• The Press Asks: How Much Coverage for Police, How Much for Their Victims?

    It is possible that contemporary America has seen three days as stunning, violent and racially charged as those that ended this week, but the nation certainly did not have the technology then to bring so much to the public so swiftly. Cellphone videos. Live transmissions via social media. 24-hour news cycles. For good measure, a…

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  • Fox News Downplays Killing of Alton Sterling

    With the exception of ABC-TV’s “Good Morning America,” according to the Rev. Al Sharpton, the broadcast network morning shows ignored Tuesday’s fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alton Sterling, an African American, by a Baton Rouge, La., police officer. On cable news, meanwhile, Tyler Cherry and Alex Kaplan of Media Matters for America reported that their analysis…

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  • Media Call Donald Trump on His ‘Dog Whistle’

    The news media, once criticized as giving Donald Trump free publicity for thinly veiled racist pronouncements, pounced so hard on a tweet sent Saturday by the GOP candidate that Trump quickly altered its controversial image and accused the media of being “dishonest.” “Donald Trump tweeted a meme Saturday that used dog-whistle anti-Semitism to announce that…

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  • Poll: Just 1 Percent of Blacks Back Donald Trump

    “Donald Trump’s support among African-American voters has plunged to a new low—and the New York Daily News wanted to make sure the Republican presidential candidate knew it,” Ed Mazza reported Wednesday for the Huffington Post. “According to the Quinnipiac University poll, just 1 percent of African-American voters supported Trump. That was well behind the 6…

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  • Why the Black Press Wants Facebook Regulated

    The trade organization representing the black press called out Facebook Monday as the latest threat to its existence, declaring that because of its inscrutable choices about stories what to display, “Our readers are at the mercy of powers unheard and unseen as never before.” Denise Rolark-Barnes, chairperson of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, and Benjamin…

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  • Really, Now? ‘Blacks and Whites Are Worlds Apart’

    “Amid a renewed national conversation about race in the U.S., a new Pew Research Center survey finds profound differences between black and white Americans in views on racial discrimination, barriers to black progress and the prospects for change,” Pew reported on Monday. “Blacks, far more than whites, say black people are treated unfairly across different…

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  • CNN’s Hiring of Ex-Trump Aide Raises Ethical Concerns

    “CNN drew a fair share of criticism—and some shrugs—when it announced Thursday the hiring of recently fired Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski as a political commentator,” Kelly McBride and Benjamin Mullin wrote Friday for the Poynter Institute. “The pushback from journalists was twofold. First, Lewandowski was recorded on video manhandling Breitbart journalist Michelle Fields…

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  • Gay Man Says Orlando, Fla., Killer Sought Revenge

    “Omar Mateen, the Muslim gunman who committed the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, was ‘100 percent’ gay and bore a grudge against Latino men because he felt used by them, according to a man who says he was his lover for two months,” Univision reported Tuesday. “ ‘I’ve cried like you have no idea. But…

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  • Cleveland Media Share in Cavs Madness

    More than 20,000 fans of the new NBA champion Cleveland Cavaliers greeted the team Monday as it returned to Cleveland from its historic come-from-behind victory over the Golden State Warriors, and the Cleveland news media were there to share in—and profit from—the excitement. George Rodrigue, editor of the Plain Dealer, told Journal-isms by email: “-…

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  • Did Media ‘Straightwash’ the Orlando, Fla., Tragedy?

    It was probably the first time journalists from a variety of news organizations collectively discussed last weekend’s mass shooting in Orlando that left 49 victims dead. The 70 people present for the third Unity Diversity Caucus Friday in Washington picked up a word new to most, “straightwashing.” “Straightwashing” means erasing gay identity. Some news organizations…

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