Thursday, October 1, 2009
Barry / Media Race in the Nashville Blogosphere
Posted by Bruce Barry on Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 3:31 PM
In the Post Politics comment thread, where the discourse is heated (to say the least), Kleinheider responds to his critics:
Okay, hang on. I'll get to you in a minute. Right now I'm busy going back and retroactively making all my post titles "appropriate and respectful." Could take a while.He might want to take another stab at that.
Update: SouthComm CEO Chris Ferrell comments in the thread below. Over at Post Politics Kleinheider explains and apologizes.
Comments (65)
Showing 1-50 of 65
This is ridiculous. Someone at Nashville Post/SouthComm needs to overrule Kleinheider and get the headline changed. NOW.
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I think it demonstrates more than anything that there's a great deal of racial sensitivity in Nashville. I mean, from following Kleinheider's post for, well, years now, I think one would be hard-pressed to say he hates black people, whereas one would be easy-pressed to say that not only does he love pressing sensitive political buttons, he excels at it.
On the one hand, I can see how Jason and Steven might take personal offense at it, but is anyone actually trying to figure out what Kleinheider's saying, or are people just shocked that he used the word "blackface"? Is he saying Steven Turner is a post-racial candidate (meaning someone after the Ludye Wallace / Mary Pruitt era; i.e., a younger, Obama-era black candidate)? Is he saying that this campaign will be similar to Powell's, only with a black candidate? Does the interpretation even matter since he used a racially charged term in his headline?
Freddie, I am surprised at your comment considering your position as a progressive leader in this community.
Are you seriously condoning this? Are you saying the post has value and is contributing positively to the political discourse in this town?
What are you saying? Should the headline come down or not?
Yeah, but Freddie, you've hit on exactly why people are upset. It's a headline, not an art-piece. If you can't tell almost instantly what it means, then it doesn't work and does seem like Kleinheider's just throwing the term out there to get a reaction, not to convey information.
It was foreseeable that people would be upset and it seems weird to trade the traffic one gets from upsetting people for the long-term bad taste it leaves.
So, I don't understand what he was getting at or why he'd use this method to get at it.
I think that's the @10 million question, Freddie?
What did Kleinheider MEAN? Personally, I don't think it matters at all, because he used such touchy language so no one is talking about it, but he is too smart a guy to have just been like "Oh, let's make a minstrel show joke." So there has to be a meaning. If he just wanted to point out that this guy and Powell would have similar success, why not go with "Is he the black Jason Powell?". Still, a little sensitive linguistically (because he's reducing it to race), but certainly more acceptable than what he put.
You are right, ACK certainly pushes buttons, but he frequently does it with a purpose. I'm just not sure what his purpose was here.
Freddie, I see your point, but the post is just ridiculous. Of course he's doing it purposely to ignite this ongoing debate. He's certainly giggling behind his I-Mac. But, still. What if someone, say Bill Hobbs, had made the same post?
Why do I care whether the headline stays or goes? Let people pass judgment on Kleinheider. He's accountable; not the headline. At the very least, he's generated discussion. I'm trying to figure out specifically what the nature of the broader offense is (as opposed to what offense might be taken by Powell or Turner). Is it the use of a racially charged term? Is it that he applied to real-world individuals? I guess I'm trying to figure out if I should be thinking of this as equivalent to Kleinheider saying, "Steven Turner Is a Punk-ass [Inflammatory N-word]"? Because that wasn't my first reaction.
The way I read it, if the person in the video were a woman, the headline might have read, "Is That Jason Powell in Drag?" Or if it were a white man with a full beard, it might have been, "Is that Jason Powell In a Beard?"
I doubt AC meant any real harm, but using race as an indentifier and joking about someone being in blackface is so tricky he should have stayed a hundred miles away from it. It's hard to pin it down exactly, but it just seems racially insulting to both Powell and Turner.
If Bill Hobbs had made the post, I'm sure there'd be similar outrage, but Hobbs is a historic race-baiter with specific political aims. Kleinheider strikes me as more of a button-presser than an agenda-driven racist.
You don't understand the insult, Freddie? Maybe I'm just sensitive, but when I hear "blackfaced" I think of old black minstrel shows held in the late 19th/early 20th century (the nadir of racism in this county)in which southern whites dressed and acted in stereotypical form to imitate blacks. After all, that's where the term originated.
Come on. Haven't you watched Spike Lee's Bamboozled?
Regarding suggestions that the headline be changed at the behest of ACK's editors or SouthComm corporate overlords: Maybe, but a news organization should be very cautious and deliberate about revisionism in published work. In print, an item that is so offensive as to be unacceptable would draw a subsequent clarification, apology, or correction, but the original item as published lives on as archived history. In the digital era it is all too easy to eradicate that history. If Post Politics is a part of the NP.com/CP news product, which is how I think it should be regarded, then simply deleting offensive content without a trace that it once existed isn't sufficient or acceptable. A change should include a statement of correction within or near the item stating clearly what change was made and why. News organizations should not use the convenience of digital revision as an excuse or opportunity to rewrite or erase the past (even when "the past" is just a few hours ago).
Joey, I know what "blackface" means. I just am not sure who's being insulted or what the actual meaning is. That's what I'm getting at: is it just race-baiting idiocy that happens to cast an implicit aspersion at Powell and Turner, or is there actually a message/joke of some kind that would be worth trying to interpret?
And yes, the irony that I'm writing here on the blog of a paper owned by SouthComm, publisher of Post Politics and employer of Kleinheider, does not escape me. Nashville, meet consolidated media. Consolidated media, say hello to Nashville.
This isn't open to debate. If the offensive headline carried some powerful editorial message, it might be different. But it doesn't; it's just an obscure reference to Mary Pruitt's last opponent. Every minute that it stays up diminishes the credibility and financial value of Nashville Post.
And make no miistake---this stopped being about Kleinheider about four hours ago. It is about the newspaper. It is about Patrick Raines, Chris Ferrell and Townes Duncan. Surely one of them (surely all of them) knows better. Why hasn't one of them fixed this (and given Kleinheider a chewing out he won't soon forget.)
I was told on Twitter that if I ReTweeted Bruce Barry's post I'd get a GoogleWave account.
While they are at it, could they maybe counsel young Hargrove that police blotter "reporting" isn't new, and probably does provide some comic relief with respect to the human condition, HOWEVER, using the person's real name is truly bad form. It's cruel, and completely unnecessary. Then, he is free to go about feeling all superior and everything.
Kleinheider wants this kind of reaction, btw. Yawn.
to quote (I think) Jackie Robinson: "Some people, if they don't know, you can't tell 'em."
But let me rephrase: This is not open to debate among journalists or people who understand journalism.
No one that knows him thinks ACK a racist, but that headline is inappropriate. Take it down and let's move on.
Well said Henry. I am still stunned that its still up and they (Southcomm) don't seem to understand why they are being asked to take it down. I may have to go back to reading the Tennessean and local newschannel homepages. I will not endorse Nashville Post Politics blog with my readership and will encourage others to follow suit.
I for one did a double take when I first saw the "blackface" comment. I mean, come on. Just search YouTube for old blackface performances. They are some of the most racist and stereotypical things I've ever seen. They were meant to RIDICULE black people. I'm sorry, but that word didn't add ANYTHING to his post and didn't even convey a constructive point. It should be changed. It would fit better on Michelle Malkin's site.
Maybe he's just fishing for more readers.
That's a mighty mild and evenhanded summation you posted there.
Did your new corporate overlords put your testicles in a jar or something? 'Cause I'm pretty darn sure if "blackface" had appeared in a headline somewhere other than one of your new sister papers, the Pith rhetoric would have shot through the freaking roof by now.
I can't believe this post is still up with no apology from its author or editors. Unreal. Does the City Paper have editors or do its writers and aggregators get to post whatever the hell they want regardless of whether it's flat-out bigoted and offensive.
Is anyone in charge over there?
Remember this article -
By Henry Walker
OCTOBER 6, 1997: "Henry, I've got to fire you." Nashville Scene editor Bruce Dobie got straight to the point. "I can't have a media critic who lies to the press."
He was right, on both points. I had lied, repeatedly, to reporters from The Tennessean, the Banner, The Commercial Appeal, and The Tennessee Journal, all of whom had called to ask if I'd been present at the much-discussed Scene staff party where state Sen. Steve Cohen either did or didn't join reporters in puffing on a joint.
Two weeks ago, Scene reporter Liz Murray Garrigan wrote that Cohen is "so comfortable among journalists that he has been known to step out on the porch and smoke a joint with a group of them at a private party." She didn't say which party. Asked to explain, Cohen allegedly replied, "It's a generational thing. I don't do it very often."
The pot-smoking charge made statewide news. Cohen denied it, saying he hadn't had a joint since 1974. He admitted he'd been to a Scene party, however, where other people were passing marijuana. He said he didn't smoke it and that his remarks to Garrigan were misinterpreted.
Two days after Garrigan's story appeared, my phone started ringing. "I don't know anything about that specific incident," I told Banner reporter Jeff Woods, "but if I had been at a party like the one Cohen describes..., I certainly wouldn't have written about it." I told other journalists the same thing.
But I was at the party, and Dobie and some staffers knew it. My editor found himself in a dilemma.
"If it comes out that you lied to the press and I didn't do anything about it, it would damage the Scene," Dobie explained. "I'd have to fire myself." Instead, he fired me.
Henry made his mistakes as all good reporters do, but he knew his beat, regularly broke major stories and didn't publish racially antagonistic tripe.
I love the separation the Scene folks are trying to claim from the CP/Post folks. They all work out of the same newsroom now - and for the same venture capitalist.
All of this begs the question: Who exactly is the editor at the City Paper/Nashville Post? Who is in charge over there? Does Kleinheider even have an editor anymore?
Ridley's name is at the top of the Scene masthead? Where does the buck stop at the City Paper/Nashville Post end of the news spectrum?
Hey, any of you folks ever been to the Belle Meade Country Club? How about the Swan Ball at Cheekwood?
Well, the people that own half of the news publications in this town - that would be the owners of Southcomm - spend a lot of time and money at such places. These are the kinds of places where all of the “help” is black and all of the paying members and guests are white. The black staff typically dress in crisp white uniforms, and everything is, well, not unlike it was in this state in the 1950s.
Get a clue Nashville. The newspapers that fought against “English Only” are gone. The newspapers that called out Bob Clement in 2007 are gone. The newspapers that championed the cause for black Nashville during school rezoning are gone.
Those papers were The City Paper and The Scene. Very different in approach and in their partisan politics, but at least they took stands and basically agreed on the things in this city that really mattered. Not everything, but on many things. There was also a healthy rivalry there for breaking the news.
That is gone. What you have left is this tripe. Kleinheider is a brilliant political blogger, but he has no filter and apparently no editor.
This blog post is your first look at SouthComm’s true colors. Those are the colors of Belle Meade Blvd. First the City Paper’s editorial page disappears - just after waging a war against English Only. Then the Scene becomes an “arts & entertainment” brand according to Southcomm architect Chris Ferrell after a period that included taking Gus Puryear apart at the joints among other things.
Face it folks: Belle Meade just bought your papers. Expect lots of society pics and more poor decisions like Kleinheider’s post. Where is the management at this new “unbundling” of the daily newspaper? Out for drinks at the turn on #9 at BMCC.
Kleinheider messed up. His post was completely inappropriate as were his initial responses.
Most blog posts are not edited. We trust our writers to post content that is appropriate. Most of the time they do that, but in this case Kleinheider did not. If this had been a news story for the Post or the Citypaper or the Scene it would have been edited and that headline never would have been made public. When the Post editor, Geert De Lombaerde (to answer the question asked above), learned of the post and responses he instructed Kleinheider to stop pouring fuel on the fire with his responses. By that time many people had already responded appropriately to the post and the decision was made to let Kleinheider see how people responded to his offensive post. Much of the early discussion on Pith was actually an interesting discussion about racial attitudes. Maybe it was a mistake in judgment to leave the headline up, but we rarely change content once it is posted unless there is a factual mistake.
We asked Kleinheider to write a thoughtful apology rather than an off the cuff response. At some point Friday it will be posted on Post Politics. It was his post and I thought the response should come from him. However, in light of some of the comments here tonight I had to write my own response as well.
One of my first thoughts when I read some of these comments was that those without sin should cast the first stone.
Most of us have benefited from or participated in institutional racism in our lives. I mean really Henry, how diverse were your classes at Yale and Harvard in the 70's? Did you really compete against the best and brightest African American students for your slot? And Matt, how many full time black journalists worked for you when you were managing editor of the Scene?
With the caveat that all of us white southerners have some degree of guilt for benefitting from structural discrimination, the notion that SouthComm is run by a bunch of racists is simply ludicrous. First of all, I have operating responsibility for the company. The investors are not involved in editorial decisions in any direct manner. So the charges leveled at them are just not related to the reality of how this organization functions.
I think the fact that Bruce called Kleinheider out on this blog is an example of our commitment to independent voices. We do give bloggers with very diverse opinions a platform to engage our readers. Sometimes our owners and managers agree with them, but much of the time we don’t. After all, since they don’t agree with each other how could they be speaking on behalf of the worldview of our shareholders or management?
If you want to call me a racist for allowing this headline to remain, then I would suggest that you are making a broad judgment based on a narrow slice of information. While much of this discussion was taking place here tonight I was at Pearl Cohn watching my son play football for his very integrated public middle school. I’m pretty comfortable that any complete look at my career on the council will reflect that among white council members, no one had a better record of advocating for programs to improve the lives of African American (and other minority) members of this community. Even my loss to Howard indicated that I wasn’t willing to use race to mobilize voters opposed to a black Vice Mayor in order to win a race. I think my public and private life demonstrates serious commitments to racial justice over a long time frame.
Maybe we should have changed the headline when it came to our attention. I didn’t actually see the post until it had been up for almost four hours. By that time, it seemed to me that the readers had pretty quickly corrected Kleinheider and that a serious discussion about race was beginning to happen. I think discussion is a good thing. Kleinheider went about creating it in an inappropriate way, but race is obviously still an important topic for us to discuss in this community. SouthComm will continue write about race in this city because it is too important an issue to be swept under the rug. I regret that this incident will likely bias how some of you view our future more serious reporting on the topic. I assure you that as we approach the subject in the future we will do it in a more respectful manner.
By posting on my Facebook page yesterday that “racism is a live and well”, I intentionally did not use the word “racist”. I did not use that word because I do not believe anyone at SouthComm (including Kleinheider) believes that a person’s race determines who they are or their value to our community. That’s what I would mean by racism. I know Chris Ferrell, Ken Whitehouse, Liz Garrigan and Tom Wood well enough personally to say that just the opposite is true.
I used the word “racism” because, in my opinion, Kleinheider’s post is an example of “racism”. Part of today's racism is the continued, subtle use of a trope, description or assumption that historically was part of society's effort to perpetuate false stereotypes about race. We as a culture used these false stereotypes to subjugate blacks based on arbitrary categories of race. Kleinheider’s use of “black face” which historically was a significant part of that effort is evidence that we have not gotten beyond the issue.
I don’t post very often to Facebook, although you can see pictures of our Labor Day pig roast there. I felt Kleinheider’s post deserved a response because he has become a significant voice in Nashville for those of us who follow politics. If he is going to stick around, he ought to be held accountable for what he says. He also ought to spend some time talking to the adults in this City who lived through institutional segregation and listen to their opinions about whether race is still an issue here. Maybe then he would not joke about whether this is still the South. Maybe then he’d understand why it’s offensive to suggest a guy who dared to put his name on the ballot is just a white guy dressed up to look black.
Finally, in retrospect, it would have been a mistake for SouthComm to pull down the post immediately. The discussion has been good and in the future there will be plenty of legitimate stuff posted that someone will want taken down. I think Chris’s approach with Kleinheider makes sense. I hope Kleinheider will clear the air with his next post.
Wait a minute, Chris Ferrell, are you seriously claiming that those who have benefited from white privilege ought not call out racism when they see it? That's exactly backwards. Having white privilege means (unless one thinks it's OK, of course) that one has an obligation to point out and criticize instances of racism. Otherwise one is acquiescing.
Good point, nm. I was thinking precisely the same thing as I read Ferrell's response. Whether Henry or Matt or anyone else benefited from institutional racism should not disqualify them from pointing out examples of personal racism.
Here's the other question I had in reading Ferrell's response. Why DOESN"T an editor read the blog posts before they're posted? I'm not buying an excuse that it takes too much time. You wouldn't have to apply the AP Stylebook -- simply have an editor read through and flag or change any glaring errors (like the Kleinheider headline!).
For the life of me I can't understand why so many people view blogs as a different animal where the usual journalistic standards don't have to apply. I mean, Chris, Kleinheider's blog appears under your banner, and its content (for good or for ill) reflects on your publication. Why in God's name would you not have an editor at least look at it before you send it into the ether?
Thank you all for making manifest that often hidden truth, that institutionalized racism is real (and white privilege is usually invisible to those who benefit from it). Unearthing these facts and keeping our eyes, mouths, and hearts open to both the acknowledgment of inequity and the possibility of amendment is our best hope for creating a just society.
NM - I wasn't saying it shouldn't be called out. In fact, I think I wrote approvingly of Bruce Barry doing just that. Several people on this thread and on PP did that very thoughtfully.
Anonymous B - have you seen how many post AC makes in a day? And at all hours of the day and night? It's really just not practical to have an editor slowing down the process. All forms of media are not the same. I view blogs as a platform for real time news coverage and commentary. Our news sites have a somewhat higher standard for writing and journalism and those stories generally are edited although at times we have reporters directly post their stories in the interest of speed. In print where we have longer to craft the writing we spend the most time editing.
Thank Goodness!
The Great White Fathers - Massa Ferrell and Massa Briley - have come down from the Boulevard to settle all of us uppity dissenters down.
They have blessed this abominable excuse for journalism from Klanheider by saying it was ultimately good because it stirred "debate" on race. Really. So, if someone burned a cross in front of the Metro Courthouse during a Council meeting, would that also stir debate? Probably.
Let's just tell a few plain honest truths, shall we.
For years - and I do mean years - Chris Ferrell presided over the Scene as publisher. And during those years, membership in Belle Meade Country Club was grounds for public execution via the ink and pen of the Scene staff for any public figure that belonged to said BMCC.
Gus Puryear, a federal court judge nominee, was excoriated in the pages of this newspaper for his membership at BMCC. But now, Ferrell is saying the OWNERS of Southcomm and his own personal financial BENEFACTORS are not fair game for their BMCC memberships in the context of Klanheider's racist post?
What remarkable rationalization. Why, that sounds like the pliable ethics of a politician! Aren't newspapers suppose to cover politicians, not be run by them?
Let's also not forget the role of David Briley's family in the Ugliest Little Nashville Secret Everyone Likes To Forget.
Why do we have Metro Government in Nashville? Not even Memphis has Metro government. Why Nashville? It's simple: Metro Government was created by Briley's grandfather and others IN PART to keep Nashville municipal government from being taken over and run by elected black politicians. It was to keep Nashville from going the way of Atlanta and Memphis, which is exactly what would have happened without Metro government. So, for David Briley to even stick his nose into this discussion is laughable.
Yet, Briley is really representative of the not-so-closeted racism the pervades Nashville's allegedly PROGRESSIVE community like a cancer.
What is the cause celeb presently for Nashville progressives? May Town Center. What has every single Southcomm Publication totally ignored this week and every week since it began? The raw, public outrage by the black community in North Nashville over White Progressives standing in the way of a project that would bring jobs to their end of town.
What is actually the single biggest problem facing Nashville? It's school system. What is the big debate their? Rezoning and blacks' disregard for the current plan. Where are Nashville White Progressives - Briley and Ferrell included - on that topic? In the White Progressive camp with the New Urban Gentrification Mob.
This blog purports to cover media, among other things. Has it covered the screaming. 72 point war time headlines of the Tennessee Tribune backing May Town Center? Nope. Why? It was kind of hard to miss...if you actually KNOW any black people in town.
It is too bad there are no more independent media voices in Nashville to call out this horse shit excuse for a media company. In lieu of Desperately Seeking the News, here are some pesky Pullesque questions for the SouthComm Hive Mind:
1. Who is the publisher of the Nashville Southcomm publication hub?
2. Why is the CEO of the company responding to this public criticism rather than the Post Editor or the aforementioned publisher?
2. Who is the editor of The City Paper? What is their involvement with Klanheider's blog?
3. Are blog posts at Pith edited by an editor before they are taken live?
4. Are blog posts by Kleinheider edited before they are taken live?
5. What is either newspaper's editorial position on the proposed Metro school rezoning plan?
6. What is either newspaper's editorial position on the North Nashville community's concerns over May Town Center?
7. What is the policy for writers penning commentary about public policy matters when their spouses are elected officials?
8. How many members of the Southcomm board and/or ownership are members of BMCC or similar organizations in town that exclude members based on race?
So this: "One of my first thoughts when I read some of these comments was that those without sin should cast the first stone. Most of us have benefited from or participated in institutional racism in our lives" doesn't mean what it says? Because it sure sounds like someone saying that those who have benefited from white privilege shouldn't be the ones calling out racism.
Chris:
No, I don't make a habit of reading Kleinheider's blog (or many other blogs for that matter). But you make a choice. You can "slow down the process" a little by having an editor quickly review blog posts for red flags like the blackface headline. This might mean that the stuff he writes overnight has to wait until 8:30 a.m. to get posted. The alternative is to keep the system you have and take a big black eye when he or some other blogger embarrasses your organization.
If I were running this cost-benefit analysis, I'd have to seriously wonder whether this one black eye did more damage than the time you saved in not having someone screen his posts. At the very least you could have an editor do a text search of the document for phrases like "Barack the Magic Negro."
Edit ACK's posts before they post and you may as well shut down Post Politics altogether.
Kleinheider, rarely do we get to witness fuck-up perfection such as yours. Congratulations. You have qualified yourself to be publicly stripped, dipped in shit and flogged. The 'Penis DeMilo' site down on Music Row might be a good spot for the ceremony.
I have a couple of questions: If he had said something like "Barack Obama in white-face" would that still have qualified him for the dipping and flogging. Also, when FDR said of Churchill, "why, he's pink all over," was that racist?
"I have a couple of questions"
OK.
"If he had said something like "Barack Obama in white-face" would that still have qualified him for the dipping and flogging?"
Probably. At the very least it would have elicited a lot of head-scratching, much liek the head-scratching your comment has probably elicited.
"Also, when FDR said of Churchill, "why, he's pink all over," was that racist?"
No. WSC was wandering around the White House buck naked. FDR made a comment perfectly proper to the occasion.
Doubtful. But then anyone who thinks the FDR-WSC anecdote is at all analogous to this situation is kind of starting a few steps behind square one anyway.
It's nearly noon and no new post today on this blog? How about a Morning Roundup? Well, I guess it's too late for that. Maybe a pointless crime blotter-type post that's someone's specialty. Just something.
David Letterman had sex and was extorted. Sarah Palin's book cover was released. No Olympics for Chi-town, which means of course that Obama has no power and is a total loser (right, Beck, Limbaugh, and Fox News?).
There's low-hanging fruit today, Pith. It's noon and you're way late.
Chris,
I appreciate your thoughtful response to this issue. Thanks also for the explanation of the internal discussion at Nashville Post. Not many papers are willing to share those kinds of matters with the public.
In retrospect, what should have happened? Of course, Kleinheider should never have written the sophomoric headline. But after his editor learned of the issue, you describe what happened next: "By that time many people had already responded appropriately to the post and the decision was made to let Kleinheider see how people responded to his offensive post."
As I gather you (and the editor) now realize, that decision was a far more serious mistake than the headline itself. One winces at the thoughtlessness of a young reporter who writes dozens of headlines a day, but the considered judgment of the paper's managers to allow the headline to remain and the controversy to fester reflects, as I mentioned earlier, not on the reporter but on Nashville Post and SouthComm. The proof of that is right in front of you---all those silly comments posted above about "Belle Meade white people" running the paper and racism at SouthComm. It's fine to spark discussions about race in the community, but don't do it at the expense of the paper's institutional credibility. You never, ever, damage the franchise. But that's exactly what happened.
That said, I again applaud the paper's willingness to admit its mistake and I also thought Kleinheider's apology this morning was well done. Time to move on.
Henry
Exercise over.
Wagons successfully circled.
White MSM declares issue closed.
Are you back on the payroll there, Henry? Are none of the questions being asked of Mr. Ferrell relevant?
He dinged Matt Pulle for not having worked with many people of color at the Scene. Did Mr. Ferrell attempt to HIRE any people of color when he was publisher of the Scene then? How about now?
What is the racial makeup of Southcomm's staff?
Oh, sorry, White Henry declared the discussion closed. My bad, dog.
Chris,
In the future, maybe you guys can just check in with Henry Walker before hand and thereby avoid his insufferable lecture that inevitably follows. Sheesh. Reads like parody.
