Category: News and Opinion

St. Louis Public Radio staff ‘exhausted’ and still upset after general manager’s ouster

St. Louis Public Radio is searching for a new permanent general manager following the ouster of Tim Eby, after he came under pressure from journalists at the station who made public allegations of racism in early August. University of Missouri-St. Louis officials announced a management shakeup in a staff memo on Thursday. Tom Livingston, a…

How Cincinnati news media reported a baseball broadcaster’s anti-gay slur

When Cincinnati Reds broadcaster Thom Brennaman got caught on a hot mic in August using an anti-gay slur, Megan Mitchell, an openly lesbian reporter and anchor at WLWT in Cincinnati, hoped her colleagues in the media would realize why it was an important story to cover. It wasn’t just about the slur, she told GJR.…

How coverage of the coronavirus pandemic compares with the AIDS pandemic

On July 3, 1981, The New York Times reported on a “rare gay cancer” that had been seen in 41 men. Although no one realized it at the time, the article by reporter and medical doctor Lawrence K. Altman was the first major news story on what would become the HIV/AIDS pandemic. It took another…

St. Louis Media History Foundation archives to reopen to public after devastating fire

After a devastating fire in March 2019, the St. Louis Media History Foundation is bouncing back to life in the Grand Center district, next to many attractions and well-known art exhibitions in St. Louis’ cultural center. The fire destroyed the building, but thousands of artifacts were saved from print and broadcast media going back to…

Community journalists should serve as fact-checkers on national stories

A few weeks ago a former elementary school classmate of mine shared a viral post on Facebook about how Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was going to raise taxes for middle income families by 25 percent. I did a quick Google search and found that the post had been fact-checked already by reputable news outlets…