Save the Date: April 30 for Journal-isms Roundtable on Lessons for Journalists from the Civil Rights Movement

richard

3 weeks ago

On TV Tonight in D.C.: ‘Stanley Nelson’s ‘We Want the Funk’ (Check Local Listings Elsewhere)
Sunday is D.C.s Emancipation Day
From the Fund for Investigative Journalism
From Women’s Media Center — Sexism, Racism in Health Care

JOBS:

From these journalist organizations
From the Uproot Project

For additional upcoming events, see “Notices” for 3-29-25

Homepage photo by Sharon Farmer/sfphotoworks

“Never let your adversary define the problem, because the things that President Trump considers problems, I consider blessings,” Andrew Young told Geoff Bennett on the “PBS News Hour.” (Credit: PBS/YouTube)

Notices 4-8-25 (updated 4-22-25)

April 21 update: This Roundtable will now be held in person as well as via Zoom, as a hybrid, thanks to George Washington University’s Center for Media and Public Affairs. Only those who have registered will be admitted. Please message jroundtable5@gmail.com if you want to join in person.

Hello, all,

Our next Roundtable takes place by Zoom at 7 p.m. ET on Wednesday, April 30, on “What the Civil Rights Movement Can Teach Journalists About Dealing With Trump and Trumpism.”

If all goes as planned, the session will be simulcast on Facebook at < https://www.facebook.com/RPjournalisms/ > and posted afterward on the Journal-isms YouTube channel.

Our panelists are:

Andrew Young, chairman of the Andrew Young Foundation, veteran of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, former mayor of Atlanta, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. (Now 93!)

Courtland Cox, chairman of the SNCC Legacy Project, and Judy Richardson, board member of the Project, documentary producer (including work on “Eyes on the Prize”), currently co-directing the new visitor center film for the National Park Service’s Frederick Douglass House in Washington, D.C.

SNCC veterans Courtland Cox, center, and Judy Richardson at the February 2020 Journal-isms Roundtable. With them, at right, is Jerry Mitchell, whose book, “Race Against Time,” discusses his pursuit of civil rights and Klan-related cold cases in Mississippi. (Credit: Sharon Farmer/sfphotoworks)

Charles Cobb (pictured), who in addition to being a former field secretary with SNCC, is also a co-founder of the National Association of Black Journalists, now celebrating its 50th year, will be part of the panel.

Also in the room:

Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely, grandniece of William Monroe Trotter (1872-1934), activist editor of the Boston Guardian who helped form the Niagara Movement and create the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), from which he later broke ranks. Trotter is also known for confronting President Woodrow Wilson in the White House over Wilson’s opposition to Black progress.

Nicholas Patler, University of Virginia historian who has written about Trotter.

Journalists who have covered the civil rights movement, including:

Dorothy Butler Gilliam, then writing for the Tri-State Defender in Memphis, the Washington Post and other outlets.

Hank Klibanoff, professor, journalist, historian; co-author of “The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle and the Awakening of a Nation.”

Barbara Reynolds, then writing for the Cleveland Press, Ebony, the Chicago Tribune and other outlets.

Carole Simpson, retired weekend anchor at ABC News who had covered the Movement for WBBM and WMAQ in Chicago

Jack E. White, retired columnist for Time magazine who also wrote for the Race Relations Reporter

We hope to have as Roundtable participants others who covered the civil rights movement, were inspired by it or want to know more about it.

In addition, we will toast Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Eugene Robinson (pictured), who resigned last week from the Washington Post.

April 16 update: We will also remember Kenneth Walker, a member of our Journal-isms Roundtable Strategy Committee who died April 11.

Ambassador Young will be a first-timer with us. Courtland Cox and Judy Richardson were impressive when they appeared at our final Roundtable before the pandemic, in February 2020. The video by Janice Temple is at < http://bit.ly/2u60Rbw > The narrative and photos are on Facebook at < http://bit.ly/2v6iAzZ > for part 1 and < http://bit.ly/3cjkY7w > for part 2.

The event summary includes words that sound familiar today: “Our roundtable took place as an emboldened Donald Trump continued an assault on democratic institutions after his acquittal by the U.S. Senate on impeachment charges, the early stages of the Democratic presidential primaries, and newspapers under both presidential and economic assault.”.

As commentators have pointed out, many in the United States today are angry and looking for leadership. That includes journalists.

Consider these developments since the second Trump administration took office in January:

Books authored by Black journalists, commentators and others were removed last week from the Naval Academy Library.

Three congressional Democrats sought documents from the head of the Federal Communications Commission last week “as part of a probe into what they called ‘sham’ investigations into media outlets including CBS, NBC and ABC launched by the agency under President Donald Trump to try to intimidate the news media,” as Reuters reported.

Journalists at the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post have tendered resignations over their publishers’ moves to appease the Trump administration.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said the commission is prepared to block mergers and acquisitions involving companies that continue promoting diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

The administration blocked The Associated Press from events “and taken control of the White House pool, throwing out a century of media independence and giving the government the power to select who is allowed to cover the president,” in the words of media writer Oliver Darcy.

“This presidential press pool change . . . is akin to state-run media in Russia and China where the leader expects the press to deliver favorable news on and about him and reporters ask questions that will not raise his ire,” wrote April Ryan in the Daily Beast.

“The White House correspondents’ dinner axed its traditional comedy act this year, canceling comedian Amber Ruffin as host a day after a Trump administration official called her ‘hate-filled’ because of her jokes about the president,” as described by the New York Daily News.

That’s not to mention that the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which runs Voice of America, intends to fire more than 1,200 journalists, engineers and other staff that it sidelined in the wake of Trump ordering its funding slashed. That’s halted for now, thanks to a federal judge. On Sunday, however, Ghana Web reported that the VOA had gone off the air in Ghana, Nigeria, Niger and other African countries.

Kenneth B. Morris Jr., descendant of Frederick Douglass, writes in a Black History Month essay on what his ancestor would do in these times: “He would be blunt about the scale of the challenge and what is required of anyone seeking change and justice. . . “

What should be the response of journalists and the organizations that represent them?

The SNCC Legacy Project gave a window into its thinking with this statement.

SNCC Says: ‘It’s Dark, But It’s Not Midnight’ (scroll down) Watch the video here.

And on the “PBS News Hour” last month, Ambassador Young told Geoff Bennett, “Never let your adversary define the problem, because the things that President Trump considers problems, I consider blessings.” (video)

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post last week, “the people, not the politicians in Congress, are the architects of this nation’s future, and they will ultimately decide whether we revive our democracy or slide further toward autocracy.“

Who’s in?

Zoom information will come later in the month, after RSVPs.

Those not viewing this via the Journal-isms or Journal-isms Roundtables listserve may RSVP via jroundtable5 (at) gmail.com. Others can just hit “Reply.”

SNCC Loses NEH Funding; Duke Institute to the Rescue

From Judy Richardson on April 21: We have our last “SNCC & Grassroots Organizing” virtual event this evening. This one is on Women & Gender in SNCC. We’ll include a special message at the beginning of tonight’s session, since NEH terminated our already-received funds as we were touching down for the Claflin Univ. event 2 weeks ago:

At this point we usually say: “The SNCC and Grassroots Organizing discussion series has been made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.”

We must now alert you to this:

Two weeks ago, as we were traveling to Claflin University for our 3 events there, we received an email from the Trump Administration stating that our project was being terminated; that we could not even use the funds already approved by Congress, which we’d received and committed.

“Your grant no longer effectuates the agency’s (NEH’s) needs and priorities… Your grant’s immediate termination is necessary to safeguard the interests of the federal government… The termination of your grant represents an urgent priority for the administration.”

However, our partners at Duke University’s John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute saved the day. As a result of their strong support, we are still able to offer our two final events in this series: this virtual conversation tonight and the Toolkit session — on SNCC and Black Power — at the Mississippi Civil Rights museum in Jackson, this coming Saturday, on April 26.

There is power in the history we will be sharing with you tonight. And… there are those who would try to suppress that power. We will not let them. Because, as the Freedom Song says: “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me ‘round’.

May 5: Africa and World Press Freedom Day

You and all of our Journal-isms friends are invited to join us on Monday, May 5th, at 9 a.m. EST (afternoon in Africa), for a forum on African perspectives on World Press Freedom Day, with speakers from around the continent. Online only. For the zoom link, please RSVP at https://annenberg.usc.edu/events/cclp/africa-us-forum-world-press-freedom-day-perspectives-africa

If you missed the March 31 forum, “The Future of Africa-U.S. Health Diplomacy: Perspectives from the Continent,” African public perceptions and responses to US and European foreign aid cuts, the video is available on demand at https://youtu.be/jQMfOyoeIzA

These forums are presented by (in alphabetical order):

– the African Centre for the Study of the U.S., University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg;

– the Annenberg Center for Communication Leadership and Policy, University of Southern California;

– the Center for African Studies, Howard University;

– the Institute for African Studies, George Washington University, and

– the Public Diplomacy Council of America.

Regards,

Adam

Adam Clayton Powell III

Executive Director, USC Election Cybersecurity Initiative, and

Director, Annenberg Center Washington Programs

USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy

University of Southern California, and

Co-Host, “White House Chronicle” weekly on PBS, SiriusXM and https://whchronicle.com/

email acpowell@usc.edu

mobile +1 703-848-5232

https://electionsecurity.usc.edu/
https://communicationleadership.usc.edu/africas-us-initiative/

Reporting on Issues Facing Lower-Income Tenants

Please join us next Friday, April 25, at noon Eastern for a free webinar with tips and resources for investigative coverage of issues facing lower-income tenants and accountability for landlords.

Click here to register for this free webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_n1WLR_nLTlip9HGFzM-wZA

Injustice Watch’s Alejandro Cancino and Maya Dukmasova will share how they reported Injustice Watch’s “Tenant Trap” investigation, which uncovered unfair treatment of thousands of Chicago renters living in unsafe apartments while facing skyrocketing rents and a court system designed to protect landlords. Injustice Watch received support from the Fund for this investigation.

Four-time Peabody Award-winning journalist Ellen Weiss will discuss the project with Cancino and Dukmasova, and they will share concrete tips and resources that other journalists can use to do similar investigations in their communities.

The next deadlines to apply for grants from the Fund are in early May. Details are online here: https://fij.org/apply-for-a-grant/.

Thank you,

The Fund for Investigative Journalism team

Previously . . .

On TV Tonight in D.C.: ‘Stanley Nelson’s ‘We Want the Funk’ (Check Local Listings Elsewhere)

April 7 – April 13, 2025

Independent Lens: We Want the Funk

The new documentary from Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson and co-director and producer Nicole London traces funk music’s African and gospel roots, from James Brown to Parliament-Funkadelic and beyond. The film explores the music’s rhythms and grooves and delves into the genre’s influence on contemporary music, fashion, and freedom of expression — while examining the relationship between funk and the political and racial dynamics of 1970s America.

Independent Lens: We Want the Funk airs Tuesday, April 8 at 9pm on WETA PBS or stream on the free PBS app.

WATCH PREVIEW >

Sunday is D.C.s Emancipation Day

From the Fund for Investigative Journalism

Friends, We just made 46 new grants for investigative stories in 27 states. . . . the full announcement is on our website.

We’ll share their stories with you as they’re published and broadcast in the months ahead. The need for strong investigative reporting is greater than ever – and we’re proud to be providing more support to more journalists than we have at any point in our 56-year history.

Thank you for your partnership,

Eric Ferrero, Executive Director Fund for Investigative Journalism

See news release for names of recipients

From Women’s Media Center: Sexism, Racism in Health Care

Anushay Hossain, feminist author, podcast host and women’s advocate, discusses the systemic sexism and racism in American healthcare and the need for transformative change as part of a Women’s Media Center lecture series.

Hossain’s speech premiered online on March 31, 2025 during Women’s History Month. It is inspired by her Simon and Schuster book: “The Pain Gap — How Sexism and Racism in Healthcare Kill Women.” Her show, “The Pain Gap Podcast” provides a vital platform for critical conversations about medical gaslighting and misogyny, creating an important examination of the women’s health crisis in America, especially for women of color.

“When it comes to our health and rights, the truth is women aren’t being hysterical enough,” Hossain writes in her book. “Throughout history, we have been too quiet. We are still staying silent and polite—and it’s literally killing us. Perhaps a little fury and confrontation is just what the doctor ordered.”