Our Chinatown Mobile News Network Serves Its Community

By Joe Grimm

Freedom Forum Diversity Institute

One of the newest ideas to bubble up in the effervescent New York City media market is a site with a tight focus and a wide reach.

 OurChinatown, launched this spring, is an Asian American Journalists Association  demonstration project.

The strategy for OurChinatown is to distribute news - and to let the community contribute - by smartphone. Phones are a next-up tool for journalism and are the technology of choice for some communities. They are everywhere in sight on the streets of Chinatown.

The vision is a low-cost, mobile news network where a reporting team write[s], takes photos and videos, edits them and posts them on the fly with smartphones. It is envisioned that community members will be able to see where reporters are on a digital map, feed them information or post their own news updates and photos. Read full story here.

NAJA Statement on Geronimo Codename for Osama Bin Laden

Portrait of Geronimo - Credit: Wisconsin Historical Society

The Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) is very grateful and proud that the United States government has captured one of the biggest terrorists known to mankind. However, in doing so, the U.S. government has contributed to the stereotyping of Native Americans by utilizing a historical Native icon such as Geronimo, to set the scene for American ridicule by comparing him to the capturing and killing of Osama Bin Laden.

The information distributed to multiple-media sources across the nation, on the U.S. government's behalf, has proved to the Native Nations across the board, that the American people in addition to the U.S. government still don't understand that we, the Native People of this land, are not here for constant public humiliation. 

In the New York Time's article, "Clues Gradually Led to the Location of Osama Bin Laden, Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, narrated "We have a visual on Geronimo," he said. A few minutes later: "Geronimo EKIA." Enemy Killed In Action.

Since this information hit the news stands through out the nation, NAJA has received numerous call of complaints from our fellow colleagues and tribal members who were upset to find out that again, our Native People are being equated to a terrorist/murderer/enemy number one. We ask the Federal Government could there not have been another name used in reference to this attack? Could we not have used another infamous enemy in reference to Bin Laden perhaps, Custer or Columbus? Our Native people have served in this country's military in the highest numbers per capita of any racial group and this is the way they are repaid for their service given to the U.S.? Click here to read full statement.

More than 100 innovators will gather and initiate projects that amplify diverse voices in new media through journalism entrepreneurship.

Be one of them.

June 2-5, 2011, Greensboro, NC: We're disrupting the media status quo at Journalism That Matters "Create or Die 2". Join our mashup of journalists, entrepreneurs, programmers, bloggers, technologists, educators, developers, designers, social entrepreneurs, community activists and others to create entrepreneurial journalism ventures. At this three-day event, we will conceive, design and pitch ideas for the next news and information businesses, tools, and services that amplify diverse voices and strengthen the role of communities in shaping their stories. The gathering serves as a sandbox in which students and professionals generate result-driven conversations that spark collaboration and action.

Hurry and use discount code "create2424". It is a 20 percent discount only good until Monday, May 16, 2011.  Click here for more information.  Click here for more information.  

Contact UNITY at executive@unityjournalists.org for promotional opportunities including sponsorship and exhibiting information for the UNITY 2012 Convention and Career Fair & Expo at The Mandalay Bay Resorts & Convention Center, August 1-4. 

Copps urges commission to get busy on broadcast license renewal reform, political ad transparency

May 6, 2011 10:07 AM

Broadcast Engineering

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps took aim at rampant media consolidation, which has contributed to shrinking broadcast reporting ranks, postcard-thorough broadcast relicensing and the lack of transparency in political advertising April 26 at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communications.

Speaking at the school's Walter Cronkite Awards luncheon, Copps reminded those in attendance of the central role reporting plays in keeping the electorate informed and the American democracy strong.

"Your work is vital to the health of our democratic discourse, but as that discourse is fed a leaner news diet, democracy goes wanting, too," Copps said. After years of consolidation in media ownership and the impact of the recession on newspaper and broadcast newsrooms, "the plight of journalism seems only to get worse," he said.

"The situation has morphed from one about journalists not having the resources to do their jobs to one about them not having jobs at all," Copp said. "How much better America would be served if reporters were walking the beat in search of a story instead of walking the street in search of a job."  Click here to continue.

Visit UNITY's Media Policy page at www.unityjournalists.org/mediapolicy for recent headlines on media policy and advocacy issues such as: media consolidation, net neutrality, minority ownership, universal access, FCC updates and other policy resources and also to see UNITY's FCC comments on Net Neutrality.