Playboy invents a 'Black KKK' controversy

This is one of those stories where you can just see that someone is going to end up apologizing and/or resigning.

Jason Whitlock, a black columnist for the Kansas City Star, wrote a column for Playboy magazine that is to appear in the May 9 edition. According to Whitlock, the column wil have a headline that will read:

“The Black KKK.” A subheadline will state: “Hip Hop is killing Black America, and it’s time to do something about it.”

Whitlock says this is a complete distortion of what he wrote with the intention of generating a controversy and ginning a racial controversy. Playboy has even, Whitlock says, tried to drag Barack Obama into it by accusing him of being unable to stop this "Black KKK."

Here is what Whitlock says the column is about:

The story isn’t about the Black KKK. The words do not appear in the 5,000-word column. None of the sources quoted in the story or spoken to on background ever heard those words come out of my mouth, and they never spoke them to me. The story isn’t about hip-hop killing Black America.

The story is about the astronomical financial and cultural price we all — black, white, brown and yellow — are paying for locking up 2.3 million of our citizens. The piece focuses on California’s penal system, the state’s too-powerful prison guard union, Jim Brown’s anti-gang-violence organization and Mexican-black hostility.

Nowhere in the column, Whitlock says, does he ever use the words "Black KKK."

That phrase came from the No. 2 guy at Playboy -- Chris Napolitano -- despite Whitlock's objections.

He’s going to do this over my objections and the strong disapproval of his executive editor, Lee Froehlich, the man who worked with me crafting the piece. Napolitano is going to do this being fully aware that he is being completely unfair to the sources who took genuine risks working with me on the story. He’s been told that his framing of the story will prevent the majority of people from digesting the substance of what was written.

He doesn’t care. He has a sexy headline he wants to promote and magazines to sell.

It apparently doesn't matter if it's wrong or misleading or inaccurate. It'll stir the pot and sell magazines.

But wait, it gets worse.

Playboy plans on heavily promoting the piece and drafted a publicity letter to send out to newspapers and magazines encouraging them to interview Whitlock. In the original draft of that letter, according to Whitlock, was an attempt to use the "Black KKK" against Barack Obama.

Among the many crimes of the original pitch letter was its deliberate attempt to single out Barack Obama for special criticism: “With thug life destroying black America and prisons taking on an increasing number of inmates, Whitlock questions presidential candidate Barack Obama’s political ability to address this issue. Whitlock says it is a sensitive subject for Senator Obama to address without seeming too nonwhite.”

Apparently Playboy is going to go ahead with the piece and Whitlock can do no more about it other than criticize Playboy, as he does in his KC Star piece. Whitlock relates a conversation with Lee Froehlich, the Playboy editor who worked with him on the piece and lost an argument with Napolitano over the headline.

When I talked with Froehlich on April 23, he told me he lost a battle with Napolitano about what to call my story. Froehlich said I had two options: 1. Refuse to cooperate with the media campaign; 2. Criticize Playboy for the headlines in subsequent interviews.

Froehlich also promised to have Napolitano call me and explain his decision. Napolitano did call me that day. He expressed regret that we had had poor communication during the process of writing and headlining the story. I responded that I talked with Froehlich consistently and filed the story well in advance, giving Playboy plenty of time to digest the story and properly headline it. I also explained that besides being totally inaccurate and exploitive, the headlines were unfair to the sources that cooperated with me on the story.

Napolitano, again, expressed regret but assured me it was too late for Playboy to change course.