Youth Radio - Topic: Journalism

Reframing Mexico: Journalism Students Capture Day By Day Stories

rgee — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 16:35:27 -0500

Journalism students who walked into Professor Pat Davison’s multimedia and digital storytelling class at the University of North Carolina School of Journalism in January, were faced with a huge challenge. International reporting has long been a staple of their program, and this year, the students were teaming up with students at Tecnólogico de Monterrey in Mexico City to create documentaries about life in Mexico. However, the class was mandated to stay away from the drug war for safety reasons.

After racking their brains for angles to take, one student said, “I don’t think we should try to avoid [the drug war], instead we should make it our focus and look at everything beyond the drug war.” This is how the project “Reframing Mexico” began. “All you hear from Mexico are negative headlines and the drug war, but there’s a lot more to it than that. This was a good broad umbrella. The goal was to paint a picture of Mexico City that goes beyond headlines,” said Davison.

The class’s final project ended up being recently re-published in the Washington Post. It is a series of short documentaries that zero in on a character--each one highlights an issue that the group wanted to tackle. Davison’s students partnered with students in a documentary journalism class at Tecnólogico de Monterrey, and the teams worked to find contacts for the stories. Davison’s class only had eight days in Mexico City to do the physical reporting, not much time to counteract the unpredictable.

"Free To Love" -- Megan Camm

Megan Camm, a Master’s student in the UNC journalism program, had planned to report on the religious ceremony of Santa Muerte. But the story required being in a dangerous neighborhood. “My Mexican partners didn’t feel comfortable spending the time we needed,” said Camm. So she ended up working on the story of Tania, a mother raising her baby in prison. The short video tells the story of Tania Yuridia Granados Monroy speaking about what it was like to raise her baby in prison, without the help of her mother or grandmother. Mothers are allowed to raise their children in prison until the age of six. But the film noticeably leaves out Tania's crime.

According to Camm, there were many unexpected restrictions and several people who worked at the prison were present during the interview. “We’d been told you get two days of full access, but when we got there, they only gave us a one hour interview. They told us we couldn’t ask about why she was in prison, or her crime,” said Camm. “I asked her why she was in prison, she responded it was related to kidnapping charges...I wanted her to elaborate, but they wouldn’t let her talk about her case at all,” said Camm. “They said that because the story was about being a mother in prison, I could only ask questions about being a mother,” said Camm.

While she was in the prison, she was not allowed to shoot footage freely. “We were strictly controlled the whole time. They didn’t allow us in the second day, they took away our access,” she said. But according to Camm, the prisoners seemed comfortable with the documentary team being there. Tania was more than willing to let Camm shoot footage of her and her baby, if the prison had allowed it. Looking back on the experience, Camm thinks Tania’s story raises important questions about child development. “I didn’t know that there were any prisons that allowed mothers to have their children...Is it better to be with the mother in prison...versus the foster system? I think those are really important questions especially for the children who are in the prison system right now,” she said.

Free to Love from UNC | Carolina Photojournalism on Vimeo.

"To Overcome" -- Vanessa Patchett

Vanessa Patchett started out looking at the huge issue of prejudice in Mexico City. Originally, her team was going to look at Skinheads and counter-cultural movements among youth. But it fell through. Their next idea was looking at the stigma and prejudice around disability, and her teammates in Mexico found the perfect subject: Luis. Luis lost his arm in a factory accident, and the short video details his struggle with fighting the severe prejudice against people who are not physically capable. He battled depression and poverty before he finally found work again.

For Patchett, the language barrier was huge, and while she had prepared questions ahead of time, she relied entirely on her Mexican teammates. “During the interview I had to rely on my teammates entirely. I understood the emotional story, because the interview got very emotional, but I didn’t want to keep stopping the interview to understand,” she said. Another challenge was probing at an issue that society refuses to acknowledge. “You ask, and they say there is no problem, no stigma. It’s not recognized and yet it’s so obvious,” said Patchett.

She said she noticed certain things while walking through the city streets that make life difficult for people with disabilities. “You can’t get on the Metro unless you walk up twenty stairs. It’s in the way the streets are laid out,” she said. “With Luis in particular, when I met him we saw firsthand that he’s so capable. He’s so skilled as a worker, but to hear how much discrimination he faced just because he has a disability--that was a very rude awakening,” said Patchett.

To Overcome from UNC | Carolina Photojournalism on Vimeo.

Reporting September 11th

denise — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 18:39:35 -0500

In the weeks following 9-11 my elementary school had us read TIME for Kids. The magazine ran endless images of firemen carrying victims. With the nation gravely wounded, the media helped create heroes and too often the heroes were men.

The book I’m reading for school, the Terror Dream by Susan Faludi, got me thinking about all this. For example, Sandra Bradshaw a flight attendant on flight 93, scolded hijackers with boiling pots of water but her actions were largely ignored. Instead, Newsweek painted the picture of hysterical female flight attendant screaming for help. There was no room for other narratives.

Now, 10 years after those attacks, I hope we recognize the heroes who didn’t fit the mold and think twice about how we document and report future tragedies. In times of crisis, I know it’s hard to see a situation for what it is and then report on it honestly. But shouldn’t that be the aim of journalism.

Belva Davis: Black, Female, and Breaking News for 40 Years

rgee — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 17:45:35 -0500

Belva Davis has true grit. Maybe you’ve never heard of her, but as she puts it - there were people dying in the south for her right to make it as the first black, female journalist in the West. There was no room for failure.

“Being beaten, being jailed - all of that had preceded my opportunity to do this work. I couldn’t let any possibility of not using all that I had to succeed - interfere with the journey to make it to the point of acceptance in the business,” said Davis.

Davis just released her memoir, “Never in My Wildest Dreams,” where you can find her stories about major moments in history - like covering the AIDS epidemic when the topic was still taboo. She was the first to interview an AIDS patient on live TV.

“The problem was - nobody knew how you contracted AIDS back then. People thought that if you were in the room with someone or they touched something that you could get AIDS. When my interviewee arrived, the technicians refused to mic that person - they didn’t want to be close to them. The woman medical reporter, a woman producer and me - we just took over. The nurse mic-ed him, we did the interview, the story went on,” said Davis. “My job was to humanize him as an individual... He would say, ‘My name is Bobby and I have AIDS, but I’m still a human being.’”

Although the spread of AIDS was a huge news story in San Francisco, stations all over town refused to interact with AIDS patients except for Davis and her team.

Not all of Davis’ stories in the memoir are about bravery. She never had formal training or a college education, so she had to pick up skills along the way. As a young, black, female reporter, there were definitely moments when she was shaking in her boots, like when she interviewed Frank Sinatra at the height of his popularity when the media was totally segregated.

“He got to select who he wanted to talk to, and looking out at the sea of people he chose me... I went in, I felt insecure, I was nervous, I was shaking, I was on the verge of tears. He asked me, ‘What’s the matter?’ And I said, ‘I’m nervous Mr. Sinatra.’ And he took this long draw on his cigarette and blew smoke out and legs crossed he said, ‘Don’t ever apologize for being nervous. The first day I walk out on the stage and I’m not nervous, is the day I quit.’ That was a moment that carried me through,” she said.

Before television, Davis worked in black radio. Like many other women, she worked in a clerical position, but she bargained for her own radio show in exchange. Even with her own show, she knew she was still on the bottom rung. She knew she could lose her job with any missteps -- including one ill fated encounter with soul legend James Brown that she laughs about now.

“I always ended up working late. One night I’m there, talking to a friend, I said - ‘God, I gotta get out of here, that little old ugly James Brown is due in here any moment and I don’t want to be here when he gets here.’ There was silence for a moment and then I heard, ‘Ahem.’ I looked up and there indeed was little old James Brown. I started to cry, I knew my career was over...I think I must have looked so pitiful sitting there, the tears running down my face, thinking about my children - and he said to me “Honey, you don’t really think I’m ugly, do you?”

Throughout Davis’ career she’s been behind the typewriter, behind the microphone, and behind the camera. But she was also out in front during the civil rights movement. During the 60’s, a clause in the Miss America beauty pageant constitution sated that you had to be of the white race to participate. Davis started a black beauty pageant as a civil rights statement.

“We were holding this press conference and the photographer said ‘This is a great idea, a great cause - but I don’t know if it’s gonna make it... I tell ya what - if one of the girls will allow themselves to be thrown in the swimming pool - so that the girl comes out dripping wet - we may be able to get that into the paper’ - and it did, it made the Examiner,” said Davis.

A lot has changed since Davis was on the streets - covering the anti-war protests at UC Berkeley, or the birth of the Black panther movement. Today she hosts a news round-table program on KQED called, “This Week in Northern California,” where she discusses current events with local Bay Area reporters. She said the thing that has changed the most about journalism is the partisan divide.

“I can’t imagine a world where there’s a station you go to because of its political views… I had always preached in my early years that democracy depended upon us knowing something about each other and eventually recognizing each other as human beings with the same needs. If we couldn’t agree on that - we’re not fulfilling the dream of what America is,” she said.

That divided world is what today’s generation of journalists is coming into -- spin journalism sells. Davis says it hurts democracy. But she’s not completely old school. She regularly updates her Facebook and Twitter accounts. She’s come a long way for someone who grew up during the Great Depression. Her memoir purposely doesn’t ignore the barriers along the way -- hoping it will motivate the young people who will take her place in the industry.

Turnstyle Asks: Paying For News Online

rgee — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 16:44:29 -0500

By Denise Tejada, Turnstyle News

Would you pay for online access to news?

Turnstyle Asks: Paying for News Online from Turnstyle Video on Vimeo.

Maker's New Math: Hip Hip: For the Love of the Blogs

noah — Thu, 13 May 2010 14:07:14 -0500

Some of today's top hip hop bloggers met a packed house last month for the "If I Ruled the Blogosphere" Hip-Hop Bloggers Conference in Washington DC. I had front row seats as 2DopeBoyz co-founder Meka Udoh, Dallas Penn of Dallas Penn & the Internets Celebrities, OkayPlayer writer Jason Reynolds, Frank William Miller Jr. (FWMJ) of rappersiknow.com, and producer/emcee Odissee talked about everything from the genesis of the hip hop blog (actually that was just Dart Adams of the recently deceased poisonousparagraphs), to what they are doing to keep they're fans happy and their blogs afloat?

We play some clips from that conference and it sparks conversation around the motives of a maker.

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KUNM Youth Radio's Danya Mustafa Interviews Mohammed Omer

nmexico — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 10:55:17 -0500

I got to interview Mohammed Omer, a young Palestinian journalist from Gaza. Mohammed is only 25 and is already an award winning journalist. In 2008 he won the Martha Gellhorn prize for Journalism in London. When he came back to Palestine after winning the award, he went through the Allenby Border crossing on the Jordan-Israel border. He was brought into a small room where he was interrogated, tortured, and brutally beaten by Israeli forces.

He is now in the Netherlands where he receiving treatment and recovering from the incident in 2008. He still has mental and physical trauma from that incident. In the interview, Mohammed explains the importance of journalism and how it effects the youth. He also talks about his own personal experiences with journalism.

Speech Challenged

wilmer — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 13:42:13 -0600

As heard on WABE and KCBS.

By Kathleen Quillian

I remember in elementary school, we would go around the class taking turns reading aloud from out textbooks. I wished I could speak as clearly and as fast as some of the other students. But each time it was my turn to read, a cold sweat took over my entire body. My jaw would lock and I would get a sharp pain in my teeth. As I forced the words out of my mouth, I would stumble over the sentences. I hated reading in front of others – and I still do.

Even now as I am reading this commentary, I worry about losing my place, so I use my pointer finger to guide me. But I no longer slur my words together. Over the years, I have learned to take my time and enunciate. Concentrating on my speech has made me more observant of journalists who don’t have the so-called “perfect delivery.” I was recently watching Sunday Morning on CBS and heard a reporter, Mo Rocca, do a story about designer glasses. Wow! He has a really strong lisp. But his story was so witty and interesting, it was easy to forgive. And then there is Barbara Walters, of course. Her speech is certainly easy to criticize, but everyone overlooks it since she is one of the best journalists of our time.

We teach young school students that we should all try to sound the same when we talk… but that would be boring. I listen to all the lisps, stutters and accents on the radio and I am thankful – that I have a chance in this business!

Previously:

Birth Miracle

Young Dog Advice

Facebook Convert

Young Freelance Journalists Take Big Risks

noah — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 15:26:13 -0500

When Laura Ling and Euna Lee were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in a North Korean prison camp we asked Josh Wolf- who holds the record in the U.S. for the longest stay in prison for a reporter protecting his source material- about why reporters take risks.

In the wake of the release of Ling and Lee, and the capture of journalist Shane Bauer by Iran, KQED-FM in San Francisco had writer and editor Andrew Lam on as a guest to talk about the subject. In that conversation Mr. Lam- who works for New American Media- talked about how young freelance journalists are putting themselves into dangerous situations without the same training and resources that reporters who work for the big news organizations have.

We followed up with Mr. Lam today on that topic, and on how the rise of citizen journalism is affecting the quality of information in the media today.

Why do young journalists take risks?

I think young journalists taking risks the same way that young people want adventures. The romantic notion of an intrepid reporter is still a very seductive notion even in an age of video games and internet. They want adventure. They are moved by injustices they perceive. They want to make a difference. I took a lot of risks myself when I started. Being of Vietnamese descent I nevertheless went to Cambodia in the early 90s and interviewed ex-Khmer Rouge fighters. I felt compelled to go after seeing the movie The Killing Fields. I learned a lot. But I nearly got shot one time in Batambang - a barrel of gun on forehead - and that taught me about taking risks. Personally, I don't think any story is worth dying for, but I didn't learn that from being at home. I learned that from being out there.

In your recent KQED interview you mentioned that freelancers and bureau reporters face the same challenges with totally different levels of resources. How much more prepared/equipped are bureau reporters compared to freelancers, and what will it mean for journalism as the foreign bureaus of the major news agencies are cut back?

A friend of mine working for AP was trained for what to do when taken hostage, what to do when under ambush, physical training with the military and so on, before she was sent to Iraq. And she was embedded. In other cases, those from a major news organizations come to a dangerous situation well prepared - with armored vehicle, interpreters and armed guards. They are given a certain level of protection. But we are in an era of receding foreign bureaus and major news organizations are under siege - there's no guarantee that newspapers will recover even when the economy does. What it means is that there'll be fewer protection for journalists out there. Have you seen CNN the last year or so? The i-reporters are taking over in a sense when a big story breaks. "Are you there?" CNN would ask. "send us your story?" Citizen can be reporters. Citizens are ENCOURAGED to be reporters. And many are stoked by it. They become active agents rather than receiver of news.

But they are not protected when they are overseas. They don't get the armored vehicles. They don't get the armed guards. They are far more vulnerable than the bureau chief of AP or Newsweek in Baghdad. If you get shot you don't have the resource to fly out by emergency airlift to a hospital in Germany for an emergency operation. You don't have major institutions standing behind you. You are not insured. You don't have all the right equipment like bullet proof jackets and helmets and so on.

The upside is that, as a young writer with ideals, you can do the story you want and ignore the story you don't want to do, because you're not under contract but selling your story piecemeal. You don't have to go through the traditional route like in the old day of internship and then years of a boring beat like city hall reporting before you get a juicy assignment. You can land in a city in chaos - and be the only reporter on the scene. It fits some temperament but it comes with an enormous amount of risks.

I think major news organizations will rely on these young, independent roamers more and more in the future as the foreign bureaus become a thing of the past. It's a way to supplement the wire stories - AP, AFP, UPI, etc - which are skeletal at best at a time when our engagement overseas are increasing with no end in sight. But the question remains: how much responsibility do news organizations have toward these young writers out there? Do they tell them: Think twice before you go. Take precaution before you go. Don't take unnecessary risks if you don't have to. Or do they say, go ahead, we'll pay for that story if you do go?

Personally, I think news organizations should ask themselves regarding what policies they have toward these stringers rather than just spurring them on for the sake of having more content. But that's my personal opinion.

As the major news agencies disintegrate we’re seeing the rise of citizen journalists. Do you think this is going to be a net gain or loss for the depth and breadth of reporting locally and abroad?

I already addressed the citizen journalist issue above. I think there's a lot to be gained when practically everyone is equipped - by having a cell phone you can record, take picture, send stories - to do basic reporting. The future is one where the reporter on the scene is inevitably someone who happens to be there when something happens. The victims can also be reporter. Think of the terrorism event in Bombay last November. Most of the stories that came out were from people in the Taj hotel texting while hiding from terrorists.

There was an amazing footage I saw in CNN when this student was running out of a building in Sichuan before it collapsed when the earthquake hit. He had his cellphone recording everything. When he got out the building collapsed. It got a few million hits in the first few days. But he's not going to be able to make sense of that story. He's not going to be an accountable reporter who gives the larger picture. That comes with experience, professionalism, and it comes later, when reporters show up with interviews of officials, and scientists, and many victims themselves. But the nature of journalism is changing and changing fast.

But accountability is still important. In India, when the radio station interviewed one politician who happily declared that "my friends are fine. They texted me. They are hiding in the ballroom upstairs on the Taj." No one seems to think twice about this: That the terrorists also have cell phones, have access to internet, radio, and tv. Who's accountable for this sort of thing?

And in Greece, last December, the twitterers who sent out message regarding the shooting of a youth suggested that he was killed in cold blood - shot point blank. The city erupted in flame. I was there. Everyone relied on those initial reports as fact. No one seemed to care what the policeman said: that he shot up and the bullet ricocheted. The coroner's report showed a few days later that the bullet was dented, meaning that it hit something hard, which goes in line with what the cop said. By then, of course, it was too late. Thousands of shops were looted and hundreds burned.

I think accountability, and verifying the facts are still the realm of serious journalism. I think content is one thing but providing Context still belongs to the realm of the professional, mature newsroom. Context belongs to the ombudsman, the writer who can provide context and big picture.

And you won't get that from anyone with just a cell phone and quick thumb.

Previously:

Also, Andrew Lam's Letter From Athens: Greek Tragedies & the News Media in the Age of Twitter is a MUST-READ for those interested in the future of journalism.

Remembering Walter Cronkite

noah — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:28:20 -0500

In May of 2000, Youth Radio was especially honored to receive a Peabody Award that was presented by Walter Cronkite.

The broadcasting world has lost its elder statesman. He will be missed.

Your Guide To Citizen Journalism [Part II]

noah — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:45:50 -0500

[Our Feature Spotlight focuses this week on Citizen Journalism.]

Part Two In A Series

In the first part of the Guide we checked out Demotix, CNN's iReport and YouTube's CitizenTube and Reporter's Center. Now we continue the rundown of marketplaces for user generated content with a look at a hyperlocal powerhouse, the viewer-created pioneer, and crowd-sourced muckraking.

Ground Report

[Speciality: Text]

Founded in 2006 by a former reporter on the United Nations Rachel Sterne, Ground Report was created to serve what Sterne saw as a dearth of global news coverage in the United States and the West in general. With International concerns and a "hyperlocal" focus, Ground Report seeks to live up to its name by featuring community reported news from around the world. Reporters are paid for their work, with compensation based on site traffic so that a story may earn anything from a few cents to a few hundred dollars. The site has strict guidelines regarding original content, fact-checking, and a lack of obsenities:

Posting false, pornographic, plagiarized, hateful or copyright-infringing content results in forfeit of all earnings.

Materials are released under Creative Commons licenses, with text based pieces receiving the focus of attention on the front page.

Current TV

[Specialty: Video]

Current was one of the pioneers in the world of user-genrated (or as they call it "viewer created") content. In 2005 former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and businessman Joel Hyatt launched the cable channel with the vision of a 24-hour news network produced and programmed by the viewers.

While the network does produce a fair amount of content in-house for cable broadcast viewer created content (VC2 in Current's parlance) remains a key feature. Becuase the end goal of most "pod" producers in the Current community is to have their videos voted onto the network's cable feed there tends to be a greater emphasis on production values than in other venues. Aspiring documentary filmmakers take note!

The network's own shows- like the film review program "The Rotten Tomatoes Show"- often feature webcam interactions from viewers, so even those who don't have dreams of becoming the Internet's Edward R. Murrow can play an active role in the programming.

The Huffington Post's Eyes and Ears

[Speciality: Investigative Journalism]

The HuffPost's citizen jouranlism unit takes a slightly different tack. While Eyes and Ears will take submisisons on any topic, the program has an expressed focus at the timeof this writing of the human impact of the global econmic meltdown. In addition, Eyes and ears is organized around theconcept of an Assignment Desk and Investigative Units- which drill down into specific topics. The investigative units are a great place for someone who has the stamina for research, and who cares more about helping to put together the Big Picture than just making themselves heard.

If you fancy yourself being part of a team that might just break the next big pubic policy story or corruption scandal, then Eyes and Ears might be for you.

Also on the site today: Notes From A Citizen Journalist.