End of Strained Relationship Means “Sky’s the Limit” Sports commentator Stephen A. Smith, who finally returned to the Philadelphia Inquirer in February after a two-year feud with his employer of 15 years, left the paper by mutual agreement on Tuesday. “I’m as happy as I’ve been for a long time,” Smith told Journal-isms on Wednesday.…

Two days after CNN hired disgraced former New York governor Eliot Spitzer to co-host a new prime-time program, the National Association of Black Journalists Friday blasted the cable news networks for their failure to place African American hosts in such prime-time slots. “The company missed another opportunity to place a person of color in prime…

It was near the end of the “Blogging While Brown” conference on Saturday when a woman in the Air Force stepped to the microphone to tell the group that she blogged about natural hair and that there were “so many restrictions” on it in the military. If you have “relaxed” hair, she said, a new rule…

“Consumer magazine publishers have desperately been trying to scratch a profit from any amount of advertising dollars they can get their hands on, especially since the economic recession last year. “One group that was hit particularly hard in the marketing pullback was African-American magazines,” Jason Fell wrote Thursday for Folio. According to the Publishers Information…

“Former New Orleans police Officer David Warren had claimed not to know if he hit anybody when he fired a shot with an assault rifle four days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall,” the New Orleans Times-Picayune editorialized on Monday.”Given Mr. Warren’s award-winning marksmanship, his claim was never believable,” it continued. “Friday federal prosecutors accused the…

The sisters of Helen Thomas say her statements about Israel — which cost the White House correspondent-turned-Hearst columnist her job — have been widely misinterpreted. In a telephone interview initiated by Journal-isms, three of them said Thomas was not calling for the destruction of Israel or the return of all Israelis to Europe or the…

“Speaking to the people of the Gulf Coast a week ago last Wednesday from Grand Isle, President Obama assured them that his administration would keep focused on the massive oil spill and its consequences,” David Carr wrote Monday in the New York Times. “ ‘I am here to tell you that you’re not alone. You…

ASNE To Try Again on Online Diversity Survey The American Society of News Editors, which received only seven responses after asking, it said, 28 online organizations to respond to its annual diversity survey, will “do a new census,” according to ASNE President Milton Coleman. Coleman told Journal-isms he hoped to have the survey completed by…

Updated on June 2 at 11:20 p.m. ET. Amy DuBois Barnett, deputy editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar magazine and former editor of Honey, on Wednesday was named editor-in-chief of Ebony magazine, effective immediately, Johnson Publishing Co. announced.  Harriette Cole, the magazine’s creative director and its acting editor-in-chief since Bryan Monroe left as editorial director in April…

As the days get longer and voters turn up the heat on our national leaders, Washington becomes the setting for most of the nonfiction work listed here, at least it’s where many of the authors make their livings. The election of Barack Obama was a shot in the arm to the book industry, and it…