Upcoming Webinars: Mental Health in Media, Disinformation

Wed., May 25 - Mental health in media

What: A discussion of mental health portrayals on-screen.

Who: Various industry leaders.

When: 10 am, Pacific

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: USC Annenberg School of Journalism

More info

Sat., June 5 - How to Cover Race Workshop

THIS EVENT IS NO LONGER SCHEDULED

Fri., June 10 - Facts in a Time of Fiction: Reporting the truth amid lies and disinformation

What: How misinformation and lies spread after the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, along with insights on how conspiracy theories grow.

Who: New York Times writer and author Elizabeth Williamson, whose critically-acclaimed book “Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth” offered on-the-ground reporting to trace a line from conspiracy theories around Sandy Hook to Jan. 6, 2021.

When: 11:30 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: National Press Club Journalism Institute

More info

Bias in the Judicial System

When it comes to bail, for instance, you might hope the judges were able to look at the whole case together, carefully balancing all the pros and cons before coming to a decision. But unfortunately, the evidence says otherwise. Instead, psychologists have shown that judges are doing nothing more strategic than going through an ordered checklist of warning flags in their heads. If any of those flags — past convictions, community ties, prosecution's request — are raised by the defendant story, the judge will stop and deny bail. 

The problem is that so many of those flags are correlated with race, gender and educational level. Judges can’t help relying on intuition more than they should; and in doing so, they are unwittingly perpetuating biases in the system. 

Hannah Fry, Hello World

Disney Princess theology

White Christianity suffers from a bad case of Disney Princess theology. As each individual reads Scripture, they see themselves as the princess in every story. They are Esther, never Xerxes or Haman. They are Peter, but never Judas. They are the woman anointing Jesus, never the Pharisees. They are the Jews escaping slavery, never Egypt. For the citizens of the most powerful country in the world, who enslaved both Native and Black people, to see itself as Israel and not Egypt when it is studying Scripture, is a perfect example of Disney princess theology. And it means that as people in power, they have no lens for locating themselves rightly in Scripture or society- and it has made them blind and utterly ill equipped to engage issues of power and injustice. It is some very weak Bible work.      

Erna Kim Hackett