On the road to study the state of hate in the U.S. today, five journalists from the Phoenix-based Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University passed through Perry on the Fourth of July and found only love — and fireworks![wpedon id=”85410″ align=”left”]
Perry’s five visitors were part of Carnegie-Knight News21, a reporting collaborative of about 40 journalists who “are reporting on racial and religious-based hate and taking a deeper dive into hate perpetrated online, on college campuses or against Native Americans and those in the LBGTQ community,” according to the program’s website.
Hate crimes have increased since the November 2016 election, according to reports from the FBI, and haters are vandalizing more synagogues and mosques, physically attacking more members of the LGBTQ and Native American communities and threatening more violence on college campuses than ever before.
The News21 journalists are trying to find out why the U.S. is experiencing a spike in hate by looking into hate crime laws in every state and analyzing public perception and tolerance of certain races and religions over time through data.
They are also crossing the country for in-depth, on-the-ground reports. Perry’s News21 crew left Phoenix and traveled to Tahoe, Nev., and on through Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska and now to Perry, Iowa, day nine of their roadtrip.
The Fourth of July brought the news reporters to Perry, where they covered the parade and the day’s festivities at Pattee Park. Everyone agreed that only Perry Pride and pure positivity were to be found.[wpedon id=”85410″ align=”left”]
The journalists visiting Perry for the Independence Day holiday were:
- Penelope Blackwell, a senior in multimedia journalism at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Md.
- Brandon Bounds, a senior journalism major at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kent State University.
- Catherine Devine, a journalism graduate from Dublin City University and a digital channel editor at Independent News and Media in Dublin, Ireland.
- Lenny Martinez Dominguez, a master’s student at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.
- Alex Lancial, a master’s graduate in mass communication from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.
Readers can follow the travels and reports of the News21 team on Twitter at #thestateofhate and on their Hate in America blog.
The Carnegie-Knight News21 is a national reporting initiative headquartered at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Phoenix, Ariz. The News21 program brings top journalism students from across the country to report and produce in-depth, multimedia projects for major media outlets, including the Washington Post, NBC News and USA Today.
The Carnegie Corp. of New York and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation joined forces in 2005 to launch News21 as a cornerstone of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education.
Core support for the News21 program comes from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Individual journalists are supported by their universities as well as a variety of foundations, news organizations and philanthropists, including the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, Hearst Foundations, Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, International Ireland Funds, the Arizona Republic, the Dallas Morning News, Myrta J. Pulliam, John and Patty Williams and Louis A. “Chip” Weil.
Great parade and events at Pattee Park and a great fireworks show, but my question is what will it ever take to get the Perry High School marching band in the parade? Other communities have their high school bands in their parades, such as the belltower festival in Jefferson and the sweet corn days in Adel. There have been promises in the past that the marching band would participate, but it never happens. What will it take to make it happen? The drum ensemble was okay, but we need the entire band!
Thank you for the excellent story and photos of the News21 team! They enjoyed their stay in Perry.
From their website: “The fellows’ work on ‘Hate in America’ will be published at hateinamerica.news21.com at the end of the summer, and by dozens of news organizations.” I look forward to reading their observations!