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Panel Discussion | Social Media, Politics, and the Fourth Estate
This event consisted of a panel, including those in the fields of journalism, communication strategy and politics. These panelists discussed the intersection of and tensions between journalism and the political sphere. The panel is followed by a question and answer session, in which the audience had a chance to interact with the panelists by asking them questions.
The purpose of this event is to consider the ever-fluctuating relationships between social media, politics and reporting. As we look toward the 2020 election, and as we see shifts in how political information is relayed to the public through the use of social media, we see fake news might not be the only issue facing reporting today.
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Author Event | Cecile Richards Discusses Her Book "Make Trouble: Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead"
Cecile Richards has been an activist since she was taken to the principal’s office in seventh grade for wearing an armband in protest of the Vietnam War. Richards had an extraordinary childhood in ultra-conservative Texas, where her civil rights attorney father and activist mother taught their kids to be troublemakers. She had a front-row seat to observe the rise of women in American politics and watched her mother, Ann, transform from a housewife to an electrifying force in the Democratic party.
As a young woman, Richards worked as a labor organizer alongside women earning minimum wage, and learned that those in power don’t give it up without a fight. She experienced first-hand the misogyny, sexism, fake news, and the ever-looming threat of violence that constantly confront women who challenge authority.
Now, after years of advocacy, resistance, and progressive leadership, she shares her “truly inspiring” (Redbook) story for the first time—from the joy and heartbreak of activism to the challenges of raising kids, having a life, and making change, all the while garnering a reputation as “the most badass feminist EVER” (Teen Vogue).
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Archivist Bill McNitt on President Gerald R. Ford
Join us as archivist and President Gerald R. Ford specialist Bill McNitt discusses Ford and his legacy.
In 1965, U. S. Representative Gerald R. Ford began donating his papers to the Bentley Historical Library. After President Richard Nixon appointed Congressman Ford as Vice President in 1973, the Library created a new staff position to arrange, rehouse, and describe the Ford Congressional Papers and selected Bill to fill it. When President Ford left the White House in 1977, Bill (and the Congressional Papers) moved to the Ford Presidential Papers Project, a precursor of the Ford Presidential Library. He spent much of his career there processing the extensive records of the Ford presidency, while also assisting researchers in using the collections, managing a major database indexing the holdings, and helping to launch a digitization project to make key documents available online.
Bill McNitt is a retired archivist whose career at the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library and then the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library of the National Archives and Records Administration spanned more than 40 years. He grew up in western Michigan and was quite familiar with the career of Gerald R. Ford from a very young age as the family lived in Ford’s congressional district and Bill’s father James had attended junior high school and high school with Ford. Bill majored in history as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan and began working as a student employee of the Michigan Historical Collections (now housed in the Bentley Historical Library) in 1969. He then earned master’s degrees from the University in both history and library science.
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MLK Day Event | A Conversation with Veterans for Peace
Should we have a military mainly for defense, or should we use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests? Before Dr. King’s tragic death, he spoke out more and more against government use of military over diplomacy and the use of armed forces in the routine policy of the state. For such actions, Dr. King was criticized heavily and to this day his thoughts on war still make people uncomfortable.
Veterans For Peace will discuss Dr. King's speeches relating to defense versus militarism, showing that they are as relevant today as they were 50 years ago.
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Speak Truth To Power
Join the Michigan Daily for the first in a series of panel discussions. In part one, "Speak Truth To Power: The Role of Journalism," panelists examine concerns of transparency and accountability in local institutions, with a particular focus on the role played by journalists and local news organizations.
A panel of esteemed, professional local journalists discuss these topics:
David Jesse, the higher education reporter for the Detroit Free Press, has covered the state’s two-year and four-year colleges and universities for a decade. His work has focused on higher education finances, access and accessibility and sexual assault on campus. In the past year , he has broken major stories on the cover-up at Michigan State University following the Larry Nassar scandal. He, along with a reporting partner, have spent more than two years penetrating the secrecy around the University of Michigan’s $12 billion endowment. He has won dozens of national and state awards for his work. Prior to joining the Free Press, he worked for papers around the state of Michigan, including the Ann Arbor News.
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Legacies Project Oral History: Former U.S. Congressman John Dingell
John Dingell Jr. (D) served in the U.S. House of Representatives as part of the Michigan delegation from 1955-2015. His 60 years in office make him the longest serving member in the history of the House. A long-time member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, including 16 years as Chairman, Dingell was an advocate for environmental issues and a supporter of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Dingell was also the longest serving Dean of the House of Representatives. He passed away on February 7, 2019.
John Dingell was interviewed by students from Skyline High School in Ann Arbor in 2015-2016 as part of the Legacies Project.
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League of Women Voters: What's On Your Ballot?
A representative from the League of Women Voters presents non-partisan information about all of the statewide ballot proposals on the November 2018 ballot.
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Author Event | The Poisoned City: Anna Clark on the Flint Water Crisis
Anna Clark's new book is an account of the disastrous decisions that switched Flint, Michigan's water supply to a source that corroded the city's aging lead pipes—and the eighteen months of activism that finally forced the state government to admit that Flint's water had been poisoned with lead. In the first full account of this American tragedy, The Poisoned City recounts the gripping story of Flint’s poisoned water through the people who caused it, suffered from it, and exposed it. The Poisoned City is a chronicle of one town, but could also be about any American city, all made precarious by the neglect of infrastructure and the erosion of democratic decision making.
Anna Clark is a journalist living in Detroit. Her writing has appeared in ELLE Magazine, The New York Times, POLITICO Magazine, Next City, and other publications. She received the 2017 Excellence in Environmental Journalism award from the Great Lakes Environmental Law Council. Her writing was a “notable” pick in Best American Sports Writing 2012; a “best commentary” finalist from the 2015 Mirror Awards; and a 2016 first-place winner from SPJ-Detroit in online investigative reporting.
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Water 101 | City of Ann Arbor 2018 Sustainable Ann Arbor Forum
This forum is about the lifecycle of water in Ann Arbor. There is a video about extreme storms in Ann Arbor, presentations from some experts in the field, even a trivia game!
Sustainable Ann Arbor is an annual series presented by the City of Ann Arbor and hosted by the Ann Arbor District Library. The series includes four events held monthly through April, each with a focus on a different element of sustainability from Ann Arbor’s Sustainability Framework. This event is cosponsored by the City of Ann Arbor and details of the series will be posted online on The City of Ann Arbor's Sustainability site. For information and videos from current and past Sustainable Ann Arbor Forums, please visit the City’s Sustainability website.
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Civic Life in Ann Arbor | City of Ann Arbor 2018 Sustainable Ann Arbor Forum
This panel examines the health of our civic life in Ann Arbor. Mary Morgan, Founder of CivCity, moderates a panel about what it means to be an engaged citizen in a sustainable community, the importance of effecting change by focusing on the local level, and envisioning what civic life can mean in the age of social media.
- Moderator Mary Morgan, Executive Director of CivCity
- Neel Hajra, President and CEO of the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation
- Ashley Blake, Community Building Team Lead at Avalon Housing