Media

From newspapers to neighborhood blogs, all the media we are consuming and considering.

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RECENT POSTS

December 9, 2010 | 2:45 PM | By

“There is this hope that Vincent Gray will do a good job”

http://www.acitydivided.americanobserver.net/

A City Divided looks at D.C's issues with class, gentrification and more.

Yesterday, I posted an in-depth discussion with Jeremy Borden, Managing Editor of “A City Divided“, a special edition of the American Observer. Today, I’m serving up an interview with Dan Merica, who wrote “Different worlds reflected in the barber’s mirror” for the project.

Why barbershops?

Ever since I was young, I have found Barbershops interesting. People who come in don’t know each other, but they are still comfortable enough to talk. I was always fascinated by the range of conversations that happened. When I thought of this piece, I wanted to pick something that the two wards had in common. I considered ice cream parlors, bars, hardware stores…something that both wards have, but barbershops were the perfect place.

Which patrons were most interesting to talk to?

There was a guy named Tucker, he was the focus of the piece, he had just got out of jail– his perspective really struck me.

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FILED UNDER: Media, American University, Gentrification, Race and Class, Racial Divide
December 8, 2010 | 9:58 PM | By

On Kojo, Tomorrow: LGBT Youth in D.C.

Michael Paolantonio

Andrew Barnett of SMYAL

I wish I had seen this earlier, so I could have posted it when you were all bored at work and more likely to see it. After reading the following preview, I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s Kojo Nnamdi show and I thought some of you might be interested in it, too:

Bullying and suicide often come to mind in daily conversations about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth. But young people from these communities confront a wide range of challenges their straight peers never see, often with little support from their families or schools. We hear about the personal experiences and activism of local LGBT youth.

One of the scheduled guests, Andrew Barnett, is Executive Director of the Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League (SMYAL). The KNS website has the following video of a local 16-year old named Sydney, who goes to SMYAL just so she can “be (herself)”.
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FILED UNDER: Media, Kojo, LGBT, WAMU
December 8, 2010 | 4:30 PM | By

Advancing the Conversation with “A City Divided”

http://www.acitydivided.americanobserver.net/

As promised, here is my interview with Jeremy Borden of “A City Divided“. Jeremy was the Managing Editor of this special edition of the American Observer, which examined many of the same issues DCentric does.

::

I asked him about the reaction ACD has received:

It’s been great as a whole. Even though people have their specific critiques, that shows they’re looking at the stories and reflecting on them. That is advancing the conversation in a way that is very positive.

What was the impetus behind the project?

What we tried to do was hone in on the broader trends that came out of the September primaries. We knew there was all this divisiveness that had been written about in a broad way; we wanted to focus on specific narratives that exposed divisions in the city and also illuminated the big issues of that election. That’s a difficult thing to do, but I think one of the things that has been most pleasing to me is that we did hone in on narratives that matter to people. Look at the conversations people are having, they are good conversations about the issues affecting this city.

What about the smattering of negative reactions you’ve received online?
As journalists we do the best that we can within the constructs set out for us. What I think is extremely unfair– and there was only one comment like this, that felt we were being racist in our coverage…I felt the need to respond to that. Not everyone will have the same point of view, but all in all it’s been a really positive thing.
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FILED UNDER: Media, American University, Gentrification, Race and Class, Racial Divide
December 7, 2010 | 3:28 PM | By

Tomorrow on DCentric: Jeremy Borden from “A City Divided”

http://www.acitydivided.americanobserver.net/

An hour ago, I spoke to Jeremy Borden; he’s the Managing Editor of “A City Divided”, the multi-media-enhanced special edition of American University’s graduate online publication, the American Observer.

“A City Divided” has (rightly) received coverage from the City Paper, DCist, NBC and other sites that focus on D.C. and its neighborhoods– but all of those posts were intended to alert readers about the project’s existence. I wanted to know more, so I reached out to Borden and interviewed him about ACD, the reactions it has received and…why the buzzed-about story “Priced out in Columbia Heights” featured three compelling interviews with residents of Mt. Pleasant.

I’m due to speak to him again, in a few minutes– he generously agreed to be interviewed while he tries to finish up projects/classes at AU– so look for that post, tomorrow. In the meantime, if you haven’t already seen it, check out “A City Divided“. Any regular reader of this blog will recognize the themes of gentrification, racial lines and community tensions; you might enjoy the spirited conversation the project has inspired, too.

FILED UNDER: Media, American University, Gentrification
December 2, 2010 | 4:58 PM | By

About Rend Smith’s Profile of Courtland Milloy

It turns out the City Paper’s cover story on Courtland Milloy by Rend Smith has inspired an ongoing, online conversation. I pointed all of you to Natalie Hopkinson’s excellent response to the feature at The Root; in it she mentions how Smith asked Milloy if he likes white people. Smith explains why he went there, via this post for the City Desk blog, “Asking a Rude Question of Courtland Milloy“:

Root editor Natalie Hopkinson figures out one reason I asked: “Even though Smith is black, I don’t doubt that he was accurately channeling some urgent wonder among the Twitterati,” she writes.

That’s definitely true, but it also goes a bit deeper. As I point out in the piece, Milloy has often done a fantastic job relaying the kind of D.C. barbershop discourse on gentrification many non-black residents might otherwise miss out on. The assumption that he’s just not fond of whites can end up being the elephant in the room, though, and it’s an easy way for those who prefer to treat his admittedly rabble-rousing analysis as nothing more than a collection of bigoted rants. In light of that, neglecting to ask Milloy how he felt about white people—as uncomfortable a moment as it might have created—would have been a disservice to both the “Twitterati” and Milloy.

It wasn’t exactly the first time he’d heard such an inquiry, anyway. The impression I got hanging out with Milloy was that he gets prodded about his racial outlook fairly frequently. It’s also interesting to note that the question bore fruit. Milloy didn’t just reply with a simple, “Of course I do,” but with a long, expository answer that provided insight into both his amiable, humanistic side, and his angry, fed up side.

FILED UNDER: Media, Race and Class, Racial Divide
November 29, 2010 | 10:44 PM | By

Name-dropping Anacostia

The following tweet makes me want to check out “Lie to Me“, even though the mini-review it contains exposes the apparent laziness of the show’s writers:

Fox's "Lie to Me" mostly ignores its DC setting, but name-drops Anacostia when drug addicts want to score a hit. #cheap #cartoon
November 29, 2010 11:02 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite
@DCProper
Bornin Bred

There’s plenty of drugs in Northwest, TV writers.

FILED UNDER: Media, Social Media
November 24, 2010 | 1:10 PM | By

Whole Foods for some, Bodegas for others

DCentric

Organic fruit at a D.C. Farmers' Market

I just had a conversation about this with one of you yesterday, about the stark disconnect and borderline shame I felt when I came home after buying cheese, local plum chutney and organic bread for entertaining– and walked right in to a display for a food drive. Newsweek is thinking about food inequality, too:

Alexandra says she spends hours each day thinking about, shopping for, and preparing food. She is a disciple of Michael Pollan, whose 2006 book The Omnivore’s Dilemma made the locavore movement a national phenomenon, and believes that eating organically and locally contributes not only to the health of her family but to the existential happiness of farm animals and farmers—and, indeed, to the survival of the planet. “Michael Pollan is my new hero, next to Jimmy Carter,” she told me. In some neighborhoods, a lawyer who raises chickens in her backyard might be considered eccentric, but we live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, a community that accommodates and celebrates every kind of foodie. Whether you believe in eating for pleasure, for health, for justice, or for some idealized vision of family life, you will find neighbors who reflect your food values. In Park Slope, the contents of a child’s lunchbox can be fodder for a 20-minute conversation.

Over coffee, I cautiously raise a subject that has concerned me of late: less than five miles away, some children don’t have enough to eat; others exist almost exclusively on junk food. Alexandra concedes that her approach is probably out of reach for those people.

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FILED UNDER: Media, Food, Poverty, Privilege, Race and Class
November 24, 2010 | 10:48 AM | By

Understanding Courtland Milloy

It’s one of the busiest days of the year, but I wish I had a half-hour of quiet and a good cup of tea to sit down and give the City Paper’s front-page profile of Courtland Milloy the attention it deserves. Milloy infamously earned the ire of my laptop-toting peers when he mocked them by calling them “Myopic little twits” in his Metro column for the Washington Post. While my friends of one hue were outraged that the Post would legitimize a point of view they considered backwards, incendiary and racist, a few friends of another hue quietly maintained that he is the only one publicly representing the point of view of many D.C. residents who are otherwise never heard.

In Milloy’s telling, his barbs at D.C.’s creative-class newbies aren’t about lashing out at them because they’re new. He’s lashing out at them because they’re not. As gentrification takes hold of Washington and issues of inequality emerge, it’s not enough to take solace in Obama’s post-racial ideal while neighborhoods acquire a new mono-cultured cast. People who move into changing neighborhoods have a responsibility for what’s going on. Or so Milloy, in his role as the crotchety grandfather they never wanted, wants to tell them.

Milloy sees new Washingtonians as the flip-side of a process that, in his view, involves older ones being pushed out. And if the actual truth behind African-American departures is more complicated—plenty of folks, starting with Milloy, decamped voluntarily—he argues that it’s pretty damned egocentric to imagine that everything is sweetness and light.

“Well, I don’t know why people think I have a problem with the influx itself,” he says. “Not to be deliberately provocative, but that is the white view, it’s white-centered. ‘Why are you opposed to us moving in?’ But nothing about, ‘Why are you concerned about the way black people are being kicked out?’

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FILED UNDER: Media, 2010 Elections, Gentrification, Milloy, Privilege, Race and Class, Racial Divide
November 23, 2010 | 6:52 PM | By

Where is Privilege Denying Dude?

One of you asked about a post from last week which “disappeared”. It was about “Privilege Denying Dude”, a meme consisting of an image of a white man posing between lines of text which expressed things like “If racism still exists– how come the President is black?” and “Poor people are just lazy. My dad worked hard to pay for my college education.” Here’s what happened:

If you missed out on the short-lived but prolific Tumblr page of Privilege Denying Dude (PPD), you missed the beginning of a genius appropriation of a popular meme (or internet trend) that shoveled smarm back in the face of the privileged cluelessness that litters YouTube and social-justice blog comment threads alike (not to mention IRL). What started as a simple trend went viral, with thousands of submissions (all with their own unique manifestation of privilege!) coming in (see some classic examples on Jezebel.). But due to a terms of violation with the image used, Tumblr shut down the site last Friday. [link]

FILED UNDER: Media, Privilege