2010 – Page 6 – Media Nation

NPR goes into damage-control mode over Williams

After NPR chief executive Vivian Schiller said Juan Williams should keep his feelings about Muslims between himself and “his psychiatrist or his publicist,” I thought perhaps it was Schiller who ought to schedule some couch time. She apologized, and today she’s in damage-control mode.

NPR media reporter David Folkenflik did something very smart (which I learned about through Jack Shafer’s Twitter feed): he refused to attend an off-the-record staff meeting about Williams’ firing following offensive comments he made on Fox News. Instead, Folkenflik pieced together what happened by interviewing some of those who did attend. Based on Folkenflik’s tweets, Schiller seems to have hit the right notes. (I’m running them in chronological order rather than the usual reverse chrono:

The all-staff meeting was off the record, so I did not attend. However, staffers who did told me the following:

Schiller said decision to give Wms notice was not because of slip of the tongue, but latest in a series of violations of NPR ethics policy

Schiller said it had been raised several times but that he continued to inject personal opinon in his analysis in settings outside NPR.

Schiller said at some point, you have to draw the line. (more)

Though she called it the right decision, Schiller also said NPR did not handle Wms’ ouster well. She promised staffers a “full post-mortem.”

Schiller also said she was ambushed leaving her home by a two-person camera crew identifying itself as being from Fox News.

Over and out.

I feel a little better about this than I did yesterday. Schiller did the right thing for the wrong reason at the wrong time. What’s important is that she knows she blew the handling of it. No way she can undo it — not after Fox News rewarded Williams with a three-year, $2 million deal. But at least she seems determined to make the best of a bad situation. It sounds like she’s adopted the views of NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard, who writes that “a more deliberative approach might have enabled NPR to avoid what has turned into a public relations nightmare.”

Here is our discussion of the Williams matter on tonight’s “Beat the Press.” I’m also quoted in a Christian Science Monitor story on the hazards of straddling the reporter/analyst/commentator divide.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Paul Steven Miller, a civil-rights pioneer

I was saddened to learn earlier this week that Paul Steven Miller, an accomplished civil-rights lawyer, had died of cancer at the age of 49. Paul was a dwarf, and in 2002 I interviewed him at the annual Little People of America national conference, which that year was held in Salt Lake City. Here’s what I wrote about our encounter in my book on dwarfism, “Little People”:

Another twist on the ambiguous relationship between dwarfism and disability can be seen in the career of Paul Steven Miller, a lawyer who is well known for his work on behalf of disability rights. Miller, a Clinton appointee to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), whose term expires in mid-2004, is an achondroplastic dwarf, but his advocacy work has had little to do with dwarfism. Yet Miller learned about dwarfism as a social disability early on: despite graduating near the top of his class at Harvard Law School, he interviewed with forty-five law firms without getting a single offer.

“I was basically told by one of the lawyers at one firm that even though they didn’t have a problem with my size, they thought that their clients would think they were running a circus freak show if I was a lawyer in their firm,” Miller told me. I was so taken aback that I asked if the lawyer had really said that. “Yeah,” Miller replied evenly. “At that time it was before the passage of the ADA, it was before it was really illegal. And people were much less subtle about it.”

Eventually, Miller found work with a law firm in Los Angeles and got caught up in the disability-rights movement when he became director of litigation for the nonprofit Western Law Center for Disability Rights. His most famous client was a television news anchor named Bree Walker Lampley, who had a mild disability known as ectrodactyly, in which the bones of the fingers and toes are partially fused. A person with this condition appears to have webbed hands and feet, although in Walker Lampley’s case it did not so much as prevent her from using a typewriter.

Miller became involved when a radio talk-show host and her ill-informed callers blasted Walker Lampley for becoming pregnant with a child who might also have ectrodactyly. One caller — a Claire from Oceanside — ignorantly ranted, “I would rather not be alive than have a disease like that.” With Miller’s help, Walker Lampley filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission, charging that the station had violated the terms of its license by spreading hate. The case ultimately failed, but she and Miller had made their point. And Walker Lampley gave birth to a healthy son who, like her, had ectrodactyly.

Much of Miller’s practice sounds considerably more routine by today’s standards, but it was groundbreaking in the 1980s — architectural access cases, school and job discrimination, suing the California state government and local officials. “It was tremendously exciting for me and the others at the center,” he told me, “because we were just making it up as we went along.”

Miller served on Bill Clinton’s transition team in 1992 and worked as a White House liaison to the disability community until 1994, when Clinton named him to the EEOC, which enforces federal discrimination laws. On the day that I met him, at LPA’s 2002 national conference in Salt Lake City, he had just finished a breakfast meeting with the chief justice of Utah’s state supreme court. That evening, he would become the third recipient — and the first LP — to receive LPA’s Award for Promoting Awareness of Individuals with Dwarfism. Forty-one years old, balding, with owlish glasses, Miller gets around with a cane to relieve his achondroplasia-related back problems.

I asked him about his view of the relationship between dwarfism in particular and the disability-rights movement in general — a nexus where he has spent much of his life. “I think that what is beginning to happen is that the organized LPA community is really linking arms and becoming an organizational part of the greater disability community,” he replied. “I think it’s part and parcel of the identity of LPA changing over the past five years or so, and of LPA having, not an identity crisis, but sort of morphing its identity into something larger than the social club that it may have been a number of years ago. I think it’s fair to say that LPA as an organization is not really an active player in the broader disability movement at the national level. But I think that that’s the direction we’re headed in.” He added: “I think it would be fair to say that I have always really connected the two experiences, both in my mind and my career.”

Paul was a great friend of the dwarfism and disability communities, and there has been an outpouring of affection for him on LPA’s Facebook page. He was a man of many accomplishments, and he will be missed.

Photo via the University of Washington School of Law.

Mutant favicons in Google Chrome

I realize I’ll need the world’s smallest violin to drum up any sympathy for this one, but tonight I am irritated at the rogue favicons that have cropped up in Google Chrome.

As you can see, AT&T favicons have taken over my bookmarks for Google Calendar and Media Nation log-on, thanks to my hanging out at Barnes & Noble. Then, today, when I used WiFi on a commuter train, the favicon for that service ate the brain of my Google Calendar bookmark.

Anyone know how to change them back?

Juan Williams and political correctness

Just a quick observation about NPR’s decision to terminate Juan Williams after he expressed his fear of Muslims on airplanes during an appearance on “The O’Reilly Factor.”

To me, Williams was clearly a victim of Rick Sanchez syndrome. That is, Williams was not an asset to NPR, and management was probably happy to stumble upon an excuse to get rid of him. Williams is a supremely uninteresting occasional commentator who will not be missed. What he said was offensive, but if he were a star he’d have been let off with a suspension and an apology.

I’ll add that many people hold the views that Williams expressed. That’s not an excuse. But if NPR hadn’t acted so precipitously, and if Williams were up to the task, Williams might have helped lead a national conversation on the Islamophobia that now pervades this country.

NPR made a mistake in firing Williams, but he should have quietly been let go a long time ago.

What Jeff Perry saw

From the time the story re-surfaced last spring, the problem with trying to hold Republican congressional candidate Jeff Perry responsible for a rogue police officer’s illegal strip searches of two teenage girls was that the matter had already been thoroughly litigated.

Perry, a former Wareham police sergeant, was not directly charged in either of the two incidents. Nor has anyone been able to tie his subsequent resignation to his actions in those incidents. Perry’s Democratic opponent in the 10th Congressional District, Bill Keating, has been pounding away on the issue. But according to the polls, the race has remained close. No doubt to a lot of prospective voters, it sounded like typical campaign mudslinging.

That all changed yesterday. Now we have one of the victims declaring that Perry had to have known that then-police officer Scott Flanagan was sexually assaulting her one night in 1991 near a Wareham cranberry bog. “He had to hear me screaming and crying, said Lisa Allen in a statement, according to the Boston Globe. “Instead of helping me, Jeff Perry denied anything happened.”

The Cape Cod Times — which, along with the Patriot Ledger of Quincy, may be the most important local paper in the district — plays the story huge today beneath the headline “Strip-search victim blasts Perry.” As the Outraged Liberal notes, the Boston Herald relegates the story to Margery Eagan’s column — a questionable bit of news judgment, though Eagan, to her credit, is in high dudgeon. So is Globe columnist Joan Vennochi.

The online news site Cape Cod Today has pushed the Perry story relentlessly, and I take this as something of a victory lap.

If there is a congressional district in Massachusetts ripe for a Republican takeover, it is surely the 10th, a conservative part of the state that stretches from Quincy to Provincetown. The Republicans had a chance to pick nice guy Joe Malone, but instead went with Perry. No doubt many of them are regretting that decision today — but surely they knew something like this might happen.

What happened to Lisa Allen may have taken place a long time ago. But the questions she raises about Perry’s empathy and judgment are just as valid today as they were in 1991.

A possible buyer emerges for the Globe and T&G

Is the Boston Globe for sale? For the right price — maybe. An investment group headed by a 37-year-old greeting-card entrepreneur named Aaron Kushner emerged this afternoon as a possible buyer for the Globe, Boston.com and the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester.

But the New York Times Co., which wanted to sell the properties in 2009, may no longer be interested. No doubt that would change if Kushner’s group is prepared to fork over some serious money. But we don’t know that yet.

Another caution: Kushner says he wants to beef up the newsroom. Well, wouldn’t we all? He may be well-intentioned, but no one is going to bolster the Globe’s staff unless his intention is to operate the paper at a loss.

Ralph Ranalli is gathering links at Beat the Press.

Herald promotes from within

The Boston Herald’s new editor, Joe Sciacca, has announced seven internal promotions. The big news, though it’s not surprising, is that John Strahinich is the new executive editor, serving as Sciacca’s number two. A veteran of Boston magazine, Strahinich was already the Herald’s top editor after Sciacca.

Herald media reporter Jessica Heslam has the rest of the team here.

Copyright, fair use and the limits of political speech

Over at Blue Mass. Group, there’s an interesting debate taking place over copyright and fair use in reaction to a new ad put together by the Massachusetts Republican Party. The ad is nothing special — it shows President Obama and Gov. Deval Patrick amid various bad-news headlines about the weak economy. What’s notable is the soundtrack: a 57-second excerpt from “You’ve Got a Friend,” written by Carole King (potential plaintiff #1) and performed by James Taylor (potential plaintiff #2).

BMG co-editor David Kravitz has done yeoman work in showing that use of the song probably adds up to copyright infringement. Under the fair-use doctrine, you can use someone’s copyrighted material without permission for certain purposes, including parody. But according to a case Kravitz found, the parody must be directed at the copyright-holder in order for it to pass muster, not at some third party or parties.

Kravitz is probably right, but I still think there’s an argument to be made (I make it here) that the ad should be considered fair use: it’s political speech, which traditionally receives the highest level of First Amendment protection; it’s not taking a penny out of either King’s or Taylor’s pockets, the most important element in the four-part fair-use balancing test; and if media corporations like Disney hadn’t lobbied Congress to extend the copyright period from the traditional 28 years (originally 14) to the absurdly long terms that prevail today, then the ad wouldn’t even be an issue.

What I find interesting in the comment thread is the degree to which even progressives have internalized talking points put forth by the media conglomerates in arguing that the Republicans are in the wrong. Frankly, there’s someone wrong with a copyright regime if it’s illegal to grab barely a fifth of a 39-year-old song in order to make a political point.

But as we know, even as technology has made it ever easier to engage in copyright, the copyright protections that media corporations demand have grown ever more draconian.

A key legislative race between two good candidates

If there’s a bellwether district in the Massachusetts House this fall, it may be the one in which Media Nation is located. We have a hot race here that is something of a throwback. That is, it pits two good, experienced candidates against each other. Each is genuinely more interested in serving the people of his district than in making any sort of stark ideological appeal.

The district, which comprises Danvers, Topsfield and part of Peabody, is currently represented by Ted Speliotis, a Democrat. His Republican challenger is Dan Bennett, a Danvers selectman. I know Speliotis better than Bennett, though I have met Bennett as well. Speliotis’ liberal views better reflect my own, yet I like Bennett’s emphasis on reforming the culture of patronage and cronyism on Beacon Hill. I’m perfectly comfortable with either man representing me in the Legislature.

Salem News reporter Ethan Forman recently wrote excellent profiles of both Speliotis and Bennett. Forman points out an inconsistency in Bennett’s positions: Bennett opposes new taxes, yet voted for local-option taxes on meals and hotel rooms when given the opportunity. (Forman also wrote a follow-up on where they stand on a variety of issues.)

I’m going to give Bennett a pass. Why? On his website, Bennett discusses some real savings the state could see by consolidating state agencies, reforming health insurance for municipal employees and opening up public-construction projects to competition (he doesn’t use the term “non-union,” but that’s what he means). No doubt Bennett believes higher local taxes would be unnecessary if the state got its own spending under control, and he may be right.

I can’t find a website for Speliotis other than his official state profile. But I know he has cast courageous votes in our rather conservative district in favor of same-sex marriage and against the death penalty. He has worked tirelessly to help folks affected by the 2006 explosion in Danversport. And he’s everywhere — he always comes to our Boy Scout troop’s courts of honor to present Statehouse proclamations to our new Eagles. If you think that’s no big deal, you’re wrong.

If the war of the lawn signs is any indication, I think Bennett might pull this out. The signs are fairly mixed in Danvers, where both candidates live, but almost unanimous for Bennett in affluent Topsfield. Peabody, where Speliotis grew up, will likely prove the key.

I’ve suggested to a couple of my friends in the political press that this race would be worth a story. It’s well below radar, especially given exciting gubernatorial and congressional races. Come Election Day, though, it may prove to be just as significant.