Like many journalists in the early months of the pandemic, Susie An was mostly working from home. Draped in a blanket, her radio equipment propped on a big box of diapers, the education reporter at WBEZ in Chicago voiced her news stories and features from a closet. With schools and daycares closed, her days were
Every year since I became a journalism professor, I’m asked to do this strange academic ritual called an “annual report.” In that report, I’m required to document every course I teach, every article I’ve written, every meeting of substance, every project. It’s a basic accounting of my time that the college can then use to
The initial press release from the Minnesota Police Department was headlined, “Man Dies After Medical Incident During Police Interaction.” That’s how police first described the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, after former police officer Derek Chauvi kneeled on the 46-year-old’s neck and back for more than nine minutes. Chauvin was convicted of
In September 2018, racist flyers from a neo-Nazi group were left on cars parked at a community college in Southern Illinois. A few local news outlets reported on the incident and the college’s subsequent denouncement that followed. But then the story was mostly dropped until the next year when the same flyers from the same
Here we are yet again. We just can’t seem to get it right when reporting on race. On March 18, a 21-year-old white man was arrested and charged with murder after allegedly going on a shooting rampage at three Atlanta-area businesss that left eight people dead, six of whom were Asian women. Although the suspect
