The Center for Community Media (CCM) at Governors State University recently hosted a dynamic fall event exploring the critical topic of the future of local news.
The event featured a panel of distinguished local media professionals, including filmmaker Tom Callahan, Harvey World Herald founder Amethyst Davis, and The TRiiBE founder Tiffany Walden. Julie Keck, a visiting professor at GovState and the new director of the CCM, moderated the engaging discussion.
The panel started with brief introductions where each guest explained what inspired their career in journalism.
Davis said a trip back home to Harvey during the COVID-19 pandemic propelled her into hyperlocal news. “When I came back to Harvey to visit my folks, it looked exactly the same,” Davis said. “A lot of the economic fallout that came out of COVID, the death, the despair, that was like business as usual for Harvey. The community felt no different, and that was the problem for me.”
Walden started The TRiiBE with a close friend from Northwestern University. “We have always had this idea of telling Black stories in a way that would uplift communities,” she said.
Callahan shoots films about social movements. “I took a photography class in college, and eventually started getting involved in activism and social movements against the war, death penalties, and police torture in Chicago,” he said. “I started to use my camera to document protests and other stuff that I could share with others,” Callahan explained how this effort ballooned into a career making films focused on creating meaningful change.
The media professionals discussed the challenges of reporting uncompromising news in their communities, the personal parts of the job and how to deal with the emotional burdens that come from reporting.
“Because I’m from Harvey, and I know how it can get, I’ve shouldered assignments that I knew would take more out of me mentally and emotionally,” Davis said. “Even if I realized I didn’t have the capacity for it.” For example, she told a story about a shooting outside the library where public meetings are held in Harvey. Her videographer was there covering a meeting and had to duck behind cars to avoid the conflict. Davis realized that she could have been in that parking lot, too.
The panelists took questions from the audience and discussed using artificial intelligence in the newsroom, how to hold public officials accountable and how they tell stories that help their communities.
Following the panel discussion, Davis became the newest member of the CCM advisory board.
By bringing together important emerging voices in the field, the CCM’s fall event provided a valuable platform for exploring the evolving landscape of local news and its profound impact on communities. For more information about the CCM, visit govst.edu/ccm.