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<PMTags1.0 win><C-COLORTABLE (“Black” 1 0 0 0)><GFIRST 18><GALIGNMENT “justify”><FONT
“Times New Roman”><SIZE 10><GTABS $>Thanks to the recent spate of articles across this country, America has discovered what some of us have already known: the black man is in trouble.
Sick and tired of being sick and tired, there are those among us who have stepped forward to offer healing.  Witness the numerous events commemorating this year’s Father’s Day – the Second Annual Black Fatherhood Summit in Harlem, the Black Empowerment Convention and the Black and Male in America meeting, both in Brooklyn.
Long before these needed efforts came into being, the Congressional Black Caucus began looking for solutions.  Over the past several years, the CBC has been holding hearings across the country entitled State of the African-American Male.
According to Congressman Meeks (Queens), New York/New Jersey Regional
Director of SAAM, the impetus for this initiative was [and still is] study after study recounting the dire condition of African-American males in this country.  “We wanted to hold hearings to interact with the community, let our concerns  known and elicit testimony from the public.  The goal is twofold: to allow black males, their wives and families the opportunity to express their frustrations, as well as to create a clearinghouse for solutions. We want to offer space where ‘best practices’ are presented as a unified group.”
According to Congressman Meeks, the Congressional Black Caucus chose to work city by city, as each city will have its particular issues with specialized solutions available.
In New York City, SAAM’s effort is being co-sponsored by the Community Service Society, headed by David R.  Jones, the first African-American to lead the society as its president and CEO.  The CSS was chosen because of its 160- year history of working with the poor in New York City.
Each city will have its own Web site. New York City/New Jersey regional efforts can be viewed at www.iamsaam.org.  Meeks reveals the Web site is a skeleton of what is it is envisioned to become.  “In about one and a half months, the site will be fleshed out with information about New York City area ‘best practices’, for instance, the Male Involvement Institute at Medgar Evers College, as well as information on health and job availability.” Other areas of concern are education, criminal justice and civil participation.
Dr. Divine Pryor, director of the NuLeadership Policy Group at Medgar Evers College, points out that Medgar Evers has consented to guide the criminal justice section of SAAM.  Commenting on Kevin Powell’s recent Black and Male in America meeting, Dr. Pryor states he reached out to Powell. “Medgar Evers College is in the forefront of dealing with black male issues. We have reached out to Powell to offer participation in next year’s Black and Male in America National Conference.”
Giving a brief history of SAAM, Richard Boykin, chief of staff for Rep. Danny Davis (Illinois), recalls the Congressional Black Caucus wanted to formally establish an entity that would address the specific concerns of African-American males in this country via the legislative process.  Among the CBC’s legislative initiatives in the Second Chance Act designed to provide funding for local and faith- based groups to assist ex-offenders with reintegration into the community by providing job training.
Rep. Davis attached an amendment to this year’s Head Start bill aimed at increasing the number of African-American and Hispanic males who teach in Head Start. Considering the dearth of black  male teachers in every level of education, Chief of Staff Boykin feels it is extremely important for black boys to have male role models in the classroom. According to Boykin, “You will be what you see.”
Other SAAM initiatives include exploring how more military- style schools can be structured into a national legislative action and prostate cancer awareness.  Black males are disproportionately affected by prostate cancer.
The SAAM’s kickoff hearing was held November 2003 in Washington, D.C. The two-day conference attracted 2500 people.  Among those in attendance were the late Ossie Davis, Hon. Minister Louis Farrakhan,  Kwesi Mfume and the Congressional Black Caucus.  When told that Kevin Powell was considering running in New York City for  Edolphus Towns’ congressional seat, Boykin was surprised.  He himself had invited Kevin Powell to be on a panel during SAAM’s kickoff hearings.  Kevin said no, he wanted to be a keynote speaker, and wanted to get paid.  Boykin declined Powell’s proposal.
Dr. Bobby Austin serves as chairman of the Planning Committee on the Status of African-American Men convened by Congressman Danny Davis. Dr. Austin credits Rep. Davis with being the first to seek a public policy approach to the condition of African-American men.  According to Dr. Austin, national legislative initiatives began in the late 1980s on Capitol Hill when then governor of Virginia,  L. Douglas Wilder and the Congressional Black Caucus held its first national meeting on issues related to African-American men.
The next incarnation was Dr. Austin’s work in the mid-1990s at the Kellogg Foundation in Washington, D.C.  Dr. Austin’s work there culminated in the publication of <I
>Repairing the Breach: Key Ways to Support Family Life, Reclaim our Streets, and Rebuild Civil Society in America’s Commu<P
>ni<I>ties<P> (out of print).
These efforts led to the Congressional Black Caucus’ national State of African-American Male hearings, which began three years ago in Washington, D.C.
In addition, a major conference was held in Atlanta, GA, focusing on AIDS and Black Men under the leadership of Dr. Benny Prim and in collaboration with Morehouse Medical Center.  Dr. Austin was a major participant.  According to Dr. Austin, sexuality, criminality, incarceration and health are interrelated.  “When black men commit crimes, they are incarcerated, where things happen.  These men come home and black women are naïve.”
Dr. Austin reports there are 8 to10 cities in the United States where the Congressional Black Caucus chose to focus SAAM’s work, including Memphis, Washington, Chicago, Miami, Detroit, Atlanta, New York City, Newark, Oakland/ San Francisco and Los Angeles. Forthcoming is a report of the CBC’s national findings. Congressman Danny Davis, the national chair of SAAM, is expected to issue the national report this year.
The New York/ NJ regional Web site, www.iamsaam.org, will eventually have links to all the other cities participating under the SAAM umbrella. Anyone wishing to have their community-based initiatives posted on the SAAM Web site should contact Walter Fields, VP of Intergovernmental Relations and Political Development at the Community Service Society. His phone number is (212) 614 – 5453.  E-mail: wfields@cssny.org. Fields states SAAM is not an organization, instead a collaboration. Commenting on Black and Male in America, Fields encourages initiatives.  “We need  new leadership with a voice that can speak to young people.  CSS is willing to help Kevin with the national conference next year. Just as SAAM is focusing on African-American men, I wish similar efforts would be developed for young black women.”
Fields is 100% correct. If our black men are hurting, we all are in pain.  When large numbers of our men are incarcerated, girls, as well as boys, experience “daddy hunger”. Our voting clout is also diminished. When our boys disproportionately don’t finish high school, they cannot provide for a family, reducing black girls’ marriage prospects. When black men experience inadequate health care, we all are affected.
We must be careful when popular media reports dire statistics regarding African- American men. These descriptions sometimes become commandments, giving our boys no hope. We must demand that media report successful stories of resilience. Demand stories of community-based corrective actions. The Congressional Black Caucus’ State of the African-American Male initiative is an effort we all can be proud of.
Dr. Austin wrote in<I> Repairing The<P> <I>Breach<P>. In the final analysis, boys and men in trouble, or headed toward trouble, must decide for themselves that they wish to change.  Using a momentum similar to that created by the Million Man March, these boys and men must assume personal responsibility and be held accountable for their actions.  Parents also must decide to parent in order to give these young people a chance.
To begin to address the many issues surrounding African-American men and boys in today’s society, public policy and activity must become aligned with repairers of the breach and restorers of the streets.”

A Crown Heights landlady saw a large black garbage bag  still on the curb on Thursday, June 22, even though trash had been collected earlier that morning.
She assumed the bag, discarded outside of her Kingston Ave. apartment, contained construction debris, and was therefore too heavy for garbage men to pick up. So, she said, she decided to divide   up the debris.
But she was in for a gruesome surprise.
When she opened the bag, she found stuffed inside it the partially clothed body of Chanel Petro-Nixon, 16, who had been missing since Father’s Day. Petro-Nixon’s body, the woman said, was curled in a “fetal position.”
“I jumped after I saw it,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified. “It was very frightening, like something was going to jump out at me.”
Seventy-seventh Precinct Police said they were not immediately able to identify Petro-Nixon’s sex, due to decomposition. The medical examiner determined that she was strangled. There were no signs of sexual assault.
Homicides have climbed 33.3 percent in the 77th Precinct over the past five years, according to police. This opposes a citywide trend of a 17 percent decline in homicides in the same period.
A 19-year-old neighbor and family friend who would identify himself only as Lionel said that the family was in shock, and that relatives from Panama flew in to support them. The family declined to be interviewed.
Acquaintances described Petro-Nixon as a shy-yet friendly girl with academic aspirations.
“She was extremely conscientious,” said her guidance counselor at Boys & Girls High School, who also said she was “bumped up” a grade.
“She was quiet,” said Lance Harrel, a security guard at Boys and Girls High School, where Petro-Nixon, a Bedford Stuyvesant resident, was a junior. “I never saw her in trouble or arguing with anybody.”
One neighbor, Shane Lyons, 31, described Petro-Nixon as “innocent” and perhaps “a little gullible.”
Another neighbor, Leonard Haynkly, 29, said he hardly ever saw her out alone. “Most of the time I seen her, she was with her family.”
Petro-Nixon was last seen leaving her home on 1605 Fulton St. around 6:30 p.m. on June 18, walking down a commercial strip that is busy even on Sundays. Earlier that morning, she had been seen in her Sunday best, attending Mount of Olives Church. Her family reported the next day that their only daughter was missing.
“Somebody had to have seen something,” said Haynkly, adding that it wasn’t dark outside when she disappeared.
A $12,000 reward is being offered by the NYPD, Crime Stoppers and 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Petro-Nixon’s killer.
Neighborhood signs with her picture have been posted around the community. Her wide smile accentuates a sweet, round face.
On the front steps of her family’s apartment building, a shrine has been arranged with candles, teddy bears and a cardboard sign scrawled with sentiments including, “We will always love you,” “God bless you” and “It’s so hard to say goodbye.”
More condolences can be found on  Chanel’s Web page at MySpace.com, a social networking site where one person posted “RIP CHANEL AKA HONEY I LOVE YOU 4EVER.”

Teen Web Usage
should be Cautious and Monitored
A newspaper report said police were looking at Petro-Nixon’s MySpace page for possible clues to her death.
Nearly 40 percent of American high school students have posted personal information such as names, ages or contact information on the Internet, and 12 percent have decided to meet strangers they first met on the Web, according to iSafe student surveys.
“I don’t believe there has been an official notice, warning or directive from the Board of Education in New York regarding the dangers of using MySpace and Internet sites in general,” said Stuart Winchester, an 11th -and 12th -grade teacher  at Cascades High School in Manhattan.
Petro-Nixon’s page gives intimate access to her personality, interests and plans for the future. In her profile, she wrote, “I am a quiet person, but don’t push my buttons.I live in the hood and i’am hood but still classy.you have to show me respect b4 u get it…. Holla at me i’m very friendly and easy to talk to.”
Further down the page, she posted answers to the following questions:
What do you want to be when you grow up?
A nurse.
Ever been beaten up?
Nope and neva gonna happen.
How do you want to Die?
Peacefully.
This article was written and reported by Reuven Fenton and Bess Kargman of Columbia University’s School of Journalism.
Publisher’s note: While no connection has been made between Chanel’s Internet site and her death, police and youth advocates say young people must be more careful with the information they put on the Web, and that parents and guardians must be watchful of teen Web activities.

The Public Deserves
The Facts on Carl Andrews
To the Editor:
I have just read the Danielle Douglas article on Carl Andrews, and note  that I have been cited by name. Ms. Douglas mentions the article on my  Web site, FOOTNOTESNY, which carries information about congressional candidate Carl Andrews. I assume that Ms. Douglas is a legitimate reporter and not a friend of his or on his payroll. In which case, readers have the right  to expect her to check information and do research before  publishing statements as fact and to do something more useful than  repeating false information and self-promoting statements made by a political candidate. I bring your attention to some of  the more flagrant errors of fact.
1. “Gumbs, who admittedly did not serve with Andrews, accuses him of a  lackluster performance during his tenure….”
FALSE:  Evidently, Ms. Douglas did not research this  matter, and didn’t even take the time to read the article referred to, and  certainly didn’t attempt to contact me. In my article, I clearly stated  that I served on Community School Board  #17 with Carl Andrews for 8 years.  That is a matter of fact.
2. “He (Andrews) goes on to point out that while Gumbs was on the school  board the body was twice taken over by two different chancellors for  ineffectiveness.”
FALSE:  Chancellor Joseph Fernandez briefly suspended  District 17’s School Board because there were flaws in the management of the  Funded Programs unit.
In case he did not indicate this, Carl Andrews was one of the 9 board  members at the time. The board was reinstated within months as I recall. There was no suspension by any other chancellor during my 8 years with Carl on the  District 17 School Board.
FALSE:  My article did not state that Carl’s performance as a school board member was lackluster. I said it was abominable and  disastrous.
My article boldly indicates that during those 8 years District 17 had an outstanding record of academic achievement and almost every school experienced substantial improvement. This is a matter of record. Did Carl  Andrews tell Ms. Douglas that this was untrue?
If Ms. Douglas knows anything about the political history of the area, then she must be aware that Carl was not just a very close personal friend of Clarence, but his closest political associate. The suggestion that Carl was not aware of what Clarence was doing, and was not involved in the corruption is laughable.
Ms. Douglas mentions Jack Newfield. “Newfield even accused Andrews of obtaining his position in the attorney general’s office through a one-hand-washes-the other agreement between Norman and Spitzer.”  Evidently,  Ms. Douglas didn’t do her homework on Newfield’s concern about Carl Andrews. She  should consult with Errol Louis. Newfield was most concerned and indignant about  Carl getting the majority of receiverships in the Surrogate Court of Judge  Feinberg.
Jack believed that Carl Andrews was totally corrupt and that he  and Clarence were plundering the estates of orphans, widows, children and the  helpless. The Inspector General’s Fiduciary Report pretty much says the same  thing.  And this should have been required reading for Ms. Douglas.
As for Carl’s contribution to his community. According to Carl, Shirley  Chisholm apparently issued a challenge to him in 1974.  He finally became a State Senator in 2002, 28 years later. Carl ran against Marty Markowitz  and lost. And so did I.  And Marty Markowitz also ran ahead of Al Vann when  they both ran for borough president.  Carl ran for City Council and lost.  So did I.
Errol Louis also ran for office and lost. So all  three of us have reason to be bitter, right?  Carl probably does not  remember, but although he ran for school board with the support and endorsement  of Clarence Norman,  Major Owens, Al Vann and others, and I had no  endorsements, by the time we had spent two terms in office  I was getting  substantially more votes than he was in school board elections.  That  certainly did not make me bitter.
If Ms. Douglas does her research she will discover that Carl was nominated as the Democratic candidate for the position of State Senator by a county committee controlled by Clarence Norman.  He did not win his seat in an open election. And Ms. Douglas is probably aware that Democratic incumbents do  not lose in Brooklyn.
Ms. Douglas could have asked  this congressional candidate  what exactly it was that he did for his community during the 28  years between 1974 and 2002.  The fact is that Carl was nothing more  than a political hack during those years, getting a series of political  hack jobs from a variety of  elected officials including Al Vann, Major  Owens, Clarence, Martin Connor, and Eliot Spitzer. Not one of them was one of  genuine service to his community.
Carl likes to mention that he was a member of the 71st Precinct Council. I  was an active member and co-president of the 71st Precinct Council for many  years. These were years when the area was engaged in mortal conflict with dope  dealers. I do not recall Carl ever being at those meetings except when Jackie  Ward came around with him at election time to collect signatures for candidates.  I doubt he would lie about it.
And finally, has Ms. Douglas taken a look at Carl’s Campaign Finance Report published by the FEC?   And has she checked out Carl’s handlers, the lobbying firm of Bolton St. John’s. That certainly looks like a story waiting  to be told.
And, incidentally, although Carl accuses me of being bitter, he will  probably remember that he, Al Vann, Bill Banks came to my political club to ask  for my support in a runoff election against Una Clarke. I graciously agreed, and we worked hard for Carl.
And indeed, when Carl decided to run for Congress, he sent numerous  messages to me by mutual friends, asking me to meet with him. Clearly, he thought  highly enough about me to want me on his campaign. And frankly, I like Carl as a  human being.  I just happen to think that Carl as congressman is the worst possible thing to happen to Brooklyn at this point.
PS:  If you are providing readers what is purported to  be factual comments made in a publication,  it would be a courtesy and a  service to these readers to provide them with a link where they can read it for  themselves. For example, I found out about this article through a link  to Our  Time provided by Ben Smith in his blog. In addition,  Errol  Louis, Stan Kinard, and the editors of Our Times are on my mailing list, and I  am surprised to find that I am being quoted and discussed in an article without  being contacted for comment.
Dear Mr. Gumbs,

If it wasn’t so tragic it would be amusing; the attempts by “mainstream” print media to misinterpret history, to manipulate facts, to support their personal beliefs, and to pretend that equality exists in New York City between Black and White people, are absurd in the extreme.
Racism, whether systemic or institutional is immoral, inhumane and destructive of our society.
And the worse form of racism is when people in power, such as representatives of the press, allege “reverse racism” when Black leaders “speak out” or “act out” to prevent an injustice, such as; the diminution of Black Empowerment.  In 2006, for press people to ask why Council member David Yassky shouldn’t run in the 11th Congressional District is disingenuous, at best, unless they provide a context.  Only after you provide a brief history of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Movement that led to its passage, does that question have relevance.
“Reversed Racists” is the label that some recent editorials and columnists are attempting to pin on those of us who maintain that the 11th Congressional District, a “Voting Rights” district, should remain represented by a Black person, which is consistent with the intent of the Voting Rights Act.  Well then, what do you call the members of the congress who enacted the law?  And, what do you call President Lyndon Baines Johnson who crafted the bill and signed it into law?  Let us be clear!  The Voting Rights Act is about race!  It is about sharing power with Blacks and other “minorities” that otherwise would not have had access, due to barriers created by a racist society.  Remember, President Lyndon Baines Johnson was a southerner.  He refused to sign a similar bill in 1962 or 1963.  It was the intensity of the Civil Rights Movement by Black people and the pending destruction to the fabric of our society that persuaded the former President to sign the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Incredibly, on June 20, 2006 there was a “Featured Article” on the Opinion  Journal of the Wall Street Journal that  essentially stated that because of the racial controversy surrounding the 11th Congressional District, the Congress of the United States should not pass the “Reauthorization” of the “Act”.  The article further supported its argument by stating that Blacks are no longer disenfranchised.  I believe the Blacks in Florida would vehemently disagree with that statement, and so do I.  I was part of a group that challenged Mayor Koch’s redistricting plan for the New York City Council in 1981.
The United States Supreme Court agreed with our complaint and issued a ” cease and desist” order for the pending municipal elections until another redistricting plan could be drawn that would provide City Council districts that more closely represented the percentage of Black and Puerto Ricans within the city.  In 1982, we waged a similar legal challenge against the state redistricting plan for congressional districts, and New York State Senate and Assembly districts.  The then- Speaker of the New York State Assembly, the late Stanley Fink, joined our suit against the state.
Again, we were successful, and we participated in the drafting of a plan that created 2 additional congressional districts, 3 additional State Senate districts and 6 additional Assembly districts; all of which could be represented by “so-called” minorities.
Another misleading statement in this “Featured Article” suggested that Black officeholders are often elected with White “crossover” votes, therefore, “preclearance” of the Voting Rights Act is no longer necessary. Wrong!  In the history of electoral voting in New York City, Mayor David N. Dinkins in 1989 was the only Black elected to public office with the assistance of White “crossover” votes.  By the way, he didn’t get the White “cross-over” vote when  he ran for reelection in 1993.
In the same Opinion Journal of the Wall Street Journal of June 20, 2006, there was also a feeble attempt to blame the Voting Rights Act for the inner-party competition between Democrats and Republicans. The fact that both parties misuse the Voting Rights Act to try and bolster “safe” districts for their party does not negate the intent of the “Act” to provide “power sharing” for the historically disenfranchised.  Shame on both Democrats and Republicans, with a special shame on the Democratic Party, which has done very little to support the empowerment of their most loyal constituents, the Blacks. Democratic Party leaders can’t even find it in themselves to take a public position supporting the 11th Congressional District as a Voting Rights District, and that it should remain under Black representation.
I must admit it was a little disheartening at first, to witness “main stream” media completely ignore the fact that in three months Black leadership in Brooklyn pulled together approximately 2,000 Black people, which included a significant cross-section of political, religious and community leaders, in order to ratify an agenda. This agenda encompassed the primary issues they believed would lead to the improvement of life and strengthening of their pursuit of economic empowerment for Black people in Brooklyn.
Despite suggestions of racial equality that is inherent in most of the articles and editorials in “main- stream” New York City papers in reference to the 11th Congressional District, there is great disparity in the quality of life between Blacks and Whites.  In New York City, Brooklyn, and I dare to say in the 11th Congressional District, a lot more Black infants die at birth than Whites, and life expectancy is much lower for Blacks than for Whites.  The unemployment rate among Blacks is much higher than among Whites, the rate of poverty is much greater among Blacks than it is among Whites, a White high school graduate earns more money than a Black college graduate, most schools in the Black community are failing, not so in the White community. The highest rate of preventable diseases, including the infection rate of H.I.V. and AIDS, is far greater in the Black community than the White community, the incarceration of Black people completely dwarfs the incarceration rate of Whites and Black ownership of businesses hardly shows up on the scale when compared to that of the White community.
Obviously, the examples of the inequality and disparities in the standard of living between the Black and White community is almost unending.  No one in their right mind should question Black leadership in Brooklyn for calling a convention to address these issues and to call for the preservation of a designated “Voting Rights” district.
The on-going struggle by Black people for justice, equality, and empowerment, have always had our detractors, and some of them have been Black; and some of our supporters have been White.  In the main, our earthly quest for our rightful place can only be achieved through unified Black leadership that is organized with a plan.  I believe that reasonable people who are able to be objective will understand and support the righteousness of this cause.
For more information: 212 788 7354

Help Find a Killer
Somebody reading this paper knows something about the murder of Chanel Petro-Nixon, the 16-year-old honor student from Bedford-Stuyvesant whose strangled body was discovered dumped on Kingston Avenue on June 23. If an innocent child can be slain in this way without a strong response from neighborhood leaders, it means nobody is safe. It means we have become a crowd and not a community.
Information on the slaying of this innocent child should be reported to the cops right away at 800-577-TIPS. If you don’t want to talk to the cops, call Our Time Press or reach me at the Daily News (212-210-2100).
Atlantic Yards and the Oder Effect
Continuing a strategy that is guaranteed to backfire, opponents of the proposed $3.5 billion Atlantic Yards Development continue to demonize anyone who won’t fall in line and join them in trying to kill the project. One of the leaders of the effort, a blogger named Norman Oder, makes a specialty of attacking journalists (including yours truly) by generating vast, tedious tomes of “analysis” that inevitably lead to the same self-serving conclusion: that nobody, but nobody – not one single member of the small army of reporters that has been following the project for years – knows as much about Atlantic Yards as Norm Oder. And therefore, nobody should write a word about it that doesn’t follow his line.
One of Oder’s most recent slash-and-burn efforts was directed at Greg David, the editor of Crain’s New York. “Crain’s editor Greg David gets it wrong,” said Oder’s headline. But the article itself, as usual, contained little substance beyond a long line -by- line nit-picking whine about Crain’s article, combined with a rehash of the talking points opponents always use: that the project will be too big; that it will bring too many people to Prospect Heights; and that the many, many groups and individuals who support the project are either ignorant of the facts or corrupt dupes of the developer.
In a typical line, Oder says: “As for the economics of the plan, why does David trust Ratner’s claims, given that the developer has been unwilling to produce his economic projections for the project?” In the world of real journalism, as opposed to Oder’s party-line manifestos, the job of the writer is to gather information, inform the readers where it comes from, then analyze it and move on.
But Greg David didn’t do the proper antiproject dance, so he got added to the Oder hit list. Oder has also gone after the Daily News, and by now has made a cottage industry out of nit-picking every word written about Atlantic Yards in the New York Times – including an especially silly minicampaign that accused the Times of deliberate bias for referring to the project’s location as Downtown Brooklyn, rather than Prospect Heights. Oder, who lives in Park Slope, probably has no idea that folks in East New York, Coney Island, Brownsville, Bed-Stuy and even Crown Heights routinely refer to Fort Greene and anything near Atlantic Terminal as downtown. Understanding that would require knowledge of the borough outside of Park Slope.
I call Oder the “Mad Overkiller”. My last article about Atlantic Yards ran 626 words; Oder wrote more than 2,300 words to attack it. Oder’s inability to form a concise argument is more than just a sign of weak writing skills: there’s also an attempt to accomplish, on a small scale, what the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth did to candidate John Kerry in the 2004 presidential elections.
The Swift Boat people slimed Kerry up and down, over and over, publishing charges that were marginally true and in some cases completely false. Kerry made the mistake of not responding to each charge. That allowed the Swift Boat faction to build a mountain of damaging charges that like-minded people dutifully cited and cross-referenced through the magic of the Web. Eventually, newcomers to the debate, including members of the media, looked at the mountain of cross-references and, unable to plow through every accusation, gave the whole smear far more truth and credibility than it deserved. By the time Kerry woke up, it was too late to undo the damage.
Something similar is being attempted on the Atlantic Yards Project. Three blogs might cite a post by Oder – but when you probe his writings, half the references are to earlier Oder blog posts. The effect is like walking down a hall of mirrors with the same dubious accusations multiplied as if by magic.
But more and more journalists are getting wise to the game. The main result of the bloggers’ attacks on the media is the creation of a large and growing club of journalists (welcome, Mr. David) who dismiss the opponents as not only misguided and rude, but engaged in a fundamentally dishonest exercise.
* * *
WBLS Hits a Home Run
According to the latest Arbitron figures, tens of thousands of listeners appear to be tuning out Hot 97 – which used to be ranked the No.1 hip-hop/R&B radio station in New York – in favor of WBLS, which beat out Hot 97 in each of the last two ratings periods.
WBLS has been on a tear for the past year, thanks to its decision to hire two powerhouse broadcasters: Steve Harvey, who hosts a morning drive time talk-and-music show, and Wendy Williams, who holds down a block from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Harvey and Williams are seasoned radio personalities who bring wit, intelligence and a positive message to a mostly black audience that is hungry for quality.
You don’t hear the B-word or N-word tossed around on WBLS; Harvey and Williams do not insult their audience that way. And listeners have responded in droves.
According to Arbitron, WBLS had 3.1% of the city’s teen and adult radio listeners last winter, but has increased its audience size over each of the last four ratings periods, building its share up to 3.9%. During the same time, Hot 97 slipped steadily from 4.5% of listeners to 3.7%.
In plain English, WBLS now draws about 30,664 more listeners than Hot 97 during any given period between 6 a.m. and midnight. That can translate into millions of advertising dollars moving from the losing station to the winner.
The numbers are a victory for community groups that called for a boycott of Hot 97 following its repeated broadcast of a sickening song parody that mocked victims of the 2004 tsunami that devastated South Asia. More negative press dogged the station thanks to three shootings in front of its office over the last few years by the entourages of rappers invited by – and sometimes incited by – station deejays.
The decline of “Shot 97” provides powerful evidence that positive, quality programming ultimately wins more listeners – and advertising dollars – than shallow shock radio.
Power 105.1, the third urban-format station, has been dropping in the rankings as well, losing to WBLS earlier this year and barely eking out a win most recently with 4% of listeners. The station’s rankings may continue to fall, thanks to the recent, career-ending tirade of Power 105.1’s ex-morning host, Troi (Star) Torain, who got a pink slip and a criminal indictment after threatening, on-air, to sexually assault the 4-year-old child of a rival deejay at (where else?) Hot 97.
“The hip-hop stations are losing audience share all over the country. How much can you hear about Jay-Z?” says Paul Porter, a media critic who runs a Web site, IndustryEars.com. “Steve Harvey’s topical; he’ll point out things you won’t get on other shows. He’s going to be the biggest voice in black radio.”