I came, I saw, I made it home: Inauguration 2009

My reflections on a once in a lifetime event.

Poynter Online – E-Media Tidbits

Check this quote from Poynter.org.

Jobs — including jobs in journalism — just aren’t what they used to be. Earlier this week, consultant Robert Patterson observed after reviewing trends in unemployment statistics that “the idea of a ‘job’ as a full-time object that can support a person or even a family, is disappearing.”

Now Patterson’s observation isn’t new. Jeremy Rifkin advanced the same idea back in 1995 with his seminal book, “The End of  Work.”  I read that book back in 2003, when I left journalism for teaching/freelancing.

Rifkin’s premise was interesting and frightening, because work is such a part of  our identity these days.

The article on Poynter goes on to talk about changes in journalism, a natural topic for a journalism education institute. Still, the discussions and comments I see on facebook groups like “Newspaper Escape Plan,”  as well as chats I’m having with my friends – and myself – have me convinced that white-collar workers are experiencing major identity crises.

We’re losing our livelihood, our primary identity, and we’re getting older.

Here’s what you can do with a journalism degree…

The lead singer, Omar Bilal Akhtar,  was a journalism major at Ohio Wesleyan University, where he edited the student newspaper. He returned to Pakistan and formed a rock band that has become fairly successful. Don’t let anyone tell you journalism won’t take you far.

The down and dirty part of journalism, pt. 2

Let’s talk about getting paid… or how I didn’t get paid.

Remember that posting about  Tribune Co., declaring bankruptcy? Well, I brushed my brow when I read it. I’d just gotten a check from the company and I’d deposited.

But my sigh of relief came too quickly.  The check came back because the company refused to honor it. Yes, they stopped payment on their check because they weren’t/aren’t paying freelancers.  So I’m out $420 – the amount of the check and the fee for “bouncing” it.

I didn’t curse. I laughed. That’s how I know I’ve become a new woman, at least where my occupation is concerned.

What are we working for?

This is a scary story from the New York Times about companies cutting their contributions to the 401K.

Let’s be clear: I took my finances in hand about 5 years ago, when I started teaching. But I really started contributing about two years ago, after taking care of an elderly relative who had nothing, I mean nothing set aside for retirement.

No health insurance, no life insurance, no pension. Nothing.

It was a frightening experience.

I’m not going to lie. For years I’ve asked myself whether I did the right thing by leaving my newspaper. After today, I don’t as much.

Who’s black and who’s not: a history

“This is one of the more mystifying things I have discovered about the United States, since moving here a couple of years ago. Evidently (please correct me if I’m wrong) it has been traditional to call anyone with a smidgen of African-American blood “black” or “African-American,” even if their ancestry is more white than black, or if they are perfectly bi-racial.” Carrie Buchanan

I’m still getting comments about my posting, “If is biracial, why is this man black?” Carrie Buchanan’s comment inspired me to write a short history of  ways racial identification was determined in this country.

Of course, we go back to slavery.

Slavery in the United States differed from its counterparts in South America and the Caribbean. There, race is determined by appearance. Here, it is determined by ancestry, appearance and self-identification, according to the scholars I’ve studied.  In the early days,  servitude mattered as well.

After Emancipation and Reconstruction, white Southerners drafted legislation that defined race by ancestry. The laws from states such as South Carolina, Mississippi, etc. weren’t about defining who was black;  they were meant to define who was white.

Remember that these laws were enacted during an era when former slaves were  gaining economic and political power that had been reserved for whites. The laws were meant to maintain the status quo. A case in point was Hiram Revels, the first black person to serve in the United States Senate in 1870.

Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first black man to serve as United States senator.

Revels rose from being alderman in Natchez, Miss. to becoming a state senator. Those senators sent him to Washington in 1870. (In those day, voters did not elect senators; legislators did.)

Revel’s appointment was challenged because former slaves/blacks had only gained citizenship in 1868, with the passage of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.  The Constitution required man be a citizen at least nine years. Revels was therefore ineligible to hold the seat, according to his opponents.

But Revel’s supporters argued the rule didn’t apply to him because he wasn’t “pure African,”  but had Scottish, African and Native American ancestry. Plus, he was freeborn, as were his ancestors. Thus he had always been a citizen.

Funny how these argument pops up when African-ancestored Americans make a successful power grab.

I put self-identification in bold, because I’m confused by the argument of mixed-raced folks – and others – who assume that folks like Obama and Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson claim to be black  only to get some sort of political advantage.  Carrie, the poster I’ve quoted above, makes that same kind of assumption.

But I remember about 15 to 20 years ago, when bi-racial folks demanded the right to a self-definition that embraced both sides of their racial ancestry.

Perhaps Frank Jackson calls himself black because that’s what he figures he is. After all, in the United States, appearance doesn’t matter.  Ancestry does.

And maybe, just maybe, Barack Obama calls himself black because that’s what he figures he is. I mean, there are so many ways to be black these days. And if you don’t want to be black, then you don’t have to be.

Now, I’ve got another question: why do the terms “bi-racial” and “mixed” only refer folks who have a black and a non-black parent? Why isn’t it used to describe folks  who, say, have an Asian and a non-Asian parents? Or a white and a non-white parent?

The down and dirty part of journalism

Well the Tribune company has declared bankruptcy.  Folks are taking bets on Singleton’s longevity. And all over the blogosphere, writers and posters are chanting  “nanny, nanny, boo, boo” at antiquated reporters who just didn’t see the future.

Well, I saw the future about five years ago. And I’m working the present as fast as my little fingers will slide over the  keys of my laptop.

I blog, I write, I talk. I edit copy for a citizen-journalist outlet that covers the suburb next to mine.  I’m wandering the new media landscape with my dowsing rod, looking for a spring to tap.

right here in Cleveland, I’ve watched our major daily  Plain Dealer cut staff and pages. The paper got so flimsy, I dropped my subscription. I couldn’t justify paying for what I was receiving.

So don’t tell me about the demise of the mainstream media. Just answer a question for me:

Who will do the storm-sewer story?

The storm-sewer story is my euphemism for the down and dirty part of journalism. It’s not sexy, but it’s important. It’s not the kind of  coverage that will win prizes or get recognition, but boy, let a storm sewer overflow. It’s an important issue.

And it’s not the kind of thing folks would blog about.

I’m not a luddite. I blog and I read blogs.  But I’m troubled by the lack of original reporting that goes into the posts. By original reporting, I mean making a telephone call. Or reading a book, or a document, and giving your audience a fact they didn’t already know.

I’m not talking about continually linking to other folks’ content and then adding a witty comment of your own. I’m talking about going outside – of your house, your life, your virtual milieu – and to find information your audience needs. And then giving it to them.

I’m talking about covering storm sewers because they’re fundamental to our quality of  life.

Who’s going to keep an eye on the mundane stuff that we take for granted – until they’re not there?

Like newspapers?

And it’s 1, 2, 3, what are we writing for? (the remix)

Tribune Co. hires bankruptcy advisers

If Obama is bi-racial….

Frank Jackson, mayor of Cleveland, Ohio

Why is the man in the photo to the left black?

By now, the world knows Barack Obama and his amazing story: the son of a white American and an African from Kenya: raised by his mother and later, his grandparents after the family was abandoned by his father; defying expectations to become the first African-American president of the United States.

But Obama’s ancestry still bothers Americans who can’t wrap their arms around his willingness to embrace a black identity. In Cleveland, for example, a headline in the Plain Dealer, calling Obama an “African American” launched a fusillade of emails and telephone calls to the newspaper’s ombudsman, Ted Diadiun.

” ….lots of people have corrected the term “African-American,” pointing out that, because he had a white mother,  he should be called “biracial.” Diadiun wrote in his weekly column.

Really? Well, then why no complaints or corrections about the racial identity of Cleveland’s mayor?”

Yes, the man in the photo is African-American in the common sense of the word. Mayor Frank Jackson’s mother was Italian and his father was African-American.  Yet most residents of this area describe Jackson as the city’s third black or African-American mayor.

When it comes to race, I joke that the only difference between ordinary African Americans – like me – and folks like Obama and Jackson is that they know the names of their white ancestors.  Still, the controversy over Obama’s racial identity – from both blacks and whites – has me asking:

Just who gets to be black? And who does not?

Mayor Jackson’s upbringing provides a clue. He was born in 1946, when interracial families were rare, and well before “bi-racial” become an accepted category. The family lived in a black neighborhood, so he was immersed in black culture. That’s why Jackson could be considered authentically black, and Obama, a Johnny-come-lately, could not.

But that criteria – having an intimate knowledge of the black experience -  isn’t applied equally.  The same black community who doubted Obama early on, ignored similar circumstances when laying claim to celebrities like Jennifer Beal and Mariah Carey. When it came to them, ancestry trumped experience.

Neither woman had much contact with African Americans while growing up.  Yet, their African American critics charged these women wouldn’t acknowledge their true identity, because they didn’t want to be black.

Does this sound confusing and contradictory?  So is the whole question of racial identity.  Scholars maintain that race is a cultural belief that changes as society transforms.

Former Ohio Congressman Tom Sawyer, voiced that view in 1993. “The thing that we call race and ethnicity is changing in fact and in perception,” he said at hearings that eventually changed the way the United States Census tabulated race.

The 2000 census became the first tabulation allowing Americans to claim more than one racial heritage. The reform was hailed, and criticized, as a step toward rendering the very idea of race obsolete. Yet eight years later, the nation is struggling  with the racial identity of its president-elect.

The definitions created in the South during Reconstruction, are simply too narrow for an America where the last census counted 77 percent of the residents who were “white alone or in combination”; 13 percent who were “African American alone or in combination”; and 12.5 percent who were “Hispanic or Latino (of any race).”

But we haven’t come up with anything better – yet.

So, I’m asking: if the president-elect is bi-racial – as  some blacks and whites insist – why is the man in the photograph black?

Please answer with your comments.

By the way, keep them clean and civil.  Remember you’re not just talking to me.

You’re talking to the world.

The creative process

The O in Obama, courtesy, NYTimes

One of my most difficult shifts in my transition from print to multi-media/visual storyteller, has been developing a way of seeing.

I have a way of hearing, because I’ve played piano for more than 40 years. I can actually hear melodies and rhythms and execute them. I’m aiming to develop the same type of ability as a photographer/designer/Flash designer. It’s a crucial skill to have because the web has become a visual medium – Derek Powazek, notwithstanding.

Now, I’m real left-brain about this. I look and analyze. Then I look and analyze some more. And I read. So I was thrilled by this interview with Sol Sender, the designer who created the logo for Barack Obama’s campaign.

He blew the McCain/Palin logo out of the water, to the detriment, I’m convinced of the losers. The Obama logo was fresh and inspiring, masterfully reinforcing the candidate’s personality and values. Plus, the use of white space had that Web 2.0 feel; the implication was Obama was the candidate for the digital age.

McCain Palin logo

McCain’s logo, by contrast, reinforced the candidates’ names, but gave no insight into their personalities. There were white letters, but almost no white space and the logo looked darkand tired next to Obama’s.

I loved the interview because Sender explains his process, something my left brain loves to consider.  Now that I’m living the motto, “don’t be envious; be inspired,” I’ll be using Sender’s steps as a template.