Also this issue:

The Battle of Fort Mifflin
The city is miffed over a website -- created by the fort’s executive director -- which takes potshots at the airport and Osama.
-Daryl Gale

Love Story
A jailed mobster mulls suicide to help the woman he loves land a movie deal.
-Howard Altman

Safe Streets Fallout
17th District cops want the public to know they are out there.
-Daryl Gale

Debt and Taxes
The BRT and City Councilman Frank DiCicco are at war over the recent property tax hike.
-Jenn Carbin

Judicious
-Mary F. Patel

The Bell Curve
City Paper's weekly gauge of Philly's Quality of Life

September 12-18, 2002

on media

In Black and White

The Daily News draws fire for a cover some found racist.

by Deborah Bolling

Sometimes saying “I’m sorry” may not be saying enough. At least not for those African-Americans who converged outside the offices of the Philadelphia Daily News on Monday morning to protest a cover story they characterized as “offensive, racist and anti-Philadelphia.”

With banners and bullhorns in tow, organizers from the Coalition for Fair News Coverage, a diverse group of civic, religious and business organizations, called on the nearly 150 protesters in attendance -- nearly all African-Americans -- to boycott the Daily News. Organizers say they're also hoping to take the boycott citywide.

The uproar is the result of an Aug. 22 cover story, "Fugitives Among Us," which portrayed the mug shots of 17 non-white fugitives (14 who appeared to be African-American) who are on the lam and wanted for murder.

Two days earlier, the paper had run a cover story on the new NBC series American Dreams; the photo featured the show's white, middle-class family, with the headline "Just Like Us."

At issue is why there were no images of white murder suspects on the Aug. 22 cover; to whom the DN refers when speaking of "us"; and the belief by some that the DN has unfailingly portrayed negative images of blacks throughout its 77-year history.

Led by some of the more high-profile black Philadelphian leaders, such as local NAACP president J. Whyatt Mondesire and businessman A. Bruce Crawley, the speakers delivered invective after invective protesting the coverage of the black community as a pariah.

"They've been castigating the image of the black man as the enemy for too long and we've had enough," Mondesire boomed, sporting his trademark cowboy hat and shades. "We need to shut them down. But we need not to just talk about it, we need to do it."

When the Aug. 22 newspaper hit the stands, the paper's editors felt the wrath of disgruntled Philadelphians who immediately demanded an apology. In addition, the coalition has demanded the resignations of DN editor Zack Stalberg and managing editor Ellen Foley.

In its defense, the DN said it got its information from the Philadelphia Police Department. However, eight days later, Foley published an apology.

"The front page photos from last Thursday sent the message to some readers that only black men commit murder. That was a mistake," Foley wrote. "In addition, the stories didn't address a key question: Why are there no white suspects on the loose? That was also a mistake. Our first story should have looked harder at this question. The Daily News apologizes for the error."

Since then, the "people paper" has been the subject of national scrutiny. Reaction to the photos and ensuing apology was reported in The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Fresno Bee, in Sacramento, Calif.

"I call it the Daily Lose, 'cause each time you read that rag, you lose more of your brain cells," attorney Michael Coard said at the demonstration, amid loud cheers.

Coard, who characterized the newspaper as having always been "anti-black," ran through a list of black Philadelphians, whom, he says, have felt the sting of unfair press coverage.

"And look what they did to Allen Iverson," Coard shouted. "They said he's a thug. The Daily News will always tell you when there's something bad about a black man, but not when there's something good about a black man. I say, shut it down!"

Crawley, president of Crawley, Haskins & Rodgers, a public relations and advertising firm, and chairman of the African-American Chamber of Commerce, is at the forefront of the protest against the DN. He said that he personally distributed over 200 white T-shirts to the crowd, which read, "Don't Buy the Daily News. Respect Yourself. Respect the Boycott." About halfway into the 90-minute rally, the impeccably attired Crawley (who was not wearing a T-shirt) stepped onto a flatbed truck, parked in front of 400 N. Broad St.

"Finally, I think the sleeping giant has woken up," he told the crowd. "We've met with Zack Stalberg a number of times and we've said clearly your newspaper has a problem. But the people who work here have no incentive to change. There are all types of papers that we can read that don't insult us."

Among the newspapers Crawley suggested were The Philadelphia Tribune (the nation's longest continually published black newspaper, available twice weekly); the Philadelphia Sunday Sun (edited and published weekly by Mondesire); the New Observer (an independent weekly); and the Metro. (Noticeably absent from his list was The Final Call, a weekly published by the Nation of Islam. A number of young black men, sporting that organization's traditional dark suit and bowtie, were on hand distributing the $1 paper to the crowd free of charge.)

Stalberg said that he's not especially concerned about the call to boycott his tabloid newspaper, which is owned by Knight Ridder.

"The readers know if we're racist and if they thought we were racist, they wouldn't read the paper," Stalberg said, adding that the paper's readership is 40 percent black. Stalberg said this almost mirrors the percentage of city residents who are black, giving the DN a larger percentage of black readership than any other mainstream paper in the country.

"Bruce [Crawley] and the publisher, Bob Hall, spoke at the end of last week. Bob had suggested a meeting, which Crawley rejected," Stalberg said. "Crawley wants us to decide what we're going to do and get back to him. I suppose that'll lead to a period of internal conversation."

As for the protest and the rally, Stalberg said his organization will "weather the storm."

"They have a right to do it," he said. "But it doesn't make it right."