Honoring the Life and Work of Danny Schechter

Danny Schechter with daughter Sarah

"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.

Checks should be sent to:

The Global Center
PO Box 677
New York, NY 10035

Danny Schechter (1942-2015), Journalist, Filmmaker, Author and Activist

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.

Danny Schechter was not only a radio host and filmmaker, but also an active blogger and author of 17 books. Among his books, he released the following with Cosimo: Plunder, Investigating our Economic Calamity and the Subprime Scandal, which was released in September, 2008 and was one of the first books describing the financial crisis that had just started to destroy jobs and the economy in the U.S. and Europe. His other books include, Blogothon: Reflections and Revelation from the News Dissector; and Occupy: Dissecting Occupy Wall Street. He wrote introductions to the classic The History of the Standard Oil Company by muckraker Ida Tarbell and to the U,S. government's The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report. Danny last book When South Africa Called, We Answered - How the Media and International Solidarity Helped Topple Apartheid was released in February on the same day, when he celebrated his 're-birthday", an event I was honored to be present at and when I had hoped that he had recovered from his serious illness.

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.

Blogger Rory O'Connor Praises New Book by Danny Schechter

Hey, you all remember Rory O'Connor? He's a journalist and a blogger and recently held a virtual book tour for his new book, Friends, Followers and the Future: How Social Media are Changing Politics, Threatening Big Brands and Killing Traditional Media.

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.

Rory O'Connor's Virtual Book Tour

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.

Check it out!