When it comes to the news industry, clicks are increasingly the coin of the realm. This is especially true for local television news. Take, for example, Washington, D.C.’s CBS affiliate WUSA 9 News, which aired a segment last week that was light on news, but racked up plenty of clicks when it went viral.

The segment features veteran broadcaster Bruce Johnson and his camerawoman on assignment, trying to get information about an alleged home invasion and hostage situation. A woman at the residence asks the news crew to leave, and assaults them when they don’t. WUSA 9 played the story big: Not the home invasion angle, but the journalists coming under attack part. In setting up the segment, Johnson reports that he doesn’t know whether the woman was one of the victims of the alleged home invasion, and she is never identified in the video clip.

Watch the video clip below:

“I think this is a pathetic example of journalism,” said Kelly McBride, a senior faculty member at the Poynter Institute who specializes in journalism ethics. “ The journalists don’t know who this woman is or what her relationship to the story is. The reporter and the anchors do the exact opposite of what journalists are supposed to do. They made the story more confusing, for no good reason.”

WUSA’s news director Fred D’Ambrosi defended his decision to air the video toThe Washington Post’s Paul Farhi (D’Ambrosi didn’t return phone calls fromallDigitocracy). “If the definition of news is something unusual happening, this was certainly something unusual,” D’Ambrosi told Farhi. “Bruce has been a reporter for 35 years, and this has never happened to him. . . . [Showing this] might help people understand what journalists go through. I wish I knew more about the woman who came out, but you have to make the best call under the circumstances.”

Johnson agrees with his boss, and so does Mike Cavender, executive director of the Radio Television Digital News Association in Washington. Cavender told Farhi: “Based on what I saw and what I learned of the story, I would have gone with it.”

But what exactly did viewers see? What did they learn? And even though the station has the power to air whatever it wants, was it ethical for WUSA 9 to do so? Many of those commenting on the video, including fellow journalists, root for the news crew and poke fun at the woman who may or may not be a recent crime victim, raising even more ethical questions about the station’s goal of airing the clip.

A study on images of black women released last month by Essence Magazine found that the “angry black woman” is one of three negative stereotypes all too prevalent in the media. The unidentified woman in the video fits the myth of the angry black woman almost to perfection: Hostile, hysterical, ranting and aggressive, no matter the myriad emotions — if in fact a victim — she may have experienced the night before. Viewers simply do not know, and this is precisely why the video should not have seen the light of day.

Jackie Jones, Chair of the Department of Multimedia Journalism at Morgan State University in Baltimore, said beyond the stereotypical imagery, there was nothing to have been gained from airing the story.

“Usually when someone is cussing you out and threatening you, you get in the truck and leave,” said Jones. “There was nothing to be gotten out of that story and once he did the stand-up, he should have been through. All that said, since no one was hurt and it wasn’t clear what this woman’s role was in the house, I probably wouldn’t have run the story at all, except that there had been a standoff and possible hostage situation.”

Phyllis Fletcher, an editor at KUOW Public Radio, said viewers simply aren’t given enough information about what really happened. Nor is there enough information for it to be a story, she added.

“The reporter, and ALL due respect to the brother and the position he’s in, admits that he doesn’t know whether the young woman had been a victim in the crime the news crew sought to report. That is a serious issue,” Fletcher wrote in a Facebook post. “Yes, it’s true she doesn’t represent herself very well in the video. But we don’t have context for who she is or what the news staff said outside of their edits. She may not even be 18. The focus of this segment is not even actual news. The station anticipated, correctly, that it would go viral though.”

In the end, WUSA 9 probably accomplished exactly what it wanted. After all, there is more pressure than ever for news directors like D’Ambrosi to rack up clicks, often at the expense of true engagement with audiences.

Poynter’s McBride said she suspects WUSA 9 “just wanted to show the video of this woman making a fool of herself because it is sensational.” McBride wondered: “Why not do some reporting? Why not knock on the door and ask her if she wants to talk about what happened at her house? Why not get more information from the police?”

Answer: Because good journalism isn’t necessary when all that’s really wanted are clicks.

[This post originally appeared at allDigitocracy.org]

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Danielle Lee is another one of its well-known scientific writers. Lee, a biologist who studies animal behavior, mammals and the ways organisms interact with their environment, earned a doctoral degree in biology from the University of Missouri–St. Louis, was named Young Professional of the Year by the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, and her urban science blog was named as a finalist for the 2011 Black Weblog Award in the best science and technology category. When not blogging, Lee works for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. By all accounts Lee is well-known and well-respected in scientific circles, but in the last two days her name has become synonymous with the terms “urban whore.” That’s because an editor at Biology-online allegedly called her that after Lee refused to blog for his website for free. “Are you an urban scientist or an urban whore,” he wrote.

You can click here for the back story; this isn’t about the ongoing battle overpaying writers for the work either. Instead, allDigitocracy wants to focus on Scientific American’s response and how it unnecessarily involved itself in another publication’s controversy.

Suffice it to say Lee was outraged by the editor’s name calling, as any professional writer woman would be, and she used her platform at Scientific American – as bloggers often do – to write about how it felt to be completely dismissed as an accomplished scientist and to have her work reduced so vulgarly. The subject matter is not new to Lee; she often blogs about diversity and gender issues for Scientific American, so it should have come to no surprise to editors when she blogged about this issue. Unfortunately readers can no longer see Lee’s post at Scientific American because the editor-in-chief, Mariette DiChristina, had it removed. DiChristina later took to Twitter to halfheartedly explain her decision:

That’s when things really got ugly. Besides the ethical considerations of journalists removing whole stories from websites without warning or fuller explanation, Scientific American apparently failed to take into consideration how readers would react, especially those who had already seen the post. Not only was the initial story picked up by the ever popular Buzz Feed, the website specializing in viral content, also implicated Scientific American’s complicity in the controversy. Scientists around the globe are now protesting the magazine, taking to Twitter and other social media platforms to demand that their content also be removed from the site, stating their refusal to now use Scientific American’s materials in the classroom, and are dropping subscriptions. And they are calling on colleagues to take similar actions. On top of that, other bloggers have now picked up on the fact that there exists a business connection between Scientific American and Biology Online, the outfit that set off this firestorm to begin with.

“… Biology-online is part of the Scientific American Partnership Network, and prominent readers are now asking if this relationship led to the removal of Dr. Lee’s post from her SciAm blog. As you know this form of censorship will not stand with SciAm’s readers.  Scientific American’s editors will be compelled to comment publicly on why the post was removed, and this situation poses a threat to their reputation as well,” writes David Wescott, a public affairs professional who blogs about science, environmentalism, and feminism at It’s Not A Lecture.

The oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the United States should have known better, even more so (one would think) since its editor is a woman. If nothing else editors should explain its relationship with Biology-online and the editor who is accused of calling Lee out of her name. One would also think that editors at Scientific American would be empathetic about scientists getting riled when their work is not respected, but something tells me that Einstein never had to worry about being called a “whore,” let alone an urban one.

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Unfortunately, we didn’t find a whole lot specific to black folks. Of particular interest, however, is the fact that black publications with white owners — bigger budgets and larger staffs — are providing less shutdown coverage specific to their black audiences than smaller, black-owned counterparts that have limited resources. Here’s a sampling of what caught our attention:

In the first week of the government shutdown, theRoot, owned by what-used-to-be the Washington Post Co., takes a passing look at the nearly 300,000 black federal employees (out of 800,000 total) who are among furloughed workers “struggling to figure out what to do without being able to count on the next paycheck.” Written by Breanna Edwards, the story also briefly mentions the disproportionate number of African American children who are being impacted as the shutdown drags on. The longer the shutdown lasts, Edwards writes, the higher the chances are that money will run out for federal programs designed to help them. The website also posted on its Facebook Fan page, asking readers to share their health care stories “in light of the government shutdown” and it linked to a story published in Salon that pontificates on howwhite rage led to our current state. theRoot has relied on mostly partisan opinion pieces, like this, since the first days of its shutdown coverage.

On HuffPost BlackVoices, atop story links about rapper Kanye West, the sentencing of former Detroit Mayor Kilpatrick and the horrifying details of a teenager who was smothered and whose body was later stuffed with newspapers, is a generic wire story about President Barack Obama’s and Speaker of the House John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) attempt to strike a deal to end the shutdown. HuffPost BlackVoices also published a cartoon that purports to “capture everything that’s wrong with the government shutdown” by artist Kevin Eason. The related links to the government shutdown that are listed on the HuffPost BlackVoices homepage lead to a tongue-in-cheek opinion piece about Obama’s deadly handshake and what appears to be original reporting datelined out of Washington, D.C. about how the government shutdown leavesWIC recipients in North Carolina without baby formula. Not really specific to African Americans, but it is what it is.

thegriot, the African American website owned and operated by MSNBC, does not make it easy for readers to surf through its homepage to find shutdown news, but there is a story or two among the mish-mash of photos, videos and links. The first thing to catch the eye — underneath the editor’s picks about a girl getting catfished into believing she’s dating a rapper and a headline about a baby Beyonce dancer — is a recent opinion piece by David A. Love that examines what congress should be working on instead of shutting down. Gun control, universal Pre-K and immigration reform tops Love’s list. Back to the homepage and scrolling down past the stories about Oprah Winfrey’s yard sale, rape charges being dropped against a former athlete and what LGBT Americans can do for civil rights, is a link to a story that takes conservatives to task for comparing “Obamacare to slavery.” There are also an assortment of straight-news pieces from Washington, D.C. reporter Perry Bacon Jr. on negotiations between Obama and Republicans. Nothing specific to black readers or black federal workers is offered in Bacon’s reports. The stories are there though, it’s just that you have to navigate through so much other stuff to get to them.

Since black women are particularly hit hardest by public sector job loss, I looked closely at publications targeting this demographic. Over at Clutch Magazine.com, owned by media entrepreneur Deanna Sutton, I found an entire page of government-shutdown related posts specific to black readers. The posts ranged from an original exploration of what role the president’s race played in the shutdown to an aggregated news story about a mentally troubled woman who was fatally killed when she tried to break through a barrier to the White House last week. More interesting, the aggregation was based on a piece published, not in a mainstream white publication, but thegriot.com, the African American website owned and operated by MSNBC.

On Essence.com, the premier magazine to target black women now owned by Time Warner, there is nothing about the government shutdown on thehomepage. There is, however, plenty of eye-catching links to entertainment stories and gossip. After doing a site search for “government shutdown,” a link to a poll asking readers whether they “feel safer or violated” after learning that the government collects phone records appears at the top of the page. Underneath is a link to another poll asking whether government officials should resign over infidelity. In fairness, there are links to two stories about blacks and government employment, both published in 2009: One asserting that there are not enough blacks in state legislatures and another proclaiming that there are 70,000 “temp government jobs available right now.”  Going by Essence, it’s as if the shutdown isn’t even happening.

Ebony, another legacy publication for black readers owned by Johnson Publishing Co., links to multiple aggregations of stories published by other outlets. The aggregations, highly relevant to Ebony’s audience, range from a first-person opinion piece published in The Washington Post about how theAffordable Care Act saved one woman’s family to a news item published on Salon.com about President Obama’s meeting with demanding Republicans. There’s also a news aggregation from Gawker pitching the Affordable Care Act application as being easier to navigate, despite website glitches, than signing up for health insurance “the old way.”

True to its mission, Black Enterprise, which has provided black Americans with essential business and financial news since 1970,  has a story about how the government shutdown is hurting black contractors and entrepreneurs featured on its front-facing homepage. A site search yields another insightful piece on “Help For Small Businesses Struggling With Obamacare” as well as a short piece from a week ago about how congress failed to avoid the shutdown. Black Enterprise was founded, and is still owned, by Earl G. Graves Sr.

This isn’t a listing of all black publications that are on the Web, only a few of the most popular sites that target African Americans. If you know of a publication that should be included in this list, or want to spotlight outstanding shutdown coverage specific to black audiences that I’ve missed, then please add your thoughts in the comments section. If you’re a black federal employee, we’d also like to hear from you about where you go for news coverage of the current crisis. Let us know below.

Meanwhile, one enterprising black journalist, Terrence Nelson, interviewed federal workers about their forced furlough. Here’s what they had to say:

The post Black Media’s Hits & Misses In Government Shutdown Coverage appeared first on Madness & Reality.

This week Dan Froomkin, writing for Al Jazeera, echoes a point about the press that is raised by Thomas P. Pierce in his piece for Esquire, which was followed on Friday by David Folkenflik’s analysis on NPR’s Morning Edition of whether so-called “objective reporting” on the government shutdown is accurate reporting.

All three pieces arrive at the same conclusion: U.S. media coverage of the government shutdown is failing Americans.

“U.S. news reports are largely blaming the government shutdown on the inability of both political parties to come to terms. It is supposedly the result of a “bitterly divided” Congress that “failed to reach agreement” (Washington Post) or “a bitter budget standoff” left unresolved by “rapid-fire back and forth legislative maneuvers” (New York Times),” Froomkin writes. “This sort of false equivalence is not just a failure of journalism. It is also a failure of democracy. When the political leadership of this country is incapable of even keeping the government open, a political course correction is in order. But how can democracy self-correct if the public does not understand where the problem lies? And where will the pressure for change come from if journalists do not hold the responsible parties accountable?”

Folkenflik spoke with James Fallows, former speech writer for President Jimmy Carter and current national correspondent and media critic for The Atlantic and Robert Costa, Washington Editor for the conservative National Review. Representing two publications with different political philosophies, the men draw a similar conclusion: “For decades,” Folkenflik reports, “the default position of journalists has been to give credence to the idea that both parties carry equal culpability in every crisis.”

Not so Fallows and Costa agree. Both say the central figure in the ongoing political drama is House Republcan Majority John Boehner, and the narrative is all about divisions with Republican ranks, which keeps them from crafting a deal.

The false guise of objective journalism is one thing, then there’s the absolute bazaar actions demonstrated by CNN’s Chief Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash that did a disservice to both viewers and other journalists by asking a question to which there was no good answer. Bash wanted to know if Senate Democrats would pass a bill that would allow funding for NIH cancer treatment trials, but would leave the shutdown in place for millions of other people. “But if you can help one child who has cancer, why wouldn’t you do it?” Bash asked. To which Reid replied: “Why would we want to do that? I have 1,100 people at Nellis Air Force base that are sitting home. They have a few problems of their own. This is — to have someone of your intelligence to suggest such a thing maybe means you’re irresponsible and reckless.”

Reid is right. The question was irresponsible. Asking tough questions is one thing, but that’s not what Bash did. She set-up a “gotcha scenario” and that’s just not our job as journalists. Bash later tweeted (then deleted the tweet) that she was playing devil’s advocate when she asked Reid such a loaded question; that’s not what the public needs. Americans need responsible journalists to hold politicians accountable and to inform the citizenry so that it is best able to make competent decisions.

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And finally, there’s been outright bias from Fox News’ Fox & Friends, which  criticized President Obama for offering to personally pay for a “museum of Muslim culture” during the government shutdown, a claim that originated from a satire website. All it would have taken was five minutes worth of reporting, checking sources, a quick call to the White House to confirm or deny… Something. Basic reporting. Accuracy. Instead Fox News viewers get totally misled and misinformed.

Here’s a list of concerns a few journalist friends have about the current news coverage. I won’t reveal their names because I did not get permission to post their thoughts, but their observations are worth noting:

• “It’s the “Pox on Both Your Houses” school of reporting that doesn’t require much thought or analysis. But sometimes, one side really is WRONG.”
• “It’s worse than that. Conservatives have successfully been “playing the ref” for at least the past 20 years. To wit: they’ve been screaming about alleged “liberal bias” and MSM has been bending over backwards to show they’re wrong. Not every story have two sides which merit equal weight. As I ask my students: what’s the other side of pedophilia?”
• “This morning, whoever the reporter was for “Morning Edition” said “the Affordable Care Act” was still going but Congress wasn’t. The ACA is law. Hello. Law, of course, it’s still going. Why would she say that? Because the Repubs want to stop it: hello, law, SCOTUS approval, etc. It was as if there were some merit to the opposition. Bad.”
• RE: Dana Bash & CNN: “I thought it was a baited question. As he said, for the GOPpers to cherry pick the heart-tugging programs like NIH for kids but not Head Start or WIC is irresponsible and reckless. Grassley inserted the congressional exemption in the ACA they’re now screaming to get out as some sort of moral gesture. So no, it was not a fair question to me.

[Originally posted at allDigitocracy]

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In the parody video, Scandalous, singer/actress Jennifer Hudson parodies the hugely popular ABC prime time drama, Scandal, as she runs about town highlighting the benefits of the Affordable Care Act. The video is produced by comedy website Funny or Die.

Like the actual series (season three premiers Thursday), Hudson’s character rushes to assist those in trouble, including a senator whose gotten his mistress pregnant– only in the parody video, the mistress does not have health insurance. Hudson easily solves the senator’s problem by telling him to log ontowww.healthcare.gov.

It is not the first time viral video has been used to help citizens navigate — or help sell — government programs. And while it does not appear that the Obama Administration has anything to do with the making of this video, but the president is no stranger to using social media and humor to drive his agenda.

So while public employees are taking a forced holiday and the public’s non-essential services go unmet, might as well watch Scandalous. After all, tis better to chuckle than to cry.

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No, really. Think about it. Conservative Republicans are counting on Cain to siphon off enough black votes – they estimate 20 to 30 percent — to crush President Obama’s reelection hopes.

I rolled my eyes when I first read this on one conservative’s Facebook page. To me it was emblematic of the cynical, racist rhetoric that one hears on conservative talk radio. But that was before Cain started climbing in the polls, and now claims frontrunner status in the GOP primary race.

Then Cain started talking; and now, he won’t shut-up.

Echoing the race-based, if not outright racist, styling of the Rush Limbaughs of the world, Cain first condescendingly implied that blacks disproportionately support Democrats because they are too stupid to do otherwise. Actually he said it is because they are brainwashed to “not even considering a conservative point of view.” Forget that the conservative point of view often leaves out issues of import to black voters, such as education, poverty and discriminatory practices that continue to put them at a disadvantage. No, Cain says discrimination and racism aren’t really problems in America these days. In fact, he believes blacks “want to use racism as an excuse for them not being able to achieve what they want to achieve.” In other words, if they don’t succeed, blacks only have themselves to blame.

Ahhhh, classic conservatism.

In the past week Cain took offense to questions about his decision not to participate in the 1960s civil rights movement; a day or so later he boldly questioned Obama’s blackness. That would be the same Obama, the community organizer, who once advocated for poor residents living in a Chicago public housing project.

But I digress…

Despite such credentials, many black voters – unimpressed with his performance in the White House – had wearied of Obama. Just last month polls showed that Obama’s support among black voters, while still strong, slipped to 54 percent from 77 percent a year ago. But if Cain keeps talking, that might all change.

I am willing to wager that Cain’s rhetoric might actually serve to incense black voters just enough for them to rally at the polls. In fact, I cannot help but imagine Obama, somewhere in the Oval Office, quietly exhorting Cain to “keep talking my brother.’’ Cain might be Obama’s best hope of regaining traction with black voters.

Still, one can’t help but to sometimes cringe when Cain opens his mouth. Case in point, while he celebrates his standout performance in Tuesday night’s Bloomberg debate on the economy, Cain’s praise of a ‘chief economic advisor’ should bring a sense of shame. Turns out that advisor, Richard Lowrie, knows very little about the global economy, if anything at all.

According to Lowrie’s LinkedIn profile, reports the Huffington Post, “his education tops out with a Bachelor of Science in accountancy from Case Western University. He has no formal training in economics, and there is no indication that he has ever worked on public policy. According to that same profile, Lowrie’s political experience includes working on the board of advisers for Americans For Prosperity, a hardline conservative outfit founded by the Koch Brothers, until 2008. In 2011, the group ran into trouble for posting fake eviction notices on the doors of Detroit families.”

Perhaps the Obama camp can safely consider Cain an embarrassment and THAT can prove to be a blessing.

The post For Black Democrats, Is Herman Cain a Blessing or Embarrassment? appeared first on Madness & Reality.

This may be Troy Davis’ last chance to live.

Davis was convicted and sentenced to death in 1991 for the 1989 murder of off-duty Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. Davis’s conviction was based largely on eyewitness testimony and, in the intervening years, the case against him has fallen apart. Seven of the nine witnesses against Davis have recanted or contradicted their testimony and three of those witnesses now claim their testimony was coerced. In addition, two other witnesses have stated they never saw the murder and that their testimony was false. No physical evidence links Davis to the crime. Still, the Georgia Department of Corrections plans to execute him later this month.

Now 42, Davis has been in prison for more than 19 years for a crime he very likely did not commit.

In addition to organizing marches, a hallmark of the NAACP, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization is fighting Davis’ pending execution by using Twitter, blogs and even Youtube. The organization has also created a mobile petition. The NAACP is encouraging the community to text “TROY” to 62227 to add names to a petition to save his life.

“With the execution set for Sept. 21, there is very little that can be done but the NAACP is not letting this man go down without a fight. Thankfully, technology is at our disposal and could potentially be what helps saves a life,” states BlackWeb2.0, a website helping to get the word out about Davis.

On Monday, Sept. 19, two days before the scheduled execution, Davis will have a clemency hearing in front of the five-member Georgia State Board of Pardons and Parole. At the end of the hearing, the Board will decide, via majority vote, whether to grant Davis clemency.

Though he was denied clemency in the past, the board’s membership has changed since Davis’ last hearing and, in the interim, new witnesses have come forward.

With the clemency hearing and the execution date fast approaching, the NAACP realizes the best, and fastest, way to get out its message and to mobilize is the internet.

This is Davis’ last chance, states a page dedicated to Davis on the NAACP’s website.

God be with you, Troy Davis. Godspeed NAACP.

———————————————————–

• Text “TROY” to 62227 to add your name to a petition to save Troy Davis’ life. Or
• Take action by signing this online Amnesty International petition opposing the death penalty for Troy Davis.

The post Under The Gun, NAACP Turns To Social Media To Help Save Troy Davis’ Life appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Once upon a time, the mere mention of Oprah Winfrey’s name conjured up eyeballs and dollar signs.

My how times have changed.

Winfrey ruled daytime television for decades before she decided to move her successful formula of chatty self-help and infotainment to cable earlier this year. After only two months in existence, Oprah’s heavily hyped network, OWN, attracted even fewer viewers than the programming it replaced. Some six months later, Winfrey has disposed of the network’s CEO, putting herself in charge; traffic on her flagship website, Oprah.com, plummeted after her daytime talk show ended in May; and soap opera fans — who helped turn ‘Oprah’ into a household word — now view her as a traitor because Winfrey refused to consider airing daytime dramas on her new network. Social media sites, especially Facebook, exploded with negative comments after Winfrey made that last decision.

Trying to make a turn-around, Winfrey will participate in a live-streamed video interview with Facebook next week.

No doubt this is an opportunity for the media mogul — an active Facebook user with nearly 6.3 million fans who have “liked” her official page — to learn ways to better leverage her brand with the power of new media.

In addition to the interview, the media mogul will meet with tech savvy

individuals to discuss social media and her network, including her website. She will also sit down with tech media executives, including Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, to learn as much as she can about the future of the web and how best to harness social media, according to a Fox News report.

It is nice that the former daytime diva will meet with the tech media elite, but perhaps she ought to start with daytime fans such as a commenter going by the name, BethRestless Beth, who had this to say upon learning of Winfrey’s Facebook appearance: “Perhaps this is an opportunity to let her know how offended I was by her speech to us. I have never felt the same about her.”

Maybe being more responsive to your audience the old-fashioned way — by giving them some of what they want — still works these days.

Oprah will appear on Facebook Sept. 8, 2011 from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Originally posted at www.tmpunplugged.com

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