MEDIA ECOSYSTEM CIRCLE ACTIONS
- Identify media outlets that are telling and looking at the whole truth and support them; subscribe as paying customers where possible (a few good ones to add to our reading lists: https://www.revealnews.org, foreignaffairs.com, www.fusion.net)
- Check our own sources before sharing news
- Call out falsehoods when we see them (on social media, email, in person)
- Find specific reporters/journalists to follow (vs outlets)
- Tell your grandmother/cousin in Idaho to watch Shep Smith (“moderate” on Fox News that might be more palatable for her than Huffington Post)
- Sign Media Matters’ and other relevant petitions: http://action.mediamatters.org/
- Write and call our politicians (local, state, national) to let them know where we stand on issues
- Write media outlets directly to let them know where we stand (thank them where possible and call them out as needed)
- Check out http://www.theopedproject.org/and https://freedom.press/crowdfunding/ and consider ways to get involved
- Write our own op eds or letters to the editor about something we are passionate about; host a party with friends to do this and make it fun
- Stay engaged on social media within our own boundaries; share links of real news to combat the fake news; share opinions to make sure our voices are heard
- Find our own balance of staying informed vs going crazy (ideas include: limit news intake to once or twice a day vs all day incessantly, take day-long or multi-day breaks from news to avoid burnout, watch SNL and political comedy, remember to SELF CARE and BREATHE!)
RESOURCES
News sites (in addition to the ones highlighted above)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/
*The following were recommended by Gene Stone in The Trump Survival Guide; Caution: very left wing tilt
Organizations (in addition to the ones highlighted above)
https://centerformediajustice.org *based on Oakland
https://freedom.press *based in SF
Podcasts
Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, Lovett or Leave It, With Friends Like These: https://getcrookedmedia.com/
Indivisible: http://www.npr.org/podcasts/516647023/indivisible
Forum: http://www.npr.org/podcasts/432307980/forum
Fresh Air: http://www.npr.org/podcasts/381444908/fresh-air
Reveal: https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/
Tip Sheets
Twitter Best Practices: 12 Tips from ReThink Media
Writing & Placing Letters to the Editor: 9 Tips from ReThink Media
Writing & Placing Op-Eds: 10 Tips from ReThink Media
Circle of Light Gathering, April 13, 2017
Our Media Ecosystem Expert Panel
Jessica Yellin was the Chief White House Correspondent for CNN in Washington, D.C. from 2011 to 2013. Described as “one of the most influential women in Washington,” Yellin began reporting for CNN as the network’s senior political correspondent in 2007, covering Capitol Hill, domestic politics and the White House. Yellin is currently a senior fellow at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism and a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Public Integrity.
Robert J. Rosenthal is executive director of The Center for Investigative Reporting. An award-winning journalist, Rosenthal has worked for The New York Times, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer and, most recently, the San Francisco Chronicle. Rosenthal worked for 22 years at the Inquirer, starting as a reporter and eventually becoming its executive editor in 1998. He became managing editor of the San Francisco Chronicle in late 2002, and joined CIR as executive director in 2008. Robert has been an adjunct professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
Markos Kounalakis is an author, publisher, journalist, and scholar. Dr. Kounalakis covered wars and revolutions for Newsweek and NBC-Mutual News. He was there during the fall of the Berlin Wall and lived in the Soviet Union during its collapse. He later became publisher of The Washington Monthly magazine. Dr. Kounalakis is currently a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution working on a book on the geopolitics of global news networks. He still writes a foreign affairs column for the McClatchy-Tribune News Service. Since 2010, he has been a senior research fellow at the Center for Media, Data and Society at Central European University. His wife, Eleni Tsakopoulos, served as the U.S. Ambassador to Hungary until 2013.
Ethan Lindsey is KQED’s managing editor for news. In this newly-created position, Ethan helps to continue the public media organization’s transition to a 21st-century newsroom and further deepens KQED’s commitment to regional news, especially on digital platforms. Ethan came to KQED from the WBUR and NPR newsmagazine Here & Now, in Boston, where he was the show’s senior managing editor. Previously, he was senior digital editor and interim managing editor for the public radio show Marketplace. In 2009, Ethan won a Peabody Award for his work as a correspondent for Oregon Public Broadcasting.
Yasmin Nouh is a digital producer at Fusion who has covered social justice, immigration and local and global diaspora communities for various news outlets in the past. She graduated from the University of California, Irvine in 2010 with a Bachelor of Arts and received her Master’s degree from Columbia Journalism School in 2015. She previously served as a blog editor for The Huffington Post and on the NPR news team.
Angelo Carusone is the President of Media Matters. Before joining, he organized the successful Twitter based StopBeck effort. He holds a B.A. in American Studies from Fordham University and a law degree from the University of Wisconsin.
Ashley Houghton has worked with ReThink since 2011. As managing director of Security and Rights, she currently leads in developing, implementing, and supporting effective media and communications outreach and capacity-building. After graduating from the University of Maryland, Ashley briefly worked in the nonprofit world before plunging into work at a Washington public relations firm, where she honed her skills in promoting experts and newsworthy personalities. She’s always looking for new hobbies, from arc welding to swing dancing, and has gained notoriety in DC for her semi-annual “Wear Something Awesome on Your Head” birthday parties.
Homework for our Media Ecosystem discussion:
- 2017 Pulitzer Prizes in Journalism
- NYT: Can Trump Change Libel Laws?
- NPR’s the two-way: Q: Could U.S. Prosecute Reporters For Classified Scoops? A: Maybe
- NPR’s all tech considered: How The Media Are Using Encryption Tools To Collect Anonymous Tips
- Pod Save America: 4.10.17: “The enemy of your enemy is your frenemy.”
- Liberal Facebook activism skewered by Louis C.K., SNL
Good reads/listens/watches from our Media Ecosystem panelists:
- Jessica Yellin, The New York Times, How to Save CNN From Itself
- Markos Kounalakis, Sacramento Bee, Making Russia, Turkey and China great again
- Reveal Podcast, Up against the wall: This episode of Reveal explores the political, logistical and geographic barriers that could get in the way of President Donald Trump’s plan for a border wall.
- Reveal Podcast, Al Letson Reveals: Former NATO official imagines war with Russia: In this podcast special, Al Letson talks to former top NATO commander Richard Shirreff, who spells out these fears – which are very real for him – in his new novel.
- Reveal, How an army of Twitter bots almost created a major political pundit
- Fusion, Yasmin Nouh, video on vetting refugees before they enter the U.S
- Huffington Post, Yasmin Nouh, Help Us Show How Beautifully Diverse The Hijab Can Be
- Media Matters President Angelo Carusone, Statement On Trump Blacklisting Media Outlets
Circle of Light San Francisco 