Session info
Start: Mar 2 2008 - 4:30pmEnd: Mar 2 2008 - 6:00pm
Room:
Independent media is struggling as never before to cover the massive number of critical stories that our 'mainstream media' has chosen to overlook, report without balance, or report in trivial or sensational formats. Reports on Jena, Katrina, gentrification in Harlem, racial profiling, environmental racism, in the Black press are often breaking new ground yet this coverage is only belatedly seen by the progressive community. International stories as well share this fate - from oil politics in Nigeria, conflict in Kenya, to the unfolding changes in political leadership in South Africa, and the truth and reconciliation hearings in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Ghana. How can progressive media activists link up to media of color? How can the two share and exchange resources?
Graduate of the Columbia Journalism School, investigative reporter and publisher of NYC-based The Black Star News, Mr. Allimadi authored an explosive investigative book that digs deep into the history of the negative, racist media representations of Africans and people of African descent that persist in contemporary America.
Managing editor of the largest circulated weekly newspaper (over 100 pages) in the New York City African /Caribbean American Community, which numbers more than 3.5 million people. CL in sixteen years has built the most successful distribution into the mainly West Indian segment of that community.
Omoyele, at 31, writes and publishes Saharareporters.com, an online community of Nigerian and international reporters founded in the spirit of human rights. He was a former leader of a national student organization critical of Nigeria's corrupt military rulers and the Olusegun Obasanjo administration. He was repeatedly jailed and tortured by government police and hired thugs.
U.N. radio producer and lifetime Southern Africa rights activist.