Culture

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.…

Study Finds Race Still at Issue in 2012 Campaign “After the 2008 election of President Barack Obama, many proclaimed that the country had entered a post-racial era in which race was no longer an issue,” Molly McElroy wrote this week for the University of Washington. “However, a new large-scale study shows that racial attitudes have…

President Backs Same-Sex Marriage in White House Talk Robin Roberts did not really need anchor Diane Sawyer’s confirmation on ABC’s “World News With Diane Sawyer” later Wednesday, when she told viewers that Roberts’ interview with President Obama was historic. The co-host of ABC’s “Good Morning America” knew the magnitude of her scoop. The buzz had…