Author Says Southerners Wanted to Keep Slave Patrols As Hollywood puts slavery back in the American consciousness and the reaction to the Newtown, Conn., shootings has the Second Amendment on the front burner, an author and talk-show host links the two in an intriguing way. “The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery,” reads the…

“Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’ has become embroiled in the second major controversy of awards season,” Steve Pond wrote Wednesday for the Wrap. “The director’s liberal use of the N-word, and his temerity in tackling the issue of slavery, has drawn fire from some prominent African-Americans and impassioned defenses from others. “Like the turmoil stirred up…

Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2012 1. Neither GOP Nor News Media Looked Like America 2. Social Media Can Mean Trouble: Ask Martin, Whitlock, Lee or Williams 3. Trayvon Martin Case 4. Unity Coalition Changes Course 5. New NAHJ Leadership After Brutal Campaign 6. The Numbers 7. Fellowship Breakthrough at Stanford 8. NBC News to Pay Its…

Program to Air Weekly as Ratings Disappoint BET announced Monday that it is scaling back its much-anticipated late-night, half-hour vehicle for T.J. Holmes, the former CNN anchor, from half an hour Monday through Thursday to an hour once a week. The show launched Oct. 1. CEO Debra Lee said last month the show is “designed…

President Obama was judged the winner of Monday night’s final debate of the campaign season, with challenger Mitt Romney leaving pundits debating why he now agreed with the president on so many foreign policy issues. “If this debate had gone on for 30 more minutes, Romney was going to endorse Obama,” Van Jones, the former…

Poverty Issue “Nearly Invisible” in Election Coverage “ ‘Middle Class First,’ said the placards on display as Bill Clinton addressed the Democratic convention. And indeed, speaker after speaker has invoked the party’s devotion to the lot of middle-class Americans in 2012,” David Crary reported Friday for the Associated Press. “The rich also have featured in…

Sites Recycle “No-Dreadlocks” News From 2001 For the last few days, the Internet has had its own version of the telephone game, in which a story is repeated from one person to the next and the version that reaches last person is completely different from the original. In this case, the story was about Hampton…

How serious was Joe Biden’s mistake in saying to a black audience in Danville, Va., last week that Republicans are “going to put y’all back in chains?” How about Touré, the writer turned MSNBC commentator, who apologized for his language after saying last week that Mitt Romney’s campaign was sending coded racial messages? “I know…

Choices Called Out of Step With Today’s Demographics Since the Commission on Presidential Debates failed to include journalists of color in the upcoming presidential and vice presidential face-offs, Univision has called on President Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to participate in a separate forum that the Spanish-language network would sponsor. The National Association…

Commission Rejects Adding Latino Journalists Reacting to complaints that only white journalists were chosen to moderate this year’s presidential and vice presidential debates, the Commission on Presidential Debates said Wednesday that ” . . . we strongly believe that the four journalists we have named see their assignment as representing all Americans in their choice…