State of Spanish Language Media 2007

The University of North Texas has just released a State of the Spanish Language Media 2007 report. Take a look at this fascinating snapshot at http://www.spanishmedia.unt.edu/SofSLM%202007.pdf. UNT’s Center for Spanish Language Media, created in 2006, is on the web at http://www.spanishmedia.unt.edu. UNT’s report – with chapters on Print, Radio, TV, Advertising and Acquisitions - goes into great detail around trends in each media platform, advertising and audience. It touches on a number of developments – from the consolidation in Latino print outlets to the rise in Hispanic online social networking. It also touches on a large unknown for the future of Spanish-language media – that increasingly the Hispanic population here is U.S.-born and may turn to mainstream media over ethnic media as it ages.

For more on the Spanish-language media, see the State of the News Media 2007’s chapter on the ethnic media at http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2007/narrative_ethnicalternative_intro.asp?media=10.

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Knight Foundation Announces Top News Challenge Proposals

The Knight Foundation has just released a list of the finalists' proposals for the second year of the Knight News Challenge. These projects aim at – in Knight words - informing, empowering and engaging citizens and helping them in the decision-making process of their neighborhoods, communities and countries. The 17 projects chosen for funding, not named in the list, will be released May 14, 2008 at the E&P Interactive Media Conference in Las Vegas. To see the other top proposals click here: Top Proposals 2008.

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Looking for a Few Rising Stars

The International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF) is looking for a the next talented crop of women managers who want to increase their leadership skills to build their careers. The IWMF will be hosting its annual Leadership Institute for Women Journalists this summer from July 21-25 in Chicago. This hands-on week-long session, funded by MTF, features sessions on:

· Managing relationships with colleagues, staff and supervisors
· Managing change
· Navigating newsroom politics
· Having critical conversations and difficult discussions
· Negotiating salaries, contracts and benefits
· Advocating for yourself
· Encouraging diversity
· Work/life balance

The application deadline is APRIL 16. Some scholarships are available. To apply online, visit: www.iwmf.org/programs/leadership.

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New Name for Historic J-Group

The National Association of Minority Media Executives (NAMME), the only membership organization of diverse media executives and a long-time MTF grantee, is changing its name. It will now be known as the National Association of Multicultural Media Executives (sticking with the same acronym), reports Maynard's Richard Prince in Journal-Isms (http://www.maynardije.org/columns/dickprince/080312_prince/).

The change comes after a couple months of internal dicussion. NAMME Board Chair Neil Foote told Prince that the new name "better reflects the demographic changes in the country and better positions the organization for the 21st century." They've always worked across all media, ethnicities and platforms, Foote notes.

Like most groups, NAMME has been hit hard by the cash crunch in the media industry and is looking for individual donor support to continue working on research projects around diversity issues in the media and supporting its members. To contribute to its current campaign, visit http://www.namme.org/.

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Georgia's Got Ethnic Media on its Mind

Someone once said that the most creative solutions resolve three problems at once. A recent program hosted by the Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia, Athens – in partnership with New American Media - is proof positive.

Trying to tackle seemingly disparate issues – making the campus a more inviting environment for prospective students of color, establishing ties between the journalism school and the surrounding community and providing useful training for ethnic journalists – led to an innovative idea: an Ethnic Media Family Weekend. The strategy is simple: Publishers and editors of the area’s burgeoning ethnic media are invited to campus for a weekend of high-quality workshops on topics ranging from the importance of getting online and how to create inexpensive new media slide shows to investigative reporting and coverage of health issues. Taking the idea a step further, the families of these same ethnic media leaders were invited to attend these same training sessions or to participate in campus tours and evening entertainment. Win-win-win.

To learn more about the MTF-funded weekend, which took place Feb. 23-24, visit http://www.georgiacenter.uga.edu/conferences/2008/Feb/23/ethnic.phtml.

And to see a short video that NAM’s Cliff Parker put together on the event, see
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=84a3fff8558e9bbf49a8908ff053ff54.

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Read It, and Rate It

The American Society of Newspaper Editors, an MTF grantee, is looking for a few good reviewers to assist its High School Journalism Initiative. ASNE has launched a new review section of its Web site (http://www.highschooljournalism.org/) for journalism teachers and students to rate books, articles, videos etc. for the classroom. The hope is that the review process will identify the resouces that can best help teachers.

Meanwhile, Kent State University's Center for Scholastic Journalism recently launched a blog to serve as a clearinghouse and discussion forum around free speech issues that impact young people. Check it out at http://csjblog.org/.

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USC Annenberg's Institute for Justice and Journalism to Lead Initiative Focused on Coverage of Immigration

The USC Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism has named 12 Fellows for an upcoming MTF-funded program on coverage of immigration. IJJ’s Fellows, selected largely from ethnic news organizations, will take part in a week-long program “Immigration: Reporting the Full Story,” March 16-23. Activities will include field experiences along the U.S.-Mexico border and in-depth discussions with immigration experts and journalists from both countries. The goal of the initiative is to improve and deepen coverage of immigration.

During the week of March 16, the IJJ Fellows and eight other journalists will meet in Tucson and Green Valley, Arizona, with immigration experts before traveling to Sonora, Mexico for field experiences. The Fellows will reconvene on June 1 in New York City for a three-day program funded by Open Society Institute at the IJJ-affiliated Center on Media, Crime and Justice (CMCJ) at John Jay College. The 12 Fellows funded by MTF will be joined by another 12 journalists selected by the CMCJ.

Two of the IJJ Fellows work in broadcast, two in magazine and eight in newspapers. They are:
• Mariana Alvarado Avalos, a reporter for La Estrella de Tucsón
• Fernando Díaz, an investigative reporter for The Chicago Reporter magazine
• Paula Díaz, a reporter for Hoy newspaper in Los Angeles
• Dzung Do, a reporter for Nguoi Viet Daily News in Orange County, California
• J. Emilio Flores, a photojournalist for La Opinión newspaper in Los Angeles
• Karla Gomez-Escamilla, a reporter/anchor for Univision Arizona
• Damaso D. González, a reporter for El Diario/La Prensa in New York City
• Naomi M. Ishisaka, the editor in chief of ColorsNW magazine in Seattle
• Linda Lin, a news manager for Singtao Daily in Los Angeles
• Jorge Morales Almada, a reporter for La Opinión newspaper in Los Angeles
• Rodrigo París, the U.S. and International Editor for Rumbo Newspapers
• David Rodríguez, a reporter for Univision of Puerto Rico

The Fellows will be joined in Arizona by eight of their editors and colleagues:
• Marco Flores of Univision Arizona
• Rui Kaneya of The Chicago Reporter
• Reynaldo Mena of Hoy
• José Merino of La Estrella de Tucsón
• Edwin Rivera of Univision Puerto Rico
• Pedro Rojas of La Opinión
• Jesús Del Toro of Rumbo
• Benjamin Vu of Nguoi Viet Daily News.

Stories generated from this initiative will be posted on the IJJ Web site at www.justicejournalism.org.

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We're Not All 'Citizen Journalists'

With all the trendiness around the term "citizen journalist," Todd Wolfson of the Media Mobilizing Project in Philadelphia makes an important point: Not all the people practicing citizen journalism are citizens. Some are undocumented immigrants, he notes in an article from today's New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/technology/10link.html?ex=1362888000&en=f7410e7dafa0198a&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink).

Wolfson prefers the term "community journalism" as the encompassing title for those reporting out in the community. He's helping train a cadre of community journalists as part of the Media Mobilizing Project (www.mediamobilizing.org), a Knight-funded initiative that is teaching independent media making as part of an organizing effort "to build a broad vibrant network of social movements in Philadelphia."

The Media Mobilizing Project isn't the only initiative trying to train and disseminate news from community members and ethnic media. Check out Twin Cities Daily Planet (www.tcdailyplanet.net), an MTF grantee, which has been training and disseminating content from ethnic and community media in the Twin Cities for several years. The Daily Planet's recently re-designed Web site features some new multimedia options and its network of contributors continues to grow.

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Students Catching Political Fever

The heated political rhetoric and captivating ideas of the presidential candidates is generating a lot of buzz among students. Here are some of the impressive initiatives that involve young people reporting and blogging about the election process.
• Daily Kos: University of Washington professor David Domke is leading a group of UW students in reporting and blogging around the elections. They’ve reported in Washington state and Idaho and are now blanketing Texas. Their coverage has caught the attention of the Dallas Morning News, Seattle Times and the Huffington Post. See http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/4/04242/68517 for more.
• Collaborations: Two teen initiatives, What Kids Can Do (Providence, R.I) and Y-Press (Indianapolis), have teamed up on campaign coverage and plan to blog together for the next 10 months. See http://www.whatkidscando.org/youth_on_the_trail/y-press_intro.html for the first posts.
• New America Media: NAM's YO! Youth Outlook has been posting a youth media blog-a-thon for the past few weeks. It includes a call out to other youth bloggers to join in on the action. See their blog at http://youthoutlook.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=89b2ad995e5cce45a27514fdd7312838.
• The group Mikva Challenge sent a group of teenagers to New Hampshire to cover the primaries there. The reporting they did is posted here (http://mikvainnewhampshire08.blogspot.com).

Northwestern University’s Media Management Center, with Ethics and Excellence in Journalism funding, will be conducting research later this year to identify techniques and strategies news organizations can use online to deepen teen interest in serious news. MMC is looking for recommendations about web sites that should appeal to young people interested in following the ’08 election. Contact Vivian Vahlberg at v-vahlberg@northwestern.edu. The upcoming research is a follow-up to MMC's "If It Catches My Eye: An Exploration of Online News Experiences of Teenagers," report, which was funded by McCormick Tribune Foundation.

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We Need Great Ideas, You Need Funding

The McCormick Tribune Foundation is looking for some creative women digital media entrepreneurs for a new project - and you, or your associates, may be just the one with the golden idea that gets funded.

In the words of our grantee J-Lab, "Calling all creative new media women. J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism is seeking to fund three women-led start-ups that will generate new ideas in the world of news and information and model a spirit of journalistic entrepreneurship." So what's the deal? J-Lab is seeking three great new digital media projects founded by women to receive $10,000 seed grants to launch their ideas and blog about it for the next year. These grants are part of a new initiative that will "address issues of opportunity and innovation, recruitment and retention for women in journalism."

The deadline to apply is May 1. For application materials, and to learn more about the McCormick Tribune New Media Entrepreneurs initiative, visit the project's Web site at http://www.newmediawomen.org/.

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