monday meeting. An HR rep got looped in. And that’s how Mangrum found herself getting grilled by the paper’s executive editor, Katrice Hardy (pictured). According to Mangrum, Hardy, who is Black, asked her if she would have used the word ‘bruh’ if the mayor were White. Mangrum, who is White, said yes. Her Twitter feed is littered with the word ‘bruh’ directed at all sorts of accounts, including those belonging to hockey fans and the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife.
In the latest legal filing Monday from Dominion Voting Systems, it was revealed that behind the scenes, Fox Corp. board member Paul Ryan, former House speaker, pleaded with chairman Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan Murdoch, the Fox Corp. CEO, to prevent Donald Trump’s bogus election claims “from being broadcast to Fox News’ audience of millions,” Oliver Darcy reported Wednesday for CNN. “Ryan, according to messages uncovered in the case, said that Fox News should ‘move on from Donald Trump’ and ‘stop spouting election lies.’ ”
Separately, Jeremy Peters wrote Monday for the New York Times that five days after a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol, another board member, Anne Dias (pictured), reached out to Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch with an urgent plea.
