Grassroots Journalism in Our Community: Past, Present, and Future

This online panel discussion happened on 4/17/2021 as part of the U-C IMC's 20th Anniversary event series

The panel included --

• A. Belden Fields, co-founder of the Public i newspaper; member of the Public i Editorial Collective; emeritus professor, UIUC Political Science
• James Tygar Corbin III, co-host of Conscious Community Connections on WRFU radio; peer mentor and economic developer for First Followers Re-entry program
• Janice Jayes, current member, of Public i Editorial Collective; Department of History, Illinois State University
• Phalonna Stewart, Social Media Coordinator for the Public i

Supported in part by a City of Urbana Arts Grant.

Some notes from the chat, commenting on the discussion:

• An issue of "The Plain Truth" newspaper is on EBlackCU.net: http://eblackcu.net/portal/items/show/1181

• and a picture of The Black Rap, from 1969: https://archives.library.illinois.edu/slc/african-american-cultural-center/

• Miriam recommends the book: News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media, by Juan Gonazalez and Joseph Torres.

• Conscious Community Connection, the radio program on WRFU from Tygar Corbin, Heather Rose and others, has a facebook page:
  https://www.facebook.com/mindfulccc

• Phalonna Stewart talked about The Well (thewellexperience.org), where she works, led by Stephanie Cockrell. See the newsletter for The Well at https://www.smore.com/4z7m0.
  • Stephanie Cockrell : “There is so much happening that the community is not aware of. If you desire to create a culturally relevant experience for readers, we have to be willing to utilize non-traditional communication methods.” “The primary way people in the target population will learn about this program is through social media as “Black social media users have been particularly likely to say that these sites are personally important to them for getting involved with issues they care about or finding like-minded people” (Auxier, 2020).

• Miriam had found through MediaJustice (mediajustice.org) this article about Black Audiences Online: https://www.abpartners.co/ourwork/beyond-demography

• Memory from Mark Enslin : “When the IMC was on Main Street I was part of a collective that did IMC radio news on WEFT - the necessity to have a show every week was difficult for me, but it got me to events and places and groups that I would not have otherwise and were life-changing for me — one instance was when Amira Davis came to the IMC wanting to engage in work on racism in the unit 4 school system — one set of interviews we did was at Champaign-Urbana days in 2000 … so being involved in grassroots journalism was important for my own education and activism”

• Phalonna is working to create a community calendar, and would love suggestions on a platform to host it. “I want each day to have categories like art, politics, music, theater, economics, city meetings. literally everyone working together.”

• Tygar has a blog, and named it during the discussion, but I didn't catch the web address. [-SL]