N.Y. Daily News 'wins' Thumbs Down, again p. 15

By: Mark Fitzgerald

FOR THE SECOND year in a row, the National Association of Black Journalists singled out the New York Daily News for its Thumbs Down Award.
Last year, the Daily News was cited because it fired all its black male reporters during a downsizing and change of ownership. This year, the departure of a single black was at issue ? but that was the pioneering black columnist Earl Caldwell.
And it wasn't simply Caldwell's handling that upset NABJ, it was also how association leaders themselves were treated during a meeting about Caldwell with Daily News owner Mortimer Zuckerman.
Jacqueline Jones, city editor of the Philadelphia Daily News and NABJ's vice president for print, said Zuckerman told an NABJ delegation group that he had no intention of reinstating Caldwell and that the columnist would be added to a list of potential replacements for normal newsroom attrition.
"It is that kind of doubletalk and his disrespectful attitude towards NABJ that this award addresses," Jones said.
A Daily News spokeswoman called the award "divisive, inappropriate and unfair."
Caldwell and the Daily News have given different accounts about his departure last April after 15 years on the tabloid, although they agree it stems from a Caldwell column the paper refused to run. The column reported allegations that a white police officer, who was still on the job, had raped six black male livery cab drivers in separate incidents (E&P, April 30, p. 9).
Zuckerman himself has said nothing publicly about the matter and was not responsive with NABJ, Jones said. Neither could the owner describe any disciplinary process ? "no process except the whim of caprice," she said.
NABJ president Dorothy Butler Gilliam, the Washington Post columnist, said the News' treatment of Caldwell reflects its treatment of black journalists ? and should be an industry-wide concern.
Gilliam noted that last year, a major NABJ study found that as many as one-third of all African-American journalists feared that brining up racial issues in the newsroom would jeopardize their jobs.
"We are very concerned about the treatment of African-American journalists," she said.
Their wariness, Gilliam added, "makes even more important the work of columnists like Earl Caldwell . . . who has a lot of credibility in the community."
NABJ also faulted the Daily News for what it said was a slippery use of statistics to show an increase in minority newsroom employees. In fact, virtually all of the reported minority hiring represents simply replacing the black journalists fired when Zuckerman bought the paper, Jones said, adding that the experienced African-American journalists are being replaced by others with less seniority.
"What they have done is wipe out an entire generation of leadership," Jones said.
A Daily News spokeswoman, Adrienne Rhodes, said Jones is simply incorrect.
"We have more minorities in numbers and more people in higher levels than there were previously. Twenty-four percent of our new hires are minorities, with the largest percentage of that being African-Americans. Previously, there were 18% minorities," said Rhodes, director of communications and media relations.
She said there are now three African-American columnists on the op-ed pages, an increase from one.
"Mort Zuckerman, Fred Drasner and Martin Dunne have assembled one of the most diversified staffs in the city," Rhodes said. "It is conceivable if the board had talked to staffers . . . they would not have passed such a divisive, inappropriate and unfair award."
NABJ president Gilliam said the organization has appointed a four-person committee ready "to meet with the Daily News anytime" about racial issues on the paper.
In addition to the opprobrium of the Thumbs Down Award, NABJ further spurned the Daily News by returning the paper's $5,000 sponsorship of the NABJ's Sports Mentor Breakfast at Unity '94.
Gregory Moore, deputy managing editor of the Boston Globe and an NABJ board member, said that given the situation it was "inappropriate" to accept money from the New York tabloid.
The Philadelphia Daily News threw in $5,000 to make up the loss.
Rhodes of the New York Daily News said the paper sponsored three other Unity events: a National Association of Hispanic Journalists session on intimidation of foreign reporters, an Asian American Journalists Association reception and a Unity print mentor breakfast.
Another NABJ Thumbs Down went to Street Stories, the now-cancelled CBS program, for a feature on Korean-American merchants one year after the 1992 Los Angeles riot.