In this weekend’s Nevada caucus, the first primary contest with a large percent of Mormon voters (26% of participants), Mitt Romney won handily by 50 percent of the total. But he strikingly won 90 percent of the Mormon vote.

During the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, African-Americans were criticized for blindly following Obama because of race. Similar charges are not being leveled, at least not to the same extent, against Mormon voters for Romney.

Humans are social animals and we all have reasons for hewing to identity and affinity groups, as well as calculations about whether and how supporting a particular candidate will affect us and our communities.

There is no question that anti-Mormon bias is going to be a factor among some Republican voters when it comes to Romney. But I’m also interested in whether and how the close hewing of Mormon voters to Romney as a candidate will be explored with the same persistence than the black vote for Obama did.

And it ain’t over yet! As I emailed a friend: “Pop and Politics is doing a series of three radio specials on the fractious state of American politics and life. They’re airing on over 100 stations. You can catch the first two, which are documentary style visits with Tea Party members, candidates, and Americans of all types, online at PopandPolitics.com. The third special is a post-election town hall with guests including Melissa Harris-Perry and Reihan Salam, taping on November 3 and airing the next day. To get tickets to the taping or find out more, email poppoliticsRSVP@gmail.com and visit PopandPolitics.com.”

So if you’re in NY, email us and get your ticket to our November 3 taping; otherwise, please listen online.

Same day I read Micah Sifry’s article Point-and-Click Politics, which reads in part:

Mass participation by today’s online activists is also contributing to governmental gridlock and a more polarized politics…. On both sides, this new wave of digital politicking is driven by passionate ideologues. The most popular political blogs in America—Huffington Post, DailyKos, Talking Points Memo on the left; Hot Air, Big Government and NewsBusters on the right—all share one thing: They serve partisan red meat to their readers.

John Stewart blamed the 24 hour news media at the end of his rally. It strikes me, being in the reporting game, that it’s much easier to make your way in media these days as a partisan pundit than as a reporter or a more nuanced voice. How do you change that? Or do you just accept it?

That was my note at the top of an email I sent back in September of 2007 to a colleague at NPR. In full disclosure, I am a former employee of NPR, let go in 2008 as part of the cancellation of three shows, including one I hosted. In the email, I’d forwarded a Washington Post column by Howard Kurtz dissecting a Fox/NPR/Juan Williams triad of recrimination. The headline: “NPR Rebuffs White House On Bush Talk — Radio Network Wanted To Choose Its Interviewer.” In Kurtz’s words:

The White House reached out to National Public Radio over the weekend, offering analyst Juan Williams a presidential interview to mark yesterday’s 50th anniversary of school desegregation in Little Rock. But NPR turned down the interview, and Williams’s talk with Bush wound up in a very different media venue: Fox News. Williams said yesterday he was “stunned” by NPR’s decision… Ellen Weiss, NPR’s vice president for news, said she “felt strongly” that “the White House shouldn’t be selecting the person.”

This incident is more telling than the oft-dissected statement Williams made on Fox that Michelle Obama had “this Stokely Carmichael-in-a-designer-dress thing going.” Juan Williams and NPR have been a mutual mismatch for years. In this volley, Williams — with his reported new $2 million over 3 year contract with Fox — is the clear winner; with Fox a close second; and NPR left holding the bag. It need not have been this way.

If NPR had such clear concerns over how Juan Williams fit into their organization, in the amorphous role of “news analyst,” then they had an opportunity to let him go a long time ago. They could have decided he didn’t fit their needs, and moved on in a less polarized time. But by firing him now, in this instance, after years of sitting uncomfortably with his dual roles on NPR and Fox, they made a few crucial errors. They chose to fire him for doing what he has done for years… be a hype man for Bill O’Reilly. Why now? And they also showed tone-deaf communication with member stations by firing Williams during a pledge drive season. I know to many that will sound like nit-picking, but the relationship between NPR and member stations has oft been strained, and the Williams matter does so more, as evidenced by station disclaimers like this one from WBUR.

Author and Atlantic Blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote of Williams, “It’s a dangerous, dangerous thing to make a living running your mouth.” He was referring to the Carmichael/Obama statement. I would agree, and disagree. Having been both a news analyst and a reporter, I think it’s dangerous <em>and</em> valuable to step up to the mic as an expert. I have been a pundit, but I always simultaneously did reporting. Recently, I’ve been going to Tea Party meetings and immigration rights meetings. Getting out in the field and actually talking to people is a wondrous thing. You learn we are not monolithic, any of us. But reporting has become devalued in the current media environment, which is struggling with revenue models. Far better, as a simple ratio of time-to-income earned, is simply to find a show that will have you on and do whatever you have to do to ingratiate yourself with the host.

Juan Williams pointedly said in his comments after the firing that he was the only black man on-air at NPR…. and not a reporter at that. Guest hosting on Fox, he also called himself a “loyal employee” of NPR, and implied the network was run by a “far-left mob.”  (If so, I didn’t meet any in my four years at NPR. It’s run by a Beltway cohort, perhaps, but not “far-left.”) Do I think NPR fired him because he is black? No. Do I think NPR kept Williams on for years, as the relationship degraded, because he is a black man? Absolutely. Williams’ presence on air was a fig-leaf for much broader and deeper diversity problems at the network.  NPR needs to hire more black men in house on staff as part of adding diverse staff across many ethnicities and races. It also needs, broadly, a diversity upgrade that doesn’t just focus on numbers, but on protocols for internal communication. Among the revelations in this incident is that the Vice President of News fired Williams by phone without giving him the opportunity to come into the office and discuss it.

After I was let go from hosting an African-American issues show at NPR, I walked away relatively quietly, though with a series of questions about how power was allocated and shared at the network, and whether diversity truly mattered to management. Although the focus right now is on whether NPR should be defunded (God no!), I would like to see a little more light shine on how NPR deals with diversity. It has a new diversity czar, Keith Woods, and I hope he is empowered to look at the issue broadly and respected by management.

I also hope that NPR continues to support its programming that does feature diverse voices, including Michel Martin’s Tell Me More (which had a great, honest  roundtable about Williams) and acquired/partner programming like the fantastic on-the-road/town-hall show State of the Re:Union by Al Letson.

This country needs NPR, now more than ever. But it needs an NPR and media, broadly, that are adventurous rather than expedient when it comes to reporting on a divided America, and cultivating the most diverse staff, and audience.

***

I’m currently broadcasting public radio midterm election specials, reported in the field. You can find more information at PopandPolitics.com.

If you travel around America, or simply around your own city or town, you’ll see the depth of American unemployment. There are the Starbucks brigades, looking busy and using wifi; and the streetcorner brigades, searching for day labor jobs or simply waiting for a change to come. In many ways, Americans have been incredibly brave and resourceful. FBI statistics show the crime rate dropped in the first half of 2009, including violent crime. In my reporting trips, I’ve seen people not only surviving but making life-changing positive choices in this economy. In Newark, I talked to Deron McNair, a 32 year-old who’s spent most of his adulthood incarcerated. With the help of a city-run fatherhood program, he’s gotten a job as a sanitation worker and is happy to leave the fast money and corresponding jail time behind. In Miami, I met Ciara Jones, who went into the Lotus House women’s shelter when she was eight months pregnant and now, three years later, is living independently, raising her daughter, and running a thrift store that provides revenue to help keep the shelter going. In the face of massive unemployment that may permanently alter the economy, some people are finding new opportunity, and others — employed or not — are volunteering and living in ways that fulfill them creatively.

Americans have demonstrated that we’re tough enough (and compassionate enough) to deal with the new realities. But the truth about the depth of American joblessness is hiding in Federal numbers, and we are hiding from the truth. The Department of Labor releases several different cuts on the unemployment data. One figure, labeled “U-6,” presents the numbers of unemployed and “persons marginally attached to the labor force.” That figure is 16.8 percent… and it comes a lot closer to measuring what’s really going on in the U.S. than the more commonly-used figure (labeled “U-3″). The numbers for certain racial and regional demographics are far higher. For example, African-American unemployment is roughly double the overall figure.

The Federal Government can choose which numbers to highlight. And until March 19, citizens can use a specific Open Government initiative to ask for changes in the way government releases data. The program, which you can find at http://www.whitehouse.gov/open and the third party site http://opengovtracker.com, is like a nerdy version of American Idol. Once you come up with an idea, you can promote it via social media and ask people to vote for it. I asked that the government clearly identify both what we have come to embrace as the unemployment rate and the Labor Department’s broader measure of joblessness. I think we’re tough enough to face the truth. It’s the only way to begin to fix things.

Earlier today I spoke on WNPR (Connecticut) about how digital technology is transforming journalism, as well as issues of race and diversity in journalism. (My interview begins at 00:23:23; the first half of the show is about the new PBS documentary Digital Nation which premieres tomorrow night.)

I talk about the ways that media has to grow in technological sophistication, but also become more inclusive. We have not only to rebuild journalism on a business level (as a functioning part of society/democracy), but we have to do it better– by being more inclusive. Among other things, during the interview a caller said “a great risk and danger in trying to over-diversify” media.  My argument, as you might expect, is the opposite. America is a nation where many of the biggest cities have no racial majority (including New York, where I live); and America as a whole, the Census estimates, will have no racial majority by 2042. Many media outlets fail to reach a sufficiently diverse audience (For example, NPR’s own audience survey shows that its audience is 86% non-Hispanic white. The Census says the U.S. population is 2/3 non-Hispanic white; 1/3 Hispanic and non-white.) A recent report called Grow the Audience urged public media to be more inclusive of people of color… in part because that’s the only way public media will grow. You can extrapolate and point out the obvious: if America’s population is growing primarily among Hispanic and non-white groups, then media must catch up in attracting these groups As I said, speaking of the future (not of niche publications/broadcasts but of mainstream ones), “You cannot have a mostly-white media audience and expect to thrive. You have to speak to a wide audience, or die.”

As I also said on air, “There’s nothing magic about diversity.” It’s hard work to survey your community; find authentic voices that represent different demographics; and make sure you do adequate coverage. If you don’t have a connection to communities, you don’t get the news. You get blindsided by social issues rather than being plugged into evolving social, political, and economic realities. We can do better, and we have to, or we (professional journalists) will find our already compromised role in society diminished even more.

From the SmileyBooks press release

“I’m writing this book as Robert, not R. Kelly,” the singer says. “I’m tired of being misunderstood. I will show you the tears, fears, and sweat. I will open my heart and reveal the good in my life as well as all the drama. I want to tell it like it is.”

There is no direct mention of the sexual assault allegations that resulted in an acquittal.

From Gina MacCauley’s What About Our Daughters:

I had hoped this was a hoax, but apparently Tavis Smiley, who is accused of gathering large numbers of Black folks together so that they could get pitched predatory Wells Fargo loans (disproportionately affecting Black women) is joining forces with another accused predator, R. Kelly. Its amazing that the primary unifying force in the Black community is EXPLOITATION of women and girls. If you go to TavisTalks.com you will see front and center and item announcing that R. Kelly has joined Smiley Books. When is that State of the Black Union and how do we get a permit to protest it? I’m serious.

The comments are no less critical.

And from Danielle Belton’s The Black Snob:

And this book will be just another in a long line of signifiers to perverts that you can do pretty much anything to a woman, girl, child, whatever, and someone will love your trifling ass anyway because it’s our fault for having vaginas. But for Tavis, and others who claim to be holding the entire race to a higher standard, this is further proof that you never meant to hold anything to any standards ever. That “cash rules everything around you, dollah, dollah bill, ya’ll” and you could seriously give two craps about the implication of being the speakerbox to a known predator. After all, freedom of speech, ya’ll! And SOMEONE was going to publish his book so why not Mr. Accountability? Pardon me while I go regurgitate something.

(Belton’s blog also has a link to a guest post about Smiley and Wells Fargo.)

It provoked a conversation on Twitter where several of us talked about who gets the mic when it comes to representing blackness in media. The short answer, in my mind, is that the people who are the best at getting the mic are people who help build the platform: people like Tavis who are business-builders as well as media-makers. So all critiques have to be funneled through the lens of economics: if you don’t like what one mediamaker does, do you have an alternative brand or model?

What do you think?

Many of my highly skilled friends who report, edit, or run newsrooms are unemployed, underemployed, or just plain scared. Lots of people are worried about the fate of reporting and media in America. Organizations are going bankrupt or out of business, including scores of America’s daily newspapers. Tens of thousands of journalists are being given their walking papers and finding they cannot re-enter the industry. We have created ways that entirely new forms of media can upend “old media,” but that digital victory is without a clear profit model.

Yes, in the short term, media is the crushed anthill: damage, death, panic, rushing disorder. But I believe that journalists, like our smaller, more resilient, and far more numerous insect cousins, are prone and programmed to rebuild.Rebuilding is great. But is it enough? What if we put the profit back in media? What if you can build new media empires that make the owners rich or the foundation heads lauded; the employees comfortable; and the consumers reasonably satisfied? What then? Do we in the business breathe with relief, pay off our credit card bills, and settle in for another round of who-gets-the-corner-office? We’re worried about the means and the method of rebuilding media. But judging from my personal on- and off- the record discussions with for- and non-profit media businesses, as well as interactions at an endless numbers of “whither this/whither that” panels and conferences (and looking at the demographics of who’s in the room)… we’re not ready to face our biggest demon. That demon is exclusion: the way many Americans are cut out of media production and consumption, and the way many of us in the business are sanguine about it.We in the media are not “the people,” nor do we represent them as fully as we often claim to. “Citizen journalism,” as we now call it, may be valuable and produced by non-traditional journalists. But most of the people who create it are still more educated, more technologically skilled, and more likely to be white than the demographics of the overall U.S. population. (By and large, “citizen journalists” are also less skilled at tasks like investigative reporting and historical research than traditional journalists.)

When forty percent of Americans are of limited literacy, let alone whatever digital divide still remains, then we have a much bigger problem than trying to build innovative blog rings, aggregators, local news sites or content engines. When the ranks of non-white journalists, already limited, are falling faster in the era of cutbacks than they were before–we have a problem. When organizations question the objectivity of people who fall outside of institutional norms… in some newsrooms, say, gays and lesbians; in others, Southerners or rural people … but they DON’T question the means and motives of people who fit the majority: that is a problem. When the journalism organizations designed to champion diversity have drawn so many checks from corporations that they cannot afford to challenge business owners… or only realize too late (once the checks are gone) that they should be… that too is a problem.We are only as good as our willingness to change. And while the journalism industry is willing to rebuild itself, I am not convinced we’re challenging ourselves to provide an ethical context around reporting on a diverse society in transition.

Recently I met in a newsroom with a younger journalist who said: “It’s ridiculous that the newsroom is this white in a city this diverse.”I shrugged and nodded. It wasn’t a “you’re wrong” shrug and nod. It was more a “yeah, been there, done that, wrote the book, fought the layoff, got my butt whipped, still standing, what did you expect?” gesture. The reality is, I didn’t want to talk about it because I didn’t have anything to say that would have inspired this person.Now, after much reflection, I do. I say to myself as much as to anyone else in media: “Keep fighting for your ideals… if you don’t win, you will at least know why you are in the game.”

I believe good journalism usually comes from a mix of vocation, or personal calling, and avocation– the latter in the sense of having a “day job” rather than having a hobby. Most successful journalists I know are, as one college student who recently interviewed me put it, “hustlers”– people whose mix of skill, institutional memory, luck, and self-promotional tendencies make them formidable at staying in the game.Most of us will have not just several jobs but several careers in our lifetime. I don’t count on being a working journalist forever. (No, I’m not planning to leave the profession any time soon.)

I believe journalism has changed me, mainly but not always for the better. I will always have the eyes and ears of a journalist, which is a valuable skill but sometimes puts me in an alienating social position.This series of blog columns, “The Journey of the Journalist,” is my attempt to think and write at the same time. It’s not a finished product in the same sense a magazine article or television piece is, but rather a data point for a conversation. My motivation is to share some of my journey and simultaneously record and reflect on it; to share and to learn; to listen and learn from others.I don’t know what form this will ultimately take, but I’ve set off the journey.