The Good with the Bad

Recently, as some of you may have noticed, I had a brief fit of journalistic frustration (which is like sexual frustration, except Brian Williams has experienced it) at the fact that CNN was running iReports on whether or not android songbird Rebecca Black was pregnant ("This report has not been vetted", noted the story, which is generally an indication that you should not run it). In this fit, I found myself doing something I don't remember ever doing, for multiple reasons: getting nostalgic about the '50s and '60s. Let me explain: yeah, if you were black/a woman/Jewish/Richie Cunningham's brother who mysteriously disappeared, they kinda sucked. But (I thought at the time) here's one thing they had on us: actual news was on the news and in the papers, and bullshit was in tabloids. But, as is usually the case with nostalgia, I soon remembered it wasn't that simple. Take Jack Kennedy; the guy had more girls on the side than a cannibal's buffet plate (albeit slightly less than Warren Harding, apparently), but the media wouldn't touch it. Seems cool at first, if you don't think anyone's consensual sexual activity is actual news (it isn't), but this seeming benefit is endemic of what was a serious problem of the era: the media of the time simply didn't scrutinize the president. While this isn't a problem when it comes to their private faults, it helped enable some of the worst transgressions of the Johnson and Nixon administrations. Woodward and Bernstein did a lot to prove that dirt-digging was not only permissible, it could be vital to the workings of democracy, but it wasn't until the Clinton administration that we really opened Pandora's box ("Pandora's Box" is a pornographic remake of "Avatar"). Clinton's Monicagate or whatever dumb name we've given it was the first time a man with Kennedy-esque proclivities had come to power in this era of increased media scrutiny, with the rich and famous no longer on pedestals. And agree or disagree on the whole thing, Clinton's investigation and impeachment wouldn't have been possible without the burgeoning internet. So here we had the people at the top finally being held to account, and regular people were involved. But here was the issue: it was over something completely trivial. In the modern era of online hyperconsciousness, things aren't much better. We've got access to more information than ever before but by and large, we'd rather use it for bullshit. The controversy over Time choosing Mark Zuckerberg over Julian Assange for their Man of the Year is emblematic of the two warring factions: would you rather have all the answers, even if they make you uncomfortable, or would you rather Poke someone? Here's the thing, though: that's a false choice. Yes, the modern world of information-sharing allows for way too much petty triviality to pass through, but it allows the things we need to know as well. I'll take a thousand Tweets about how good this sandwich is if it means one on-the-ground picture from the Jasmine Revolution. I guess what this whole piece comes down to is one question: is it worth having to extend Rebecca Black's fifteen minutes for a media apparatus that can truly watch the watchmen? And the answer is: oh, hell yes.

Almost done...

Hey Richmond, what annoys you?

[Cross-posted from Facebook]

As some of you may know, I recently received a new assignment from Style: they want me to bring my righteous-indignation schtick to local issues. Trouble is, I haven’t really been paying much attention to that kind of thing (unless Libya is in Richmond, and it might be, for all I know), and I’m not up on things in every walk of life, so I thought I’d ask the audience: what in Richmond is pissing you off? It doesn’t have to be political; in fact, I’d kind of prefer it not be. Just tell me what’s going on in our fair city that makes you want to grab a baseball bat and teach some toddlers that life is suffering.



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Just Beat It

The final presentation for Messner's class was today; I feel like it went okay. I'm concerned my latent "Pahk yah cah in the gahden" accent may have flared up a few too many times, but I'm sure that won't be a huge deal. Our slideshow should be up on Richmond.com soon, so I'll make sure to post a link.
Oh, and since I very rarely get to tart up for journalistic purposes, here's what I wore.

As much as I've bitched about it, I think I'm gonna miss Messner's class; it's stressed me out plenty, but in doing that, I understand that it's been great for me as far as doing The Dance. And of course, the people were great too.
In other news, Scott called me in at Style today, and told me he wants me to have some kind of regular feature where I spout off about local issues (he says he's liking my editorial writing, he just wants to give it more of a Richmond focus). It'll essentially be something like a Richmond version of this:

This is a pretty big deal for me, and I'm excited, especially since I'll have more time to follow local news with school just about done. And if there's a local issue you think should get more coverage, drop me a line. See you beautiful people around.

Shadows of a struggle at Virginia Union

Over the past couple months, I've had an assignment to write beat stories for my print journalism class relating to Virginia Union University; it's been one hell of a stressful project, but I'm done now, and I actually kind of like how this one, the final piece, turned out, so I thought I'd post it.


Dr. Raymond Hylton points to one of Virginia Union University’s chapel buildings as he walks the campus. “Dr. King would preach there from time to time,” he says. His tone is casual, but the pride in his voice is unmistakable.

Hylton, Virginia Union’s history chair, makes no secret of the gratification he gets from his school’s role in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. “I’m quite proud to be at such an institution with such courageous students,” he says. “It probably gives me a broader perspective than someone working elsewhere, a more humanitarian perspective.”

Founded immediately after the Civil War, Virginia Union’s place in the movement’s history was cemented on February 22, 1960, when a large group of politically-minded students marched to heavily-segregated downtown Richmond to demand service. At Thalhimer’s Department Store, 34 students (including Charles Sherrod, who would go on to be field secretary of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee)were threatened and eventually arrested by police for trespassing. “Now, they didn’t stay in jail long;” added Hylton. “They were quickly bailed out and then were escorted down to the Eggleston Hotel where they were cheered, they were congratulated, and where the Campaign for Human Dignity was launched.” This group used Martin Luther King Jr.’s tactics of organized, nonviolent resistance to protest against segregation and institutional racism in the Richmond area and as a result, said Hylton, “most of the stores who had been discriminating gave in within about a year of the launching of the Campaign.”

On Virginia Union’s campus today, students say the school heavily emphasizes this place in history. “We have different plaques that explain the history of Virginia Union,” said Union student Isaiah Freeman, who said he wasn’t aware of the school’s connection to the civil rights movement until he began classes. “We also have to take a course our freshman year that also teaches us about past events leading to the present day VUU.”

Union student Rashard Byrd said he researched the school’s historical significance, which was “one of the many reasons I decided to attend VUU”, but he believes knowing about the incident ahead of time puts him in the minority. “Most students don’t research anything besides tuition,” he said, “but they’re starting to become aware through chapel and professors.”

Regardless of how familiar they were with the story, students still look to the “Union 34” as inspiration. Freeman said it was a positive motivator “knowing that I go to a place where people actually fought and worked hard to make it become what it is today.”

Dr. Hylton says the same values that compelled the Union 34 to take action are taught at Virginia Union today. “The administration tries to remind faculty to inculcate these ideas into our curriculum,” he said, “and of course, we do have very much so, in our mission and goals, a civic engagement component.”

With many of the issues that spurred the civil rights movement still relevant today, Virginia Union student Emily Piercy believes there are always further lessons to be learned from the activists’ examples. “We have a saying at Union, that we’re walking on ‘hallowed grounds and dear old walls’,” Piercy said. “Knowing that you are attending a school that produced such great people that went on to change the world makes you believe that you can go on and do the same things.”

Osama bin Laden, interconnectivity and accidental journalism

"Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine (we all live in each other's shadows)." -Irish proverb

This past weekend, a loathsome maniac who did horrific damage to New York was cut down to size in a place he expected to be safe. And after Donald Trump went to the White House Correspondents' Dinner, Osama bin Laden was killed.
If you're like me, you probably didn't learn that for the first time when President Obama made the announcement; rather, Twitter and Facebook were abuzz with the news about an hour early, while Obama was still preparing and news desks were asking when it was okay to even speculate. That's right; after bringing down Hosni Mubarak, the Damn Kids with their social media Tweeters decided to scoop the news media and the leader of the free world. I couldn't look away from my Facebook feed the night of the announcement, just because it was all so damn cool. "Wow," I thought Aspiely, "I'm witnessing history being documented as it occurs. Cool." (I'm not much more articulate mentally than I am in person.) On some level, I wanted to take a screenshot of the entire thing and preserve it somewhere. "Where were you when you heard?" "Online, making tasteless jokes about it."
But the role of social media in the story of bin Laden's death didn't end there. Some of you may have heard about the Pakistani computer programmer who accidentally documented the entire raid via Twitter; I couldn't help but be reminded of another case of "where were you when you heard" that was accidentally documented, that is, the Zapruder film. As I thought about that and I looked at my feed, at an ever-expanding picture of the zeitgeist, I couldn't help but think that everything had changed, for the world in general and for journalism in particular. Every one of us is becoming our own news archive, and at the risk of sounding like an after-school special, we have, I think, a responsibility to be the face of our time that we want to show the future. Can you imagine how you'd feel if you found your grandfather's Facebook status from the forties about how much he hated the Japanese?
I realize this post is starting to get kind of meandering and Aspielicious (kill me if I ever say that out loud), but given the nature of the point I'm trying to make, I think that's forgivable. Rene Belloq was wrong; we're no longer just passing through history. And now, I'm gonna close with this disheartening image.