NIEMAN REPORTS THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY VOL.57 NO.3 FALL 2003 Five Dollars Journalism and Black America: Then and Now Journalist’s Trade: Weblogs and Journalism Editorial Disasters: Newsrooms and Normal Accident Theory “… to promote and elevate the standards of journalism” —Agnes Wahl Nieman, the benefactor of the Nieman Foundation. Vol. 57 No. 3 NIEMAN REPORTS Fall 2003 THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY Publisher Bob Giles Editor Melissa Ludtke Assistant Editor Lois Fiore Editorial Assistant Elizabeth Son Design Editor Deborah Smiley Nieman Reports (USPS #430-650) is published Editorial in March, June, September and December Telephone: 617-496-6308 by the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, E-Mail Address: One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-2098. 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Vol. 57 No. 3 NIEMAN REPORTS Fall 2003 THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 4 Journalism and Black America: Then and Now 6Reporting on the Civil Rights Movement BY JACK NELSON 8Documenting the Orangeburg Massacre BY JACK BASS 11 The Work and Struggles of Black Reporters BY DORI J. MAYNARD 13 The Black Press: Past and Present BY LARRY MUHAMMAD 16 A Racially Motivated Murder Leads to a Uniquely Reported Documentary BY WHITNEY DOW AND MARCO WILLIAMS 21 Lacking a Worthy Story, a Columnist Retreats From Writing About Race BY JACK E. WHITE 22 Reporting on the Minority Education Beat BY TIM SIMMONS 25 Racial Reverberations in Newsrooms After Jayson Blair BY NEIL HENRY 27 Contemplating the Relevancy of Age and Race BY ERRIN HAINES 29 Newsroom Diversity: Truth vs. Fiction BY BRYAN MONROE 31 ‘Coloring the News’ Collides With Journalists BY WILLIAM MCGOWAN 34 Why Journalists Can’t Talk Across Race BY DORI J. MAYNARD 35 Having Conversations Across Race in Newsrooms BY CONDACE L. PRESSLEY 37 Making Race a Part of Local TV News Coverage BY CRAIG FRANKLIN 39 Mainstreaming and Diversity Are Gannett’s Core Values BY TOM WITOSKY 42 Reporting on Race: Building a New Definition of ‘News’ BY JAN SCHAFFER 44 Asking Questions So a Community Thinks About Race BY PHIL LATHAM 46 Words & Reflections 47 Journalism’s ‘Normal Accidents’ BY WILLIAM F. WOO WATCHDOG 54 While the Watchdogs Slept BY GILBERT CRANBERG 55 Reflecting on a Different Era in Political Journalism BY ALEX S. JONES 56 Reporting in Southern Africa BY WILSON WANENE Cover photo: Malcolm X, 1968. Photo by © Gordon Parks. 59 Journalist’s Trade Weblogs and Journalism 61 Weblogs and Journalism: Do They Connect? BY REBECCA BLOOD 63 Is Blogging Journalism? BY PAUL ANDREWS 65 Weblogs: A Road Back to Basics BY BILL MITCHELL 68 Weblogs Threaten and Inform Traditional Journalism BY TOM REGAN 70 Blogs and Journalism Need Each Other BY J.D. LASICA 74 Weblogs Bring Journalists Into a Larger Community BY PAUL GRABOWICZ 76 Blogging Journalists Invite Outsiders’ Reporting In BY SHEILA LENNON 79 Moving Toward Participatory Journalism BY DAN GILLMOR 81 Weblogs and Journalism: Back to the Future? BY GLENN HARLAN REYNOLDS 82 Blogging From Iraq BY CHRISTOPHER ALLBRITTON 85 Determining the Value of Blogs BY ERIC ALTERMAN 86 The Infectious Desire to Be Linked in the Blogosphere BY MARK GLASER 88 Readers Glimpse an Editorial Board’s Thinking BY KEVEN ANN WILLEY 91 A Reporter Is Fired for Writing a Weblog BY STEVE OLAFSON 92 An Editor Acts to Limit a Staffer’s Weblog BY BRIAN TOOLAN 94 Blogging Connects a Columnist to New Story Ideas BY MIKE WENDLAND 95 Bloggers and Their First Amendment Protection BY JANE E. KIRTLEY 97 A Weblog Sharpens Journalism Students’ Skills BY LARRY PRYOR 3 Curator’s Corner: Nieman Reports Revisits the Coverage of Black America BY BOB GILES 99 Nieman Notes COMPILED BY LOIS FIORE 99 ‘Sister in the Band of Brothers’ BY KATHERINE M. SKIBA 101 Class Notes 107 End Note: A Nieman Visit to Cuba BY DAVID DAHL 2 Nieman Reports / Fall 2003 Curator’s Corner Nieman Reports Revisits the Coverage of Black America Journalists explore connections between the racial climate in newsrooms and news organizations’ coverage of race. By Bob Giles his issue of Nieman Reports takes a search- environment” of nonwhite America, Maynard wrote, “If ing look at reporting on black America and at the racial anything accounts for the problems of misportrayal, the Tclimate and conversations in U.S. newsrooms. These answer must begin with those statistics” documenting a are topics the magazine has visited before and will likely dominantly white news workforce. explore again, since the racial situation both inside and Newspapers have made modest gains since then, but the outside the newsroom continues to be a source of tension newsroom population today of slightly more than 12 per- and unfulfilled aspirations. cent journalists of color badly lags behind the dynamic Pieces published in the years just following the magazine’s growth of a nation that is becoming more and more diverse. creation in 1947 reported on the American South and the Committed editors and newspapers—spurred on by news- civil rights movement, describing the dangers and difficul- paper foundations and news industry organizations like ties that reporters and photographers faced in chronicling ASNE and minority news organizations—have recruited vig- that struggle. Simeon Booker’s account in 1956 of the orously and can show gains in hiring journalists of color. Emmett Till trial in rural Mississippi told of the uncommon Once on the job, however, many journalists of color don’t collaboration between 12 black journalists and a few white see promising career prospects and, over time, four of every reporters in investigating the disappearance of witnesses to five leave the newspaper business. It is no secret why Till’s murder. Simeon, a reporter for Jet magazine, and the retention is the problem. The newspaper industry, by com- other black newsmen found allies among white reporters in parison to other industries, invests only modestly in leader- spite of the local sheriff’s order that there was to be no ship and management training. When spending is tight, mixing between white and black journalists. training and education, typically, are the first to be cut. By Most reporters covering racial news in the Deep South for shortchanging their investment in training and education, mainstream newspapers were white. John Herbers, a chief of newspapers are undercutting the value of brainpower and United Press International’s Jackson, Mississippi bureau, the opportunity to build a culture of lifelong learning that wrote for Nieman Reports in 1962 about the reality of being can help sustain a stable, diverse workforce. despised by the white community and a stranger to the ways In explaining why they turn away from newspaper jobs, of life lived by rural blacks. The framework in which the journalists of color mention lack of training and opportu- reporter must function, he said, included harassment by the nity, absence of effective leaders and role models, and local newspaper and radio stations “for reporting some uncertainty about the newspaper’s commitment to diver- behind-the-scenes developments that did not fit the official sity. Constructive training and educational programs would version of what happened.” help journalists of color rise to positions of responsibility in Many years passed before the focus of racial coverage was which they could serve as mentors to a new generation of broadened to address concerns about the inadequacy that minority journalists. Such a nurturing cycle would inevitably resulted when news staffs had few journalists of color and influence greater retention of minorities in newspaper jobs, directing editors who were typically white and male. By as well as demonstrate to young journalists of color that 1978, U.S. newspapers began to face up to the reality that newsrooms are a welcoming place for them. their workforce did not reflect the racial and ethnic makeup The impact of editors of color on story assignments and of the communities they served. Journalists of color repre- judgments about news play would help build credibility and sented about four percent of the news staff while the per- trust among the diverse communities our newspapers are centage of racial and ethnic minorities in the nation’s popu- seeking to serve better. lation was at least three times as large. That year the American Training, education and commitment to opportunity is Society of Newspapers Editors (ASNE) decided to use its the surest course for creating leaders and role models who influence to encourage papers to aggressively recruit jour- can show the way to new generations of journalists of color nalists of color, hoping that newsroom population would and strengthen the effectiveness of newspapers in an in- reach parity with the national population by 2000. creasingly diverse world. If newspapers fail to make good on Robert C. Maynard, an influential leading voice in this their intentions, they will become less credible and more effort, wrote in this magazine in 1979 about the conse- marginal as institutions in their communities. ■ quences of news organizations whose managerial ranks were “purer white than Ivory Snow.” Describing the “unseen [email protected] Nieman Reports / Fall 2003 3 Journalism and Black America: Then and Now Black and white journalists, at times working as colleagues, at other times separately, have produced the first draft of our nation’s difficult history of race relations.