journalism

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• SOURCE: Mother Jones
  6/10/2021
  

  How the George Floyd Uprising Was Framed for White Eyes

  Some of the most iconic news photographs of the Civil Rights Movement told a particular story to white liberals – that Black protesters were passive victims needing their help, instead of actively fighting for freedom. Those photos today help define the mainstream limits of "acceptable" protest. 

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• 5/30/2021
  

  The War Beat, Pacific: How the American News Media Went to War Against Japan

  by Steven Casey

  Censorship, technological limitations, and competition with news from Europe in World War II made the early part of the Pacific theater a "shrouded war," but not for lack of effort by war journalists. 

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• 5/30/2021
  

  Review: Lesley Blume's “Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World”

  by Lawrence Wittner

  Journalist Lesley Blume's book "Fallout" ably tells the story about how John Hersey and the New Yorker navigated government censorship and political opposition to publish Hersey's "Hiroshima," a foundational work in later movements to prevent nuclear war.

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• 5/16/2021
  

  Historians' Perspective on Media Bias: Where it Came from, and What Can be Done?

  by Walter G. Moss

  Historical perspective shows that media bias is nothing new, but the stakes for democracy are high today. Can historians teach and practice better ways of reading and debating to fight polarization and misinformation?

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• SOURCE: Black Perspectives
  5/10/2021
  

  On the Life and Legacy of Black Journalist Louis Lomax (Review)

  by Joshua Clark Davis

  Louis Lomax was a provocateur, and was comfortable writing critically about both moderate and militant participants in the Black freedom movement; Thomas Aiello's new biography examines the complicated figure in African American journalism. 

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• SOURCE: Substack
  5/1/2021
  

  On Popular History: Rebecca Traister

  by Alexis Coe

  Historian Alexis Coe interviews writer and essayist Rebecca Traister on the historical research informing her work and the links between popular and academic audiences for historical knowledge. 

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• 5/2/2021
  

  Elijah Lovejoy Faced Down Violent Mobs to Champion Abolition and the Free Press

  by Ken Ellingwood

  In 1837, Elijah Lovejoy was killed by a pro-slavery mob in Illinois, and the press he used to publish his abolitionist newsletter was thrown into the Mississippi River. Lovejoy's championing of both abolition and the free press should inspire us today. 

• 
• SOURCE: Reason
  4/27/2021
  

  Elegy for Op-Ed

  by Michael J. Socolow

  The decision by the Times to rebrand its outside commentaries reflects its failure to fight consistently over the years for the open exchange of ideas and to differentiate the views it published from its own official positions. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  4/19/2021
  

  American Journalism’s Role in Promoting Racist Terror

  by Channing Gerard Joseph

  American journalism profited from the sale of advertisements for the slave trade and stirred up lynch mobs. When will the industry acknowledge its role in American racism? 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/21/2021
  

  He Redefined ‘Racist.’ Now He’s Trying to Build a Newsroom

  Ibram X. Kendi's new venture, inspired by reflection and argument among journalists about the role of the press in covering movements for change, will update the mission of the Willam Lloyd Garrison and abolitionist press of the nineteenth century. 

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  3/8/2021
  

  Latinos: The LA Times' 1983 Pulitzer Prize Winning Series Now Available

  The LA Times won a Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles on Latinos in Southern California. Now this important journalistic primary source is available online. 

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• SOURCE: Columbia Post and Courier
  2/16/2021
  

  Veteran Journalist Donates Trove of Civil Rights-Era Research to University of South Carolina

  “I think that’s what I find amazing. Even in terms of the curriculum in the state of South Carolina, that those kind of moments are not necessarily common knowledge, where you have an Orangeburg Massacre,” Crump said. “No pun intended, it’s almost like an educational blackout.”

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/14/2021
  

  James Ridgeway, Hard-Hitting Investigative Journalist, Dies at 84

  The journalist James Ridgeway exposed malfeasance by corporate polluters and politicians, but dedicated his greatest energy to his last crusade, to end the practice of solitary confinement in prisons. 

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• 2/7/2020
  

  Unforgettable Images, and Something New in TV News

  by Ron Steinman

  A month past the Capitol Riots, a veteran television news journalist observes that the coverage of the chaotic protest and breach of the Capitol relied on something new: masses of journalists and citizens (including the rioters) recording video on their phones where TV cameras couldn't operate, forming a rich and important composite of the day's events. 

• 
• 1/31/2021
  

  A Devil’s Dozen of the Most Important Religion Stories of 2020

  by Ed Simon

  Many people would like to leave 2020 behind. HNN Contributing Editor Ed Simon compiles, for those readers ready for a distanced reflection on a year that may have tested faith, a roundup of the best stories at the intersection of religion and history. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/17/2021
  

  Tom Lankford, 85, Dies; Southern Journalist With Divided Loyalties

  Tom Lankford took many iconic photographs in Birmingham that publicized the cause of Civil Rights protestors. But he worked behind the scenes to cultivate relationships with the city's notorious Bull Connor to buttress the reputation of the police force while working with his publisher to squelch local demands for change that threatened the business community.

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• 1/17/2021
  

  The Free Press and Democracy in a "Murder the Media" Age

  by Wendy Melillo

  Journalism as a profession needs to embrace its historical role as a guardian of democracy and refuse to let objectivity work as a shield for authoritarianism; authoritarians won't accept a free press anyway.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  12/2/2020
  

  Deb Price, First Nationally Syndicated Columnist on Gay Life, Dies at 62

  Deb Price's columns were at the forefront of gay and lesbian journalists working openly in the news media and news outlets covering issues concerning LGBTQ Americans and communities with depth and nuance.

• 
• SOURCE: Newsday
  11/29/2020
  

  Social Media 'Misinformation' Endangers Democracy, Historians Say

  Historians Peniel Joseph and Karl Jacoby, along with media scholar Howard Schnieder, assess the way that strategic misinformation on social media has exploited racial divisions in Trump's efforts to overturn the election results. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  11/29/2020
  

  The Cost of Trump’s Assault on the Press and the Truth

  New Yorker editor David Remnick writes that while Trump is not the first president to battle the media, his apparent belief that the press exists as his public relations agency--and anger that it doesn't work that way--are leading him to attack a fundamental institution of society with deadly consequences.