Minding the Kids

April 25, 2012

Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day has become a national tradition. Does this popular event open doors for all kids?
 

March 27, 2012

Stories Can Change Lives. We at JCCF know this because we see it every year in the Casey Medal honorees whose reporting has a profound and lasting effect on the journalists themselves and the communities they cover. These stories often deal with very hard and complex issues: child deaths from abuse, neglect, illness or guns. Sadly, no story is powerful enough to bring back a child whose life was lost to a violent society, but their stories can serve as a wake-up call for personal and social change.

 

February 10, 2012

On this Valentine’s Day, in the name of love, I have a simple proposal: that journalists make a conscientious choice to end our use of the term “illegitimate child;” and that we take leadership by challenging others who say it in our newsrooms, online comments, or on air.

 

January 26, 2012

Next time there’s a State of the Union, I hope to bring together a bunch of kids and people who work on behalf of children, youth and families. Along with the obligatory pizza, we’ll watch the speech and take the pulse of this constituency. And, if the young folks are still awake (and not too bored out of their minds) we’ll ask them, “What did you hear that spoke to you?” And, inevitably we’ll debrief about what was not said, which important issues received little or no attention.

 

December 15, 2011

Amy Goodman, one of the nation’s most prominent advocacy journalists, has asserted that “the role of journalism is to go to where the silence is and say something.”
That semi-famous quote of hers has been echoing in my mind in recent weeks as our country has been gripped by the shocking case of alleged child rape and sexual abuse at Penn State and Syracuse University. Child sexual abuse feeds on silence. Child victims are usually threatened or shamed into silence; grown-ups have the power and as children, they may not be believed.
 

 

November 10, 2011

This is my first post as the new Director of the Journalism Center on Children and Families. I am honored and excited to be joining this important institution, and I am looking forward to hearing what you think would make the work of JCCF more relevant and meaningful to you.