Culture

Media, Whistleblowers Both Win in Supreme Court Ruling “Were media lawyers asleep at the wheel when a major whistleblower case came through the Supreme Court this term?” Kimberly Chow wrote Monday for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “While all eyes were turned on Jim Risen and efforts to revise Justice Department policies on when it subpoenas…

Hispanic Journalists Rejoice; Rainbow PUSH Not So Much “In approving strong net neutrality regulations, the Federal Communications Commission fulfilled a decade long desire by public interest advocates, technology firms and Democrats to tighten government oversight of the Internet to prevent abuses by broadband service providers,” Jim Puzzanghera reported Friday for the Los Angeles Times. “But…

More than a third of Americans don’t think President Obama loves America, according to a new survey,” Jesse Byrnes reported Wednesday for the Hill newspaper. Separately, “Over half of Republicans answered ‘Muslim’ when asked which religion describes President Obama’s ‘deep down’ beliefs, according to a newly released poll by Alex Theodoridis of the University of…

President of Maynard Institute Succumbs to Lung Cancer Dori J. Maynard, president of the Robert C. Maynard institute for Journalism Education and longtime champion of diversity in journalism and civic life, died Tuesday at her West Oakland, Calif., home, the Institute announced. She was 56. Maynard died of lung cancer and kept her illness closely…

Pulitzer Winner Wesley Morris Says He Has to Go There “Last year’s hacked dump of private emails stolen from Sony Pictures Entertainment employees included a much-reported exchange between the company’s chairperson, Amy Pascal, and producer Scott Rudin, in which they joked about the kinds of movies President Obama might enjoy,” Wesley Morris, winner of the…

Mitzi Miller Wants to Create Stories for TV, Film Mitzi Miller, editor-in-chief of Ebony magazine, announced Friday that she is leaving Johnson Publishing Co. She has been Ebony editor for less than a year, assuming that role after spending more than three years as editor of its sister publication Jet, which ended its print edition.…

Writers Link Circumstances to Conditions on South Side The sad story of Chicago’s Jackie Robinson West Little League team, stripped of its hard-fought 2014 U.S. championship title, is starting to depart from the pat story line of hard-working young black teammates punished for the deeds of the rule-breaking adults in charge of them. The team gave up…

N.Y. Times Columnist Boosted Ta-Nehisi Coates, Jelani Cobb David Carr, the New York Times media critic who died suddenly Thursday at 58, was also a nurturer of young black journalists, some of whom were quick to pay tribute to him. Carr spoke of his commitment in a 2008 article in the Times advocating for paid…

Some Say Time Is Right for NBC News Workhorse Lester Holt, who is sitting in the anchor chair of “NBC Nightly News” for the next six months after the suspension of anchor and managing editor Brian Williams, will initially be working seven days a week, an NBC official told Journal-isms on Wednesday. Holt, the all-purpose substitute…

Black History Month a Good Time to Illuminate the Present “Along Main Street in a small South Carolina city, there is a war memorial honoring fallen World War I and II soldiers, dividing them into two categories: ‘white’ and ‘colored,’ ” Jeffrey Collins wrote last week from Greenwood, S.C., for the Associated Press. “Welborn Adams, Greenwood’s…