The death of Muhammad Ali Friday night in Phoenix followed “a media frenzy of speculation about his latest health woes,” as Mike James and Chris D’Amico reported earlier in the day for USA Today. But it gave media outlets time to prepare an outpouring of coverage that unfolded as the news spread in the Eastern…

“Sports website SB Nation published its disastrous and ‘wrongheaded’ February story about Daniel Holtzclaw — the college football player turned cop who was convicted in December of serial rape — due to a series of organizational and editorial breakdowns and an ‘overall lack of diversity,’ the Vox Media-owned site said,” Kim Bellware reported Thursday for…

“The importance of diversity in the media — as in other sectors of society — is not about scoring points in some imaginary scale of civic virtue,” Howard W. French wrote Wednesday in a 5,700-word essay in Britain’s Guardian. “It has nothing to do with the granting of favours — or even concessions — by…

Danielle Belton, associate editor of The Root who created the blog The Black Snob, has been named managing editor of The Root, succeeding Lyne Pitts, the website announced Friday. The Root, which calls itself “the premier news, opinion and culture site for African-American influencers,” ranked second in monthly unique visitors for 2015 on a list…

The young single mother of a 3-year-old died in police custody last week near Houston, but news of Symone Nicole Marshall’s death did not surface in the news media until a column Tuesday by Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King in the Daily News in New York.” A beautiful 22-year-old mother of a 3-year-old-daughter died…

The U.S. Department of Education Friday reported “a lack of racial diversity among teachers at public elementary and secondary schools across the nation. Less than one in five U.S. public school teachers — 18 percent — are individuals of color, while approximately half —49 percent — of public elementary and secondary school students are individuals…

A 121-year-old Confederate monument at the University of Louisville is coming down, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer and university President James Ramsey announced Friday. The editor of the Courier-Journal, the city’s daily newspaper, credits an op-ed piece in his paper. On Twitter, Ricky L. Jones, chair of Pan-African Studies at the school who wrote the op-ed,…

The outpouring of pixels, print and video memorializing Prince continued unabated on Monday with testimony about the superstar’s allegiance to the black community and especially to black media. In an interview published Sunday with Shenequa Golding of Vibe magazine, publicist Terrie Williams described how she met Prince, who died at 57 on Thursday, through the…

An expose of slavery in Southeast Asia’s fishing industry was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for public service Monday. The Washington Post won the Pulitzer for national reporting for its comprehensive study of fatal shootings by U.S. police officers, and Farah Stockman, who joined the New York Times just days ago as a national correspondent, won…

“The roof is coming apart,” Erick Johnson wrote Monday for the Chicago Crusader. “The creaky wooden porch is aging with growing cracks. And the navy blue paint that once adorned the steps is peeling away. Nearly 100 years ago, this white, two-story house in Chicago’s West Englewood neighborhood on the city’s south side became the…