I will be chronicling the start of the conference and the back-to-back morning sessions that focus on the disproportionate impact of prison and the criminal justice system on specific communities in New York City, mainly in the Bronx and Central Brooklyn, and how community-based strategies can promote healthy children, families and neighborhoods.

Read and watch the full coverage here.

Azi Paybarah from the NY Observer’s PolitickerNY.com blog
Grace Rauh from NY1
Fernanda Santos from the NY Times
Liz Benjamin from the NY Daily News

And here we go…

5:57 p.m.: None of the panel has arrived as of yet.

6:00 p.m. : Room is starting to fill up. Two panelists have arrived and are mingling with Asst. Professor Doug Muzio and Prof. Sarah Bartlett.

6:04 p.m. : Third panelist, Azi Paybarah, arrives, food in hand.

6:06 p.m. : Final panelist, Fernanda Santos, from the New York Times, files in.

6:08 p.m. : Here we go! Introductions from Sarah Bartlett.

Azi blogs at the NY Observer.

Santos has been with the Times since ‘05, and previously was at the Daily News for 3 years covering cops/crime.

Grace Rauh was primarily a newspaper reporter, who started at the Oakland Tribune. Currently at NY1.

Liz Benjamin runs the politics blog for the Daily News.

First question of the evening from Prof. Bartlett:

What do you think the top two or three stories will be for the next 12 months?

Azi: “Billion dollar” campaign for Mayor Bloomberg.

Rauh: The mayoral campaign and the budget.

Benjamin: Gov. Patterson and whether or not he can “get his head out of his butt” and run the state. State campaigns are already picking up for 2010. The Gillibrand seat will be up in two years

6:10 p.m. Question

How do you pick and choose your stories?

Santos: Our realities are very different. Azi and Liz’s blogs are great resources for me Times has 3 reporters at city hall with a division of labor. “I can’t deal with working inside an office”. 3 reporters gives us flexibility. Much more interested in covering the human side of the mayor’s decisions. At the Times, we have to do a mix of breaking news and enterprise stories. When it comes to the later, we have to sell it a lot more to the editor.

Rauh: At the Sun, I spent  alot of time pitching stories and trying to get a nugget that would lead to a big story. Now that she’s switched to tv, you have to really go to the place where the newsmakers on. Still learning to report the broadcast side of things.

Benjamin: Bloggers like me and Azi fill the space in between the tv and print media. Aggregate blogging is big as is doing value added bloggin. (Digression: Bloomberg forgot Sully’s name at press conference today and called him “Captian Cool”. Santos says Bloomberg has a problem with name.) Azi takes video snippets to post to on his blog, which gives a new level of oversight to the public.

Azi: There is a desire to hit on themes. Say, for example, the mayor continues to flub names, it might not be the news of the day, but it’s a repeated theme that can be picked up and woven into larger stories down the line. It’s like reading a person’s Twitter feed.

Benjamin: We play off each other. The video at X event reminds me of something the mayor did over here. The blog allows you to pull things together in an interesting collage. The blog format makes it harder to go back and write the standalone news column. ”

6:22 p.m.

How do you develop sources in a public place like City Hall?

Benjamin: Stay away from City Hall!

Azi: Avoid the Starbucks near City Hall.

Benjamin: Big events like caucuses are great places to network. Bars are a great place to network

Santos: There are the main players that everyone hits on, but there are also the people who aren’t on the fringes but who are involved. Bill Cunningham used to be the go to as a press operative from the mayor, but there are other people who can be talked to. The overwhelming number of quotable officials are white men, so there’s an effort to try to seek out alternative voices.

Santos on Benjamin: “She’s a drinker.”

Benjamin: “This business moves on booze.” Everybody has some kind of party, especially during the holidays.

Rauh: For people new to the area, it can take some time to build up sources. When starting new, schedule as many meeting as possible. Lunches get canceled often, so breakfasts end up being good places to establish sources and contacts. You also want to talk to people who aren’t immediately in the news at the moment, because they could be at any time.
When you’re at a smaller publication, the relationships are very critical to getting things done.

Azi: Tougher for a tv reporter because they’re more visible. Bloggers and print reporters can find it easy to keep their face out of the press. Best way to find people is to get there early and get stay late. Use Facebook, gchat to make yourself accessible to the readers. That can lead to deeper sources.

Benjamin: Politics is about trafficking in information.

Santos: A lower level political operative can often be just a good a source as a major player. We don’t do a lot of super local stories, but the stories often start with something more obscure and see how it plays out across the city or nationally. Meeting big people face to face is important. Getting the meeting is great.

Benjamin: At the base of what we do is a curiosity about people and stuff. Reporters “are nosy as hell”.

6:35 p.m.

Are City Council members good sources?

Rauh: The mayor’s press operation is pretty tightly held and it can be hard to chip away and get info.

Benjamin: “The council leaks like a sieve.”

Rauh: Everyone is trying to maneuver for their own interests, so they can sell people out, etc.

Santos: You get a lot of stuff from the council members since they have different viewpoints. They also want to have their name in print.

Azi: Council members can be great. “Here’s my email. Here’s my phone. Here’s my wife’s phone.”

Rauh: Officials often like to be on tv as well.

Benjamin: In a lot of ways, the term limit story may not have been so big if the economy hadn’t tanked. David Yassky took a lot of heat for his vote on the Bloomberg term limit vote.

Santos: Yassky was hurt by sitting on the fence and then saying he was going to do one thing and then ended up doing another.

Azi: For a lot of people who voted for Bloomberg’s term limits, they may not want that to be the last thing people remember, so they have an incentive to be out working on their image.

Santos: Bloomberg showed with people who voted against his term limit extension to perhaps show his magnanimity.

Benjamin: Some of these people have never had jobs outside of politics, so that’s useful to remember. It may be the only thing they know, so things become personal. “It’s power at the base of it, and money.”

(From L to R: Liz Benjamin, NY Daily News; Grace Rauh, NY1; Fernanda Santos, New York Times; Azi Paybarah; New York Observer. Photo Credit: Michael Preston, New York City News Service)

6:44 p.m.

What’s the hardest thing about your job?

Santos: “Figuring out what’s bullshit and what’s real.” I get disgusted with the crap, but you can’t always say that. Outside of the game of politics, these are real people.

Azi: The hardest thing is not working. Monday, you feel like you have to something ready. But at some point, you have to realize that you have to have a life. In one sense, I’m going to keep working at having a job but having a life as well.

Rauh: Things are a little slower in CA. You have to figure out how to be a good reporter and pour yourself into your job but not let it take over your life. It’s also challenging to try to take the policy story and connect to it what it means to the public. “You can get int a bubble mentality.” You want to cover politics not just as a horse race, but not at the expense of telling the story and how it really affects people.

Santos: It’s very hard to realize that you can’t always think of everything that could go into a story.

Benjamin: As we get to more interactive media, it’s hard to accept that you’re not a fly on the wall, but that you are actually a part of the story. There is no such thing as objectivity in this. A lot of things can become very personal. “It’s bloodsport”. You can get used. You try to figure out what people are gaming you on. Dealing with the chess of raw politics is hard.

6:55 p.m.

Student questions begin – What did you think of the Caroline Kennedy/Patterson issue? How can you figure out if you’re being used and stop it in time?

Azi: Mentions Clark Hoyt’s Public Editor column from last Sunday’s New York Times about the reporting on the Kennedy/Paterson story.

Benjamin: I’m going to hazard a guess that everyone on the panel know who made the calls involved with that story. The message was so muddled out of the governor’s office that it was hard to figure out what’s going on. It’s maddening. “He’s lost all credibility with the press corps” because we know who it is.

Benjamin: When someone like the governor wants to leak something, you have to put it out there. That’s our job.

Santos: Someone within the governor’s circle leaking things and the question is, “Why would they do that?” The message is sometimes what’s between the lines.

Rauh: I don’t think any news org. thought about if they should run the story or not. “We want to be used”. It’s a competitive environment and so there is a premium on getting things and exclusivity.

7:03 p.m.

What stories do you think aren’t getting enough attention?

Santos: I don’t think there are enough focus on the way City Hall decisions really affect people in a tangible way. Those stories are missing from the paper and you need time and shoe leather to get.

Azi: I want agree and disagree with Santos at the same time. Budget stories are under reported. It’s hard to work with the numbers. I couldn’t tell you what’s going on with the City Hall slush fund scandal. “It’s not in the DNA of many papers at the moment to stay on budget stories.” Council hearings are a place where a lot of these things get aired. There was a meeting tonight about the impacts of the stimulus on NYC and very few people were there covering it.

Benjamin: It’s follow through. The news cycle is so crazy now that things get lost, like follow up.

Video of Benjamin and Ruah talking about the lack of follow up reporting that occurs:

7:14 p.m.

What are the obstacles do you face as bloggers?

Benjamin: At first, people would ask if I would put this in the paper, but now getting things in the blog now is accepted. There’s still a bit of reluctance about some news going in there as it tends to be more inside baseball and they may want stories to have a wider audience.

Azi: Timing and technological connections are an issue as is the fact that people still are less respectful of bloggers.

Benjamin: “The pace is punishing. It’s like working for a wire service.” A blog is kind of like that.

Hear Benjamin and Azi talk about the challenges they face:

7:19 p.m. Question

What’s up with Hiram Monserrate?

Santos: It was a total political ploy. Hiram played both sides.

Benjamin: The girlfriend thing is winding its way through the court. There is a protection order in place that the judge has not removed. The Democrats will be in a real pickle should Hiram avoid a felony conviction and become subject to a lesser charge.

7:27 p.m.

Have any of you ever felt compelled to run for office?

Panel en masse: No!

Question from Doug Muzzio:

What’s the one piece of advice you would give to new journalists?

Santos: You’re not going to be the best at every aspect of reporting, so figure out what you can be best at. Learn how to do it all, but focus on your strength.

Rauh: Take people out. “Not like on a date”. Invite people for coffee or lunch if your publication would pick up the tab. I’ve never gotten a job in the field by an application. See if you can get in front of the editor.

Santos: Know what you can do. Don’t overreach. Don’t be afraid to move.

Rauh: Be open about different opportunities.

Azi: Seriously think about if this is what you want to do. If you want to do it, then you have to identify your audience and tailor your work to them.

Benjamin: I’d echo all of what was just said. I placed an ad in E & P “situation wanted”. I would urge that you get out of the city because there’s more of an opportunity to hone your skills and cut your teeth. It could be beneficial to get outside of the NYC media market and get another worldview.

Santos: Don’t overlook community papers as they can be great ways to get started. People at the big papers often look at the small papers as sources for stories.

And that’s the end of the panel. Prof. Bartlett thanks the panel for their time and they exit to applause from the audience.

The event coincided with the International Human Rights Day and was conceived in response to California’s Proposition 8 initiative which banned gay marriage. According to press reports, the turnout was low.

No word yet on whether or not there will be a repeat next year.

Let’s look at a few things. In 2006, state graduation rates hovered between 50 and 75% Sounds high, but not unbelievable. Something else we know: back in the day, not everyone had access or opportunity to education.  Today, it’s demanded. Back in the day, the people who were afforded access to education probably came from an educated family and more favorable circumstances than those who were denied access.

That said, I’m not suggesting that we bar struggling students or those from disadvantaged backgrounds  from our educational system, I’m just trying to make the point that these outrageous goals and expectations (NCLB, close the achievement gap, every fourth grader on reading level in math and English by 2012, etc. etc. etc.) are just that. Outrageous.  And in everyone’s desperate attempt to find out why 100% of students don’t graduate and read at a fourth grade level by their ninth birthday, they scratch their heads and look at every possibility (it’s the seating arrangement, it’s the books they’re reading, the cirriculum doesn’t reflect the multimedia world they’re used to, it’s the shitty teachers, etc.) no one ever considers the one logical possibility: maybe, when we’re talking about an entire nation of people, millions of students, from every corner of the country, living in every type of environment, under all sorts of circumstances, not everyone is going to pass, or graduate. Period. Is that such a disgusting unbearable thing?

But to bluntly oversimplify her qualifications of philanthropy and law into one word, it would be her name.

As a Kennedy she would have the ability to raise money and awareness for the issues of New York State.

The fact that Kennedy has not had to pay her “political dues” does not really concern me.

The real questions I would like to know are not about her qualifications, but rather her intentions.

I want to know, why she has decided at this moment to enter politics, what her agenda would focus on as Senator, and how she plans on helping the economically depressed and bleak, upstate New York.

At the moment the debate is especially frustrating because Kennedy has refused interviews and comments with reporters.

All questions remain unanswered. (But since I am originally from Upstate New York the last question holds a special weight in my heart.)

Many critics like the Mayor of Buffalo think Kennedy will have a rough time in the upstate region. In the New York Times article linked above he said, “I think upstaters are going to want an upstater on the ticket.”

I am sorry, but I have to disagree with the Mayor.

Upstaters indulge in their fair share of pipe dreams, but we are not stupid and definitely NOT optimistic.

In my lifetime I have never seen a Senator from Upstate New York and clearly know where we stand in the landscape of New York State politics.

Not to mention the enormous population gap between upstate and downstate makes it nearly impossible for an upstate candidate to become Senator.

Sure upstaters may want someone from the region on the ticket, but we of all people know, it won’t happen.

My point to add to the Kennedy for Senator debate is that whomever Gov. Paterson appoints to the seat, if Sen. Hillary Clinton is confirmed of course, should face the same upstate criticism and “battle” as Kennedy.

So I can’t help but wonder why the “knowing upstate” issue is focused mostly around her, and not the other contenders for the seat.

Maybe the real dilemma for upstaters is: Take a chance on someone we don’t know, who may or may not do nothing, or take a chance on someone we know, who will do nothing.

The public has now come out against the American car manufacters saying they have been sluggish in innovating their classic American guzzlers.

But a survey by the Japanese Trade Union Confederation showed more than a third of the nation’s companies have laid off workers or taken other steps to reduce labor costs in the past three months to cope with the global economic crisis. Nearly 40 percent of manufacturers are expected to lay off more temporary workers.

At the same time, much like their American counterparts, Japanese unions continue to defend wage increases, the Japanese Automobile Workers’ Union is demanding at least ¥1,000-a-month as a salary adjustment, while other unions are demanding even more.

Since 1986, Japanese law has made it easier for companies to hire temporary workers, who are largely non-union. Both Japanese trade union confederations, Rengo and UI Zensen, are working to enlist these workers, making substantial gains last year in recruiting part-time and non-regular workers into the union ranks, judging by a 12% increase in 2007.

Among Japanese Auto Workers, membership declined from a peak of 830,000 in 1994; to the 2004 membership of 699,000. Today, JAW is looking for further growth through part-time and temporary autoworkers. Their strategy is clearly forward-looking as major automakers recently announced that they would slash the number of contingent employees due to slow sales.

Toyota reports that its number of full-time workers will fall from 9,200 early this year to 3,000 by the end of next March. Mitsubishi Motors Corp. says it will not renew 1,100 contract staff from now until next March. Mazda Motor Corp. is eliminating 1,300 temporary jobs.

People often cite the $70+ per hour cost of American labor as the reason behind the Big Three’s financial losses, but it should be noted that in Japan, the pensions are paid by the state. As a result, labor costs are much lower  for Japanese companies

Even Chris Sands of the conservative Hudson Institute says that a lot of the auto industry’s problems come from having to vest pensions, which often forces them to shift money from working capital. This is a problem not shared by the Japanese auto industry, that has state pension. In the past, American companies  would borrow money to pay for this gap, and they’ve always been able to pay it back. But with the markets frozen this year, they didn’t have this option. That’s why they’ve come begging to Congress.

But the real Gov. Paterson’s apparently not into this skit either. He believes his portrayal in last Saturday’s Weekend Update actually did harm to the cause of disabled people. Says the gov, “I can take a joke. But only 37% of disabled people are working and I’m afraid that that kind of third-grade humor certainly adds to this atmosphere.” (Personally, when I saw the broadcast news piece on this issue, I wondered aloud if maybe Paterson could dish it out, but not take it.)

The skit is below.

While an attack on any world leader, however innocuous the weapon and bland response from the attacked, is cause for alarm and legal consequence, I have serious doubts about the existence and stability of any current Iraqi justice system. They didn’t have a fair one before the U.S.’ 2003 invasion and they haven’t had a chance to build one now, and with a history of lack of due process in the region, regardless of professional standing and international attention, it seems a very real possibility that Muntadar al-Zaidi, the journalist apprehended, faces either a violent fate or an untimely demise.

The words that al-Zaidi shouted in Arabic while throwing his shoes have been widely translated to have been: “This is the farewell kiss, you dog!” However, an unaccredited blogger at The False Oswalds expands the translated quote to “This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog. … This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.”
Whether this is accurate or not, I don’t know, but CNN expands the translation to: “You killed the Iraqis!” These add another layer of context to al-Zaidi’s motivation for the assault.

In that CNN article, it is also noted that al-Zaidi is the same journalist who was kidnapped in November 2007 on his way to work and then released three days later. I do not know if there are reports of what happened to him during his captivity, whether he was tortured or not. But I imagine that after the initial impulse to throw his shoes at President Bush wore off and he was surrounded and restrained by security agents, his mind flashed to those three days from one year ago and he came into a panic about his current situation. That is the only thing I can think to explain the blood trail on the carpet and the cries from an adjacent room while other Iraqi journalists apologized to the President and Mr. Bush made light of the situation.

I would love for someone to brief the U.S. president on the final translation so that after the jokes have subsided, he will no longer lack understanding of al-Zaidi’s cause. And hopefully, he will actually reinforce his claim that this show of protest – which is more than just an empty ploy for attention – is proof of democracy in Iraq by ensuring that Mr. al-Zaidi is not executed or tortured for his form of expression.

Is the fact that this possibility has surfaced doesn’t surprise me troubling? Even before I declared my concentration in health/medicine reporting, I was aware of the corruption and rampant abuse of power by what is referred to as Big Pharma. Government deregulation and regulation on a slew of business and healthcare policy issues end up benefiting these corporate entites, whether allowing unapproved drugs and drugs with possible side effects to go on the market before they are fully vetted by the FDA or removing/weakening price caps on prescription drugs so that Pharma can charge more for less and profit from donations of life-saving drugs to Third World countries. And of course there are the deceptive drug ads that have had varying levels of regulation over the last two decades.

Journal articles are an important “first draft” introducing new developments in medicine to the public and are among the sources used by health professionals and medical reporters in their story research. Doctors and reporters already look at journal articles with a wary eye, and the likely possibility of journal articles being fabricated can be even more detrimental to the trust people place in such written work.

And that doctors would sign on to put their names on these works they haven’t written – even if they agree with what is being written – is egregious and says they condone this deceptive practice. Like the regulations placed on drug advertisements, all that would be needed is for the doctors to acknowledge that this IS NOT their work. It would be better if it were, but if this is the way they want to roll, then disclose your affiliations.

It is tantamount to plagiarism.

In both cities the reason might have to do with migration patterns. American women who are better educated these day then their male counterparts, flock to cities for jobs and husbands. They want guys of comparable education and earning potential, say Richard Florida, author of the Creative Class. According to Florida’s singles map there are 210,000 thousand more single girls than guys in the New York-Northern Jersey area.

When their are fewer options those options start looking a lot better. Some people will even eat at Mcdonald’s when that’s the only thing open.

In Bangkok this situation is even more wonderful (from a guy’s perspective). There are 547,000 more women than men in the marriage year between 20 and 44 – that’s a huge number when the group we are talking about has less than 3 million.

This enormous gap (500,000!) is due to a massive in-migration of women into the city and a flight out of BKK by the men according to a report from the Economic Institute at Kobe University. Bangkok is a service economy of finance, hotels, and restaurants – all areas where women are thought to better employees in Thai eyes.

Bangkok’s men (who like American men are less educated than their female peers) often leave the city to work in heavy industry and manufacturing.

This leaves the city incredibly gender lopsided – walking around Bangkok ourists often wonder – where did all the men go? The images of the protests were so female dominated that it felt like you were looking at a women’s liberation movement instead of an anti-goverment rally.

But that’s just Bangkok.

Did I come to the wrong rally?

And its for that reason that you hear the same complaint from women there that you do here in big NYC – all the good ones are taken and the rest aren’t too good.