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2007: ‘Covering the Complexities of Civil Rights’
Fellows Discuss Racial Issues With Experts
in Los Angeles and at Poynter Institute
Presentations by national experts and a lively forum on affirmative action highlighted a January 2007 conference in Los Angeles exploring racial justice in America. The conference and a follow-up session in April at The Poynter Institute were conducted by USC Annenberg’s Institute for Justice and Journalism.
Ten U.S. journalists were selected as IJJ Racial Justice Fellows and took part in the Los Angeles conference, “Covering the Complexities of Civil Rights, Equity and Opportunity,” held Jan. 14-20.
Scholars and other experts from Los Angeles and around the nation made presentations on issues affecting civil rights, equity and opportunity. They included representatives from USC Annenberg School for Communication, Public Policy Institute of California, Tomás Rivera Policy Institute at USC, Kirwan Institute at Ohio State University, Community Advocates Inc. in Los Angeles, UCLA Center for the Study of Urban Poverty and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center.
Journalists who led discussions included Tom Arviso Jr., publisher of the Navajo Times; photojournalist Lester Sloan, formerly of Newsweek; Steve Magagnini of the Sacramento Bee; Pha Lo of New America Media; Lynne Varner of the Seattle Times; and Don Bartletti, Judy Pasternak and Doug Smith of the Los Angeles Times.
The public forum – “Affirmative Action: Dead or Alive?” – examined the pros and cons and future status of government programs and public education. It was moderated by Ellis Cose, a Newsweek columnist who authored a special report published by IJJ entitled “Killing Affirmative Action: Would ending it really result in a better, more perfect Union?”
Panelists at the forum were affirmative action opponent Ward Connerly; Jennifer Gratz, a plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme Court case Gratz v. Bollinger; Andrea Guerrero, a San Diego attorney and affirmative action advocate; and Darnell Hunt, director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA.
From April 11 to 14, the Fellows—joined by their editors or news directors—gathered for a follow-up conference at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Fla. They discussed the Fellows’ progress in preparing their project stories for publication or broadcast.
Keith Woods, dean of faculty at Poynter, led a session on “The Authentic Voice in Stories About Race” and facilitated a wrap-up session. Other presenters from the Poynter faculty were Kenny Irby, Roy Peter Clark, Aly Colón and Al Tompkins.
IJJ Expert Fellow Sally Lehrman led a conversation with Prof. Brian Nosek of the University of Virginia on the Implicit Association Test and what it tells us about race and bias.
Claudia Meléndez Salinas, a reporter at the Monterey County Herald, discussed the “Story Behind the Story” concerning her series on land-use policies. Meléndez Salinas, a 2006 Racial Justice Fellow, was joined in the discussion by the Herald’s editor, Carolina Garcia.
The 2007 Racial Justice Fellows, from newspapers, radio, magazines and a television consortium:
- Barbara Belejack, editor, The Texas Observer.
- Ann Bennett, freelance producer and writer, National Black Programming Consortium.
- Leslie Fulbright, staff writer, San Francisco Chronicle.
- Leoneda Inge, reporter, North Carolina Public Radio – WUNC.
- Jeff Kelly Lowenstein, reporter, The Chicago Reporter.
- Jon Lowenstein, freelance photojournalist.
- M. Elizabeth Roman, reporter, Worcester (Mass.) Telegram & Gazette.
- Tram Nguyen, executive editor, Colorlines magazine.
- Anna Sale, reporter, West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
- Rebecca Trounson, staff writer, Los Angeles Times.
IJJ is directed by Steve Montiel. The Racial Justice Fellowship program was led by Victor Merina, an IJJ Senior Fellow, and Associate Director Frank O. Sotomayor. Also making presentations at the conferences were Associate Director Marc Cooper and Senior Fellows Phillip Rodriguez and Joe Domanick.
Created with Ford Foundation funding, the Institute for Justice and Journalism was established in 2000 at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication to strengthen journalism about justice and injustice. Through Justice and Journalism Fellowships, IJJ supports journalists committed to covering complex, often polarizing issues with context and depth.
2005-06: ‘Covering News of Race in a New World’
Fellows gather at Harvard
and Poynter to develop news projects
A dozen journalists in the Racial Justice Fellowship program traveled to Harvard in September 2005, for a week-long seminar at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism on “Covering News of Race in a New World.”
The IJJ participants joined Nieman fellows, university scholars, health care experts, civil rights advocates and prominent journalists at Harvard’s Lippmann House to explore topics ranging from racial and ethnic disparities in health care and the influence of race and class on education to questions of race, science and media and how civil rights issues are playing out in a new era.
Among the speakers were Gary Orfield, director of the Civil Rights Project at Harvard; Evelyn Hammonds, senior vice provost for faculty development and diversity at Harvard, and Ichiro Kawachi, director of the Harvard Center for Society and Health. They were joined by author Susan Eaton, documentary film producers Larry Adelman and Llew Smith and former New Orleans Times-Picayune city editor Keith Woods, now dean of faculty at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies.
The Racial Justice Fellows, who work at media outlets from Hawaii to Georgia, deepened their understanding of social justice issues and learned how to improve their journalistic skills. They reviewed media coverage of Hurricane Katrina and examined how race and socioeconomic factors played a role in those stories. As part of that discussion, Lani Guinier, a Harvard law professor and former Justice Department official in the Clinton Administration, joined Newsweek columnist Ellis Cose in a session entitled “Race, Class and Katrina: Context and Consequences.” The conversation, moderated by Nieman curator Bob Giles, was webcast by the institute.
In addition to the classroom seminars, the IJJ fellows spent a day in the Roxbury section of Boston to view firsthand how local residents and workers at the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative have revitalized that largely low-income community of color.
Following their Harvard experience, the IJJ Fellows traveled in March 2006, to the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida. Accompanied by their editors, they discussed individual projects that will be published or broadcast as part of their fellowships. They also heard from journalists such as Anne Hull, a national writer for The Washington Post, and Martha Mendoza, an IJJ senior fellow and Pulitzer Prize-winning national writer for the Associated Press, on techniques to hone their reporting and writing skills when dealing with subjects of race and ethnicity.
2003: ‘Covering the New California’
Workshops hone skills
in cross-cultural reporting
Supported by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation, 14 California Fellowships were awarded to journalists from general audience, community and ethnic media to promote exemplary journalism about social justice issues shaped by the state’s racial and ethnic diversity.
The Fellows met in Los Angeles in June 2003 for a weeklong conference, “Covering the New California.” During the conference, they participated in seminars and panel discussions led by Senior Fellow Victor Merina and expert fellows aimed at honing journalistic skills--from cross-cultural reporting to developing sources in immigrant communities. The Fellows also took field trips to Koreatown and a day labor center in Los Angeles to learn more about racial justice issues.
The expert fellows included Martha Mendoza, a national correspondent for the Associated Press; Steve Magagnini. a Sacramento Bee writer; Liz Llorente, a senior writer for the Bergen Record, Steve Holmes, an editor for the New York Times who is now with the Washington Post; freelance journalist and writer Sally Lehrman, and author Helen Zia.
On Sept. 30, 2003, the Fellows met in Palo Alto, Calif., for a two-day workshop with the emphasis on developing their individual story projects. Their editors and producers joined the discussions for one day to give them the opportunity to hear about the projects their reporters and other Fellows were pursuing and to engage them in discussions about best practices of social justice reporting.
The Fellows took part in the Oct. 2-3 conference at Stanford University titled “Colorblind Racism? The Politics of Controlling Racial and Ethnic Data." Holmes delivered the opening keynote on :Race and the News: Why Numbers Matter.” The conference was sponsored by the Equal Justice Society, Stanford’s Center for Comprehensive Studies in Race and Ethnicity and IJJ.
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