Tag Archives: Journalism

Voices

OPINION | Journalism Should Spark Light, Not Rage Fires

by Marcus Harrison Green

(The following is the transcript of a speech given at the 2023 Washington Journalism Education Association’s Emerald Awards.)

Thank you for having me today. I was talking to a journalist friend a few weeks ago, and I told him I’d be speaking to you all today about journalism. He straight up told me, “For the love of God … Please, please, please, please make sure you tell those kids what I wish someone had the courage and audacity to tell me before I dedicated 40 hard-lived years of my life to the craft of journalism: Run as far and as fast as you can from this business and don’t look back! Become anything — a manure inspector, roadkill removal specialist, a sewage appraiser — anything!”

He was kidding, of course. At least, I’d like to hope he was kidding. But like most jokes, there’s a subsurface of truth to it.

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Voices

OPINION | Local News Nourishes Local Democracy

by Mary Coltrane and Dee Anne Finken

News of the police raid at the Marion County Record in Marion, Kansas, on Aug. 11 ignited outrage across the nation. Similarly newsworthy was the announcement days later by the county’s top prosecutor, Joel Ensey, that he had insufficient evidence to justify the search or seizure of the newspaper’s property or material.

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Voices

OPINION | Demanding Media Accountability in a Time of Broken Trust

by Ken Gillgren

Way back in 1970, when I was a senior in high school, I attended an elective class on mass media and learned you can’t assume something is true just because it showed up in The New York Times. The entire class was about the ways in which logical fallacies, appeals to emotion, and other tools for influencing public thought and opinion have long lurked in the channels of mass media — including those we have come to see as authoritative, and the presumptive “guardians” of public integrity and truth.

Yet even though I’ve long been aware of this troubling pattern, I was still enraged to read the insensitive, fear-mongering “hit piece” in The Seattle Times entitled, “Lawsuits say Rainier Beach parking lot where 5 were shot a magnet for violence.”

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Voices

OPINION | If We Let Journalism Die, Our Democracy Won’t Be Too Far Behind

by Marcus Harrison Green

(This article has been copublished with The Seattle Times under an agreement.)

Editor’s Note: This piece is adapted from a recent talk by Marcus Harrison Green at Town Hall Seattle.

Not too long ago, I was speaking with a friend who recently left journalism for much more lucrative pastures, and who is seriously thinking about expatriating from the United States.

I chided him for being overly cynical about the state of journalism and our country, and he replied that in this day and age, “to be cynical is simply to be paying attention.”

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News

Seattle Chinese Post Ends Operation, Northwest Asian Weekly Goes Solely Online

by Ronnie Estoque

After being in local operations for more than four decades, the Seattle Chinese Post (SCP) ended its operations earlier this month. The newspaper was founded in 1982 by Assunta Ng, who immigrated to Seattle in 1971 from Hong Kong to attend the University of Washington (UW). She wrote for the Daily newspaper while there and earned a bachelor’s degree in international studies and education from the UW in 1974.

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News

KUOW Journalists Picket for a New Contract

by Ronnie Estoque

On Monday afternoon, Oct. 24, KUOW’s unionized staff held an informational picket outside the KUOW studios, emphasizing the importance of livable wages for all KUOW positions in a new contract. The action received a large response via social media from KUOW listeners vocally expressing their own support. The KUOW union is represented by SAG-AFTRA, which represents approximately 160,000 media and entertainment professionals.

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News

Editorial Excellence Award Winner Carolyn E. Bick Reveals Truth Behind Police Narratives

by Guy Oron

(This article was originally published on Real Change News and has been reprinted under an agreement.)

For Carolyn E. Bick, journalism must be confrontational and challenge the status quo, even if that risks losing access to powerful people and institutions.

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Voices

OPINION: Organization Honors Black Contributions to Journalism

by Troy Landrum

“So be it! See to it!” wrote Washington’s very own Octavia Butler, as a source of encouragement, in her personal notebook. The bestselling and award-winning author would be read by millions. In 1995, she became the first African American woman to win the MacArthur Fellowship. She is one of the greatest (if not the greatest) science fiction writers of the 20th century. 

As participants of the Media 2070 consortium meeting on Thursday, April 21st, we meditated on those words and then were asked, “Now what will you do with your writing?”

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Community

Meet Michael McPhearson, the Emerald’s New Executive Director

by Emerald Staff

After a five-month search, the South Seattle Emerald has named Michael McPhearson as its new executive director, succeeding Emerald founder and publisher Marcus Harrison Green, who had been serving in the role on an interim basis since February. Though Green is handing over day-to-day operations after eight years, he will remain the Emerald’s publisher as a member of its board of directors. 

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