Roosevelt students speak out
|
A dozen Roosevelt High School students have shared their research and insights on topics ranging from school lunches to immigration, registering as TC Daily Planet users and posting their stories f
Metblogs, media and Minnesota
|
Metroblogging, aka Metblogs, an on-line network of bloggers in cities around the world, announced last week that it would end on May 31. (After a last-minute scramble for funding, it now appears that they may continue for a while – or not.) Metblogs claimed more than 700 bloggers in 57 city-specific blogs. One of the cities was/is Minneapolis (sorry, St. Paul – left out again). Metblogs is not the only multi-city, trying-to-be-local media group with some kind of Minnesota operation – more on that later in June. Continue Reading
Stories we couldn’t cover: StandDown for Veterans
|
This morning, at coffee before the Wilder Foundation conference on homelessness, I met Gretchen Blais from the non-profit Minnesota Assistance Council for Veterans. Today and tomorrow (May 25 and 26), MACV is sponsoring the annual StandDown for veterans at Fort Snelling. This is one of many stories that I hoped we could cover, but could not – including:• the May 13 St. Paul Board of Ed listening session (and board meetings),• the May 19 Native Nations movie and forum,• the MVNA teen pregnancy assistance programs.If you would like to help, check the Assignment Desk for stories you could cover, or send us a story from your community organization, religious center, youth group, library, park … we need you to help cover our community. Continue Reading
Calling all photographers: Put faces on our neighborhoods!
|
We’re proud of our new neighborhood pages, and now it’s time to give each neighborhood a face! The Twin Cities Daily Planet invites all photographers to submit images of Minneapolis and St. Paul neighborhoods to be featured front and center on our neighborhood pages. For an example, see our Cedar-Riverside page.We expect that these photos will remain on the neighborhood pages for some time, so the ideal photo will represent a neighborhood in an attractive and immediately recognizable way—for example, skyscrapers in downtown, or the Macalester campus for Mac-Groveland, or people sitting outside the BLB for Lowry Hill East. You will be credited for your photo immediately below the image, with a link to your personal Web site or Flickr stream if you’d like.The details: As with the Cedar-Riverside image, your photo will ultimately appear 480 pixels wide in a panoramic format—so frame the image to be wide and short. Continue Reading
Dear Minneapolis / Dear St. Paul
|
NPR is coming to town to put the Twin Cities in the spotlight of its State of the Re:Union show. Producer Tina Antolini wants to hear from TC Daily Planet readers. She explained in an email:
Every episode we go to a different city or town in the country and bring listeners an hour of stories about what builds community there, what brings people together… I’m in the middle of researching our episode about the Twin Cities; we’ll be in the area in early June. We have a piece of every show that we call the “Dear City” letters, where we ask people who are making a difference where they live if they’d be willing to write a letter TO their city… Continue Reading
Tell Reynolds what you think of us
|
The Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) wants to know what you think of the TC Daily Planet. Located at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, RJI focuses on “researching and testing new models of journalism in this era of technological advances.” They are looking at the TC Daily Planet as part of a project examining the values of online journalism and local news sites to citizens and communities.They’ve identified us as one of the “promising local news sites:”Community sites often rely on professional journalists but they tend to be bootstrappers who also focus on community building — actively seeking user feedback and content, writing in a conversational tone, and fostering civic engagement with practices such as voting, calls to action, and partnerships with local organizations and activists. The survey is confidential, and doesn’t take long to complete. We would appreciate your participation – just click here to complete the survey. Continue Reading
School turn-arounds
|
Ten failing schools in Chicago’s lowest-income neighborhoods jump-started a turn-around in two years. On Friday, the ACH-Learning Gap committee will hear how they did it.
Nominations open for 2010 Community and Ethnic Media Awards
|
Update: The 2010 Minnesota Ethnic and Community Media Awards have been postponed until further notice.The TC Media Alliance and the Minnesota News Council have teamed up to host the 2010 Minnesota Ethnic and Community Media Awards. The awards are open to all ethnic media in the state of Minnesota, and to all community media in the Twin Cities metro area. “Community media” includes print, broadcast and online media that serve geographic communities, as well as media that serve specific groups such as labor, women, etc. Grass-roots news organizations make a vital contribution to the health of the communities that they serve, and also to the vitality of the larger Twin Cities community. Many of these publications operate on very limited budgets even in the best of times, and in the current economic climate, they face enormous challenges. They also receive little recognition for their work. In 2008, the TC Media Alliance and New America Media co-sponsored the first Community and Ethnic Media Awards. Continue Reading
Real journalism at the Capitol
|
The Uptake does real journalism – in video, with lots of volunteers and on a low budget – and it has fought for the right of non-traditional journalists to report from and on the state legislature. After leading a successful push for access last year, over the objections of some legislators from both parties, The Uptake now faces a new challenge from media colleagues. The Uptake has earned its reputation for hard-working reporting. It filmed live and all over the place at the Republican National Convention in 2008. It was the only media outlet to tape and broadcast the entire 2008 Senate recount. Continue Reading
Anonymity – maybe for “dumbass@yahoo.com”
|
Recently, the Cleveland Plain Dealer revealed that one of its pseudonymous commenters is, in fact, a judge who commented on cases that were currently before her, including a capital murder case. NPR’s On the Media reported that the case “sparked an ethical controversy.” On the Media’s Bob Garfield said he “found it vexing that the editorial staff of The Plain Dealer had the ability to locate the email address for the person posting these comments.” But what is the ethical issue here? If a public official makes inappropriate public comments – and especially if a judge comments on a pending case – they should face public scrutiny and response. Continue Reading