Culture

Activist Says, “I Wasn’t With the Rats — I’m a Cat” “Some of today’s New York newspaper front pages were pretty remarkable,” Josmar Trujillo wrote Wednesday for Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting. “Both the New York Post (4/9/14) and the Daily News (4/9/14) sensationalized, for the second day in a row, revelations that Al Sharpton…

Inattention Worsening Humanitarian Crises, Officials Say In 1985, there was Live Aid, a live concert with a global audience of 1.9 billion across 150 nations, organized by the Irish singer-songwriter Bob Geldof to benefit Ethiopian famine relief. Millions of dollars was raised. A decade earlier, as a former Beatle, George Harrison gathered musician friends for…

“A Firebrand With Unassailable Journalistic Credentials” Charles Sumner (Chuck) Stone, newspaper editor, professor, columnist, former Tuskegee Airman and founding president of the National Association of Black Journalists — a legend to many — died Sunday at 89, according to news reports. “Stone died in his sleep early this morning at an assisted-living home in Farmington,…

People of Color Were Subjects, Creators of Excellence From the ABC drama “Scandal” to miniseries on the histories of Latinos and of African Americans to close-up looks at urban high schools and NPR’s “The Race Project,” the George Foster Peabody Awards announced Wednesday were enriched by the lives and work of people of color. “The…

FCC Vote Praised as Saving Jobs, Ownership Diversity By 3-2, Panel Takes Action Against Media Consolidation Though the final vote was the result of compromise, advocates of minority broadcast ownership and jobs for journalists of color each took comfort Monday in a 3-2 vote by the Federal Communications Commission “to bar companies from controlling two…

Author Says Papers Have Not Kept Up With Today’s Readers The black press was not part of the “State of the News Media 2014” report issued this week by the Pew Research Center — the center says it is saving that for later — but a new book by an expert on that slice of…

Five of Color on Track to Green-Light Stories, Ideas ABC News, responding to the need to diversify its executive ranks, has completed the first year of a fellowship program in which three journalists of color learned producer skills. Three more are in the program for its second year, and it is preparing for a third,…

To Please Critics, Sinclair Retreats on Pledge to Sell Armstrong Williams, the conservative commentator and entrepreneur, said Friday that he is “in jeopardy of losing all my [television] stations” in the wake of a decision by Sinclair Broadcasting Corp., his business partner and benefactor, to put on the open market stations it had planned to…

Trustees Approve 11-Year Collaboration With J.C. Watts The board of trustees of Florida A&M University has approved an 11-year partnership with former Rep. J.C. Watts to produce a 24-hour, multiplatform Black Television News Channel that Watts initially announced six years ago. A signing ceremony is scheduled Friday on FAMU’s campus. The new network plans 50…

The new Internet startup on criminal justice issues to be edited by Bill Keller, former executive editor of the New York Times, will have a diverse staff because the subject matter demands it, Keller told Journal-isms in a message Monday. He spoke as journalism Internet startups are under fire for lack of diversity. Keller was…