Street Photography exhibit, rare Beatles print Oct. 23 to help journalism students

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Borderzine.com, a digital publication based at UT El Paso that focuses on achieving diversity in news media, announces an exhibit of photographs by  journalism professor David Smith-Soto at the Glass Gallery of the Fox Fine Arts Center on the UTEP campus, October 23 to 31. An opening reception of the exhibit at 5 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23 will help celebrate the 6th anniversary of Borderzine, an award-winning web news portal and online community for Latino student journalists. Attendees will learn about the online publication’s future plans and programs, and have an opportunity to help send UTEP multimedia journalism students to news internships throughout the United States. A celebration of photojournalism

The 24 prints from Smith-Soto’s 60-years of street photography were taken during his travels as a journalist in Latin American, European and U.S. cities.  They include images from Oaxaca, Ciudad Juarez, Guatemala, Tangier, Paris and Madrid.

Videos capture a taste of autumn on the border

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As the scorching heat of the summer gives way to afternoon rains and cooler temperatures in the low 80s, residents along the Texas, Mexico border begin to prepare for rituals of autumn.  Some of the staff of Borderzine for the fall 2014 semester practiced their multimedia skills by capturing signs of the season in our community. 1. Abuela’s Chicken Soup

This is the time of year when stock pots on stoves across the nation simmer with the comforting goodness of chicken soup. Here, reporter Marilyn Aleman presents a typical El Paso version prepared by her mother using big chunks of vegetables and corn still on the cob. The wine for the cook is optional.

New Fox TV show “Bordertown” treats Latinos with respect, cartoonist says

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By Ramon Renteria – El Paso Times

Award-winning Chicano cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz describes the new Fox network comedy “Bordertown” as a historic step for Latinos in American television. “This is the first time that Latinos are going to play at least half the characters on a primetime animated show,” Alcaraz said recently before speaking to students at the University of Texas at El Paso. “We finally have an actual mainstream show that treats Latinos with respect.” Alcaraz, a nationally syndicated cartoonist and political satirist, is among five Latino writers on the 13-episode series which is scheduled to air next spring. The writing team also includes Gustavo Arellano, a newspaper editor who writes the nationally syndicated column “¡Ask a Mexican!”

Senate told policy changes needed to reverse economic inequality in U.S.

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By Rocky Asusta – SHFWire.com

WASHINGTON – Skewed economic policies are a driving factor for economic inequality in the United States. That’s the opinion of witnesses at a hearing held by the Senate subcommittee on economic policy Sept. 17 chaired by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. Areas of significant difference in policy were taxes and deficits, trade and globalization, regulation of business and labor protection. “Every day thousands of lobbyists come onto the hill and seek to influence policy debates, usually in favor of the interests of more affluent citizens.

British parliament welcomes El Paso scholar on global health panel

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After walking around in Parliament Square and mingling with the larger-than-life cast iron statues of Winston Churchill and Nelson Mandela, my wife, Anuja and I entered the Palace of Westminster from the Cromwell Green.  We were, finally, inside the closely guarded compound of the United Kingdom’s Houses of Parliament. The date was September 2, 2014 and the Big Ben struck its chimes precisely at 5:30 p.m.

Some 45 minutes later, Lord Collins of Highbury introduced me as “Dr. Arvind Singhal, a leading global academic of communication and social change, based at the Department of Communication, The University of Texas at El Paso”

A wave of UTEP Miner pride ran down my spine. What was I doing inside the highly ornate complex of towers, turrets, and spires that is home to the British House of Commons and the House of Lords? Sitting in the packed CMA room which adjoined the 100 yard long Westminster Hall — where Winston Churchill lay in state for 23 days, and from where Nelson Mandela and President Barack Obama addressed the two Houses of Parliament, I was participating in a parliamentary panel on global public health policy.

Dolores Huerta sees end-game strategy in Obama’s delay on immigration

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By Griselda Nevarez

Labor leader and civil rights activist Dolores Huerta is standing by President Barack Obama on his decision to delay executive action on immigration and is asking the immigrant community to have patience. “We have to look at the big picture and don’t get caught up in saying we want it now,” she said, referring to action on immigration. “We’ve been waiting—we are a community that can wait. And we have to have faith in our president, because the Republicans have shown their hand. We know what they want to do.”

 

Many Latinos have been critical of Obama’s move to delay executive action to reform portions of the nation’s immigration system until after the November elections, but not Huerta.

Bhutanese visitor sees home in unique Texas university architecture

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EL PASO –Sweating from a three-hour rehearsal of George Fredric Handel’s opera Acis and Galatea, Bhutanese performer Tshering Goen, dressed in blues, yellows, and deep reds began to prepare for a second round of practice. Goen, a director of the Bhutan Royal Academy of Performing Arts, came here to perform at the University of Texas at El Paso, a campus filled with buildings inspired by Bhutanese architecture. The Kingdom of Bhutan is at the eastern end of the Himalayas in South Asia. “I feel as if I am back in Bhutan,” Goen said with calmness in his voice as he donned an animal mask to continue with the rehearsal of a classic Western opera in Bhutanese dress. Related story and video: Love and Death visit Handel’s Acis and Galatea in a Bhutanese cremation field

The Bhutanese interpretation of the classic Handel opera fit perfectly with the architectural history of this campus, nestled in the foothills of the Franklin Mountains in the Chihuahuan desert.

Message to news media: Embrace diversity if you want to survive and thrive

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Editor’s note: This commentary is part of Borderzine’s continuing series about the growing urgency to transform newsrooms into diverse work places. By Hugo Balta

Diversity doesn’t happen easily. It is slow progressive change. The pundit who asks, “why don’t they just hire more _____,” fails to understand the fiscal constraints in which media companies operate under. Newsroom budgets continuously contract in the ever-changing new technology economy.

Love and death visit Handel’s Acis and Galatea in a Bhutanese cremation field

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EL PASO –The German composer G.F. Handel took his genius to London in the 18th century and in the 21st century the University of Texas at El Paso transported him to Bhutan. Famous for its century-old campus of Bhutanese architecture, UTEP has always been a beacon of diversity in the Chihuahuan desert, so no eyebrows were raised when the melodies of Handel’s Acis and Galatea were performed before dancers in skull masks. Tshering Goen, a musician from Bhutan and one of the program coordinators, described the opera as incorporating elements that both cultures can relate to. “From the story we can learn the nature in death, the love, and we can see the eccentricity of transformation of one’s life,” he said. Goen also danced in the opera, bringing Bhutanese music and culture into the performance.

Borderzine names digital pioneer as web content manager

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Borderzine, a digital media outlet dedicated to promoting diversity in media, has named multimedia editor and digital strategist Kate Gannon as digital content manager. Gannon has more than 25 years experience on the leading edge of change in newsrooms. She was news systems editor at the El Paso Times where she oversaw technology research and training for journalists and supervised the newsroom’s new media department for online, broadcasting and non-daily publications. In 2005, Gannon was named new media manager of content for the Fort Collins Coloradoan where she helped develop multimedia, data and other digital strategies to successfully grow Coloradoan Media Group into the leading news and information provider in Northern Colorado. She returned to El Paso in 2011 with her husband, El Paso Times Editor Robert Moore, and has been working as a digital content and social media consultant. “I believe Kate’s extensive experience as a journalist, new media manager and teacher make her an excellent fit for Borderzine,” said Borderzine Director Zita Arocha.

Border writer Charles Bowden remembered for his passion for the truth

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By Dylan Smith – TusconSentinel.com

Reporter and author Charles Bowden — he eschewed the term “journalist” — is

dead. The longtime Southern Arizonan recently moved to New Mexico and focused

his work on the dangerous turmoil of Ciudad Juarez. Bowden was a dogged investigative reporter and brilliant storyteller with a passion

for the truth. A finalist for a 1984 Pulitzer Prize, he won numerous other awards and

the respect of reporters everywhere with his gritty yet painstaking work. “People felt that so much of his work dwelt in the dark side and was mired in

negativity.

Study: MSNBC spent most time on Ferguson story, Fox the least

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A new study reveals significant differences in prime time coverage by three major news outlets of the protests in Ferguson, Mo.. MSNBC, Fox and CNN differed in the amount of coverage provided after the death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown. According to a study done by the Pew Research Center, out of the three major cable news outlets, MSNBC devoted the most coverage to Ferguson, followed by CNN, and Fox News, which devoted the least amount of coverage. The study analyzed 18 hours of programming from Sunday Aug. 9, to Friday Aug.

First look: The quest for Atari’s secret desert burial ground

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El Paso filmmaker Carlos Corral is happy to share the dirt on a Southern New Mexico treasure hunt and a 30-year-old mystery for Atari video game fans. Corral worked as the location sound mixer for Lightbox Entertainment in the spring of 2014 when the production team came to Alamogordo, N.M. to learn what, if anything, legendary video game company Atari buried there. Atari went bankrupt in 1983 after releasing a cassette game called “ET The Extraterrestrial” that some say was the worst video game in history. Many believed that an embarrassed Atari dumped hundreds of copies of the game cassette in an Alamogordo landfill to hide them from the public. In a recent post on his blog, Corral shares photos of his experience on the set, including some of the artifacts that were unearthed.

Changing the complexion of news media calls for revolución

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It’s time to shatter the myth that young Latino journalists won’t leave home for jobs in news media. This thought and others flashed in neon across my mind as I sipped white wine recently in a San Antonio ballroom to celebrate 30 years of tilling the soil to transform newsrooms into diverse work places by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. As the speeches and awards played out on stage, I recalled the offensive words of a top news media recruiter not so many years ago.  The recruiter, in his early fifties, had come from Washington, DC to UT El Paso, where I teach journalism, to meet with our journalism students. We thought he was coming to talk about jobs and internships. Instead he lambasted me and my journalism colleagues for producing journalism graduates who “aren’t aggressive enough, do not speak up and refuse to leave home for jobs elsewhere.”

Old stereotypes linger among recruiters

While we were all too stunned to respond, his insensitive comments didn’t surprise me.