Jim Asendio, likely the highest-ranking African American news director at a top-tier NPR affiliate, resigned at WAMU-FM in the nation’s capital on Tuesday “because I did not agree with an upper management decision to have working journalists attend a donor-only, station-sponsored event,” he said. “I do not believe that reporters should be exposed to the…

“The ESPN editor fired Sunday for using ‘chink in the armor’ in a headline about Knicks phenom Jeremy Lin said the racial slur never crossed his mind – and he was devastated when he realized his mistake,” Irving DeJohn and Helen Kennedy reported Monday for the Daily News in New York. ” ‘This had nothing to do with me being cute or…

MSNBC Thursday dropped conservative commentator Pat Buchanan, the recipient of two “Thumbs Down” awards from the National Association of Black Journalists, after decades of complaints that his pronouncements amounted to expressions of white nationalism, anti-Semitism and homophobia. The trigger this time appeared to be his latest book. Pat Buchanan wrote of his critics, ”Defy them,…

Offending Hollywood Producer Joins Gay Group’s Campaign The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation provided a hint of what it might have in store for Roland Martin Wednesday when it announced that Brett Ratner, the Hollywood producer who resigned as host of this year’s Academy Awards show after he publicly used the word “fag,” would…

Syndicated radio host Tom Joyner Friday called on Roland Martin to “make it right” and offer “a sincere apology” to the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. Joyner urged his morning-show colleague not to be like “another family member who refused to turn around,” an obvious reference to Tavis Smiley, who left Joyner’s show amid…

Forbes magazine Monday unveiled its list of “30 Under 30” — “These are the people who aren’t waiting to reinvent the world. FORBES, leaning on the wisdom of its readers and the greatest minds in business, presents the 30 disrupters under 30, in each of 12 fields, making a difference right now.” One field was…

Steven Gray of Washington Bureau Announces His Exit Five years ago, Journal-isms asked Ali Zelenko, vice president for communications at Time Inc., to name the journalists of color at Time magazine. Among the 15 she listed were black journalists Janice Simpson, assistant managing editor; Ta-Nehisi Coates, staff writer; Perry Bacon Jr., Washington correspondent; and Sonja…

T.J. Holmes, the affable CNN weekend anchor who told colleagues on Sunday he was leaving the network, is heading for Black Entertainment Television, according to a source familiar with Holmes’ situation. BET plans to build a show around Holmes, 34, the source said. Neither Holmes nor spokeswomen for BET were available for comment. BET made…

Has Infidelity Been Elevated as Electoral Issue? “All along, the Herman Cain campaign — which Politico called ‘one of the most hapless and bumbling operations in modern presidential politics’ — has been riveting but improbable,” Edward Wasserman, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation professor of journalism ethics at Washington and Lee University in Lexington,…

Husband Takes Top Job With Obama Re-Election Campaign Michele Norris, co-host of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” is taking a leave from the hosting job until after the 2012 elections because her husband, Broderick Johnson, has “has just accepted a senior advisor position with the Obama Campaign,” Norris told NPR staff members on Monday. “I will…