Fashion Journalist Leaving Newsweek/Daily Beast

Robin Givhan, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fashion journalist, is among those laid off from Newsweek and the Daily Beast, according to Joe Coscarelli, writing Friday for the Daily Intel column of New York magazine.

" 'I plan to work on my book about the 1973 Versailles fashion show and look for a new job,' said Givhan, who will stay on until the end of the year," Coscarelli wrote.

Editor Tina Brown and new CEO Baba Shetty announced in October that the 80-year-old Newsweek would adopt a digital-only format in 2013.

In 2007, while at the Style section of the Washington Post, Givhan won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism "for her witty, closely observed essays that transform fashion criticism into cultural criticism."

She left the Post in 2010, after 15 years at the paper, purportedly because of disagreements with the then-Style editor.

The editor, Ned Martel, told the staff on her departure, ". . . Robin has demonstrated herself as an extraordinary talent, stretching the definition of fashion beyond the discussion of trends or runway flights of fancy. Thanks to Robin's Pulitzer-awarded acuity, Washington Post readers have learned how to understand world leaders through the way they dress.

"A parka, a pair of stiletto boots, a pair of hiking shorts launched national debates on what political figures must have been thinking when they made such personal decisions, or whether they were thinking through their public image at all. She has not only explained the iconic status of Michelle Obama's inaugural gown, Madeleine Albright's patriotic pins, freshman Rep. Frederica Wilson's Stetsons, she made Washington understand something fundamental about how every public appearance is a self-expression. No one is more in command of her own powers of self-expression than Robin, as her reasoned, elegant columns have proven each Sunday and we will miss her."

For her part, Givhan told Women's Wear Daily, "I obviously didn't make the decision to leave quickly or without a lot of soul-searching," Amy Wicks reported on WWD.com. "I've been a sniffling, blubbering wreck for the last few days. The Post has been an unbelievable place to work. But I think it was time for me to have a new adventure, and Tina's vision of what Newsweek can be is incredibly enticing and, I think, spot-on."

Givhan joined Newsweek and the Daily Beast with the title of special correspondent, style and culture. In July, she also became one of the contributors to a new blog, FashionBeast, Erik Maza of WWD reported.

Givhan told Journal-isms by email on Saturday, "Sad to say that yes, it is true. Quite the 'Merry Christmas.' . . . I'm in New York as we speak doing book research and happily following up on any new career opportunities."

When Journal-isms asked  Boston Globe Editor Martin Baron, who becomes executive editor at the Post in January, whether he would want Givhan back, he said that he is not at the Post yet and does not publicly discuss these sorts of subjects.

In-Your-Face Holiday Reads

December 7, 2012

John Avlon, Jesse Angelo and Errol Louis

Jared A. Ball and Todd Steven Burroughs

Aniko Bodroghkozy

Donna Britt

Wayne Dawkins

Patrice Evans

Stephen Hess

Rachel L. Swarns

Baratunde Thurston

Richard Prince's Book Notes™: Stocking Stuffers (Part 1)

Books by and about journalists of color might make provocative holiday gifts, and more of them are available in ebook and audio versions. This list of nonfiction includes humorous, in-your-face takes on being black; collections of columns by legendary opinion writers; an answer to a Pulitzer Prize-winning book on Malcolm X; a 30-years-later look at journalists of the 1970s; a study of how television covered the civil rights era; and an examination of Michelle Obama's multiracial ancestry. A continuation of this list will be published in coming days.

John Avlon, Jesse Angelo and Errol Louis

John Avlon, Jesse Angelo and Errol Louis have edited "Deadline Artists: America's Greatest Newspaper Columns" (Overlook, $29.95, cloth; $17.95, paper; Nook version, $10.99), and "Deadline Artists--Scandals, Tragedies and Triumphs: More of America's Greatest Newspaper Columns" (Overlook, $29.95, cloth; Nook version, $14.99).

The publisher argues that, "At a time of great transition in the news media, when obituaries for newspapers are being written every day, Deadline Artists makes the case for the continued relevance of opinion journalism. Beloved but half-remembered columns that were gathering dust in libraries or moldering on microfilm are now available in one volume, celebrating the near-miracle that stories composed on daily deadlines can resonate with beauty and power decades later."

Bloggers might note the art and skill that accompany good opinion writing.

Avlon is senior columnist for Newsweek and the Daily Beast as well as a CNN contributor. Angelo is editor-in-chief of the Daily, the made-for-iPad "newspaper" that announced this week it was ending publication. Louis, a black journalist, is the political anchor of NY1 News.

Unlike comparable collections, these volumes make an effort at diversity. Alongside Thomas L. Friedman, Ernie Pyle, Red Smith and Mark Twain are Langston Hughes, Frederick Douglass, Carl T. Rowan, Stanley Crouch, William Raspberry, Leonard Pitts Jr., Eugene Robinson, Cynthia Tucker and Bob Herbert, all African Americans. The first volume, released last year, featured no Hispanics, Native Americans or Asian Americans. A sequel, "Deadline Artists--Scandals, Tragedies and Triumphs: More of America's Greatest Newspaper Columns," was published last month, and slain Los Angeles Times journalist Ruben Salazar is included.

Jared A. Ball and Todd Steven Burroughs

Jared A. Ball and Todd Steven Burroughs, who teach communication studies at Morgan State University, edited "A Lie of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable's Malcolm X" (Black Classic Press, $18.95, paper).

The late Manning Marable's "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention" won this year's Pulitzer Prize for history despite strong dissent from several politically active black scholars when the book was published. Ball and Burroughs have assembled the contributions of 19 of the critics.

"Marable's 'definitive masterpiece' was to us a mere tombstone: a 600-page eulogy that attempted to lay permanently to rest the Malcolm X that we knew and revered," Ball writes. "Indeed, it aimed to bury the very ideas that produced Malcolm X and those he made his own, our own. The book attacked the very ideas that made Malcolm X and all Black people then, and now, dangerous." Burroughs writes that the book had to be written to correct the record. ". . . Our larger commitment to historical memory dwarfs any concerns about offending Manning Marable's admirers, colleagues, friends, and students."

Aniko Bodroghkozy

Aniko Bodroghkozy, an associate professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, has "Equal Time: Television and the Civil Rights Movement" (University of Illinois Press, $50, cloth).

"Equal Time" examines the news media's contemporary coverage of the civil rights movement, including that by the black press, and the effects of the movement on prime-time television entertainment in the 1960s and '70s. Chapters are devoted to coverage of the March on Washington in 1963 and the Selma-to-Montgomery march of 1965, and in entertainment to Diahann Carroll's "Julia" and the Norman Lear-produced "Good Times."

Bodroghkozy writes, "Both civil rights activists and Southern segregationists understood the political power of television, and both were interested in using this new instrument to speak to national (read: non-Southern) audiences.

"The former were clearly more successful in negotiating with the medium, but network television was not interested in doing the bidding of even the most moderate of civil rights groups, nor was television bent on always demonizing and dismissing the segregationist position. If a civil rights group could be labeled 'militant' — and we will see NBC's Chet Huntley so label the NAACP in 1959 — then that group could be legitimated as a political player as segregationists cheered and welcomed Huntley in as potentially one of their own."

In an epilogue on the Obama era, Bodroghkozy writes, "While it is both reductive and simplistic to suggest that network television's circulation and audiences' embrace of certain types of black representation have led to the election of a black president, this book has traced the mobilization of a certain type of image that, when appropriately paired with figures of whiteness, were presumed to make whites less anxious about social change."

Television news personnel, engaging in "a certain amount of utopian gushing" after Obama's election, "probably had no idea that they were borrowing from an old script. . . . "

Donna Britt

Donna Britt, former columnist for the Washington Post, has "Brothers (& me): A memoir of loving and giving" (Little, Brown and Co., $25.99, cloth and audio; $12.99 ebook; Kindle edition, $11.04; Nook version, $12.99.)

Britt wrote a version of this message to fellow columnists last year as this book was released:

"The holidays are perfect for diving into and for sharing with readers Brothers (and me), an exploration of women's intriguing penchant for giving. Library Journal calls the book 'more personal but no less significant' than Condoleezza Rice's memoir, and the Boston Globe describes it as 'alternately raw and elegant… a wrenching examination of a life through the prism of racism, sexism, and unconditional devotion.'  

"Brothers traces how my male-steeped life as the twice-married sister of three brothers and mother of three sons taught me to give — sometimes unwisely— to men, a problem shared by millions of women. My own giving was inspired by loss: The inexplicable, decades-ago death of my brother at the hands of hometown police, an uncalled-for killing that years later would be echoed in Trayvon Martin's slaying.

"Darrell's death taught me how inextricably loss and giving are intertwined for black women, whose experiences with the endangerment, diminishment and deaths of our husbands, lovers, sons and, yes, brothers causes many of us to reflexively protect, support and give to them in response. Brothers (and me) encourages giving women to trace their own journeys to giving and to utilize this gift more wisely."

Britt believes in plumbing her emotions and has delivered an Oprah-ready saga that includes some surprises about her personal life. She also adheres to a principle followed by the best writers: every word is carefully selected.

This month, Britt writes on her website, "in the spirit of the holiday, I'll for the next 25 days give in to the giving impulse that's all too natural to me. Each day until Christmas, I'll offer a different mindful gift: to students, seniors, friends, total strangers, even to myself. . . . Brothers (and me) described my journey from questioning to celebrating my giving. My goal now is to demonstrate that mindful giving expands the giver regardless of how the gift is received. But real life is unpredictable, so stay tuned as I test my theory while blogging — frankly, honestly — about each day's gift and what emerges."

Wayne Dawkins

Wayne Dawkins, assistant professor of journalism at Hampton University, has "City Son: Andrew W. Cooper's Impact on Modern-Day Brooklyn" (University Press of Mississippi, $35, cloth and ebook; Kindle edition, $19.25; Nook version, $22.75.)

As Dawkins writes on the book jacket, the City Sun was "a feisty Brooklyn-based weekly that published from 1984 to 1996. Whether the stories were about Mayor Koch or Rev. Al Sharpton, Howard Beach or Crown Heights, Tawana Brawley's dubious rape allegations, the Daily News Four trial, or Spike Lee's filmmaking career, Cooper's City Sun commanded attention and moved officials and readers to action."

The weekly tabloid broke the mold for the black press, criticizing African American officials along with other powers that be.

Cooper, who died in 2002, gave Dawkins a start in journalism at Trans Urban News Service in the 1970s. Cooper's widow, Jocelyn C. Cooper, asked Dawkins to write her husband's biography. In a cover blurb, Dawkins' Hampton colleague Earl Caldwell, the veteran journalist and Maynard Institute co-founder, calls the book "chock full of significant and compelling stories not previously told."

Written for academic audiences as well as a more general audience, Dawkins told Journal-isms, "Since July publication, City Son is listed in at least 110 mostly campus libraries [dominant states, NY-NJ, Calif., Miss.-Tenn.], including Canada, Wales, Australia and the Netherlands.

"Journalists of color should read this book if they want to understand the resurrection of Brooklyn as a destination [AWC can take credit for the Brooklyn Nets dribbling along Flatbush and Atlantic avenues]. 'City Son' also chronicles the hot-button cases of the '80s: Howard Beach/Tawana Brawley/Central Park Jogger assault [subject of a new Ken Burns documentary]. And, it's a good read about a newspaper that had a remarkable 12-year run. Dozens of their journalists continue to practice at other outlets."

Patrice Evans

Patrice Evans, a staff writer for grantland.com who created the "Ghetto Pass" column for gawker.com, has "Negropedia: The Assimilated Negro's Crash Course on the Modern Black Experience" (Three Rivers Press, $14, paper; Kindle and Nook versions, $9.99).

Evans told the New Yorker's Jason Parham in October 2011: "In a way, when you write a book like 'Negropedia,' that's the moment when you turn into a character or persona. When the straight-forward, intellectual territory has been mined, it's tough, at least from a creative standpoint, to be fresh and original. Negropedia is a very personal, idiosyncratic, and quirky manifestation of my perspective on race. Hopefully, it's a gateway drug of sorts to more 'Negropedias.' This is a time when minority Americans can use the voice of the Internet to post content and find an audience. The whole beauty and joy of this moment is that we aren't constrained by the paradigms of the past, the orthodoxy surrounding the conversation about civil rights, politics, and social activism.

"Now, even though many of the same issues still exist, there are more outlets and opportunities to voice your quirky, personal take on something — and it can become a joke, or a play, or a Web series like Awkward Black Girl, or it becomes a Web site like the Root or Black Voices, or even gets channeled into more mainstream cultural or political entertainment. I think that's where the conversation goes. It becomes a sort of prism, some fractured perspective that you can’t predict."

Stephen Hess

Stephen Hess, senior fellow emeritus in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, has "Whatever Happened to the Washington Reporters, 1978-2012" (Brookings Institution Press, $29.95, cloth and ebook; Kindle edition, $16.17; Nook, $16.77).

In 1978, Hess surveyed 450 journalists who were covering national government for U.S. commercial news organizations. A generation later, Hess and a team from Brookings and George Washington University tracked down 90 percent of the original group, interviewing 283 of them.

"Diversity" gets its own chapter in this book on the results. Fifteen African Americans were surveyed in 1978, including Roy Betts, Warren Brown, Diane Camper, Karen DeWitt, Mal Johnson, Harold J. Logan, Barbara Reynolds, Marilyn Robinson, Lee Thornton, Carole Simpson and Betty Anne Williams. Hess has accounted for all but three. The late television anchor David Garcia, whose obituary called him "a pioneering Latino journalist with a velvet voice," is also among the interviewees.

Hess is disappointed at the lack of more diversity progress. ". . . None of the black network correspondents have reached the highest rung since Ed Bradley died in 2006, although Byron Pitts of CBS Evening News is starting to appear on 60 Minutes," he writes. The chapter closes with a 2005 quote from Frank James, formerly a reporter at the Wall Street Journal and Chicago Tribune who is now at NPR:

"When I go to press conferences in Washington, D.C., I'm often the only black reporter. I'm lucky if there's another one. This might be twenty or thirty people, and I'm the only black. It makes me ask myself, 'How could it be that in 2005 you have a press conference in Washington, D.C., a city that is majority black, and I'm the only black reporter here?' . . . Does it have a personal effect on me? Sure, it saddens me that here we are in 2005 and I'm the only. I don't want to be the only."

Book excerpt

Rachel L. Swarns

Rachel L. Swarns, a Washington-based New York Times reporter, has "American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White, and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama" (Amistad, $27.99 cloth;  ebook, $16.99; audio, $23.62; Kindle version, $12.99; Nook editions, $16.99 and $17.99, enhanced).

The Dec. 2 print edition of the New York Times Book Review listed this book among the "100 Notable Books of 2012," and John McMurtrie of the San Francisco Chronicle included it among his gift guide for stocking stuffers and doorstoppers.

"American Tapestry" started as a Times story by Swarns and Jodi Kantor in October 2009.

"I found the first lady's family story fascinating — and I think many journalists of color will as well — because it reflects the history of this country in all of its complexities," Swarns told Journal-isms by email.

"Her ancestors were African American slaves, mixed race people who lived free for decades before the Civil War, and Irish Americans who fought for the Confederacy. And they had front row seats to some of the biggest moments in our history: slavery, the Civil War, Emancipation, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Great Migration. So many of us have similar stories in our own families. I hope that 'American Tapestry' will inspire journalists — who spend so much time reporting on the lives of other people — to take the time to dig into their own family stories."

Writing in the Washington Post, Martha Southgate said circumstances conspired against complete success for Swarns: "What works against her, and against the full success of the book, is the sketchiness of the history that the system of slavery created and enforced and the rareness of literacy among slaves and their immediate descendants," Southgate wrote. "Few letters, journals or notes have survived, all the written ephemera so crucial to the historian in discovering the mindset of his or her subjects. Further, many of those in the generations immediately after slavery maintained a staunch silence about the experience, as though to blot out the horror. . . ."

Baratunde Thurston

Baratunde Thurston, director of digital at the Onion, cofounder of Jack & Jill Politics and a stand-up comedian, has "How to Be Black" (Harper, $24.99, cloth; $14.99 paper; Nook version, $2.99). Thurston added in this message posted on Facebook Friday: "Are you afraid to read How To Be Black in public? Now you can get it for just $2.99 on Amazon Kindle."

Reading the book in public can draw curious reactions, as a white woman calling herself Cinnamon explained on goodreads.com:

"I am loving this book so far. If nothing else, the conversations, smirks, giggles, and very confused looks I've gotten while reading this book in public have been great.

"Having an older African American woman point at the book, smirk and say 'Good luck with that!' was a highlight of my week. And then just a few days later an older African American gentleman went on a rant to me about 'in his day' black people were trying to be white and now there were too many white folks trying to act black, but you have to be born black, you can't become black. And when I explained that it was humorous social commentary intended to discuss subtle or latent racism, he scoffed even louder and told me 'of course y'all take that from a funny black guy, if he was angry y'all would ignore him and run away from him. . . .' "

Thurston keeps busy. His website says, "In the past two years alone he has spoken at South by Southwest, Google Atmosphere, the Online News Association Conference, Netroots Nation, the Mashable Awards, Web 2.0 Expo, Personal Democracy Forum, Internet Week NY, Social Media Week, TribeCon, the ACLU Annual Dinner (Mass., Mich. and Okla.), Surf Summit 14 (Mexico), The AtlanTech Dinner (Paris), The FD Summit (Amsterdam), The Guardian Changing Media Summit (UK) and Digital Directions (Australia). In May 2011, he spoke at the presidential palace in Tbilisi, Georgia (the country) on the role of satire in a healthy democracy, and he advises The White House on digital strategy.

"Baratunde performs standup comedy regularly in New York City, resides in Brooklyn, lives on Twitter and has over 30 years experience being black."

Program Note: "Black in America"

"The issue of racial identity within the African-American community will be the focus of a Dec. 9 CNN Black In America documentary, according to network officials," R. Thomas Umstead reported for Multichannel News.

"Hosted by Soledad O'Brien, Who is Black in America? — the fifth installment of CNN's Black In America documentary franchise — will examine how much race and identity are personal choices versus reflections of what society thinks and believes. . . . "

Follow Richard Prince on Twitter.

Facebook users: "Like" "Richard Prince's Journal-isms" on Facebook.

Journal-isms is published on the site of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education (www.mije.org). Reprinted on The Root by permission.

"Ham-Handed," "Credible," "a Fraud"

News outlets were praised and criticized for their coverage of the murder-suicide involving Jovan Belcher, the Kansas City Chiefs linebacker who killed his girlfriend and then turned the gun on himself Saturday.

Not only did commentators evaluate coverage of the tragedy by CBS, ESPN and the NFL Network as a news event, but they also faulted or praised the emphasis given by print and broadcast outlets to the slain girlfriend, to the issue of domestic violence and to gun control as part of the story. NBC's Bob Costas and Fox Sports Network's Jason Whitlock were singled out for attention.

Richard Deitsch wrote Sunday for Sports Illustrated, ". . . CBS's The NFL Today show disgraced itself on Sunday.

"Viewers understand that networks have bills to pay and can tolerate mild product placement. But common sense and decency should always carry the day, and 24 hours after Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher murdered Kasandra Perkins (the mother of their three-month old daughter, Zoe), The NFL Today opened its pregame show with a ham-handed live advertisement for Garmin that featured host James Brown hawking the product ('We would like to thank our friends from Garmin for helping navigate our open!') like a GPS-happy P.T. Barnum."

Deitsch continued, ". . . Yesterday, on ESPN's Sunday Countdown, host Chris Berman began the show on the appropriate somber note, with the producers showing a live shot inside Arrowhead Stadium. Berman then sent the audience to reporter Ed Werder, a longtime journalist who had traveled to Kansas City. Werder provided what Werder always does: credible reporting. Given the news in Kansas City, ESPN, to its credit, canceled its comic segment with Frank Caliendo and its frivolous 'Come On, Man' segments."

In the Times Union in Albany, N.Y., Pete Dougherty also praised ESPN but panned the NFL Network. "ESPN, still the place to turn for any major breaking sports story, followed journalist principles today before reporting the [identity] of the Kansas City Chiefs player who killed his girlfriend and then himself," he wrote Saturday.

"Meanwhile, the NFL Network proved itself to be a fraud when it comes to breaking news.

"ESPNews reported the story when it broke and continued to update viewers, but did not identify the player as linebacker Jovan Belcher -- even though numerous Internet reports did -- until police released the name."

Deitsch noted, ". . . Covering crime is not easy for a sports network, but it does reveal something about its journalistic DNA. As news broke Saturday morning from Kansas City, the NFL Network opted to continue airing its regular-scheduled programming (in this case, a repeat of Playbook AFC with Sterling Sharpe) while using the scroll at the bottom of the screen to update coverage.

"I kept popping back to the network, and the only hint of coverage I saw was someone from a makeshift studio giving a 60-second news brief. The Golf Channel's Damon Hack, who covered the NFL for years for the New York Times and Sports Illustrated, spoke for many viewers when he tweeted, 'What's up w NFL Network? S Sharpe is dancing? [Matt] Millen says he's going to show how P Manning 'kills people' w play action? Can't be live.'

". . . Here's spokesperson Alex Riethmiller. 'NFL Network became aware of the breaking news in Kansas City shortly before 8 a.m. PT (NFLN's studios are located in California) on Saturday. Immediately, a story went up on NFL.com, which was composed of information from NFL.com reporters Ian Rapoport and Albert Breer, as well as wire services. At 8 a.m. PT, NFL Network broke into regularly scheduled programming (a repeat of Playbook) to report the news. NFL Network continued to give live updates from the newsroom every 30 minutes, providing the latest news and developments.'"

CBS Sports spokeswoman Jennifer Sabatelle did not reply to a request from Journal-isms for comment, but Deitsch wrote, "Asked by USA Today Sports how CBS covered the Belcher story, CBS Sports executive vice-president/production Harold Bryant said, 'We covered it very well.' And so it goes."

On NBC, meanwhile, the Associated Press reported, ". . . Bob Costas used his halftime segment on 'Sunday Night Football' to advocate for gun control . . . causing an immediate debate on social media. . . .

". . . In a segment about 90 seconds long, Costas paraphrased and quoted extensively from a piece by Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock."

"The online reaction to Costas' segment was swift, with many people criticizing the broadcaster for expressing his personal views on a program meant for entertainment."

Whitlock had written Saturday, "Football is our God. Its exaggerated value in our society has never been more evident than Saturday morning in my adopted hometown. There's just no way this game should be played."

Jemele Hill of ESPN advocated a different approach. "Rather than hanging Jovan Belcher's jersey inside his locker as an awkward tribute and having a moment of silence for domestic violence victims before Sunday's game, the Kansas City Chiefs should have handed out this fact sheet from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence to every player and all the fans who attended the game," Hill wrote on Monday.

alexthechick, doublplusundead blog: An open letter to Bob Costas and Jason Whitlock

Editorial, Kansas City Star: Seeking help, not succumbing to violence, is best response

Mike Freeman, CBS Sports: Agree or not, Chiefs want to play Sunday in wake of Belcher murder-suicide (Dec. 1)

Kansas City Star special section: Chiefs Murder-Suicide

David J. Leonard, Feminist Wire: Kasandr a Michelle Perkins: We Must Say Her Name

Roland Martin Talks With Jason Whitlock About His Column About Jovan Belcher's Murder-Suicide (podcast)

Greg Mitchell blog: Update: Costas Sparks Guns (and Football) Debate

Monte Poole, Oakland Tribune: Kansas City Chiefs tragedy won't stop NFL

Dave Skretta, Associated Press: Chiefs begin picking up pieces after heartache

Deron Snyder, Washington Times: Who's big enough to bring NFL to a halt?

Rachel Binns Terrill, Seattle Times: How Jovan Belcher tragedy reveals dark side of love in NFL

Travis Waldron, Think Progress: Bob Costas Was Right To Talk About Gun Violence During Sunday Night Football

The Daily, Made for iPad, Recalled for Diversity

The closing of the Daily, the standalone daily iPad newspaper from News Corp., publisher of the New York Post and owner of Fox News, marks the end of an experiment in a daily "newspaper" made expressly for tablets.

The restructuring, announced on Monday, also demonstrates that digital journalists can lose their jobs just as those in the print media, and shows that staff diversity can exist even online and at a News Corp. product.

"The newspaper had a high profile launch in February 2011, but had apparently struggled to pay its way -- recent reports suggested the losses were looking like $30 million a year, and rumors that Rupert Murdoch would kill the publication have been around since at least early summer," Adam Taylor and Julia La Roche reported for businessinsider.com.

". . . the brand will live on in other channels. Technology and other assets from The Daily, including some staff, will be folded into The Post."

Derek Rose, a copy editor at the Daily who was among those laid off over the summer, messaged Journal-isms, "though not without some frustrations associated with starting a new venture, it was really a good place to work, with a diverse workforce. I worked with some really talented journalists, of all different ethnicities. I know however much this might have been rumored, the reality of it is still a blow -- but I'm confident they'll land on their feet."

Rose is now writing a daily public health newsletter for a nonprofit and working part-time as a producer at SkyeAol.com. He recalled these other journalists of color working at the Daily:

Quindell Willis, a photo editor; Nadia Wynter and Carlton Christopher on the copy desk; Mara Gay, staff writer; Hasani Gittens, a news editor; reporter Myles N. Miller; Daniel-Johnson Kim, designer, and Peter Ha, tech editor. Rose, Christopher and Kim were let go over the summer; Ha said he left in April but was not let go. He said he had a short stint with TechCrunch and is now the news editor at Gizmodo.

Ha wrote a piece for Gizmodo on Monday, "What It Was Like Launching the Doomed iPad Magazine The Daily."

It began, "I was the 19th employee hired by The Daily. My first day as the tech editor was on November 1, 2010, and the plan was to launch the next month. Needless to say, I was scared shitless."

Ha told Journal-isms by email, "While I was only one of two section leads at The Daily of color [Dan Woo led the video team], I remember it being a fairly diverse and eclectic staff. As a person of color, I usually pay attention but it never crossed my mind in the 18 or so months that I was there. The design and video teams were the most vibrant. . . . As far as the business side is concerned, it was predominantly white."

Miller, 19, a freelance political reporter who covered the White House and Congress before being laid off in July, messaged, "There was much diversity at The Daily, across all teams at the paper. Very proud of all they've accomplished."

News Corp. declined to discuss the staff diversity. "Unfortunately, I am not able to provide you with information about our employees," spokesman Nathaniel Brown said.

John Biggs, TechCrunch: The Daily's Final Day: About 100 Employees In The Newsroom, Little Inkling Of Layoffs

N.Y. Times, Cleveland Plain Dealer Face Cutbacks

"Aiming to cut costs in an increasingly troubled advertising environment, The New York Times announced on Monday morning that it would offer buyout packages," Christine Haughney reported Monday for the Times. "While the primary goal of the buyout program is to trim managers and other nonunion employees from its books, the company is offering employees represented by the Newspaper Guild the chance to volunteer for buyout packages as well.

"In a letter to the staff, Jill Abramson, executive editor of The Times, said she was seeking 30 managers who are not union members to accept buyout packages. She stressed that the paper had been reducing as many newsroom expenses as possible, like leases on foreign and national bureaus. But the hiring The Times has done in recent years to help make it more competitive online has restored the newsroom to the same size it was in 2003 -- about 1,150 people."

Meanwhile, Haughney reported Sunday, "While workers at many newspapers owned by Advance Publications have tried to brace themselves for what seems to be the inevitable -- layoffs and the end of a daily print product -- reporters and editors at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland are fighting back in an unusual way: they are taking their case directly to the public.

"The staff there has started a campaign to rally community support and to try to prevent cuts like the ones Advance has made in other cities. Using money provided by Local 1 of the Newspaper Guild and a grant from the Communications Workers of America, organizers have produced a television commercial, created a Facebook page that has attracted nearly 4,000 'likes' and started a petition that has nearly 6,000 signatures so far. They have also enlisted some celebrities, like the 'Hot in Cleveland' star Valerie Bertinelli, to support their cause."

Afi-Odelia Scruggs blog: From the Newspaper Guild: Plain Dealer Could Lose One-Third of Its Newsroom

Roger Yu, USA Today: Cleveland 'Plain Dealer' mulls layoffs, restructuring 

Program Director Resigns at D.C.'s WPFW

Bobby Hill, the interim program director at Washington's WPFW-FM, the Pacifica-owned community radio station, tendered his resignation Monday after removing program hosts to fulfill the general manager's order for a station reformatting.

"After 30 years of varied service to WPFW, I sincerely regret that, in my second and current term as Interim Program Director, I have been involved in implementing a grid change that has caused such discomfort to many programmers and listeners," Hill wrote in a letter posted on a website created by dissatisfied WPFW staffers.

". . . The new grid was finalized late last week, resulting in notifications of impacts being shared with programmers with very little lead time," Hill continued.

"This was far different from the then new grid that I implemented as Program Director in the spring of 2008, which had a 5-month collaborative development process, and provided a one month lead time for impacted programmers and listener notification. When I had concerns that caused me to tender my resignation from my current interim position late in this new grid development process, I reconsidered and rescinded such tender, and instead worked hard and earnestly to implement the new grid as best I could. I have offered to meet with our General Manager John Hughes to revisit our new grid.

"None of this sits well with me. Should the aforementioned meeting/grid revisit occur, I would return in this position, if it were the greater will of John and the staff/programmers. . . ."

As reported last week, WPFW has decided to eliminate much of its music programming in favor of syndicated talk, including the Tavis Smiley radio show and Smiley's "Smiley and West," with activist Cornel West; and NPR's "The Takeaway," produced and hosted by John Hockenberry, and Michel Martin's "Tell Me More," which already airs on public radio's WAMU-FM.  More than a dozen people have been let go in this effort to boost listenership.

The changes were to take effect Monday, but an archived speech by the late novelist James Baldwin aired instead of "Smiley & West," the rights for which the station would have to purchase.

Hughes has said the changes were required because the politically progressive station is in financial trouble, its ratings have declined and its demographics skew too old.

At a two-hour meeting attended by about 60 people Saturday night, one of two held that day, WPFW staffers and supporters said they were demanding restoration of the previous program grid and the removal of Hughes by the national Pacifica office.

The meeting concluded with intentions to seek a court injunction against the proposed changes, on the grounds that they violated the station's and Pacifica's mission. The imported programming is underwritten by corporations, at least one of which makes weapons, they said, while the community-funded Pacifica network was founded by a conscientious objector, considers itself pacifist and does not accept underwriting.

Esther Iverem, a WPFW host who is a former Washington Post Style reporter, told Journal-isms by email, "after a monday meeting, organizers are still exploring options."

Jonathan L. Fischer, Washington City Paper: An Early Look at WPFW's New Schedule (Nov. 30)

Jonathan L. Fischer, Washington City Paper: WPFW's Programming Director Resigns

Matthew Lasar, Radio Survivor: Rough notes: towards the end of Pacifica Radio (and the start of something new) (Aug. 5)

Clinton Yates, Washington Post: A part of WPFW died over the weekend

Progressive Media Weigh Stance Toward Obama

"For the better part of four years, progressive media has had President Barack Obama's back," Dylan Byers wrote Sunday for Politico.

"Now that he's won re-election, it is faced with a choice: Should the left continue always to play the loyal attack dog against the GOP, blaming the opposition at all hours of the news cycle for intransigence? Or, should it redirect some of that energy on the president, holding him to his promises and encouraging him to be a more outspoken champion of liberal causes?

"Already, there are rumblings of change.

"In the days and weeks following Obama's victory, progressive voices, primarily in print media, have made efforts to push the president on key parts of the unfinished liberal agenda -- including climate change, drone strikes, troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, the closing of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, civil liberties and gun control. . . ."

Perry Bacon Jr., the Grio: President Obama plays hardball in 'fiscal cliff' talks

Stanley Crouch, Daily News, New York: The base attacks on Susan Rice

George E. Curry, National Newspaper Publishers Association: Income Inequality Grows in U.S.

Tim Giago, indianz.com: Indian Country remains out of sight and out of mind

Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian, Britain: Progressive media claims they'll be 'tougher' on Obama now

Emil Guillermo, Asian American Legal and Education Defense Fund: Dis co-dancing toward the Fiscal Cliff

Eric Hananoki, Media Matters for America: CBS Analyst Frank Luntz Praised Paul Ryan While His Firm Received Money From His Campaign

Joel Jaeger, Council on Hemispheric Affairs: John Kerry vs. Susan Rice -- The View from Latin America (Nov. 29)

Roland S. Martin, Creators Syndicate: Obama Should Take the Fight to the GOP Over Rice

Askia Muhammad, Washington Informer: Fiscal Cliff Is Still about Slavery, Not Money

Ruben Navarrette Jr., Washington Post News Media Services: GOP dug its own hole with Latinos

Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: Capitol Hill cronyism targets Rice

Geraldo Rivera, Fox News Latino: Too Little, Too Late on Immigration

Mary Sanchez, Kansas City Star: Why Medicare and Medicaid remain popular programs

Punch TV to Add 16 Low-Power Stations Next Week

"Bounce TV, the thriving African- American-targeted multicast network, was supposed to get stiff competition in what looked like the fastest growing niche in the programming world. But while would-be competitors Kin TV and Soul of the South have missed multiple launch dates, casting their very existence into question, another digi-net in the urban space quietly reached a year on the air," Michael Malone reported Monday for Broadcasting & Cable. The text of the article is available only to subscribers.

"Punch TV, broadcasting to African-Americans, English-speaking Hispanics and anyone else 18-45 who identifies with the urban concept, adds 16 partner stations on Dec. 12, giving it a total of 35 -- and reaching 55 million U.S. households, according to Joseph Collins, Punch TV founder and CEO.

"The affiliates are low-power stations. But Collins, who got his start in broadcasting as a teenage intern at WVTV Milwaukee, says Punch offers something fresh, with a programming mix that's 70% original.

" 'The [others] are doing black nostalgia television,' he says. 'I am focused on something different.'

"Soul of the South had initially pegged the first quarter of 2012 for its debut, while Kin TV shot for August. Kin appeared to suffer a setback upon the announcement last month that Lee Gaither, its former CEO, had joined Africa Channel as executive vice president and general manager. Gaither would not comment, and Kin TV execs could not be reached. One person with knowledge of Soul of the South's plans said the network was targeting a Martin Luther King Day launch, and set the odds at 50-50 that it would happen. . . . "

Asian, Latino Groups Rank NBC Highest On Diversity

"Fox received an 'F' from the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition and the National Latino Media Council today in the groups' annual network report cards," Dominic Patten reported Thursday for Deadline Hollywood. "But it's not because the network that airs The Mindy Project doesn't have enough Asian Pacific Americans or Latinos on their shows and in their company -- it's because Fox missed its deadlines to report its numbers.

"The APAMC says that on November 1 it gave Fox a deadline of November 15 to get back to them with the ethnic mix of their programming on both sides of the camera. . . . At the same time, the group, which gave Fox a C- overall last year, praised the network as being the only one that met its 2011 challenge to cast an Asian Pacific American in a lead role on a TV series: Debuting this season, Mindy Project stars and was created by Mindy Kaling whose heritage is Indian. The National Latino Media Council also criticized Fox today for not meeting its November 8 deadline.

". . . In response, Fox said today that they wanted to provide 'more accurate data' but were unable to do so within the APAMC's and NLMC's timelines. . . . "

The Asian group's report said, "Overall, NBC, with a B- (down one notch from last year's B), again ranked highest overall [PDF] in this year's APAMC report card, which marks the 11th anniversary of judging the inclusion of APAs in eight categories: actors, unscripted (reality) show participants, writers/producers, directors, development, procurement, executives, and network initiatives. . . ."

The Hispanic group's report said, "NBC's diversity strength comes from their behind the camera talent [PDF], and although they lack in the key area of in front of camera actors, they have pulled forward as leader of the diversity network pack. NBC gets an overall 'A-' for the 2011-12 season and they deserved it. Comcast's 2011 acquisition of NBC-Universal seems to have accelerated the progress NBC has made in its diversity programming efforts and we commend Comcast for it."

The Hispanic group gave ABC a "B" and CBS a "B+." The Asian group gave CBS and ABC a "C+."

Why Haven't More Liberals Defended "Lincoln"?

"Lincoln is the first major biopic in more than 70 years of the man many consider our greatest president," Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote Monday in his blog for the Atlantic. "The result has been a fascinating back and forth among scholars and writers about what the film does and doesn't do, who it portrays and who it doesn't.

"Last week I spent some time (off-line) with New York Times film critic A.O. Scott debating the film's meaning and impact. We've decided to bring that discussion online and add in some other voices, including historian Kate Masur, who has examined how Lincoln deals with the role of African-American activism at the end of the Civil War.

"We pick up the conversation with the following note addressed to Scott and Masur, taking up our conversation from last week. The major theme under debate is simple: Why haven't more liberals defended Lincoln? . . ."

Charles M. Blow, New York Times: Lincoln, Liberty and Two Americas

Ta-Nehisi Coates blog, the Atlantic: Slightly Longer Thoughts on 'Lincoln' (Nov. 30)

Mary C. Curtis, Washington Post: What 'Lincoln' leaves out, and why it matters

Gary L. Flowers, Tri-State Defender, Memphis, Tenn.: 'Lincoln,' the movie: 'We' are what's missing

Nick Jimenez, Caller-Times, Corpus Christi, Texas: 'Lincoln' reminds us that politicians can have noble intentions

Short Takes

"The sixth Phyllis T. Garland/BA Network scholarship recipient is to be named this month, Columbia University J-school officials confirmed at press time," Wayne Dawkins reported for the December issue of the Black Alumni Network newsletter. ". . . This means the $5,000 scholarship opportunity will resume after a two-year dormancy. . . . The $5,000 helps underwrite the $81,000 cost of attending the graduate school."

"The Minority Media and Telecommunications Council has sold KYHN-AM in Ft. Smith, Arkansas to Kim Girdner," RadioInk reported on Monday. "KYHN was one of six radio stations donated to MMTC by Clear Channel in 2009, most of which have been placed with minority or women owner/operators."

"Univision's evening and late night newscasts had a strong November sweeps period, particularly among younger viewers," Merrill Knox reported Sunday for TVNewser. . . . "Compared to ABC's 'Nightline,' CBS' 'Late Show with David Letterman' and NBC's 'Tonight Show With Jay Leno,' " "Noticiero Univision," the network's evening newscast, anchored by Jorge Ramos and María Elena Salinas, "was the only program to post a year-over-year increase among younger viewers."

". . . far less than half of Americans are positive about the honesty of journalists, lawyers, insurance salespeople, HMO managers, stockbrokers, and advertising practitioners -- all of which have honesty ratings below 25%," Frank Newport, editor in chief of The Gallup Poll, reported on Monday.

"For those who refuse to believe that an innocent person could be convicted in a country founded on equal protection under the law, just consider the case of a young Texas Tech student from Fort Worth who was charged, tried, found guilty and sent to prison for a crime he did not commit," Bob Ray Sanders wrote Saturday for the Star-Telegram in Fort Worth, Texas. His subject was the case of the late Timothy Brian Cole. "But, as a documentary series premiering Tuesday on BET (Black Entertainment Television) shows, Cole is just one of many in this country who have been victims of a terribly flawed criminal 'justice' system based on bad policing, over-zealous prosecution and, yes, racism."

"Radio One, Inc. will consolidate its Syndication One Urban programming line-up with Reach Media, Inc. in 2013. The assembly of top talent, programming and prime national advertising inventory make Reach Media the leading radio network with the ability to speak directly to the African-American audience," the organizations announced on Monday. Marty Rabb, a spokesman for Reach Media, told Journal-isms the arrangement was intended to attract more advertisers, bringing "a mass and depth to that audience base."

"In the first issue of Symbolia, a publication that launches on the iPad today, you'll find a dispatch from Iraqi Kurdistan, a profile of a Zambian psychedelic rock band, and an article about environmental devastation in California's Salton Sea," Jessica Weisberg reported for Columbia Journalism Review. "All of these stories are told with comics."

"I've noticed in the last few years that some police, politicians and other public officials are extremely reticent to speak candidly," Lewis W. Diuguid wrote Sunday in the Kansas City Star. ". . . That's how social media have changed the flow of information from knowledgeable sources. Twitter, blogs, Facebook and YouTube have turned everyday people into citizen journalists who are too eager to 'expose' public officials."

Cesar Arredondo, Southern California freelance reporter, has been elected president of the new Los Angeles chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Nu Yang reported Monday for Editor & Publisher. SAG-AFTRA union representative Ray Bradford said in August there had been no NAHJ chapter "out of respect for the leadership, the long time leadership of the California Chicano News Media Association, which preceded the formation of NAHJ. . . . "

"Add former Democratic FCC commissioner and media consolidation critic Michael Copps to those criticizing Democratic FCC chairman Julius Genachowski for his media ownership proposal," John Eggerton reported Monday for Broadcasting & Cable. ". . . Instead of hurrying in the wrong direction, wouldn't the Commission's time be better utilized by considering (and actually voting on) some of the dozens of recommendations that have been put before it by civil rights and public interest groups to establish programs and incentives to encourage minority and female ownership?" Copps said.

Comedian Steve Harvey of the nationally syndicated "Steve Harvey Morning Show" saved a small struggling lingerie shop in South Philadelphia Thursday by reading aloud a desperate letter begging for his help in saving the business, Jenice Armstrong wrote Friday in the Philadelphia Daily News. ". . . Within minutes, listeners had overloaded the website."

The Future Journalism Project describes itself as a "multiplatform documentary exploring the present state, current disruption, and future possibilities of American journalism," Nu Yang reported for Editor & Publisher. "This summer, FJP launched its Latin American counterpart at la.thefjp.org with editors José L. Leyva and Roberto Juárez-Garza."

"Judith Miller and Kirsten Powers were on Fox News this morning during a weekly media segment on 'Happening Now,' " Chris Ariens reported Friday for TVNewser. "The hot topic: MSNBC's Toure describing Sen. John McCain this week as a member of an 'old, white, establishment,' who 'wrongly and repeatedly attacked a much younger black woman [U.N. Amb. Susan Rice.]' "

"It's a race to be the best of the second best," Tanzina Vega reported Sunday for the New York Times. "On Monday, Univision, the dominant Spanish-language network in the United States, will announce a new name and look for its second-largest network, TeleFutura. The move is a direct shot at Telemundo, a rival for second place among domestic Spanish-speaking viewers. . . . The new name for the network will be UniMás."

Robin Washington, editor of the Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune, told readers Sunday how he had promoted his 1995 public television documentary about a 1947 Freedom Ride in an online poll seeking views on the "greatest documentary ever." ". . . I can still truthfully -- and shamelessly -- say 'You Don't Have to Ride Jim Crow!' was voted the 53rd greatest documentary of all time."

"According to a report published by Ventures Africa, an African business magazine and news service, Oprah Winfrey is no longer the richest black woman in the world," Ventures Africa announced Friday. "Folorunsho Alakija, a Nigerian Fashion designer and Oil tycoon is the richest black woman in the world, and is worth an estimated $3.3 billion." Forbes magazine estimated Winfrey's wealth at $2.7 billion in September.

"The head of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) today expressed disappointment at a recent decision taken by national authorities to suspend the transmissions of Radio Okapi, a radio station backed by the world body," the U.N. News Service reported on Monday.

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Journal-isms is published on the site of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education (www.mije.org). Reprinted on The Root by permission.