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World & Nation

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

BAKERSFIELD NEWS OBSERVER

Call for Diversity at CNN Grows

“When there’s more of us in the room fighting for our stories to be told, and raising awareness about the issues impacting our communities, we have an even better chance of creating change and ending the practices that unfairly hold us back,” said Color of Change in a statement released on Twitter.

“The National Newspaper Publishers Association is in full support of equal and fair treatment of blacks in the media and stands solidly behind NABJ’s efforts to diversify CNN.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Color of Change, a national online force driven by more than 1.4 million members, is joining the National Association of Black Journalists’ (NABJ) call for a civil rights audit at CNN and more black representation among its news leadership. “When there’s more of us in the room fighting for our stories to be told, and raising awareness about the issues impacting our communities, we have an even better chance of creating change and ending the practices that unfairly hold us back,” said Color of Change in a statement released on Twitter. “We support @NABJ as they call for a civil rights audit and put pressure on @CNN President Jeff Zucker to make diversity and inclusion improvements at the network.” Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., with more than

120,000 members, has also joined the fight. In a statement released today, the organization said it “shares the concern of the National Association of Black Journalists about the lack of black representation within the ranks of CNN’s executive news managers and direct reports to CNN President Jeff Zucker. As an organization specifically concerned with the issues affecting the African-American community, we lend our voices to those who would encourage constructive dialogue regarding creating an inclusive workplace at CNN.” One of America’s foremost civil rights, religious and political figures the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., also made comments on the issue on Twitter, stating, “@CNN Pres Zucker refused to meet w/a 4-person @NABJ delegation. There are no Af-Am direct reports. There are no Af-Am Exec

Prods @CNN. There are no VPs on the news side. There are no Af-Am Sr VPs on the news side of @CNN. Do not crush the darkness. Fight back with shifting eyes.” Also lending its voice on Twitter is the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), which is the trade association of more than 200 African-American-owned community newspapers from around the United States. NNPA President Dr. Benjamin Chavis Jr. tweeted: “NNPA supports the NABJ and NAACP #DiversityAndInclusion @CNN #EndRacism #MediaExclusion #RacialDiscrimination.” NNPA’s Chairman and Chicago Crusader Publisher Dorothy Leavell, provided the following statement: “The National Newspaper Publishers Association is in full support of equal and fair treatment of blacks in the media and stands solidly behind NABJ’s efforts to diversify CNN.” Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) also has spoken out on NABJ’s efforts. “The people of this country depend on our news organizations to deliver unbiased & fair reporting,” she said on Twitter to her nearly 60,000 followers. “That is impossible without equal representation. I stand behind @NABJ’s investigation into the lack of diversity within CNN’s leadership. #MediaDiversity.” News organizations from around the world have reported on NABJ’s call for more diversity in CNN’s executive leadership. Thousands of social media users, including actress and comedian Marsha Warfield, economist and social commentator Dr. Julianne Malveaux, and spiritual leader and activist Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, have en-

Democrats Line Up Behind Legalization Pot-litics: 2020

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD and NICHOLAS RICCARDI Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) _ A growing list of Democratic presidential contenders want the U.S. government to legalize marijuana, reflecting a nationwide shift as more Americans look favorably on cannabis. Making marijuana legal at the federal level is the “smart thing to do,” says California Sen. Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor whose home state is the nation’s largest legal pot shop. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, a prominent legalization advocate on Capitol Hill, says the war on drugs has been a “war on people.” Former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke, who appears poised to join the 2020 Democratic field, has written a book arguing marijuana legalization would hobble drug cartels. In an email to supporters this week, he called again to end the federal prohibition on marijuana. “Who is going to be the last man _ more likely than not a black man _ to languish behind bars for possessing or using marijuana when it is legal in some form in more than half of the states in this country?” O’Rourke wrote. It’s a far different approach from the not-so-distant past, when it was seen as politically damaging to acknowledge smoking pot and no major presidential candidate backed legalization. In 1992, then-White House candidate Bill Clinton delivered a famously tortured response about a youthful dalliance with cannabis, claiming he tried it as a graduate student in England but “didn’t inhale.” And two decades before that, President Richard Nixon unleashed a war on marijuana and other drugs and it helped carry him to a second term. This year, leading Democrats hold similar positions supporting legalization. Presidential hopefuls in the Senate who have co-sponsored Booker’s legislation to end the federal prohibition include Harris, New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Vermont’s Bernie Sanders, who campaigned on decriminalizing pot in his 2016 presidential bid. Another 2020 Democratic candidate, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, supports legalization and believes states should have the right to determine how to handle marijuana regulation within their borders but hasn’t signed on to Booker’s legislation. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who entered the contest this month, said in his announcement speech it’s “about time” to legalize the drug nationally. During his 2012 run for governor, Inslee opposed the ballot initiative that made Washington one of the first two states to legalize so-called recreational marijuana. As governor, however, he has frequently touted what he describes as Washington’s successful experiment with regulation and has urged the Obama and Trump administrations not to intervene. He recently began pardoning people with smalltime marijuana convictions. The widespread endorsement for national marijuana reform among Democrats tracks the nation’s evolving views. In the late 1960s _ the era of Woodstock and Vietnam – 12 percent of Americans supported legalization, according to the Gallup poll. By last year, the figure hit a record

66 percent. About 75 percent of Democrats support legalization, along with a slim majority of Republicans. Most Americans now live in states where marijuana is legal in some form. Pot dispensaries are familiar sights in cities like Los Angeles and Denver, and conservative strongholds like Utah and Oklahoma have established medical marijuana programs. To Mason Tvert of the Marijuana Policy Project, a pro-legalization advocacy group, it’s not surprising there’s broad support among candidates to end the federal prohibition. “It’s no longer popular to be in favor of marijuana prohibition,” Tvert said. But there are limits: “We are not seeing any candidates saying, `I am currently a marijuana user,”’ he added. The trajectory toward legal pot has come with generational change. In a 2003 Democratic presidential forum, candidates John Kerry, John Edwards and Howard Dean acknowledged using marijuana in the past. Former President Barack Obama has been open about his youthful drug use, sometimes with a jab of humor: “When I was a kid, I inhaled. Frequently. That was the point,” he said in 2006. In a recent radio interview on the syndicated “The Breakfast Club,” Harris recalled smoking pot in her college days in the 1980s. She was an early supporter of medical marijuana but the Los Angeles Times reported that in 2010, the year she was elected California attorney general, that Harris opposed an initiative to more broadly legalize marijuana. How potent the legal pot platform might be with voters in 2020 is only a guess. Polls show some of the strongest support comes from younger voters. In California, millennials are now the largest generation among registered voters. However, younger voters are also the most likely to stay home on Election Day, said Paul Mitchell of Political Data Inc., a nonpartisan research firm. President Donald Trump’s position on cannabis remains somewhat opaque. He has said he supports laws legalizing medical marijuana but hasn’t offered a definitive position on broader legalization. In a departure from his predecessor, Jeff Sessions, new Attorney General William Barr has said he will “not go after” marijuana companies in states where cannabis is legal, even though he personally believes the drug should be outlawed. Standing somewhat apart from the Democratic field is the man who presided over one of the first legal recreational marijuana marketplaces in the nation, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper.

come in and tell every state that it should be legal,” believing states should make their own determinations. “I trust this process by which states should be the models of, or laboratories of, democracy,” he said.

gaged in dialogue around NABJ’s call for CNN to prioritize diversity and inclusion. In an NAACP statement released March 6 in support of NABJ, the organization underscored NABJ’s concerns: “CNN’s lack of black representation in leadership roles is troubling and another example of the media industry’s reluctance to address an issue that continues to plague newsrooms across the country.”

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Hickenlooper opposed the ballot measure that fully legalized marijuana in Colorado in 2012. But he said he accepted the will of the voters and won praise for implementing the measure. He says his “worst fears” about legalization haven’t been realized and considers the system better than when the drug was illegal. Still, Hickenlooper isn’t willing to go as far as some competitors. Rather than calling for national legalization, he wants the drug to no longer be a Schedule 1 controlled substance so it can be studied. He doesn’t think the federal government “should

Smollett Indicted on 16 Counts Stemming from Reported Attack By DON BABWIN Associated Press CHICAGO (AP) – A grand jury in Chicago indicted “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett on 16 felony counts related to making a false report that he was attacked by two men who shouted racial and homophobic slurs. The Cook County grand jury indictment dated Thursday and made public on Friday gives details of the disorderly conduct charge against Smollett. It elaborates on the allegation that he falsely reported he was attacked on Jan. 29 by two masked men who hurled racial and homophobic slurs at the black and openly gay actor, beat him, threw an unidentified liquid chemical on him and looped a rope tied like a noose around his neck. The indictment _ eight counts from what he told the officer who responded to the report of the attack and eight for what he later told a detective _ comes a little more than two weeks after prosecutors announced one felony count of the same charge. Chicago police initially investigated the incident as a possible hate crime but later said Smollett staged the attack, recruiting two brothers to carry it out, because he was unhappy with his pay on the Fox show. An attorney for Smollett, Mark Geragos, called the indictment “prosecutorial overkill.” He said Smollett “adamantly maintains his innocence.” “This redundant and vindictive indictment is nothing more than a desperate attempt to make headlines in order to distract from the internal investigation launched to investigate the outrageous leaking of false information by the Chicago Police Department,” Geragos said. During the investigation of the incident, several Chicago media reported that there were doubts about Smollett's account, quoting unnamed sources. Some local media have reported that the police department is investigating

alleged leaks. While it was not immediately clear why the grand jury indicted Smollett on 16 counts, it divides what prosecutors and police say the actor told the officer who responded to the initial call from what he said to the detective. The second eight counts are more explosive because they include two things that helped propel the incident into an international sensation. The first is that by the time he talked to the detective, Smollett said he could see through the eye holes of one attacker's mask that he was a white man. The two brothers who allegedly participated are black. “He took advantage of the pain and anger of racism to promote his career,” Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, who is black, told reporters the day Smollett was initially charged. Johnson said Smollett paid the two brothers $3,500 to carry out the staged attack. The second eight counts also include the allegation that Smollett told the detective one of the attackers looped a rope around his neck _ a detail that both Johnson and the judge who set Smollett's bond said was a particularly offensive use of a symbol of the ugly history of black lynchings in the United States. The indictment, written in the dry legal language, does not include new details. It says that Smollett knew at the time he relayed his account that he had “no reasonable ground that such an offense had been committed.” Since Smollett’s arrest, the producers of “Empire” announced that the actor's character would be removed from the season's final two episodes. Fox network and the studio that produces “Empire” had no immediate comment on the latest indictment.

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