education

The Journey of the Journalist: Part 1: Why is saving journalism not enough?

Friday, June 5th, 2009

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I’ve been a journalist for 20 years– through full-time jobs at Newsweek, MTV, CNN, ABC, Oxygen, and NPR; part-time ones at One Economy, KALW, and WNYC; the founding and (ongoing) rebuilding of PopandPolitics.com; and three non-fiction books on race, politics, and media. I’ve rolled with the punches and thrown a few. But now more than ever, the business that I entered at the age of sixteen, with my first national publication, is, well, in a hell of hurt. Many of my highly skilled friends who report, edit, or run newsrooms are unemployed, underemployed, or just plain scared.

I say this to set the table for a series of blog pots/musings. I’m a practitioner of journalism; a consumer of journalism; a critic… sometimes a journalism educator; sometimes an entrepreneur. I’m worried, and not just for myself. (I would be lying if I said I don’t have many jobs and opportunities; and disingenuous if I said I was calm.)

Lots of people are worried about the fate of reporting and media in America. Organizations are going bankrupt or out of business, including scores of America’s daily newspapers. Tens of thousands of journalists are being given their walking papers and finding they cannot re-enter the industry. We have created ways that entirely new forms of media can upend “old media,” but that digital victory is without a clear profit model. Yes, in the short term, media is the crushed anthill: damage, death, panic, rushing disorder. But I believe that journalists, like our smaller, more resilient, and far more numerous insect cousins, are prone and programmed to rebuild.

Rebuilding is great. But is it enough? What if we put the profit back in media? What if you can build new media empires that make the owners rich or the foundation heads lauded; the employees comfortable; and the consumers reasonably satisfied? What then? Do we in the business breathe with relief, pay off our credit card bills, and settle in for another round of who-gets-the-corner-office? We’re worried about the means and the method of rebuilding media. But judging from my personal on- and off- the record discussions with for- and non-profit media businesses, as well as interactions at an endless numbers of “whither this/whither that” panels and conferences (and looking at the demographics of who’s in the room)… we’re not ready to face our biggest demon. That demon is exclusion: the way many Americans are cut out of media production and consumption, and the way many of us in the business are sanguine about it.

We in the media are not “the people,” nor do we represent them as fully as we often claim to. “Citizen journalism,” as we now call it, may be valuable and produced by non-traditional journalists. But most of the people who create it are still more educated, more technologically skilled, and more likely to be white than the demographics of the overall U.S. population. (By and large, “citizen journalists” are also less skilled at tasks like investigative reporting and historical research than traditional journalists.)

When forty percent of Americans are of limited literacy, let alone whatever digital divide still remains, then we have a much bigger problem than trying to build innovative blog rings, aggregators, local news sites or content engines. When the ranks of non-white journalists, already limited, are falling faster in the era of cutbacks than they were before–we have a problem. When organizations question the objectivity of people who fall outside of institutional norms… in some newsrooms, say, gays and lesbians; in others, Southerners or rural people … but they DON’T question the means and motives of people who fit the majority: that is a problem. When the journalism organizations designed to champion diversity have drawn so many checks from corporations that they cannot afford to challenge business owners… or only realize too late (once the checks are gone) that they should be… that too is a problem.

We are only as good as our willingness to change. And while the journalism industry is willing to rebuild itself, I am not convinced we’re challenging ourselves to provide an ethical context around reporting on a diverse society in transition.

Recently I met in a newsroom with a younger journalist who said: “It’s ridiculous that the newsroom is this white in a city this diverse.”

I shrugged and nodded. It wasn’t a “you’re wrong” shrug and nod. It was more a “yeah, been there, done that, wrote the book, fought the layoff, got my butt whipped, still standing, what did you expect?” gesture. The reality is, I didn’t want to talk about it because I didn’t have anything to say that would have inspired this person.

Now, after much reflection, I do. I say to myself as much as to anyone else in media: “Keep fighting for your ideals… if you don’t win, you will at least know why you are in the game.” I believe good journalism usually comes from a mix of vocation, or personal calling, and avocation– the latter in the sense of having a “day job” rather than having a hobby. Most successful journalists I know are, as one college student who recently interviewed me put it, “hustlers”– people whose mix of skill, institutional memory, luck, and self-promotional tendencies make them formidable at staying in the game.

Most of us will have not just several jobs but several careers in our lifetime. I don’t count on being a working journalist forever. (No, I’m not planning to leave the profession any time soon.) I believe journalism has changed me, mainly but not always the land before time ii the great valley adventure dvd for the better. I will always have the eyes and ears of a journalist, which is a valuable skill but sometimes puts me in an alienating social position.

This series of blog columns, “The Journey of the Journalist,” is my attempt to think and write at the same time. It’s not a finished product in the same sense a magazine article or television piece is, but rather a data point for a conversation. My motivation is to share some of my journey and simultaneously record and reflect on it; to share and to learn; to listen and learn from others.

I don’t know what form this will ultimately take, but I’ve set off the journey.

See you on the road.

Peace,
Farai

@faraichideya
www.faraichideya.com

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Educational Opportunity in the Age of Obama

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

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The man leaned out over the podium, looking at the robed students seated in the first rows of the auditorium.

“You’re multicultural with different lifestyles and beliefs,” he said, “and together, you represent the face of America.”

Those words could have come from the mouth of another of last weekend’s commencement speakers, President Barack Obama. The President has made multiculturalism as American as apple pie, and invested what used to be fraught cultural territory with a sense of shared destiny. In this case, though, I was listening to Dr. John Ruffin of the National Institutes of Health address the 25th graduating class of Morehouse Medical School, a class which includes my cousin.

The medical school is affiliated with Morehouse College, a historically black male undergraduate institution founded after the Civil War. Yet though the majority of students and families were black American, other families helping to robe the newly-minted doctors included women in saris or wearing Muslim headscarves; mothers and fathers in lavish matching garb from West Africa; parents with the last name Chen or Rodriguez; and families from our nation’s racial majority for another three decades, plus or minus: white Americans.

Just a decade ago, America was in denial about our rapidly changing racial and cultural landscape. The U.S. Census had released projections that by the year 2050, America would have no racial majority. Today, they’ve moved that projected date up to 2042.

Some people think that having a black President means we can afford to put away the topic of race altogether. That complacency, combined with our current economic crisis, could put the lives and futures of students at risk. Education is what turns the American Dream into the American Reality. And education is in deep trouble, first as a thing-in-itself, and also as an indicator of our racial future.

As Dr. Ruffin called on these young doctors to end health disparities, I flashed back to experiences I’d had a decade ago reporting a book called “The Color of Our Future.” For two years, I crisscrossed America from the Crow reservation in Montana to the Georgia/Florida line, to get teens’ take on the role of race in their lives. Many of them struggled to reconcile the fact that the deck was stacked against them–because of race, income, immigration status, and more–with their own righteous belief that they could break through the barriers and fulfill their dreams.

The Media Academy at Fremont High School in Oakland put those struggles in plain sight. It lies on a street filled with idling day laborers, and operates out of worn trailers or “portables” over a decade old. But it has a track record of doing big things with tough or educationally challenged kids.

Earlier this year, I brought graduate students from the journalism school at The University of California, Berkeley, to meet the teens at Fremont High. The grad students were a mix of races, themselves; but the Fremont students included immigrants from several countries including Vietnam and El Salvador as well as black students born in the neighborhood. As was true a decade ago, the high school was what I call “ABW”–Anything But White.

We talked about media, education funding cuts and local school closures (which one brave Fremont student was investigating, much to the consternation of some officials), plus issues including the economy and the fatal shooting of a cuffed man by transit police on New Year’s day. A mix of student and professional crews videotaped the event so we could leave some record of who we were and what are struggling with in our time.

In another environment, many of these kids would be tracked low-achieving or low-literacy and put on the back burner of society. Instead, this graduation season brings moments of joy as students from this tough little program get their diplomas and gear up to go to college. That kind of scene doesn’t happen often enough.

Yes, the Obama Administration is juggling the crises of jobs, foreclosures, banking, wars, and healthcare. We still have to ask when our President intends to foreground educational opportunity, and what he will ask of us as a nation. For example: how will we balance short-term stopgapping (like the State Fiscal Stabilization Funds) with “big think” long term change? Why are so many public schools today, even high-achieving ones, “ABW”? Is school integration effectively dead, fifty-five years after Brown v. Board of Education? How can not just white but middle- and upper-middle-income families be reconnected to public schooling? Will the new political rainbow coalition lose its might once people start debating who should get affirmative action–rich and black, or poor and white? Will “equality,” in this economic crisis, mean that more white Americans are poorly educated, as opposed to more students of color doing well? (That prospect should chill our bones.)

Let’s take a moment during this graduation season to ask how we can raise the profile of educational equality among the issues our nation faces. When I looked at the smiling, multi-ethnic group of newly minted doctors marching out of Morehouse Medical School, I saw an extraordinary example of how shared struggle and success brings people together. The question for all of us is how we can take this kind of achievement, broaden it to the education system at large…and make it the rule, not the exception.

_________

Farai Chideya is an award-winning journalist who has written three nonfiction books on media, politics and race, including “The Color of Our Future”; plus the newly released novel “Kiss the Sky.” She is now researching “The Color of Our Future in the Age of Obama.”

You can find the rough cut of the video about the Media Academy and U.C. Berkeley students here download the return .

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“The Class (Entre Les Mur)”: Who is Teaching Who?

Tuesday, March 10th, 2009

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If you ever wanted to understand why teaching puberty-ridden, curious, and  rebellious high school kids is a tough job, just watch the Oscar-nominated French film, The Class (Entre Les Murs). This movie dives into the deep end of the complexities of teaching a multi-ethnic, socioeconomic diverse class in the new immigrant rich France.

The Class (2008) takes place inside the narrow confines of the high school campus, which may sound limiting, but it was a careful choice made by director Laurent Cantet. The docudrama is based on a book and screenplay written by François Bégaudeau, the author and teacher who plays himself in the movie. It is a somewhat loose day-in-the-life story of his struggles to teach a diverse class of challenging students.

Most viewers realize the teachers are in for a rough time from the very first scene. Smartly foreshadowing the year to come, a group of teachers meet to prepare for the incoming students. The team shares its words of encouragement and advice, especially for the rookies. A retiring teacher said “[He’d] like to wish the new arrivals plenty of courage” because he knew they would need it.

The complexity of courage and respect are played out in the film’s French classroom and in “real-world” classrooms internationally. François, and the other teachers, wear a shield of courage each day to face the brutal, disruptive and demanding students. Like the new France, François’ class had students of all nationalities—Moroccan, Mali, Chinese as well as other African and Middle Eastern nations. The Class proves that teachers also needed respect to understand the daily battles their first and second-generation immigrant students encountered in their tough French neighborhoods. These constant clashes between teacher and student for understanding left the audience with mixed sympathies.

This push-pull tension around respect in the classroom played out perfectly. Several students, like Khoumba, a sharp-tongued, moody African girl, were quick to demand respect from their snappy and exasperated teacher. In one power play, she is scolded by François for her insolence in class after refusing to read aloud. In a tug-of-war after class discussion, François demands a sincere apology from her. Feeling a lack of respect shown, she offers a half-hearted apology and runs off to join her friends who waited and snickered in the hallway. Seeking to provide balance to the commentary on respect, the film shows another side of Khoumba, as a sensitive, emotional teenaged girl. In a well-written note to François, she explains how she feels disrespected by him.

In various scenes, teacher François attempts to unravel the multiple layers inside each child while trying to teach the class French. The major class project is a self-portrait, which each student is allowed to approach in his or her own way. Despite numerous interruptions and outbursts about everything from homosexuality to spoken imperfect subjunctive French, all of the students miraculously create a picture of their personality – and a window into their personal challenges, fears, uniqueness and beauty.

One student, Souleyman, a sullen Malian teenaged boy is surprised when François gives him praise for his pictorial self-portrait. Originally uninterested in the project, he told François, “I have nothing to say because no one knows me but me.” Depicted as the troublemaker in the film, he is used to more negative feedback than positive.

Similar to real life, The Class showed that the students were also misunderstood and at times underestimated. Revealing his own bias and shortcomings, François was shocked when students like Esmeralda, a quick-witted Middle Eastern teen, read books like Plato’s “Republic” because it exceeded his expectations of her. In earlier conversations, François had difficulty selecting books for the class to read because he assumed his students had low reading abilities. Other students like Wey, a gifted Chinese young man with French language challenges, and another intelligent male student who dressed in Goth fashion were often ignored in favor of their loudmouthed, rambunctious counterparts. Thus, the slower students led the pace of François’ teaching – remarkably similar to critiques of American public schools.

The Class shines with multilayered complexity, and reveals that teachers are human and also make mistakes, especially after being pushed too far. It also depicts the reality of public schools in which mutual respect between teacher and student is often not the standard. The film illustrates that in order to get respect, you have to earn respect.

The Class succeeds because of its real world critiques on respect and the complexities of student – teacher relationships as well as the challenges of navigating unfamiliar immigrant worlds fraught with language and cultural differences. In the daily trials between student and teacher in the real world and cinematic classroom, the audience is left wondering who is really teaching who?

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The First-Time Voter: Why She’s Voting for Obama

Monday, November 3rd, 2008

Ruthann Perry, 50, of Virginia Beach, Va. is a first-time voter. Originally from Providence, Rhode Island, the mother of four girls and 10 grandchildren will cast her first vote in the 2008 election on Tuesday, Nov. 4. Perry now owns a daycare center in Virginia Beach. Her center keeps five kids, all of whom she claims are Obama supporters. After hearing Obama’s speeches, she became an Obama supporter and first time voter.

Research shows Perry is not alone. According to a recent Pew Report, one out of 10 voters in 2008 are voting for the first time. And as an African American, Perry is one of the 21 percent of first-time voters who are black.

Why have you chosen to vote in this election?
I’ve chosen to vote because of Obama. Obama means change. This country needs a change. I like Obama. I like what he is saying about medical (health care) issues.

Why is this election important to you?
Because America needs a change. I think Obama is that change. I’m also concerned about medical issues and education for the children.

Why didn’t you vote in the past?
I know it seems silly but I didn’t want get picked for jury duty, that’s my reason. But I didn’t know that you don’t have to be a voter to be selected for jury duty.

What issues matter to you most in this election?
Medical. I’m worried about how some people can’t afford medical care. Obama is going to make medical care affordable for people like me. My daughter had cancer. She was denied health care insurance. They gave it to me. Since I’ve been diagnosed with diabetes, they have now denied my health insurance. Obama is saying that medical care will be available for everyone.

Are you voting for Obama because he is black?
Yes and no. Yes, in a way it does matter to me. But, I just like what he was saying. He could be purple. He was just saying the right thing. What got me was the medical care. A lot of people are dying because they can’t afford it.

How did you register to vote?
People actually came to my door. They told me that I was on some list. They said the process would only take two seconds. I think they were students. They had all of my information on the paper. All I had to do was verify it and sign. My [voter registration] card was sent in the mail. It was really easy. This was the first time they’ve done this—come to my door and asked me to vote. Now all I have to do is go vote.

Did you have to declare a party affiliation during registration?
No, I just had to verify my information.

When are you voting?
I’m voting on Election Day. It’s going to be difficult because I run a daycare. I am going to get to the polls at 5 a.m. The polls open at 6 a.m.

Did you consider early voting?
Yes, I did, but I missed it. I didn’t know where I was going to go. I had to go to DMV. I missed it.

Since you are voting for Obama, do you think he will win?
Yes, I do. A lot of people are voting for him, especially young kids. A lot of them are telling me they are voting for him. I have a nephew who just turned 18. He is voting for Obama.

Do you think that one vote counts?
Yes. I didn’t think so before but now I do. I realize that it makes a difference in what we want. It is because of Obama. I just listened to his speech. I liked what he was saying.

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McCain hits Obama with a Mis-Education Ad

Friday, September 12th, 2008

McCain’s recent education ad deals Obama some pretty harsh blows. The ad claims Obama wants five-year-olds to learn about sex before reading. And it says Obama has accomplished zilch in the education arena. Of course, it doesn’t speak at all to McCain’s track record on sex education or lessons for the kiddies.

Well, I’ve done a little digging and found that the statements are largely untrue, according to FactCheck.org.

STATEMENT 1: The ad claims that Obama’s one accomplishment is “legislation to teach comprehensive sex education to kindergartners.”

FALSE – Although the Illinois bill McCain speaks of included the phrase “comprehensive sex education,” it also mandated age-appropriate instruction for kindergartners about issues like sexually transmitted diseases, inappropriate touching, etc. Obama supported the legislation because it would update Illinois’ sex education curriculum by making it “medically accurate.” And under the legislation, parents could remove their children from the class – no questions asked.

STATEMENT 2: The Illinois bill mandated sex education for kindergartners is Obama’s one accomplishment.

FALSE: Obama was a supporter of the bill, not a sponsor. And although the bill (SB-99) passed in the Illinois House of Representatives, it failed in the Senate.

(more…)

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