Pictures flash by. He is dead. He is dead too. A crushing family legacy of loss.
The picture of the street outside her door appears darkly fearsome. She worries, she says, as she goes out on the street.
But Amber Ellis’ message is that she is a survivor, a believer, a person with a foot on future’s up escalator.
Check her video, above. It’s a powerful story told with even greater strength when you appreciate the story-telling quality of this sophomore from Gary Comer College Prep.
She is one of dozens who’ve benefited in the last decade from the work of Free Spirit Media, a youth media development program that works with youngsters at five Chicago schools. http://www.freespiritmedia.org/
And they are one of 11 youth programs that belong to the Chicago Youth Voices Network, a unique and inspiring collection hard to find anywhere on this globe. http://cyvn.org/
The gift of Free Spirit Media, beyond its being there, is its belief, as founder Jeff McCarter explains, of helping youths to tell their stories in their own voices.
And Amber’s, as he says, is about loss and about maybe being the last one standing, but standing up nonetheless to live a life fulfilled.
This is a story that could easily fit into whatever you are writing about this summer in terms of teens and violence and the positive steps being taken to deal with this tragedy. If you need help connecting with any of the programs, or putting together a package of stories, I’d gladly help out.
So, too, if you have any you want to showcase or pass along, please do so. Steve@newstips.org
Chicago’s Polish community is extensive. In order to bring local and international news to the community, Magda Partyka, News Director for WNWI 1080AM of Polsat International 2, delivers relevant programming and breaking news coverage. Magda discusses the goals of her radio station, as well as the challenges the Polish community faces. For more information on Polish ethnic media, please visit: www.informacjeUSA.com. Camera Operator: Naomi Kothbauer, Columbia College intern at Community Media Workshop, Editor: Matthew J. Lacy, Columbia College student.
December 18, 2009 at 5:04 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Numbers catch our eyes and imagination. They are magnets – more powerful magnets sometimes than words.
Consider the stories today that talk about the growth in the gap in health conditions for blacks and whites in Chicago.
The Sun-Times’ front page headline: “Health Care Gap Kills 3,200 Black Chicagoans a Year – and the Gap is Growing.”
Catches you and connects you, doesn’t it.
But the story was about a report and that’s what the newspapers and radio did today. What comes next is what matters. Stories that paint the reality of lives lost without good cause: struggles to overcome widening deficits in health care. Individual stories. Stories about communities; hospitals, individuals. Stories that don’t disappear.
Here is what I can imagine seeing.
Tracking the life of a clinic that sees these people who go unseen by most health care providers. Tracking the life of a pregnant woman who has just shown up for care in her 6th month or has never seen a doctor until the day she gives birth. Tracking the work of a nurse, a doctor, a community worker as they go about dealing with people who do not get the care they need.
Searching with someone for care they know they need but don’t know how to get.
I imagine charts that talk about care and fatalities according to race by community over a period of time. I imagine charts that bring this situation alive and which sit on the website of a newspaper or radio station, updated to show what’s happening. I imagine a photo display of the people who are affected by this story, and an audio presentation of what it means to them.
These are powerful numbers that need powerful reporting that doesn’t go away until the problem gets better.
Any suggestions for how to do this? Any stories or programs you think are doing this kind of reporting? Let me know,
Here’s the report that the Austin Weekly wisely put on its website:
They are angry but they are divided. What is right? What should be done?
How can families be broken? But, also, how can they live here – living outside the law.
It’s the story of immigrants without papers and the often disastrous collision with U.S. immigration laws.
But this story, as told below, takes place among Poles living in the U.S.
Read the editorial from the Polish Daily News, and then watch the trailer from a story about a Polish couple from Chicago that were broken up – the wife deported.
Here is this story as presented by our colleagues, the New York Community Media Alliance
There are an estimated 12 to 15 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. The Polish community also has individuals who neither have permanent status nor prospects of being granted it – we are unable to determine the number.
Among the immigrants who have already received green cards or have been naturalized as citizens, there are many – who knows, maybe the majority – who broke the law in some way, for example by entering the country as tourists but with the hidden intention to work and get paid under the table; by finding a sponsor for the green card who in fact was never going to employ them; by overstating their previous job experience; or by altering their credentials. Even those Poles who proudly claim that they have not fallen out of status for a single day may have committed small offenses, such as getting a driver’s license in another state where the requirements are less restrictive.
It would seem that reform of the immigration system is an important topic for an ethnic newspaper like the Polish Daily News. We editors believe so and devote plenty of coverage to the issue. We figured that our community (including some formerly undocumented immigrants) would sympathize with those Poles who have not been lucky enough to get sponsored for a green card. Frequent comments on our website in response to articles on the subject confirm this empathy. The fact that sales of our newspaper go up when the cover story is on immigration reform indicates there is interest within the community on the issue.
The picture gets complicated though once we read the comments. Their tone is rather surprising. For the most part, Poles who share their thoughts on our website regarding immigration issues seem not to favor the reform. Many of the comments are sharp and contemptuous: “They broke the law, why should they be rewarded now?” Many call the undocumented immigrants freeloaders, who shun paying taxes and are a burden on the recession-stricken economy. Others believe that granting amnesty for those who have broken immigration laws will encourage other immigrants to remain here illegally, in hope that they will be forgiven via another amnesty.
Even Poles who used fake Social Security numbers, provided false proof of having worked in Poland, or gave an address different from that of their home address for the driver’s license application have now transformed into law defenders and ethical purists.
There are times that they too will admit concern for Poles living in the States illegally. Some would even grant amnesty to close friends who are undocumented while not showing mercy for others, believing that the real illegal immigrants are those coming from southern countries – Poles who do not support immigration reform don’t welcome the inflow of Latinos into the United States, and the resulting changes in the social structure. One can say they are racist; someone else might argue that they fear for the economy. Whatever their reasoning, Polish Americans have turned their backs on undocumented immigrants, including their own.
August 6, 2009 at 12:24 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
It’s hard to find another city with as many good stories to tell as Chicago, stories about our communities that sprawl for miles, about where people came from and where they find their roots, about the languages we speak and music we hear in our heads and tales we pass on to generations to come, all of them stories about what makes this flat Heartland place on a big blue lake a big part of the world beyond.
To help Chicago’s ethnic news media tell these stories, the Community Media Workshop has begun an internship program. So far, the interns have produced stories for Nuevo Siglo, La Raza, the Final Call and the North Lawndale Community News. These are stories that matter for the communities served by the newspapers. Glance over several columns and then down to the page that says Our Ethnic News Interns and you can see more of these stories, stories like the one above that was written by Jessica Rosenberg for La Raza
It’s virtually the other story about the American news media. While mainstream news media is shedding its audience, the ethnic news media is gathering up its followers.
What’s the proof. Here are the results of a survey done for New America Media. The poll looked only at Hispanics, African-Americans and Asian Americans so the support for the ethnic media is clearly much larger.
The poll found that:
1. The number of adults reached by the ethnic news media has grown by 16 percent since 2005.
2. Spanish language radio and print now reaches 85 percent of all Latinos in the U.S.
3. Chinese language television stations and newspapers now reach 70 percent of all Chinese adults in the nation, up from 55 percent in 2005.
4. Korean-language newspapers are read by 64 percent of all Korean adults in the U.S., up from 46 percent four years ago.
5. English language publications aimed at Filipino and Indian readers are followed by 60 percent of the folks in these communities today.
6. Two-thirds of the nation’s African-American community listen to radio stations oriented toward them.
What’s going on here? Here’s my idea. People are turning to the news media that reflects them and their values, the news media that gives them stories they can’t find elsewhere. Like a good friend of mine explains why she reads only certain Polish newspapers in Chicago. “They have news I won’t find elsewhere.”
So, when you are out talking to advertisers, remember to hold up these facts. What they say is that there’s an appetite that is growing, and maybe advertisers and local officials need to realize this.
April 30, 2009 at 1:31 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
This is a test, a real life test. And if ever there’s a test of how well the ethnic news media connects then this is it.
What is the flu and who does it attack and how dangerous is it? For the Latino news media, this is the story of the day and as shown by this centerfold from Hoy, above, there are a number of ways to reach readers.
What makes this centerfold so powerful is the simple use of graphics and details to convey some basic facts. But this is not a one-day story. It is about health care, and health awareness and the ability of large numbers of persons to get the information they need.
What is the impact on families with relatives in Mexico? What is happening to businesses and others who regularly cross the border to Mexico? How about parents who take off from work to care for children or relatives? And what about the medical professionals they turn to?
Much can be done in print, on the radio and on television. Here is an unusually long and extremely helpful guide to information about the swine flu. It comes from a reporting source that can be a handy and essential tool.
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.
