aoscruggs | All Digitocracy

Is the Media Listening When Arabs Speak?

July 18, 2016 by aoscruggs

Panelists discuss news coverage of Muslims and Arabs in America

Inaccurate news coverage of people from the Middle East fueled the racial profiling of a patient recently at a hotel in Avon, Ohio.

Cleveland – On the eve of the Republican National Convention held at the edge of Lake Erie in a place once nicknamed, “the Comeback City,” a group of Cleveland residents met to discuss the sad state of affairs when it comes to journalists reporting on Arabs and Muslims.

For one, journalists do not understand the meaning of the word, Arab, nor where it comes from, said local cardiologist Dr. Ahmad Banna, who has lived in Cleveland since the 1970s. Banna said the diversity among Arabs is often overlooked by U.S. news organizations.

“You have to understand that an ‘Arab’ was a person who spoke the Arabic language,” Banna explained. He said the word was originally applied to residents of the Arab peninsula. With migration, the language spread throughout the Western Asia’s Fertile Crescent and into Africa.

“When we look at the Arab countries now, some of them they speak their own native language, so they are mixed with the Arab, but they’re still called Arab, ” Banna said, pointing to Morocco and Somalia as examples. “There are two Arabs: true Arab and acquired Arab. Technically all these countries are now called ‘Arab countries.'”

But no mainstream media representatives received this history lesson. That’s because none of the journalists in town covering the Republican National Convention attended the panel on the Arab community, co-sponsored by the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage.

Dr. Ahmad Banna, who has lived in Cleveland since the 1970s, said journalists often rush to judgment before receiving all the facts., a practice that hurts the portrayal of Muslims and people of Arab descent.

Banna and three other representatives of Cleveland’s Arab community explored nuances of Middle Eastern culture that get omitted from much U.S. news coverage. Diversity among Middle Easterners themselves, for one.

“I think it’s very difficult for non-Arab communities to grapple with an identity that isn’t strictly racial,” said Lea Kayali, a sophomore at Pomona College located in Claremont, California. Last spring, her essay on combating bigotry toward Palestinians won $40,000 in the Maltz Museum’s annual “Stop The Hate” competition.

Organizers said they didn’t plan the panel discussion around the Republican convention. But recent events, including the shooting rampage at a gay nightclub in Orlando as well as the GOP’s platform policy on immigration, is bringing attention to the topic. They want to help dispel myths and correct negative and inaccurate narratives.

The Republican’s proposed platform on immigration shows how deeply stereotypes and bigotry have infiltrated public policy, panelists said.

References to “illegal immigrants” were replaced with the phrase “illegal aliens” throughout the document. The platform advocates for the Bible to be taught in school, and for ‘Biblically’ based legislation that “must be consistent with God-given, natural rights.”

Those extremist attitudes add kindling to the fiery rhetoric embroiling discussions of Arabs in general and Muslims in particular. It’s fueled prejudice that’s become a fact of life for anyone from the Middle East.

“The Arabic world became negative after 9/11. We have to face that,” said Pierre Bejjani, a Lebanese immigrant who is the executive editor of Profile News Ohio, which claims to be Ohio’s largest Arabic/English newspaper. “We need the media to understand who we are and pass on the message.”

Banna, who is Syrian, took a harder line.

“Media professionals should be fair and balanced,” he said. “The problem is, even before they get the facts, they rush to get the news instead of having confirmed information.”

Blame that on a profession enthralled with clicks, re-tweets and so-called engagement. So we run to Facebook, Tweet and Snapchat first, adding updates that are actually corrections. Then we raise our eyebrows, puzzled when public respect for journalists plummets.

Meanwhile, media coverage influences people in subtle, but profound ways. Just two weeks ago, suburban cops tackled and handcuffed a patient coming to Cleveland Clinic from Abu Dhabi. A hotel clerk sent alarming texts about his traditional clothing and Arabic speech saying he “freaked her out,” especially with all the news about ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), the clerk said according to media reports. Despite an apology from Ohio officials, the incident prompted the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation to warn citizens against wearing national dress when traveling to the United States.

On a more personal note, panelist Leen Midani said she’s now afraid to enjoy her hammock because she worries about reaction to her headscarf and dress.

“The media spread hatred and fear,” said Midani, who became a refugee when the civil war in Syria left her stranded in the U.S.

It’s a blunt accusation journalists needed to hear. Except there were none in the room.

WHY NPR’S ERRONEOUS REPORT ON CLEVELAND ‘RIOT’ MATTERS

May 21, 2015 by aoscruggs

Reaction was swift after NPR’s Steve Inskeep tweeted that a Cleveland City Councilman would riot if a police officer is acquitted for shooting Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams in 2012.

Almost everybody, including local and some national media, is on pins and needles awaiting the verdict in a case involving the murder of two unarmed residents by a Cleveland police officer. But how did a Cleveland council member get quoted as promising to riot in his ward if the officer is acquitted? Blame it on the narrative that so often frames coverage of police brutality in poor minority neighborhoods.

“The norm that media sets for anything that could possibly be upsetting involving poor minorities, … says there’s going to be civil unrest,” said Jean Marie Brown, a former managing editor with Knight Ridder and McClatchy newspapers who now teaches reporting at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.

Cleveland is a city on edge as it awaits the verdict of police officer Michael Brelo. Brelo has been charged with voluntary manslaughter for shooting Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams in 2012. Dozens of law enforcement officers chased the couple after their car backfired near police headquarters in downtown Cleveland. When the chase ended, 13 officers had shot the couple 137 times. But Brelo stood on the hood of the couple’s car and fired as police surrounded the pair.

With rumors of “outside agitators” arriving to stir things up if Brelo is acquitted – and visions of flames illuminating inner-city Baltimore – local leaders have been making plans to handle protests. Cleveland’s mayor Frank Jackson turned to Twitter, promoting unity and calm with the hashtag #OneCle; and council member Kevin Conwell has been attending meetings to organize local residents who will help moderate protests if the officer is not found guilty. One meeting drew reporter Brian Bull, who was filing a story for NPR’s “Morning Edition.”

A transcript of the raw tape provided by NPR relays the exchange between Bull and Conwell. In it Conwell states that he plans to “ride” the neighborhood for three days following the verdict.

But Bull heard the word “riot” as his follow-up questions clearly show.

Bull: “He’s acquited (cq) and you’re telling me that you’re prepared to riot?”
Conwell: “Oh, I have to ride. I have to ride. I have to show leadership. And I’ll be out there riding all the time. Seeing what’s going on. Riding the streets. …
Bull: “When you say rioting, I usually think of screaming, chaos, everything from vandalism to fires to arrests being made. Is this the kind of rioting you’re speaking of?”
Conwell: “If that happens. We want to do prevention. We don’t want it to happen at all. … People need resources and opportunities … We don’t want to have the rioting to happen in the city of Cleveland. We don’t need to have that happen at all.”
Bull: “So when I hear you say rioting, that’s controlled riots — an organized rally perhaps to express anger if he’s acquitted. Is that fair to say?”
Conwell: “That is fair to say, you’re right.”

Bull has worked in public media since at least 1999, according to his LinkedIn profile and is the current president of the Native American Public Telecommunications board of directors.

Once NPR learned of the mistake, the network quickly issued an apology and a new web transcript. They also corrected the segment by making Bull record another lead-in for Conwell’s remarks.

Even when the term “riots” does not make logical sense in the exchange, Bull still hears it. Why?

Reporter Brian Bull thought he heard “riot” when Councilman Kevin Conwell actually said “riding.”

Mark Memmott, NPR’s editor for standards and practices, admitted he didn’t know how the error occurred. “I can’t explain in the end, why it happened other than just a complete misunderstanding,” he said.

Bull didn’t respond to a request for comment. Instead his employer, local NPR affiliate WCPN, issued a statement.

“In early versions of the story “Cleveland Braces For Verdict In 2012 Police Shooting” that ran on Monday morning, May 18th, during Morning Edition on 90.3 WCPN ideastream, it was reported that Cleveland City Councilman Kevin Conwell said he would go out “rioting” if police officer Michael Brelo is acquitted in the shooting death of two black suspects,” wrote chief development officer Mary Grace Herrington. ” An error in the report resulted from a misunderstanding between what Cleveland City Councilman Kevin Conwell said (“riding/ride”) and what the reporter/producer heard (“rioting/riot”). ”

But making such “misunderstandings” are dangerously easy if the media relies on narratives to predict the news. With all the talk of riots and unrest, local events are clearly framed as an explosion waiting for a match. Bull may not have intentionally bought into this narrative, but its power likely influenced him, thus allowing him to ultimately accept that Councilman Conwell was planning a three-day “riot,” even though that makes little common sense.

Other reporters repeated Bull’s mistake, few of them conducting their own independent reporting. Morning Edition anchor Steve Inskeep’s tweet about Conwell’s intent to riot went viral. Inskeep retracted the tweet – because it included a typo, not because it was wrong. Inskeep only learned of the error after a Cleveland City Council spokesman brought to his attention on Twitter.

Conwell is still shaking his head over the misquote. And he points a finger at reporters who didn’t bother to check the audio of the NPR story.
“You know what I found out with several reporters? When it was tweeted out (that I said I would) ‘riot’, they didn’t listen to the tape,” Conwell said. “It just took straight off.”

Frames must stand on events, not narratives

Cleveland City Councilman Kevin Conwell said other journalists picked up the story without first checking it out.

A story framed by six months of local protests and meetings would have made everyone question Bull’s hearing, NPR’s reporting, and their willingness to believe a council member would act so irresponsibly. Clevelanders have been marching and rallying over police involvement in three controversial deaths: Russell’s and Williams’ in 2012 as well as Tanisha Anderson’s and Tamir Rice‘s last November. While the protests have been disruptive, they have also been nonviolent.

Cleveland isn’t unusual. When police officer Matt Kenny shot an unarmed Tony Robinson in Madison, Wisconsin, protests related to that incident were not violent. Citizens protesting the death of Eric Garner at the hands of New York City police were also non-violent.

“If you look back over the past year, at the numerous shootings and verdicts, you’d have to argue that rioting and unrest is the aberrant behavior, not the normative behavior,” Brown said.

But too many in the media have decided that police shootings in black communities ultimately lead to unrest. And that’s why NPR accepted the unacceptable: That a local politician would help ignite destructive anger rather than working to diffuse it.

How Did The Legacy Civil Rights Groups Lose So Big on Net Neutrality?

March 18, 2015 by aoscruggs

Well-funded legacy civil rights groups like Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and Marc Morial’s National Urban League lost to smaller, younger civil rights groups that have a better understanding of how the Internet works

18 Million Rising, a civil rights group that represents millendials, commissioned art, like this, linking net neutrality to present-day civil rights issues like Ferguson and the #Handsup protests.

The fight over federal regulation of the Internet should have been an easy victory for the big guys, especially when it came to marshaling the communities of color. Major telecom companies like Verizon and Comcast had the groups like the NAACP, the Multicultural Media and Telecom Council or MMTC and Urban League behind them.

But the issue turned into a battle between David and Goliath when a coalition of smaller, online civil rights organizations took net neutrality to the virtual streets.

By using social media aggressively and persuasively, the online civil rights groups helped convince the Federal Communications Commission to reclassify the Internet as a public utility that would be regulated under Title II of the 1934 Communications Act. (Think in terms of basic television, a utility, and cable television, for which consumers pay a premium.)

However, the battle isn’t over. The losers have started lobbying Congress and folks on both sides expect the issue of Internet regulation will eventually land in court.

Still, the question remains: How did groups like Color of Change, The National Hispanic Media Coalition, and 18 Million Rising overcome the clout of some of the country’s most respected, and oldest, civil rights groups? 18 Million Rising started by listening to their constituents instead of talking to them, said the organization’s new media director Cayden Mak.

The group was originally established to mobilize Asian-American millennials during the 2012 election cycle. From there, it turned to other issues such as immigration. After hearing from network members, the group took a closer look at net neutrality. Mak said many folks were hearing from constituents angered by the MMTC’s advocacy for regulating the Internet.

“Some of the members came to us and said, … we want to see somebody on the other side be outspoken … and talk about why Title II makes more sense for our community, ” Mak said.

MMTC, the National Urban League and its allies upheld (and continue to support) the telecoms’ position that the Internet infrastructure should be less stringently regulated under Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act. Section 706 would allow for paid prioritization, where Internet service providers could charge to have some content delivered more quickly than other content.

MMTC vice president Nicol Turner-Lee said her group was clearly against paid prioritization – a major sticking point with net neutrality supporters. However, the MMTC and its allies believed less stringent regulation would ultimately allow the telecoms to raise revenue that could pay for building out broadband networks in underserved communities.

Nicol Turner-Lee, vice president of the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council.

“Our thought was, one, you have millions who are not online who look like us (black and brown), and two, you have this promise of broadband for solving some of the social concerns of our community,” Turner- Lee said. She mentioned telemedicine as an area where broadband access is crucial.

“You take disparate adoption among groups of broadband, and what the unintended and intended consequences of heavy-handed regulation could be on these groups…,” Turner-Lee continued. “It became one of those points for us that going to the far continuum of Title II reclassification would be too much.”

But that reasoning didn’t sit well with younger members of other civil rights organizations. Mak said 18 Million Rising heard from several young Asian Americans who felt left out of the mix.

“For the Asian American community, it seems like there is no conversation about net neutrality, specifically from the perspective of what it means to be Asian American and be online,” Mak said.

But this isn’t a disagreement between civil rights groups vested with black and brown communities versus Asian American communities. But it may be one of young versus old.

The backlash arose because the Internet is content for millenials and others immersed in the online world. The online, mostly younger, civil rights activists are experienced in packaging an arcane issue like FCC regulation of the Internet for an audience with a short attention span. For example, 18 Million Rising commissioned art linking net neutrality to present-day civil rights issues like Ferguson and the #Handsup protests.

“One of the things that you struggle with, is how to make this issue look beautiful,” Mak said. “We worked with visual artists who are in our network to produce images that are shared very widely and used by some of our allies.”

Turner-Lee acknowledged that millennials have a different perspective on the Internet because they’re embedded in it.

“Clearly among millennials who are much more engaged in the digital space, there was a progressive turn of events that got people online to get the message out,” Turner-Lee said.

But she also says that net neutrality supporters demonized legacy civil rights organizations and leaders who opposed them.

“There were several stories that demonized civil rights groups about where they get their funding,” Turner-Lee charged. “Individuals were called out. There were several stories (questioning) the credibility of pioneering civil rights leaders.”

Cayden Mak, New Media Director for 18 Million Rising, a civil rights organization targeting millenials.

In fact, several organizations that oppose the FCC’s new Internet rules have received money from companies like Comcast and Verizon. But that money flows both ways. The National Hispanic Media Coalition, which supports net neutrality, counted Comcast and Google among sponsors of its 18th Annual Impact Awards Gala in February. In the past, Comcast has also supported the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, which also vigorously advocated for new net neutrality rules.

Michelle Ferrier, associate dean for innovation at Ohio University, doesn’t discount the power of money in influencing positions on Internet regulation. But she thinks the legacy civil rights organizations erred because they merged two different issues: content and access.

“I think one of the main concerns (the legacy civil rights groups) have is the digital divide issue and communities of color being left out of that divide,” said Ferrier who supports net neutrality. “Net neutrality involves everyone and every community. And that’s something we need to keep neutral.

“By conflating the two of them,” she added, “the older civil rights organizations made a strategic mistake.”

Here’s Why We Don’t Know Much about Tamir Rice

December 2, 2014 by aoscruggs

Coverage of Tamir Rice Shooting Exposes Rift Between Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com

Rookie cop Timothy Loehmann shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice little more than a week ago.

It’s been more than a week since police fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice, but the public knows almost nothing about his friends, his hobbies, his personality – nothing about him. And, until last night, we didn’t know anything about the police officer who killed him either.

If ever a profile of Tamir ever gets published will largely be determined by the relationship between Cleveland’s newspaper, The Plain Dealer, and the digital company, the Northeast Ohio Media Group. Despite sharing the cleveland.com platform, the print and digital companies are separate entities. Both, however, are owned by Advance Newspapers.

When the digital product was created in 2013, it got responsibility for crime and sports – two beats that generate the highest of web views. Employees familiar with the arrangement say the Northeast Ohio Media Group managers direct crime, courts and police coverage without input from its newspaper sibling. “We can suggest, but we cannot demand that they cover certain stories,” said one Plain Dealer employee who agreed to speak with All Digitocracy off the record. “The distinction between us and the Northeast Ohio Media Group is important.”

All public comments about news coverage were referred to Plain Dealer managing editor, Thomas Fladung, and Christopher Quinn, vice president of content for the Northeast Ohio Media Group. Both declined to speak with All Digitocracy. Employees, however, want to talk, but not without permission from supervisors.

They said the arrangement between the two The Plain Dealer and the Northeast Ohio Media Group’s cleveland.com is so convoluted that it confuses readers and that even insiders have a hard time trying to explain it. What is clear is that several Plain Dealer staffers distanced themselves from a recent story about the criminal pasts of Tamir Rice’s parents. “Nobody at The Plain Dealer had anything to do with that story,” several newspaper staffers complained. The employees fear that cleveland.com is using, and destroying, what used to be a strong, respected Plain Dealer brand.

At 8:29 p.m. Monday evening, a story describing Timothy Loehmann, the rookie who killed Tamir on Nov. 22, as a “quiet and respectful,” appeared on the home page of cleveland.com The story states that Loehmann is also someone who craves “the action” of a community in Cleveland that has the highest number of homicides. The report states Loehmann was charged with underage drinking when he was 17, which the website attributed to the hacktivist group, Anonymous, and was cited for failure to control his vehicle after he rear-ended a line of cars stopped at a traffic light in May.

It’s unclear whether an in-depth profile about Tamir will appear on cleveland.com. Quinn refused to talk about it. But what is clear is the way the Northeast Ohio Media Group practices journalism is very different from the way many journalists at The Plain Dealer do.

The Northeast Ohio Media Group, with less experienced reporters, emphasizes posting stories in short bursts, as they develop, with updates as the news emerges. It’s called iterative reporting. At cleveland.com, it requires little to no editing, with reporters often finding a story, writing the story and then posting the story directly to the web site, insiders told us. Some journalists at The Plain Dealer say these practices led to publication of a controversial news story about Tamir’s parents. Editors at The Plain Dealer refused to publish the story.

Timothy Loehmann, center, had only been on the job eight months when he shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice.

Tamir Rice was killed by Timothy Loehmann, center, who had only been on the job eight months.

At cleveland.com, clicks matter. Stories with the most hits or readers get better play; those without, get buried on the website. Other Advance properties have adopted this approach as well. Plain Dealer employees are passing around a link to a story from weldbham.com, to buttress their complaints about the shortcomings at the Northeast Ohio Media Group’s cleveland.com.

The link describes the deterioration of the news product at Advance’s Birmingham News and digital sibling, Al.com. The same thing is happening with cleveland.com, employees say.

“… the papers have become less and less relevant, while the Al.com website has become a haven for “clickbait” headlines that lead to 300-word stories that offer little to nothing in the way of substance or context, and for anonymous commenters who use the mask of user names to spew all manner of bile, a good deal of it explicitly racist,” according to weldbham.com, a weekly newspaper based in Birmingham.

“… And meanwhile, the dwindling number of seasoned journalists who remain with the Alabama Media Group continue to ply their trade, producing meaningful stories and commentary that rarely make it into print, and are quickly lost online in the flood of quota-driven posts of “content” that churns constantly on the Al.com landing page,” the article continues. “It’s not that we’re not producing good journalism,” says one of the company’s reporters, speaking — like other AMG employees who commented for this story — on condition of anonymity. “It’s that the company we work for doesn’t value good journalism.”

Three Plain Dealer employee emailed the above link to All Digitocracy. One Plain Dealer reporter wrote: “I was struck by the number of paragraphs that seemed like they were written about this operation. All you needed to do is take out AL.com or Alabama and replace it with cleveland.com or Cleveland.”

Employees at The Plain Dealer can suggest story ideas to cleveland.com, but can not demand that anything gets covered, newsroom staffers told us.

The Plain Dealer, with more experienced reporters, is known for publishing more in depth reports. They point to how Tamir Rice’s shooting death is being handled as an example of why it is important to distinguish stories with a Plain Dealer byline from those produced by Northeast Ohio Media Group, which typically employs less experienced reporters, according to Plain Dealer staffers.

Historically, the news media has never devoted time, energy or resources to communities of color. Reporters never showed up until a sensational event occurred, like the police shooting a 12 year old. Journalists typically rolled in and rolled out, forgetting these communities until the next big incident. So it is hard to say whether cleveland.com‘s approach to journalism is the reason behind its spotty crime reporting, including its coverage of Tamir Rice’s shooting death.

It does seem that cleveland.com, which Advance is betting will save its journalistic future, is making the same mistakes as its legacy media ancestors. But Advance can’t ensure a future by producing haphazard journalism that raises more questions than it answers.

Afi Scruggs is a former reporter and columnist for The Plain Dealer. She lives in Cleveland where she writes and plays bass.

Cleveland.com’s journalistic fail: Judging Tamir Rice by His Parents’ Past

November 30, 2014 by aoscruggs

The Northeast Ohio Media Group defends itself against an outpouring of criticism as legitimate journalistic questions about 12-year-old killed by police remain unanswered

CLEVELAND, OHIO – Cleveland police killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice at a public park when they found him playing with a toy gun, which they say looked real. Rice wasn’t a criminal, but Cleveland.com tried to turn him into one anyway.

Depicting black/brown boys and men as violent criminals from poor upbringing is an established media narrative that Tamir didn’t quite fit. But Cleveland.com, the website of the city’s former paper of record, tried to make him fit into the narrow narrative anyway, by reporting on the criminal misdeeds of his parents instead.

It’s an old, but tired trick used by the news media, especially when it comes to a black or brown person being killed by law enforcement. Such presumptive reporting invites bias, lacks context and is often unhelpful to readers in helping them to understand, and maybe even do something, about news events happening around them.

Ted Diadiun, reader representative for The Plain Dealer.

In order for you to understand the points I’m about to make, I have to link to a story that I detest. A week ago, Rice joined the ranks of Michael Brown and John Crawford III when he was shot by a white police officer called to a public park in response to a 911 call that a guy, “probably a juvenile,” was pulling a pistol out of his waistband, according to news reports. “It’s probably fake but he’s scaring the s— out of me,” the caller told a dispatcher. The caller once again told the dispatcher that the gun was likely a fake, but that information was never passed on to the police officers.

Within seconds of police officers’ arrival, 12-year-old Tamir lay bleeding on concrete at the park.

Of course, all sorts of questions swirl around Rice’s death. But Cleveland.com‘s attempts to answer those questions have left readers appalled. Rather than report on who Tamir Rice was, and how playing with a toy gun led to his untimely death, the Northeast Ohio Media Group, the digital sibling of the website and the Cleveland Plain Dealer, reported that both Rice’s mother and father have criminal records. His father, Leonard Warner, has multiple convictions for domestic abuse. His mother, Samaria Rice, pleaded guilty to drug trafficking last year. You may ask what these things have to do with the way Tamir died; that’s the same question many readers have as well.

Condemnation of the story on Rice’s parents is so strong that the article went viral over the past four days. And it is causing a furor inside the Plain Dealer’s newsroom as well.

Plain Dealer ombudsman, Ted Diadiun, defended the news organization on Saturday via a column titled, “Blaming the media — social and otherwise — is foolish and fruitless.” Diadiun also took to social media to try to help readers understand the decision to publish the story. He told Facebook users that “looking into the background and home life of a kid who meets a violent, tragic end (and reporting on it) has been standard operating procedure for all of the four decades I’ve been in news.” Diadiun also said he was “baffled by the accusations from many that the stories on Tamir’s parents somehow were an effort to paint him as a violent kid, or indicate that he deserved what he got,” Diadiun wrote. “To the absolute contrary, it was reporting that gave a windo (sic) into the kind of surroundings he was growing up in. In my view, revealing those facts made Tamir a more sympathetic figure, not less.”

Diadiun acknowledged that an awkward sentence to justify the coverage was added after the story initially published on Wednesday. He added that the story only ran online, not in The Plain Dealer’s printed edition.

That’s how it will remain if left up to David Kordalski’s, The Plain Dealer’s assistant managing editor for visuals. “Can someone, anyone, explain why the father’s history is remotely relevant to the death of this young man,” Kordalski wrote on Facebook, revealing a split within the news organization’s own ranks regarding whether the story should have been published. “If I have anything to do with it,” Kordalski said, “this will not appear in print editions of The Plain Dealer.”

Veteran Cleveland journalist and community activist Dick Peery didn’t read past the headline of the story. “I was so disgusted, I didn’t bother to read it,” said Peery, whose 38-year career includes stints at the Plain Dealer and the Call and Post, Cleveland’s African-American newspaper. “Whether the kid came from a broken family, a dysfunctional family, or an apple pie family is totally irrelevant to what the police did. The police rolled up on him and shot him dead.”

Nationally syndicated columnist Connie Schultz, who won The Plain Dealer’s first Pulitzer Prize, didn’t hold her tongue about the story either

“I didn’t link to the earlier story in question because I didn’t want to send one click to that heinous excuse for journalism… Likewise, I will not post (Northeast Ohio Media Group’s) Vice President Chris Quinn’s written attempt to justify running it,” Schultz wrote on her Facebook page. “A 12-year-old boy is dead. His father’s criminal history has nothing to do with why police zoomed up next to this child carrying a toy gun and shot him within seconds of their arrival.”

Christopher Quinn, Vice President of Content, Northeast Ohio Media Group.

Executives from Cleveland.com tried to calm the waters on Friday. Christopher Quinn, who oversees digital content strategy for Cleveland.com, The Plain Dealer and the Northeast Ohio Media Group, attempted to explain why editors published the story.

Quinn said people were asking whether Tamir had been exposed to violence at home, and if that had anything to do with him playing with a toy gun in public. “… we believe it may shed further light on why this 12- year- old was waving a weapon (sic) around a public park,” he wrote.

Cleveland.com needs bulbs with higher wattage. Its readers are still no more enlightened about Tamir’s home life than they were before the flawed story was published because the reporter, Brandon Blackwell, simply quoted documents without benefit of context. Blackwell apparently didn’t bother to talk with family members, neighbors or friends who would have given a clearer picture about Tamir and his short life. Apparently Blackwell and his editors didn’t see the need for context that would fill in the gaps between the facts as no indication was given in the story that they’d even tried.

The story they did report relies on assumptions that should be tested with old-fashioned shoe leather reporting. What if Tamir was raised by another family member, not his “violent” mom or dad? Did the pellet gun actually belong to Tamir? Did Tamir witness any of the violence caused by his father? Is playing with a toy gun a symptom of having abusive parents, or is it a boy being a boy? Or a boy misbehaving?

Blackwell didn’t even quote from an earlier story published by his own organization that described Tamir’s neighborhood as being plagued by gangs. In that story reporter Cory Shaffer wrote: “But Tamir never became caught up in the justice system. A records request turned up no criminal charges for the child in Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court has no record of the boy ever being accused of a crime.” (sic)

That’s right: Tamir Rice never had a run-in with the law before he was killed. But Cleveland.com editors and reporters were so blinded by their own memes of violent black men and boys, they couldn’t see the truth uncovered earlier in their own reporting. They decided that the parents’ backgrounds must explain a trait in the youngster that the news organization’s own reporting does not support. In that way Cleveland.com‘s stories about Tamir Rice perpetuate myth and stereotype, which goes against basic ethical standards many of us learn in college journalism classes.

The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics states:

Provide context. Take special care not to misrepresent or oversimplify in promoting, previewing or summarizing a story.
Avoid stereotyping. Journalists should examine the ways their values and experiences may shape their reporting.
Recognize a special obligation to serve as watchdogs over public affairs and government. Seek to ensure that the public’s business is conducted in the open, and that public records are open to all.

David Kordalski, assistant managing editor for visuals at The Plain Dealer: “If I have anything to do with it, this will not appear in print editions of The Plain Dealer.”

Cleveland.com‘s story judging Tamir Rice based on his parents’ pasts fails each of the above criteria. The insistence on the youngster’s “violence” was reinforced by the reporters and editors uncritical acceptance of a false narrative, instead of challenging it. Additionally, the 911 caller described Rice as a youth and emphasized that the gun was probably a toy. Cleveland.com reported these facts, but so far has not investigated how holes in the police department’s communications system led to such crucial omissions when it was dispatched to police officers responding to the scene.

Cleveland can’t bring back Tamir Rice, but it can help improve the way local law enforcement officials communicate with each other. That’s if the editors and reporters within the news organization decide to stop investigating their own narratives and start reporting more relevant information. Information readers can use to not only better understand Tamir Rice’s death, but that might prevent another Tamir Rice from dying in this way.

Afi Scruggs is a former reporter and columnist for The Plain Dealer. She lives in Cleveland where she writes and plays bass.

How to Keep The Peace: Cleveland’s Lessons for #Ferguson

August 25, 2014 by aoscruggs

What lessons can be learned from Cleveland’s 1968 Hough riot?

From the editor: Two weeks of unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, has invariably brought comparisons to long hot summers when Watts and Detroit burned in 1965 and 1967. Cleveland had its riots in 1966 and 1968. But the 1968 disturbance occurred during the administration of Carl Stokes, the first African-American mayor of a major American city. Veteran Cleveland journalist Dick Peery covered the 1968 riot. He reflects on Stokes’ handling of the disturbance, and the lesson it could present for Ferguson.

Watching Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and other officials seemingly ignore offers from citizens who want to be peace keepers as the state announced its curfew in Ferguson, Missouri, I was reminded of how sensitively one of America’s first Black mayors handled a similar situation almost 50 years ago.

July 24 was the 46th anniversary of what may have been the most courageous act of any American mayor. On that date in 1968, Carl B. Stokes, the first African-American mayor of Cleveland, prevented a certain bloodbath by barring white policemen from the city’s Glenville neighborhood overnight. For that he earned the never-ending hatred of the bulk of the police force and much of the area’s white community, while retaining the undying gratitude of Glenville residents and the city’s black citizens.

Stokes, the nation’s pioneering big city black mayor, issued a totally unprecedented order that allowed only black policemen and hastily recruited residents to patrol the community.

In Glenville, like Ferguson, a shooting ignited action

The action was taken in the wake of the Glenville shootout the night before when seven people, including three policemen, were killed and 15 people were wounded. The gun battle broke out while police were surveilling members of a local Black nationalist group, the Republic of New Libya led by Fred “Ahmed” Evans.

As the shooting raged, looting and burning broke out in the area, a number of business and apartment buildings were destroyed. The dead included three of Evans’ followers and a young man whose body lay on a sidewalk for hours while police stepped over him as they regained control of the area. They later learned that he had no connection to the militants, so he was identified as hero who was killed trying to rescue a wounded policeman. A number of Evans’ partners escaped, but he was captured at the scene. When the conflict abated, irate patrolmen met in the 5th District station and organized what later became the patrolmen’s union.

The next morning, Stokes faced a unique challenge in trying to impose order on the chaos. Anger among the police was intense and outrage was often expressed with racial insults. It was apparent that hostility would overflow when they returned to Glenville that night and that the shooting was likely to resume. Community leaders spent the day developing recommendations to prevent the expected carnage. In late afternoon Stokes announced that for the first time in American history only African-American police officers and community volunteers would try to bring the turmoil to a halt.

Throughout the night, enraged policemen who were confined to the perimeter of Glenville filled the police radio with curses and racial slurs directed at Stokes. The Saturday Evening Post documented their hatred, although local media barely mentioned it. With the absence of white police, the arson and looting lessened, reversing the usual pattern of increasing destruction on the second night of rioting.

The next day things were calmer and white police and National Guardsmen returned. A curfew was established and the rioting was declared over three days later.  Evans died in prison 15 years later.  Although the police were publicly furious that they were not allowed to vent their rage on the streets of Glenville that night, some privately admitted that they were thankful the mayor saved them from a confrontation they did not want.

Richard Peery is a retired reporter from the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He is also a former reporter for the Call and Post newspaper. Since retiring Peery, who was also a long-time president of the Writer’s Guild union at the Plain Dealer, has continued his activism in the community, rallying with community activists and others around violence against women issues in greater Cleveland, a stand-your-ground bill in the Ohio State General Assembly, and police brutality.

#BringBackOurGirls: Who and Where It’s Being Tweeted Most

May 9, 2014 by aoscruggs

The #BringBackOurDaughters the hashtag has gone viral. Who's using it the most?

The #BringBackOurGirls hashtag has gone viral. Who’s using it the most?

As the crisis in Nigeria involving nearly 300 kidnapped schoolgirls continues, news about them is spreading far and wide. The hashtag #bringbackourgirls reportedly has been tweeted more than one million times. This map allDigitocracy created using trendsmap.com shows how widely the hashtag had spread this morning, as of 12:18, May 9, 2014.

The map shows the topic of the abducted girls are being talked about all across the globe, but most especially in the Americas and Africa. “The hashtag spread in the US, first slowly and then with a spike, after it first circulated mostly among the large (at least million) Nigerian expat community as well as black feminist groups on Twitter,” reports TechPresident.com.

Michelle Obama helps bring attention to the plight of Nigeria’s kidnapped schoolgirls.

There’s been some dispute (and here) about who, and where, the hashtag actually got started, but there can be no doubt that it has had an impact. Even First Lady Michelle Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have joined the #BringBackOurGirls campaign. Obama shared a picture of herself with this caption: ‘Our prayers are with the missing Nigerian girls and their families.’

The initial abductions took place more than a month ago, and at first outcry surrounding the horrendous actions of Boko Haram, a reported extreme Islamic group that condemns the influence of Western education, was slow to take hold in the US and other parts of the globe. But now, with help from the urgent battle cry #BringBackOurGirls, shock has replaced disbelief and complacency in most parts of the world. Below are ways this heartwrenching story continues to be covered.

According to the Nigerial blog 360nobs.com, Nigerian police are offering 50 million naira, about $31,000, for information leading to the girls’ rescue.
The British television network ITV profiles Ibrahim Abdullahi who it reports created the #BringBackOurGirls twitter campaign.
Nigeria’s Vanguard Newspaper reports that France and China have offered join the search for the girls who were abducted on April 14. The United States and the United Kingdom are already lending assistance.
Vanguard columnist Is’haq Modibbo Kawu examines how and why the #BringBackOurGirls protests have transcended Nigeria’s ethnic, social and religious differences.
Attendees of the International Association of Women Judges conference in Tanzania asked the United Nations and the African Union to join the search for the #girlsofChibok, according the DailyNews, a Tanzanian news site.
Washington Post social media reporter Caitlin Dewey steps back from events to question the effectiveness of so-called hashtag activism. According to the story, more than one million people have tweeted #bringbackourgirls. Dewey compares and contrasts #bringbackourgirls with #Kony2012 and #JusticeforTrayvon.

#BringBackOurGirls: How the story is being covered

May 7, 2014 by aoscruggs

Nigerians demand their government do more to bring home kidnapped schoolgirls. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Here’s a round-up of the day’s best coverage of the ongoing crisis in Nigeria involving hundreds of kidnapped school girls:

Nigeria-based Vanguard News reports that Boko Haram kidnapped 11 more girls on Monday from a village in Northeastern Nigeria;
Allafrica.com carries another Vanguard News story that a coalition of youth and students promise to mobilize a national hunger strike if the abducted Chibok girls are not released by May 24. That date is 40 days from April 14, when more than 370 female students were kidnapped by Boko Haram insurgents;
The Associated Press published its interview with a 16-year-old who escaped the abductors in Chibok. Among new details: School guards fought for an hour before fleeing the insurgents;
The Washington Post and several other outlets say United States Secretary of State John Kerry called Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan with an offer to send a team of American law enforcement and military experts to find the missing school girls;
The Nigerian-based blog 360Nobs posts photos from a #bringbackourgirls rally held outside the Nigeria High Commission Office in London;
A 2012 BBC report, “Who Are Nigeria’s Boko Haram Islamists,” provides background information on the group responsible for the kidnappings;
The Washington Post answers eight basic questions about the abduction, the Nigerian government’s response to it, and the Nigerian protests that have lead to international outrage.

#Bringbackourgirls: How to Follow the Story

May 5, 2014 by aoscruggs

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The kidnapping of more than 230 Nigerian school girls has gone viral, inspiring rallies from New York to Los Angeles to Nashville, Tenn. Social media is involved, rallying around the hashtags #bringbackourdaugthers and #bringbackourgirls. When allDigitocracy looked for news coverage on the NYTimes.com, though, all we found was a stale story buried in the Africa section of the site’s “World” vertical. It is so frustrating trying to find information on what’s happening in the Nigerian conflict, that Gawker offered up a list of excuses as to why American news outlets aren’t fully reporting the story.

But you don’t have to depend on America’s mainstream media – or Facebook – to follow developments in the #girlsofchibok. The same Internet that hosts the Times and The Wall Street Journal is also home to Allafrica.com, which aggregates news from across the continent. If nothing else, growing global interest in the abduction should propel news consumers to go beyond their national borders, and take full advantage of the news media available on the web.

Here’s an initial list of the best sites to keep you current on development in the #bringbackourdaughters and the #bringbackourgirls stories. Stop by frequently because we may post additional sources.

Allafrica.com: This site aggregates news from the entire continent. Over the weekend, the website published the names of 180 of the reported 234 girls who were abducted three weeks ago.
Saharareporters.com: A community of independent journalists and commentators who file reports “from a Nigerian-African perspective.”The posters unapologetically practice advocacy journalism, so expect pointed criticism of the Nigerian government’s handling of the abduction.
Premium Times Nigeria: Based in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, this site was established in 2011. Its mission includes strengthening Nigeria’s democracy and advancing the socioeconomic health of the the country’s citizens.
Agence France Press: English site This is the world’s oldest press agency. From its base in France, Agence France Press covers the world. The agency broke news on its Twitter feed of Islamist group Boko Haram taking responsibility for the abduction.
BBC News Africa: This news organization also covers Africa extensively. The interest is understandable; England colonized major parts of the continent including, of course, Nigeria.
Twitter: Find news and developments with these hashtags: #bringbackourdaughters; #bringbackourgirls, #girlsofchibok, #BringOurDaughtersBack

Photo and video, used with permission, courtesy of The Premium Times.

5 Specific Ways The Flint Journal Can Do Better

November 27, 2013 by aoscruggs

By Afi Scruggs

Marjory Raymer, editor of The Flint Journal, apologized for the newspaper’s journalistic lapse but failed to say what corrective actions she would take.

Although the furor is waning over the Flint Journal’s handling of Councilmember Wantwaz Davis’ criminal past – the newspaper did not report that he is an ex-felon until the day after the election – one question remains: How will the newspaper prevent a similar lapse? Editor Marjory Raymer apologized to readers, but she has not said what the paper will do to prevent similar episodes from happening again.

I’ve come up with five suggestions that will work for the Journal, and for any news organization that is serious about covering its communities. Notice I didn’t say, “serious about covering minority communities.” That’s because news is news and best practices have no color.

Reinforce Journalism 101 and review the news drivers: At least two sources say Journal reporters covered forums where Davis spoke openly about his imprisonment. But that fact wasn’t tweeted before the election, let alone reported. Whether blaming incompetence, inexperience or negligence, one thing is clear– the newspaper’s staffers don’t recognize news. So take them back to school. Remind them of the seven criteria that determine newsworthiness: Timeliness, proximity, prominence, magnitude, consequence, uniqueness, and conflict.
Make reporters and editors check the newspaper’s archives: Davis noted the Journal had covered his murder case back in 1991. Sure enough, the newspaper quoted from its archives in its post-election day story. In the pre-Internet era reporters routinely pulled stories – actual hard copies – from the newspaper’s library. The advent of keywords and tags makes searching the archives so easy it ought to be standard procedure, especially when writing about political candidates.
Get reporters on the streets: If the Journal resembles its sibling publications, reporters aren’t in the office much. When the parent company, Advance Publications, cuts newsroom staff, it also frees them to work remotely. That means journalists can file stories remotely, from home or a favorite coffee shop. Encourage reporters, photographers and even editors to work the neighborhoods and show their faces in places they would generally ignore. Community engagement should not be limited to social media; in-person interaction goes a long way.
Increase the diversity of your news staff: I can’t report the demographics of the Journal’s newsroom because the paper doesn’t participate in the American Society of Newspaper Editor’s annual census on newsroom diversity. But two-thirds of the 25 Michigan newspapers in the 2013 listing have no minority news staffers. If that’s true of the Journal, its editors must ask how a virtually all-white newsroom can cover a city that’s almost 60 percent African American. But diversity shouldn’t be limited to race and ethnicity; it also means representing diversity of thought, which can lead to identifying stories others miss. The Journal obviously needs savvy, experienced journalists who can recognize a good story when they see it. In other words, the news staffers should be young and old, African American, Latino/Latina, Asian and White, white-collar and blue-collar – at least, but also possess different levels of experience that can enable reporters to learn from each other and develop a set of best practices when it comes to identifying news.
Repair the brand: Right about now The Flint Journal is the media’s version of the Healthcare Marketplace. The news outlet’s local readership won’t forget about this debacle. The paper needs to do more than post an apology on its site. Its senior leadership should ask what community leaders and activists want from the paper. Then tell the public how the Journal will fill gaps and improve coverage – and do what you say. It’s a cliche but true: Actions speak louder than words.

Guest blogger Afi Scruggs is a freelance digital journalist and commentator.