tag:newamericamedia.org,2009-04-06://19 2013-05-20T22:46:56Z New America Media is a nationwide association of over 3000 ethnic media organizations representing the development of a more inclusive journalism. Founded in 1996 by Pacific News Service, New America Media promotes ethnic media by strengthening the editorial and economic viability of this increasingly influential segment of America's communications industry. tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11460 2013-05-20T22:00:00Z 2013-05-20T22:46:56Z

Joseph Torres ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 It’s important to celebrate whenever social barriers are knocked down — including the one that fell today when Mignon Clyburn became the acting chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission.

Never before has a president appointed a woman to chair the commission — not even on an interim basis.

It’s not the first time Clyburn has made history. She’s also the first African-American woman to serve as an FCC commissioner.

But there are still many barriers that need to be knocked down. For one, we need to remove the “acting” title for the next woman to chair the FCC.

Clyburn’s accomplishment is also an opportunity to reflect on the FCC’s history of permitting and even exacerbating inequality. For evidence, just consider the impact of the agency’s policy decisions on women and people of color.

It’s no accident that our nation’s media system looks the way it does; it reflects our nation’s legacy of discrimination. Most of our first broadcast licenses were allocated to white men or white-run companies. And not much has changed.

People of color own just 3 percent of all full-power TV stations and less than 8 percent of all full-power radio stations. Women own less than 7 percent of all full-power broadcast stations. These statistics explain both the lack of diversity among staff at broadcast outlets and the paltry amount of programming featuring people of color.

But instead of adopting policies that would boost ownership diversity, the FCC and Congress have consistently pushed for greater consolidation. Thanks to socioeconomic conditions, the FCC’s approach has made it even more difficult for women and people of color to buy broadcast stations.

That’s why it was troubling when former FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski pushed for more consolidation during his tenure. One of his last moves involved a policy proposal that would allow companies to own broadcast stations and newspapers in the same market — a matter that’s still pending before the commission.

The FCC has long placated broadband and wireless companies — and Genachowski didn’t buck this trend. He failed to protect the open Internet with strong Net Neutrality rules. And he failed to provide more options for affordable broadband access, leaving many households disconnected.

While politicians and media figures often talk about the importance of our nation’s changing demographics, few are willing to do anything to make our media system more representative of the population it serves.

There’s hope that Clyburn can begin the important work of ensuring the FCC places the interests of the public over those of a small corporate elite.

Clyburn has defended the Lifeline program — which provides access to basic phone service for poor households — against political attacks. She’s spoken out against the unlawful practice of charging predatory rates for phone calls that prisoners make to families and friends. Clyburn should pass an order to end this unlawful practice — and should also direct the Commission to conduct studies to address the shameful state of broadcast ownership diversity.

President Obama has nominated Tom Wheeler, a major donor to his presidential campaign who formerly headed the trade associations for both the cable and wireless industries, as Clyburn’s successor. The president’s choice of an industry lobbyist to lead an agency established to serve the public interest has troubled many.

Until the next chair is confirmed, Clyburn should do everything she can to gain back the public’s trust in the commission.

Joseph Torres is senior external affairs director of Free Press, a nonpartisan organization building a nationwide movement for media that serve the public interest.


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Colorlines ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 report, titled “Diversity on Evening Cable News in 13 Charts,” women and other people of color are underrepresented as guests on evening cable news programs at MSNBC, CNN and Fox News.

Media Matters examined the guests of thirteen evening cable news shows on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News during the month of April 2013. During that time period, only 33% of MSNBC guests, 29% Fox News guests and 24% CNN guests were female. Latinos fared much worse. Only 3% of Fox News guests and 2% of CNN and MSNBC guests were Latino.

An excerpt of some of the findings are below:

White Guests Were Hosted Most Often On Cable News. Fox News had the largest proportion of white guests — 83 percent. African-Americans were the largest non-white group on all networks, representing 19 percent, 10 percent, and 5 percent of guests on MSNBC, Fox, and CNN, respectively.


Read more here.

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Univision News ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 The Los Angeles Times will no longer use the terms “illegal immigrant” or “undocumented immigrant,” the paper announced Wednesday. While the Times has generally avoided such terms for some time, the new guidelines make the policy official.

The paper will instead aim to describe a person’s circumstance, meaning how they entered the United States, and provide context.

The new guidelines instruct reporters to use ‘illegal immigration’ to describe the “phenomenon of entering or residing in a country in violation of the law,” but not to describe an individual except in a direct quotation.

A memo from the paper explained that “‘Illegal immigrant’ is overly broad and does not accurately apply in every situation…’[U]ndocumented immigrant’ similarly falls short of our goal of precision. It is also untrue in many cases, as with immigrants who possess passports or other documentation but lack valid visas.”

The memo noted that the Associated Press, whose stylebook provides the basis for much of the Times style, updated their guidelines in early April.

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Sandip Roy ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=54 At 5:44 PM on April 1, John Pack Lambert, a 32-year-old student of history at Wayne State University took a small step for one man which proved to be a giant leap for mankind.

And I mean MANkind, not humanity.

Lambert moved Patricia Aakhus, author of The Voyage of Mael Duin’s Curragh from American novelists to the category American women novelists.

Two minutes later, teen romance author Hailey Abbott suffered the same fate.

Then Megan Abbott.

At 8:51 PM Lambert, the one-man army to engender order in the universe, created a new category, Nigerian women novelists and put Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie there.

James Gleick’s account in the New York Review of Books of how Wikipedia fell into the great gender gap is a riveting read, a sort of detective story for category-geeks. (Read the full story here).

The next day Lambert was briefly sidetracked by a discussion of whether there should be a Category:Jeans enthusiasts (for “celebrities and famous people who are always wearing or frequently spotted wearing jeans”), but then he got back to work and A. L. Kennedy, till then a Scottish novelist, became a Scottish woman novelist. On April 3 he created a category for Greek women screenwriters; so far it has only one member.

The rest of the world cried “Sexism.” Leading the charge was Amanda Filipacci, one of the women writers who suddenly found herself banished to the ante-chamber while the men hogged the living room. (Sounds like an old-fashioned Indian wedding.)

Filipacci complained in a post on The New York Times:

People who go to Wikipedia to get ideas for whom to hire, or honor, or read, and look at that list of “American Novelists” for inspiration, might not even notice that the first page of it includes far more men than women. They might simply use that list without thinking twice about it. It’s probably small, easily fixable things like this that make it harder and slower for women to gain equality in the literary world.

Even Wikipedia’s founder Jimmy Wales was gobsmacked. In a post titled WTH, he wrote:

My first instinct is that surely these stories are wrong in some important way. Can someone update me on where I can read the community conversation about this? Did it happen? How did it happen?

Lambert stoutly defended himself to Gleick. “This whole hullabaloo is really missing the point,” he said. “The people who are making a big deal about this are not being up-front about what happens if we do not diffuse categories.”

Diffuse is geek-speak for moving things from a parent category to a sub-category. American novelist, said Lambert was just too big to be useful. “It is really a holding ground for people who have yet to be categorized into a more specific sub-cat,” said a user called Obi-Wan Kenobi. “It’s not some sort of club that you have to be a part of.”

May the force be with Obi-Wan Kenobi but really? If that’s the case why not move the men out to Male American novelists? There was a proposal to do that. It got shot down fast. That is our problem in a nutshell. We categorize by minority and therefore it’s hard to escape bias.

So after The New York Review of Books (again!) scooped all the big pubs by tracking down the mysterious Misha, the so-called Svengali alleged to have “radicalized” the brothers Tsarnaev, many commenters complained that he was described as half-Armenian. Why not describe him as half-Ukrainian complained angry readers, probably Armenians.

On the flip side, Indian American publications routinely complain that Kamala Harris is described as California’s first African American Attorney General when she is also its first Indian-American Attorney General.

But Wikipedia’s women problem is different. It’s not about the clumsiness of describing Kamala Harris as California’s first female African American Indian American attorney general. Like much of the online world Wikipedia has a gender gap. But as it has become the default go-to site for information, its gender gap is showing in embarrassing ways.

In 2011, Noam Cohen wrote in The New York Times that the contributor base was barely 13 percent women. That means there’s gender bias that shows up in the very act of deciding what topic is worthy of meriting a wiki entry and how long it is.

A topic generally restricted to teenage girls, like friendship bracelets, can seem short at four paragraphs when compared with lengthy articles on something boys might favor, like, toy soldiers or baseball cards, whose voluminous entry includes a detailed chronological history of the subject.

For example, during the royal wedding in 2011, Wikipedia members debated furiously about whether Kate Middleton’s dress deserved an entry. Wiki founder Wales thought it did because it had more social and cultural interest than “100 articles on different Linux distributions, some of them quite obscure… and (they have) virtually no impact on the broader culture.”

Well intentioned, I am sure. But a problematic example to use to try and fix a real gender problem. As one reader said at that time:

“I really see this idea that keeping this article does something to remedy the gender imbalance here to be facile at best and insulting at worst.”

Pardon me, Wiki, but your slip is showing.

It’s a knotty problem that goes beyond one OCD history student. How do you create categories without creating hierarchies? Especially given the fact that a “gay writer” is happy to claim a Lambda award given out for LGBT writing and a woman politician is grateful for support that comes her way thanks to a group like Emily’s List which wants to encourage women in politics. But neither want those honours to disqualify them from being “writer” or “politician.”

The problem is not one of the categories you belong to but the ones you don’t – this idea that somehow a woman American writer is not an American writer as well.

So in the world according to Wikipedia Maya Angelou belongs to 20th century women writers, African-American memoirists, African-American women poets, African American writers, American Activists, American dramatists and playwrights, American people of Sierre Leonean descent – everything but 20th century writer.

But the first categories Salman Rushdie belongs to are 20th century novelists and 21st century novelists.

Until Wikipedia understands that the difference between the two entries is not just one of ordering but of perspective, it’s doomed to keep falling face first into the gender gap.
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Colorlines ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103
It’s trendy to praise the democratization of media via the Internet as harnessing “the wisdom of crowds.” But this time, the crowds were dumb. Clouded by biases, CSI-wannabes deluged the Internet with pictures from the marathon marked up with theories about suspects. Those theories were too often based on pernicious assumptions about race and ethnicity. In one of the most widely circulated collection of images, a young man was singled out as a suspect because he was wearing a backpack, alone and brown. On the image, posted on 4chan, “alone” and “brown” were written in all caps. Subsequently, the website Reddit wrongly fingered a missing South Asian student from Brown University as the suspect—for which they, rightfully, later apologized.

We Americans all swim in centuries of racial bias only made more acute by 9/11 and its aftermath. Unchecked, such bias can take over. This is why we have public servants in the professional news media, to resist the rushing crowds of assumptions, to swim upstream by responding to biases and fear with context and insight. But in the wake of the Boston bombings, far too often, news media got caught downstream. Read more here.]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11239 2013-04-09T18:16:21Z 2013-04-09T18:58:16Z

Osama Siblani, publisher of The Arab American News, will be inducted into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame Sunday, April 21 at the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center in Lansing. He will be honored alongside longtime Detroit Metro Times editor...

Natasha Dado ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Osama Siblani, publisher of The Arab American News, will be inducted into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame Sunday, April 21 at the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center in Lansing. He will be honored alongside longtime Detroit Metro Times editor W. Kim Heron, who recently stepped down, investigative journalist Nancy McCauley, journalism educator Betsy Pollard Rau and former Detroit Free Press photojournalist Hugh Grannum, who passed away this year.

The Hall of Fame honors reporters, editors, publishers, owners, photographers, broadcasters, educators, and others who have made outstanding contributions to the profession.

It has very few members from ethnic and minority media, making Siblani’s nomination more notable.

“Mr. Siblani’s nomination is unique because he’s not the usual nominee. Yet his nomination into the grand palace of journalism history in Michigan will not only send a strong message of journalism inclusion to all communities but also adds a different and an exciting feature to this longstanding journalistic tradition of Michigan’s finest in the media,” writes Michigan Chronicle senior editor Bankole Thompson in a letter supporting Siblani’s nomination.

Joe Grimm, former recruiting and development editor at the Detroit Free Press from 1983-2008, and current visiting editor in residence at Michigan State University, spearheaded the effort to get Siblani inducted by reaching out to people in the profession who all made cases through letters on why Siblani is worthy of the recognition.

Eleven letters including one from Grimm were sent to the Hall of Fame’s selection committee for review. Grimm, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2009, says in some cases people are nominated more than once before they actually get inducted. This was Siblani’s first time getting nominated.

Other media figures who’ve been inducted in the past include legendary White House Correspondent and Arab American Helen Thomas, WXYZ Channel 7 anchor and reporter Diana Lewis and Neal Shine, former publisher of the Detroit Free Press.

In nearly all the letters Siblani’s colleagues note that his work extends far beyond TAAN. “He wears many hats, he’s not just a publisher,” Chuck Stokes, editorial/public affairs director, WXYZ TV said in a phone interview.

Stokes said he’s known Siblani for more than 20 years, and called him a crusading advocate, and political analyst who’s been sought out by many.

Siblani’s work was also critical to the establishment of the Arab American Political Action Committee, and Congress of Arab American Organizations.

“By every account, the Arab American community in southeast Michigan, would not be in the front row of issues today without the trumpet role of Mr. Siblani, who is the glue that brings that community’s brightest and courageous minds together to bear on the most important issues of the day,” Thompson said.

To members of the local, national and international media he’s been a vital source used to help better understand metro Detroit’s Arab community and the Arab World.

The letters also highlight Siblani’s work as a businessman, and how despite immense financial challenges he’s managed to keep the paper thriving.

Before starting the paper Siblani was an engineer, and while he’s never taken one journalism class he has taught international reporting seminars at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York.

Siblani started the paper in 1984 with its co-founder Kay Siblani, who served as its executive editor since the paper’s inception until Jan. 1 this year when she succumbed to cancer.
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Jessamine Price ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Photo: Editor Rajan George in the India This Week and Express India office.

Editor’ Note: New America Media is partnering with American University and other journalism schools to present profiles of ethnic media in their regions. The following story profiles India This Week and Express India, bringing news to South Asians in the Washington, D.C. area.

WALDORF, Md.--Rajan George, editor-in-chief of India This Week and Express India, runs a one-person show these days.

“I used to have five people in the office once upon a time,” he said, thinking back over the papers’ 23-year history. Today he alone serves as editor-in-chief, local correspondent, layout staff and business manager. He also operates the printing press, a 100-foot long machine dominating his headquarters in an industrial park in Waldorf, Md., near Washington, D.C.

Two part-timers help out: A freelancer compiles community announcements, and a delivery person distributes the final products to South Asian stores, Hindu temples and gurdwaras (Sikh temples) around the Washington-Baltimore corridor.

Since 1990, India This Week and Express India have weathered the arrival of the Internet and the decline of print newspapers relatively smoothly, but the recent recession hurt business.

Demand for Print Newspapers

Sometimes, the future looks bleak, George said. But he is convinced that reader demand can sustain print newspapers, especially in immigrant communities. He notes that his papers are the D.C. metropolitan area’s only Indian ethnic publications.

The two free, tabloid-size papers primarily cover news from India and other parts of South Asia. In addition, a small percentage of pages are devoted to announcements of local events and news about D.C.-area ethnic celebrations.

George aims at a readership that might be described as “pan-South Asian.” He chooses articles that will interest immigrants from not only India, but also from Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The papers obtain most of their international content from the wire service, Asian News International. George and a couple freelancers generate local coverage.

The two papers function together like a single semi-weekly publication. Express India began coming out every Tuesday in 1990, and India This Week started publication each Friday in 1995.

The two papers share the same masthead, editorial goals and visual appearance, but they do not duplicate content, George stressed. Together the papers have a circulation of 10,000 and reach immigrants in the District of Columbia, the city of Baltimore and a half-dozen counties in Virginia and Maryland. The region is home to the third largest South Asian population in the United States, one that has grown rapidly in the past decade.

George publishes a wider range of news items on South Asia than mainstream media, which focuses its coverage of the region on U.S. interests. He described Indian Americans as “far from home” and in need of news about their country of origin. George noted that not everyone has access to the Internet.

“This is what puts people together,” he said, turning the pages of the latest issue of Express India. “It’s a unifying factor when you have a community event and publicize it through the local ethnic media.”

English – Indians’ Unifying Language

Express India and India This Week are published entirely in English. According to George, “Even though the national language is Hindi, the only thing that unifies the Indian people is English.”

George shakes his head as he recalls that a friend started a D.C.-area paper in Hindi, but it didn’t succeed. Actually, George is from Kerala, and Hindi is not his native language. India has over a dozen languages designated “official” and English has become the lingua franca of educated Indians. English has the added advantage of reaching South Asian immigrants who aren’t from India.

George isn’t sure what the future holds. He no longer gets advertising dollars from large mainstream corporations, such as Verizon or Citibank.

A decade ago, real estate agents and mortgage brokers were his most reliable advertisers, but most of them have gone out of business since the housing market collapsed in 2008. Today, many of the papers’ largest ads are aimed directly at the ethnic audience, such as placements for local concerts of Indian pop idols on tour.

He Won’t Give Up

But George isn’t giving up. He admits that in the past he did not seek out advertisers because they approached him. Now he thinks more carefully about revenue and expenses.

To reduce costs, he recently moved his office from Takoma Park, Md., to a cheaper space adjoining his printing press in Waldorf. He recently acquired new capacity to print in color. George is in the process of developing a website, which will eventually be at www.indiathisweek.us.

George did not start out in journalism. He earned a master’s degree in theology before coming to the U.S. in 1990, and he remains closely involved with a local church he helped to start. Publishing and religion are equal, simultaneous “passions” for him. Perhaps this unusual background helps him maintain the two papers through what he describes as “a tough time.”

“For me it takes one day at a time,” he said, “We are not thriving, but we are sustaining ourselves. If I don’t have advertisers coming in for a certain time, I’ll close up. I won’t run a losing business. But so far,” he added, “I don’t have a losing business.”

Jessamine Price is an American University student. Assistant professor of journalism Angie Chuang assigned Price and other students to profile ethnic media outlets for her Race and Community Reporting class. American University’s School of Communication is the only professional school in Washington, D.C., that brings journalism, film and public relations together, with an international perspective and a focus on new media -- digital, interactive and social media.




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La Opinión ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Saying that a person is "illegal" is grammatically incorrect and an insult, according to an editorial in La Opinión. Editors write that the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook was right to ban the use of the expression "illegal immigrant." The meaning and scope of words is important, in particular in journalism, editors write.

The problem with the expression "illegal immigrant," the editorial argues, is that its repeated use in humiliating contexts has distorted its limited definition, so that in many cases it is used irresponsibly. Based on that, for example, the rule calls for journalists not to describe a person as a violator of immigration laws if that quote is not attributed to someone.

Editors write that they hope the change at the AP inspires debates in newsrooms that go beyond whether it is right or wrong to use "illegal immigrant," focusing instead on generalizations and stereotypes that are made gratuitously. While it is true that times change, as does the sense of words, the journalistic value of impartial communication remains the same.

Read more
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Univision News ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 On Wednesday, right-wing columnist Michelle Malkin wrote a column criticizing journalist Jose Antonio Vargas for advocating that other journalists not use the word “illegal” to describe undocumented immigrants who came to the country without authorization. Vargas responded to the column by asking Malkin, who is also of Filipino descent, if she would sit down for a Filipino meal with him via Twitter.
After discussing Filipino food briefly, the pair then engaged in a very rare, honest, and prolonged Twitter exchange on the issue of immigration.

Read more

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Univision News ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Thanks to YouTube, there’s one thing that both Tea Partiers and Latino civil rights advocates are getting behind.

In the endless repository that is this video hub, there are hundreds of clips, which together have garnered millions of views, of Americans of all ethnicities refusing to comply with inland immigration checks. These checks are conducted by border patrol agents, but it turns out plenty of people think the suspicionless stops are in violation of their constitutional rights.

Read more

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New America Media ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 The Associated Press announced Tuesday that it will no longer use the term "illegal" or "illegal immigrant" to describe a person. Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll wrote in a blog post that the decision was part of the company's attempt to rid their Stylebook of labels. She did not specify which term the Associated Press would use instead.

But the question doesn't only apply to English-language news media. New America Media asked editors of U.S. in-language media outlets what terms they used to describe undocumented immigrants (in Chinese, Korean, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog and Vietnamese) -- and found some surprising responses.

Read more

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Anthony Advincula and Gregg Morris ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 NEW YORK — The 11th annual Ippies Awards once again delivered on its promise: honor the ethnic and community media in the New York area and give them prizes for excellent stories reported in both English and other languages.

In a ceremony held at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism’s Center for Community and Ethnic Media March 28 and attended by about 150 people, this year’s big winners included a Chinese-language daily, a community online site that focuses on NYC’s five boroughs, a Polish-language weekly, and an African-American magazine.

Since 2002, the Ippies Awards have been a tool to strengthen the New York’s ethnic media through collaboration among the sector. They also serve to draw the mainstream media’s attention about issues critical to ethnic and minority communities.

“Awards are a valediction of what you [journalists] do,” said Garry Pierre-Pierre, executive director of CUNY’s Center for Community and Ethnic Media, via e-mail a day before the ceremony. “The ethnic media has few places where its work is recognized, so what the Ippies do is to provide a platform for people to see the great work being published by these publications. The mainstream media take notice, and the journalists from the ethnic publications get energized and want to do better.”

Pierre-Pierre observed that the future of ethnic media “is bright but challenging,” and it was important to make them profitable. He said he believed the web and mobile platforms could help achieve that.
Keynote speaker S. Mitra Kalita, the ideas editor at Quartz, a global economy startup of the Atlantic Media, lamented that newsrooms continue to be predominantly white.

“While your model (of news) and mine have come much closer together,” she told the ethnic media practitioners in the audience, “the composition of newsrooms today remains abysmally white. I argue it's actually gotten worse than when I entered journalism.”

About 93 percent of front-page articles on the 2012 presidential election were written by white reporters, Kalita said noting that “the American Society of Newspaper Editors says minority representation in newsrooms peaked in 2006 to about 14 percent, but it has fallen every year since then."

For this year’s Ippie Awards, there were 183 entries from 56 publications, including from freelancers, according to Jehangir Khattak, awards coordinator. Judges were drawn from the faculty and adjunct professors at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, as well as there were some professional journalists.

For senior reporter Rong Xiaoqing of Sing Tao Daily, who is one of this year’s winners, “The Ippies help promote our work to the broader society and boost our self-esteem by assuring us that our work matters. For me, personally, with some awards shining in the resume — it doesn't hurt.” Xiaoqing has won Ippie Awards in past years.

Below is the list of this year’s winners:
• Best Multimedia Package: “Ripple Effect: Bethpage’s Toxic Plume Creeps Closer to Contaminating More Public Drinking Water Supplies,” by Long Island Press -- http://www.longislandpress.com/specialreport/ripple-effect/ripple-effect.php


• Best Video: “Chinatown After the Storm,” by Fan Bu, Melody Cao, Mumi Zhao and Tian Tian, SinoVision -- http://video.sinovision.net/?id=9144

• Best Photograph: Joseph Tabacca, DNAInfo.com – of the funeral for 13-year old Ronald Wallace, a Brownsville boy who was shot in August 2012 -- http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20120831/brownsville/hundreds-mourn-slain-13-year-old-brownsville

• Best Design of a multi-media publication: Long Island Press.com, Chris Twarowski www.longislandpress.com
• Best overall design of a print publication: Nueva Luz – a journal of fine art and documentary photography published three times a year, Mirian Romais, Olga Omelchenko, Carla Williams and Quiana Mestrich

• Editorial/Commentary: “Inmate to College Student,” by Marlo Scott, Represent Magazine http://www.representmag.org/issues/FCYU108/From_Inmate_to_College_Student.html?story_id=FCYU-2012-04-18

• Best article on a social issue: “Education in the Bronx,” by Patrick Wall, DNAInfo.com http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20121121/claremont/bronx-high-school-students-go-entire-semester-without-math-or-english#ixzz2Kcz1ROPj

• Best story about an immigrant community: “Divided by Affirmative Action,” Rong Xiaoqing, Sing Tao Daily -- http://ny.stgloballink.com/community/201212/t20121226_1840457.html

• Best Investigative or In-Depth Story: “Big Trouble for Chinatown Lawyers,” by Shuman Deng, China Press

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Cecilia Garcia and Bob Harootyan ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Photo: Courtesy of Senior Service America

WASHINGTON, D.C.– A major national campaign was launched last week to bridge the digital divide. Everyone On is the public service arm of Connect2Compete (C2C), a national public-private partnership that hopes to provide Internet access, digital literacy training and refurbished computers to low-income consumers.

The three-year, multimillion-dollar campaign, which C2C is doing with the Ad Council, sounds like a great idea, given how essential digital communications have become in how Americans live and work in the 21st century.

There’s just one problem—as an efficient way of providing low-cost broadband access and computers to many low-income families, C2C is targeting those whose children are eligible for the federal free and reduced-cost lunch programs. To qualify, a family must be in a low-income area and have a child on the lunch program.

That means low-income seniors, a highly vulnerable segment of the population, are being left behind.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was a driving force behind the launch of C2C. The commission recognized the need for a strong collaborative partnership with industry, the nonprofit sector and government to make sure everyone in this nation, regardless of age or income, is able to reap the benefits from access to affordable broadband networks.

Many Benefits for Elders

Other nations such as the United Kingdom have recognized this and, as a result, higher percentages of their citizens are connected and trained to make full use of the technology.

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, online use by people age 65 or older jumped from 41 percent in 2010 to 54 percent in 2012.

That’s good news, but seniors remain far behind the 82 percent of all adult Internet users. EveryoneOn is essentially ignoring those who are the least connected digitally – seniors.

Digging a bit deeper, significant numbers of low-income seniors do not have computers or broadband access at home. Digital literacy, which is critical for meaningful use of the Internet, is least prevalent among seniors, especially those who are less educated, have lower incomes and are people of color.
The benefits for older adults are clear. For example, a 2009 report on Internet use and depression among seniors found that it can be a low-cost way to reduce depression by expanding elders’ social interactions, reduce their loneliness, and giving them access to health information and treatment.

As New America Media’s 2012 series “Ethnic Elders Online” showed, closing digital disparities can help older adults in positive ways, from greater involvement in their communities to starting a small business.

Moreover, like all nonusers, older adults often cite lack of relevance as a major reason for not using the Internet. Clearly, the United States needs some kind of intervention to help seniors get online, especially those with low income and limited education.

Digital Inclusion Initiative

While efforts like C2C essentially ignore this older segment of the population, organizations such as Senior Service America, Inc. (SSAI) recognize that older adults do not have to be stranded on the wrong side of the digital divide.

SSAI is one of several nonprofits that run the Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP), the only federally funded employment and training assistance program for low-income Americans who are 55 or older.

Because digital literacy is so important now to seniors’ income security and well being, SSAI launched its Digital Inclusion Initiative (DII) in 2010. Through the program, SCSEP participants have helped more than 25,000 seniors understand how (and why) to use the Internet.

SSAI mobilized its network of SCSEP grantees to create nearly 350 community-based public sites that provide free computer coaching sessions for seniors. The learners utilize the self-paced Generations on Line computer tutorial application and receive one-on-one assistance from SCSEP participants who are trained Peer Coaches.

SSAI learned a great deal from the DII. The Peer Coaches reported that the biggest challenges were helping older learners get past their lack of confidence in the ability to use a computer and their “computer anxiety.” One-on-one coaching in a highly supportive group setting was essential to help allay these fears.

It is also significant that the senior learners gained more than computer skills. SSAI’s survey data show that seniors who completed the DII program reported improved morale and attitudes about life.
Especially striking were the attitudinal changes among the learners who initially were the most pessimistic.

Two examples: Of those who were initially the most pessimistic about “feeling useful,” two-thirds of had a more positive response at the end of their DII experience. Also, of the learners who were initially the most pessimistic about “my life has a sense of purpose,” 69 percent had a more positive response after their final coaching session.

‘Everyone On’ Should Mean All Ages

We’ve repeatedly found that older Americans defy expectations that they “can’t learn new tricks” by proving highly capable of learning to use the Internet and feel better when they do so.
SSAI and other organizations that work with and on behalf of older Americans are helping us understand ways to address broadband adoption challenges for our most vulnerable populations.
This is a win-win for everyone, yet such efforts for elders do not get the same attention and support as C2C. Why not?

There are straightforward ways to target the most disadvantaged elders. Just as C2C is using the subsidized school-lunch program for outreach to low-income families, they could reach millions of low-income seniors who already qualify for government rental housing subsidies, Supplemental Security Income, food stamps and energy assistance programs—programs serving those of all ages.

Commendable as C2C’s Everyone On campaign is, we urge them to truly include everyone of any age.

Cecilia Garcia is the executive director of the Benton Foundation, and Bob Harootyan, is the research manager of Senior Service America, Inc.

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India West ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Eminent Indian journalist Bobby Ghosh has been named the new editor of TIME International.

Ghosh was appointed March 15 as the first non-American world editor in TIME's history.

"It gives me great pleasure to announce that Bobby Ghosh is our new international editor. Bobby, quite simply, is a magnificent journalist who has done the highest level of work that one can aspire to in our profession," Martha Nelson, editor-in-chief, and Rick Stengel, managing editor, said in a staff announcement.

"Bobby, whose recent India stories for TIME have included profiles of cricket god Sachin Tendulkar, Bollywood star Aamir Khan and world chess champ Vishwanathan Anand, replaces Jim Frederick, who now becomes a contributing editor," they said.

Read the rest at India West
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Staff ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 A long batch of tweets excoriating ESPN for broadcasting the World Baseball Classic in Spanish (though the preferred term was actually “Mexican”) and Justin Timberlake’s Hugo Chavez skit on Saturday Night Live prompted a newsroom discussion about whether we — Latinos — are too sensitive about the way we are depicted, or referred to, by non-Latino Americans.

It is not a new conversation. We’ve discussed it before in pop culture terms when we’ve discussed Sofia Vergara’s role in the television show “Modern Family,” Will Ferrell’s turn as a telenovela star in the comedic “Casa de mi Padre” or Jack Black’s interpretation of a luchador in “Nacho Libre.”

We’ve discussed it as well in terms of more serious stories — the immigration discourse, Arizona’s SB 1070 and copycat bills that rely on profiling, and, of course, the pieces we’ve been running about ex Lt. Jonathan Josey being found not guilty of the assault of Aida Guzman by a judge with a lot of disparaging things to say about Philadelphia’s Puerto Rican neighborhood and celebration during which the videotaped incident took place.

Here is the gist of the contrasting arguments you might have heard if you were a fly on the wall of Al Día’s newsroom day before yesterday (when the aforementioned tweets came to light):

Older journalist: If we see but don’t call out derogatory language, stereotyped portrayals or victimization predicated on ethnicity, we fail, both as human beings and as newspaper people.

Younger journalist: We all know this type of behavior (speech, portrayal, etc.) exists, and certainly not only toward us. Why must we continually focus on it? It’s too much, let’s just get on with other things.

The same sort of discussion has taken place online, on Latino-centered social media venues, with much the same generational divide: the older journalists feeling compelled to focus on stories about challenges and injustices, the younger wanting to focus on attainments and advancements.

Is this the Latino generational divide?

We thought so.

But in digging around for studies about Latino studies about discrimination (and there are a lot of them out there) we came upon this: a 2012 secondary analysis of the 2007 National Survey of Latinos by an associate professor at Rutgers found that a whopping 63 percent of Latinos felt that they were discriminated against. One of that report’s findings was that 30-39 year old Latinos perceived the discrimination most acutely.

Then, we happened upon a 2010 NCLR study about Latino youths 15-17. It revealed that almost 83 percent of them reported experiencing discrimination, particularly with regard to stereotypes.

Wow.

So the real difference, then, is how we, as individuals and as journalists, respond to perceived instances of discrimination.

We’d like to ask you, our reader, to weigh in. We’ve put a poll on our website with the same title of this editorial, and a simple yes or no option. Or, leave us your response and why you think what you do in the comment section of the editorial (it appears in English online as well). If you think you need even more room to respond, please consider sending us a longer response via e-mail.

Let’s keep this conversation going.


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