S. African Cartoon Depicts President as Male Body Part In May, tensions were inflamed in South Africa after the ruling African National Congress objected to a satirical art exhibition that included a painting showing President Jacob Zuma as Lenin with his genitals exposed. The ANC forced a newspaper to remove the image from its website, and the painting was…

Was the absence of black people in Andy Griffith’s Mayberry, set in North Carolina and broadcast as the civil rights movement intensified during the 1960s, a problem? Not really, according to African American columnists with ties to the state who weighed in on Tuesday’s death of the beloved Griffith at age 86. Television historians have…

Media Fail to Detail U.S. Voter Disenfranchisement “As the nation’s first African-American president seeks re-election, new barriers are being proposed or implemented that could disenfranchise voters of color. Are mainstream media doing enough reporting on these efforts and identifying ones designed to reduce the impact on voters of color?” Nadra Kareem Nittle wrote Thursday for…

Right Wing Seized on Tweets, Comments on Romney Joseph Williams, the Politico reporter whose comments and tweets about Mitt Romney led last week to a suspension, is leaving the publication. His exit provides a cautionary tale about how “a tiny group of organizations with Internet access, a money pipeline and next to no credibility can…

Initial Reports Say Individual Mandate Struck Down “The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a key provision of the health care law championed by President Barack Obama, the so-called individual mandate that requires people to have health insurance,” CNN reported on Thursday, correcting its initial report that the individual mandate had been struck down. ” . .…

An intern at the Wall Street Journal who is Miss Black America – Connecticut, graduated from Yale University and said she wanted to “represent African American women in a positive light,” is no longer at the Journal after the newspaper said she fabricated sources and quotes just three weeks into the internship, according to news…

NABJ Protocol Broken With Campaign-Style Speech Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to President Obama, broke with protocol and delivered a campaign-style speech to the National Association of Black Journalists in New Orleans Saturday night as the association’s annual awards banquet got underway. Jarrett ticked off what she considered the Obama administration’s accomplishments and said, “We need…

Democrats Eagerly Accept Journalists’ Invitations The Republican National Committee and the putative GOP standard-bearer, Mitt Romney, have ceded the National Association of Black Journalists convention to the Democrats, rejecting invitations to send speakers or panelists that the Democrats eagerly accepted. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. addressed the convention Wednesday on its opening night, delivering…

Juan Gonzalez, an Originator of Coalition Idea, Agrees The National Association of Black Journalists should not go back to the Unity coalition “at this time,” a commission appointed by NABJ President Gregory H. Lee Jr. recommended Tuesday, and Juan Gonzalez of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, a Unity founder, told Journal-isms that the commission…

Shorthand Misses Scope of Anger Unleashed in ’92 “I saw my page 1 proof tonight with the [AP’s] Rodney King hed on it,” Robin Washington, editor of the Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune, messaged Journal-isms on Sunday. “Rodney King, whose beating led to LA Riots, dies ” … and changed it to: “Rodney King, whose beating…