{"id":214463,"date":"2021-04-20T16:18:38","date_gmt":"2021-04-20T20:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/?p=214463"},"modified":"2021-05-04T13:20:39","modified_gmt":"2021-05-04T17:20:39","slug":"racial-justice-and-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/2021\/04\/20\/racial-justice-and-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Racial Justice and Media"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Against a backdrop of inflamed tensions between police and communities of color, Montclair State\u2019s School of Communication and Media hosted its second <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UC2Xy6WN8uceMIETdlGtuPEw\" target=\"_blank\">Symposium on Racial Justice and Media<\/a> to tackle the role of media professionals in documenting racial justice activism.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBefore we begin, I want to acknowledge that this conversation is taking place during the moment when we&#8217;ve lost yet another Black American,\u201d said Assistant Professor of Transmedia Storytelling Tara Conley as she opened the event on April 15.<\/p>\n<p>Conley was referring to Daunte Wright, shot and killed by police during a traffic stop in Minnesota, but reported that she had also just learned of the release of video showing the fatal shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo by police in Chicago.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Video: The Second Symposium on Racial Justice and Media\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wKH1bXpuMGE?start=2&amp;feature=oembed\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen style=\"width: 500px; height: 281px; border: 0px solid #000;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Conley noted the erosion of support among white Americans for the Black Lives Matter movement in the months since George Floyd\u2019s murder: \u201cWhat should be the role of media professionals in documenting racial justice activism and the movement for Black lives that also accounts for what Dr. Glaude calls the \u2018value gap\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eddie S. Glaude Jr., who is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University, as well as an MSNBC contributor and <em>Time Magazine<\/em> columnist, responded that the media need to \u201cshift the center of gravity\u201d and \u201cdisrupt assumptions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThink about, for example, the way in which we talk about or report about defunding police and the way we allow, at least in mainstream media, the narrative of law and order, being tough on crime or weak on crime, to define how we understand that phrase,\u201d said Glaude, \u201cas opposed to thinking about what does it mean for municipalities to spend 60% to 70% of their budgets on policing and incarceration, as opposed to mental health services, employment, and the like. \u2026 Can we bring someone else into view and a different angle on the issue?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Anthony Smith, senior producer of Cause Initiatives for the National Football League and director and producer of the documentary <em>Game Changer<\/em>, highlighting Black quarterbacks in the NFL, said the first role of media is \u201cto be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn regards to sports media, we look at the history of progress and movements and we know that sports have led the way.\u201d He referenced luminaries such as Jackie Robinson, Jim Brown and Muhammad Ali. Noting the pressure in the past decade for athletes to \u201cshut up and dribble,\u201d Smith said, \u201cAthletes should do what they have always done: Speak up and show the way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Smith also addressed the \u201chistory of exploiting Black pain for entertainment purposes.\u201d Calling out the media as \u201ccomplicit\u201d in trafficking in \u201cfamiliar tropes\u201d about poverty, drugs, adversity and \u201cthe hood.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Vickie Burns, a news executive and media strategist whose leadership positions have included NBC, Tribune Media and Scripps, agreed with another point that Smith made that \u201cstorytellers matter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s not enough,\u201d said Burns in terms of representation in newsrooms. \u201cPeople like me, Black women who lead newsrooms, it\u2019s less than 3%.\u201d Burns said that the focus has been on providing diversity on camera \u201cbut the decision makers are not the people on screen. We need to nurture and, dare I say, protect them on the way up.\u201d She noted, \u201cNewsroom cultures are very tough. They are not welcoming.\u201d She applauded the fact that interns are now paid, opening up opportunities for \u201ckids who are diverse [who] can\u2019t afford to\u201d intern without compensation.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, said Glaude, \u201cI want media to function like the fourth estate ought to function in a vibrant and healthy democracy. \u2026 My hope is that we can imagine a media landscape that doesn&#8217;t deform the attention of the citizen, but deepens the attention of the citizen, because the media has been complicit in trafficking stereotypes, has been complicit in reproducing a whole host of assumptions that feed this idea that America must remain a white nation in the vein of old Europe.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo if we&#8217;re going to really step into this different way of being, together as a country, I pray that the fourth estate understands its role in maintaining and securing a vibrant and healthy democracy, but more importantly, for our sakes, a vibrant and healthy multiracial democracy, because if it fails, our fate is sealed it seems to me. That\u2019s my hope and prayer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAmen,\u201d said Conley. \u201cAmen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UC2Xy6WN8uceMIETdlGtuPEw\" target=\"_blank\">Watch the video on the School of Communication and Media YouTube Channel<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Story by Staff Writer <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/profilepages\/view_profile.php?username=barrmannm\" target=\"_blank\">Mary Barr Mann<\/a><\/p>\n<p>You may also like:<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/magazine\/fall-winter-2020\/and-justice-for-all\/?wp_logged_in=true\" target=\"_blank\">And Justice for All<\/a><\/p>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n\/\/ Output tags as a list for Google Analytics custom dimension\nwindow.MSU_TagList = [];\n<\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>School of Communication and Media symposium tackles media\u2019s role in framing and informing a more just society<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":219,"featured_media":214464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[189,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-214463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-voices","category-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/219"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214463"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214472,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214463\/revisions\/214472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}