Living Under a Death Threat:"Is it real?" That's the question from media mgmt when assessing an online/physical threat to journalists. The real question? "Will someone act on this threat?" The next dean @FAMUSJGC82@FAMU_1887 this came to me at my home. Be ready. #FAMU133YEARS 1/
This is a death threat. Received at my home in March 2020. Just as I was getting ready to go to court to get a cyberstalking injunction against some @FAMU_1887 "colleagues" who used #fakenews and #smearcampaign to #collude w @FAMUSJGC82 to get me fired. Or killed. 2/
This death threat came to my home...and threatened me, my family and another colleague. Why you ask, would someone want me dead or out of the way? And it's clearly @FAMU_1887 related because of OTHER MURDERS OF OTHER DEANS?!?! Are you reading this? @FAMUSJGC82#FAMU133YEARS 3/
And this is following another anonymous letter sent to me AT MY OFFICE @FAMU_1887 In it, a printout of an email detailing a campaign to get me fired from my role as dean @FAMUSJGC82 Filled with venom and threats...like the death threat sent to my home. See below. 4/
See, my good friend @KathyTimes had recently run from the highest of seven hills @FAMU_1887. As the chief spokesperson of her alma mater, somehow even she wasn't good enough for whomever was targeting us at @FAMUSJGC82 using "fake news" & #slander Yeah, they eat their own. 5/
So, reading the @FAMUSJGC82 death threat & the email...this person really can't spell. And as someone who teaches writing, they don't even know it. So you have to ask the question...Who benefits? Not answering the why me, but who benefited with me out of the way at @FAMU_1887? 6/
Follow the smell, if you will, of lies and #fakenews. The email details the strategy. And they USED, like a tool, a vulnerable Black press to create a paid "editorial" using a pseudonym "Dante Morrison" to publish the hit piece. Dante is no journalist. @FAMUSJGC82#FAMU133YEARS
These @FAMUSJGC82 trolls used multiple online platforms for their #onlineharassment campaign: Twitter, a blog, two Black press orgs. One takes a "pay to play" editorial stance...For $75 and that meager label saying "editorial", well even professionals and other deans were fooled.
So who benefitted? I'll let you Google that. Why me? Because I'm a journalist first. And a @FAMU_1887 administrator second. I've shared the #sexualassault thread and @FAMUSJGC82 cyberstalking abuses of students and me. Now, follow the money: 9/
OK, let me back up. TitleIX is messed up. My students who were stalked & harassed sexually got no support from Title IX or @FAMU_1887 . What we learned? #Rattlers will lie like July to cover their own ---. Oh, there was a town hall in June 2020. After the students graduated. 10/
But back to why I was hired to begin with...Street cred. @FAMUSJGC82 had received provisional accreditation because of two measures -- assessment and scholarship. Two areas difficult to turn on a dime and clean up, especially in the mess at @FAMU_1887 11/
The second area was financial. @FAMU_1887@FAMUSJGC82 had failed two grant audits spanning nearly 8 years of activity. These grants from the @knightfdn were at risk of being pulled from the university. Before I darkened any FAMU door, I was told this was a priority. Repair.
We held 2 endowed accounts for our Knight chair /faculty dev spinning off a bit of $$$. Seems the funds had been used for "unallowed activities." My new job: To justify the list of unalloweds. @FAMU_1887 STILL ended up refunding ~ $250,000 back. Still paying... @FAMUSJGC82 13/
So to ask me to clear this @KnightFnd audit list required digging into every system used to run the univ -- HR, purchasing, contracts, personnel, even inventory the whole building, going back nearly 8 years to account for purchases. And still $250K @FAMU_1887 had to pay.
Because under prior leadership, equipment had gone missing. I discovered lax security protocols for equipment checkout, studio use, access to building and other safety issues that needed to be solved. This was November 2019, two months in to my new job @FAMUSJGC82@FAMU_1887
Sigh. Not even two months on the job. My first student #sexualassault survivor. I was determined to learn the process for Title IX...@FAMU_1887...they suck for survivors. I helped the student navigate safety, health, legal needs. Nothing available at @FAMUSJGC82@FAMU_1887 . 16/
Mind you, we had a homeless alumni living in our @FAMUSJGC82 building! We discovered him one day while doing a safety walk of the building with security. We had holes. And blind spots. And breaches and theft. The police chief booked him right then. 18/
Mind you, it’s still 2019 just three months into the job and I request upgraded security measures to keep students and facilities safe. About $75k in new cameras, locks and surveillance. Made @FAMUSJGC82 proposal to @FAMU_1887 Provost by year’s end...19/
Oops that’s 2018! My point. I went ALL of 2019 chasing $$$ to get university support for security upgrade. Even after performance-based funding FOR SECURITY in the millions was provided to @FAMU_1887 police for campus upgrades. Just kept kicking that can....and nada. Nothing. 20/
Imagine my frustration. My annual operating budget? $25,000. I am not joking. I could understand why @knightfdn funds had been used. $25k is ONE software renewal. @FAMUSJGC82 I am not joking @FAMU_1887 is known for financial fuckery. Like this: 21/ google.com/amp/s/amp.tall…
Or this HR fiasco which I ran afoul of bc it really is as bad as this article says...still 15 years later. Hiring is a tortuous process at @FAMU_1887 people have died waiting for paperwork to get processed. Or payroll continued to pay dead people, no joke. diverseeducation.com/article/4506/
Found this write up of my 2012 election analysis and data use by the numerati...and how journalists have used data to map and visualize communities...2012. #mediadeserts#citationselon.edu/u/news/2013/04…
For those of you who may not know...@elonuniversity is in North Carolina (hi @thebusinessofnews), where I was doing mapping work in 2012 of media deserts, tracking online hate rhetoric and the political use of social technologies/data for targeted messaging and journalism work.
If you go to wikipedia and look up "news deserts", the history begins in 2016 @businessofnews ? And you were....at @DukeU at the time? How coincidental that my methodology, definitions and work would be duplicated just 40 miles away? Curious. #citationsmatter
This research will explore online harassment of journalists covering politics here in the United States and the chilling effect of the hostile online work environment & describe the ways in which social media are weaponized before the U.S. Presidential elections in November 2020.
That's what was on the data servers seized...and returned (maybe) by @FAMU_1887@FAMUsjgc82. Guess what state I live in.
Beyond rhetorical tools like #hashtags, emojis, symbolism, memes and use of other hate, racism, misogynistic content to target journalists, we find more sophisticated uses of social technologies to organize targeted attacks against journalists.
Just presented my live presentation via Projector via #NCA21. I'll post the pics in this thread on "Media Deserts/Media Seeds" ...framing matters and here's why...
Before there were snooze deserts there were media deserts and the research methodology/model I was developing with communities back in 2010 at @jtmstream events where I was workshopping my "News as Food" model...more on that later. Yes, that IS my map of North Carolina BTW🧐🧐
It’s cute when I say modeling the local media ecosystem & folks think 3D😳. No, systems modeling. I’m talking pinpoints AND the whole narrative system. Making journalism visible & accountable for geographic gaps & harms. mediadeserts.com Modeling local 👇🏾 since b4 the www.
Thanks for taking my question @ShorensteinCtr about #mediadeserts & how the local journalism sustainability may reinforce legacy media & as @mitrakalita reinforced, some media innovation and entrepreneurship *might* be funded? Look to the larger system in #mediadeserts. #create
Nine criteria: Ownership, corrections policy, super basic criteria...Gordon Crovitz to rate "journalism" sites and identify "pink slime" and disclose BASIC journalism practices... It's not that hard to tell, he said.
Online abuse takes many forms...including sexual predators who use anonymous tools to solicit explicit photos of students for money and favors. Male students. Good-looking students. And the sugar babies. Ground Zero: @FAMUSJGC82. I know. 😡 1/
As an administrator, my job was to ensure the safety of my students to pursue their academic careers. That was everywhere instruction occurred— in the @FAMUSJGC82 building, on campus, in internships, or online. Within my first month on the job, I would be challenged. 2/
We discovered a homeless person living in our building. He was gaining access to labs and hiding places in the building. We had video of him exiting the building and hanging out in library spaces @FAMUSJGC82. 3/
For more details on the evolution of "media deserts" from its origins in 2010 and why "news deserts" just doesn't address the crisis journalism is facing right now: mediadeserts.wordpress.com/project-timeli…
Which was based on the collaborative research of the Communication Policy Research Network (of which I was a researcher) responding to changes at the FCC: academia.edu/40226876/Revie…