Civil Weekly Newsletter: 11/30 Edition
What Civil Newsrooms covered this week.
- Dozens of allies gathered in Flushing, Queens, this week to commemorate the one-year anniversary of a 38-year-old Chinese immigrant falling to her death to evade an NYPD raid, reports Documented. Some are using her death to draw attention to the continuous struggles of the immigrant-dominated sex worker industry.
- Though polar bears had called the Denver Zoo “home” for more than 80 years, its current bears were recently moved to new homes in Ohio and Alaska for what the zoo publicly called “breeding purposes.” But the Colorado Sun finds there’s a lot more to the bears’ departure than you may think.
- Recovering alcoholics suffer differently, writes Clancy Martin for The Small Bow. In this first piece of a multi-part series, the author explores how his recovery lends to understanding life, experiencing suffering and finding freedom.
- Co-founders of the original true crime podcast, CRIMINAL, join this week’s episode of ZigZag and find common ground with Manoush and Jen about quitting their public radio jobs to start their own company.
- Despite a recent national survey finding that 57.7% of Indonesians support LGBT rights, many articles written in the country are homophobic, finds Splice. Read how one journalists calls for her peers to be bolder so stigmatized communities can be more fairly represented.
- New York State’s SAFE Act, which has been hailed as the toughest gun control law in the nation, passed five years ago — and since then has been met with a variety of problems, including massive noncompliance from citizens. Is this indicative of a larger systemic, nation-wide issue with gun violence? Absolutely, according to The River.
- Though cannabis use in Turkey is widespread, it’s illegal and significantly censored in the press, reports Cannabis Wire. Still, one twenty eight year-old rapper is using his music to raise awareness on behalf of “marijuana activism” in the country.
- Have you ever felt like you need to have a phone conversation without the possibility of interruption? Try a voicenote, advises Popula’s Rosa Lyster.
- After more than 20 years with the same alderman, one Chicago ward will be electing a new person to represent them. Block Club Chicago introduces the potential candidates — all of whom are millennials who’ve never held any elected office before.
- Where did people take phone calls before phone booths were installed in their offices? What is happening in those phone booths when people aren’t on the phone? And why do the booths always smell like someone’s foul-smelling lunch? Hmm Daily has ideas.
- “The rate at which these buildings are crumbling far outweighs the rate at which NYC Housing Authority can make repairs,” says Councilman Ritchie Torres on FAQ NYC. Cumulative neglect has led to major problems in New York public housing — so where can we go from here?
- Some Democrats in the House of Representatives have been working for months to collect signatures for a petition to restore net neutrality. According to Sludge, the 17 Democrats not supporting the petition are among the ones who’ve received the most campaign funding from the companies leading lobbying efforts against net neutrality.
- Groundtruth Project covers stories of the children kidnapped, recruited and abused by ISIS in their latest podcast — including how now, these children are being shunned by society.
Civil en español
- 14ymedio informa que otro “ataque sónico” de origen desconocido en la embajada de Canadá en La Habana significa un cambio en operaciones del gobierno canadiense.
For a daily feed from Civil Newsrooms, follow @CivilStories on Twitter.
Missed the last Civil Weekly? We’ve started archiving this newsletter on our blog. Read November 16’s edition here.
Congratulations to The River on a successful Kickstarter campaign!
The River has just under 24 hours left in their Kickstarter campaign, which its team launched when it began publishing earlier this month. On Friday afternoon, it surpassed its $20,000 fundraising target. A sincere congratulations to The River team, which has hit the ground running as it introduces a new standard for local journalism in the Hudson Valley region of New York.
And if you’re reading this before 3 PM ET on Saturday, there’s still time to donate! You can do so here.
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The Random Musing Section
Civil had its holiday party this week. While we missed some of our colleagues and newsroom partners from outside of New York, it was a great turnout overall (“The best office holiday party I’ve ever been to!” said the anonymous co-host of one, Civil-based podcast). The real highlight, though, was a series of conversations I had with journalists from a number of different Civil newsrooms throughout the night, each of which touched on a similar theme.
That theme, in a nutshell: that this is an effort worth pursuing. Too many stories are going unreported because of a dearth of quality journalism today, and it’s putting us all on a dangerous path. A handful of major newspapers are doing incredible work, but they’re the exception and not the rule. Civil is trying to stem this tide by introducing a more sustainable community for finding, sharing and supporting ethical journalism around the world — that’s why we’re all here.
We’re nearly ready to share next steps for Civil publicly, and recognize that many of you are eager to hear from us on that front. We’ve been working hard behind the scenes to realize this plan — and have certainly faced our share of challenges in the meantime. It’s not always easy, but hearing this message from some of our closest partners meant the world to us, and served as a powerful reminder for why we’re doing this in the first place. And it’s all happening soon.
So, all in all, a great holiday party — my only complaint is that it didn’t end in karaoke. All holiday parties should end in karaoke. Hope you all enjoy the upcoming slew of holiday parties in your world, too!
See you next week.
— Matt Coolidge
