A spate of police and vigilante slayings of unarmed African Americans has renewed handwringing over the nation’s comparative lack of Black journalists, the headlines they cover and workplace bias they still sometimes face. How the industry confronts that decades-old conundrum, this time around, remains to be seen. “The thing that frustrates me more than anything […]
Article · September 25, 2020 by Katti Gray
Even as local newspapers steadily close, the audiences and profits for some local TV stations are growing. That’s in part because local stations are tailoring news packaging and delivery to the preferences of younger and other digital-first news consumers, said newsroom leaders at last week’s “The State of Local News“ forum in New York City. […]
Article · October 22, 2018 by Katti Gray
Is it unconstitutional for President Trump to block his Twitter critics? Should colleges have so-called safe spaces for students with opposing viewpoints? Should the United States, as do several other Western democracies, rigorously define and outlaw hate speech? In the eyes of, say, a brown-skinned American Muslim and an anti-Trump white American evangelical, how protected […]
Article · June 26, 2017 by Katti Gray
A shortlist of media innovations with potentially long reach, spotlighted during the 2017 Personal Democracy Forum, included an upcoming news site whose subscribers will help dictate what’s covered and a planned strategic expansion of Native American efforts to shape headlines about their concerns. Hosted by Civic Hall, the New York conference drew a global roster […]
Article · June 14, 2017 by Katti Gray
Fake news gets passed off as fact. Social media, technology and communications giants disproportionately dictate the flow of information. Polarizing public debates raise hard questions about what average people and presidents alike should and shouldn’t say—and about who, if any one, has the right to censor another. Such fraught realities of this hyperdigital era were […]
Article · May 3, 2017 by Katti Gray
Above: Lee Glendinning, editor of the Guardian US, speaks with Shazna Nessa, Knight Foundation journalism program director. Photo by Paley Media Center on Flickr. Even as news organizations fight to gain financial footing in an Internet age that has eroded advertising revenues, this era is birthing innovations in digital journalism that can enlarge storytelling and […]
Article · December 11, 2015 by Katti Gray
Knight Innovation Award Winner Neil deGrasse Tyson and CUNY J-School’s Jeff Jarvis Do a Mic Drop. Photo by Ryan Wallerson/CUNY With his trademark wit and skill at putting high science in lay terms, celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, at a New York salute to him and other science information innovators, faulted the news media for […]
Article · October 16, 2015 by Katti Gray
Photo courtesy of Hollaback! Brooklyn-born to Palestinian immigrant parents, Linda Sarsour offered her experience as Exhibit A of what sometimes happens when her presence offends another. For example, one New York day, while queued up with her then 4-year-old son at her local bank, a nearby customer started cursing her and her “kind” of people, […]
Article · March 10, 2015 by Katti Gray
Photo by John Bracken. How well individuals and communities fare educationally, in the job market and other key spheres that increasingly are digitally driven partly depends on how easily they can access and navigate the Internet. With that belief in mind, Knight Foundation and four other international philanthropies are collaborating on how to expand Internet […]
Article · February 13, 2015 by Katti Gray
“Open Government: State of the Union” panelists (from left to right): Kathy Conrad, Andrew Hoppin, Waldo Jaquith, Seamus Kraft and John Bracken. Photo courtesy of the Paley Center for Media. Digitizing government data aids the everyday decision-making of ordinary people. Nevertheless, users of that data can’t always readily access government information nor employ it in […]
Article · November 7, 2014 by Katti Gray
Video: Shakespeare’s Henry IV in West Philadelphia’s Clark Park. Credit: Brian Siano on YouTube. When a staging of Shakespeare’s “Henry IV” opens tonight in Philadelphia, city native Brian Anthony Wilson, a black actor perhaps best known for being Detective Vernon Holley in the award-winning “The Wire” television series, will take the stage as king. “I’m […]
Article · July 30, 2014 by Katti Gray