The 1995 convention of the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia was the scene of “a struggle for the soul of NABJ, a struggle between the nationalistic-activist and professional establishment wings of the association,” Wayne Dawkins wrote in “Rugged Waters: Black Journalists Swim the Mainstream,” his history of the group. At issue was what…

Defending N-Word in NFL Puts Writers in Awkward Position Newsrooms Don’t Allow Words for Which Athletes Get a Pass The NFL is considering penalizing players 15 yards if they use the N-word on the field, leaving sportswriters and columnists who question such a penalty in an ironic position: They would be sanctioning language that they…

Report: Medical Examiner Cites Natural Causes Angelo B. Henderson, a Detroit radio personality who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1999 while at the Wall Street Journal, died in his home in Pontiac, Mich., Saturday, according to Detroit news reports. Henderson died “after being rushed to the hospital in the morning. The 51-year old had been…

Jury Weighs ‘Loud-Music’ Killing: ‘Florida Again, Seriously?!’ Media Await Verdict in Death of Teenager Jordan Davis “In the national coverage of the first-degree murder case of Michael David Dunn, Jacksonville itself hasn’t really been a focus of the story,” Matt Soergel wrote this week for the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville. “Instead, attention has been squarely…

Joy-Ann Reid to Host Own Show on MSNBC The Grio to Stay, Despite Fate of NBC Latino Joy-Ann Reid, managing editor of the Grio and an MSNBC contributor since 2011, will host her own show on MSNBC, the network announced on Monday. David Wilson, co-founder of the Grio, told Journal-isms that he is returning to…

Tamron Hall Shares Pain of Sister’s Slaying Critic Gets Comeuppance at Television Writers Conference NBC News correspondent Tamron Hall revealed for television critics details of the unsolved 2004 murder of her sister and credited the agony of the experience for “the drive she has to host ‘Deadline: Crime with Tamron Hall’ on the network, which…

MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry tearfully apologized Saturday for poking fun at a Mitt Romney family photo that included his adopted African-American grandson, but the apology failed to end a discussion that initially seemed mired in political posturing.  Politics, Race, Mormonism and Babies a Volatile Mix “Several days later the controversy seems only to have grown larger…

St. Louis Brothers to Give Up Stations in Three Cities “We just experienced a shameful milestone in the history of U.S. media — and barely anyone noticed,” according to Joseph Torres and S. Derek Turner of the media advocacy group Free Press. “There are now zero black-owned and operated full-power TV stations in our country”…

Tenn. Paper Catches Heat for Front Page Array of Mug Shots 
”On Nov. 5, the Times Free Press published a front-page story about the arrests of 32 men charged with gun and drug crimes after a four-year local and federal investigation. Chattanooga Police Chief Bobby Dodd called the suspects the ‘worst of the worst’ in…

In the end, it did not seem to matter whether Richard Cohen, the Washington Post columnist, was a victim of poor wording and poor editing. His past spoke more loudly. Cohen, 72, has been a columnist at the Post since 1976, more than enough time to have built up a reservoir of comments viewed as…