They are two issues that are being hotly debated among minority journalists.</p><p>And sentiment on both came out at the Unity: Journalists of Color convention in Chicago.</p><p>Should journalists of color applaud or stand up during Sen. Barack Obama&#8217;s speeches? And did the recent <em>New Yorker</em> cover depicting Obama in a turban, fist-bumping his gun-toting wife, cross the line of good taste?</p><p><em>Newsday</em> editor and author Les Payne, who is a founder of the National Association of Black Journalists, fielded both questions in a forum Sunday. Payne has been an outspoken critic of racism in politics and the media.</p><p>Journalists covering candidates shouldn&#8217;t applaud, Payne said.</p><p>&#8220;However, I should remind you that all journalists do,&#8221; Payne said. &#8220;They clap for President Bush.&#8221;</p><p>Payne said he has attended the American Society of Newspaper Editors convention, where he&#8217;s seen members clapping routinely when a candidate makes a favorable remark. The same occurs at dinners at the White House for news correspondents.</p><p>&#8220;Those are our bosses,&#8221; Payne said. &#8220;They all clap. They all stand up. They all cheer them as if they&#8217;re rock stars.&#8221;</p><p>Payne contends there&#8217;s a double standard for minority journalists when they write favorably of Obama.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s analyzed as if under a microscope,&#8221; Payne said. &#8220;This is what gets me &#8212; this total duality.&#8221;</p><p>Payne criticized mainstream media for engaging in unbalanced coverage when it comes to Sen. John McCain.</p><p>&#8220;There&#8217;s no question that the mainstream journalists almost worship and love McCain,&#8221; Payne said. &#8220;They cheer for him all the time. Now we&#8217;re going to take our black journalists, our Latino journalists and our Asian journalists and say: &#8216;You cannot do this. You cannot do what we do routinely.&#8217;</p><p>&#8220;Well, you&#8217;ve been writing favorable stories about Bush for eight years.&#8221;</p><p>Payne also weighed in on the recent flap surrounding the <em>New Yorker </em>cover. The magazine&#8217;s editors have defended the cover, calling it satire.</p><p>Payne said satire should remain an open form of expression.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not so much that I didn&#8217;t get it,&#8221; Payne said. &#8220;It did not work. They said they were poking fun at the people who say Barack Obama is a bin Laden type. They were poking fun at them.</p><p>&#8220;The target of satire can&#8217;t be offstage. If the target of that cartoon was Archie Bunker types, then Archie Bunker could have been stereotyped. No. They stereotyped Obama. &#8230; It didn&#8217;t work.&#8221;</p><p>&#8226;&#8226;&#8226;</p><p>Lacy Banks, a pioneer columnist at the <em>Chicago Sun-Times</em> and a former <em>Kansas City Star </em>reporter, was one of the sports legends singled out in Chicago at the Sam Lacy Pioneer Awards program, an event given by the National Association of Black Journalists&#8217; Sports Task Force.</p><p>Banks, a mentor to many black sportswriters, is fighting prostate cancer, brain cancer and congestive heart failure. Banks now blogs on his illness.</p><p>He started his career in 1965, when he helped integrate the ranks of <em>The Star</em>. He was later hired by the <em>Sun-Times </em>to be its Bulls beat writer and a weekly columnist. Over the years, Banks has interviewed an array of sports celebrities, including Muhammad Ali, Ernie Banks, Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell.</p><p>By the way, Banks graduated from Sumner High School in Kansas City, Kan., in 1961.