Media

Broadcaster, Black-Themed Site Each See Chance for Growth TheRoot.com has been sold to Univision Communications Inc. for an undisclosed amount, the parties announced Thursday, in a deal that puts a slice of the African American market in the domain of the U.S. company most dominant in Spanish-language broadcasting. “I’m excited,” Donna Byrd, publisher of TheRoot.com,…

Social Media Quick to Comment on Media Coverage “The scene in Waco on Sunday was like something off a TV show,” Dan Solomon wrote Monday for Texas Monthly. “Broad daylight shoot-outs between rival gangs that leave nine dead and eighteen others hospitalized rarely happen in Texas strip malls, but the biker-themed event at the Twin Peaks…

Cultural, Generational Reasons Offered as Theories B.B. King, whose “whose scorching guitar licks and heartfelt vocals made him the idol of generations of musicians and fans while earning him the nickname King of the Blues,” in the words of Associated Press writer Ken Ritter, died Thursday night at 89. But on Friday, amid a multitude…

Cheung of AAJA, NBC’s Janelle Richards Aboard Train At least five journalists — Paul Cheung of the Associated Press, who is national president of the Asian American Journalists Association; Janelle Richards, an “NBC Nightly News” producer; Beth Davidz, a former Associated Press reporter; Jill Jorgensen, a reporter for the New York Observer; and financial journalist Jeff Cutler…

Governor Acts After N.Y. Times Series on Abused Immigrants New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) reacted to a New York Times series on the exploitation of Asian and Hispanic workers in New York nail salons byordering “emergency measures on Sunday to combat the wage theft and health hazards faced by the thousands of people” who work…

Post-Trayvon, Media Outlets Look Harder at Police “Chicago’s Jefferson Park police district is drawn around a leafy residential area on the Northwest Side, home to about one-fifth of the city’s police officers and their families ,” Angela Caputo reported Friday for the Chicago Tribune. “The district, which is predominantly white, also has one of the…

Dallas Readers Had to Opt In to See Provocative Images When an anti-Muslim group’s contest to see who could draw the most provocative cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad ended near Dallas Sunday with two assailants dead, one ethical challenge again faced news outlets: whether to show the images of Muhammad that caused the controversy, images some…

AP Reporter Interviews Freed Boko Haram Prisoners Michelle Faul, a veteran foreign correspondent who heads the Associated Press bureau in Lagos, Nigeria, interviewed liberated prisoners of the terrorist group Boko Haram in stories widely circulated around the globe last weekend. Boko Haram’s abductions had been the focus of a worldwide campaign last year to “#Bring Back…

Baltimore Shows Need for Care in Discussing “the Media” The longer the crisis in Baltimore continues, the more criticism seems to be aimed at the media. Ironically, many of the barbs are lodged in . . . the media. “Media’s Biased and Dehumanizing Coverage of Baltimore Fails to Tell the City’s Real Story,” read the…

Some Outlets Strive to Counterbalance Sensationalism The news media — particularly CNN and Fox News Channel — took their share of lumps Tuesday and Wednesday for sensationalizing coverage of the Baltimore uprising, but some outlets made an effort to explain the unrest’s decades-old underlying causes and resisted impulses to paint residents with a broad brush.…