Commentator and entrepreneur Armstrong Williams said Monday that there is “no doubt” that he plans to buy WMMP-TV in Charleston, S.C., his home state, from Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. Allbritton Communications announced Monday it has agreed to sell its seven television stations to Sinclair for $985 million. Williams’ good relations with Sinclair are paying off.…

The fallout from the George Zimmerman trial was in the air Friday, as President Obama made a surprise speech about the verdict in the White House press briefing room. But at the National Native Media Conference in Tempe, Ariz., where the Native American Journalists Association was meeting, other topics ruled the day. The words “George…

Association Wants Martin, Zimmerman Families in Orlando Even though some members of the National Association of Black Journalists are so upset by the not-guilty verdict delivered George Zimmerman that they urged NABJ to pull out of Florida for the convention scheduled in two weeks, such a pullout would cost the association more than $1 million,…

A day after TV One announced that Roland Martin would host a new daily morning show on its network, Journal-isms asked Martin, “What have the stories about your new show failed to mention?” Martin replied by email: “That no other Black network has taken on such an ambitious project to launch a show in the…

Few Blacks in White Media, but They Reported It Elsewhere On Monday, PBS announced that a documentary marking the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington would air Aug. 27, on the eve of the historic date when Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. While this documentary and other commemorations…

How desperate are some journalists to find newspaper work in this era of cutbacks and layoffs? Nine or 10 journalists are reported to have fallen for a scam in which a 25-year-old accused con artist created a fake online newspaper. They joined his “staff.” Joshua Brian Randolph was in the Hall County, Ga., Detention Center…

President Obama ordered a review on Thursday of the Justice Department’s procedures for legal investigations involving reporters, acknowledging that he was ‘troubled’ that multiple inquiries into national security leaks could chill investigative reporting,” as Mark Landler reported for the New York Times. Later Thursday, the Justice Department announced that “As part of that review, the…

The first fatality identified as a casualty of the Oklahoma tornado was Ja’Nae Hornsby, 9, an African American student who was among seven people found dead Monday, drowned under the rubble at Plaza Towers Elementary School in suburban Moore, Okla. Ja’Nae’s father, Joshua Hornsby, released her name, and tearful family members told her story to…

President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama addressed freshly minted African American graduates over the weekend, reopening a debate that has dogged him since he was a candidate. On such occasions, how much emphasis should he give to addressing the “personal responsibility” of African Americans? How much should he focus instead on the responsibility of…

“Central Park Five” Film Makes Journalists’ Guilt Clear “The Central Park Five” has been a book, a theatrical movie and a PBS film that aired last month, indicting the news media as well as police and prosecutors in each iteration. But how much difference will it make? “Filmmakers Sarah and Ken Burns, not to mention…