NABJ’s Conundrum
Yet in a time of casual passions and crackpot philosophies, many serious journalists believe a line is more necessary than ever.
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As black journalists began to enter the business in significant numbers a quarter century ago, they were met with the question: Are you blacks first or journalists first? It put them in a quandary, in large part because the choice posed was a false one. A black reporter eager to reveal the Mark Fuhrmans of his time before his white editors or readers were prepared to confront them was no less a journalist for his ambitions. A black weatherman in the same city was no less black. And the membership of the NABJ has grown to more than 2,000 because of the need for a common tent.
The debate over Abu-Jamal was expected to last an hour. It went on for five and a half. “There was a long line at the microphone,” the Sun-Times’s Mary Johnson Mitchell told me. “Everyone was getting up and giving impassioned speeches.”
The St. Petersburg Times saw through the NABJ’s euphemisms. An editorial headlined “Black journalists cross a line” announced that the organization “has carelessly squandered its professional credibility. . . . So far there is no compelling evidence to justify a new trial, and in jumping to the defense of Abu-Jamal, the NABJ has sided with those who are trying to portray this convicted cop killer as a political prisoner. Did anyone even consider the possibility this guy is not the innocent his defenders in Hollywood and the NABJ depict?”
Mitchell had never bothered to be involved at the national level. Now she’s seeking one of those six vacant places on the board.
The Sun-Times did a brave thing in dumping Mallard Fillmore. It was the Wee Pals of the new right, unassailably PC. To quote Forbes, as cited in a King Features promotional: “In the era of Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh, Fillmore has become the hottest launch of any comic strip in years.” Papers carried it to cover their bases. But when the Sun-Times did a reader survey, Fillmore finished damn close to the bottom. It wasn’t funny.
