WTF: Murder in the city comes close

I generally scoff at concerns about the city's murder rate, because it doesn't affect me much.  Most murders happen in the poorer parts of the city, and involve people I don't know.  I joke that since murders happen mostly between people who are acquainted, just don't have any friends...

But that isn't a helpful way of thinking about it (although I research and write about equity, crime, and public safety issues in deep and thoughtful ways).

(Last year, a nephew of a work colleague of Suzanne's was hit by stray fire in a high profile random shooting.)

Last night, Charnice Milton, a reporter for the Hill Rag, the community newspaper focused on Capitol Hill, was murdered, within a half hour of her covering the monthly meeting of the Eastern Market Community Advisory Committee, which I sit on.  She was quiet during the meeting, attentive, sitting in the first row.

From email:

Capitol Community News Mourns The Loss of Its Own
By Andrew Lightman

Last night, the District's press corp lost one of its own. Capital Community News (CCN) reporter Charnice Milton was tragically gunned down in an apparently random shooting near Good Hope Road at 9:40 p.m.

Charnice Milton was born on June 19, 1987 to Franice Milton. She lived with her mother in Benning Heights in Ward 7. A graduate of Ball State, she earned a Master's from Syracuse.

Charnice began working as a reporter for CCN in August of 2012. Her first assignments involved the nuts and bolts of community journalism. She reported on activities of Advisory Neighborhood Commissions and other public meetings. She soon branched out to profiles and reviewing museum exhibits.

Charnice was a talented reporter with an engaging manner that endeared her to her sources. She was a valued member of the CCN news team completing several assignments a month. This organization will miss her contributions as will the communities of Wards 6, 7 and 8.

Demonizing the inner city

From Stephen Macek, via an e-list:

Check out this new video on media representations of poverty and the inner city. A low-resolution, streaming version is available free online via Google Video.

Labor Beat #515: Demonizing the Inner City - Ideology and the Urban Poor

In this video presentation, I analyze the hysteria over the central city and the urban poor that permeated American politics and popular culture in the 1980s and 90s. I dissect the way mainstream politicians (Rudolph Giuliani, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr.) , conservative intellectuals and the corporate media conspired to demonize inner city neighborhoods and their residents.

In particular, I discuss the way that TV news reproduced and validated the right's stigmatizing, victim blaming images of the urban poor. Ultimately, I critique the reactionary political interests served by this divisive discourse on urban pathology and points to what activists can do to counter its destructive influence.
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Two weekends ago I was watching the tv news which was all about murders in Prince George's County and Washington, DC. Granted every murder is a tragedy. But what happens in PG and DC is not only people getting murdered. You wouldn't get that from just watching tv news programs.

To understand media, we all need to read Making Local News by Phyllis Kaniss and The Whole World Is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left, With a New Preface by Todd Gitlin

Dealing with this broad issue via local television production is one of many things on my list of things to do.

NY1 News, the 24 hour cable news channel in NYC, is a lot different.

So is CITY-TV in Toronto. See "Don't Change that Channel ... Change the Rules!" and "Citytv" both from Fast Company for more. (And I'd kill to be able to do this with a streetside tv studio at Connecticut Avenue and K Street NW, where the Citibank is located.)