It was recently announced that the students involved in the Parkland, Florida school shooting and following activism, will be receiving the Danny Schechter Global Vision Award. Fourteen students and three staff members were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School as a result of a shooter, and the students launched the ‘Never Again’ movement and March for Our Lives protests. In honor of these brave teenagers who will be receiving the award, we wanted to highlight further reading from our dear friend and author, the late Danny Schechter.
About Danny Schechter
Danny Schechter was a writer, television producer, and independent filmmaker who also spoke about media and financial issues. He was the editor of Mediachannel.org and blogged daily as the News Dissector at NewsDissector.net. Schechter was the author of sixteen books and produced and directed more than thirty documentaries and television specials. His blog was named the 2009 "Blog of the Year" by the Hunter College Media Department of the City University of New York.
About The Danny Schechter Global Vision Award for Journalism The Global Center, a non-profit educational foundation dedicated to developing informative and socially responsible media and a new type of journalism in which the reporting of events and conditions is done in conjunction with those most affected by those events, is pleased to announce the creation of an annual award honoring the life and work of the late journalist, filmmaker and “News Dissector” Danny Schechter. The Danny Schechter Global Vision Award for Journalism will be given annually to a reporter who best emulates Schechter's practice of combining journalism with social activism and/or whose work is deserving of greater recognition and wider impact.
In addition to the award itself, which will be announced and promoted each year on or about Schechter's birthday of June 27th, each recipient will receive a check in the amount of $3000 to support future reporting. Recipients will be chosen by a panel including daughter Sarah Schechter and business partner Rory O'Connor.
As 2015 is just behind us, it's sad to acknowledge that during that year Cosimo has lost four very creative and innovative authors.
At the beginning of last year, we heard the sad news about the passing of Colin Bennett. Colin Bennett was a multi-talented individual, born in England in 1940, and wearing many different hats during his life: from studying science and mathematics, and being a professional musician, to returning to college to study English at Balliol College, Oxford and written several plays that performed on the professional stage in London, including the Royal Court Theatre.
In March, 2015, Danny Schechter, journalist, filmmaker, television producer, and author died after a battle with cancer. Danny Schechter was a unique personality, in person and professionally. Born in 1942 in New York, he epitomized the consummate New Yorker: engaged and engaging, socially active and vocal, and trying to make the world a better place. His media background started in the 1970s on the radio as "The News Dissector" at WBCN-FM in Boston, where he informed his listeners about the news infused with his typical sense of humor. Later on he joined CNN and ABC News, where he won two Emmy Awards. In 1988 he co-founded the production company Global Vision together with Rory O'Connor, where they produced many documentaries, including "South Africa Now", an award winning public television series. He wrote 17 books, of which quite a few with Cosimo, for example: Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity and the Subprime Scandal, one of the first books that came out just after the financial collapse in September, 2008. This book was based on his previous years of research, blogging, and his documentary In Debt We Trust where he already foresaw deep problems in the US economy.
In May 2015, Imre Somogy died: he was the co-author with his wife, Margriet of Reading Baby Toes. Imre Somogy was born in 1943 in Amsterdam, after which he lived in Belgium till he was 13 and then returned to the Netherlands. He started his career after military service, where he became a journalist and broadcaster with Dutch TV and radio. Besides his journalistic work, he studied and practised homeopathy, herbal- and natural healing. During those studies he and his wife developed a method to analyse behavior and personality based on the shape ad position of toes. He authored a few books on this knowledge, one of which was focused on baby toes. Since his retirement he lived in France, where he died after a long illness.
Rob Riggs
Last November 2015, Rob Riggs, a journalist and former publisher of a series of award-winning community newspapers in Texas, died. Rob Riggs had not only been a reporter and journalist but had been interested in paranormal phenomena since as a child he heard tales about them, including the Bigfoot mystery in his hometown in Big Thicket country, a heavily forested area in Southeast Texas. His studies of paranormal phenomena, which have taken him to West Texas, Mexico, New Mexico, Arizona, and as far abroad as India, have been featured in the Houston Chronicle and the Beaumont Enterprise. In 2001 Rob Riggs wrote In the Big Thicket : On the Trail of the Wild Man : Exploring Nature's Mysterious Dimension(Paraview Press, now part of Cosimo Books.) Noted cryptozoologist, Loren Coleman wrote the following about this book: "Rob Riggs book takes the reader on a wild tour through one of America's weirdest wonderlands. Riggs has produced a great collection on such Texan wonders as the Big Thicket's Wild Man."
In each of these four authors, we have lost unique human beings who contributed to their readers and followers, by explaining, informing and educating them about their expertise and the world around us as they saw it. Our thoughts at this time are with their families and friends, as well as with their readers, including ourselves at Cosimo, who will remember each of them for their lives and contributions.
"He's full of spirit and very expressive", those were the words Danny Schechter's mother, Ruth, wrote when he was still a toddler. Everyone who knew Danny Schechter as a journalist, filmmaker and author, will attest to this early and accurate description in his life: he was always full of spirit and never stopped expressing himself till his untimely death on March 17, 2015.
Last Saturday, June 27 - which was also Danny's birthday - my wife and I attended a celebration of his life in Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. The church was packed with friends and family from around the country and around the world, who had known Danny during one or more of his many chapters in life.
The celebration was kicked off with, for some, a bit of unusual music, the South African National Anthem, honoring Danny's close friendship with that country and his active role in its struggle against Apartheid, and was followed by an impressive number of speakers, such as his younger brother Bill who spoke about their childhood in the Bronx and their colorful family background as grandchildren of Russian immigrant grandparents. Other speakers who followed spoke about his fight for civil rights - from the US civil rights movement to South Africa and beyond -; his unique role at Boston radio station WBCN during the 1970s where he became known as "Danny Schechter, the News Dissector"; his multiple media activities with ABC and CNN, and later on independently as part of Globalvision with his longtime friend and business partner Rory O'Connor; and his role as loving son of his parents and father to his daughter Sarah.
A brief own view of his life was presented in this video, "Danny Schechter - In His Own Words"
In between the tributes, his friend Nenad Bach, a Croatian performer and peace activist, performed the following song, " Everything is Forever"
As I come closer to the end of this post, let me dedicate two memorable songs to Danny Schechter. The first is "Sun City", performed by Artists United Against Apartheid founded by Steven Van Zandt in 1985. Danny Schechter, who had met Van Zandt at that time and became instrumental in the production of "Sun City", had suggested the song to be different from "We are the World" to be "about change, not charity, freedom, not famine"
Then the last song is "Danny Boy" performed by Roy Orbison, a song Danny had selected to be part of a compilation he created with his musical partner, Polar Levine, in January of this year. This is what he then wrote for this collection:
"When I was diagnosed with a serious cancer in 2014, one of my first purchases was a new turntable to find comfort in some of the music that made up the soundtrack for a life now at risk. I realized how important it was to me.........I wanted to give something back - to my many friends - by sharing some of the many songs that influenced me, kept me dancing and echoed my joy and outrage........These are the tracks of my hope. Danny Schechter, January 2015 "
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During this celebration service, two ways to honor Danny Schechter were presented. I call upon readers of this blog, of Danny's books, and followers of his films and other work to consider donating to one or both of these causes to honor his work, his life and his legacy:
A Civil Right Memorial and History Project at Cornell University A Civil Rights Memorial at
Cornell University to preserve the memory of Michael Schwerner, James
Chaney and Andrew Goodman and the commitment of the Cornell students,
like Danny, who went south before or during the Freedom Summer in 1964.
In addition to the memorial, Danny helped create a fund to provide
financial support to students who volunteer to do social justice work.
The Danny Schechter Global Vision Award for Journalism The Global Center, a non-profit educational foundation dedicated to developing informative and socially responsible media and a new type of journalism in which the reporting of events and conditions is done in conjunction with those most affected by those events, is pleased to announce the creation of an annual award honoring the life and work of the late journalist, filmmaker and “News Dissector” Danny Schechter. The Danny Schechter Global Vision Award for Journalism will be given annually to a reporter who best emulates Schechter's practice of combining journalism with social activism and/or whose work is deserving of greater recognition and wider impact.
In addition to the award itself, which will be announced and promoted each year on or about Schechter's birthday of June 27th, each recipient will receive a check in the amount of $3000 to support future reporting. Recipients will be chosen by a panel including daughter Sarah Schechter and business partner Rory O'Connor.
An anonymous donor has already contributed $15,000 to ensure that the award is fully funded for its first five years. Those interested in contributing further can make tax-deductible donations to The Global Center, an IRS-certified 501 (c) (3) foundation that is acting as fiscal sponsor for the award.
It's with deep sadness that I have to announce that Danny Schechter, journalist, filmmaker, television producer, Cosimo author and friend died on March 19, 2015 after a battle with cancer.
Danny Schechter was a unique personality, in person and professionally. His media background started in the 1970s on the radio as "The News Dissector" at WBCN-FM in Boston, where he informed his listeners about the news infused with his typical sense of humor. In 1980, he joined CNN, the cable news network that just had been founded by Ted Turner, and later on he was a producer with the ABC News magazine 20/20, where he won two Emmy Awards. Independent-minded as he was, in 1988 he co-founded the production company Global Vision together with Rory O'Connor, where they produced many documentaries, including "South Africa Now", an award winning public television series.
Danny's passion always was on the crossroads of media and human rights: he reported on how the mass media informed or rather misinformed on many topics. He had maintained that the media were critical to a well-run democracy, but over the years realized that the media were no longer a solution to the problems in the world, but part of the problem. Danny also covered some of the major issues of our times: from the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and the civil war in Bosnia, to civil rights in the U.S., the debt crisis in this century with his film "In Debt We Trust: America before the Bubble Burst" and the Occupy Wall Street movement.
I met Danny early this century during a conference, where I was impressed with his freshness of views on the media landscape in the U.S., and when he criticized the news media had become entertainment rather than information gathering entities. To me what made Danny so credible in his media criticism was that he had seen it all as an insider of the corporate media, and as an independent media pioneer. In 2004, I interviewed Danny in The Media: Weapons of Mass Deception. Re-reading that interview today shows both how visionary Danny was in his views on the state of the media and the state of democracy and also how eleven years later, things have hardly improved, to the contrary.
Danny Schechter was unique and nearly peerless, in that he bridged the experience of corporate and independent media. He combined his experience of a professional journalist with the passion and rebelliousness of an activist. He also bridged the era of when the networks were still all-important, which he understood so well, to the current times of new and social media, which he embraced wholeheartedly. This unique combination is rare among other leading journalists, and for that alone he will be sorely missed. On a more personal note, Danny lived in Chelsea, around the corner of our Cosimo office, and over the years I frequently met him for lunch or for a drink at the end of the day. We discussed the latest news and how mainstream media again failed to inform their audiences on what happened and why did it happen. We at Cosimo will miss Danny's writings and personal engagement with his publishing projects, and I personally will miss our conversations and his insights. He had so many ideas and observations: he died too soon.
See here for Facebook memorial page for Danny Schechter.
In this book, Schechter describes the crucial role media played in anti-apartheid achieving worldwide recognition, which enabled outsiders to support the anti-apartheid movement. In Schechter's view, it were ultimately the joint efforts by leaders like the late Nelson Mandela, freedom fighters, activists and media that led to the downfall of apartheid in South Africa.
When South Africa Called, We Answered is an inspiring and educational read for those interested in the role of the media in historic world events, the history of South Africa, journalism, and activism that mobilizes people for the greater good.
About the Author
Danny Schechter is a writer, television producer, and independent filmmaker who also speaks about media and financial issues. He is the editor of Mediachannel.org and blogs daily as the News Dissector at NewsDissector.net. Schechter is the author of sixteen books and has produced and directed more than thirty documentaries and television specials. His blog was named the 2009 "Blog of the Year" by the Hunter College Media Department of the City University of New York.
As South Africa just celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of apartheid, author and award-winning journalist, Danny Schechteris back with a new book, and Cosimo is proud to announce the release of When South Africa Called, We Answered: How the Media and International Solidarity Helped Topple Apartheid In this book, Schechter describes the crucial role media played in anti-apartheid achieving worldwide recognition, which enabled outsiders to support the anti-apartheid movement. In Schechter's view, it were ultimately the joint efforts by leaders like the late Nelson Mandela, freedom fighters, activists and media that led to the downfall of apartheid in South Africa. With When South Africa Called, We Answered, Schechter shows he is not only a media veteran known for his work on radio, television, books and blogs, but is truly an expert on South Africa and apartheid. His expertise is previously shown in his other works such as his earlier book Madiba A to Z: The Many Faces of Nelson Mandela (Seven Stories Press, November 2013), a story-telling biography of Nelson Mandela, and in his numerous documentaries about South Africa and apartheid, including Mandela in America.
In this book's Foreword, Tony Sutton (Editor of Coldtype in Toronto) aptly describes Schechter's role in South Africa: " Look back at the major events in South Africa during the final decades of the apartheid era and you'll keep coming across the name of Danny Schechter --- organizing, cajoling, pulling strings and reporting the truth that an evil regime would have preferred to hide from an often ignorant and uncomprehending outside world"
Also other well-known public figures and journalists have praised Schechter for his work on South Africa:
“Danny
Schechter's life-long involvement with the freedom movement in South Africa is
very well known and respected."
“Here is story-telling that is unique,
refreshing, and revealing, and the Nelson Mandela who emerges is someone you
will want to know. You will be both surprised by Mandela’s profoundly complex
personality and grateful for Danny Schechter’s creative journalism." — Bill Moyers, leading veteran journalist on Madiba A to Z.
Our book of the month for April is Blogothon: Reflections and Revelations from the News Dissector by Danny Schechter, also the author of Plunder: Investigating our Economic Calamity and the Subprime Scandal and Occupy: Dissecting Occupy Wall Street. In this revealing book, published just after the Occupy Wall Street campaigns across the United States, the News Dissector revisits ten years of American history, examining how the advent of blogging has altered how media is presented and interpreted.
Blogothon is the print collection of some of Schechter's best blog posts; read and learn about:
the importance of blogging as an alternative media
mainstream media and its lack of credibility in modern times
the influence of activists such as Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson on Occupy Wall Street
the ascent of Al Jazeera
the development and ongoing impact of the financial crisis
increased partisanship and polarization in U.S. politics
A fascinating read for fans of the News Dissector blog, aspiring bloggers, and anyone interested in a first-hand account of history as it unfolded, Blogothon is not only a commentary on modern U.S. history, it is a piece of it. Blogothon is available at most online bookstores and as an ebook from Kindle, Nook and Google Play. This month ONLY, it is available for a great price as an ebook from Rekiosk discounted from $17.99 to only $4.99! Get it while you can!
At the eve of President's Obama televised speech to the American people, developments on the "ground" about Syria appear to be changing dramatically. Russia has made a proposal today to avoid a U.S. military strike on Syria by having international monitors take control of the Syrian government’s chemical weapons, while Syria's foreign minister Walid al-Moallem welcomed this proposal. This may turn out to be just a ploy to play for time or it might offer the Obama administration an unexpected way out of this political and diplomatic mess. Whichever it is, it's causing confusion in Washington: the U.S. Senate postponed a vote authorizing an attack, and President Obama's speechwriters will be having a hard time coming up with a speech that will be truthful, up-to-date, and effective. One can also wonder what effective would mean in this increasingly complicated war game.
Against the backdrop of the developments in Syria crisis, Danny Schechter, filmmaker, Cosimo author, media critic, aka the News Dissector wrote an article on the disinformation website (published before Russia's proposal became public), titled: Financial Crisis and Impending War Are Converging As Failed Policies Become Self-Fulfilling Prophecies. In this article, Schechter is making an interesting connection about the convergence of two events, the Syria crisis and the upcoming anniversary of 9/11 on the one hand, and on the other hand the anniversary of the financial crisis. Schechter says:
"And, then, there’s the anniversary of the financial crisis which all the military bang-bang is sure to drive off the front pages even as New York Times economist Paul Krugman noted Friday:
“In a few days, we’ll reach the fifth anniversary of the fall of Lehman Brothers — the moment when a recession, which was bad enough, turned into something much scarier. Suddenly, we were looking at the real possibility of economic catastrophe.
And the catastrophe came.”....
.....You can be sure that Obama does not intend to speak about the economic crisis next Tuesday, because he has no real answer to Krugman’s indictment of failed economic policies. One of the architects of that policy, Larry Summers is apparently about to be appointed to head the Federal Reserve Bank for TEN years, despite his pathetic record, with Obama’s support."
Danny Schecter sat down with reKiosk to discuss the digital age, the effect monitoring information has on us, the digital communication monopolies, and traditional media.
In his recent article for the The Buffalo News, Mark Sommer discusses renowned journalist, blogger, and Cosimo author, Danny Schechter. Sommer explains that Schechter is a distinguished voice in the world of journalism not only because of his multiple platforms (blogs, news, documentaries, and books), but because of his unique perspective which offers a "counter-narrative" to the issues of the day.
In recent years, Schechter – dubbed “Danny Schechter the News Dissector" during his days as news director at WBCN in Boston, in the days of underground rock radio – has been a tireless voice for reform of Wall Street and corporate-owned media, subjects that figure heavily in his 15 books and 30 documentaries. The former Emmy award-winning producer for ABC’s “20/20” has for the past 11 years also continued to present a counternarrative to the conventional wisdom of the day through a daily blog at www.newsdissector.net.
Cosimo is also excited to announce that Schechter's Occupy was listed as a getAbstract Best Book. getAbstract.com also offers an extensive summary of the book online.
Yesterday, September 17, was the anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement. News outlets, such as Yahoo! News, noted that the turnout was underwhelming and that police nipped things in the bud almost immediately. Read Danny's take on the first anniversary of #OWS and catch his follow up in today's blog post. Of course, you can also check out his play-by-play of the movement during it's heyday in his book, Occupy: Dissecting Occupy Wall Street.
Danny Schechter, the News Dissector, and author of Occupy: Dissecting Occupy Wall Street, has
been interviewed by the Iranian Tehran Times, covering multiple
issues. From the role of the media in covering the Middle East, to their role
in the run up to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the White House and
Wikileaks, and much more. Schecher is also frank in his views of Occupy Wall
Street; yes, "it succeeded in making the issue of the 99% versus the 1 %
big news in a media dominated culture" and no, "it hasn't succeeded
in making change." You can read the complete interview online. If you're interested in reading more of Danny's ideas on Occupy and the media, check out his new books, Blogothon: Reflections and Revelations from the News Dissector, and Occupy, now also available as a NookBook.
Danny, known popularly as the News Dissector, has long commented on social protests and the ills of Wall Street and the big banks. He predicted the burst of the housing bubble and the collapse of the economy with his book Plunderand the follow-up documentary, Plunder, The Crime of Our Time. He regularly visits South Africa and wrote about the reform that was needed in that country on his blog and in Blogothon. The point is, he has long history of being interested in social and economic reform, the evidence of which can be seen in his many blog posts and articles.
So it's safe to say that Danny knew what he was talking about when he reviewed and participated in the Occupy Wall Street protests that took place last fall and winter. Occupy is a collection of blog posts and articles from September through December of 2011, when Occupy Wall Street was at the height of its campaign. Danny studies how the movement started, what it did well, and how it could improve. He was well-placed to do so, considering his background working with other political reform movements like the March on Washington and Spain's "Tahrir Square" in Madrid's Puerta Del Sol in June of last year.
Occupy is an interesting and in-depth study of the inner-workings of a movement created by regular citizens who just want to make a difference. You can read the press release for more details and check out the ebook version for only $7.99.
Danny Schechter is a writer, television producer, and independent
filmmaker who also speaks about media and financial issues. He is the editor of
Mediachannel1.org and blogs daily as the News Dissector at NewsDissector.net.
Schechter is the author of fourteen books and has produced and directed more
than thirty documentaries and television specials. His blog was named the 2009
“Blog of the Year” by the Hunter College Media Department of the City
University of New York. You can follow him on Twitter at @dannyschechter and @DISSECTOREVENTS.
Well, Mr. O'Connor has written a rather raving review of Danny's new book, Blogothon. Blogothon analyzes the media and its treatment of major events and persons over the last several years, much in the way O'Connor dissects the effects of social media on the traditional media landscape. If you're a fan of Rory or Danny or both, you should check out the review and then their books.
Danny Schechter has been busy lately, promoting his new books, talking about the upcoming election, the economy, and in general forcing us all to pay attention to what's really going on in the world.
In case you haven't gotten your media fix, here are two more offerings from Mr. Schechter. The first is an article he posted last week to the Huffington Post about money's influence in politics, particularly on election campaigns.Check it out for the scoop on how Republican and Democratic candidates are using--and making--those bucks.
Second is a radio interview about Danny's new book, Blogothon: Reflections and Revelations from the News Dissector, on AM 1510's Revolution Boston. You can download and listen to the entire interview here.
Be sure to stay tuned next week for more info about Danny's new book!
If you're interested in social media, or media in general, and like Danny Schechter's work, then you should check out a virtual book tour by Rory O'Connor TONIGHT, at 7pm EST/4pm PST. You can see all the details and sign up here.
O'Connor will be discussing his new book, Friends, Followers and the Future: How Social Media are Changing
Politics, Threatening Big Brands and Killing Traditional Media. He'll
explain the trends in social media and explore what tech visionaries,
media makers, political advisers, and businesspeople are saying about
the meteoric rise of the various social networks.
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