a doorway to ethnic media in the american heartland
April 21, 2010 at 4:13 pm · Filed under global music
I saw the man playing congo drums the other day on a street corner and I said it’s warm again. There’s music again.
Music in the parks and at folk and neighborhood festivals and on the CTA if you have time to stop and listen.
Here is a song about hungry men from almost everywhere, it seems, who stand on a streetcorner in Chicago waiting for work that comes nowadays in dribbles and sometimes breaks their backs but they wait.
Listen to the song. Attend the concert.
Think of a way you can add an audio like this to your publication’s website so you can share this feeling for the music in a city of so many songs. And let me know if you.
gracias.
Stephen
For the day laborers
April 20, 2010 at 3:42 pm · Filed under on immigration as a public policy issue
There will be marches on May 1 but that is only one story on one day.
How else can you cover immigration and keep it fresh and pertinent?
What has changed today here for immigrants and refugees? What are the stories that celebrate immigrants and the stories that they need?
With state and federal services evaporating in the financial meltdown that still touches many agencies, where are services being curtailed or cut?
Here are some tips from the IRE-Investigative Reporters and Editors – who recently held a workshop here for the ethnic news media. Look over these – there a number listed.
http://www.ire.org/training/uncategorized/tips-for-covering-immigrants
Again, please let me know if you are doing some reporting that you want to share.
Stephen
April 12, 2010 at 9:13 pm · Filed under Ethnic Media in Chicago, community radio we listen to
That was the headline today at the Polish Daily News, telling Chicago’s Poles about the airline tragedy that engulfed Poland’s president and many other Poles.
But the newspaper was only one way Chicago’s Poles were united with a tragedy so far away.
They read local Polish blogs. They followed the news on Polish news websites produced in Chicago. And they listened to the news in Polish on the radio. News that didn’t just appear for a few hours but continued for most of the weekend, going way beyond the traditional amount of broadcasting. Read the rest of this entry »
April 8, 2010 at 8:17 pm · Filed under how to do investigative reporting in a hurry
We want stories that matter. Stories that touch lives. Stories where we can help make a difference.
That’s often investigative reporting.
But that’s hard to do when you are working as hard as most folks in the ethnic news media do.
So, what can you do?
You can take small steps that build to big steps. You can give a meaning to your stories. You can ask the right questions and they will tell your readers that there may be more here.
Here are some suggestions about how to do this:
Basic rules for investigative reporting
Investigative journalism is needed to uncover situations which people want to hide
Every reporter can be an investigative reporter. If it takes one day or one month, the strategy is the same. To find out what is not clear or what is not spoken about. You do not have to become a detective to do this kind of reporting. But you need to be use all of the skills of a good reporter. Investigative journalists especially need:
- An alert mind to see, to hear and to recognize story ideas and important facts which people or organizations are trying to hide. It may also be information that is not clear or not complete.
- An ordered mind to make notes, file information and fit many facts together. Keep a diary of your contacts, and develop your own data files to explain and understand the statistics and trends.
. Draw a map to show you the relationships.
- You need patience to keep digging for information and patience when you have no results. But also the ability to decide to stop when you do not have the facts.
. Continue to develop good contacts throughout society
- Develop courage to withstand threats from people you are investigating
. Always explain to your editor what you are doing so they can support and help you. Keep them informed of changes in the story. Do not make the story larger than the facts or larger than what you know.
- Learn to adjust the focus if the facts point in a different direction.
- Do not hesitate to publish corrections if you are wrong. You must show a commitment to the truth.
As well as accumulating information, you must also gather supporting evidence in case your story is challenged. Save all of your evidence. If possible, use a tape recorder or digital camera or video to record statements.
You must protect confidential sources of information Do not make promises you cannot keep to sources. Do not accept favors or provide favors to sources.
Always consult a lawyer if you have any worries about the legality of what you are doing or writing
Double-check everything you do, from the information you gather to the way you write your final story. Always confront the target of your story with your evidence and try to obtain their reaction. But wait until you have all of the information. Make sure their reaction is published and easy to identify.
Become familiar with all the different places you can get information, such as company registers and court records
Work within the law. Do not break the law.
Practical rules
- 1. Develop a strategy
How much time do you have?
Small stories attract more support
Don’t give all information if you don’t know all
- 2. Read everything before you interview anyone.
- 3. Draw list or map of whom to interview
- 4. Avoid interviewing the target of your story until the end
- 5. Always go back to ask questions about facts you do not understand. Plan your interview strategy.
A good saying to remember —if your mother says she loves you—check to make sure.
- 6. Always find at least two different sources.
7.Give results to opponents—to reject and or to clarify
8.Work in a group or with a partner—
9. What if your sources tell you something that is wrong-but other information is right? Decide what information you can use.
10. Do not boast.
11. If you fear a strong reaction to your story,find supporters in government or local groups who agree that you are telling the truth.
12. Make simple points clear with charts – graphs
13. If possible, tape your conversation to upload on the Internet or to check for accuracy.
14. Ask for reactions from readers—online and in print.
15. Offer more information about your story and sources online. Contacts with agencies that deal with trafficking.
16. Plan other stories to keep the issue alive.
17. Review what you have written and ask yourself whether you can tell what matters most and whether the facts of the situation are clear to everyone.
Here are some rules to keep in mind as you work
- What do I know? What do I need to know?
- What is the meaning of this story?
- Do I lack any information or sources?
- How can I include other people with other points of view?
- Who are the people affected by this story and how will this story – this situation – affect them?
- What is likely to happen as a result of my story?
- Can I rely upon the information that I have received from my source.
- Can I confirm the source’s information through government or business records?
- Can I contact other persons to confirm this story?
- How reliable is my source?
- Do I need to talk to an expert on this topic so I understand it fully?
- Read copies of other investigative stories to study how they provide the details and analysis.
- Read your story to a colleague to see if they have any questions.
- Can you find a colleague who has done similar reporting? Share your experience with them and ask where you might have changed your tactics?
- Form an informal organization of reporters who investigate this issue and meet regularly to exchange ideas and experiences.
- After every story, ask yourself information do I need to follow up tomorrow, next week, next month?
Stephen
April 7, 2010 at 11:57 am · Filed under Covering the Census, community reporting that matters
After the months of build-up here we are and the fate of the Census is a mystery.
With all of the hoopla and money is the Census count going to miss more people than before? Are some communities going to dramatically come up in their numbers and others fall behind?
With less than two weeks to go, now the time to do some reporting and it is easy to do it. The government updates the mail responses daily, from Monday to Friday and all you need to do is click on its website and then drill down to the communities you want to track. Go to http://www.2010census.gov and follow the tab that takes you to participation rates.
The figures will show the latest rate of participation and the same numbers for 2000.
The figures so far for Cicero, for example, show only a 48 percent participation rate while the number of 61 percent 10 years ago. Chicago is at a 51 percent rate, down from 58 percent a decade ago. And the rate in some Westside and Southwest side Chicago communities is running below 40 percent. In Orland Park it is 78 percent.
Tracking these figures, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) a few days ago said that the return rates in the immigrant communities where it has worked to get people involved shows that its work has paid off.
Remember if people don’t get counted, there’s less money for services and Cook County’s undercount a decade ago cost the community about $200 million.
So, check the stats and let your communities know what’s going on.
If anyone has any results you want to share and stories you think will help us see what’s happening, please let me know.
Here, for example, is a story from La Raza which uses this data to tell what’s happening now.
La tasa de devolución de los formularios del censo por correo en el barrio de Albany Park ha sido de un 44% hasta ahora, en comparación con la tasa de participación nacional, que se calcula en un 60%.
Stephen
March 31, 2010 at 3:30 pm · Filed under Ethnic Media in Chicago
It’s late in the afternoon so long sheets of papers are slowly threading through the old printing press. As they spill out, the newspaper is packed and readied for delivery, all 3,000 of them
This is tomorrow’s Draugas with news and pictures about Lithuania and Lithuanians in Chicago and in the same language, Lithuanian, since the day it began publishing in 1909 in Chicago.
On another floor in the newspaper’s building on the city’s Southwest side sit the newspaper’s bound volumes, the pages browned and crinkling, some as soft and fleeting as dust in the hand.
They are filled with the stories from when Lithuanians poured into Chicago at the start of the last century, building one of the largest communities outside of Lithuania.
Then it was called the Daily Draugas, or the Daily Friend.
Today, it is only Draugas, and Dalia Cidizikaite, its editor in chief, feels the presence of history as she puts out the five-day a week paper that some consider the world’s longest continuing newspaper in Lithuanian and the only daily newspaper in Lithuanian outside the home country.
She edits. She writes – when she has time. She oversees the flow of stories about Lithuanian community events and the news as well about Lithuania. And when invitations come to attend Lithuanian community events, she rarely turns them down because she knows the importance of the paper’s presence.
In Lithuania she was a scholar and actress. Here, she still cares about acting but the newspaper takes so much of her time. Here, Lithuanians want to know what is happening, and they want others, she says, to know what they are doing.
Here, she says, “life is so rich. They really feel the community ties.”
So on another floor, amid piles of books and machinery and far from the bound volumes of disappearing news pages that told Lithunianian immigrants about the struggles of the small country they are bound to, here is tomorrow’s news in the language Lithuanians have refused to forget.
Just as it has been for the last 100 years.
March 30, 2010 at 4:04 pm · Filed under Ethnic Media in Chicago, latino news media
As I count them, Chicago’s Latino news media collected more awards from the recent annual contest held by the National Association of Hispanic Publications than any other city.
And if I missed one or two, so what. We were up there.
All of which reminds me how lucky we are to have such a vibrant news media.
Here is the list:
http://www.box.net/shared/d79uxvtzhx
March 29, 2010 at 9:40 am · Filed under community reporting that matters
We write about crime but there is a world we often do not to tell about. This is the world of prisons and jails, a world with many more persons of color than their share of the population here in Chicago.
That’s why the John Howard Association is a good source for thinking about reports on prison conditions. But, more importantly, it is a way to open the door to think about those who go to prison.
I would check out their prison monitoring reports, and the videos about the people in Illinois’ prisons. It’s a doorway that needs to explored in print and on the air.
If anyone has used their reports, or done reporting on this and would like to share, please pass it along.
Steve
click here for a video
John Howard Association
http://www.john-howard.org/
So, too, let’s consider what’s happening to the community groups that serve folks in Chicago’s neighborhoods. Here’s a survey which predicts another drop in services from them. This too seems to be a pressing story.
http://www.nonprofitfinancefund.org/content.php?autoID=230#
March 19, 2010 at 5:03 pm · Filed under African, the stories of immigrants outside of their home countries
By Angela Evans
Do you hear it? There is something in the trees, the rivers…They are asking something, pleading something. They are making a request. They are relentless.
They scream at 52 year-old Olawale Idreez to write. “Write!” And write he does.
The good-natured Nigerian publisher of Africa Today newspaper explained this drive in a poem he wrote that says, “If death did not proclaim me tomorrow, I will write. Why? Because everything around me is just begging me to write.”
It is this passion that fuels Olawale Idreez to write, laboring to sustain the struggling Africa Today newspaper in the face of adversity and delay.
Idreez moved to Chicago from Nigeria in 1980. He began his studies right away at Illinois Central College in Peoria, where he went to school for accounting before earning his Masters degree in political science from Northeastern University.
Finding His Voice in Chicago
It was during his time at Northeastern, about ’86-’87, that Idreez heard Harold Washington speak to the students during his run for re-election as mayor. Idreez found himself captivated by the political nature of Washington’s words and how well he spoke English. This experience is what motivated Idreez to switch from continuing his education in accounting to political science.
Although Idreez imagined himself as a well-to-do politician, it was this academic path that steered his love towards writing through the work he put into his thesis. He fell in love with the craft of writing and followed his heart forward from there.
Idreez is a smartly dressed man, who chuckles easily and speaks pointedly about what he believes in. He was involved with the production of two papers post-college: The African Voice and Afrik. He also took a job at The Celebrity International magazine. Although he enjoyed freelancing for these publications, he hoped that instead of writing for other people he could begin his own publication, and one day would.
Idreez’s family in Nigeria used to tease him about wanting to be a journalist, because his English has never been very good. People also told him he would make more money pursuing a career in accounting. But Idreez had his mind set on being a writer- nothing else.
He compares this experience to a Bible passage that says a prophet is not without honor except in his own house or hometown. Although initially his family didn’t agree with his decision, they’ve not only grown to support him- but also write him letters requesting that Idreez write letters to the government of their state in Nigeria, and focus more of his work on African happenings.
Idreez says he just laughs. “Whatever you do in life, if you persevere- then people have no choice to see that and respect what you’re doing.”
The most difficult aspect of what he does is struggling to overcome the financial woes that threaten his journalism dream.
Idreez admits that when he started Africa Today, which prints and distributes about 2000 copies per issue throughout various Chicago neighborhoods, he zealously believed in what he was doing. So much so, he was shortsighted about financial planning. He funded the paper with all of his own money, which he realizes now, was a mistake.
A Struggle To Survive
And since Africa Today is a free monthly newspaper, it relies on advertisers to provide the primary funding. If Idreez does not come up with the money personally, or advertisers do not pay him- then publishing is interrupted. This has been a recurrent problem for the paper, sometimes delaying publication by 3-4 months.
What Idreez lacks in financial support, he makes up for with unrivaled ardor and inspiration. In addition to his vision of financial emancipation and one day turning the paper into a daily, he also has plans to publish a book about his various life experiences and observations.
“My vision is very, very big but people have already told me that I should take one day at a time…I know it’s going to take a lot of work, but the good news is my brain is like a computer brain. Everything in brain is like writing, writing, writing- I just want to write.”
Angela Evans is a Community Media Workshop Intern
March 18, 2010 at 3:30 pm · Filed under Immigrant Stories, community reporting that matters, on immigration as a public policy issue
Day after day the story about immigrants is the story about immigration reform. The recent demonstration by undocumented students here showed that.
It is a powerful story of fear and courage and uncertainty.
Watch this audio slide show of the demonstration here in Chicago and tell me if you don’t agree. It is by Peter Holderness
http://www.peterholderness.com/iyjl/index.html
So the job for the ethnic news media now is to cover these developments, and to explain where they are going and what they may result in.
What will happen to these students? Are they truly the parallel story to the freedom riders of the 1960s’ in the American South?
Can you stay with this story by telling about one person, one group, one family over time?
The students’ coming out is a prelude to the march this Sunday, March 21, by thousands of groups to push for immigration reform in Washington.
As many as 6,000 persons in Illinois are expected to take part and this a story in itself. They are leaving on Saturday on dozens of buses, a scene that could easily become part of a longer story.
Who are these people? What are their hopes? What is different about immigration reform today in 2010 in terms of expectations of the average person?
These are the contacts for the march;
Catherine Salgado, 312.332.7360 x 235 or 630.362.6202 (mobile)
Salvador Cervantes, 312.593.6411 (mobile)
Kere Picon, 815.621.8065 (for details on buses & logistics)
If you write or broadcast anything let me know,
Stephen
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