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Speaker: No media control, panel only recommending suggestions The Hindu Toning down his earlier stand, Legislative Assembly Speaker K.B. Koliwad on Thursday said the House panel recently constituted to bring out regulations for the media will only suggest recommendations after studying prevailing conditions rather than ...

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Speaker: No media control, panel only recommending suggestions - The Hindu

Illustration: Jim Cooke/ FMG

Not so long ago, Nick Denton used to boast that Gawker Media was the last true beachhead of independent media in America. How quickly things change. Does independent media even mean anything, any more? Did it ever?

Today, we are owned by Univision, a multibillion-dollar international media company controlled by a partnership of private equity firms. There is nothing wrong with that, per se. But whatever independent media means, it is not that. Then again, perhaps it is not anything.

Independent media is not as easy as it sounds. Can a media company be independent if its shares are bought and sold on the stock exchange (like the New York Times)? Is a company with predatory private equity (Univision) or hedge fund or venture capital investors (Vice, Buzzfeed) really independent in a meaningful way? Is it more independent to be completely owned by a single rich guy (like Gawker Media was, or the Washington Post is), insulated from competing whims of investors but subject to the singular whims of a mercurial all-powerful owner? How about when the rich guy gets tired of losing money (The New Republic), or gets old and cranky (Harpers), or passes his leadership position off to his wastrel kid (Rolling Stone)?

I wont keep you waiting: The answer is no. True financial independence in the media is almost impossible to find. The closest model is probably enterprising do-gooder publications that beg their own readers and foundations for monetary support (Mother Jones, The Nation), although this model tends to reward more ponderous and self-conscious WE DO PUBLIC SERVICE journalism, rather than outlets that leaven their do-gooderism with less noble but more enjoyable content. Unless you are a very rich person who self-publishes your own thoughts on your own fully owned platform, you are beholden to someone.

What is actually being insinuated by places that declare their journalistic independence, then, is editorial independencethe idea that they answer to no one but the truth. But this assessment always includes a degree of fantasy. The same credible media outlets that spend their days following the money to report on the web of power and influence in the business or politics world will proclaim themselves free of any such outside influence from whichever money person sits atop their own pile of funding. Bullshit. This does not mean, as simpletons often shout, that Carlos Slim is dictating coverage in the New York Times, or that Jeff Bezos is secretly seeing to it that the Washington Post runs fawning stories about Amazon. For publications that want to be seen as mainstream, raw political ideology is too crude an instrument. The influence of money in the media is more often expressed by defining the boundaries of a news outlets conception of what news is. It is the insidious, unspoken self-censorship that causes an editor to turn down a story not because it is bad or wrong but because its just not what we do here. Whether the root of this self-censorship is fear of losing advertisers, or fear of pissing off the boss, or fear of offending someone that you might run into at a party later this year, or just a deeply internalized and ill-understood sense of what is and is not respectable, the effect is the same. The New York Times, which answers to the most establishment of establishment families, and Breitbart, which answers to an unhinged right-wing hedge funder, draw their boxes of acceptability in different places, but they both have boxes. The near-impossibility of true independence in journalism is expressed not by what is published, but by what is not published.

All the news thats fit to print is not the same as All the news. The gulf between those two concepts represents the black hole that would be filled by a wide variety of independent media outlets in a perfect world. The tougher the economic climate of the media industry is, the less free money is sloshing around to grow all the fun new publications that should be filling in the gaps. And all money comes with a price. You may have a varied media diet. You may read publications that are large, and small, and print, and online, and serious, and wild, and sober, and fun. But it is very unlikely that you read many publications that are independent. Dont let them sell you too hard on that idea. It sounds nice, but it may kill you.

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What Is Independent Media? - Fusion

For Gina Prince-Bythewood and Reggie Rock Bythewood, making the TV series, "Shots Fired," is directly tied to being parents of black teenage boys growing up in America.

The 10-part event series begins with a familiar headline that has a twist: A police officer fatally shoots an unarmed teenager; but contrary to many real life shootings, the cop in the show is African American, and the young victim is white. The show goes on to also include a second murder. That one is of a black teen and there's a mystery as to the identity of his killer.

The Bythewoods are the creators and show-runners of the series, which airs on Wednesday nights. They tell The Frame's John Horn thatthe seed of the idea goes back to a moment in July of 2013. Reggie says that he and their older son, who was 12 years old at the time, were watching the George Zimmerman verdict:

"When George Zimmerman was found not guilty of second degree murder of Trayvon Martin, our kid was blown away and got pretty emotional. And instead of hugging and consoling him and assuring him everything was going to be okay, I opened up my laptop and pulled up this Emmett Till documentary on YouTube. I thought it was time for my son to understand certain things about how the criminal justice system has worked in this country, and how the criminal justice system has not worked."

Bythewood goes on to say that a couple of things came from that experience: one, their older son would go on to write a short story about how Trayvon Martin meets Emmett Till in heaven; two, Reggie and Gina began the process of addressing the issues of race and the relationship between people of color and law enforcement through their art. So when the opportunity came to make a show with Fox, they leapt at the chance.

Gina tells The Frame that one reason they began the series with a police shooting that doesn't follow the usual narrative was also a reaction to the Zimmerman case:

"One of the things that struck is is the fact that you started hearing about people sending George Zimmerman money to help him with his legal fees, as if he was a victim. And people were not seeing Trayvon as a kid. They were not seeing his humanity. And that hurt us."

She says that in flipping the narrative to have a black officer shoot an unarmed white teen, they could promote empathy: "Once you start to empathize, you can then hopefully look and see when it happens to somebody else, you now understand what they're feeling. Once you can do that you can hopefully start to fight to change things."

"Shots Fired" airs at 8 pm Wednesdays on Fox. All episodes are available On Demand, on Hulu, and Fox Now.

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How the George Zimmerman verdict catalyzed the Fox series, 'Shots Fired' - 89.3 KPCC

THE TRIAL OF TRAYVON MARTIN

Subversive Theatre Collective

Buffalo playwright Gary Earl Ross is fascinated with that place where American jurisprudence meets race. In Matter of Intent, he created Temple Scott, a Kennedy era African American woman, who is a Perry Mason style attorney, determined to exonerate her client. In Mark of Cain, he used the real 1925 case in which Clarence Darrow defended an African American man who used a gun to defend his home from a hostile mob.

The title of his new play might seem to tell it all: The Trial of Trayvon Martin. But let us recall, it was George Zimmerman who went on trial. African American Trayvon Martin was shot to death and Caucasian Zimmerman was acquitted by a Florida law that supported his right to stand hisground. In this courtroom drama, Ross challenges us by imagining, What if it was George Zimmerman who had died on that fateful night in 2012? The production, directed by Kurt Schneiderman, features Shawnell Tillery, Brian Brown, Rick Lattimer, Lawrence Rowswell, Leon Copeland, Jr., Kunji Rey, Brittany Bassett, VerNia Garvin, and Michael Mottern, and begins performances on April 6th.

Road Less Traveled Theater

In a theater season that will also feature the Irish Classical Theatre production of Noel Cowards Hay Fever, about the remarkable and theatrical Bliss family, Road Less Traveled offers us another love letter to theater families, Donald Marguliess The Country House. Set among the famous and aspiring at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, the play chronicles what happens when the easy availability of emotion ignites the jealousies and passions of show folk. Scott Behrend, who served as assistant director for the Los Angeles production that starred Blythe Danner, takes the helm as director at his own theater. The Country House stars Christian Brandjes, Kristen Tripp-Kelley, Chris Kelly, Peter Palmisano, Barbara Link Larou, and Renee Landrigan. Performances will begin on April 28th.

Jewish Repertory Theatre of WNY

The Jewish Repertory Theatre of WNY continues its season dedicated to the work of Amy Herzog with The Great God Pan. Jamie is a man living the American Dream with his perfect Brooklyn family. That is, until a childhood friends pays a visit. Has Jamie repressed a horrific childhood experience? Directed by Saul Elkin, the production features Kelly Beuth, Jordan Louis Fischer, Darleen Pickering Hummert, Amelia Scinta, Steve Vaughan, Lisa Vitrano, and Adam Yellen. Performances begin on April 27th at the Maxine and Robert Seller Theatre, at the Jewish Community Center at 2640 North Forest Road in Getzville.

Alleyway Theatre

Neal Radice, founder of Alleyway Theatre, has penned prolific output of plays. His scripts include Night Work, a play plumbed from his family history about a World War I era court case involving the rights of women to work without restrictions; Minimum Habitat, an evening of vignettes, from birth to death, all set in bed; and his every popular adaptation of Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol. His musicals are also numerous, including versions of Gilgamesh, Beowulf, and Peer Gynt, and retellings of the local histories of The Ghost of Fort Niagara, and Over the Falls, the story of Annie Edson Taylor; the first person to plunge over Niagara Falls and survive.

Now, with Im Fine, Radice turns his attention to Mike, a middle-aged man who finds that a sense of humor is necessary as he treads the path of being a widower, from grief, to finances, to dealing with family, regret, his career, cooking, loneliness, the absurdity of online dating, and inevitably, sex. The cast features Ray Boucher, Emily Yancy, Joyce Stilson, and James Cichocki. The production opens on April 20th.

MusicalFare

This musical by Colin Escott & Floyd Mutrux, takes us back to Sun Record Studios in Memphis Tennessee, on one historic night in 1956 when Elvis Presley, Jery Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash took part in an impromptu jam session. Directed by Randall Kramer, the production features Brandon Barry, Steve Copps, Jeffrey Coyle, Arianne Davidow, Joseph Donohue III, Brian McMahon, Andrew J. Reimers, and Dave Siegfried. Performances start on April 19th at MusicalFare in Snyder.

Irish Classical Theatre Company

In the 1960s, playwrights like Noel Coward, Somerset Maugham, and Terence Rattigan were considered to be entirely pass. Their reputations were dead. Their plays were out of print. It was the age of the Angry Young Men. Now, oblivion seems to have caught up with the post war generation, and the works of Coward, Maugham, and Rattigan are back in vogue, considered to be classics, and are produced everywhere. This month, the Irish Classical Theatre Company will present Rattigans The Winslow Boy a 1946 play that explores the intersection of justice and class privilege. A young naval cadet is falsely accused of stealing a five-shilling note. This mark on his reputation threatens to ruin his life and to destroy his entire family. One of the most prominent barristers of the day agrees to defend the boy. The real life 1910 incident on which the play is based was famous. The real life attorney was Sir Edward Carson, the same man who prosecuted Oscar Wilde. The genius of Rattigan takes real life to fashion compelling drama. Directed by Brian Cavanagh, the production features Collan Zimmerman, Robert Rutland, Pamela Rose Mangus, Kevin Craig, Kate LoConti, Ben Moran, Todd Benzi, and Matt Witten. Performances begin on April 21st.

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A ROUNDUP OF COMING PLAYS by Anthony Chase - Artvoice

Thursday, April 06, 2017 5:32 p.m. CDT

By Timothy Mclaughlin

(Reuters) - Iowa lawmakers on Thursday approved amended legislation that would enact sweeping changes to the state's gun regulations, including a "stand your ground" provision, and sent it to the governor for final approval.

The bill, backed by the National Rifle Association, says a law-abiding person does not have to retreat before using deadly force.

A similar measure in Florida was thrust into the national spotlight in 2012 after the shooting death of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin by neighborhood watch member George Zimmerman, who was acquitted of murder after the law was included in jury instructions.

At least 24 other states have similar measures, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The Iowa bill allows for children under the age of 14 to use handguns while under the supervision of an adult who is 21 or older. It also says gun owners with permits can bring concealed handguns into capitol buildings.

Republican state Representative Matt Windschitl said on the House floor on Thursday the bill was, "the most monumental piece of Second Amendment legislation this state has ever seen."

The bill also would make gun permits valid for five years, with a background check required when the permit is issued. Under the current law, permits are valid for one year with an annual background check.

The bill passed the state Senate on Tuesday and the House last month. The House voted on it again on Thursday to approve changes made in the Senate before advancing it to the desk of Republican Governor Terry Branstad.

A spokesman for Branstad did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The bill has been criticized by gun control advocates, who say it could increase gun violence.

"We have had very good gun laws," the Reverend Cheryl Thomas of Iowans for Gun Safety said by telephone. "With the passage of this law, we are going to lose that status."

Iowans for Gun Safety want Branstad to veto the measure.

Previous attempts to change the state's gun regulations have been blocked by Democrats, who held a majority in the Senate until November.

Following the election, Republican lawmakers control the Senate, House and governor's office for the first time in nearly two decades.

Republicans have used their majority to push through a number of bills during this legislative session, including drastic changes to the state's collective bargaining laws.

(Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago; Editing by Bill Trott)

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Iowa poised for major overhaul to gun regulations - KFGO