July 19th, 2009 by barbara raab
Your intrepid reporter (seen here in some swell swag) is off to Indiana in the morning to spend a few days at the Elkhart County Fair with her colleagues from MSNBC.com. I’ll be joining them on The Elkhart Project, a year-long commitment to cover one of the earliest U.S. cities to fall into recession and one of the worst hit by job losses. Unemployment in Elkhart is pushing 20 percent right now, although the most recent jobs report did show a slight improvement.
This week, the Project is at the Elkhart County 4-H Fair, which runs through July 25th and is expecting three-quarters of a million visitors. MSNBC.com has set up two tents just outside the 4-H Exhibition Hall, nestled up against a scarecrow exhibit, and just a stone’s throw from Nedderman’s Tip Steak stand and Rosie’s taco stand. I’m told when I see a corn dog the size of a water heater at a concession stand just two doors down, I’ll know I have arrived at the right place.
MSNBC.com hopes the fair will be an opportunity to introduce The Elkhart Project to people who may not be familiar with this extraordinary project, and to hear more stories from locals about how they are getting by in these tough economic times.
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July 12th, 2009 by barbara raab
Wow! This awesome video by Richard Hernandez was produced entirely by iPhone: images, video, music, even the titles. (Hat tip to Suzanne Yada for calling it to my attention.)
http://www.vimeo.com/5557033
July 10th, 2009 by barbara raab
I’ve been finding lots of good stuff out there as I spin around the Googles.
On why it’s premature to give up on journalism education: here’s a Q&A with CUNY’s J-School Dean Steve Shepard, who’s really talking the “new media” talk these days. Then there’s this good analysis from my former college classmate Will Bunch, who now runs the Attytood blog, in an OJR piece entitled “Don’t Dismiss Journalism Schools Just Because Newspapers Are In Trouble”:
“You can look at it two ways,” Bunch says. “The core values of journalism aren’t really changing. You have to understand what makes a good story, how to report it, and how to report fairly and with integrity. It was the exact same with Joseph Pulitzer’s newspaper 150 years ago or with newfangled websites. That hasn’t changed.”
“What is radically different are important secondary things that schools have to account for. Journalists today need to understand that news is now a two way conversation between you and the audience. Don’t talk down to the audience. Audience members are active participants—they comment on stories, participate as sources, and provide information and tips. Schools can maintain their core values and work on that.”
“Schools also need to teach that journalists need to think as entrepreneurs. You don’t just write a story; you have to find an audience for it. That’s been ignored by many journalists, and it’s critical today.”
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June 28th, 2009 by barbara raab
Billy Mays’s final tweet:
June 15th, 2009 by barbara raab
Brian Stelter has written two excellent pieces for today’s New York Times, and whether he intended them to be read as a pair I don’t know, but together they paint quite a picture of the state of foreign news coverage.
The first article described the real-time criticism on Twitter of CNN’s (and other cablers’) relative lack of live news coverage of the weekend’s protests in Iran. “The channels largely took the weekend off as Tehran exploded in protests after Iran’s presidential election,” reads Stelter’s lede graf, and that led “untold thousands” to use the label “CNNfail” on Twitter to vent their frustrations.
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June 5th, 2009 by barbara raab
Today’s post is a question for CUNY Journalism students. I’m interested on your take on the coverage of the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court. How well do you think the press has covered her personal and professional story? How well do you think the media has characterized her background in the Bronx? What about her work for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, and La Raza? Do you think the media has done a good job of deconstructing the various charges that Judge Sotomayor is a “racist,” a “reverse racist,” and that she holds “radical” views?
Please leave your thoughts in the comments section, and thank you!
June 5th, 2009 by barbara raab
It’s taken me a few weeks to post this — and as you’ll see, it’s got all kinds of technical “challenges,” including audio sync problems, for which I apologize in advance — but here it is anyway. My mother and I met outside the Klingenstein Pavilion of Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan at precisely 3:25 p.m. on May 18th, because that was where she and I began our lives together 50 years ago (yes, you heard me right; 50 years ago). I was the first of three children; my mother was 24 when I was born. It’s upcut a bit, but what you’ll hear at the top is my question, “What was happening 50 years ago today?” I’ll let her tell the rest.
May 28th, 2009 by barbara raab
Well, I never did get the audio I promised in my post from earlier this week (truth is, I forgot to dog my editor), but here’s what I filed today for Sirius OutQ News. The anchor lead-in, which you won’t hear on this cut, says:
LGBT legal groups are very worried about a new federal lawsuit filed in California challenging Proposition 8 as a violation of the U.S. Constitution. National legal correspondent Barbara Raab has the story.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
May 26th, 2009 by barbara raab
It has been a busy and historic day on the legal front on both coasts.
This morning, President Obama made his first nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. I was asked to do a short voicer for SiriusXM OutQ Radio News. I will post the MP3 if/when I get it, but here’s the text of what I filed:
The early reaction by lesbian and gay groups to the nomination of federal appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor has been positive … but also cautious, and short on detail about what her views have been on LGBT-related issues or in specific cases.
The Human Rights Campaign issued a statement saying, “We are confident that Judge Sotomayor has a demonstrated understanding and commitment to protecting the liberty and equality of all Americans.”
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May 19th, 2009 by barbara raab
This morning’s New York Times reports on a notable shift in the applicant pool for prestigious mid-career sabbatical fellowships for journalists. While overall applications for the best-known programs (at Harvard, M.I.T., Stanford and the University of Michigan) are way up, the number of newspaper reporters and editors, especially from big and medium-sized newspapers, is down.
“Now we get a lot of letters from applicants saying, ‘My editors say they’re no longer going to support long-term fellowships, they can’t pay health insurance, they can’t keep my job for me, and if I’m selected I’m going to have to resign and then apply to get my job back,’” said Bob Giles, curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard …
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Your intrepid reporter (seen here in some swell swag) is off to Indiana in the morning to spend a few days at the Elkhart County Fair with her colleagues from MSNBC.com. I’ll be joining them on The Elkhart Project, a year-long commitment to cover one of the earliest U.S. cities to fall into recession and one of the worst hit by job losses. Unemployment in Elkhart is pushing 20 percent right now, although the most recent jobs report did show a slight improvement.
This week, the Project is at the Elkhart County 4-H Fair, which runs through July 25th and is expecting three-quarters of a million visitors. MSNBC.com has set up two tents just outside the 4-H Exhibition Hall, nestled up against a scarecrow exhibit, and just a stone’s throw from Nedderman’s Tip Steak stand and Rosie’s taco stand. I’m told when I see a corn dog the size of a water heater at a concession stand just two doors down, I’ll know I have arrived at the right place.
