Archive for July, 2011

Dominique Strauss-Kahn: Duke University Spectacle, Yes [Tawana Brawley, No]

Monday, July 4th, 2011

That’s the assessment of WNYC’s Jami Floyd, whose opinion should not be ignored:

Take the Duke Lacrosse case, in which the district attorney of Durham County, NC, Mike Nifong, failed every measure of prosecutorial conduct and judgment. He tried his case in the media for nearly a year, failed to turn over exculpatory evidence to the defense and court even when he had it, and he was ultimately disbarred, fined and sentenced to a symbolic one day in jail.

In the DSK case, Vance is to be credited for his due diligence and coming to terms early on with the impossibility of proceeding with a accuser lacking credibility. At the same time, he and his investigators had to know what they were up against – a fully financed defense, with its own top-notch investigators that would no doubt uncover the same damning information about the accuser.

Read full article here.

Tawana Brawley Redux? A Knee-Jerk Response

Friday, July 1st, 2011

New York Times headline: Strauss-Kahn Accuser’s Call Alarmed Prosecutors

Twenty-eight hours after a housekeeper at the Sofitel New York said she was sexually assaulted by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, she spoke by phone to a boyfriend in an immigration jail in Arizona. Investigators with the Manhattan district attorney’s office learned the call had been recorded and had it translated from a “unique dialect of Fulani,” a language from the woman’s native country, Guinea, according to a well-placed law enforcement official.

When the conversation was translated — a job completed only this Wednesday — investigators were alarmed: “She says words to the effect of, ‘Don’t worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I’m doing,’ ” the official said.

This news feeding frenzy reminds this writer of the Tawana Brawley paroxysm of news, fact, hysteria, race, class. bullshit and more. This is a knee jerk response to breaking news. Something less knee-jerk is in the offing.

Maybe.

An Ethical Dilemma & Mom & Dad

Friday, July 1st, 2011

Nope.

Date: Tue Jun 28 10:52:39 EDT 2011
From: [Spring MEDP292 Student]@aol.com
Subject: Campus MovieFest Article
To: “Greggory W Morris” <gmorris@hunter.cuny.edu>


Hello Professor,

A girl I interviewed, named [Anonymous], for her participation in a movie at Campus MovieFest, said that she needs her name removed from the article posted on HunterWORD[sic]. Her reason is that she kissed a girl in the video and her parents searched her name, found the video, and have her on lock down threatening to make her drop out of school. She needs to cut all ties with the video and article so her parents will let her stay in school. Though she agreed to the publishing of the article, she believes her reputation and education are at stake and would like to be removed from the article. Please get back to me as to whether this can be done.

Thank you,
[Anonymous]
Media292
Section 002
Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

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“Seeking Writers for The Envoy” – The Never Ending Lament

Friday, July 1st, 2011

This intended spring 2011 post, below, is just seeing the light of day.

From: “Ming Fearon, Chui-Hung Wong”
To; Hunter-L@HUNTER.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU

Dear Hunter students + staff:
I’m trying to get the word out about The Envoy, Hunter College’s print newspaper.


The complete lament of the Envoy Editor-in-Chief rests at the end of this post. In between this sentence and that lament is a succinct accounting of student journalism at the College and undergraduate journalism in D:F/M, both waddling in a bad states of affairs.

Student journalism and subsequently D:F/M undergraduate journalism were hijacked many years ago, dumped in a septic tank of woe, essentially for  students serious about journalism as a career or interest. It didn’t have to be that way.

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