Comments on: Black women reporters cover Michelle Obama. So?

By: Lisa Takeuchi Cullen

Lisa Takeuchi Cullen — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 03:54:54 +0000

Afi (welcome to T/S!), doesn’t it make you think of that scene in “Mad Men” — the one where the execs at Sterling Cooper go hunting for a Jewish staffer to be present at a pitch to a new Jewish client? They find one…in the mail room. Doesn’t feel like much has changed since the 1960s.

By: Lisa Takeuchi Cullen

Lisa Takeuchi Cullen — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 03:51:53 +0000

Sorry, Julieh, that could have been clearer. What I meant is that these women are not part of the official White House press pool, the very special breed that covers the briefings.

By: julieh

julieh — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:57:15 +0000

Interesting article, but I’m stumped on this line – what does it mean? Am I missing something here?

“although let’s be clear: these women cover Michelle and not his other half).”

By: Afi Scruggs

Afi Scruggs — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:49:19 +0000

“Make no mistake: these women are on the M.O. beat for a reason…Media organizations are very, very keen to appear diverse. Their bosses assigned them …. to put on display their media org’s own diversity, for the White House and the world to see.”
and…..
“Kurtz …points to a few major stories written by singles out TIME’s cover, “What Michelle Means,” by two senior — and white — writers. What he doesn’t explain is that TIME doesn’t have any black females among its senior staff. … Come to think of it, when they left, there were no black people left in edit.

Lisa, thanks so much for pointing this out. To me, the Obama presidency looks like the 2009 version of the ’60s riots – when the MSM send Negro employees (copy aides, cub reporters, even janitors) to cover the chaos. An entire generation of African Americans moved into journalism.
According to Unity Journalists of color, the present situation is going to become more dire. Check out this observation from their website:

“Blacks and Asians are losing jobs in America’s newsrooms at a faster rate than whites and other minorities, setting back progress made in decades of diversity initiatives.” (read more at http://www.unityjournalists.org/)

By: rockyinlaw

rockyinlaw — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:44:41 +0000

Anytime anyone says something like “I see no bias here but…” you can bet that their intention is to plant seeds of suspicion. For “white” people to suddenly become so sensitive to anyone else getting a shot, when it’s always been white people who owned all the guns, is suspicious in itself. It’s difficult and confusing for European Americans to realize the mantle of the all powerful and privileged has been trashed — and it shows. Geesh. Remember when it was “in” to show one’s sensitivity to racial discrimination on one’s sleeve? Not now that actual equality is looming on the horizon …

By: Womenomics

Womenomics — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 04:26:03 +0000

Lisa,

I thought it was an odd choice for a story, to be sure. But I also thought some of the comments from the profiled reporters were equally strange. Or maybe naive? Sharing a “girlfriend” moment with the first lady? Is it possible that’s just part of Michelle Obama’s gift? I think most of the world seems to think they’ve got a connection with her. Who knows.

Anyhow…it was one of those stories that left me saying…huh? Once I got through the graph about nobody having special access, and none of the coverage seeming questionable…was there a there there?

In the course of my career, I’ve often been sent, as a woman, to interview a woman. Not that unusual actually. And it can make sense.

By: forex

forex — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 02:59:28 +0000

Mike, you are probably right. But are we not giving too much importance to the first lady as a black woman? I mean whether she is black white or Hispanic she is the first lady.

By: Patti Hartigan

Patti Hartigan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:21:15 +0000

Hey, Mike. Patently ridiculous, indeed.

Here’s the operative sentence: “After all, no one raises questions when an Irish American male reporter covers a pol named Murphy.” Dunno if that was added by an editor, but it was a surefire clue that he should have hit “Spike.”

By: Lisa Takeuchi Cullen

Lisa Takeuchi Cullen — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:40:42 +0000

Mike, you bring up an excellent point that underlines the danger of assigning reporters to beats based on color or creed. I believe Tiger Woods calls himself Cablinasian, right? As the broader culture becomes more racially mixed, the media have got to reflect that diversity in its own ranks to better hold up a mirror to society. Right now, that’s so not the case.

By: Mike Saunders

Mike Saunders — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:45:43 +0000

Viv, I think your examples might have worked if there were no black sportswriters covering golf before Tiger Woods, and if there was some post-Tiger flood of black faces. Neither is the case.

Also, it’s highly unlikely that Woods feels more comfortable talking with an African-American writer because he doesn’t identify himself that way. Like most people of mixed ancestries, he knows he’s more than a label. Here’s a quote from an interview he gave to Charles Barkley:
““I was raised in two different cultures,” he said one Sunday afternoon, sitting with me and Wilbon in Arizona. “I have my father, who is African American, and my mom, who is Asian, specifically Thai. I had to understand and appreciate more than just one way of looking at things because my dad’s view a lot of times was the polar opposite of my mom’s view because they were raised under two totally different cultural heritages. I was probably raised more in the Asian tradition because my father was working and my mom, who was at home more, was the disciplinarian…

“Being black is just looked at differently. And in this country I’m looked at as being black. When I go to Thailand, I’m considered Thai. It’s very interesting. And when I go to Japan, I’m considered Asian. I don’t know why it is, but it just is…”

But back to Howard Kurtz, and his patently ridiculous piece. I’d have more respect for Kurtz if he cut the article after the seventh graf, but he continued undermining his own argument throughout.