NABJ Is Prepared To "Set It Off" If CNN Replaces Larry King With Someone Else White!

The following letter was released today by the National Association of Black Journalists:

Dear Cable News Executives:

It is 2010, but the National Association of Black Journalists sees our cable news networks moving backward when it comes to who they believe is worthy of anchoring prime-time news shows.

NABJ was founded in 1975 to encourage news media companies to hire and to promote more Black journalists. At that time, black journalists originally hired to cover riots during the turbulent 1960s found they were not being assigned to other meaningful beats or were only allowed to cover "Black" stories.

NABJ's advocacy for fair hiring practices paid off. Many of our founders, including columnists Les Payne in New York and DeWayne Wickham in Washington, D.C., and anchor Maureen Bunyan in Washington, D.C. remain prominent figures in the media.

NABJ continues this advocacy today. To be candid, we have been focusing our talks with media executives on ways they can increase the diversity of their news management teams. It is our belief that a diverse management team improves coverage decisions and hiring practices. It seems, though, that the companies have taken that to mean that we don't care about who is on the air. We're watching, and we do.

Over the past several years, NABJ Executive Board members have met with leaders of the top media companies. Our message: "Let us help if you are looking for diverse talent."

Some of the companies have reached out, but the names we have submitted never seem to be called in for interviews.

Three years ago, Ebony magazine's Kevin Chappell noted, "While CNN has the most Black news anchors with eight, the other cable networks don't (fare) as well... and none of the national cable stations has any Blacks in prime-time slots."

Nothing has changed. NABJ questions CNN's decision to hire former New York governor/attorney general Eliot Spitzer to co-host a new show in Campbell Brown's old time slot. The company missed another opportunity to place a person of color in prime time. It just seems that cable news can never find diverse candidates who are good enough to meet their standards. We want to know your standards.

Are you telling us that CNN could find no one better than an ex-politician who quit being New York governor after consorting with prostitutes to grace America's living rooms each night?

CNN does have Tony Harris anchoring in the morning, and Fredricka Whitfield, T.J. Holmes, and Don Lemon on the weekends. But that's not prime time. The same can be said about MSNBC which last week named veteran Lawrence O'Donnell as the anchor of its new 10 p.m. show. The prime-time host line-up at Fox News also lacks any racial diversity.

"In his story, Chappell talked with NABJ Member and CBS News anchor Russ Mitchell who summed up what many of us have witnessed over the years. Mitchell told Ebony "I've been to journalism conferences over and over again, and heard some executive say 'I'd like to hire more African-Americans, but I just can't find any qualified ones out there.' That was b.s. then, and that's b.s. now."

NABJ couldn't agree more.

Sincerely,

The National Association of Black Journalists

SOURCE National Association of Black Journalists

Murder Of Post Editor Chauncey Bailey Awakens The Sleeping Giant Known As The Black Press

After Bailey's Murder, Black Journalists Encouraged To 'Step Up'

by Hazel Trice Edney

WASHINGTON - The publisher of the Oakland Post is issuing a call to arms to Black newspapers after the assassination-style murder of his paper's editor, Chauncey Bailey.

''If you don't cover something that needs to be covered just because you're afraid for your life, you don't need to be in the business. If you know there's wrong doing and you sit idly by; then who are you? If we turn the other way, we shirk our responsibility,'' says Paul Cobb, who says he too has received hate mail as publisher of the Post.

Oakland police said Devaughndre Broussard, a handyman at Your Black Muslim Bakery told police that he killed Bailey because he was angry over stories the journalist had written about the business and its employees and about future stories he might be working on.

Broussard was booked on murder and weapons charges and currently being held without bond, he allegedly was on probation for a San Francisco burglary.

In the past four years since Bailey was hired, the Post had received numerous ''threats of violence,'' Cobb says. ''He and I both have received hate mail.''

''His sacred cow was equity, fairness, openness of government, just general principles of decency,'' Cobb said of Bailey. ''Chauncey was a champion cheerleader for the Black community and self-help groups.''

It was apparently Bailey's fearlessness in his writing and his speaking on radio and television that caused the paper to flourish in the community. Cobb said the circulation skyrocked from 5,000 when Bailey was first hired four years ago up to its current audited and verified circulation of 60,000. That's a 1,100 percent increase in less than five years.

Just two months ago, Bailey was promoted to editor-in-chief of all the Post Newspapers - Oakland, Berkeley Tri-City, Richmond, San Francisco and South County.

HILLARY APPLIES FOR HER GHETTO PASS AT THE NATIONAL BLACK JOURNALISTS CONFERENCE

Yesterday, moderator Suzanne Malvaux of CNN noted that Senator Clinton 's principal opponent for the Democratic nomination for president, Sen. Barack Obama, is sure to be asked about his standing among Black Americans when he appears before the NABJ participants today.

So Malvaux inquired of Clinton: "Are you Black enough?"

A seasoned campaigner, Hillary didn't answer directly, except to say that she was proud of her party for having a black, a woman and a Latino competing for its nomination. Looks like Bill has taught her well!

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