Save the date: FaultLines: Democracy: A conference on building a democratic press

 Via Columbia University Journalism School

Tuesday, April 25, 2023 10:00 AM -

Wednesday, April 26, 2023 3:00 PM

Pulitzer Hall, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY 10027

Room/Area: Jamail Lecture Hall

Save the date for this critical, two-day conversation about the role of a free press in a thriving democracy and its responsibility when a democracy is under assault. This signature event from the Columbia Journalism School will feature historians, journalists, policy makers and others to assess the state of the press in America and provide a roadmap for what happens next. A detailed agenda and a list of confirmed speakers to be announced soon.

For more details, go to democracy.cjr.org

Columbia University is committed to protecting the health and safety of its community. To that end, all visiting alumni and guests must meet the University requirement of full vaccination status in order to attend in-person events. Vaccination cards may be checked upon entry to all venues.

RSVP here.

By RSVP'ing, I attest that I meet the University’s vaccination requirement for event attendance and that I will be prepared to provide proof day of.

DAY ONE: TUESDAY, APRIL 25, Lecture Hall, Columbia Journalism School

10 a.m. Welcome by President Lee C. Bollinger, Columbia University

10:15 a.m.-11:15 a.m.

America 2030

Moderator: Adam Serwer, The Atlantic

Annette Gordon-Reed, historian

Robert Kagan, Brookings Institution

Kathy Roberts Forde, author

Jeff Chang, journalist

11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

Democracy and the World

Masha Gessen, The New Yorker

Jodie Ginsberg, Committee to Protect Journalists

Sheila Coronel, Columbia Journalism School

LUNCH: The World Room, Columbia Journalism School

 1:35 p.m.-2:30 p.m.

Journalism and Democracy

Moderator: Jelani Cobb, Columbia Journalism School

Errin Haines, the 19th

George Packer, The Atlantic

Margaret Sullivan, Guardian US columnist

Graciela Mochkofsky, City University of New York

Charles Whitaker, Medill School of Journalism

2:40 p.m.- 3:40 p.m.

Policy and the Press

Moderator: Jonathan Capehart, MSNBC

Joe Kahn, The New York Times

Sally Buzbee, The Washington Post

Kevin Merida, The Los Angeles Times

Alessandra Galloni, Reuters

Olatunde C. Johnson, Columbia Law School

DAY TWO: WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26

10:05 a.m.- 11:05 a.m.

Saving America

Moderator: Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post

Subrata De, Vice

Zeynep Tufekci, Columbia Journalism School

Eric Foner, historian

11:10 a.m.-11:20 a.m.

Video message from President Barack Obama

11:25 a.m.- 12:25 p.m.

Covering Vulnerable Communities

Moderator: Duy Linh Tu, Columbia Journalism School

Nina Alvarez, Columbia Journalism School

Nina Berman, Columbia Journalism School

June Cross, Columbia Journalism School

Daniel Alarcon, Columbia Journalism School

LUNCH: World Room, Columbia Journalism School

1:30 p.m.-3:00 p.m.

Democracy Town Hall

Host: Maria Hinojosa, Futuro Media

Event Contact Information:

Kyle Pope

klp2146@columbia.edu

Photographers in the age of catastrophe

  Via Riga Photomonth

Online with Facebook Live

Monday, May 31, 2021 at 11 AM MDT

Riga Photomonth invites to a discussion with Tanvi Mishra (Caravan Magazine, India), Nina Berman (Noor Images, USA), Shiraz Grinbaum (Activestills collective, Israel), moderated by Karolina Gembara (Archive of Public Protests, Poland). The event will be held in English and broadcasted live on Facebook and Riga Photomonth web page.

“This is a war we don’t know,” said Anne Applebaum, a political writer, when describing Russian paramilitary activities in Eastern Ukraine in 2014. This war was slow, masked, intrusive, without spectacular actions and rapid victories, almost invisible, almost silent but persistent and insidious. It was something we have to learn and recognise, she added.

In 2021, this description could be used in reference to many problems the world is facing. Some catastrophes happen abruptly, but others drag and lurk: the rise of the far right, the dismantling of democracies, fake news, climate change. There are catastrophes so old, forgotten, and normalised that no one wants to hear about them any longer. 

Photographers, since the invention of the medium, have been present as witnesses. But their role is changing just like the nature of catastrophes has evolved. Even though capturing events will always be crucial, photographers also have to adapt by recognising tactics and premises, using images, animating, ‘being there’ with the communities instead of just photographing them. Today visual artists document protests and ‘post-photojournalistic’ photographers make art books; some run photography workshops for children in conflict-torn neighbourhoods. But can we say that photographers have embraced the social and ethical turn?

During the discussion we will look at the nature of different visual practises in the context of everyday catastrophes. Remembering Jo Spence’s words about photographers being always immersed in politics, we’ll reflect on their changing role in today’s world.

View Nina Berman's photographs in the exhibition "Present Tense", now through August 22, 2021

“I think we all need to recognize the assault on media across the world and even in our country over the last few years is chilling”

 

Via The New York Times

By Kellen Browning

April 18, 2021

Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, on Sunday responded to reports that the state’s police officers had assaulted journalists covering the unrest in a Minneapolis suburb, saying, “Apologies are not enough; it just cannot happen.”

Protests have erupted in Brooklyn Center, Minn., in the wake of the death of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man who was killed by a veteran police officer during a traffic stop. Law enforcement officers have fired tear gas or pepper spray into crowds and have made dozens of arrests.

“I think we all need to recognize the assault on media across the world and even in our country over the last few years is chilling,” Mr. Walz said in an interview with a local CBS station. “We cannot function as a democracy if they’re not there.”

On Saturday, a lawyer representing more than 20 news media organizations sent a letter to Mr. Walz and leaders of Minnesota law enforcement organizations detailing a series of alleged assaults of journalists by police officers in the past week. Journalists have been sprayed with chemical irritants, arrested, thrown to the ground and beaten by police officers while covering protests, wrote the lawyer, Leita Walker.

The letter provides details of some of the alleged incidents, including ones involving journalists working for CNN and The New York Times.

Joshua Rashaad McFadden, a freelance photographer who was covering the protests for The Times, said in an interview on Sunday that the police surrounded the car he was in on Tuesday as he tried to leave the protests. They beat on the windows with batons, then entered the car to force him out, beating his legs and striking his camera lens, he said.

“It was definitely scary — I’ve never been in a situation like that with so many police officers hitting me, hitting my equipment,” Mr. McFadden, 30, said.

Mr. McFadden, who is Black, said the police did not believe his press credentials were real until another photographer vouched for him — a situation that has happened to him and other Black journalists many times, he said.

“It’s extremely frustrating,” he said, to know that “if a situation like this happens, they’re not going to believe or care about anything I’m saying.”

Later in the week, he said, he was forced to the ground along with other journalists and photographed by the police.

A spokeswoman for The New York Times Company on Sunday confirmed that Ms. Walker’s letter represented the company’s response.

On Friday, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order forbidding the police to use physical force or chemical agents against journalists. But Ms. Walker wrote that officers were still engaging in “widespread intimidation, violence and other misconduct directed at journalists.”

Mr. Walz said in a tweet on Saturday that he had “directed our law enforcement partners to make changes that will help ensure journalists do not face barriers to doing their jobs.”

“These are volatile situations and that’s not an excuse,” he said during the television interview on Sunday. “It’s an understanding that we need to continue to get better.”

A Day Without News

The Without News profile picture the Newseum is asking people to download and use Monday.

(Courtesy Newseum)

Via WTOP

WASHINGTON — The Newseum will look very different Monday as part of an annual campaign called “Without News.”

“It’s a day when we black out the front pages of the newspapers that we display here at the Newseum, and also on our Today’s Front Pages website,” the museum’s Sonya Gavankar told WTOP.

She said the idea is to reflect on what the world would be like without the people who bring us the news.

“It’s an important time for us to really talk about the crisis of journalists in peril, and also the attacks on freedom of the press, not only in this country, but also around the world,” says Gavankar.

Supporters are asked to use #WithoutNews on social media, and download a special profile picture from the Newseum website.
            
Also Monday, at 10 a.m., the Newseum will rededicate its Journalists Memorial, adding the names of 14 members of the media who died on the job in 2016.

The ceremony is free and open to the public with advance registration, or you can watch it live online.

The event will be held on the anniversary of the death of NPR photojournalist David Gilkey, who was killed by the Taliban while covering the war in Afghanistan.

Several items belonging to Gilkey will go on display at the museum, including a camera lens that was hit by a rubber bullet as Gilkey documented clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.