Eric Deggans

1965—

Television and media critic

Professional athletes know that if the opposing team's fans are booing, the athletes are doing something right. The same is true for today's media pundits: If one is not getting called nasty names, one is not pushing the envelope far enough. So when Fox News host Bill O'Reilly started hurling invectives at Eric Deggans, media critic for the Florida-based St. Petersburg Times, he knew that he had arrived. Since starting at the Times in 1995—becoming the paper's first-ever media critic—Deggans has provided timely and thoughtful, and sometimes controversial, reporting on trends in the national media, with a particular focus on the way in which minorities are portrayed. In his columns and blogs, he presses readers to reconsider racial stereotypes and to observe how they play out in the popular media.

Deggans was born in Washington, DC, in 1965, but grew up in the industrial city of Gary, Indiana. He attended Indiana University at Bloomington, where he earned a bachelor's degree in political science and journalism. He began his professional career as a reporter in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, contributing to the Pittsburgh Press from 1990 to 1992 and to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from 1990 to 1993. During that time he helped to create a minority affairs reporting position at the Post-Gazette, and worked with the Pennsylvania State Troopers Academy to develop a training program on racial sensitivity for new recruits. In 1993 Deggans moved to the Asbury Park Press newspaper in New Jersey, writing as a music critic. Notably, he covered the Woodstock '94 music festival and wrote an important feature on the antiracist skinhead movement.

In 1995 Deggans was hired by the St. Petersburg Times, where he started out as a pop music critic, covering events such as the MTV Music Video Awards in New York City. Within a few years he expanded his role to cover media and television, writing reviews and news stories as well as longer features on trends in the local and national media. He joined the Times's editorial board in 2004, then returned to writing criticism, first as a media critic in 2005 and then as a television critic in 2006.

Deggans entered the blogosphere in 2006, writing the Feed, a blog on television, media, and pop culture published by the St. Petersburg Times, and occasion- ally for the Huffington Post, a liberal news Web site. Though his criticism encompasses all aspects of the popular media, Deggans focuses on media portrayals—particularly stereotypes—of minorities.

For example, in a 2004 column in the St. Petersburg Times, "Jayson Blair and the Fear Factor," Deggans considered the aftershocks of the scandal surrounding Jayson Blair, the discredited New York Times reporter accused of plagiarism and fabrication. Describing what Deggans saw as an impossible double standard for journalists of color, he wrote, "Minority journalists, already worried about being taken seriously in their newsrooms, now see a new hurdle to overcome. Taught that we have to be twice as good to get half as far, we now worry there's no room for error." He went on to say, "It's an unfortunate truth: If a black journalist turns out to be a mediocre hire or worse, the finger-pointing begins in a way white journalists rarely face." If Blair had been a middle-aged white reporter rather than a young black one, Deggans wondered, would he have received the same treatment?

Over the course of several years, Deggans became known for arousing the ire of conservative Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, who famously called Deggans a "race baiter" in 2008. Indeed, Deggans had been an outspoken opponent of O'Reilly since at least 2002, when he called the Fox host a "gasbag" in a column about O'Reilly's use of racially charged language when talking about rap music. Deggans continued his jabs in 2005, criticizing the stereotypes employed by O'Reilly and other conservative pundits to characterize the mainly black victims of Hurricane Katrina. O'Reilly fired back two days later on the Fox News Web site, calling Deggans a "dishonest, racially motivated correspondent writing for perhaps the worst newspaper in the country."

In September of 2007 Deggans again took aim at O'Reilly, commenting on the latter's infamous trip to a Harlem restaurant and the surprise he expressed on his show at having been treated so well. Blogging for the Huffington Post, Deggans wrote, "In O'Reilly's world, black people were either vocal protesters like [Al] Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, or straight-up thugs like N.W.A. After his trip to Sylvia's, O'Reilly seems amazed to meet black folks who don't fit his disconnected stereotype of what we are."

The war of words between Deggans and O'Reilly came to a head in April of 2008, after Deggans mentioned a reference to lynching that O'Reilly had made on his radio program. In his "Talking Points" column for April 8, 2008, O'Reilly wrote, "One of the biggest race baiters in the country writes for the St. Petersburg Times newspaper. Eric Deggans also serves as the chairman of the Black Journalist Media Monitoring Committee. Deggans takes delight in branding people racist. Senator Joseph McCarthy would love this guy." At the time, Deggans served as chair of the Media Monitoring Committee of the National Association of Black Journalists, which "monitor[s] the national media for discrimination and other injustices to people in the African diaspora in their coverage and employment practices," according to the association's Web site. Taking O'Reilly's comments as a sign of his success as a critic, Deggans blogged on the Huffington Post, boasting it was "My Proudest Moment as a Pundit."

At a Glance …

Born in November of 1965 in Washington, DC; married Barbara; children: four, including Marcus, Zoe, and Jessica. Education: Indiana University at Bloomington, BA, political science and journalism, 1990.

Career: Pittsburgh Press, reporter, 1990-92; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, reporter, 1990-93; Asbury Park Press, music critic, 1993-95; St. Petersburg Times, music critic, television and media critic, and editorial writer/ columnist, 1995—; has worked as a lecturer and educator.

Memberships: Tampa Bay Area Chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, president; National Association of Black Journalists, Media Monitoring Committee, chair; Television Critics Association.

Awards: Award of Excellence, Mid-Florida Chapter, Society of Professional Journalists, 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2003; Best Newspaper Columnist, Weekly Planet magazine, 2000; First Place, Criticism, Florida Society of Newspaper Editors, 2003; Let's Do It Better! Award for Excellence in Race and Ethnicity Coverage, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, 2005; Chuck Stone Award, National Association of Black Journalists, 2005; First Place, Minority News, Florida Press Club, 2007.

Addresses: Office—c/o St. Petersburg Times, 490 First Ave. S., St. Petersburg, FL 33701-4223. Web—http://ericdeggans.com/index.htm.

In addition to his writing, Deggans has spoken as a guest lecturer at Indiana University, the University of South Florida, and St. Petersburg College, and he has taught as an adjunct faculty member at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg and the University of South Florida. In 2003-04 he was an ethics fellow at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, and in 2005 he lectured at Columbia University's prestigious School of Journalism as the winner of its Let's Do It Better! Award for coverage of race and ethnicity.

Deggans has received numerous awards for his criticism. The Mid-Florida Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists granted him its Award of Excellence four times, in 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2003. The Atlanta chapter of that organization named him a finalist in the criticism category for its Green Eyeshades Award in 1999 and awarded him a second-place prize in 2003. The Florida Society of Newspaper Editors named Deggans the top critic in 2003, and he earned a second-place award in criticism writing from the Florida Press Club as well that year. In 2005 he received the Chuck Stone Salute to Excellence Award from the National Association of Black Journalists for his column "Jayson Blair and the Fear Factor." The Florida Press Club once again recognized him in 2007 with another second-place award in criticism writing, as well as with a first-place award in the minority news category.

Selected writings

Periodicals

"Wallowing in Corruption," St. Petersburg Times, March 28, 2002, p. 1D.

"Jayson Blair and the Fear Factor," St. Petersburg Times, March 21, 2004, p. 1P.

"Add to Katrina's Toll Race-Tinged Rhetoric," St. Petersburg Times, September 14, 2005, p. 6A.

"A Year Later, Imus' Racist Remarks Scandal Yields Surprising Conclusions," St. Petersburg Times, April 4, 2008.

Online

"Judging Bill O'Reilly: Why His Comments about Lunch in Harlem Matter," Huffington Post, September 26, 2007, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ericdeggans/judging-bill-oreilly-wh_b_65914.html (accessed October 24, 2008).

"My Proudest Moment as a Pundit: Bill O'Reilly Calls Me a Race Baiter," Huffington Post, April 8, 2008, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-deggans/my-proudest-moment-as-a-p_b_95610.html (accessed August 27, 2008).

Sources

Online

"Eric Deggans," Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-deggans (accessed August 27, 2008).

"Eric Deggans, TV & Media Critic," St. Petersburg Times online, http://www2.sptimes.com/pdfs/profiles06/deggans_eric.pdf (accessed October 24, 2008).

O'Reilly, Bill, "Celebrating America's Tragedy," Fox News, September 16, 2005, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,169563,00.html (accessed August 27, 2008).

O'Reilly, Bill, "White Backlash against Reverend Wright and Racist Accusations," Fox News, April 8, 2008, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,347969,00.html (accessed August 27, 2008).

—Deborah A. Ring