Propagandists, Authoritarians Seen as Winners
Attackers of Journalists Among Those Pardoned
. . . Black Woman Listed on the ‘Insurrection Index’
Breaking the News Industry’s Near-Silence on DEI
Washington Post Eliminates ME/Diversity Position
Vanessa Gallman Dies, ‘Barrier-Breaking’ Opinion Editor
How Jose Antonio Vargas Became Legal — for Now
Telemundo Super Bowl Reporter Found Dead at 27
Short Takes: Charles M. Blow; Amber Ruffin and White House Correspondents’ Dinner; viral video of an arrest in Cuba; U.N.’s International Decade for People of African Descent; help on accessing records on immigration and deportation; NAHJ’s advice on reporting on immigration; advice from Latin American journalists on migration reporting; Ann M. Simmons and Brittany Shepherd;
Maxie Jackson; Atlanta Voice and Q-City Metro; undeterred journalists in war-torn Sudan; Iranian-American journalist sentenced; stories from Myanmar journalists; Haitian journalists in exile speak
Homepage photo: Skills-training class for journalists at in Cameroon, West Africa. (Credit: DataCameroon/Facebook)
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A skills-training class for journalists at DataCameroon in the West African country. There, “the funding freeze forced the public interest media outlet based in the capital, Douala, “to put several projects on hold, including one focused on journalist safety and another covering the upcoming presidential election,” Reporters Without Borders said. (Credit: DataCameroon/Facebook)
Propagandists, Authoritarians Seen as Winners
“President Donald Trump has frozen billions of dollars around the world in aid projects, including over $268 million allocated by Congress to support independent media and the free flow of information,” the Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders said Monday.
“Reporters Without Borders (RSF) denounces this decision, which has plunged NGOs, media outlets, and journalists doing vital work into chaotic uncertainty. RSF calls on international public and private support to commit to the sustainability of independent media.
[The New York Times reported Thursday, “The Trump administration plans to retain only about 290 of the more than 10,000 employees worldwide at the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to three people with knowledge of the planned cuts to the work force. The cuts were communicated to agency leaders in a call on Thursday.”]
“Since the new American president announced the freeze of U.S. foreign aid, USAID (United States Agency for International Development) has been in turmoil: its website is inaccessible, its X account has been suspended, the agency’s headquarters was closed and employees told to stay home. Elon Musk, whom Trump chose to lead the quasi-official Department of Government Efficiency, called USAID a ‘criminal organization’ and said, ‘We’re shutting down.’ Later that day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he was named acting director of the agency, suggesting its operations were being moved to the State Department.
“Almost immediately after the freeze went into effect, journalistic organizations around the world that receive American aid funding started reaching out to RSF expressing confusion, chaos, and uncertainty. The affected organizations include large international NGOs that support independent media like the International Fund for Public Interest Media and smaller, individual media outlets serving audiences living under repressive conditions in countries like Iran and Russia.
“The American aid funding freeze is sowing chaos around the world, including in journalism. The programs that have been frozen provide vital support to projects that strengthen media, transparency, and democracy. President Trump justified this order by charging – without evidence – that a so-called ‘foreign aid industry’ is not aligned with U.S. interests. The tragic irony is that this measure will create a vacuum that plays into the hands of propagandists and authoritarian states. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is appealing to the international public and private funders to commit to the sustainability of independent media.”
“Many organizations are hesitant to draw attention for fear of risking long-term funding or coming under political attacks. According to a USAID fact sheet which has since been taken offline, in 2023, the agency funded training and support for 6,200 journalists, assisted 707 non-state news outlets, and supported 279 media-sector civil society organizations dedicated to strengthening independent media. The 2025 foreign aid budget included $268,376,000 allocated by Congress to support ‘independent media and the free flow of information.’
“All over the world, media outlets and organizations have had to halt some of their activities overnight. ‘We have articles scheduled until the end of January, but after that, if we haven’t found solutions, we won’t be able to publish anymore,’ explains a journalist from a Belarusian exiled media outlet who wished to remain anonymous. In Cameroon, the funding freeze forced DataCameroon, a public interest media outlet based in the capital Douala, to put several projects on hold, including one focused on journalist safety and another covering the upcoming presidential election.
“An exiled Iranian media outlet that preferred to remain anonymous was forced to suspend collaboration with its staff for three months and slash salaries to a bare minimum to survive. An exiled Iranian journalist interviewed by RSF warns that the impact of the funding freeze could silence some of the last remaining free voices, creating a vacuum that Iranian state propaganda would inevitably fill. ‘Shutting us off will mean that they’ll have more power,’ she says. .. .”
- Jon Allsop, Columbia Journalism Review: USAID and the Media in a ‘Time of Monsters’
- Hayes Brown, MSNBC: Trump is daring anyone to stop his illegal funding freeze
- Katharine Houreld and Rachel Chason, Washington Post: Fear, pain and hunger: The dire impact of U.S. funding cuts in Africa
- Edith M. Lederer and Danica Coto, Associated Press: US has frozen some funding for the UN-backed mission to quell gangs in Haiti, UN says
Why am I, w/@CNN PJ @RonnieMcCrayJr, on this balcony? This is @dougmastriano‘s rally in Uniontown, PA. The campaign said we could attend, then said no press allowed. So… I rented this room w/a balcony just so we could cover a leading contender for #PAGov w/the primary 1 wk away pic.twitter.com/pDi96GTvh8
— Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) May 9, 2022
(If image is not visible, please consider viewing through another browser.)
Attackers of Journalists Among Those Pardoned
Among his first official acts on returning to the White House, President Donald Trump issued an executive order “restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship,” the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders said Jan. 23. “Implicit in this vaguely written document: the United States is done fighting mis- and disinformation online.
“Meanwhile, far from living up to the letter or spirit of his own order, Trump is fighting battles against the American news media on multiple fronts and has pardoned at least 13 individuals convicted or charged for attacking journalists on January 6, 2021. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) strongly refutes Trump’s distorted vision of free speech, which is inherently detrimental to press freedom.” Some 1,500 were pardoned in all.
CNN photojournalist Ronnie McCray and New York Times photojournalist Erin Schaff were among the journalists assaulted that day. Philip and David Walker, who attacked Schaff and stole her camera, were pardoned.
“Trump’s pardon, issued on Jan. 20, 2025, released from further punishment all those charged or convicted for actions relating to the Capitol attack. The case against brothers Philip and David Walker was dismissed Jan. 22, according to court records reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker,” the tracking group said.
“There’s more of us than you…We could absolutely fucking destroy you.” This was the moment at the Capitol the mob turned on our team. Shot by @RonnieMcCrayJr — Alexander Marquardt, CNN Senior National Security Correspondent, @MarquardtA
— sandovalsnews (@sandovalsnews) June 16, 2021
No charges were ever filed against McCray’s assailants, Press Tracker said.
On that infamous day, “CNN reporter Alexander Marquardt tweeted shortly after 3 p.m. that ‘protesters swarmed and mobbed’ his news team — including McCray — after discovering that they worked for CNN.
“The Daily Beast reported that at one point a member of the mob assaulted McCray and smacked his camera; another individual got between the CNN team and the mob and told them they should leave before they got hurt.
“In footage captured by McCray and posted on Twitter by Marquardt on Jan. 8, rioters can be heard booing the news team and shouting, ‘Get out of here, motherfuckers,’ ‘Traitors’ and ‘There’s more of us than you… We could absolutely fucking destroy you.’
“ ‘I was very afraid for my safety and my team’s,’ Marquardt told The Daily Beast. ‘We were vastly outnumbered, surrounded, with no real escape route. We’re lucky we got out physically unscathed, just shaken, and our camera was hit. I’ve covered parliaments stormed, foreign coups, riots and protests across the Middle East and this was by far the most universally hostile crowd I’ve been in. In the city that I call home.’ ”
Clayton Weimers, U.S. director of Reporters Without Borders, identified the 13 who wee pardoned after assaulting journalists as:
Philip Walker, David Walker, Sandra Weyer, Gabriel Brown, Zvonimir Jurlina, Chase Kevin Allen, Joshua Dillon Haynes, Dana Jean Bell, Rodney Milstreed, Peter G Moloney, Alan Wiliam Byerly and Benjamen Scott Burlew.
- Associated Press: Vance suggests some reporters covering the Trump White House are biased
- Nate Gowdy, Columbia Journalism Review: I Photographed January 6. Trump’s Pardons Can’t Erase What I Saw.
- Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: Trump pardons must not lead to the unpardonable (Jan. 27)
Rayla Campbell, shown during a 2022 campaign, said she works to highlight the triumphs of African American individuals as ‘”gents of change and progress” rather than victims of oppression, including figures such as Frederick Douglass or Elizabeth Freeman. (Credit: Boston Herald)
. . . Black Woman Listed on the ‘Insurrection Index’
A Black woman, a rarity in this context, is included on one group’s “accessible online database of individuals and organizations involved in the deadly riots and insurrection at our nation’s Capitol on January 6, 2021.” She is Rayla Campbell, a Massachusetts-based radio host who is listedin the “Insurrection Index” by the “equity in democracy” group Public Wise as an election denier who spreads disinformation.
Campbell, 42, is radio host at WSMN in Nashua, N.H. Last June, MassLive described Campbell this way:
“Her story: Campbell grew up in the South Shore of Massachusetts with a ‘strong sense of truth and common sense.’
“Since then, she has worked to be a conservative African American voice in politics, advocating for policies that align with principles of freedom, individual responsibility and limited government.
“Campbell ran for the Massachusetts Secretary of State but lost the election in 2022.
“She became the party nominee and endorsed candidate in 2022 and was the first African American woman to make the statewide ballot, according to Campbell.
Prior to that race, Campbell ran as a write-in candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2020 but ended up not getting on the ballot.
“ ‘Without a foundation of shared values, our society has become increasingly fragmented, giving rise to racism and intolerance. The resurgence of racism and division is a stark reminder of the profound impact of this shift. The principles that once bound us together as a nation seem to be fading into the background,’ she said.
“As an influencer, Campbell said she also works to highlight the triumphs of African American individuals as ‘agents of change and progress’ rather than victims of oppression including figures such as Frederick Douglass or Elizabeth Freeman. . . .”
At the Massachusetts GOP convention in 2022, the Boston Globe reported, “Campbell, the party’s candidate for secretary of state, told the delegates, “I don’t think it’s nice when they’re telling your 5-year-old that he can [perform a sex act on] another 5-year-old,’ . . . drawing gasps from the audience. “Do you?”
“ ‘Because that’s what’s happening in your schools!’ she added. ‘If this makes you uncomfortable, it should.’
“Pressed by a Globe reporter, Campbell did not provide evidence of this, instead pointing to a pending bill in the Legislature intended to update the state’s sexual education curriculum. The bill would require schools that offer sexual health education to deploy ‘medically accurate, age-appropriate’ programs, including in providing information about gender identity and sexual orientation. . . .”
Daarel Burnette, a senior editor at the Chronicle of Higher Education, explains the nuts and bolts of diversity, equity and inclusion. (Credit: YouTube)
Breaking the News Industry’s Near-Silence on DEI
The News/Media Alliance says, “Our members represent over 2,200 diverse publishers in the United States — from the largest groups and international outlets to hyperlocal sources, from digital-only and digital-first to print. Our members are trusted and respected providers of quality journalism.”
The National Association of Broadcasters calls itself “the voice for the nation’s radio and television broadcasters.”
Neither wants to talk about the Trump administration’s full-throated push against diversity, equity and inclusion.
The organization representing news editors, the News Leaders Association, went out of business last year. Its predecessors had set a goal of parity with the percentage of people of color in the general population by 2025.
Requests for the remaining organizations’ current positions on DEI went unanswered this week, as the Trump administration assault went full-steam ahead, firing DEI workers, blaming the concept for the midair plane crash at Washington’s Reagan National Airport and shutting government offices dedicated to advancing DEI.
Similarly, the journalist of color associations, whose reason for existence is to promote diversity in newsrooms, have been muted. The Asian American Journalists Association Tuesday announced this year’s convention theme, “Forging Our Legacies, Navigating the Future,” with nary a mention of diversity or DEI, just as the National Association of Hispanic Journalists failed to do two weeks ago.
“We’re not changing what we’re doing,” Heather Birks, executive director, told Journal-isms on Wednesday. “BEA is not political,” so it might be easier for its leaders to make that decision.
The panel description reads, “As the BEA celebrates its 70th anniversary, we find ourselves at a critical juncture in the landscape of media education and representation. This panel seeks to commemorate the leadership, and the strides they made in fostering diversity within broadcast education while addressing the contemporary challenges faced by organizations committed to multicultural representation. In an era where diversity initiatives are increasingly under scrutiny, this panel will explore the vital role of BEA, particularly the Multicultural Division in promoting inclusive practices, amplifying underrepresented voices, and preparing the next generation of media professionals to navigate an ever-evolving, diverse media landscape.”
- National Association of Broadcasters: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Initiatives (2023)
“Krissah is creative, steadfast and dynamic, with the right experience and outlook to lead us in pushing the boundaries in journalism and innovation,” said Washington Post Executive Editor Matt Murray in December. He was announcing that Krissah Thompson would become editor of the new WP Ventures.
Washington Post Eliminates ME/Diversity Position
Having named Krissah Thompson to lead a new Washington Post initiative, the Post has decided not to fill the job she inaugurated: managing editor for diversity and inclusion, a Post spokesperson told Journal-isms.
“The company’s diversity and inclusion initiatives across the company fall under the remit of Lahaja Furaha, Director of Diversity and Inclusion. Also, Liz Seymour, Managing Editor, now oversees all of news operation including training, recruiting and culture with a focus on advancing DEI,” the spokesperson messaged Tuesday.
“We remain committed to diversity through our newsroom operations and also the dedicated role of diversity and inclusion director.”
The message was different when former executive editor Martin Baron created the diversity job in 2020, two months after the George Floyd murder by police. Baron acted after criticism by some Black staff members, Baron wrote in his 2023 memoir, “Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and the Washington Post.”
“I should have advocated for a top-level editor who could lead our diversity efforts, not just for purposes of hiring but also to strengthen our coverage of long-standing, unresolved issues of race, ethnicity, and identity. Success at getting the resources might have eluded me, but failing to try was regrettably the most serious error of my tenure at The Post.”
On July 28, 2020, Baron announced that Thompson would be the first Black woman to rise to managing editor, no longer a title given only to one person at a time.
The former Style section writer “will be in charge of ensuring significant, consistent progress on diversity and inclusiveness in everything we do – our coverage of race, ethnicity and identity as well as improved recruitment, retention and career advancement for journalists of color,” Baron said in his 2020 statement. “She will have the strong backing of the newsroom’s senior leadership in that highest-priority effort. She will require the support of everyone.”
The next year, new Executive Editor Sally Buzbee gave Thompson added responsibility for climate and environmental coverage, features reporting and recruitment.
In December, current Executive Editor Matt Murray, who has praised Thompson, announced that she would become editor of WP Ventures, whose “goal is to explore how The Washington Post can effectively grow our reach, revenue and relevance with new audiences in a rapidly changing media landscape. A particular focus has been expanding our presence on social media and creating new commercial opportunities for consumer and lifestyle journalism, while accelerating innovation and cross-company collaboration.”
However, the announcement did not say that Thompson was therefore giving up her managing editor role.
The same month, “Amazon said it is halting some of its diversity and inclusion initiatives, joining a growing list of major corporations that have made similar moves in the face of increasing public and legal scrutiny,” CNBC reported in January.
“In a Dec. 16 internal note to staffers that was obtained by CNBC, Candi Castleberry, Amazon’s VP of inclusive experiences and technology, said the company was in the process of ‘winding down outdated programs and materials’ as part of a broader review of hundreds of initiatives.”
Jeff Bezos, founder and executive chairman of Amazon, owns The Washington Post.
- Naftali Bendavid and Cleve R. Wootson Jr., Washington Post: Trump’s fierce attacks on DEI reflect a longtime GOP focus
- Tom Boggioni, Raw Story: ‘You are making it hard for us!’ Black Americans for Trump member rips president on CNN
- Jamelle Bouie, New York Times: Don’t Fall for Trump’s D.E.I. Dodge
- Curtis Bunn, NBC BLK: From Delta Air Lines to Costco, some companies say they’ll stick with DEI (Jan. 29)
- Oliver Darcy, Status: The Information Wars (on Fox News and DEI)
- Jarvis DeBerry, MSNBC: Trump’s attack on the federal workforce is an attack on the Black middle class
- Erica L. Green. New York Times: As Trump Attacks Diversity, a Racist Undercurrent Surfaces
- Roy S. Johnson, al.com: As Trump lynches DEI, we must resurrect Black Wall Street, support our own (Jan. 28)
- Julian Mark, Washington Post: Diversity officers and professors sue to block Trump’s DEI orders
- Phillip Martin, WGBH News, Boston: Amid Trump threats, local nonprofits are strategizing to stay active
- Phillip Nieto, Mediaite: ‘We Didn’t Blame White People!’ MSNBC’s Velshi Says There Were ‘Far More Plane Crashes’ Back Before DEI and ‘Equitable’ Workforce
- Pivot Fund: Supporting Underserved Audiences Amid Anti-DEI Efforts (Jan. 30)
- Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: What the Air Force’s Tuskegee Airmen mishap reveals about Trump’s DEI war (Jan. 27)
- Sunita Sohrabji, Ethnic Media Services via AsAmNews: White House AANHPI [Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander] Commission Shuttered By Executive Order
- Brandon Tensley, Capital B: The End of DEI: What Trump’s Executive Orders Mean for Black Americans
In 2015, Vanessa Gallman spoke about the University of Maryland’s Capital News Service bureau in Annapolis, the state capital. She was hired in 1990 to open that bureau. Here, she talks about the genesis of the program as well as the opening of the school’s Washington, D.C., bureau. (Credit: YouTube)
Vanessa Gallman Dies, ‘Barrier-Breaking’ Opinion Editor
Vanessa Gallman, “a barrier-breaking journalist who helped steer Lexington’s conscience for more than two decades as the editorial page editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader,” died Monday in Lexington, Ky. Linda Blackford reported Monday for the Herald-Leader. She was 71.
In 2008, Gallman became the only Black woman to serve as president of the National Conference of Editorial Writers, known by that name for 65 years until 2012, when it was renamed the Association of Opinion Journalists. AOJ merged in 2019 into the News Leaders Association, which disbanded last year.
She died of heart failure, her daughter, Erica L. Stinson, told Journal-isms.
“She rose to the top as steady, calm, dependable, insightful, and a true worker,” said Chuck Stokes, editorial/public affairs director for WXYZ-TV in Detroit and who in 2000 became the first Black president of the editorial writers group. He reflected the sentiment of colleagues on the group’s listserve, which survives.
“Besides our fun times together at NCEW conferences and board meetings, what I remember best is her dedication to NCEW’s annual Minority Writers Seminar at the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center in Nashville. She was one of our core teaching group that attended practically every year to help grow young and seasoned journalists into talented opinion writers.”:
Blackford’s obituary continued, “Gallman was a native of Charlotte, North Carolina, who worked up and down the East Coast as a reporter and editor before settling in Lexington.
“As she said in her retirement column in 2019, she had not expected to spend so much time in Lexington, but ‘not only is Central Kentucky a comfortable place to raise a family, this state is full of challenges, opportunities, beauty, despair, outsized characters and small-town charms. In other words: a journalist’s dream.’ . . .
“ ‘We sometimes ended up on the losing sides of community debates,’ Gallman wrote. ‘But it was not really a loss because we opened our pages to passionate discussion, becoming the equivalent of the old-time public square, where anyone could climb a platform and have a say.’ . . .”
A celebration of life is planned for Feb. 15 at the Lyric Theater, 300 E. Third St. in Lexington, her daughter said, with services handled by the Hawkins-Taylor Funeral Home.
- Jacalyn Carfagno, Kentucky Lantern: Vanessa Gallman, Herald-Leader editorial leader, Lantern columnist, dies at 71
- WJBK Detroit: Al Allen, FOX 2 reporter for decades, dies at 79
How Jose Antonio Vargas Became Legal — for Now
“For 31 years, my life as an undocumented immigrant has been a problem waiting to be solved,” journalist and immigrant rights activist Jose Antonio Vargas says in this video.
“Finally, I have what some might call a solution, albeit temporary, partial, and at the whim of a new administration and president who built his whole campaign around deportations.
“Since sharing my story very publicly in an essay in the New York Times some 13 years ago, the question I get asked the most all over the country from Americans of all backgrounds, is, why don’t you just get legal?
“Why don’t you just fix this thing?
“This thing?
“You got your papers?” . . .
“I was brought here when I was 12.
“I didn’t know I didn’t have papers till I was 16.
“My grandparents who were American citizens didn’t tell me.
“So I’ve been here. . . .”
- Jose Antonio Vargas, New York Times: I Was an Undocumented Immigrant. I Beg You to See the Nuance in Our Stories. (Jan. 20)
Con tristeza Telemundo Kansas City comunica el fallecimiento de su presentador de deportes, Adan Manzano Aguilar.https://t.co/CgiL4rGGeH pic.twitter.com/B7CcbMr0Oe
— Telemundo Kansas City (@TelemundoKC) February 6, 2025
Telemundo Super Bowl Reporter Found Dead at 27
“A Kansas City Telemundo reporter died Wednesday while covering Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans, Telemundo Kansas City said on social media,” Gabriella Killett and Michelle Hunter reported Thursday for NOLA.com.
“Adan Manzano, 27, worked as a sideline reporter for KBKC, Kansas City’s Telemundo affiliate, and was in town to cover the event for both the station and Tico Sports, KBKC and the Daily Mail said.
“KBKC said it is cooperating with law enforcement that are investigating Manzano’s death. The Jefferson Parish Coroner’s Office said in a Thursday statement that Manzano died at a Kenner hotel.
“The coroner had conducted an autopsy of his body, but Manzano’s official cause of death is pending further test results, authorities said.”
Anna Lazarus Caplan added for People magazine, “A Mexico City native, Manzano earned his degree at Kansas State University and joined the Chiefs Television Crew as a sideline reporter at the beginning of the last NFL season, according to Fox affiliate KCTV.
“Manzano’s wife, Ashleigh LeeAnn Boyd, was killed last year, on April 11, 2024, in a car crash, CBS affiliate WIBW reported.
“The couple leave behind a toddler daughter named Eleanor. … :
Short Takes
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“In 2009,” Charles M. Blow (pictured) wrote in his farewell column Wednesday for the New York Times, “I wrote about two 11-year-old boys, one in Massachusetts, the other in Georgia, who had hanged themselves just 10 days apart after both had endured homophobic bullying. . . . I found my voice.” Blow, who is bisexual, continued., “From then on, I would lean into my genuine voice, the one that echoed the voices I heard from the elderly Black folks of my youth. Their vocabularies weren’t expansive, but their command of the language, the way they could play with its rhythms, their eye for detail and their flare for drama were extraordinary. Then, after Bob Herbert’s departure, I became Opinion’s sole Black columnist, and columnist of color, for most of the Obama era, the rise of the movement for Black lives and the first election of Donald Trump, which I considered a racial event. That shifted the mission of the column for me. . . .” Blow will hold the inaugural Langston Hughes fellowship at Harvard, hosted by the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research.
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“The White House Correspondents’ Association announced on Tuesday that Amber Ruffin (pictured), a comedian and writer, will be the featured entertainer for the organization’s annual dinner in April,” Amanda Friedman reported Tuesday for Politico. “Ruffin is an Emmy- and Tony- Award-nominated writer, comedian and author. She writes for NBC’s “Late Night With Seth Meyers” and is featured on CNN’s comedy news series, ‘Have I Got News For You.’ Eugene Daniels of Politico, president of the association, said, “She has the ability to walk the line between blistering commentary and humor all while provoking her audience to think about the important issues of the day. I’m thrilled and honored she said yes.”
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- A video of Héctor Julio Cedeño Negrín, 71, being violently arrested in Havana, Cuba, is going viral. Cedeno Negrin, “who has a history as an opponent of the regime — particularly as an independent journalist — had reported on several occasions the harassment from the police and State Security against him, CibaCuba reported. He “is currently selling candies as his only means of survival amidst the deep economic crisis facing the country, according to CubaNet in a video shared on Facebook. He was was holding a sign that read ‘Down with the dictatorship.’ In the video, the enormous frustration and anger of the witnesses can be heard, who did not hold back their shouts like: ‘Abusers’; “And then they don’t want it filmed and uploaded”; ‘Let him be, he’s just fighting’ or ‘There is hunger!’ . . .”
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- “The United Nations has launched a second International Decade for People of African Descent,” Karen Juanita Carrillo and Jesús Chucho Garcia wrote Jan. 16 for the New York Amsterdam News. “The first Decade, which ran from 2015 to 2024, saw the Permanent Forum meet three times. The Permanent Forum will hold its fourth session at the United Nations’ New York City headquarters April 14-17, 2025.. This new decade — which officially began January 1, 2025, and will continue until December 31, 2034 — will again employ a Permanent Forum on People of African Descent to document and highlight quality-of-life issues for Black people worldwide. . . .”
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- “The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has published a new tipsheet to help journalists access public records while reporting on immigration and deportation,” the committee announced Jan. 27. “The tipsheet — available in English and Spanish — comes as President Donald Trump has signed a flurry of immigration-related executive orders, including measures declaring a “national emergency” to potentially deploy the military to the border, attempting to end birthright citizenship, and suspending a refugee program. . . . ‘
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“It is our responsibility to report on immigration with accuracy, context, and compassion, serving both the Hispanic community and exemplifying the principles of journalistic excellence,” Dunia Elvir (pictured), president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, wrote to members Jan. 29. “That means reporting not just on new policies, but on their concrete impact on the communities you cover. Some new legislation, instructions and executive orders will have immediate impact, but other orders will be held up by litigation and legislative delays. Let’s report on facts that affect lives, not gestures that stir fears.” Among other points Elvir also directed members to its guidelines for reporting on immigration raids and its “Cultural Competence Handbook.”
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- “Countering narratives of hate, listening to the migrant community, providing useful information and monitoring migration policies are some of the practices that journalists who report on and for migrant communities in Latin America recommend implementing to offer better immigration coverage in the face of Donald Trump’s second term as president of the United States,” César López Linares wrote Jan. 20 for LatAm Journalism Review.
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Ann M. Simmons, on leave after most recently serving as Moscow bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, and Brittany Shepherd, national political reporter at ABC News, are among those chosen for the Institute of Politics Resident Fellows Program at Harvard University for spring 2025. “This semester’s fellows bring diverse experiences in international and national journalism, labor, health and human services, campaigns, and elected office to address the challenges facing our country and world today,” the institute says.
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Veteran public media executive “Maxie Jackson (pictured) is no longer serving as executive director at Radio Milwaukee, the station announced in an email to supporters Jan. 17,” Tyler Falk reported Jan. 24 for Current. The email did not say why Jackson left the station. Jackson, who joined the station in 2022, told Journal-isms, ” I’ll have a complete response by the end of the month.”
Sandra M. Stevenson (pictured), deputy director of photography at the Washington Post, is joining Education Week Feb. 25 as managing editor, visuals and immersive experience (VEX), Editor-in-Chief Beth Frerking told staff members Thursday. “At the Post, Sandra helped lead strategic conversations on such significant issues as AI policy (internal and external), visual consistency across platforms, and building the best visuals team for the future. . . . Sandra brings a strong appreciation for coverage of K12 education, coming from a family of Washington-area K12 educators and having herself served on the national board of the American Montessori Society. . . .”
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- The American Press Institute has awarded eight news organizations with $5,000 grants to evolve or iterate upon current revenue experiments,” the institute announced Tuesday. “Through its 2025 Revenue Experiments Learning Cohort, API will support the eight local and community news organizations — all alumni of the U.S.-based Table Stakes Local News Transformation Program — with peer-learning calls to help them clarify their experiments, share ideas, and define effective tactics and strategies. The Atlanta Voice and the Q-City Metro in Charlotte, N.C., are members of the Black press that are among the grantees.
(Credit: Sudan Media Forum)
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- Waseem, “a pseudonym”, a young man in his twenties, and Awad, “a pseudonym”, a veteran journalist in his fifties, spoke to the Sudanese electronic newspaper Al-Taghyeer about their experience in the heart of Sudan’s main conflict zone, “facing the risk of death amidst the random shelling and continuous harassment from all parties. However, the threats did not deter them from continuing to document the humanitarian catastrophe that is deepening day after day, as they were armed with words and images to tell the world the story of a people who remained trapped between the rubble of war and the hope of survival. . . .” Fath Al-Rahman Hamouda wrote for the exiled media house Dabanga on Jan. 29. The war in Sudan has prompted the world’s most serious humanitarian crisis, authorities say.
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“A court in Tehran sentenced Reza Valizadeh (pictured), Iranian-American journalist and former presenter of Radio Farda, to 10 years in jail on 29 January, on charges of allegedly “cooperating with the hostile US government,” the International Federation of Journalists said Jan. 31. The federation said it “condemns this decision and urges the Iranian government to drop all charges against Valizadeh and to immediately release all journalists jailed in the country.”
- “Four years after the military coup in Myanmar, the junta’s brutal suppression of press freedom decimated the country’s media landscape,” says Reporters Without Borders. In ‘Myanmar: the merciless crackdown’, a new documentary by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), three Myanmar journalists share their harrowing experiences and their fight to keep the public informed. Their stories are an urgent wake-up call to the international community to support media professionals in striving to uphold the right to information.” (Credit: YouTube)
“Three journalists who left Haiti to save their lives explained to LatAm Journalism Review (LJR) what it means to be a Haitian journalist in exile,” César López Linares wrote Jan. 29 for LatAm Journalism Review. Roberson Alphonse, honored last year by the National Association of Black Journalists, “recently moved to Chicago, where he will live for at least a year as a visiting lecturer at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. He still has one more surgery pending to remove four bullet fragments that remain in his arm.” Photojournalist Dieu-Nalio Chery (pictured), in Haiti an Associated Press photographer, went to Detroit, thanks to a “two-year scholarship to work at City of Asylum, an organization that supports writers and artists exiled for suffering persecution due to their work.” He is now a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan. Jacky Marc “‘not only left his family in Haiti – they were finally able to join him in Canada at the end of 2024, – but also the possibility of practicing his profession.. . . Currently he only produces a podcast that he distributes for free. . . .”
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View previous columns (after Feb. 13, 2016).
View previous columns (before Feb. 13, 2016)
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- Book Notes: Is Taking a Knee Really All That? (Dec. 20, 2018)
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- Book Notes: Challenging ’45’ and Proudly Telling the Story (Dec. 18, 2018)
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- Book Notes: Get Down With the Legends! (Dec. 11, 2018)
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- Journalist Richard Prince w/Joe Madison (Sirius XM, April 18, 2018) (podcast)
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- Richard Prince (journalist) (Wikipedia entry)
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- February 2018 Podcast: Richard “Dick” Prince on the need for newsroom diversity (Gabriel Greschler, Student Press Law Center, Feb. 26, 2018)
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- An advocate for diversity in the media is still pressing for representation, (Courtland Milloy, Washington Post, Nov. 28, 2017)
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- Morgan Global Journalism Review: Journal-isms Journeys On (Aug. 31, 2017)
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- Journal-isms’ Richard Prince Wants Your Ideas (FishbowlDC, Feb. 26, 2016)
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- Richard Prince with Charlayne Hunter-Gault, “PBS NewsHour,” “What stagnant diversity means for America’s newsrooms” (Dec. 15, 2015)
- Book Notes: Journalists Follow Their Passions
- Richard Prince with Charlayne Hunter-Gault, “PBS NewsHour,” “What stagnant diversity means for America’s newsrooms” (Dec. 15, 2015)
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