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How well-informed are citizens, and how are they getting their news? | Poynter.

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Suppose we routinely applied user-centered design principles to the task of instiling news literacy? How would our products and practices change? a href=”http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/222997/how-well-informed-are-citizens-and-how-are-they-getting-their-news/”http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/222997/how-well-informed-are-citizens-and-how-are-they-getting-their-news//a

The George Zimmerman Trial: Resources for Educators

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As I write this, Americans are processing the meaning of the not-guilty verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman, the former Sanford, Florida neighborhood watch volunteer who shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in February, 2012.  Because of the high-profile agitation that led to Zimmerman’s initial arrest and the subsequent gavel-to-gavel coverage of the trial on cable TV, the case has become the latest vehicle for our national non-conversation about race and justice. With the possibility of federal civil rights charges  and a wrongful death lawsuit looming against Zimmerman, along with the promise from Zimmerman’s attorney that he will sue NBC for errors in its coverage of the case, it’s likely that we will still be talking about this matter for some time.

No doubt, this case is on the minds of college professors and co-curricular programmers at campuses in the US and elsewhere. TCNJ’s Department of African American Studies, which I chair, held and online discussion of the case in April, 2012. Herewith, a few thoughts and resources that might be helpful in that effort. This is a first take; additions, corrections and suggestions are welcome.

Case Details and Aftermath

Historical and cultural analysis

Politcal historian Jelani Cobb, director of the Institute for African American Studies at the University of Connecticut, penned a series of real-time reflections on the trial for the New Yorker that is concise, informed and provocative. His posts covered

  • the defense’s awkward opening with a knock-knock joke,
  • a compassionate take on the much-debated testimony of Martin’s friend, Rachel Jeantel;
  • questioning whether Trayvon Martin had a right to the “stand your ground defense,”
  • what the sympathy for George Zimmerman tells us about popular misconceptions about race and crime
  • how the Zimmerman trial reflects a growing American acceptance of racial profiling and surveillance
  • why so many African Americans see connections between Zimmerman’s acquittal and the 1955 murder of Emmett Till – and why the criticism that African Americans don’t care about black-on-black murder is wrong

Meanwhile, blogger Andrea Ayers-Deets says the case makes her aware of her “white invisibility cloak.” And The Root has African American views from multiple perspectives, including Ta-Nehesi Coates’ defense of the jury verdict. Susan Brooks Thiselthwaite offers a Christian theological perspective: “For Trayvon Martin, Is There No Justice?” Similarly, Michael Lerner offers a Jewish perspective in his essay, “Trayvon Martin and Tisha B’av: A Jewish Response.” Charles’ Pierce’s sharp irreverent series of posts for Esquire is called the Daily Trayvon. The Huffingtion Post has a dedicated Trayvon Martin section.

Related Cases

For legal scholars, the killing of Trayvon Martin is part of a larger set of cases related to “Stand Your Ground” laws that expand the traditional definition of self-defense and justifiable homicide. Below are links to several cases that have been cited in this context:

  • Jordan Davis – the 17-year-old was fatally shot while sitting in a car at a gas station by 45-year-old Michael Dunn, who complained about the loud music emanating from the car’s speakers. Dunn reportedly plans to invoke the Stand Your Ground defense when his trial begins in September.
  • Marissa Alexander was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2012 for firing what she contended were “warning shots” to scare off an abusive ex-husband. No one was harmed in the incident.
  • CeCe McDonald  pled guilty to second-degree manslaughter in 2012 in a plea deal after surviving what her supporters maintain was a violent, transphobic attack.
  • Tremaine McMillen, a 14-year-old Miami boy who was wrestled to the ground, choked and arrested by Miami police who said he “clenched his fists” and gave them  “dehumanizing stares.” His family and supporters launched a petition in June asking that felony charges agaginst him be dismissed.

Stand Your Ground Laws, Racism and ALEC

  • Sociologist Lisa Wade reviews research findings that Stand Your Ground laws increase racial bias in cases of justifiable homicide. John Roman’s analysis includes data for white-on-white crimes (h/t Diane Bates.)
  • A June, 2012 Tampa Bay Times analysis of the application of Florida’s Stand Your Ground law found that white defendants were far more likely to be acquitted than black defendants, along with allowing, “drug dealers to avoid murder charges and gang members to walk free.”
  • The Center for Media and Democracy has been closely following the role played by the American Legislative Exchange Council in promoting “Stand Your Grownd” laws across the country as part of its ALEC Exposed project. According to CMD,  ALEC used the Florida law as a “template” for “model legislation” that has been enacted across the country.

Implicit Bias, Law and Public Policy

  • In the video embedded at the top of this post, Maya Wiley of the Center for Social Inclusion argues that our civil rights laws were designed to address conscious discrimination, but psychology and neuroscience are teaching us that bias operates far more frequently at an unconscious, implicit level. Thus, it is possible that both George Zimmerman’s claim that he held no racial animus against Trayvon Martin and his accusers’ claim that Zimmerman racially profiled the teenager can both be true. Jonathan Martin and Karen Feingold offer thoughts on Defusing Implicit Bias in this 2012 article in the UCLA Law Review that specifically notes the Zimmerman case.  Anti=racist educator Tim Wise also has a lot to say on the subject.

Related legal issues

Artistic responses

  • Anthony Branker and Word Play: Ballad for Trayvon Martin, from the album, Uppity
  • Watoto of the Nile, “Warning” (Dedication to Trayvon Martin)
  • Jasiri X.”Trayvon.”
  •  Art for Trayvon – Tumblr blog

    Portrait of Trayvon Martin
    By Sheppard Fairey
  • Editorial cartoons by Keith Knight, Daryl Cagle‘s cartoon blog



Teaching Games as Journalism: Pedagogy and Practice

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Presentation to the NSF C-PATH Distributed Expertise Colloquium, Villanova University, June 3, 2013

A guide the acronyms and some other helpful references:
JPW- journalism/professional writing major at The College of New Jersey
IMM – interactive multimedia program at TCNJ
DE – C-PATH Distributed Expertise project NSF Award Abstract
Wolz’ Simple Storyteller

I was a college newspaper adviser, too

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A former student passed along this March, 2013 blog post , “I was a college newspaper advisor,” by journalist and adjunct journalism instructor Jeff Pearlman about his disappointing experience as an unpaid adviser for Manhattanville College’s student newspaper. According to the post, Perlman helped the students launch the paper in 2011, extracted a promise of support and non-interference from the administration, and put in lots of sweat equity helping the students learn the fundamentals of newspaper reporting, editing, design and production. Unfortunately, he said, the administration pulled the paper out from under him and the student staff because it was upset that articles criticizing aspects of campus life might repel potential applicants and donors. The administration installed a PR prof as advisor, the staff turned over, and the result was an irregularly-published PR rag. Pearlman went on to help his students found an alternative online outlet, PubWrap. For Pearlman, the whole sad saga is part of the larger attack on journalism:

“What hurts most (and what, I suppose, inspires me to write this) is that this sort of stuff is going on everywhere. Journalism is, undeniably, under attack. Newspapers are closing. Corporate entities are stifling free press; colleges and universities are cracking down on student-generated publications….”

Read the post, and read the discussion that follows. As I read it, I recognized many of the issues that Pearlman raised, either from my own experience or those of peers at other institutions.

I too, was a college newspaper adviser.

Fortunately, the student newspaper with which I was associated from the mid-90s to the mid-aughts, The Signal, is going strong under the mentorship of their current advisor, former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Emilie Lounsberry. (Once again, they racked up the honors (.pdf) in the New Jersey Press Association’s annual Better College Newspaper Contest.) Like Pearlman, I also helped my students launch Unbound, an online newsmagazine, in the days when online journalism was young. I know something about late nights, stale pizza, cringing over simple errors, taking pride in each improvement and helping students figure out coverage of big, awful, breaking stories in real time (9/11 especially comes to mind.)

I also know something about having to negotiate to protect the newspaper’s autonomy and resources, although I must say that I am fortunate never to have encountered the treachery that Pearlman apparently experienced.

Drop in on a listserv discussion or meeting of the College Media Advisers, or browse the news flashes on the Student Press Law Center website and you are sure to come across issues such as:

  • Newspapers being stolen or removed from public distribution because someone is offended by its contents
  • Pressure from administrators to provide favorable coverage, or stifle unfavorable coverage.
  • Threats of legal action from outside parties over coverage of a story concerning them.
  • Demands from outside groups demanding the removal of editors and/or advisers because of what they published — or refused to publish.
  • Actual threats to the safety of student staff and advisers that required police action.

Fortunately, organizations such as SPLC and CMA are invaluable in helping to ensure that students’ and advisers’ legal rights are protected. So are state press associations. I recall having to call the legal hotline of our state press association on more than one occasion to get advice about my rights as an adviser, as well as my students’ rights.

Because you can be sued for something the students publish, even though you didn’t know about it, and even though you had no input into the publishing decision. And CMA argues that, indeed, you should not have any input into those decisions: “It should not be the media adviser’s role to modify student writing or broadcasts, for it robs student journalists of educational opportunity and could severely damage their rights to free expression.”

Pearlman doesn’t say whether he consulted CMA or SPLC about his difficulties with the Manhattanville College administration. CMA has been known to censure campuses for stifling students’ freedom of speech in the manner Pearlman describes. Manhattanville’s administration might not have cared, and as a private institution, it has more latitude than does a public college such as mine when it comes to these kinds of decisions. And as a poorly-compensated adjunct with a full-time sportswriting gig, it’s understandable if Pearlman chose to cut his losses and vent on his blog instead of fighting. But others who may be in similar positions need to know that there are resources out there. I know I discovered CMA on my own. Other faculty advisers shouldn’t have to.