Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 22 August 2003 — Page 8

PAGE A8

THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 2003

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EDITORIAL

Young organizers call city to pray By SHANNON WILLIAMS Rtcordcr Editor

It seems that there has been a permanent spot that television and print media have reserved specifically for crime and homicides in their

lineup.

The reason for this is not to promote negativity, it's simply just to inform the public of what’s going on. It’s unfortunate however, that various acts of crime are such a large part of news today. What’s even sadder is the fact that much of the crime in our city is caused by teen-agers and young adults. I often write about the problems that today’s youth have. Despite what many think, it goes beyond social class and economic status. Oftentimes it has to do with lack of love or not having the proper role models to look up to as

examples.

That’s why what three young adults, all in their mid20s, within the community are doing this weekend is so

significant.

Cassandra Anderson, Dana Bibbs and Gene Ford are

organizing a special prayer rally for today’s teen-agers and young adults in an effort to decrease the rate of homicides in India-

napolis.

“Takin’ Our City Back” will be this

Saturday at Riverside Park near the basketball courts. There will be different pastors on

hand and an open discussion will take

place among attendees too. Everything is set to

take off at 1 p.m. Oftentimes 1 hear

that there is a lack of leadership within the

Black community. Many are worried

about who will advocate for African Americans, especially with individuals like Sam

Jones deceased. So what Anderson, Bibbs and Ford are

doing is admirable. I’m

not saying that they will be tomorrow’s

leaders, but they are

taking a step in the

right direction in an

effort to resolve this

ever-increasing problem we have on our hands. These individuals are so sincere about the rally that they organized, they didn’t even want to get photographed for the paper. And had they known they would be the subject of this editorial, I’m sure they would have tried to discourage me. That just goes to show you that they are more concerned about the cause rather than the

recognition.

Their ultimate hope is that through the city joining together to pray, the amount of homicides in Indianapolis will reduce significantly. Naysayers may feel this is a wasted effort, but I disagree. In my opinion many of the problems we face today are due to the fact that people have lost sight of their

spirituality.

I urge everyone to attempt to attend this free event. It’s for a worthy cause and who knows what will develop from it. Hopefully it will motivate others to not only conjure up initiatives, but also follow through with them as a way of taking our city back from the violence and

destruction.

“In my opinion,

many of the

problems

we face

today are due to the fact that

people

have lost

sight

of their

spirituality.”

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JUST TELLIN' IT Newspaper owner Gannett fails at hiring, retaining Black editors in Indy

By AMOS BROWN III In this column’s 10 ,h year, I’m still writing about the lack of racial diversity in Indianapolis media. I continue to be insulted and outraged that when executives of Indianapolis’ majority media outlets convene to make news coverage decisions, no African Americans are at the table. Last week, I wrote that Indianapolis' major television stations have an abysmal record of hiring and retaining African Americans in senior management positions. This week, I examine a more abysmal racial un-diversity record perpetuated by the Gannett Co., owner of the Indianapolis Star. Gannett bought the newspaper three years ago. While you’ll see many Black faces in photos, the newspaper repeatedly has failed to adequately cover and represent America’s 16th largest African-American community to its readers. A list of the 91 top AfricanAmerican newspaper editors and executives in America, compiled by the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), finds 13.2 percent of those top Black editors working for Gannett newspapers. Sadly, none here. Gannett publishes newspapers in 99 cities/markets. Indianapolis has the third largest African-American population of any Gannett newspaper market. Only the Detroit and Cincinnati markets have more African Americans than Indianapolis. Gannett employs African Americans in senior editor positions in Detroit and Cincinnati and in smaller Black communities like Louisville, Jackson, Miss., and Wilmington, Del. But Gannett/Indianapolis’s record ofhiring African-Ameri-can journalists and editors

ranks among the worst of any Gannett newspaper and the newspaper industry. The latest example involves Leisa Richardson. The Star’s Assistant Managing Editor/Administration, Richardson was exiled to Hamilton County as “Bureau Chief,” the latest in a mob of talented journalists Gannett’s banished to suburban bureaus the past three years. Richardson’s exile leaves no African American, or any other racial/ethnic minority, in any senior editor position at Gannett/ Indianapolis. Even an experienced, veteran African-American editor, former Indianapolis Recorder Publisher/Editor Eunice Trotter, is only an “assistant” city editor. When Gannett/Indy’s editors gather to decide what’s covered, who covers it and why, the room is filled with only white folks. That’s unconscionable for a newspaper serving a market of some 250,000 African Americans. . Our Black community should be angry and livid at Gannett’s lily-white newsroom policies. Wbat’s sickening is the inaction and inertia of our Black community’s organizations about this outrage. The local NABJ chapter wants to act, but without community support their protests will fall upon Gannett’s hardened hearts. Why hasn’t the Indianapolis NAACP and the Indianapolis Urban League done anything? Why haven’t the city’s leading pastors (Bishop Tom Benjamin, Rev. Jeffrey Johnson, our ministerial alliances, Concerned Clergy) confronted Gannett on this scandalous outrage? Where are our Black elected officials (and not just state Rep. Bill Crawford)? Where are our Black City-County Council members? Gannett brags about employment diversity, but publishes a newspaper with a segregated management team. That’s unacceptable to this African-Ameri-can community. It’s time our community’s leaders demand accountability and respect from Gannett. It’s time we make Gannett’s Indianapolis newspaper reflect our community’s ra-

cial diversity, not just in photos, but in the executive ranks. What I’m hearing in the streets Bren Simon, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Joe Andrew’s choice for lieutenant governor, must answer hard questions about supporting Congresswoman Julia Carson’s last Republican opponent. Considered a prodigious political fund raiser, Simon has personally contributed over $2 million to candidates and campaigns since 1999, according to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). However, on June 11, 2002, Simon contributed $2,000 to Carson opponent Brose McVey. His campaign, though, refunded $1,000 of that back to Simon because she violated FEC rules prohibiting contributions to just $1,000 between June and November. Despite Simon’s strong support for female candidates, she’s contributed just three $1,000 checks to Carson’s campaigns: October 10, 2000, May 29,2002 and October 10, 2002. African Americans are being asked to support a Democratic lieutenant governor candidate who’s contributed to Sen. Richard Lugar and to the Republican running against an AfricanAmerican Democratic incumbent, in Indiana’s largest AfricanAmerican community. Bren Simon can’t become lieutenant governor without strong, enthusiastic support from our African-American community. Her campaign will be dead on arrival with Black voters if she can’t explain her past history of supporting Republicans over Black Democrats. ♦ ♦ * * ♦ Though criticized here five months ago, Sen. Evan Bayh was most gracious during last week’s interview on our WDNI-TV/ Channel 65 morning program. Bayh believes he has represented traditional Democratic issues, but people don’t realize it because the media doesn’t publicize it. In our interview, Bayh explained why America must be aggressive against potential enemies, but was extremely skepti-

cal about Bush administration policies on postwar Iraq and the economy. Sen. Bayh must be more proactive in our African-American community. His staff must be aggressive in reaching out and being visible and articulating Bayh’s positions with Black organizations and media. ***** Republican gubernatorial candidate Mitch Daniels wants to reduce Indiana’s lieutenant governor to eunuch status. Daniels wants the Legislature to make the governor in charge of Indiana’s economic development efforts; not the lieutenant governor. That would reduce future lieutenant governors to just being in charge of agriculture and presiding over the state Senate. ***** Republican mayoral candidate Greg Jordan gave lukewarm endorsement to our proposal of a month ago that the budgets of independent agencies like IndyGo and the library should be folded into the city budget. But, interviewed on our Channel 65 morning talk show, Jordan said he still supports an unconstitutional plan for the mayor and council to review the budgets and tax rates of elected school boards and township boards. In our interview, I was disappointed that Jordan still isn’t revealing spec’ fics on issues like job creation and economic development, finding alternative revenue sources, adequately funding public safety in the townships, the county*s growing budget crisis, or even what he’d do differently with the Indianapolis Police Department. All year Jordan has said his campaign is about providing leadership, but with 11 weeks before the Nov. 4th election, it’s way past time that Jordan provides that leadership by offering specifics, not bland generalities, about what he’d do if elected mayor. See ‘ya next week. Amos Brown’s opinions are not necessarily those of The Indianapolis Recorder. You can contact him at (317) 221-0915 or e-mail him at [email protected].

Democracy in Calif. Could "Hang by a Chad*

By. FAYE M. ANDERSON Well, they’re back. Chad and his hang-ing-pregnant-dimpled posse are back to wreak havoc in the California recall elec-

tion.

California election officials are apparently still crazy in love with unreliable punch-card voting machines, although they have been warned about the systems’ chad problems since the 1970s. The warning was echoed in the 2001 report of the.CalTech/ MIT Voting Technology Project. In a landmark study, the researchers found that punch-card voting systems‘lose at least 50 percent more votes than optically scapned paper ballots... The immediate implications of our analysis is that the U.S. can lower the number of lost votes in 2004 by replacing punch cards and lever machines with optical scanning.” The CalTech/M IT study found that four million to six million votes were discarded nationwide in 2000. About half of those votes were lost because of voting equipment failure, flawed voting procedures or inadequate election day preparation by overwhelmed election officials. These are the very factors that will be in play if the recall election takes place as scheduled on Oct. 7. The American Civil Liberties Union, on behalf of the California NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, has filed a lawsuit in federal court to postpone the recall election until March 2004. A hearing is set for Aug. 18. ”If the October election goes forward, we can predict with absolute certainty that every Californian’s vote will not count. Democracy in California should not hang by a chad,” said Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the ACLU of Southern California, in a statement. California’s crazy quilt mix of voting systems arguably violates the equal protection standard enunciated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Bush vs. Gore. Indeed, the affected counties are already under federal court order to replace punch-card machines with voting systems that are more reliable by March. Alice Huffman, president of the California NAACP, recently said on “Hannity &

on mxbmwEm&K

Colmes,”‘Tt’s about voting rights. We want to make sure every voter can vote and that their vote will be counted.... There’s something wrong when you have two classes of voters.” As in Florida, minority voters will disproportionately cast their vote on voting machines that have the highest error rate. For instance, voters in majority-minority Los Angeles County, which has more voters than any jurisdiction in the nation, will vote on punch-card machines that had been ceremonially mothballed by county officials earlier this year. By contrast, voters in some small rural counties will cast their vote on optical-scan voting machines, which are the most reliable. Also as in Florida, there will be widespread voter confusion. Voters will confront a confusing multi-card ballot with 135 candidates listed in random order. While Palm Beach County’s ”butterfly” ballot was in the media spotlight in 2000, the multi-page ballot design in Duval County resulted in tens of thousands more uncounted votes. Truth be told, the recall election is a cautionary tale about the perils of taking Democratic base voters for granted. Gov. Gray Davis’ narrow five-point margin of victory no doubt emboldened Republicans to seek his ouster. If Davis had courted Blacks and latinos in the 2002 general election, he would be better positioned to fend off an actor who is trying to muscle him out ofhis leading-man role in Sacramento. Consider this: The Black share of the statewide turnout was reportedly 4 percent, down from 13 percent in 1998. The latino share of

the total vote fell from 13 percent four years ago to 10 percent last November. This double heaping of disaffected minority voters contributed to the 50.57percent turnout—the worst in California’s history. Davis ended up with 1.3 million fewer votes than he received

in 1998.

So Davis has now flipped the script and is wooing minority voters. He has vowed to sign legislation allowing undocumented workers to apply for driver’s licenses. ”You put it on my desk and

111 sign it in a heartbeat,” declared Davis at a recent labor rally. His veto of a similar bill two years ago alienated Latinos for whom this

issue is a high priority.

The recall election is eerily reminiscent of the Louisiana runoff election between Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu and Suzanne Haik Terrell last December. There, too, the incumbent took Democratic base voters for granted in the general election. But Landrieu flipped the script when she was forced into a onemonth sprint for her political life. With the help of a high Black voter turnout, Landrieu beat her Republican rival, who was reportedly handpicked by the White House. As national Democrats rush to the Golden State, they should pay heed to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press that found that most Democrats are not happy campers. Six in ten Democrats are dissatisfied with their party’s performance on issues that involve core Democratic values

and principles.

Those principles include protecting the right to vote and restoring voters’ confidence inthefairnessoftheelectoral process. Democratic leaders must mount a full-court press to ensure that every eligible voter has an equal opportunity to vote and that every vote is counted before the election results are certified by the California secretary of state. Faye M. Anderson is the writer and producer of "Counting on Democracy,’’a documentary film about the 2000 presidential election. She can be reached at [email protected].