Coming to the Media Skills Fellowship without a lot of experience in social media, Lee-Hoon Benson appreciated the focus on tools. My single accomplishment is to lose my fear of social media,” she wrote in the evaluation. “I think I know which ones I can use in my personal spheres to build community with like-minded people on a range of topics…. One thing I have learned is the proliferation of tools to communicate a message and ways to think about selecting the best tools for specific communication goals. The exposure and guidance to these tools at TCDP gave me more confidence in trying them.”
Leyla Bari identifies herself as “a mixture of Palestinian, Bedouin, Russian/Ashkenazi Jewish lineage,” adding that, “If I have to put a name to this identity I would say multi-racial, or multi ethnic, however I believe that this is an oversimplification, and feel like ‘perpetual outsider’ or ‘in-betweener’ is more accurate.” As an “in-betweener,” she said, “The community I identify strongest with is the globally expanding 1st generation community. Definitions of a first generation person vary, but like to define it as person who is the first person in their family to be raised entirely or primarily in another culture.”
Fifty Shades of Gender is a project that I have been personally coordinating since around April of 2013. It’s been started as a documentary project focused on telling the stories and experiences of the transgender struggle from the perspectives of transgender individuals directed by a transgender identified person. The goals of this project include “looking at the fine points of the gender binary and questioning if these gender definitions are too rigid for us to all be living in. We aim to identify other gender identities, the struggles that we go through trying to fit into these binaries or beyond them, and what we can do to break down the boxes of simply male and female” “I really just want people to be educated about gender and trans* issues and learn how to treat us with respect and human dignity. Raising awareness is the first step to changing things.” Says gender-queer identified participant, Ollie Schminkey.There will be discussions throughout the project on how our society currently defines gender from the day that we are born, the role of patriarchy, and the intersection of various other identities that are affected in relation to our assigned gender and personal gender identities. Continue Reading
Why is a commuter train accident that claims 1 percent of Minnesota’s annual highway death toll front-page news 1,200 miles away? Multiple-fatality auto crashes right here seldom crack a Star Tribune cover. Continue Reading
:: Updated for 2014 ::With cold weather and the start of the holiday season upon us, many Minnesotans need warm coats and other resources. If you have enough to share, or if your kids need coats, keep reading for a beginning list of places to find coats, clothing, toys for the holidays, and other assistance. If you know of another place that should be on the list, use the comments section or email paigeelliott@tcdailyplanet.net or editor@tcdailyplanet.net with places or opportunities to give or receive this holiday/winter season and we will update the article.ARC Find a locationHow to donate | How to receiveServices: ARC is a thrift store that’s open 7 days a week. They accept gently used clothing and household items. More information from the website:“The Arc is a nonprofit organization. And as Arc’s Value Village grows, so does our community impact. Continue Reading
I want to see neighborhood organizations get more media coverage for their projects and events and meetings.. If you have a picture of a meeting or event, write a caption and email it to your local and/or ethnic papers. They will often print the picture. Submit your picture and caption to the Daily Planet: they can run the picture in their Community Voices. And sometimes Twin Cities area media such as Channel 5, the Star Tribune, and Minnesota Public Radio, will troll through the Daily Planet and local and ethnic papers to find interesting story ideas, and contact you to do follow up stories. Continue Reading
“If you exist in the real world and do good, important work, THAT’s how you get followers,” said Guante in keynote of Fall Media Forum. For the story – check out Storify below, which we added to and built throughout the day.Some memorable quotes from the day: Guante: “Do good work, write good articles, get out in the community and build relationships with people – everything else is secondary. Everything else will follow that.”Karyssa Jackson: “If you’re not a member of the community that you’re trying to reach – why do you want to reach them? And are they going to benefit from it?”Alfred Walking Bull: “It sounds cheesy, but I go back to the traditions of storytelling.” Deanna Cummings: “Work is about leaving the people we work with better off – not about propping up the nonprofit.”[If you don’t see the Storify photos and comments below, please refresh your browser window.][<a href=”//storify.com/tcdailyplanet/getting-the-word-out-fall-media-forum” target=”_blank”>View the story “Getting the Word Out: Fall Media Forum” on Storify</a>] Continue Reading
When the significant date of an historic event arrives, all of our analog and digital media get together to transmit in a variety of ways what I’ve decided to call a Calendar Reactive Anniversary Pile On, or CRAPO. Continue Reading
