Just taught my first class of the fall at @newmarkjschool. I get the privilege of talking with the entire incoming class. Because #delta we can't *all* be in a room at once so we're in Zoom for this. Such great big questions the students raise--not of me but of journalism.
And then the zoom goes off and suddenly, I feel rather lonely.
Here is the video I made leading up to today about the history of journalism, media and technology.
And here is my video for tomorrow's discussion about the business of journalism and why it is necessary to follow the money to understand why we do what we do the way we do it:
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I remember the silence coming up to the concourse in the World Trade Center, a place that was never silent.
On the concourse, I remember the sight of high heels abandoned by their owners who had run away. I remember a faint smell of smoke. I remember the newsstand proprietor, calmly shutting his shop.
I remember the face of the cop, a woman, urgently shouting at us as we came up from the concourse, ordering us to RUN!
My 95-year-old, deaf father--having come out of his breakthrough COVID and as a result moved into assisted living--fell today but we cannot communicate with him because after WEEKS @Ask_Spectrum will not move his text phone from one apartment to another in the same community.
Do you care, @Ask_Spectrum@GetSpectrum? Do you give a damn? Do you have a human heart anywhere in your organization? Failing that, do you have one efficient human being who can make this happen?
In *every* call with @Ask_Spectrum employees, I have explained that my father is 95 and deaf and just had COVID. Not once, not even once did a single employee express the slightest sympathy. That is the culture of this company. Heartless.
.@sarah__bartlett created our urban and business reporting programs and founded @CCMNewmarkJ to help community media. It is now headed by the brilliant @graciela, who has started initiatives for Latino and Black media. 2/
From the moment she became dean, Sarah welcomed me into her planning & strategy & supported my work. She inspired me to start our Engagement Journalism degree, directed by the brilliant @brizzyc. This is my proudest accomplishment. Sarah made it possible. I am so grateful. 3/
In one day, a half-dozen people I respect told me I must read this essay by @bernstein. They were so right. It is a brilliant examination of the presumptions of the Big Disinfo industry of moral entrepreneurship & its relation to the myths of advertising, media, and online. 1/
.@bernstein explores the paradox of having to believe that advertising can persuade to believe that propaganda can persuade. Some quotes follow: 2/
Bless @bernstein, for he examines media's conflict of self-interest: "An even more vexing issue for the disinformation field, though, is the supposedly objective stance media researchers and journalists take toward the information ecosystem to which they themselves belong." 3/
Herein the roots of white nationalism's rise & the racist radicalism of the GOP, stoking fear from bigotry as those about to lose four centuries of power refuse to share it, ruining institutions instead. Surprised I'm not seeing more of that in coverage. washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/…
Yes, censuses tend to confirm what we already know. But the essence of this year's is so foundational to current racist politics I'd think that journalists so eager to explain would take this opportunity to do so. But we don't talk about racism. We must.
This results of this census are the cause and Trumpism is the effect.
Oh, the irony of turning on @Morning_Joe to be scolded for scolding. I'm told I should not be angry at the unvaccinated. Well, I am. I am angry at the 50% of staff at my father's retirement home who *chose* not be be vaccinated. 1/
As a result, my 95-year-old, fully-vaccinated father got breakthrough COVID, spent 11 days hospitalized when we could not see or talk with him (he's deaf), and now will spend a few weeks in rehab because of the *choice* made by the unvaccinated there. 2/ medium.com/whither-news/s…
These employees who work with the elderly were offered many opportunities to get the vaccination. They have no excuse. So the time to mollycoddle them, to empathize with them, to understand them is OVER. All that has gotten us this far: with a fourth & more dangerous surge. 3/