A Lesson in Spin: NYCLU Sues NYPD on Behalf of Baseball Fan Ejected From Yankees Stadium During God Bless America

April 16th, 2009

NYCLU Hammers NYPD.
Everybody Say Amen!

 

April 15, 2009 NYCLU Press Release — The New York Civil Liberties Union today filed a federal lawsuit against the NYPD on behalf of a Queens man who was ejected from the old Yankee Stadium last August after trying to use the restroom during “God Bless America.”

The lawsuit maintains that Bradford Campeau-Laurion, a 30-year-old lifelong baseball fan and resident of Astoria, was the victim of religious and political discrimination on Aug. 26, 2008 when police officers forcibly restrained and ejected him from Yankee Stadium after he tried to walk past an officer during the playing of “God Bless America.”

The Spin: New York Yankees + NYPD + Nature Calls + God = 281 articles, according to Google, as of 6:47 p.m. April 15.

A News Sampling:

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A WORD Special Project

April 13th, 2009

Six days. One-hundred-sixty writers.

It’s spring break but several of the WORD’s best writers were emailed to see if any were interested in covering the event. So far, Hannah M. Levine, who writes for the WORD and is the Arts & Entertainment Editor for the Envoy and blogs at Hannahmiet.blogspot.com, has accepted. She wants to cover the PEN cabaret.   

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Media Matters for America Says It Has Proof That Fox News Is the Slumdog of America News Media

April 11th, 2009

This week, Media Matters for America released a new report that it says documents Fox New promoting anti-Obama “tea party” protests across the country for April 15.

It reports that Fox News has frequently aired segments encouraging viewers to get involved with tea-party protests, which the news network has often described as primarily a response to President Obama’s fiscal policies.

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Sharp Decline in Black Incarceration For Drug Offenses

April 8th, 2009

This was an embargoed heads-up sent to me by WORD Senior Writer/Producer Kisha Allison: From The Sentencing Project – 

 WASHINGTON, DC- For the first time in 25 years, since the inception of the “war on drugs,” the number of African Americans incarcerated in state prisons for drug offenses has declined substantially, according to a study released today by The Sentencing Project. It finds a 21.6 percent drop in the number of blacks incarcerated for a drug offense, a decline of 31,000 people during the period 1999-2005.

 The study, The Changing Racial Dynamics of the War on Drugs, also documents a corresponding rise in the number of whites in state prison for a drug offense, an increase of 42.6% during this time frame, or more than 21,000 people. The number of Latinos incarcerated for state drug offenses was virtually unchanged.

“The unparalleled growth in the U.S. prison population is directly related to policies that prioritized enforcement and harsh punishments for low-level drug offenses,” said Marc Mauer, Executive Director of The Sentencing Project and author of today’s study. “This domestic ‘war on drugs’ was fought on the doorsteps of African American communities, but its disparate impact on these communities may finally be waning.” 

More later, depending on what Allison wants to do.

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Comeuppance

April 8th, 2009

For all those who wrote the President and the Secretary of State about Lori Berenson’s fate, check this out.

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Cop Encounters Can Give Me the Creeps …

April 4th, 2009

… It’s the Gun-Thing.

An email to my Advanced Reporting class after a tour at State Supreme Court Civil Division, 60 Centre Street, Tuesday, March 30 — The Deputy Clerk of the Court for years has been introducing my advanced classes to use of the court’s public records. The tours, depending on circumstances, last from 30-45 minutes and many students have benefitted from the tour: Some have been acknowledge for very good work in their internship positions because of their knowledge, others have come across really good stories. The end result, I like to believe, is that they understand the importance of supplementing their reporting skills with research techniques and knowledge, like how to use public records.

I recall how one student, good but not one of the best and not especially interested in journalism, lit up like a firecracker when he learned that he could do background research on Hunter. He used information from a civil suit to confront a former Hunter President about asbestos in the College’s dorms on the lower east side. This happened several years ago. There was no asbestos – the College had done an investigation, according to records – but his confronting the President made for a good story in an Hunter student news publication at at time that students were concerned about what they breathing.

So:

Students,

I’m writing this because I might have pushed everyone’s P-Button at 60 Centre Street, Tuesday, March 29 [sic], and want to make a clarification about a comment I made after the tour ended at Manhattan State Supreme Court Civil Branch. I said the group had been shadowed by an armed security guard … 

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Saving Lori Berenson – Call President Obama and Write to Secretary of State Clinton

April 2nd, 2009

From Mark and Rhoda Berenson – Now that President Obama has settled into office, it is time for us to put a concerted effort into enlisting his help in securing Loris release.

Wrongfully imprisoned in Peruvian hellholes, Lori has now served 13 years and five months of her 20-year sentence. She has been a model prisoner, and she is eligible for conditional liberty in November, 2010. However, given the precarious nature of her health and the forthcoming birth of her baby, we will be urging President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton to secure Lori’s immediate release.

File Photo: Lori in a Lima Courtroom, March 22, 2001

File Photo: Lori in a Lima Courtroom, March 22, 2001

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The WORD’s Eunji Jang Is Now a New America Media Intern in New York

April 2nd, 2009

Wednesday, April 1 Email from Anthony Advincula to His New America Media Compadres 

Dear all,

I just want to introduce to everyone our new intern, Eunji Jang, in
the New York office. She will start next week to help us with the
national ethnic media awards outreach, the U.S. Census 2010 news
briefings as well as she will contribute to our Web site. Eunji will
also monitor the news in Korean media across the East Coast.
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TF – Publish Or Perish

March 30th, 2009

It’s that time of year when I meet individually with each student in my introductory news writing class and my in-depth writing course that’s called feature writing. Today, I start the morning with half of my introductory class and then meet in the afternoon with half of the student writers in the advanced class. The rest are scheduled for this coming Thursday.

I started scheduling these one-on-one, instructor-student meetings when I was teaching at the Rutgers University campus in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where I initiated the publish or perish initiative several years ago and discovered  a remarkable demarcation between students who tried to do or did the homework and the students who blew off the assignments. That revelation flew in the face of the prevailing wisdom about the serious writing problems of college students. I was flunking from 30 to 40 percent of the students in my introductory writing classes, not because they were stupid, as my colleagues imagined, but because they were undisciplined and wouldn’t do the work according to the guidelines of the classes.

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Dogfighting in the Department of Chimera (A Work in Progress) – Part VI: Wrapping Up a Deconstruct

March 29th, 2009

Deconstructing a Snippet of the Minutes of the December, 2008, Faculty Meeting of the Department of Film and Media Studies

[What Really Goes on Behind Some Walls of the Academy]

Morris stated that he had unresolved issues with faculty. These details were written in his group emails to faculty. Roman responded that he will follow up any complaints 
made by Morris with the Ombudsman. — Shanti Thaku, the minutes of the December, 2008, faculty meeting.

I’m considering encouraging my students to BLOG here, and I’m certain that they would be uncomfortable participating in a BLOG site describing the dark side of the department where they major, minor or take classes even though I believe the info here could help the committed students to navigate this place so that they could get the best out of an educational operation that I have described on numerous occasions as one of Farce & Mediocrity.

That’s the reason for the wrap-up of this deconstruct, though, by now, the internecine imbroglio has pretty much distinguished itself in the Academy here at 68th and Lexington on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, though my colleagues, would never admit that in any kind of forum.

That’s because they are awash in chimera.

On with the wrap-up.

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