Deggans Pundit Alert: Explaining Media's Toughness on Obama and Network TV's Post Strike Blues

Howard Kurtz must be trying to turn me into a star.

That's my admittedly self-centered conclusion after noting how much the Washington Post media critic has quoted me in his latest story, a look at how the media has gotten tougher on Obama. Frankly, this is a trend I talked about way back in February, when a Saturday Night Live sketch poking fun at the media's adulation of Obama seemed to spark a raft of negative stories about the candidate.

Unfortunately, many media outlets' idea of incisive coverage includes stories about whether Obama wears a flag pin and how long he's known that Jeremiah Wright is a loose cannon. Now Howard has weighed in, concluding that Obama has "been brought down to earth by the same media organizations that fueled his meteoric rise."

Another element at work here is something I've also written about before: The news media's love for a tight Democratic primary which has fueled TV ratings, boosted the visibility of myriad reporters and given declining newspapers a reason to argue for their relevance. Big media loves this fight and wants both contenders to stay in the game as long as possible -- which means that whenever one of them pulls ahead, the other will take a few hits.

Another friend in media, reality TV expert Andy Dehnart, did me the honor of calling while he was assembling a story for MSNBC.com on why ratings for network TV shows have dropped since their return after the writers' strike.

Andy presents experts who argue that the viewership dip isn't solely caused by the strike. But as I noted a while ago, the strike allowed some viewers to find new ways to occupy their time -- and the spate of returning shows will last just a few weeks before we're back to reality TV and reruns for summer.

What's more worrisome than viewership drops is the trend of complex scripted shows migrating to cable. Increasingly, the best scripted dramas are found in the wilds of cable, where ratings demands and content restriction are lower. So what will happen to network TV's upscale, educated audience when all you can find on broadcast is Deal or No Deal and Celebrity Apprentice?

Keep your eye on this blog, and you'll read the answers before my quotes wind up in the Washington post or MSNBC.com.   

Day Three in NYC: Denis Leary and the Psychology of Race in Election Coverage

Only in New York can you go from an academic discussion of race, media and the presidential election to kickin' it with Rescue Me's Tommy Gavin.

But that's the fun I'm going to be having today, as I cap my time in Gotham by visiting Denis Leary on the set of FX's deliciously profane firefighter drama Rescue Me to talk with about that show and HBO's ambitious take on the Florida-based fight over the 2000 presidential election, Recount.

Last night, I sat on a panel at Columbia University discussing the state of the media's work covering race and the election -- we had lots of criticisms, surprise! -- moderated by Ray Suarez of PBS' NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and featuring folks from the Poynter Institute, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal (I KNOW, what was I doing there?)

I was particularly intrigued by the work of the Post's Shankar Vedantam, an academic-friendly reporter who has assembled a number of stories crunching behavioral studies to explain some of the dynamics in the current election.

One reason why he thinks reaction to the Jeremiah Wright scandal varies so starkly between black people and white people is because minorities seems to measure racial progress by comparing current conditions to an ideal future, while white people measure racial progress by comparing the present to our racial past. So when Jeremiah Wright delivers fiery sermons about institutional racism, black people immediately think of how far we have to go while white people get offended, thinking of how far we have come.

He also cited another study in which white people were presented with a scenario -- you're about to be born and you are scheduled to be born white. If your color were somehow switched to black, how much money would you want in compensation? At first, respondents said about $5,000, greatly underestimating the challenges of being black in America. Once they are told the true cost -- that black people are 447 percent more likely to be imprisoned, 521 percent more likely to be murdered and start life generally with five times less the wealth of the average white person -- they usually demand more money.

And regarding gender, he cited a study in which the same description of an executive was handed to two groups of people -- tough but fair, rewards creativity, etc. -- but the only difference is one group gets a description on a CEO named James and the other group gets a description of a CEO named Andrea. You got it - when questioned, the subjects overwhelmingly named Andrea as less likable and James as the boss they would prefer to work for, even though there was no difference in the descriptions except for the names.

His work suggests there are split-second, unconscious reactions to race and gender issues that are affecting how we react to these candidates. Exposing and discussing those tendencies -- and what they mean for real-life candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton -- is some of the most interesting work around on the campaign trail.

Wonder how Denis is going to react to some of this? 

60 Minutes' Steve Kroft Speaks on Clarence Thomas Interview; Leaves a Few Questions Unanswered

One of the treats of the conference on covering race that I'm attending here at Columbia University, was a chance to hear 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft talk about one of his most controversial interviews in recent memory: his Sept. 30 sit-down with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Critics accused Kroft of handling Thomas with kid gloves to get the kind of access he has never given a TV journalist: hanging with him at his boyhood home in Savanna, Ga., riding in his RV (which he occasionally parks at Wal Marts when he is traveling?!) and questioning him with his wife. Thomas was selling a book -- Kroft admits the publishing house was instrumental in pushing Thomas to do the interview in the first place -- and still left CBS producers unsure if he would fully participate.

"I don't think anybody deserves to be defined totally by his enemies," Kroft said, explaining why he agreed with Thomas' feeling that he had been caricatured by the press. "He is somebody who hasn't gotten a fair shake in the press -- in part, because he let people define him."

I was impressed and a little envious at the resources Kroft said he had -- including seven or eight producers to comb through mountains of research to produce two thick "briefing books" which give him everything major that has been reported on Thomas. 

More than anything, I was intrigued by a moment when Kroft was asked about a typical Thomas inconsistency: He has a moment early in the interview where he insists race is not a huge factor in his life or perception of himself. But he also recounts growing up in a segregated south, feeling as if the white world discounted his law degree from Yale because he was black and being told by his grandfather that at a certain age, he couldn't dare look a white woman in the face for fear of lynching or worse.

But Thomas wound up an opponent of affirmative action who married a white woman. Doesn't that indicate that race had some impact on him, despite his protestations? "I didn't think about that until this session," noted Kroft today.

In an odd way, that response proved the value of what we're talking about here at Columbia. If you don't have journalists on hand who know black culture and black issues -- like the reasons why some black people feel Clarence Thomas is in denial about how race and affirmative action have affected his own life -- then you get stories which miss important cultural issues.

Later, we wondered why Kroft's story claimed at the outset that many criticisms about Thomas -- that he was an affirmative action hire who wants to kill affirmative action, for example -- were false. But the story didn't really seem to demonstrate how. And the many inconsistencies about Thomas' life and views weren't challenged much.

Still it was an informative look at how a big institution like 60 Minutes gets those big interviews -- and what viewers may be missing in the process. 

At the Daily Show With Aasif Mandvi; A Tampa Guy at the Tip of a Cultural Phenomenon

Now, I can die happy: I have walked onto the set of the Daily Show.

Of course, Jon Stewart and his cast of faux-journalists weren't exactly there. Those guys were elsewhere in the shows sprawling, 44,000 square-foot office/studio space, kicking around ideas (for those of you who saw Stewart live in Tampa last year, wearing two t-shirt and khaki pants, he seemed to be wearing the exact same ensemble today!)

I visited Daily's digs along west 52nd st. earlier today, to hang out a bit with the show's Tampa-raised, British-born Mideast Correspondent Aasif Mandvi. also known as "that guy who fired Spider Man" in the superhero movie's sequel, Mandvi is a thoughtful actor who is relishing a regular job satirizing the nation's agita on race, culture, religion and politics at a time when all these subjects are on society's front burner.

I'm going to save the quotes for later, when I work our conversation into a full-on feature for the print newspaper. But we spent nearly two hours together, talking about everything from Hollywood's inability to deal well with race issues to the culture shock he experienced as a teen when his family moved from a working class neighborhood in Britain to 1980s-era Tampa.

Along the way, I got a tour of Daily's sprawling loft of an office, with the kind of casual air usually reserved for college dorm lounges. I traded a few quips with correspondent Jason Jones -- I talked so long with Mandvi, he accused me of writing a book on him -- and got a glimpse of John Hodgman (PC Guy from the Apple commercials), who appears in a bit tonight.

Unfortunately, I came a day late to see Aasif's latest gag, in which he "reported" from inside the graphics of the bloody new video game Grand Theft Auto IV, satirizing the nation's thirst for pixilated blood and Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia's lawyerly claim that torture isn't necessarily considered punishment (as in "cruel and unusual")

I've got to cut this post short, because I'm checking out the show taping at 6 p.m.; even though Aasif doesn't appear in the program tonight, I'm hoping to soak up some color and maybe meet ace researcher Adam Chodikoff, who was the subject of much buzz in the office today over a cool feature in the Washington Post on his work digging up the show's striking video clips. 

Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Media Blitz Forces Barack Obama to Face the Angry Black Man Test -- Again

For so long, those of us who watch black folks and politics assumed this challenge would come from Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton.

We knew there would come a moment when the first black man with a realistic shot at becoming president would have to reconcile black anger and frustration with white fear and resentment. It's a critical test: acknowledging the righteous anger of people frustrated by continuing racial inequality without looking like the kind of Angry Black Man often rejected by more conservative white voters.

Our mistake: We assumed that, for Obama, this issue would come flying from the direction of someone like Sharpton or Jackson -- a traditional civil rights leader who would insist Obama prove his fealty to black issues by showing the kind of aggressive advocacy which often turns off traditional white voters.

Who knew that the race-based bullet wounding Obama's campaign would come from friendly fire -- his spiritual mentor Jeremiah Wright -- adding yet another unpredictable twist to the most unconventional electoral contest in history?

I've already pointed out how the initial stories about Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons have distorted many of his points. So I'm not saying he shouldn't feel compelled to defend his church and his reputation by facing down the media he way he has by speaking to PBS' Bill Moyers, speaking to the Detroit NAACP Sunday and speaking to the National Press Club in Washington D.C. as I write this.

But by now it's obvious Obama is deep in a sound-bite-fed, image-waged war. By now, a man smart as Wright knows it doesn't really matter what he says. He's been reduced to an emotional image -- the Willie Horton of 2008 -- a boogeyman of black nationalism and aggression, used as a prop to make the professorial Obama look like a smooth talker hiding more radical inclinations.

Obama's people probably hoped they might flick him off the campaign's radar the way the candidate quoted Jay-Z in pretending to flick off criticisms from Hillary Clinton. Or the way Obama flicked off traditional black power brokers such as Sharpton and Tavis Smiley. Black folks surprised us pundits by accepting the notion that Obama didn't have to touch base with these traditional leaders to get black votes, and white voters seemed pretty ready to disregard complaints from these figures, given his success with black constituencies.

But Wright's recent appearances will continue to hurt the candidate, because the reverend is the radical Obama never was, and he's close enough to give skeptical white voters an excuse. Right now, Wright is holding court before the world's TV cameras and an admiring audience at the Press Club. His dismissive attitude toward the moderator's questions -- which basically articulate the concerns many white voters have about Wright's public statements and positions -- are playing well in the room, but will likely stoke anger among the assembled press and probably among some white viewers.

The Today show this morning featured a clip from Sunday's speech where Wright took aim at John F. Kennedy's accent (he was noting that people rarely criticize the way the Kennedys mangle English the way some black people do). But I think his more controversial comments came when he maintained the black people learn differently than white people because of the way their brains work -- something a lot of people, black and white, will find more objectionable.

Obama's problem is that Wright is genuinely controversial, though not in the way some pundits maintain. And he's now given Obama's critics a fresh raft of soundbites to wedge into news reports and campaign commercials.

What's obvious to me, is that a moderate like Obama is much better equipped to referee America's inevitable struggle to reconcile black anger with white resentment. But Wright's bombastic tactics will put his skills to the test, forcing the candidate to bridge one of the largest cultural chasms in America while running one of the tightest races for the Democratic nomination ever seen.

Wouldn't it be ironic if Obama's pro-black pastor was the one who kept Democrats from presenting their first black nominee for president?

Check out one spicy part from Wright's sermon below:

Did Wesley Snipes Really Get a Raw Deal?

It's become an interesting debate among some people: Does Wesley Snipes really deserve up to three years in jail for three tax evasion related misdemeanors?

Perhaps the questions come because Snipes' sentence hit papers as news dropped that three New York police officers were acquitted for a 50-shot killing of a man on his wedding day, who happened to be black. But there's a decided racial tint to some protests about Snipes, who the government says still owes about $20-million in fines and back taxes.

But when you look at who else has been in the IRS cross hairs, the picture gets muddier.

Willie Nelson got to hold auctions and charity concerts to pay off a $16-million IRS debt, which he had negotiated down from $32-million. He eventually only repaid about $12-million.

But Leona Helmsley spent 18 months in prison and got a $7-million fine for actively trying to avoid paying taxes in 1989. Pete Rose spent five months in jail in 1990 for filing false returns, but when the IRS concluded he owed more than $970,000 from 1997 to 2002, he didn't get jail time.

Chuck Berry served 120 in 1973 for failing to report $200,000 in income; in 1995, Darryl Strawberry was convicted of owing $450,000 in back taxes and singer Marc Anthony (Mr. Jennifer Lopez, to some of you) wound up owing $2.5-million after he was found guilty of failing to file tax returns for $15-million.

So it seems obvious that the IRS is both ruthless and unpredictable. Hope you filed your tax returns on time...

The Journey of Flavor Flav: From Public Enemy to Public Buffoon

(As Flavor Flav makes his sitcom debut tonight, I cooked up a column for Floridian lamenting the slide of a brother who once stood for something. Here's the column reposted on the blog)

We were never supposed to see something like this.

When Flavor Flav burst on the scene with seminal rap group Public Enemy, he was never the main attraction. Flav brought the noise as the ultimate "hype man," a comic foil to help ease the brutally Afro-centric, often militant messages of rap's first successful group to base its image on a political stance.

While lead M.C. Chuck D. urged fans to Bring the Noise or Fight the Power, Flav provided a break from the seriousness, highlighting the slow response of emergency crews in America's ghettos with 911 Is a Joke before warning listeners on the followup album that you Can't Truss It, especially when left-wing politicians in Little Rock feed you a line.

In his prime, William Drayton was the best rap sidekick in the game. Mouth packed with gold caps and a gigantic clock wrapped around his neck, Flav helped turn the hype man into a hallowed institution in hip-hop while contributing to some of the most legendary rap hits in history.

So how did this image of excess and hedonism, originally presented as a counterweight to the austere black nationalist vibe of Public Enemy's core message, become the group's most visible surviving legacy?

Here's how: In the last few years, reality TV shows have transformed the sidekick clown into the star.

The odyssey started with Flav's debut as a housemate in the series that crammed dysfunctional celebrities in a house, The Surreal Life. It progressed to his goof of a "romance" with Brigitte Nielsen in Strange Love (she reportedly was engaged to someone else during the production) and VH1's ghetto-style version of The Bachelor, Flavor of Love. (That's three No. 1 cable series, if you're counting.)

Flavor of Love in particular has proven a ratings bonanza. The show's first-season finale drew the most viewers in VH1's then-21 years, and its second-season debut drew the channel's biggest premiere audience ever. Small wonder VH1 okayed two spinoffs and a third season.

Now 49, Flav is set to star in a half-hour sitcom, Under One Roof, debuting tonight on low-rated MyNetworkTV. He plays an ex-convict living with his straitlaced brother, and the series is so good, MyNetworkTV didn't send me a review copy (a publicist for the show insists that happened because they are editing the show down to the last minute).

A cynic might assume that fans — black and white — are giddily consuming the buffoonish black-hustler stereotype Flavor Flav offers with little regard to the social consequences.

In the process, the man who once rhymed about black folks being "Divided and sold/For liquor and the gold/Smacked in the back/For the other man to mack" is now lording over women who insult each other over their herpes bumps and one who even relieved herself on the floor. (The punch line: She wasn't eliminated from Flavor of Love for that. Really.)

By now, it's a cliche to complain about how Flav's worn playa shtick has become a license to print money for reality TV producers. It's just the latest in a long line of contradictions from an artist who can boast of skills as a classically trained pianist and arrests for carrying an unlicensed gun and crack cocaine.

Without seeing an episode, it's a safe bet that Under One Roof continues that legacy, mining stereotypes about black folks minus the godly messages you get in a Tyler Perry script.

This Public Enemy fan is left to wonder about the irony: One of rap's most militantly pro-black groups has produced one of TV's biggest black buffoons. The voice of the hype man, in the end, is the loudest left from the rap band that was socially conscious before the industry had a name for it.

Looks like someone decided that fighting the power wasn't as profitable as joining it.

And we all may be the worse for his choice.

Tallahassee-Based Black-Centered TV News Channel Signs Deal With Comcast

UPDATE: The Black Television News Channel is a project fronted by former Republican Congressman J.C. Watts, aimed at creating a black-focused news channel which would look like a hybrid of Fox News Channel and CNN, according to its senior vice president Steven Pruitt.

The company is based in Tallahassee right now because it is working with Bob Brilliante, the former head of Florida's News Channel -- an effort to create a statewide TV news channel which never quite lived up to its ambitions. The project expects to move its headquarters to Washington D.C. soon and launch in time for Black History Month 2009, according to Pruitt.

Pruitt says the company is securing carriage deals like the one it announced today before hiring any personnel. But this will be the third time an independent company has tried to form a black-centered TV news network; Quincy Jones was the most visible investor in New Urban Entertainment, which fell apart when it couldn't nail carriage agrements and Stuart, Fla. lawyer Willie Gary tried spinning off a news network from his Major Broadcasting Cable Network, which also failed. Neither of the two existing  black-focused cable networks, Black Entertainment Television or TV One, offers regular newscast programming

Pruitt also said the company expects to spend more than $30-million on the venture. As well as some ethnic media is doing these days, starting a TV news channel from scratch is a tall order; it will be interesting to see how this one unfolds, if it ever does. Bear in mind, all I know about this company is what Pruitt and his press release have told me, so far. (UPDATE END)

I'll be doing some reporting later today to check up on this, but here's a press release I got today which looks interesting. Bear in mind that press releases most times don't tell the whole story.

Here it is:

Washington, DC — April 14, 2008 -- Black Television News Channel (BTNC), the nation’s only African-American news network, scheduled to launch in 2009, today announced a multi-year carriage agreement with Comcast (CMCSA, CMCSK), the country’s leading provider of cable, entertainment and communications products and services.  Under the agreement, BTNC expects that it will be added to Comcast systems in the following key African American markets: Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Baltimore.

BTNC will be a 24/7 cable news network that provides original news programming with a distinctly African-American perspective, and therefore helps fill a major gap in today’s media. BTNC is the endeavor of J.C. Watts, Jr., former U.S. congressman from Oklahoma and celebrated athlete, and broadcast and cable news veterans. 

“Our unique and vast content partnerships with African American newsmakers will provide our viewers LIVE access to the stories and people in whom our viewers have a special interest,” said Watts. “With this agreement, Comcast continues to demonstrate its commitment to working with independent programmers with diverse points of view.”

BTNC will construct the first coast-to-coast all high-definition television newsgathering infrastructure with its network operations center located in Washington, DC.

###
About BTNC

Black Television News Channel will be the nation’s only provider of 24/7 cable news programming dedicated to covering the unique perspective of African American communities.  BTNC will provide access to information and educational programming to meet the specific needs of this growing and dynamic community, which is a major consumer of subscription television services. BTNC will provide a new voice that represents African Americans in mainstream media and fosters political, economic, and social discourse.  BTNC’s programming will shed light on the unique social, economic, and political challenges facing urban communities and help close the “image gap” that exists today between the negative African American stereotypes perpetuated by mainstream media news and our enterprising black communities.

Help a Guilt-Ridden TV Critic: Watch This Zora Neale Hurston Documentary

I have to admit a mistake.

I intended to review a most excellent PBS documentary on famed Florida writer Zora Neale Hurston airing at 9 p.m. tonight on WEDU-Ch. 3. But for various time management reasons, I never really got it together to get something in today's newspaper, and the documentary was developed over 18 years by a local producer, Kristy Andersen.

Jeff Klinkenberg did produce a wonderful Floridian feature on Anderson's quest you can see here.

I rooted around on WEDU's web site, however, and realized that Andersen's American Masters special Zora Neale Hurston: Jump at the Sun, is airing in late night several more times this week. Besides airing at 9 tonight, it also airs at 1 a.m. Thursday, 3 a.m. Friday and 3 a.m. Monday on WEDU.

Why should you set your TiVo? Because Andersen's $1-million film is a 90-minute look at one of the most contradictory, controversial, accomplished African American writers and folklorists in Florida history. Raised in 1900's-era Eatontown, Fla., the first town incorporated by black people, she grew up the daughter of a philandering pastor, sent off on her own as a teen after her mother died.

Eventually, Hurston would write amazing novels and plays which captured the spirit of working class black Southern black folk, such as Their Eyes Were Watching God. An iconoclast with a knack for survival, she had no qualms about revealing the weaknesses of her black characters if they felt authentic, or playing to the prejudices of white patrons to get funding for her work.

She was a blazing star of the Harlem Renaissance who alienated legendary poet Langston Hughes by usurping full ownership of a play they developed together. She was a proud, independent black woman who signed a letter to one white patron "your pickaninny." She was the first black graduate of Barnard College and the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship who delighted in telling off-color jokes and boasted of being the queen of the black intellectual "niggerati."

Andersen brings her contrary history to life by interviewing a wealth of sources, from Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates to novelist Alice Walker and former neighbors from Eatontown. She also recreates a radio interview Hurston gave in 1943, using an actress to bring the writer's self-confidence and offhand style to life.

So take a little time and check out Jump at the Sun -- if only to make me feel a little better for trying to rectify a disappointing oversight.

   

Jailed Trucker Jean Claude Meus Gets New Trial: Did TV Help Make It Happen?

Score another win for media-savvy attorney John Trevena.

It has taken years, but Trevena has finally won a new trial for the 44-year-old Haitian immigrant truck driver, who started a 15-year prison sentence in 2003 after his conviction on vehicular homicide charges after an accident in which prosecutors alleged he fell asleep at the wheel.

I wrote about Meus and Trevena back in 2005, when Trevena tipped WTVT-Ch. 13 investigative reporter Doug Smith to the seeming disparity. At the time, Jennifer Porter, a 29-year-old, part-Cuban woman widely perceived to be white, had received three years of probation, two years of house arrest and 500 hours of community service after leaving the scene of a car accident in which she struck two children, who died.

Didn't hurt that she was represented by the most powerful criminal lawyer in town, Barry Cohen.

I wrote about how national media outlets were surprisingly indifferent to Meus' story, despite its parallels with the Porter case and questionable outcome. Trevena and Smith stuck with the case, however, and saw their efforts pay off Tuesday. See Smith's story from last night here.

Meus, who stayed at the scene and cooperated with investigators, was charged with homicide in Hardee County for the accident, which killed a 40-year-old woman and her daughter. His case was striking enough that two sisters of the woman killed in the accident took up his cause, arguing that the trial wasn't fair.

Smith's story, along with a later piece in the St. Petersburg Times, suggested Meus may have faced tougher charges and received a stiffer sentence because of his race and lack of wealth (Trevena didn't represent him in the original trial). Smith noted, for example, that another trucker, Thomas Smith, had a similar accident in 2002 in Hardee County which killed a man, but that driver admitted falling asleep at the wheel and got a traffic citation for it as his only punishment.

The difference between Smith and Meus? Smith is white and Meus is not.

But it sounds like justice may finally be at hand, thanks to a persistent lawyer and TV reporter. 

 

An Accusation Which Makes Me Proud: Bill O'Reilly Thinks I'm a 'Race Baiter'

The main people who don't seem to want to talk about race in America these days, are those who earn their living by keeping us apart.

Exhibit A: Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, a guy who I've called on the carpet many times for his use of coded words and phrases to pass along stereotypical, insulting ideas. He's gleefully pointed out going after "black rappers" in a prime time special on explicit entertainment, noted how those who live a "gangsta life" were like those left to drown in post-Katrina New Orleans and insisted he wasn't going to "go on a lynching party" when Michelle Obama said some thing which upset conservatives about America.

Last night, in one of those inexplicable moments when a world-famous opinionator reaches out to swat a barely-known newspaper writer, O'Reilly called me "one of the biggest race baiters in the country," offering no proof of how I'd earned the term, beyond my status as chair of the Media Monitoring Committee for the National Association of Black Journalists.

I'm betting it's because I took note of his lynching remark in a column about Don Imus on Friday. Indeed, I have a long history of tangling with Fox News' most popular pundit, viewable in stories here, here and here.

"Millions of white Americans will no longer even think about discussing race with black people," O'Reilly offered, just before plastering my picture on his screen. "Any slip of the tongue can lead to trouble."

Of course, O'Reilly's use of coded race language is hardly accidental. A key part of his show involves invoking the specter of out-of-control black males to frighten his audience. Once a critic like me objects, he can claim it was a mistake and accuse others of overreaching or unfairness. But if the Don Imus incident teaches anything, it's that mainstream America is growing far less tolerant of such antics.

I'm not saying I'm perfect in this. We've reached a point with prejudice and stereotypes where the issues are subtle, deep-seated and difficult to discuss. But I think intent counts for a lot -- and it seems obvious to me that O'Reilly doesn't come to these debates with respect for many positions besides his own. And that's why I'm so tough on him; because he's smart enough to know exactly what he's doing.

The News Hounds web site notes that the only people O'Reilly accuses of being unfair about claims of racism are black folks (he did cite the liberal media watchdog Web site Media Matters for America, which is run by white people). His list of "race hustlers includes an ex-girlfriend of comic Bill Maher, who filed a palimony suit accusing the HBO host of using "degrading racial comments" against her. (that mention, which really has little to do with accusations of racism in politics and media, just seemed calculated to show a picture of Maher, who is white, next to his black centerfold model ex-girlfriend).   

O'Reilly and I can agree on one thing: the word racist is thrown around way too much. It feeds the notion that the only people who leverage such language are serious bigots, which isn't true. The toughest thing about confronting stereotypes sometimes is that they are seductive, entertaining and often employed by people who aren't bigots. Doesn't make them any more right.

In O'Reilly's world, the only "race hustlers" in the game seem to be black people (except Al Sharpton, with whom O'Reilly seems to have a cordial relationship). But white pundits like O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage often use race tension to score points with their audiences, exploiting their fear and frustration about race issues to score ratings points.

As I've said many times before, I judge journalists by the enemies they make. So I must be doing pretty well these days.

Here's a clip of O'Reilly's rant, courtesy of YouTube:

   

Deggans PunditWatch 08: Another CNN Stop and an Award From Columbia University

The stars have aligned, and I'm coming back to CNN two weeks after a well-received appearance to talk about the media, Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Once again, I'll be on Howie Kurtz's media show Reliable Sources at about 10:30 a.m., this time to talk about the role of Fox News Channel in a political world which may be dominated by Democrats. I'll be appearing with Time magazine's James Poniewozik to discuss a piece he wrote about this very issue in Time magazine. My own writing about Fox has been more sporadic; here's an old piece about the channel's coverage of the then month's old war in Iraq.

I also got some good news a few weeks ago, confirmed by a press release issued recently: My work has been honored once again by Columbia University's Let's Do It Better Awards, a program aimed at improving coverage of people of color by highlighting "best practices" examples of good work.

The good folks at Columbia honored a selection of my columns over the last two years, including this, and this and this. As a result, I'll go to Columbia early next month and meet all the other honorees -- two years ago, I met CBS News legend Ed Bradley there not long before his death -- participating in a panel on race and election coverage moderated by Ray Suarez from PBS' NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

All the print stuff will be released in a book, while the TV stuff will be released in DVD, helping other journalists figure out how to negotiate these difficult stories.

Click here to see the release:

Coincidence of Don Imus and Martin Luther King Anniversaries Bring Bitter Thoughts

I didn't realize it until I was in the final stages of researching my media story today about the one-year anniversary of Don Imus' "nappy-headed hos" comments about Rutgers University's women's basketball team. But today also marks the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination in Memphis, Tenn.

And as I watch a cavalcade of TV news reports and documentaries looking at King's life and legacy, I'm struck by the way Imus' example shows both how far we have come, and how far we have to go.

As I note in my Floridian story today, Imus suffered a singular humiliation after calling the women of Rutgers University's near-championship basketball team "nappy-headed hos"; a week-long media frenzy in which pundits and reporters chewed over his comments (and his long history of making similar race-based jokes) before the uproar forced MSNBC and CBS Radio to fire the 67-year-old shock jock.

But Imus wasn't about to go quietly. Instead, he negotiated a multi-million-dollar settlement to his CBS contract, and then earned a new gig with ABC Radio and RFD-TV. One year later, he's leading a show his fans say is more energized and relevant -- getting better ratings in New York than he did before his firing and more than halfway back to rebuilding the network of radio stations which aired his show when he was fired.

(Imus fans have sent links to clips from his show today, in which he interviewed Jeese Jackson about King's death. They quite rightly point out it's the kind of racial discussion I've been calling for. Here's the clip)

So did we really learn any lessons?

The continuing battle over issues like the words of Rev. Jeremiah Wright suggests to me that our soundbite-focused media culture isn't well suited to the serious, complex debate we need to have on race in America.

Instead, we have disaffected sides playing gotcha -- trying to catch their opponents in telling gaffes rather than attempting to reach an understanding. And this dynamic has often been exacerbated by the media coverage I've seen so far of King's anniversary.

TV is often more comfortable looking back than looking forward, to be sure. So it's easier to recall the awful days before King's death, when segregation was still a reality and black folks struggled to exercise their hard-won right to vote, especially in the south.

Yet, even as we're prepared to make a biracial man a serious candidate for president, we still struggle with the kind of institutional racism (and classism) that allowed the Jena 6 controversy and Hurricane Katrina debacle to shake our faith in each other. And we still struggle with huge pockets of media -- cable TV and talk radio, specifically -- that are not nearly as diverse in staffing and subject matter as they should be.

It's an odd day for those of us who follow race in media. In Dr. King's honor, I'm going to try and focus today on how far we've come, and spend a little less time obsessing on how far we have to go.

   

New York Times Notes Pundit Diversity, But Whiffs on the Reason

   

UPDATE: An original version of this blog post said there were no women anchors working afternoon shows on the three cable TV networks. That was an error; Fox News has several female anchors working in the afternoon and the post has been corrected. 

The New York Times had an interesting story yesterday on the diversity of pundits deployed by the TV networks and cable TV channels to discuss this year's historic presidential election.

Penned by Felica Lee, it was an informative and interesting take on a trend which has helped ignite the career of folks like Roland Martin, Amy Holmes and Eugene Robinson, as TV news departments grapple with the reality of a landmark run for the presidency featuring a popular woman and biracial male. (I've even gotten a taste of this, with appearances on CNN, NPR and Fox News over the past year).

Unfortunately, I think it also brushed aside the reason why these outlets have developed such a diverse palette of experts: their field of anchors is amazingly devoid of that same diversity.

Indeed, as cable TV begins to more closely resemble talk radio as the voice of the Angry White Male, you have a list of TV news shows which closely resembles the talk radio universe -- mostly middle-aged white guys with a few women sprinkled in.

I've already noted in a previous post that, with the exception of Campbell Brown and Greta Van Susteren, white males host every program in prime time on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. Katie Couric breaks up the testosterone among the evening news anchors, but her ratings are a distant third in a three-person race. And there seems to be little diversity among the press gaggle following the candidates, as well.

Contrast that with the morning shows on network TV and cable, where gender and ethnic diversity are tremendous. It seems apparent, that programmer have concluded that diversity only works in mornings, and they've leveraged a diverse field of reporters and pundits to mask the unrelenting lack of diversity among their highest profile name anchors.

It will be interesting to see, if we eventually inaugurate a President Clinton or Obama, whether the anchor lineups will change, as well. Or, if we welcome a President McCain, whether cable networks will still feel the need to have such a diverse slate of pundits.

Deggans PunditWatch: NPR's Barbershop and Florida This Week

As if bloviating on CNN weren't enough, I'm flapping my gums in two more places this week, which you can enjoy at the comfort of your own computer screen through the magic of the Internet (sounds like some late '90s instructional film, I know).

Click here to check out my first-ever participation in The Barbershop, a regular feature on former ABC News reporter Michel Martin's National Public Radio show Tell Me More. Every Friday, a group of brothers gets together to razz each other and talk about the week's events. I was a last-minute addition, but I had been wanting to join this crew for a while, so this was fun (for those of you who know, it's one step below the hang late night in the hotel lounge at an NABJ convention. Nuff said).

As Michel describes it: "The guys in this week's Barbershop — Arsalan Iftikhar, Nick Charles (VP of BET.com), Roy S. Johnson (Editor-in-Chief of Mens Fitness magazine) and Eric Deggans (Media Critic for St. Petersburg Times) — have a lot to say about Sen. Hillary Clinton's conflicted account of a trip to Bosnia, Chelsea Clinton's snappy response to a question about Monica Lewinsky during a recent campaign stop, the latest song release by the "Obama Girl" and the NCAA's March Madness.

If THAT weren't enough, you can also catch me on Rob Lorei's public affairs show for WEDU, Florida This Week. This time, I'm appearing with former Florida Senate president Tom Lee, Democratic consultant Vic DiMaio and leadership director at USF Sarasota, David Klement. What do I know about Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the state's apology for slavery and the teaching of intelligent design in the state's schools? Tune in at 8 p.m. tonight or 12:30 p.m. Sunday to find out!

Hillary Clinton Can Make Insensitive Racial Remarks, Too

I almost hate to put this up, because I really don't want to contribute to the sound bite culture that has gotten a stranglehold on our political process these days.

But I was rooting around on a different story today, and stumbled on this YouTube clip of Hillary Clinton making a joke four years ago, comparing noted east Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandi to a gas station owner. This a remark for which Senator Clinton has already apologized.

This wasn't something said by a pastor or a friend. This was a scripted joke she delivered while introducing someone at a public event. I don't think it's evidence of some closet racism on her part. But I do think it's evidence that anyone can say something racially insensitive in public, and the sensible thing to do is find out whether it reflects their consistent feelings about these issues or if they are just errors in judgement.

And its also evidence that we all should be careful about judging people too harshly on these issues.

American Idol's Anti-R&B Attitude Claims Chikezie

Up until Ryan Seacrest called his name, I don't think Chikezie believed he was going home tonight.

But I worried about it. Because last night he took the easy way out and sang the soul ballad he'd been dying to belt out since the show started -- placing himself square in the crosshairs of American Idol's severe anti R&B bias.

Over its history, the most successful artists to emerge from Fox's blockbuster talent show have been in country (Carrie Underwood) power pop (Kelly Clarkson) and rock (Chris Daughtry). R&B tinged winners such as Ruben Studdard, Fantasia Barrino, Taylor Hicks and Jordin Sparks have had a tougher time, with quick success that fades quickly (Studdard and Hicks for example, have already lost their record deals, and Studdard was always overshadowed by the success of the guy he beat, Clay Aiken).

But R&B singers on Idol always had an edge: They were usually also the BEST singers. Not so this year. Idol's 2008 edition is the first in recent memory where R&B-influenced singers -- and, indeed, singers of color -- are not among the best singers or performers. And the show's only real judge, record label owner Simon Cowell, is clearly jonesing to work with the rockers onstage, especially Michael Johns.

So this is the first Idol where straight-up R&B singing is a clear ticket to ejection-ville. I hope Syesha takes the hint; the only way she's going to stay in the hunt is to stay away from the soul stuff and seriously re-invent herself.

Kind of odd that a competition which has two R&B and dance artists among its three judges and a host of R&B players in its backing band, is working so hard to keep an artist like that from actually winning. 

Chris Rock on Why a Black Woman Can't Be President, Among Other Things

Leave it to Chris Rock to jam his fist down the throat of America's zeitgeist and pull its beating heart forth, still pulsating. Rolling Stone was smart enough to send celebrity profiler extraordinaire Bill Zehme out to capture Rock in the middle of a stand up tour he's taking while a white woman and black man are fighting for a serious chance to be the next President.

It sounds an awful lot like one of Rock's last starring movies, Head of State, and he knows it. Here's an amazing excerpt from that profile, courtesy of Rolling Stone Online:

"Bush has f%**ed up so bad," (Rock) will posit to any and all congregants in braying loops of oratory, "that he's made it hard for a white man to run for president. 'Gimme anything but another white man, please! Black man, white woman, giraffe, anything!' A white man's had that job for hundreds of years — and one guy f****ed it up for all of ya!"

And: "Each candidate tells you how humble they are. No, you're not humble! Do you know how big your ego has to be to say you wanna be president of the United States? Do you know how much Puff Daddy juice you have to drink? How many Kanye injections you have to take?"

And: "I actually think America is ready for a woman president. But does it have to be that woman? . . . She's gonna work in the office where her husband got blow jobs?! There ain't enough redecorating in the world she can do to change that! . . . There's one thing Hillary Clinton's better at than everybody else, and one thing only — and that's forgiveness! Hillary Clinton is the greatest forgiver in the history of the world. Even Jesus knows: 'You really good at fo'giveness. I mean, I talk the talk, but you walk the walk!'"

And: "Barack Obama — he's a black man with two black names! Barack. Obama. He doesn't let his blackness sneak up on you. As soon as you hear Barack Obama you wonder, 'Does he have a spear?' . . . He's so cool, too, man. I don't think he realizes he's a black candidate! When you're the only black guy doing something, people expect you to take it up a notch. If you're the only black playing basketball with a bunch of white guys — they expect you to dunk! . . . Barack has a handicap the other candidates don't have: Barack Obama has a black wife. And I don't think a black woman can be first lady of the United States. Yeah, I said it! A black woman can be president, no problem. First lady? Can't do it. You know why? Because a black woman cannot play the  background of a relationship. Just imagine telling your black wife that you're president? 'Honey, I did it! I won! I'm the president.' 'No, we the president! And I want my girlfriends in the Cabinet! I want Kiki to be secretary of state! She can fight!' "

Think I can guess what magazine I'll be hunting down at Barnes & Noble tomorrow morning....Here's another cool Rock interview

Rev. Wright Debate on CNN But Not in Tampa

I was disappointed to hear that Rev. Jeremiah Wright was not coming to Tampa. I was hoping his appearance here might bring the debate over his words to the Tampa Bay area in a way which might help broaden the debate a bit.

I've been pretty disappointed in how media outlets have been unable to present a quality debate about some of the issues Wright's speeches have raised. Instead, we're stuck in soundbites and snarky comments, with longtime closet racists such as Pat Buchanan using the controversy as an excuse to air their awful comments in the guise of serving as elder statesmen.

I wonder how it is a guy like Buchanan can write books and columns admiringly quoting white supremacist William Pierce and the white supremacist organiztion the New Century Foundation without any rebuke from mainstream media. And yet his he is indignant that journalists haven't hammered Obama harder for his ties to Wright?

Here is a video of my vain attempt to bring some perspective to this debate on Howard Kurtz's Reliable Sources show. The video is provided by left-leaning media watchdogs Media Matters, which have also criticized CNN's Kurtz for not covering the excesses of conservative pastors more:

Can Watching a Fictional Black or Female President Help Americans Elect the Real Thing?

Since Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama began making waves in their quest for the presidency, it’s a question us pop culture critics have asked with growing frequency:

Can watching a fictional person of color or woman serve as president prepare people to elect the real thing?

Turns out, TV and film have been presenting us with a diversity of fictional presidents long before we were ever poised to elect an actual non-white or non-male. But even Hollywood had trouble believing America could look past its own prejudices to choose such people, with many of these presidents achieving the job by accident or presented as jokey punchlines (even Ernie Hudson, the black guy from Ghostbusters, has played a President).

I put together a story for today's Floridian looking at the various minority and female commanders in chief, with a indication on our Inspiration-scale™ just how much each portrayal might have prompted us to accept the candidates we see today. Here's an excerpt, with some clips so you can judge yourself:

BLACK PRESIDENTS

James Earl Jones as Douglass Dilman in The Man (1972)

How did he get the job? A little-known congressman made president pro tempore of the Senate when the vice president has a stroke, he becomes president when the incumbent and the speaker of the House are killed in a building collapse. Inspiration scale: 3 out of 10. Could there be a more outlandish way to become president? Based on Irving Wallace's 1964 book, the movie seems tailor-made to assure '70s audiences it could never actually happen.

Morgan Freeman as Tom Beck in Deep Impact (1998)

How did he get the job? Presumably elected. Freeman shines in the same grandfatherly sidekick mode he worked in The Shawshank Redemption and Bruce Almighty, helping white folks work out their problems before an asteroid destroys the eastern seaboard. Inspiration scale: 6. He's the coolest president on film. Of course, he's leading a country facing extinction.

Dennis Haysbert as David Palmer in 24 (2002)

How did he get the job? Elected. Palmer then overcomes a mutinous vice president and Cabinet to avoid a needless war in the Middle East started by greedy multinational businessmen. The similarity to real life these days is inescapable. Inspiration scale: 9. If only our real-life president could have been this prescient.

FEMALE PRESIDENTS

Patty Duke as Julia Mansfield in Hail to the Chief (1985)

How did she get the job? Presumably elected. Duke was a particularly harried president in this ABC sitcom, saddled with a cheating husband, a sassy black secretary of state and wacky plots. Inspiration scale: 5. Fortunately, the pain lasted only seven episodes.

Glenn Close as Kathryn Bennett in Air Force One (1997)

How did she get the job? OK, technically, Vice President Bennett never becomes president; she refuses to sign a document giving her the power when Harrison Ford's President James Marshall is taken captive by terrorists on Air Force One. Still, she rallies the military and Cabinet, looking serious and barking into telephones many times. Inspiration scale: 4. Not only does she refuse power when the president is forced to release a terrorist with a gun to his head, she really doesn't come up with any plan for saving him. Good thing the president used to be Indiana Jones.

Geena Davis as Mackenzie Allen in Commander in Chief (2005)

How did she get the job? Tragedy strikes again! Incumbent Teddy Bridge dies of a sudden brain aneurysm, leaving Vice President Allen in the driver's seat. Inspiration scale: 8. Allen successfully reins in male power brokers determined to marginalize her. But producers wound up focusing more on male characters to save the show, which was canceled in its first season. The price you pay for being three years ahead of your time.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Sermon in Context

When the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons first came under fire, I didn't even want to bother arguing about them. I was raised in a black church. I knew how good preachers would use hyperbole and aggressive statements to make their point during sermons aimed at teaching bold lessons to parishioners.

But then, of all people, Bubba the Love Sponge hipped me to some postings on YouTube, where an enterprising videographer found larger clips of the most notorious sermons quoted by TV news outlets in the stories which kicked off the controversy about his speeches. And I was ashamed.

Because Rev. Wright deserved a better defender than I -- or, frankly Barack Obama -- have been during this nonsense. A look at these clips, which present much larger excerpts of Wright's speeches, shows that his seemingly damning statements came during passionate speeches about America's history of racial oppression and America's history of killing innocents while exacting military revenge against enemies.

One of Rev. Wright's most controversial comments -- the statements about "chickens coming home to roost" after 9/11 -- was his quote of a white ambassador speaking on Fox News Channel. Why didn't the TV news reporters tell us this?

It is true that Wright has also made some strident charges which aren't true. In a phrase within his GD America speech, he says the government injected black men with syphillis. Presumably, he is referring to the legendary Tuskegee Experiment, in which nearly 400 black men who already had syphillis were led to believe they were being treated for it when they were really being observed by government physicians noting the effects of the disease's advancement. (ironically, the story was broken in 1972 by Jean Heller, a former St. Pete Times reporter who was working for the Associated Press at the time)

He's also said the government has given drugs to black people, a possible reference to a widely discredited theory that the CIA helped establish the drug pipeline which first brought crack cocaine to Los Angeles, as a method of funding the Nicaraguan Contra rebels. This theory was the subject of a 1996 three-part series in the San Jose Mercury News and a book. But the newspaper backed off the story after it was published and the reporter, Gary Webb, eventually killed himself in 2004.

What is clear here, is that Wright is articulating the suspicions and cynicism of many black people about the motives of a government led mostly by white people. I think his characterizations can sometimes be simplistic and off base, but I don't think he's the raving racist some pundits have made him out to be.

Check these two excerpts of his speeches from YouTube and see if they don't make you think twice:

Deggans on CNN Sunday Talking Obama's Race Speech

Howie Kurtz must be desperate on an Easter Sunday.

How