a doorway to ethnic media in the american heartland
Archive for March, 2009
March 29, 2009 at 9:20 am · Filed under community reporting that matters
Your staff has been cut. You just don’t have the hands and eyes to do the job. Not now. Not in these tough times.
What’s the answer?
Sharing content. Sharing stories with others. Sharing articles or film feeds or programs that fit your needs.
LaRaza’s use of articles from the Chicago Reporter is a good example of a solution. They recently carried an article from the Reporter which exactly met the interests of their community. They translated the article into Spanish and gave credit to the Chicago Reporter.
In Detroit the ethnic media have been sharing articles as a way to help other. But there’s another message. It is a way to build bridges.
How else can we get this kind of sharing going?
March 27, 2009 at 3:16 pm · Filed under community reporting that matters, how to do investigative reporting in a hurry
Say someone calls you and they say, ”I’ve been cheated out of my wages.” Or they say, “they tell me I’m a consultant but I’m just a worker, an employee.”
Sounds like a story. But you are busy. Who has time to search? Yet you sense that this is a story that matters.
These stories do. And there’s a way to get them out to your audience.
You collect notes here and there. You develop little pieces of the puzzle. You find experts and resources and best of all, you find an expert or a government official who puts it all together for you. Within a few weeks you have a story.
That way you have no doubts about the truth of the citizen. And you are doing a public service.
Take the case of time theft or of employers who don’t pay their workers what they should get. I’ve had countless people call me over the years to talk about this. Here in Chicago, Kim Bobo, the head of the Interfaith Worker Justice, is an expert on this issue. She has recently written an excellent book that you can use as a guide to the kind of frauds workers suffer from – especially immigrant workers.
You can reach Kim at
1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., Chicago, IL 60660 Ph: (773) 728-8400 • Fx: (773) 728-8409
Kim Bobo testifies on wage theft
Her website is http://www.iwj.org/template/index.cfm
This story from the New York Times makes it very clear that such abuse is widespread and also that the government agency has not been protecting workers from it. Notice how the lede of the story eventually takes us to Kim and her quotes. That is the way to give weight or meaning to the story.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/washington/25wage.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=greenhouse%20and%20bobo&st=cse
Here is the government report. I would call the authors of the report to ask them to remark on a situation if you think you have one that is similar.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/20090325_GAOTestimony.pdf
March 25, 2009 at 7:18 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Some stories are our bread and butter. They tell us who we are. They set in stone decisions that will touch our lives. Counting who we are and where we live is that kind of story. It is the story of the work of the Census.
Why does this matter?
It matters because it makes sure that governments spend the money in the right places, that we know what problems we are facing, and that everyone gets the chance to have a voice. If you are not counted, you are a ghost. And ghosts usually get little attention. That is, in most cases.
For ethnic communities this is an important issue, an issue that the news media needs to report on. It needs to explain what is happening and stay on the story before and after the counting takes place.
Here is a story from NPR about this.
story.php?storyId=102322605
And here is a Washington Post story that explains why this is such an important issue for the ethnic news media.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/23/AR2009032302706.html
March 21, 2009 at 12:34 pm · Filed under the state of the ethnic media in the US
Business wasn’t so good. But who is doing well in the news business today? On some issues, people turned to the ethnic media because that’s where they trusted the news, and where they felt comfortable.
Clicking our ways to survival
Online is growing after lagging behind. And that’s a major point. If the ethnic media wants to grow, it needs to exist in places like where are you looking at right now.
Read the whole report on the ethnic media from the Pew Project on Excellence in Journalism.
http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/2009/narrative_ethnic_intro.php?cat=0&media=11
And here is an AP report on the problems facing many ethnic news media operations.
http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2009/03/ethnic_press_stung_by_recessio.html
March 21, 2009 at 11:11 am · Filed under making the news local
Here is a good example of localizing a major national story. The Los Angeles Times looked at unemployment and then talked about black unemployment nationally and then in California. But there’s a step they didn’t take and that step is where ethnic media can always step forward. They tell us about what’s happening in their neighborhoods, on their streetcorners, at their churches, their schools.
And it is not so hard.
There are ways of getting the numbers for smaller communities. But a good reporter can also put together some measures on their own and tell the same story. A story with a very focused angle.
How do you do this?
You talk to the people who feel the economy in their pockets, on their stores’ shelves and in their daily economic life. You find out how they are doing now and how they see and feel the differences. What’s happening at the grocery store, the local bank, the used clothes stores, and worse yet the payday loan shop or pawn store. What’s happening at the temporary help store? This is how you build a story from the street up and when people read or listen to it, they know it is true and that is matters.
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fi-blackjobs21-2009mar21,0,1632483.story?track=ntothtml
Here is another example of putting a human face on a story that has been much talked about – the loss of jobs for immigrants without papers. A story also that the ethnic press has written about. What makes this article by the New York Times so good is its use of charts, a video and community discussion to make this story real.
Say you don’t have all of these resources. Can you do the same.?
Yes, but on a smaller scale. You can use a video and let readers comment online and you can give them the latest data in charts that shows what is happening now. Or you can tack on a poll. And most of this won’t cost you very much. You don’t have to change overnight. But at least begin.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/us/22immig.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=hispanics%20and%20immigrants%20and%20tenn.&st=cse
March 18, 2009 at 11:00 am · Filed under Reporting on ethnic communities
Here are awards for two newspapers series that are reminders about the heart-breaking dilemmas faced by some immigrants and refugees. What these two mainstream newspapers did was to put together the hundreds of stories that make their way into the ethnic news media day after day. And what they did is not impossible for the newspaper or radio station or television with a far smaller staff. It only calls for imagination, grit and determination to tell these very important stories one day at a time. And again and again until they do not have to be told anymore.
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/special_reports/stories/2008/immigration/index.html
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/poultry/
March 18, 2009 at 10:46 am · Filed under the state of the ethnic media in the US
These are sure tough times for everyone in the news business. And that includes the ethnic news media which is right there, punching its way along, fighting for its tomorrows. But lost in the shouting is the fact that some ethnic media are winning their battles.
And even more importantly, they are winning these battles while telling stories that truly matter to the people they serve. Telling stories because they are driven by a powerful sense of community responsibility.
Here’s an interview from the NPR show On the Media which tells the story of one ethnic publication that doing okay.
http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/03/13/03
March 10, 2009 at 12:50 pm · Filed under Ethnic Media in Chicago
merhaba dünya-hello world!
Hello world. We know you are there because we are the world here in Chicago. That is, we here in Chicago come from all over the world. There is not a city in the U.S. with a greater sprawl of immigrants. We may not have as many immigrants as elsewhere.
But no either city can count as many places where its migrants have come from.
We may not be number one either in terms of the number of our people of color. But again few cities can claim the legacy and riches that have been handed down by generations.
So that is why Chicago is the world.
And that is what this blog is about.
About the way we tell our stories, share our riches, share our pictures, our voices, our space in the sun here in the heartland.
Stay tuned. We have a lot to say.
