journalism

Dilemmas in Media Development

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News imageAs many of you know, I have been working on starting a news startup with a group of Jamaican journalists for the last two years.  I am a big supporter of media development.  I feel that I am lucky to live in a country where press freedom and democracy are upheld, and when I can, I try to provide as much support and resources to my counterparts in countries with limited reporting tools.

One of the members of this group, Jared Jameson, I first met on one of my first UN-funded media development projects I worked on in Nigeria over ten years ago.  Jared is a veteran photojournalist who has done fantastic work throughout the Caribbean and West Africa.  Four years ago he asked me to help him start an online news site focused on the northeastern part of Jamaica, mainly in the parish of Portland.  Most of the writers and photographers are from the area and the United States.  Portland is a major agricultural producer of coffee, mangoes, bananas and the national fruit, ackee.

You would think it would be easy to start a news website around economic development, but there is a reason it has taken two year to get this off the ground.  Some of our bumps in the road may be familiar to other media development practitioners, especially around money.

Investments – Getting investors continues to be a big barrier.  It is hard to get financial support for a media project like this because investors want to see how the product will work out first.  That’s a Catch 22!

Money for issues, not for growing independent journalism – Unfortunately, the little money that is available for media development projects is not used to develop long term, sustainable journalism, but rather for short term issue projects.

Write for pay – Of course writers should be paid for their work, but most of the time news startups in developing countries, money for content is not immediately available at the beginning.

Training & Resources – Even if there is some money to keep the news operations afloat for a while, who is going to be in charge of website maintenance? Who fixes the website when it goes down?  Who is trained to do this. In most small news startups of this nature, it might be one person doing everything.  It can be expensive and time consuming to hire and train more people.

Luckily for us, we are now in negotiation for a sponsorship right now that will help us get going by the end of 2015.  More to come on this soon!

Islam, Racism and Media Bias

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Photo Credit: Newd Magazine - Black Jews in NigeriaThe ongoing violence between Israel and Hamas has brought up discussions about media bias.  Many argue that there is a bias by American media outlets to portray Israelis as more valuable than Palestinians.  Others have said there is a racist overtone towards how Hamas and the Palestinians are portrayed in the media.  So what is the role of black journalists in reporting this crisis in a fair and accurate manner?  Many journalists of color have historically gone out of their way to report about issues affecting marginalized communities because those issues affect them too.

However, the Palestine Question has become a third rail issue that no American journalist of any color wants to broach.  The problem is that if you say anything even remotely negative about Israel’s policy towards Palestinians, you are immediately labeled an anti-Semite. This is why they is such an imbalance in coverage.

This issue was examined in a workshop I attended at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention last Saturday.   Dr. Akbar Muhammad of the Nation of Islam said that more African-Americans should speak out about the current aggression against the Palestinians, as well as the role of Islam in the African Diaspora.

He was disappointed by President Obama’s lack of political courage to speak out about Israel.  During a press conference last week, Obama said “Israel has a right to defend itself.” Both White House Advisor Valerie Jarrett and State Department’s spokesman Jen Psaki claim to “condemn” the violence in Gaza, but neither of them seem to mention that the weapons Israel is using in Gaza are paid for by U.S. taxpayer money.

Muhammad called upon black journalists to hold White House officials accountable for what they say.

“As journalists, we have to present a different picture that isn’t being presented,” he said.

Palestinians are not the only ones suffering under Israel’s occupation.  In recent months there have been documented accounts and reports of racism against black African immigrants in Israel.  Most of them are refugees or asylum seekers from Eritrea (many of them Jewish) and Sudan.  Many of them have been detained by Israel and put into prisons under seriously inhumane conditions. Last month hundreds of African immigrants staged a hunger strike in protest of the detentions.

Regarding the African Diaspora, Islam is the fastest growing religion on the African continent.  African-Americans make up to nearly a quarter of all Muslims in the United States.  Unfortunately, all Muslims worldwide are viewed through the prism of what’s going on in the Middle East, and specifically through the violent actions of al Qaeda and Boko Haram.  We as black journalists have an obligation to present more balanced discussions about Israel, Muslims of all colors and racism to make sure everyone’s voice is accurately heard.

W.E.B Du Bois

How W.E.B. Du Bois Used Innovative Communication To Advance Social Justice

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I receive many free books to review for this site, but I don’t always have the time to read them unless I find a book that really speaks to me.  I recently read A People’s Art History of the United States by Nicolas Lampert, which documents how art and visual communication shaped American social movements over the last four hundred years.

One chapter that caught my attention was about civil rights activist and journalist W.E.B. Du Bois.  In 1910 when Du Bois became the director of publicity and research for the NAACP, he also became the editor for its monthly magazine, The Crisis.  At the time, a growing number of lynchings were taking place throughout the South. According to the Tuskegee Institute, an estimated 4,724 people were lynched in the United States from 1882 to 1968, and two-thirds of them were African-American.  Blacks were lynched for pretty much any “suspected” reason.

a reply to mr holmes from alabama. cortesy of University of Wisconsin MilwaukeeDu Bois used his platform at The Crisis to speak out about the killings. Using photographs and eyewitness accounts, The Crisis became the leading publication in the country that regularly reported lynchings.

This postcard was published in the January 1912 edition of The Crisis.  As was common at the time, photographers present at lynchings would process their images and print postcards on-site to sell to the crowd as “souvenirs.”  This particular postcard was sent to anti-lynching advocate Rev. John Haynes Holmes to intimidate him.  Du Bois reprinted the postcard in The Crisis to show the world the reality and prevalence of this horrific practice.  At the time, it wasn’t common to see images of lynchings, even in the black press.

Du Bois also published lynching images of Jesse Washington (below), a mentally disabled black teenager in Waco, Texas, who was found guilty of raping and murdering a white woman.  While Washington did confess to the murder, there was never any evidence that a rape had taken place.  Following his conviction, Washington was castrated, mutilated, stabbed, and beaten before he was lynched.  His body was then lowered into a fire, cut into pieces, and distributed as “souvenirs” to the crowd.  As a finale, his torso was dragged through the streets.

Jesse Washington. Image credit: Library of CongressThe images are truly shocking, to say the least.  But what is even more shocking is that photographers took pictures of the lynchings for profit, and then people would buy them to mail to friends like they were postcards from an exotic travel destination.  This practice became so popular that in 1908 the U.S. Postmaster General banned mailing lynching postcards.  It also speaks volumes about the low-value African-Americans had at the time.

This is why Du Bois was determined to publish and reappropriate the images.  This was truly a case where images speak louder than words.  “Let everyone read this and act,” Du Bois once said.

A Man Was Lynched Yesterday. Image Credit: Library of CongressDu Bois also took his anti-lynching activism to the streets – literally.  This flag hung outside the New York NAACP offices on Fifth Avenue.  This image was the first thing that introduced me to the organization while learning about black history as a younger student.  It was a brilliant way to bring attention to the crime to those in the North and establish an advocacy brand for the organization.

While he made a name for himself and The Crisis with the anti-lynching campaign, Du Bois also knew that to fight racism, and he had to counter it with positive images of successful African-Americans.  This was largely driven by his controversial theory that the “talented tenth” percent of educated, middle-class blacks will guide the 90 percent of working-class blacks.  He was also an early supporter of the Harlem Renaissance and frequently published Langston Hughes, Laura Wheeler Waring, Alan Locke, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, and Romare Bearden.

Whether he was publishing images of an affluent black couple that just got married or putting on a silent march in solidarity with the East St. Louis race riots victims, Du Bois not only helped to change the way whites viewed African Americans but also how African Americans viewed themselves.  Du Bois’ work at The Crisis is a major milestone for racial uplift for African-Americans and advocacy journalism.

Tools Journalists Can Use To Protect Their Work Online

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In light of the recent NSA revelations, as well as the ongoing attempts to censor journalists and other online content producers by governments worldwide, I thought it would be a good idea to point out some tools available for use.

  1. WeFightCensorship.org –  Reporters Without Borders recently launched this secure portal that publishes articles, photography, video and audio that is either partially or entirely banned in countries where there is heavy censorship and surveillance.  The site has so far received content from Belarus, Brazil, China, Cuba, India, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Morocco and Syria. All news reports are published in English and French. The site also accepts articles that were originally published in Arabic, Chinese, Persian or Russian.
  2. Encrypted Documents – Jorge Luis Sierra, a Knight International Journalism Fellow, created a simple and easy-to-use tutorial on how to encrypt documents using Word for a Mac, Microsoft Word 10 documents on a PC and Open Office documents.
  3. Secure Mobile Phones – Mobile phones have become the most important tool for journalists, but these tools can easily be hacked by anyone anywhere.  Here are some ideas to consider:
    • If you live and work in an area where there is suspected or known surveillance, don’t keep any sensitive information on the mobile. If you have to, use an encryption program like TrueCrypt or a strong mobile and SIM card password.
    • Disable your Wi-Fi location or GPS and mobile data.  This will reduce the risk of tracking your location.  It also saves battery power and reduces unwanted data flow initiated by applications running remotely by your mobile carrier.
    • Consider using separate mobiles for professional and personal use.  Not only are your professional contacts and sources at risk if your mobile is lost or stolen, but the safety of your family and friends is also in jeopardy.
    • Consider hiding your identity by setting up your mobile to hide your number when you make calls.
  4. Secure Computers – The same rules above apply here as well. In addition:
    • Know Your Environment – Don’t look at sensitive information in a public space or in an open work space (cubicle).  If you have to be in public, use a laptop privacy screen filter and make sure it is password protected (and never share the password with anyone).  Never leave your laptop unattended and on. Instead, turn it off or put it into a password-protected “sleep” mode.
    • If you have to leave your computer at an office or your home, put it away in a secure place.
    • Always back up your files either in an encrypted cloud program or in a password protected external hard drive that can also be put in a secure place.  Some people recommend the external hard drive and computer be secured in separate locations.  If you have extremely sensitive information, you might want to consider having two or even three external hard drives secured in three different locations where no one would ever think of finding them.
    • Your computer becomes less vulnerable to hacking if you make sure it’s programs are kept up to date and upgraded regularly, including anti-virus programs.
  5.  Other issues to consider:
    • This article tells you signs someone is spying on your phone.
    • Orweb, Tor and Covert Browser (iPhones and iPads only) are apps that allow you to surf the Internet anonymously.  Most web browsers (Google Chrome, FireFox etc) have an option to browse the Internet privately as well.  Always delete your browsing history, cookies and cache.
    • ChatSecure lets Apple users chat in encrypted form, while Gibberbot encrypts the content of your instant messages.
    • There are many encrypted email services available, such as HushMail.
    • Always send or receive information – especially financial information – on websites that use Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS).  This protocol means that only you and your server can view your information which is encrypted.
    • If you use multiple passwords (a good idea), consider using KeePass a free, open-source software that allows you to save passwords using only one primary password to unlock them.

Of course, there is no absolute way to totally protect yourself from hacking or surveillance, but if you use these tools, you will have better peace of mind.

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