PCIM Webinar: Journalism in Times of Pandemic & Protest
Join the Park Center for Independent Media on Wednesday, July 29 for a webinar on the media environment amid the coronavirus pandemic and ongoing protests against racial injustice. Our speakers will review the coverage of pandemic and protests by the mainstream media and discuss if recent reporting on racial justice protests represents a shift from the traditional underplaying of race in police stories. The […]
From Challenging the Electoral College to Shifting Climate Plans
June 19, 2020 The Park Center for Independent Media circulates the Indy Brief, a weekly selection of news stories from journalism outlets operating outside traditional corporate systems and news organizations. The HeadlinesPCIM Original Faisal Devji on Globalized Antiracist Protests (Park Center for Independent Media) U.S. Politics The White House Just Caved on Its Plan to Kick […]
Trump Proposes Speedier Environmental Reviews for Highways, Pipelines, Drilling and Mining
Just 110 days before he faces the nation’s voters for the second time, President Donald Trump continued his three-and-a-half-year attack on the nation’s environmental laws on Wednesday by seeking to reign in one of the most important—the statute that requires federal agencies to assess the environmental consequences of their actions. The new rule Trump put […]
Biden’s $2 Trillion Climate Plan Promotes Union Jobs, Electric Cars and Carbon-Free Power
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden unveiled a $2 trillion clean economy jobs program Tuesday that marked a significant expansion in his plan for tackling climate change, with jobs-creation and environmental justice as its pillars. With a blue “Build Back Better” placard on his lectern, the former vice president sought to signal that the coronavirus crisis […]
Media Conceal—or Celebrate—Depriving Syrians of Food and Medicine
Late last month, the latest round of United States sanctions, known as the Caesar Act, took effect against Syria, a country already in a dire situation after nine years of war and sanctions. Covid-19 and an economic crisis in Lebanon, a financial lifeline for Syrian civilians that the US has largely severed (CBS, 6/18/20), have exacerbated […]
‘Dangerous’ and ‘Horrible’: Lawmakers Demand Answers After Trump Upends CDC’s Covid-19 Reporting System
Lawmakers and public health experts are demanding that the Trump administration answer for its abrupt decision this week to cut the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention out of the coronavirus data-collection process, a move critics warned could impede state efforts to combat the pandemic and leave crucial information open to politically motivated spin. “The Trump administration […]
Police Have Killed More Than 5,000 People Since 2015
Following the 2014 death of Michael Brown, who was killed by a member of the Ferguson Police Department, the Washington Post learned that data collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was unreliable and that they undercounted fatal police shootings by more than half. So the Post started tracking the data itself and has kept a record of “every fatal shooting in the United […]
Barr’s New Task Force Is a Blatant Attempt to Target Racial Justice Protesters
On June 26, Attorney General William Barr announced the creation of a new task force on “violent anti-government extremists.” Made up of representatives of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and “other relevant components,” the task force comes in the midst of a nationwide uprising against racism and police violence. While Barr’s initial […]
Criminal Justice Reformers Have a Package of Bills They Want to See New York State Enact
“We are here to expose the state violence that is still happening in communities of color,” said Marvin Mayfield, an organizer at the Center for Community Alternatives. “We must remember that state violence doesn’t stop when a person is convicted. In many cases, it is just the beginning of the brutality of the jails and […]
Another Monument to White Supremacy That Should Come Down? The Electoral College
We are in a moment of reckoning over racism, not only taking down Confederate statues to eradicate these lingering odes to white supremacy but also examining how deeply our society has been shaped by slavery and its aftermath. Last year, the New York Times’ 1619 Project traced the influence of slavery on everything from American capitalism to the American […]