Grantee Spotlight: ICFJ’s Spanish-Language Multimedia Trainers

We are excited to support the International Center for Journalists’ new program, “Líderes Digitales: Creating a New Generation of Spanish-Language Multimedia Trainers.” This initiative will teach dozens of journalists from across the U.S. to train their own newsrooms in multimedia storytelling, emerging technologies, social media and visual techniques.

Participants were chosen from more than a dozen states, including large cohorts from California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Texas. Some represent Telemundo and Univision but others work for local news organizations and nonprofits.

The program begins with 57 participants, who will all take part in a four-week online course. At the end, participants will submit proposals for a multimedia project that will strengthen their communities

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ICFJ will then choose 26 reporter trainers to attend a three-day boot camp on backpack journalism. From this group, eight finalists will be chosen to receive additional intensive training to become Spanish-language, digital-media trainers.

For more information on this exciting program, click here.

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Training for the Expanding Ethnic Media Newsroom

Want to learn more about how to work in an ethnic media newsroom? Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) is hosting a series of training workshops for ethnic media newsrooms in April. These Ethnic Media Watchdog Workshops will help journalists “sharpen their skills, learn new approaches and add depth to their reporting.” Award-winning journalists from around the country volunteer their time to provide training on topics such as the 2010 census, criminal justice, the economy, education, health care, immigration and local government. Hands-on spreadsheet software training also will be offered.

Upcoming Ethnic Media Watchdog Workshops:
April 9-10, 2010 in Los Angeles, Calif.
April 10-11, 2010 in Chicago, Ill.
April 16-17, 2010 in New York, N.Y.

For more information about the workshops and registration, click here.

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Ethnic Media is Growing, Expands Audience by 8 Million in 4 Years

Ethnic media outlets now reach more than 57 million people in the United States, according to a new poll by New America Media (NAM). The survey results were released at the New American Media Ethnic Media Expo held in Atlanta, Georgia, earlier this month.

Ethnic media readers and viewers have increased by 8 million people in the last four years. The poll, conducted by Bendixen & Associates, surveyed 1,329 African-American, Hispanic and Asian-American adults in the United States.

The uptick in readership signals the deep penetration of ethnic media into the communities. Ethnic media outlets now reach 82% of African-American, Hispanic and Asian-American adults. NAM’s executive director, Sandy Close, attributes this to a thirst for information in communities that are not typically covered by mainstream media outlets.

One notable finding was that Asian-Americans turn to ethnic media outlets such as VATV (Vietnamese) in Washington, D.C. and KCNS-TV (Chinese) in San Francisco for news coverage from their home country.

The Hispanic population has also embraced television as a media outlet, with Spanish-language stations such as Telemundo and Univision continuing to increase their viewership and now reaching 86% of the Hispanic population.

Sergio Bendixen, president of Bendixen & Associates, notes that through the economic downturn, ethnic media consumption has remained stable. He attributes part of the recent increase to Barack Obama’s candidacy and presidency, with many minorities finding a newfound interest in political news coverage.

Please tell us what your organization is doing to reach the ethnic community and develop your audience.

--Compiled by Jenn Bollenbacher, Citizenship Program Intern

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10 Journalists Chosen for Environmental Justice Fellowships

Ten journalists have been chosen by USC Annenberg’s Institute for Justice and Journalism (IJJ) to take part in an MF-funded fellowship program that will help them report on the complexities of urban environmental justice with clarity, depth and context.

The selected Fellows all work for ethnic media or are independent journalists who cover issued related to racial justice. The 10 Fellows are:

Edwin Buggage, editor-in-chief/writer, New Orleans Data News Weekly
Lori Edmo-Suppah, news editor, Sho-Ban News, Fort Hall, Idaho
Nadra Kareem, contributing writer, L.A. Watts Times, Los Angeles
Kari Lyderson, independent journalist, Chicago
Brentin Mock, writing fellow, The American Prospect, Washington, D.C.
Julio Cesar Ortiz, news reporter, KMEX-34 (Univision), Los Angeles
Fabiola Pomareda, reporter, La Raza newspaper, Chicago
Devin Robins, radio producer, Los Angeles
Huascar Robles, arts and culture editor, Metro San Juan, Puerto Rico
Talia Whyte, freelance journalist, Boston

The program will be divided into two parts: First the reporters and their editors will go through five days of intensive training and site visits in Los Angeles in May, to be followed by a similar segment in Chicago later this summer. The work they produce as a result of the fellowship will be posted on IJJ’s web site following the program at http://www.justicejournalism.org.

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Taking It Right to the People

President Barack Obama has chosen the path less traveled to get out his message: bypassing the traditional guard of the often-jaded White House Press Corps to reach out directly to his desired (mostly liberal) media, including bloggers and radio hosts.

For starters, he introduced the massive stimulus spending plan by connecting White House budget director Peter Orsazg on a conference call to mostly left-leaning writers . Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel followed suit and perhaps heralded the increased importance of ethnic media in Obama’s communication plan by a direct briefing with black and Hispanic media.

Jonathan Martin of Politico reports that as revolutionary as this plan seems, it’s the fulfillment of every President’s dream to bypass the inner sanctum of seasoned beltway writers in order to present their unfiltered messages to very friendly audiences. But Martin points out that it’s not quite so easy to completely dodge the scrutiny of the White House Press Corps.

Read Martin’s article here.

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Ethnic Media Initiative Underway in Chicago

Community Media Workshop, with support from McCormick, has boosted its media directory contacts for the area’s burgeoning ethnic media sector (see the directory at http://www.newstips.org/cart/index.php). Next up is a two-year grant from the Foundation for a CMW initiative aimed at boosting editorial content and online presence of the sector. For starters, check out Steve Franklin's newly created blog that covers the local ethnic media scene at:
http://chicagoistheworld.org/?cat=11

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Ethnic Media Environmental Justice Fellowships Now Available

The University of Southern California’s Institute for Justice and Journalism (IJJ) is taking applications for its 2009 MF-funded Fellowship in Environmental Justice. Aimed at increasing the depth, clarity and context of coverage of urban environmental issues, the program will include sessions in Los Angeles and Chicago and will feature field reporting trips, professional training workshops and interviews with experts. The Los Angeles session will last one week and begin April 30, 2009, and the Chicago session will take place in July, exact dates TBD. The program will select 10 experienced print, television, radio and online journalists from across the U.S. who are employed by ethnic media news organizations or independent journalists who regularly cover ethnic communities or racial justice issues. The editors or news directors of the Fellows will also take part in at least three days of the sessions in Los Angeles.

For more information, click here:
http://www.justicejournalism.org/fellowships/index.html

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DC Press Corps: MSM Down, Niche Media Up

A three-month study on the scale, scope and nature of the Washington press corps, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and journalist Tyler Marshall, is now out and the picture is a fascinating one. The story is more about a dramatic transformation than simply a shrinking act. Take note:

* ClimateWire, an on-line newsletter launched less than a year ago, deploys more than twice the reporting power around Capitol Hill than the Hearst News Service

* The DC bureau of Mother Jones, a San Francisco-based nonprofit magazine, has seven reporters, about the same size as the now-reduced Time magazine bureau

* CQ, a news operation that produces an array of on-line and print publications, now has the largest number of journalists accredited to cover Congress

In addition to the decline in the reporting power of mainstream media and the growth among more narrowly focused special interest or niche media, there has been a marked jump in foreign media now represented in Washington. In 1968, there were about 160 foreign correspondents reporting from Washington. In October 2008, there were nearly 10 times as many.

For more on this study, click here: http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/new_washington_press_corps

To see an MF-funded study on the diversity of Washington news bureaus, carried out by UNITY and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University and released in July, 2008, click here: http://cronkite.asu.edu/news/diversity-072408.php

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UT-San Marcos To Host Conference on Spanish-Language Media

It’s not too late to sign up for the 2nd International Latino Media Conference 2009, “The State of Spanish Language Media.” The conference, which features a number of leaders in the field, will take place Feb. 19-21, at Texas State University in San Marcos. Discussions will cover the development of Spanish-language media in Latin America, the status and future of Latino-oriented media in the U.S., media policies pertaining to U.S. Latinos and the role of Spanish-language media in politics. The conference is open to scholars, students, media analysts, media professionals and policy advocates.

For more click here: http://www.centerforlatinomedia.com

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NYCMA Posts Ippies Awards

They range from analysis of those most affected by foreclosure to the compelling profile of a multi-ethnic softball league, a piece on being Sikh in America to a photo essay on train travel in India. The winning entries from the New York Community Media Alliance’s 2008 Ippies Awards are now online. As a group, these stories personalize the immigrant experience in compelling and nuanced ways. Click here (http://www.indypressny.org/ippies2008winner.php3) to view all of the winning entries.

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NYCMA Announces 2008 Ippies Awards

The New York Community Media Alliance (NYCMA) announced the 28 winners of the 2008 Ippies Awards for ethnic and community press in New York City on Friday, Dec. 5 at Baruch College. Established in 2001, the Awards recognized excellent journalism chosen from more than 170 entries, in categories covering: investigative reporting; feature writing, editorial or commentary; coverage of immigrant, racial or social issues; coverage of labor; election coverage; overall design and photography.

To see more about the awards and winning articles and photo essays, click here.

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December is Ethnic Media Month

The Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism at San Francisco State University has posted its MF-funded study “The Health of Ethnic Media: Needs and Opportunities.” The report, directed by Cristina Azocar and Jon Funabiki, offers a snapshot of the health and resiliency of the nation’s ethnic news organizations from the point of view of their proprietors, publishers, editors and reporters. To see the study, click here: http://ciij.org/downloads/Health_of_the_Ethnic_Media_Final.pdf

Also, hyperlocal journalism was celebrated Dec. 5 at Minnesota’s Twin Cities first regional Ethnic and Community Media Awards. Co-hosted by the Twin Cities Daily Planet and New America Media, the event honored stories about such topics as Asian-American theater, the recent arrival of refugees from Bhutan, education in the Hmong community and the Service Employees International Union strike in Minneapolis.

To view a NAM story on this event, click here:
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=2d396e99f74e9f3b7500319ce0b599a2.

For audio coverage of the event, click here: http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=979cee7dfd9e5c88c47004478bd04e31.

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New England Honors Ethnic Media

A Hindu temple raises $10,000 for tsunami relief but donations never reach the victims.
Undocumented carpenters build houses as federal agents with ICE break up their families.
A police officer fatally shoots a young Brazilian immigrant.

These are a few of the award-winning stories celebrated Nov. 20 at the first New England-wide competition celebrating excellent journalism in languages other than English. The awards – called the NEENAs (New England Ethnic Newswire Awards) – were given at the University of Massachusetts Boston. The competition attracted more than 120 entries from Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

To see a piece on the awards on the New America Media Web site, as well as links to the winning publications, click here:
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=9ece804b027dbf5f1c2d0125bdb4b99a

To view the New England Ethnic Newswire, run by Frank Herron of UMB’s Center on Media and Society, click here: www.ethnicnewz.org.

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Innovative Partnering

Two MF grantees recently came together to spread the word about voter education issues to journalists across the country. New America Media (NAM) and the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) partnered for an Oct. 1 conference call focused on state-specific voter identification laws, registration deadlines, election information sources and citizenship requirements, according to AAJA (for more, visit: http://www.aaja.org/features/articles/2008_09_26_01/aajateleconference.pdf). The call featured a Q&A with John Bonifaz, legal director of Voter Action.

This unique professional journalism training opportunity allowed NAM, the oldest and largest group representing ethnic media, to partner with a media membership association to provide specific, timely information for journalists serving ethnic audiences.

The teleconference was promoted an NAM public service campaign aimed at informing ethnic media audiences about what documents they need to bring with them to vote on Nov. 4.

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Ethnic Media on the Trail

A group of ethnic media journalists are covering the Democratic National Convention thanks to the assistance of New America Media (NAM), a McCormick grantee.

NAM organized the network, arranged credentials for the reporters and funded travel costs for the 14-member network. NAM, headed by media guru Sandy Close, is the nation's largest nonprofit dedicated to broadening opportujities for ethnic news organizations. Although the ethic media is said to reach an audience of more than 50 million, typically few ethnic journalists have had the ways and means to attend national political conventions.

The 14 reporters covering the Dems in Denver are:

• Eduardo de Oliveira, New England Ethnic News (Boston, Mass.)
• Randy Stelly, The Real Views (Baton Rouge, La.)
• Erline Andrews, Caribbean Life (New York City, N.Y.)
• Judith Martinez, Atlanta Latino (Atlanta, Ga.)
• Cindy Yurth, The Navajo Times (Navajo, Ariz.)
• Gregg Morris, The Word (Hunter College, N.Y.)
• Jacqueline Fernandez, The Word (Hunter College, N.Y.)
• Kisha Allison, The Word (Hunter College, N.Y.)
• Jonathan Mena, The Word (Hunter College, N.Y.)
• Kaiping Liu, The World Journal (San Francisco, Calif.)
• Zuag Kimberly Chang, Hmong Today (Minneapolis, Minn.)
• Ashahed Muhammad, The Final Call (Chicago, Ill.)
• Roberto Lovato, New America Media (New York City, N. Y.)
• Anthony Advincula, New America Media (New York City, N.Y.)

They're joined by their credentialed ethnic media counterparts organized by the NY Community Media Alliance, another MF grantee in the sector.

For more info on the NAM cohort, visit: http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=5f56768fa66560ba45f241e7c661e209.

NAM also received credentials for two of its 10 applicants for the Republican convention next week. Their work will be available online as well.

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McCormick Hosts Ethnic Media Leaders

The recent “McCormick Ethnic Media Conference: Strategies for Growing the Sector” brought some 30 leaders from across the nation to Chicago to discuss strategies, obstacles, lessons learned and impact of the work they do. The conference featured a public panel Friday, June 20 on “The State of Ethnic Media: Boom or Bust?” This public discussion was moderated by Community Media Workshop’s Thom Clark and featured Sandy Close of New America Media, Cristina Azocar of the Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism at San Francisco State University and Juana Ponce de Leon of New York Community Media Alliance. Here are video excerpts from that lively exchange:

• Thom Clark of CMW introduces the panel and discusses the results of his organization’s research into Chicago’s 200 ethnic news outlets (click here)
• Panelists discuss challenges facing ethnic media
(click here
• Juana Ponce de Leon discusses the vibrancy of the ethnic media in a city where 40% of residents are foreign-born (click here)
• Cristina Azocar discusses the research conducted by SFSU on opportunities and threats to EM nationally (click here)
• Sandy Close on the role and strengths of EM (click here)
• Sandy Close on EM and advertising potential (click here)
• Closing comments on MSM v EM v the death of journalism (click here)

A highlight of this event was a spoken word performance by Esther Ikoro and Adam Gottlieb of Young Chicago Authors (click here)

Photo above by Demetrio Maguigad of Community Media Workshop

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'Reznetters' Net National Award, Internships

Eleven staff members of reznetnews.org have snagged summer internships this summer at eight organizations, including The Boston Globe, Denver Post and three bureaus of The Associated Press.

All are grads of the American Indian Journalism Institute, an intensive three-week program for college students sponsored by the Freedom Forum. AIJI is held each June at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion.

Reznet reporter Sunnie Redhouse was recently was named as one of the nation’s 100 best student journalists by UWire, a news and career service for college students. Redhouse, a Navajo who graduated this month from the University of New Mexico and is a 2005 AIJI grad, will report at The Salt Lake Tribune.

“It’s validation of what we’re trying to do, both in terms of reznet and AIJI,” said Denny McAuliffe, who teaches reporting at AIJI and is the project director and creator of Reznet. The six-year-old Web site, a grantee of the McCormick Foundation, is a project of the University of Montana School of Journalism in Missoula.

For more information, click here: www.reznetnews.org.

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American University Joins J-Schools Exploring Ethnic Media

American University's School of Communications is beginning to develop a relationship with the growing DC-area ethnic media community. This project is an outgrowth of Angie Chuang's class "Race, Ethnic and Community Reporting," which partnered with New American Media to identify more than 70 area news outlets working in a dozen languages. The School is now helping to nurture a relationship between ethnic media and the area's public schools.

For more on this growing initiative - as well as Chuang's description of some of the advantages and disadvantages of reporting on your own ethnic community, click here: http://veracity.univpubs.american.edu/today/vol/11/29/042908_chuang.html

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New America Media's Web Site Features J-School Ethnic Media Projects

The New America Media (NAM) Web site now links to a variety of projects at journalism schools that involve the ethnic media outlets in their regions.

With assistance from NAM (and financial backing from MTF & others), a growing number of J-Schools are exploring, researching and engaging the ethnic media in their own backyards and finding that this work reaps huge dividends in return. It helps the schools attract more diverse students, redefine and energize their role within their own universities and become more relevant in their communities. Schools are:

* Studying this growing sector’s diversity, scope and audience;
* Convening ethnic reporters to provide training in investigative reporting, online story telling and issues such as public health; and
* Creating advisory boards and networks of ethnic journalists to explore commonalities and challenges and to explore partnerships.

See more, plus an interactive map of the projects, at: http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_alt_category.html?category_id=535

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Ethnic Media + Free Speech

New America Media hosted an ‘eye opening’ forum on the threats that Ethnic Media reporters and editors sometimes face when their reporting upsets their communities. The forum, “A Challenge for Ethnic Media: When Coverage Provokes Threats from Your Own Community,” gathered journalists, editors and publishers of ethnic media to discuss incidents when they have been boycotted, protested, sued, harassed and physically threatened by members of their own communities who wanted to dictate what the ethnic news media could and couldn’t cover.

A reporter for LA’s Koreatown received a letter assuring him that his fingers would be cut off if his coverage of organized crime in his community continued.

Here is an excerpt from the story NAM posted on its web site:
When AsianWeek was embroiled in a controversy over an article attacking African Americans, the vehement opposition came from members of the Asian-American community, [AsianWeek publisher Ted] Fang noted, not from the black community. Asian Americans claimed the publication as a newspaper that spoke for them and demanded a change in top management to prevent other inflammatory stories from being printed in the future.

This dynamic between ethnic media and their audiences can be beneficial, according to Fang: ethnic media tend to have a strong, loyal following. But it also can be a serious challenge when journalists trying to do their job – telling the good as well as the bad about their own community.

To see the NAM piece, visit http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=f68b62db82c0909a0f07e6c12123bea9.

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