Culture

Obama Bashed in Weekend News Media President Obama was roundly bashed in the national news media over the weekend — at least by those originating in New York and Washington. In the New York Times, the Sunday Review section began a Maureen Dowd column on its section front. “The president who started off with such dazzle now seems…

Mayor “Unappoints” Deputy Who Slapped Away a Mic “Detroit deputy fire commissioner Fred Wheeler has been removed from office following a physical altercation with WJBK reporter Charlie LeDuff on Tuesday,” Andrew Gauthier reported Thursday for TVSpy. “Working on a story about filthy conditions at a number of Detroit fire houses, LeDuff approached Wheeler on the…

In New Orleans, Broadband Goes to Whites, Affluent The decision by the owners of the Times-Picayune in New Orleans to offer a printed newspaper only three days a week, delivering the news online the rest of the time, raises a question particularly relevant to communities of color: What about those who don’t have access to…

Story Gives New Life to Symbolic White House Photo A 2009 photograph of President Obama bending over so a 5-year-old African American boy can touch his hair is enjoying renewed popularity after reporter Jackie Calmes recounted the story behind the image last week in the New York Times. On the day it ran, Dylan Stableford…

Tara Wall Joins Romney as Senior African American Tara Wall, a former newscaster, Republican National Committee senior adviser, George W. Bush appointee, conservative columnist and deputy editorial page editor for the Washington Times, was hired recently as a senior communications adviser to the Mitt Romney campaign to handle outreach to African Americans, Nia-Malika Henderson and Philip Rucker reported Thursday for the Washington Post. “Mitt Romney’s…

5 Black Sports Journalists Laid Off at USA Today Five black sports journalists were laid off at USA Today on Wednesday, staffers told Journal-isms. They are: G.E. Branch, assignment editor; J. Michael Falgoust, NBA reporter; Gene Farris, web and video editor; Gary Graves, motor sports reporter; and Dixie Vereen, design editor. Branch was a USA…

Reporter’s Career Is as Dead as Tupac and Biggie “A remarkable essay has been published on the Village Voice website,” Richard Horgan wrote Sunday for FishbowlLA. Under the headline ‘Tupac Shakur, the Los Angeles Times, and Why I’m Still Unemployed: A Personal History by Chuck Philips,’ the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist details for the first…

News to Use: The Browning of America Census Milestone Eluded Most Front Pages New U.S. Census figures showing that white births are no longer a majority in the United States have implications for the news media as well as for the rest of society. The same figures pegged the “minority” population at 37 percent, a far…

No April Issue Amid Drama Over Unpaid Writers Heart & Soul, a health-and-wellness magazine targeting women of color, has had a rough go since it was acquired in January by a group that includes veteran journalist George E. Curry. One of its longtime writers says the staff has gone on strike to protest lack of…

Blacks Unlikely to Agree With Newsweek Cover The new Newsweek cover shows the first black president wearing what is purported to be a gay halo. The legend reads, “The First Gay President.” It obviously wasn’t designed with most African Americans in mind. “SIREN: President Barack Obama isn’t actually gay,” Dylan Byers wrote Monday in Politico.…