Date: Wed, 17 Jan 96 15:56:46 EST From: coatesrd@casmail.muohio.edu (Rodney Coates) Reply-To: coatesrd@casmail.muohio.edu (Rodney Coates) To: ABSLST-L@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU, abfas@lib.muohio.edu, AFROAM-L , Racial-Religious-EthnoNationalist Violence Studies bsimcock@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu, jhamill@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu, jmlynch@miavx3.bitnet@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu, jsubedi@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu, lgroger@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu, lynchjm@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu, marchant@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu, marty , phillips_kay2@msmail.muohio.edu, rapple@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu, ratchley@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu, rdcoates@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu, @miamiu.acs.muohio.edu:rlseufer@miavx3.bitnet, satchley@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu, srkunkel@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu, @miamiu.acs.muohio.edu:ssubedi@miavx2.bitnet, tcwagena@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu Subject: CBS and Racism: fyi from another list: =========BEGIN FORWARDED MESSAGE========= >Received: from nova.unix.portal.com (nova.unix.portal.com [156.151.1.101]) by X-Info: Accepted by bay-drum distribution list at Wed Jan 17 09:54:40 PST 1996 From: "Jackson, Brian" To: Talib Karim Subject: Mr. Pike Date: Wed, 17 Jan 96 09:59:00 PST Encoding: 88 TEXT Here is the article from 1/16/96 CBS Studies Racism Charge By LAWRIE MIFFLIN c.1996 N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK - CBS began an internal investigation Tuesday to determine whether a high-level executive in its entertainment division made racist remarks at a meeting with a comedy troupe called the State, as asserted in an article in Details magazine. John Pike, the senior vice president of late-night and non-network programming for CBS, met with the 10-member comedy troupe and two producers late last summer to discuss a comedy special they were taping for CBS. There, according to the article, he told them that African-Americans were an important segment of viewers to attract because they had no jobs and could stay up to watch late-night television; because they could not follow hourlong dramas and enjoyed comedy sketches, and because network television, unlike cable, is free. David Lipsky, a freelance writer whose assignment for Details was to cover the State for six weeks as they worked to develop their show for CBS, reported the remarks, in paraphrase, in an article for the February issue of Details. The article also includes a disclaimer by Pike: ``I would never have said any of those things.'' The article, written in the present tense, notes that Lipsky was not in the room at the meeting. Reached by telephone Tuesday, Lipsky said he had been told about Pike's remarks by troupe members. ``I heard it from several sources,'' he said, ``and reconfirmed it myself, and the magazine's fact-checkers reconfirmed it again.'' Pike could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but he is quoted in this week's Variety, where he calls Lipsky's article ``a totally unfair characterization.'' According to Variety, Pike said he had told the comedy troupe that the late-night audience has a significant African-American component, and that ``the minority community was a voracious consumer of comedy material,'' as well as ``voracious consumers of free television.'' CBS Entertainment president Leslie Moonves issued a statement saying the allegations were serious and would be promptly investigated. 00:19 EST JANUARY 17, 1996 NYT-01-16-96 2250EST NYTviaNewsEDGE :TICKER: WX :SUBJECT: BCST LIFE PA INDG Copyright (c) 1996 The New York Times Co. Received by NewsEDGE/LAN: 1/16/96 11:21 PM ---------------------------------------------------------------------- --------- Bay Drum - An African American E-mail Network Serving the SF Bay Area To make a posting, send a message to bay-drum@tomato.com To subscribe to Bay Drum, send a message to bay-drum-admin@tomato.com To contact the administrator, send a message to bay-drum-admin@tomato.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- --------- For the Community Information Pages (a listing of African American businesses and services in the SF Bay Area), send a message to cip@love.corp.hp.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- --------- Bay Drum World Wide Web Site - http://www.tomato.com/~baydrum/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- --------- ----- End Included Message ----- =========END FORWARDED MESSAGE========= "Only when lions have Historians will hunters cease being heroes." African Proverb UMOJA, Still in the struggle Rodney D. Coates Director of Black World Studies Associate Professor of Sociology Miami University Oxford, Ohio - 45056 PH: 513-5291235