Civic News Library Listening Series May 17 in Boston

ON MAY 17, BOSTON-AREA EXPERTS TO DISCUSS AND
SHARE CHANGES IN NEWS AT COMMUNITY LEVEL;
FIRST NENF “CIVIC NEWS LIBRARY LISTENING” EVENT

BOSTON — Sweeping changes in the technology and economics of news that create new opportunities for building community are the topic when the New England News Forum holds its first “Civic News Library Listening Series” event Thurs., May 17 at the Boston Public Library.

The 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. event is free and public and will include a Q&A session during which the audience can share ideas and initiatives at local community building. The session is entitled: “Restoring Media Trust: The News Revolution — What It Means to Your Community?”
Among expert speakers will be John Wilpers, editor of BostonNOW, the new free daily newspaper;  Ellen Hume, director of the Center on Media & Society at UMass-Boston and founder of the New England Ethnic News Wire, Callie Crossley, of WGBH’s “Beat the Press” and NPR’s “News & Notes,” and Lisa Williams, originator of H2Otown.info, a citizens-news website for the city of Watertown and an acknowledged expert on so-called “placeblogs” — a term she’s coined and will explain.

FULL STORY:   http://www.newenglandnews.org/?q=library
PDF VERSION:  http://www.mediagiraffe.org/pdf/library-boston.pdf
PROGRAM: http://dbs.hosting.crocker.com/wiki/index.php/Library
WHO’S COMING: http://dbs.hosting.crocker.com/wiki/index.php/Library- boston-roster
PDF POSTER:   http://www.mediagiraffe.org/library/poster.pdf

Citizen Journalism “Unconference” August 7, 2006

Center for Citizen Media “Unconference”

August 7, 2006
9 am – 4pm
Harvard Law School, Pound Hall

On August 7, Berkman Center fellow and Center for Citizen Media director Dan Gillmor will host a day of discussion on citizen media at Harvard Law School. The purpose is to brainstorm some key aspects of citizen journalism, including principles, techniques, tools, business models and more. The conference will be in the “unconference” format, where the audience are the experts and there are no formal panels, but rather skilled moderators and session leaders drawing out what we collectively know so we can learn from each other.

Moderators include Steve Garfield, Andrew Lih, Phil Malone, Tom Stites, Lisa Williams, and Ethan Zuckerman.

The gathering will take place at Harvard Law School’s Pound Hall, beginning at 9 a.m. and finishing at around 4 p.m. We’ll also plan to have birds-of-a-feather dinners in Cambridge, most likely hosted by several speakers, for those who want to stick around. The cost of the day is $20 at the door, to cover food costs (we’ll provide morning coffee, lunch and an afternoon snack). Registration is limited to 100 people, so sign up today!

More information: http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Journalism
To Register: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/rsvp_cmunconference-08-07

Watch the MGP2006 Live Video Webstream

MGP2006, Democracy & Independence: Sharing News and Politics in a Connected World, is underway today through Saturday at UMass Amherst. Watch the live webstream here: http://www.mediagiraffe.org/live/

Visit the MGP2006 blog to access the conference schedule and join the conversation online.

If you’re blogging the conference, make sure to tag your posts with “MGP2006“, to see what others are saying about the event.

Democracy and the Press: The Role of Journals of Opinion

(via Boston Mobilization Events Listings)

Cambridge Forum

A panel of editors and publishers discusses the role of "journals of opinion "as alternative news sources in the era of Internet news and individual blogs. Victor Navasky, publisher emeritus of The Nation; Jack Beatty, senior editor of The Atlantic; and Robert Kuttner, co-founder of The American Prospect, examine the prospects for small journals committed to in-depth reporting and analysis and thought-provoking partisanship. In the rapidly changing media landscape, will there continue to be a place for the non-mainstream press?

Co-sponsored by Brookline Adult and Continuing Education and the Friends of Fairsted.

Date and Time: 04/26/2006, 6:30 PM
Location: Boston Public Library, Cambridge Forum at 3 Church Street.
Contact: call 617-495-2727 or email to director@cambridgeforum.org.

CJR Daily on Fake News Reports in the MSM

Following up from Nicole's post on Thursday, I just found an article by Paul McLeary on CJR Daily about the troubling state of TNC's (transnational corporations) as MSM (mainstream media).

April 7, 2006
Fake News Takes Over Airwaves, Reporters Fall Asleep

"This week, lost in the unhealthy obsession with what Katie Couric's daughters and green grocer think about her move to the CBS News anchor chair, was an actual news story that both business and media reporters should be all over.

As CJR Daily noted yesterday, the New York Times reported that an alarming number of local television news stations across the country are still airing manufactured reports as news without disclosing that the segments are actually produced by corporations pitching new products…"

Leary ends by saying, "We were hoping we'd see some follow-up pieces today; it's hard to understand why so many business and media writers seem to think that this is a non-story.

But then, we guess they need to keep those phone lines open, just in case Katie Couric's hairdresser has a bit of gossip to share."

Read the article here.

Democracy Now! exposé featuring Center for Media & Democracy

If you get a chance, check out today's Democracy Now! where they devote the whole show to the issue of Video News Releases.

A new report by the Center for Media and Democracy reveals the continued widespread use of "VNR'S" in television news broadcasts.

Democracy Now! interviews the authors of the report as well as FCC commissioner Jonathan Adelstein and an "expert" featured in several paid Video News Releases.

Check out the show here

Read the full report here

ACT here

State Of The News Media 2006

An excellent yearly report on current trends across media from Journalism.org. A must read!

"The State of the News Media 2006 is the third in our annual effort to provide a comprehensive look each year at the state of American journalism.

Our goal is to put in one place as much original and aggregated data as possible about each of the major journalism sectors.

For each area, we have produced original research and aggregated existing data into a comprehensive look at many of the pressing issues facing the news media. The statistical data also exists in an interactive area called Charts & Tables where users can customize their own charts. This year we took a new approach to the original content study by examining “A Day in the Life of the News,” a comprehensive look at how one day, May 11, 2005, was covered by the news culture nationally and in three cities locally. That look includes audio, video and photo links to offer users specific examples of the news reports that day.

The study is the work of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, an institute affiliated with Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. The study is funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, and was produced with a number of partners, including Rick Edmonds of the Poynter Institute, Michigan State University, the University of Missouri School of Journalism, and Andrew Tyndall of ADT Research.

The full report is comprehensive, totaling more than 178,000 words. Click here for info about printing pages from the report." – Journalism.org

Participate.net – (Who’s) Report(ing) It Now

There's a campaign over at Participate.net, titled "Report It Now", a project created by an interesting alliance of partners: ACLU, Free Press, Channel One News (huh?), Salon.com, & XM Satellite.

The site has an email action to tell your local media to "Restore the public trust in your news coverage", tips on how to report a story in your community, ways for parents to talk about the news with their kids, lesson plans for teachers, and more.

There's also a number of "authors" contributing to the site including Tim Karr (Free Press), JD Lasica (Ourmedia), and Norman Lear. While it's an impressive roster, it's whitewashed and male dominated. There isn't a single person of color on the list of "authors" and it's 8 to 3, men to women contributors.

While I support online tools for media change, websites like Participate.net (and ACMEBoston) must work to build "Social Networks" across race, class, gender, and sexual-orientation both online and offline. We also have to participate in spreading resources and education to those who are already online and to make sure that content is relevant (see Andy Carvin's "At the U of Missouri Scholarly Communications Conference" and listen to the podcast).

As Lakshmi Chaudhry writes in the February 6 edition of In These Times,

"At a time when the visible digital divide may be shrinking as increasing numbers of Americans come online, it may be replaced by an invisible version that benefits those who are well-educated, well-connected and organized." – "Can Blogs Revolutionize Progressive Politics?"

Who Wants to Hear Our Story?

(via Chuck Sherwood)

Communications and Contemporary Native Americans:
A Media Symposium
March 2-3, 2006 in Washington, DC

"The absence of U.S. media coverage about Native American communities means that Indian Country today is a mystery to most people. While there are rampant stereotypes, realities and cultural strengths remain hidden.

Come participate in a conversation about Indian Country with the goal of engaging more people with issues affecting indigenous peoples in the United States." – Friends Committee on National Legislation.

Native American Struggle to Obtain a Real Hearing

"Who wants to hear our stories?
How can we best explain or convey our circumstances to others?
Can we forthrightly discuss current controversies?"

Event Endorsements

"We have criminally little to do with Indian Country…Our coverage is wildly inadequate." ~ Steve Coll, The Washington Post

For more information visit The Native American Media Symposium.

Panel Addresses Relationships between Media, Race, and Policy

(via Civil Rights.org)

By civilrights.org staff
civilrights.org
December 19, 2005

The media often stimulate racial animosity, participants in a December 6 panel discussion at the U.S. Capitol said.

The panel, speaking at a briefing sponsored by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, said that the mass media convey impressions that whites occupy different moral universes from African Americans, Hispanics, and other people of color.

While the media do occasionally convey images of harmony and similarity, the impact of positive images is often swamped by the preponderance of the more common and vivid negative images, and by the effects of systematic omissions.

Professor Robert Entman of N.C State University presented new data on the way the media operate, the images they produce, and the influence they exert, concluding that these negative images have negative impact on both people of color and whites.

Among Entman's findings: local TV newscasts stereotype issues of crime and poverty; network newscasts rarely feature black and Latino experts; and black politicians receive more critical coverage than white politicians.

The situation in fiction media is equally bleak, with a paucity of what Entman called "serious" roles for African Americans, and "stereotyped, niche roles" for Latinos and Asian Americans.

A report issued December 1 by the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition (APAMC) gives middling grades to the networks on their efforts to increase diversity before and behind the camera.

According to the report, The 2005 Asian Pacific American Report Card on Television Diversity, no major network earned an overall grade better than a C+. Grades are based on data provided by ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX.

"Primetime television this season does not mirror the realities of the growing numbers of Asian Pacific Americans in the USA," Karen Narasaki, president of the Asian American Justice Center and APAMC chair said.

Narasaki participated in the December 6 LCCREF panel, along with Kareem Shora, director, Legal Department / Policy, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee; Gloria Tristani, managing director, Office of Communication, United Church of Christ, Inc. and former FCC commissioner; and Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president and CEO, Media Access Project.