D:F/M Flash Mob Does a Bronx Cheer – Part 1 of 3

April 18th, 2012

[A version of this blog post was sent to D:F/M Members Regarding the March 14 Faculty Meeting]

This rebuttal addresses comments of Colleagues Isabel Pinedo, Kelly Anderson, Larry Shore, Peter Parisi, Karen Hunter, Ricardo Miranda and Jay Roman at the last faculty meeting, especially the attack victimology embraced by several Colleagues and threats about censoring the WORD.

 

The Usual Suspects

1) Isabel Pinedo & Savage Humiliation

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D:F/M Flash Mob Does a Bronx Cheer – Preface

April 18th, 2012

Several years ago, after being awarded a educational technology grant from Hunter College, I started the WORD in a collaboration with students to teach journalism, especially news writing. That effort blew the minds of everyone at Hunter College and the City University of New York who were serious about or believed in the importance of student journalism and student writing. Accolades and praise resonated from the Hunter campus to the Chancellor’s office. Then President David Caputo told an assembly at an Hunter College Senate meeting that everyone should read the publication. 

Publishing started during that rancorous period when CUNY was being pummeled by the New York Daily News and the New York Post and the Manhattan Institute and their cohorts for failing its mission to teach and that failure supposedly was reflected in reports and studies that students couldn’t write. And though there was one or two decent CUNY student publications producing stories, most were an embarrassment. The WORD was a breath of fresh air.

“I hear you’re doing well,” CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein told this writer in an impromptu meeting in the office of Michael Arena, a CUNY administrator.

That significant accomplishment also fired up imaginations in the Hunter College Department of Film and Media Studies, inspiring and unleashing what can best be described as academic thuggery of biblical proportions.

The Usual Suspects

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James Aronson Awards Coordinator Peter Parisi Supports News Censorship of the WORD: Boycott the Aronson Awards

April 13th, 2012

I’m telling my students to boycott the event. I’m telling everyone in the journalism circles I frequent to boycott the event even if they never heard of  the Aronsons. I’m telling them to tell their friends and associates.

Peter Parisi [From his facebook page

Regarding Colleague Parisi’s comments at the March 14 faculty meeting supporting censorship of the WORD: How incredibly hypocritical. How incredibly obtuse — as he and Colleagues dumb enough to support him are about to learn.

I was not exaggerating when I recently told Colleagues in the Department of Film and Media Studies, Hunter College, about the contempt in journalism circles for this event and that I had to put someone in place at the Polk Awards last year for intimating that I somehow was involved with this Parisi coordinated farce.

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Spring – New York City Hall Park

March 27th, 2012

March 27th, 2012

Park Avenue, 67th Street to 68 Street, View from a Hunter College Campus Window

March 26th, 2012

Friday, March 23, NJ PATH to Journal Square

NYPD Brutalization in Zuccotti Park March 17

March 18th, 2012

From occupy_antisuppression-owner@lists.riseup.net:
As hundreds of people joyously celebrated the six month birthday of Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park, the largest gathering in months without police barricades, the NYPD declared the park closed at 11:30 p.m. They moved into the park swinging batons, beating people attempting to exercise rights that are supposed to be legally guaranteed. The New York Times reported that scores were arrested. See pictures here.

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Which Ones Want to Censor the WORD?

March 14th, 2012

At the D:F/M faculty meeting today, irate Colleagues expressed plans to censor the WORD? They said they were upset that the department’s dirty linen was being exposed across the spectrum of the Internet.

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Rebuttal to a Colleague’s Message [See Previous Blog Post] Regarding “Attention Professional Staff Congress President Barbara Bowen”

March 14th, 2012

I sent this message (way below) to Colleagues in the Department of Film and Media Studies as a response to comments sent to them by Colleague Bernard Stein, a Pulitzer Prize winning news essayist. One real piece de resistance he addresses concerns a strategy that Colleagues were considering, for example, to deal with the ethical journalism issues that Colleague Stein raised in his email memo: Pressure the Hunter College Administration into attacking me for the posts about the HC-PSC-CC, and if the Administration refuses, for Colleagues to attack the Administration (in some kind of public campaign, I assume) for not attacking me.

Absurd and bovine reasoning, symptomatic of the kind of thinking of those who assert leadership in D:F/M.

Bullying* and intimidation and harassment are core values in D:F/M, so much so that resolutions of serious problems affecting the department can’t occur. Serious issues pertaining to  principles of Academic Freedom or Journalism Ethical Issues or First Amendment Rights or Civil Liberties or Civil Rights, especially as those  pertain to behaviors and practices and customs in the department.

The message of my response is below.

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Professional Staff Congress President Barbara Bowen Has Yet to Respond But …

March 11th, 2012

… below is an email from a Colleague regarding a discussion among my D:F/M Colleagues about a reaction to my March 6 “Attention Professional Staff Congress President Barbara Bowen.”

It needs a rebuttal, of course, but I’ve decided to post it first without comment.[ Note: I wish these people would use all caps for the correct spelling of the WORD.]

PSC Hunter College Chapter Chair Trying to Intimidate Colleague at a Department Meeting

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