journalism
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ProPublica Publishes Database Containing Thousands of Police Misconduct Complaints After Federal Judge Blocked Their Release
In the weeks following the first Black Lives Matter uprisings, criminal justice reform advocates scored several major legislative wins. In New York state, one of these was the repeal of Civil Rights Law 50-A, which shielded the misconduct records of law enforcement from the public. Last week, however, a federal judge paused the release of…
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#TakeBackEssence? As Essence Celebrates 50 Years, Explosive Allegations Against Its Leadership Spark Controversy
This past weekend was intended to be a landmark one for Essence. The beloved Black legacy publication celebrated its 50th anniversary amid a pandemic, pivoting its 26th annual Essence Festival of Music and Culture to a virtual format spanning over not one, but two weekends, culminating in its traditional Fourth of July weekend festivities. Instead,…
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Capitalizing the “B” in Black Is Nice, but Actually Hiring Black People in Your Newsroom Is Nicer
At The Root, we’ve had a long-standing debate over capitalizing the “B” in black. Some of us are adamantly for it, while others (myself included) are grammar freaks who think that if we capitalize “black” we would also have to capitalize “white,” and I, personally, have no interest in that as it would continue to…
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Solidarity Is in Style—but Is Fashion Media Really Ready to Reckon With Its Race Problem?
Though we’ve long known it to be true, in some ways “Black Lives Matter” has suddenly become the little black dress of the fashion industry: the oft-forgotten yet indispensable and unfailingly stylish way to show solidarity in a moment of global outrage. One need look no further than the spate of daily newsletters sent by…
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Pittsburgh Paper Expands Reporting Ban to Reporters Who Stood With Black Journalists Banned From Protest Coverage
When it comes to the recent, nationwide wave of Black Lives Matter protests, there is a clear demarcation line between who is on the right and who is on the wrong side of history. The owners of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette have picked their side—and it ain’t the right one. According to Post-Gazette energy reporter Anya…
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A Letter Not From a Birmingham Jail
“If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and…
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New York Times Writers Call Paper to Account for Deranged Tom Cotton Op-Ed: 'This Puts Black NY Times Staff in Danger'
On Wednesday afternoon, the New York Times opinion section published an op-ed from Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton entitled “Send in the Military.” It was exactly the kind of article you would expect from Cotton, who has the brains and demeanor of a white supremacist meerkat (he notably was once held up by the New Yorker…
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Black Journalists and Covering the Storm That Never Passes
I knew what I was getting into. I grew up reading the newspaper daily, since about age 11. I started watching the evening news—both the local and the national broadcasts—around the same time. My earliest media memories are of the 1987 Iran-Contra hearings and the Challenger explosion the year prior. Every weekend I watched Tim…
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How to Write About a Vaccine
An Associated Press poll published on Wednesday found that a “surprisingly low” number of Americans—around 50 percent—said they would get a COVID-19 vaccine if one were available. In total, nearly a third said they weren’t sure if they would get vaccinated, while another 20 percent said they would outright refuse. But, as has been the…
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An Ida B. Wells Biography, Written by Her Great-Grandaughter, Will Be Released in 2021
Michelle Duster, author, educator, and the great-granddaughter of pioneering journalist and activist Ida B. Wells, announced that she will be publishing a biography about her great-grandmother’s extraordinary life and career. Ida B. the Queen is slated to be released in February 2021, according to One Signal Publishers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. “After working…