Media

Passion, Angst and Pride That a Black Woman Is the Star “Scandal,” the ABC-TV drama that became a must-discuss item among African Americans in social media, was the most popular prime-time television show among black viewers in 2013, according to Nielsen data compiled for Journal-isms. Surprisingly, the Nielsen data showed that all of the 25…

MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry tearfully apologized Saturday for poking fun at a Mitt Romney family photo that included his adopted African-American grandson, but the apology failed to end a discussion that initially seemed mired in political posturing.  Politics, Race, Mormonism and Babies a Volatile Mix “Several days later the controversy seems only to have grown larger…

Some Still Say Fighters Fare Better in Ring Than in Streets “In the span of two weeks last fall, two prizefighters went to the hospital after their bouts. Francisco Leal, 26, died of a brain injury after a knockout loss to Raul Hirales on October 19,” Alan Neuhauser wrote Thursday for Columbia Journalism Review. “Magomed…

“When ‘Good Morning America’ co-anchor Robin Roberts took to her Facebook page to count her blessings, express gratitude for her recovery from a rare blood and bone marrow disease and thank her longtime girlfriend, Roberts didn’t just come out,” Patrick Kevin Day wrote Tuesday for the Los Angeles Times. “As one of the most prominent personalities on TV, media watchers…

1. Growing Intolerance of Intolerance, Insensitivity How many race-related gaffes can you remember from 2013? The year ended with a flap over remarks by the patriarch of the A&E series “Duck Dynasty” and a retracted tweet from comedian Steve Martin, but the journalism world experienced bursts of controversial speech all year. ESPN was the locus…

St. Louis Brothers to Give Up Stations in Three Cities “We just experienced a shameful milestone in the history of U.S. media — and barely anyone noticed,” according to Joseph Torres and S. Derek Turner of the media advocacy group Free Press. “There are now zero black-owned and operated full-power TV stations in our country”…

“Nobody Matters Less to Our Society Than Young Black Women” “It has been nearly 15 years since music journalist Jim DeRogatis caught the story that has since defined his career, one that he wishes didn’t exist: R. Kelly’s sexual predation on teenage girls,” Jessica Hopper reported Monday for the Village Voice, referring to the R&B…

“Invisible Child,” a five-part series about child homelessness published last week in the New York Times, is winning kudos as an example of the role that newspapers have traditionally played in calling attention to appalling social conditions — except from the rival New York Post, which put a “bah, humbug” on the series in an…

A hard-hitting report faulting the Obama administration for its war on leaks and other efforts to control information — “the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration, when I was one of the editors involved in The Washington Post’s investigation of Watergate,” said its author, Leonard Downie Jr. — might have made waves in…

For some American journalists of color, covering the South African liberation struggle was a career marker, especially if they could be present for Nelson Mandela’s release from 27 years in prison in 1990 or for the first all-race elections in 1994, when Mandela was chosen president. Journal-isms asked some of them what they thought of…