Category Archives: Accountability and Representation

When the media does us wrong and community accountability

Video Visitation

 

Update: Wisconsin senator Tammy Duckworth is trying to get a bill going to regulate video visitation and preserve in-person visitation rights.

Sign the petition to show support for her efforts.

A case study by the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition and Grassroots Leadership.

In September 2014, a group of Dallas-area advocates led a fight against an initiative that would have introduced video visitation capability to the Dallas County jail. The company proposing to provide services to Dallas had buried in its contract a requirement that the jail eliminate in-person visitation, thus leaving those who wished to visit prisoners only one option – visit by video. Or, don’t visit at all.

Video Visitation (web)

Not To Be Trusted

 

ColorOfChange partnered with Media Matters for America to study how accurately local news stations are covering the role of Black people in crime. The result is an outrageous level of distortion: news stations report that Black people are involved in murder, assault and theft an average of 75% of the time in New York City, which exceeds the actual NYPD arrest rates for those crimes by 24 percentage points.

ColorOfChangeNewsAccuracyReportCardNYC

Digital Culture Shift Report

 

As activism for police accountability, fair wages, just immigration, and more takes center stage — social justice movements of the 21st century are using technology to achieve greater scale and reach wider audiences. But are these digital strategies building power for long-term social change, or helping maintain the status quo?

A  report from the Center for Media Justice says the answer depends on the strategy — and offers new approaches and recommendations, from a diverse cross-section of leaders, for building effective social movements in an age of big data and digital technology.

digital_culture_shift_report