Journalists in the Crossfire... 'Foregoing the Why'

The Washington Post has a good piece on violence against journalists in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez, a gritty industrial city of 1.5 million that has tallied more than 1,300 grizzly homicides already this year. Since 2000, more than 30 Mexican journalists have been slain, and the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Joel Simon calls the border region – where powerful drug cartels are battling for control – ‘ground zero.’ The costs to society are many, including the fact that journalists flee or simply self censor… only exploring the who, what, when and where… but foregoing the why.

To see the WP story, click here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/24/AR2008112402776.html?hpid=topnews

To see CPJ’s recent report on journalists along the Mexican border (“The Disappeared in Mexico”) click here: http://www.cpj.org/americas

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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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Online Time Makes Teens Lazy - Or Just Smarter?

The most extensive U.S. study on teens and use of digital media finds
that America's youth develop important social and technical skills
online, often in ways adults do not understand or value. "It might
surprise parents to learn that it is not a waste of time for their teens
to hang out online," said Mizuko Ito, University of California, Irvine
researcher and the report's lead author.

Released this week at the American Anthropological Association's annual
meeting, the extensive study was funded by the John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation's digital media and learning initiative. The
$50-million initiative is exploring how digital media is changing how
young people learn, play, socialize and participate in civic life.

"There are myths about kids spending time online - that it is dangerous or
making them lazy," said Ito. "But we found that spending time online is
essential for young people to pick up the social and technical skills
they need to be competent citizens in the digital age."

To see the report, click here

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New Michigan Media

While the newspaper and auto industries are rapidly declining in Michigan, the ethnic media in the state continue to blossom, according to Poynter columnist and journalism professor Joe Grimm. He writes about the growth in a recent column describing an MF-funded ethnic media conference at Wayne State University (http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=58&aid=154274).

Wayne State's Hayg Oshagan helped assemble a directory of nearly 140 ethnic media outlets from Albanian to Ukrainian in Michigan that was released at the conference. More than ___ ethnic media members and partners attended, including MF's own Mark Hallett and Sandy Close of New America Media (the inspiration for Wayne State's work). You can access the directory and work by Michigan ethnic media at: www.NewMichiganMedia.com.

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Future of Information

The Knight Foundation is putting its money where your mouth is. The Miami-based foundation just launched a new community site called Knight Pulse. This site - www.KnightPulse.org - will be a place where interested people can talk about the future of information and other pressing topics facing the evolution of journalism and media.

And it's not just lip service. Knight Pulse "is a place for conversations that might later become collaborative projects considered for funding," according to Knight. With more than $25 million earmarked for community news and social media experiments in the next five years, it's a chance for all those innovators to join the funding fray.

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Compentencies of the Next Generation News Organization

How can news organizations keep pace with rapid technological pace. Most have struggled so far, primarily due to the lack of in-house expertise to proactively identify trends and opportunities.

The MF-funded Media Management Center at Northwestern University has a few insights on the subject. Six to be exact. All gleaned from two dozen technology industry leaders interviewed by innovation expert and consultant Annette Moser-Wellman.

In its newly-released report, "Six Competencies of the Next Generation News Organization," MMC suggests priority areas that media organizations should beef up to better compete in the evolving, rough-and-tumble marketplace. The report suggests media companies build around:

• The Platform Strategist
• The Marketer
• The Community Builder
• The Data Miner
• The Complete Storyteller
• The Entrepreneur

Check out the full report at: http://www.mediamanagementcenter.org/research/sixcompetencies.pdf.

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Web 2.0 Arrives at Committee to Protect Journalists

MF-funded Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) unveiled its new Web site this week, with some new bells, whistles and tools that will enable it to reach more people with timely information about defending journalists. Check it out here: www.cpj.org.

You'll notice some a new blog, RSS feeds and some foreign language pages. Key tools for a group working to protect international journalists.

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Your Vote Counts

Voting is en vogue these days. The impressive public interest in the national elections should lead to a record turnout in the general election and, as we know, participation is a key indicator in measuring the health of a democracy.
Now we have another way for you to express your opinion. The We Media Game Changers is a new MF-sponsored awards program that seeks to recognize people, groups, ideas and projects using media to connect people and create change. You can rate and review the 35 finalist nominees at: http://gamechangers.wemedia.com/.
The nominees range from digital projects at mainstream news organizations to blogs to funders of new media innovation. And in this race, your vote will count: The Community Choice winner, selected from online ratings, will be showcased at the We Media conference in Miami in February 2009. That's incentive enough to use media to inspire change!

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