Tell TV Networks to Stop Censoring Health Care Debate – FAIR

July 21st, 2009

fair header

Help FAIR, Healthcare Now!, Physicians for a National Health Program and the Raging Grannies deliver a message to the news media: “Include Single-Payer in Healthcare Debate” Petition delivery, Tuesday, July 28, noon – 1 p.m., ABC News, 77 West 66th St., between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue, NYC.

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Sonia Sotomayor – Cutting to the Chase

July 19th, 2009

I watched and listened to some of the hearings. I did not wretch. Same for a few on-air news analyses and commentaries (CNN, Channel 13-PBS, assorted ABC, NBC, et. al. affiliates and nationals). I should have checked the local news broadcast in Peoria but didn’t have the presence of mind (but it’s coming).

Nevertheless, I did not wretch.

I hung in there as long as I could – much, much longer than I did for the Michael Jackson spectacle – until it became clear she would sail through. And then I read New York Times Frank Rich’s column today and realized my mistake. I’m seriously considering a mini-doc now that I know what I missed but it’s not as much of a miss as the mainstream news media. It’s merely a missed opportunity that can be corrected.

Check this excerpt:

“Much of the audience was surely driven away by the sheer boredom of watching white guys incessantly parse the nominee’s “wise Latina” remark. This badgering was their last-ditch effort to prove that Gingrich was right when he called Sotomayor a racist at the start of the nomination process. She confronted that overheated controversy directly. “I do not believe that any ethnic, racial or gender group has an advantage in sound judgment,” Sotomayor testified. “

Read Frank Rich’s New York Times Column here.

Walter Cronkite, R.I.P.

July 18th, 2009

What’s there to say that isn’t being said or hasn’t been said already?

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Mohamad Bazzi

July 13th, 2009

This former Newsday Middle East bureau chief is a former student of mine who is an Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and is also an assistant professor at NYU. I came across his keynote 2009 speech at the City University of New York Baccalaureate Commencement exercise while researching the Do Not Remove Any Documents!!! project. He told the assembled students and families and friends great war stories.

But I know of two he didn’t discuss about his experiences as an undergraduate student journalist who was paying his way through college with freelance fees earned at Newsday as well as with journalism scholarship and award money he had won. He often tipped me off so that I could clue other student journalists trying to jumpstart their careers while working their way through Hunter.

[It’s easy to say that he has contributed to the journalism experiences and careers of Hunter students more than many if any of my colleagues in D:F/M.]

All of his war stories – those told at the commencement and the two that I describe below – attest to his remarkable aplomb in the face of adversity.

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The WORD’s Eunji Jang Interviewed by NAM Radio News Anchor/TV Producer Odette Keeley

July 11th, 2009

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Twitter … Who Goes There?

July 9th, 2009

I’m experimenting, of course, with so-called social networking media for what they have to offer Journalists and J-instructors and students. Also, I’m racing to keep up with their next arc. Thus, the WORD twitters at twitter.com/theWORD_HC. The “experts” say that those who want recognition as serious bloggers (so that they may exert influence and, for me, to teach students how to exert influence), have to blog frequently.

Exert influence? Just another way of saying disseminating information (which can exert influence).

And, hopefully as well as strategically, the blogs contain content and information and wit. And, if they falter, at least the effort can help satisfy that yearning to try. Right now, I’m wrestling with writing and rewriting and rewriting the rewrites of “Do Not Remove Any Documents!!!” – a series about the perversion of core Academic principles in a certain department at Hunter [-:)].

It’s an ongoing project using empirical research, ethnography and in-depth and guerrilla journalism. Because of the demands of that effort, the constant need to revise and revise, I seem to be resorting to posting quick takes which, I hope, will provide “content and information and wit” in keeping with the advice of “experts” while I rush to get DNRAD!!! ready.

Mind boggling irony: Bulletin Information Older Than the 9/11 Rubble

Mind boggling irony: D:F/M Bulletin Information Older Than the 9/11 Rubble

So, here are some observations and comments about Twittering.

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Kick-Ass Journalism

July 8th, 2009

And, yes, I am going. And so should anyone interested in K-A Journalism instead of Kiss-Ass Journalism which seems to be riding high on the waves.

National Ethnic Media Expo & Awards

I Wasn’t Invited, So, I’m Not Going, Though I May Be Watching – Maybe

July 7th, 2009

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Alaska Governor Sarah Palin Resigns Because …

July 4th, 2009

… there’s a hobgoblin on her tail.

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Six Reasons Why Iran Cannot Be Explained in a Twitter Feed

July 3rd, 2009

Eye on Arab Media
News Analysis, Jalal Ghazi
New America Media

The world’s attention is on Iran. But the rhetoric of reformists versus conservatives and students versus mullahs cannot capture the complexity of what is happening on the streets of Tehran. Here are six reasons why the situation in Iran cannot be reduced to simplistic headlines or Twitter feeds. Read the rest of this entry »