With support from community members like you, Watershed Voice raised $30,000 through NewsMatch in 2023, joining 340 other INN Network newsrooms in a collaborative fundraising campaign to support #nonprofitnews.
Journalism
With the recent passing of Dr. John K. Hartman, a professor who impacted Alek and Doug‘s lives and a great many others, the Keep Your Voice Down hosts decided to honor Hartman with a special episode. Fellow Central Michigan University alums Chad Livengood (Detroit News Politics Editor) and Steve Coon (CMU instructor, Grand Central Magazine advisor) join Alek and Doug to reflect on the life and impact of a truly great journalistic mind, and a loving friend, mentor, husband, and father.
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Charlotta Bass is believed to be the first African-American woman to own and operate a newspaper in the United States, and was the first African-American woman nominated for vice president.
At the top of this week’s episode Alek and Doug address Monday’s troubling news that teachers within the Three Rivers Community Schools system were asked to remove Pride flags in their classrooms in response to an “external challenge” by an unidentified party.
The hosts of Keep Your Voice Down are also joined by Sarah Lee, Director of Marketing Communications at the Kalamazoo Community Foundation. The trio discusses Sarah’s role at KZCF, her upbringing in Malaysia and how she became deeply rooted in Kalamazoo, the importance of being “equity-minded” when addressing matters of social and racial injustice, the foundation’s efforts to support local journalism, and the story behind the formation of the Southwest Michigan Journalism Collaborative.
Doug and Alek are joined by Michigan Advance Editor-in-Chief Susan J. Demas to discuss her recent column about the current state of affairs as it pertains to the COVID-19 pandemic, journalistic niceties, the shift in the way journalists operate amid an ultra polarized political climate, access journalism, and the highs and lows of mountain climbing (see what we did there?)
Doug and Alek are joined by former Central Michigan University classmate and friend Eric Dresden to discuss his 2019 cancer diagnosis, what he has in common with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and why he left the field of journalism after serving as Central Michigan Life’s editor-in-chief in college and working for publications like The Arizona Republic, Big Rapids Pioneer, and The Flint Journal.
In honor of Sunshine Week, Julie Stafford, president of the Michigan Press Association (MPA) Board of Directors and publisher of the Greenville Daily News, writes about why the idiom “No news is good news” is rarely true, and why good journalism is critical to democracy and a functioning society.
Aundrea Sayrie details the life and accomplishments of investigative journalist and feminist icon Nellie Bly as part of WSV’s “Badass Women” series.