Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023 – 7pm Pacific, presented by Bird & Beckett Books & Records, San Francisco, CA

WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY

“Don’t Hate the Media, Become the Media! How Your Local Story Can Inform The World”

A live streamed and in-person event with Lisa Loving, author of Street Journalist: Understand & Report the News in Your Community. Details at:

Wednesday, May 3rd – 7pmWORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY“Don’t Hate the Media, Become the Media!How Your Local Story Can Inform The World”A live streamed and in-person event with Lisa Loving, author of Street Journalist: Understand & Report the News in Your Community

Journalist Lisa Loving wants you to know how you–with a cell phone, and a full understanding of the techniques, tools and ethics of journalism–can report on the stories around you and inform the world.

The intensity of individual, mob and institutional attacks on working journalists and their media outlets is unmistakable in our current age. World Press Freedom Day pushes back. So, too, does the work of many thousands of individuals locally and worldwide who take the tools of journalism in hand to accurately report the news they encounter in their day-to-day lives in order to responsibly and effectively inform their communities on issues of immense immediate importance.

After the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020, the city of Portland, Oregon – one of the whitest towns in America – erupted in 200 days and nights of protest in support of the Black Lives Matter movement against racism and police violence. In the same moment, activists and observers – including everyday people who started out simply pointing their phones at the rapidly escalating police violence – launched a new movement in grassroots media. Their work landed in MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times and news outlets around the world.

What can we learn about the future of news from these grassroots pioneers of breaking news reporting? Can we build on their experience – and their work that continues today – in creating a smart, informative news media now?

And what about you?

What if you or someone you know had the tools to bring real information to the table and actually inform people – in your local community and beyond?

Join Lisa Loving, author of “Street Journalist: Understand and Report the News in Your Community,” for an intimate chat on tools YOU can use to create a media platform and bring your local story to the world.

Lisa Loving wrote the book on citizen journalism from lived experience in creating community media in Portland a decade ago. With the 2019 publication of Street Journalist, she made it her mission to make you realize that “the power of journalism is in your hands.” She writes “While many people believe there is some sort of special degree or license that makes a journalist ‘legitimate,’ the truth is that anyone with the interest, brains and organization can make a crucial difference with their voice.” She’s trained hundreds of ordinary people in the tools of independent journalism, making it clear, as has been demonstrated on far too many tragic occasions in recent years, that anyone with a smartphone has the basic equipment to report what’s going on in their neighborhood. This evening she’ll make those points tangible, and engage in dialog to clarify the issues.

DON’T HATE THE MEDIA, BECOME THE MEDIA
–Jello Biafra

One of my favorite songs to welcome in the May!

This evening being May Eve I ought to have put some birch and witten (mountain ash) over the door to keep out the ‘old witch’. But I was too lazy to go out and get it. Let us hope the old witch will not come in during the night. The young witches are welcome.
Reverend Frances Kilvert, April 30, 1870

Found in The Assassin’s Cloak: An Anthology of the World’s Greatest Diarists, edited by Irene Taylor and Alan Taylor.

In our years of correspondence, Rachel and I discussed pretty much every topic under the sun, and a few from the other side of the sun as well.

In one exchange, we discussed epitaphs. As I was doing a great deal of conference planning work at the time, I jokingly wrote that mine would be, “She planned great menus and sourced the best swag”.

Rachel replied:

“She planned great menus” seems an exciting epitaph. I would take notice of that if I walked past it.

Now & then I think of what I might want on my tombstone (if I were to have one). I suppose, “She had a fucking amazing life” would not be acceptable.

“Saver of lives” might be nice.

“She walked with God and was no more,” what the Bible says about Enoch, would be interesting.

Of course, not dying (or aging or getting disabled, etc.) would be even more interesting.

“Where do stories come from?” might be nice, especially since readers of Unquenchable Fire would know that the answer is, “The Land of the Dead.”

“Knight of the Imagination” is another favorite.

Actually, my favorite epitaph—because it came from someone else, was from a fan, who wrote, “When she’s gone, there will never be another like her.”

To that anonymous fan: thank you.

She had a fucking amazing life.

She’s gone, and there will never be another like her.

Rest in poetry, passion, and play, my dear friend.

It’s 1:45 AM, I’ve just arrived at my hotel after 26 hours of travel, and this is the first thing to appear in my timeline.

I’m exhausted and overwrought and have no proper words at the moment.

I love you, Rachel. I will miss you. I will post something more suitable (or at least coherent) in the morning.

Rest in peace and poetry, my friend.