Meeting #1: Ready, Set, Go
Hello hello!
Thanks for signing up for this reading experiment. It’s great to have you here. Here are some updates about how to prepare for our first book club meeting 🎉
What we’re reading📚
News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media by Joseph Torres and Juan González
From colonial newspapers to the Internet age, America’s racial divisions have played a central role in the creation of the country’s media system, just as the media has contributed to—and every so often, combated—racial oppression. This acclaimed book—called a “masterpiece” by the esteemed scholar Robert W. McChesney and chosen as one of 2011’s best books by the Progressive—reveals how racial segregation distorted the information Americans have received, even as it depicts the struggle of Black, Latino, Asian, and Native American journalists who fought to create a vibrant yet little-known alternative, democratic press.
The book is on sale right now for $9.18 from Verso books. I ordered a paperback (because my eyeballs are prematurely aging and I cannot handle more screen time), but it comes with a free eBook, so if anyone prefers that method of reading, or can’t swing the cost this month, let me know and we will get you set up!
When we’re meeting🤳🏽
Our Zoom discussion will be held at 4 p.m. ET on Sunday, July 19. And co-author Juan González has agreed to join us! 🤓
I’ll send out a Zoom link in the next email. The plan is that I will solicit questions from y’all in the week leading up to the Zoom meeting. We’ll start the call off with a short Q&A between me and Juan. And then we’ll break out into several, smaller rooms for discussion.
The Q&A will be recorded and shared for people who aren’t able to join in real time!
News you can use🗞
Rebecca Jennings at Vox addressed the “racial reckoning in women’s media,” especially as it relates to the experiences of Black employees at Refinery29 (though ManRepeller, WhoWhatWear, and a few other sites get some dishonorable mentions).
An update on the situation at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Michael Santiago accepted a buyout and Alexis Johnson is suing the paper, according to a comprehensive WaPo piece.
Wesley Lowery’s recent Longform interview is excellent. You gotta listen!
Study Hall’s Allegra Hobbs wrote about “the problem with using cops as sources.” If you aren’t a Patreon, other outlets, like Popula, have also addressed the same issue.
I need someone to read this and explain it to me because I’m so confused/concerned: Journalism's Top Ethics Expert Isn't Concerned With Right and Wrong via Vice
NYT published a “news analysis” on Why Protests Are Only ‘Civil’ in Retrospect: “These sorts of transformations happen repeatedly in the accounting and recounting of social movements, historians say. As movements unfold, the most disruptive parts tend to get disproportionate attention, and critics often portray them as representative of the whole. In the retelling, the least confrontational parts get the same treatment: People sanitize the movement for public consumption, downplay its opposition and use the mythologized version to discredit its successors.”
Andddd… Ben Smith’s most recent column is about the ~ media elite ~ taking to their country homes (like he did??) and it has sparked some important conversation.
Get in touch✍🏽
You can reach me at elliepses@gmail.com or on Twitter @elliepses (DMs are open). Questions, comments, concerns, reading recommendations—I’ll take it all!
A special thanks to Erika Hayasaki, a professor of journalism at UC Irvine, who suggested I add News for All the People to the reading list, and to Nicole Wetsman, who found the great Verso deal!
And, as always, the full History of Journalism reading List is available here.