A bit more media.
USA Today fires Hemal Jhaveri. “This is not about bias … It’s about challenging whiteness and being punished for it.” In her eight years with USA Today, the organization never offered formal support or protection from harassment, says former editor Hemal Jhaveri. But Jhaveri was fired after she “sent a tweet responding to the fact that mass shooters are most likely to be white men” a tweet she now calls “a careless error of judgment” and deleted. Jhaveri wrote on Medium about what happened when her tweet was picked up by the alt-right.
USA Today, like so many other newsrooms, has been vocal about trumpeting its commitment to diversity, equality and inclusion. And yet, doing the actual work of diversity, equality and inclusion necessitates engaging with complicated structural issues that should make white audiences uncomfortable. In this case, after I made one mistake, the company contradicted their commitment to DEI and wilted upon criticism.
THE ISSUE
Today begins Sunshine Week, which highlights the fight for transparency in government and access to public information. Led by the News Leaders Association and organizations including the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, Sunshine Week aims to increase public awareness of open-meetings and open-records laws like Pennsylvaniaâs Right-to-Know Law and Sunshine Act.
The restrictions and challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic didnât stop the work of journalists over the past year but did make it tougher.
Pandemic-related emergencies gave the Wolf administration, for instance, some cover for holding back information.
But journalists at LNP | LancasterOnline and The Caucus â an LNP Media Group watchdog publication focusing on state government â persisted in ensuring that taxpayers knew how government officials were acting and spending money on their behalf.
Eight months later, York County hasn t released all public information sought by York Dispatch
York Dispatch
A legal battle between The York Dispatch and York County for information that the state’s Office of Open Records has said is clearly a public record is now in its eighth month, with no end in sight.
And although the county released most of the requested information last month, there’s still information it refuses to make public specifically, the start and end dates of employment for all employees in the York County Prothonotary’s Office since January 2020.
“My docket covers the entire state of Pennsylvania, and I have right-to-know cases and court-access cases,” said Paula Knudsen Burke, local legal-initiative attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “(This) case is perhaps the most offensive because the information that the newspaper is seeking is so basic.
Pamplin Media Group - Opinion: Oregon journalists confront threats to all our freedoms pamplinmedia.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from pamplinmedia.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Clem Murray / Philadelphia Inquirer
Five years after former State Rep. Leslie Acosta quietly pleaded guilty in an embezzlement scheme, much of the case against her remains under a shroud of secrecy.
More than half of the court records in Acosta’s case are sealed, despite widespread criticism that the onetime Philadelphia Democrat was allowed to remain in office, and even run for reelection uncontested, because of the unusual level of secrecy surrounding her 2016 conviction.
A trio of Pennsylvania media organizations Spotlight PA, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and LNP|LancasterOnline are now asking a federal court to unseal those records, highlighting the public’s right to view judicial proceedings and records in criminal cases and arguing that there is a high burden for restricting that access.