Media

“In the five days since Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was declared by many the winner of the first presidential debate, political watchers have waited to see if polls would shift in response to his performance. And, they did,” NPR reported on Monday. “Not only has the Gallup tracking poll tightened to a tie —…

Coalition Made Little-Known Decision in April The National Association of Hispanic Journalists reversed itself over the summer after its president ruled that a student journalist could not tweet from its board meetings. But Unity Journalists, the alliance of Hispanic, Asian American, Native American and lesbian and gay journalists, will no longer allowing such a student…

If the progressive cable news channel MSNBC represents President Obama’s base, then that base was stunned by the president’s lackluster debate performance in his first face-off with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney Wednesday night. Competitor CNN’s flash poll of registered voters who watched the debate found that 67 percent said Romney won, while only 25…

BET launched “Don’t Sleep” Monday night, its news/talk show vehicle for longtime CNN newsman T.J. Holmes. “We are promoting this show on-air, in-market — we have a Don’t Sleep Tour bus that has been to nearly 20 cities including the RNC, DNC and CBC!” spokeswoman Jeanine D. Liburd told Journal-isms by email Monday, referring to…

NPR Hiring for New Race-Relations Reporting Team In a sign of hunger for the topic or perhaps an indicator of the  journalism job market, or both, NPR has received more than 1,300 applications for four positions on its new race-relations reporting team, according to Matt Thompson, the NPR journalist who is heading the team. “We’re…

Vargas Reopens Debate on “Illegal Immigrant” “Jose Antonio Vargas is a man on a mission,” Margaret Sullivan, public editor of the New York Times, wrote on Monday. “The journalist turned immigration activist wants news organizations to stop using the term ‘illegal immigrants,’ which he finds disparaging and inaccurate. He’s particularly focusing on The Times and…

Obama Concedes Failure to Reform Immigration Univision’s televised forums this week with President Obama and GOP challenger Mitt Romney were ratings and journalistic hits, as Univision moderators Maria Elena Salinas and Jorge Ramos posed questions they maintained would not be asked in the mainstream debates scheduled to start Oct. 3 in Denver. Ramos said as…

Candidate Repeats “100%” in Try for Damage Control “Mitt Romney, recognizing the damage to his campaign, Wednesday night backed off his statement from earlier this year that he wouldn’t contend for the support of the 47 percent of Americans who don’t pay income taxes,” Jonathan Martin reported from Coral Gables, Fla., for Politico. ” ‘My…

Company Restricts Access Abroad but Not at Home “Google [Inc.] rejected a request by the White House on Friday to reconsider its decision to keep online a controversial YouTube movie clip that has ignited anti-American protests in the Middle East,” Gerry Shih reported for Reuters from San Francisco on Friday. “The Internet company said it…

“He Can Be in a Room but Detach Himself” A writer granted rare access to President Obama for six months said Wednesday that the politically costly charge that the president is aloof grows out of a personality trait he shares with journalists: “It’s the personality trait of a writer.” Michael Lewis, the best-selling author of…