“The subject matter is so much more important than the photographer.”

— Gordon Parks

Gordon Parks, a largely self-taught photographer, musician, novelist and film director, is best remembered for his photo essays that chronicled the African-American experience.

Born in Fort Scott, Kan., and raised in a segregated school system, Parks experienced racism at an early age. When he moved to Chicago, he aimed to become a freelance photographer and share some of the injustice he experienced.

Parks combined a devotion to documentary realism with a knack for making his own feelings self-evident. The style he favored was derived from the Depression-era photography project of the Farm Security Administration (FSA), which he joined on a fellowship at the age of 30.

His most famous photo is from 1942, “American Gothic.” The photo shows a black woman, Ella Watson, who worked on the cleaning crew for the FSA building, standing stiffly in front of an American flag, a broom in one hand and a mop in the background. Parks had been inspired to create the picture after being repeatedly denied service that very day in Washington, D.C., shops.

After the FSA disbanded, Parks became Life magazine’s first African-American staff photographer. He worked there for more than 20 years, specializing in subjects relating to racism, poverty and black urban life. Parks also dabbled in film and music. He performed as a jazz pianist and even directed the 1971 film “Shaft,” as well as its sequel.

Parks died of cancer at the age of 93.

INDIANAPOLIS — Farm Aid is partnering with Centerplate, the hospitality and culinary hosts of Super Bowl XLVI, to bring fans at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis a Super Bowl first: HOMEGROWN Chili. With three varieties — organic vegetarian chili, beef chili and pork chili — this marks the first time that HOMEGROWN Concessions^® or an organic concessions item will be sold in the history of the Super Bowl.

“Farm Aid knows family farmers. Our mission is to make sure you do, too,” said Farm Aid co-founder John Mellencamp. “Farm Aid is introducing football fans to family farmers by serving HOMEGROWN Chili at the Super Bowl. It’s good food from family farms, including some from right here in Indiana.”

In addition to bringing the story of family farm food to football fans, HOMEGROWN Chili sales at the Super Bowl will benefit Farm Aid and family farmers. Centerplate will donate $2 to Farm Aid for every bowl of HOMEGROWN Chili sold.

“We’re proud to stand side by side with Farm Aid, local family farmers and Indiana icon John Mellencamp in their mission to create thriving family farms. And we’re thrilled they’re working with us to create a true Heartland Experience for fans,” says Centerplate CMO Bob Pascal. “With this HOMEGROWN program, Centerplate is raising the bar for local partnership and, with the first-ever organic concessions item at the Super Bowl, we’re setting a new standard for healthy and organic hospitality.”

The HOMEGROWN dishes at Super Bowl XLVI are:

1. HOMEGROWN Beef Chili, featuring hormone- and antibiotic-free beef from regional organic beef producers as well as from Patty Reding of Langeland Farms in Greensburg, Ind. The tomatoes are grown in the Midwest and processed in Indiana. The onions, celery, peppers and garlic are organic.
2. HOMEGROWN Pork Chili, featuring hormone- and antibiotic-free pork from Stanley and Evan Hall of Hall Farms in Paoli, Ind. The garlic and oil are organic.
3. HOMEGROWN Organic Vegetarian Chili, featuring organic beans from the Fields of Agape Cooperative in Carthage, Ind. The onions, celery, garlic, carrots, peppers and oil are also organic.

HOMEGROWN Chili recipes will be made available at www.farmaid.org/homegrownchili so that fans at home can make their own HOMEGROWN Chili.

Interview Opportunities: Farm Aid staff, Centerplate representatives and Super Bowl XLVI chefs will be available for interviews. Please contact Maria Enie at 202.248.5460 or at menie@vancomm.com to coordinate.

Since 2007, Farm Aid’s annual concert has distinguished itself as the first major concert event to serve family farm food in concessions and backstage. More than 100,000 concertgoers have eaten HOMEGROWN food, from hot dogs and burgers to corn on the cob and fresh fruits from farmers markets. The success of HOMEGROWN Concessions^® proves that family farm food can supply food service and has the potential to open vast new markets for family farmers.

HOMEGROWN Concessions^® serves food that is sustainably produced by family farmers, identified as local and/or organic, or involving other ecological practices such as grass-fed or non-genetically engineered, while upholding a commitment to a fair price for farmers. Through existing supply chains and by leveraging Farm Aid’s relationships with family farmers, brands and cooperatives, HOMEGROWN’s culinary director identifies family farm ingredients and ways to integrate these ingredients into food service menus for entertainment events.

Introducing more healthful food choices and bringing local flavor to major events is an emerging trend in the hospitality and food service industry. Centerplate is at the forefront of this trend, and identified HOMEGROWN Concessions^® as a natural extension of its innovative approaches to improve the fan experience.

About Farm Aid

Farm Aid’s mission is to build a vibrant, family farm-centered system of agriculture in America that ensures farmers a fair living, strengthens our communities, protects our natural resources and delivers good food for all. Farm Aid artists and board members Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, Neil Young and Dave Matthews host an annual concert to raise funds to help farmers thrive and to promote good food from family farms. HOMEGROWN Concessions^® brings the experience of tasting good food from family farms into events and venues. Learn more at www.farmaid.org/homegrownchili.

About Centerplate

Centerplate crafts and delivers “Craveable Experiences. Raveable Results.” in over 250 prominent entertainment, sports and convention venues across North America, annually serving over 100 million guests. Centerplate has provided event hospitality services to 15 official U.S. Presidential Inaugural Balls, 12 Super Bowls, 20 World Series, the 2010 Winter Olympic Games and the largest plated dinner in history at the Alpha Kappa Alpha Centennial Celebration. The company was recently named the fastest growing hospitality group in the country by Nation’s Restaurant News. Visit the company online at www.centerplate.com.

CONTACT:

Maria Enie
(202) 248-5460
menie@vancomm.com

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Source: Poynter.com

The news was quickly picked up locally and nationally by other outlets, including CBS Sports, which tweeted the story and published an obituary of Paterno without attribution.

Around 9 p.m. that same night, a Paterno family spokesman made clear that the rumors around Paterno’s death were “absolutely not true.” Onward State and CBS Sports both made official retractions immediately following the family’s announcement Saturday night, but Onward State took it one step further.

At just 21 years old, Onward State Managing Editor Devon Edwards possessed the maturity to understand that a simple retraction was not enough. He published a personal apology letter on the publication’s website and Facebook page that is both well-written and genuine. The letter works because it is heartfelt, and he did not make excuses or place blame.

We can all learn something from Edwards. Thanks to social media tools like Twitter, every day brings headlines about crises, most of which immediately go viral. As professional communicators, we need to be as transparent as Devon Edwards in all of our communications–especially our apologies–in order to be effective.

Source: webster.edu

Think of inventors. Songwriters. Visual artists. WRITERS. Don’t you wish you would have thought of Post-Its®? Wrote “Jingle Bells?” Developed the storyline for the “Twilight” series? (That would be 3M, James Lord Pierpont, and Stephenie Meyer, respectively.) The medium for idea sharing may vary, but it all comes back to the creative process. When the result of that process generates a masterpiece, creators naturally want (and deserve) credit.

On Jan. 18, several major Internet sites blacked out their content for users in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and predictions were flying that another major blackout was planned for Jan. 23. The latter blackout didn’t pan out as predicted, but the Jan. 18 blackout made people pay attention to the issue. Seems a good time to revisit what’s both appropriate and required in giving credit in PR communications.

As you draft that brochure or conceive a campaign tagline, keep in mind that Plagiarism.org lists the following as conditions for committing plagiarism:

1) Turning in someone else’s work as your own

2) Copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit

3) Failing to put a quotation in quotation marks

4) Giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation

5) Changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit

6) Copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not

Similarly, citing your work — and doing so completely — is the responsibility of all communicators. If your heart is where it should be (directing readers to the original source for more information), then there’s really no excuse for sloppy citations. Dig deep, look up the exact page online, do whatever is required so that you can feel good about what you’ve contributed to the process.

“It is my firm belief that democracy will not lose hold as long as people really know what is going on, and the photographer has a very valuable part to do in showing what is going on.”

– Margaret Bourke-White

Margaret Bourke-White was a renowned photojournalist with a deep commitment to civil and political rights. Her work captured the poverty and discrimination of the South in the 1930s and the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust.

Bourke-White became Fortune magazine’s first photographer in 1929 when she documented the working conditions in Stalin’s Soviet Union. Six years later, she joined Life magazine, and her photo of the Fort Peck Dam graced the cover of the very first issue.

She is perhaps best known for her photos of foot soldiers, generals and the destruction resulting from World War II. Accompanying the U.S. troops that liberated Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany, she snapped some of the most difficult photos of her career. Her documentation of the atrocities of the Nazi regime gave Americans a look into the scale of human suffering that WWII caused.

After witnessing the horrors of war, Bourke-White focused much of her work on humanitarian issues. She covered Gandhi’s nonviolent independence campaign in India. In fact, she photographed him just hours before he was assassinated. Her coverage of African mine workers and apartheid in South Africa led one associate at Life to say, “Margaret Bourke-White’s social awareness was clear and obvious. All the editors at the magazine were aware of her commitment to social causes.”

Bourke-White developed Parkinson’s disease in 1956 and spent the rest of her life taking photographs and writing her autobiography. She died in 1971 at the age of 67.

Photo courtesy of acf_windy on Flickr

When we first posted about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) blackout protest scheduled for January 23, we had no idea that Wikipedia and Reddit (which had planned a January 18 blackout protest) would persuade other sites to join their effort yesterday. According to the Los Angeles Times, more than 10,000 sites participated in the SOPA protest by either making their sites inaccessible, or “blacked out”, on Wednesday or posting messages to encourage visitors to contact Congress about SOPA.

It appears their bold effort worked.

By the end of Wednesday, at least three lawmakers withdrew their support for the legislation – Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) withdrew as a co-sponsor of the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and Reps. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) and Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.) withdrew from SOPA, which is the House version of the bill. A few more may be added to that list this morning.

Google reports that at least 4.5 million people signed their online anti-SOPA petition during the protest. Even the White House received nearly 104,000 signatures on a We the People petition calling for President Obama to block passage of bills like SOPA and PIPA.

It is still too early for SOPA protesters to get excited, as support remains for PIPA and SOPA in the Senate and House, respectively. However, the success of the SOPA blackout protest thus far demonstrates how understanding your audience and using what they value to make them take action can spur policy change.

Internet users are constituents, and removing their access to content or interrupting their Web routines with SOPA and PIPA protest notices compelled them to get involved in the protest in their own way. It just goes to show that reaching your audiences where they are is an effective way for communicators to raise awareness and encourage action on an issue. Plus, it doesn’t hurt your cause if you get support from an opinion leader like Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

While time will tell if signatures to online petitions and increased calls and emails to Capitol Hill on Wednesday changed the outcome of the January 24 vote in favor of SOPA and PIPA protesters, it is already evident that the reach and response to yesterday’s Internet blackout will definitely impact it.

Flickr photo courtesy of Redjar

While I may not be able to foresee  the future, my media savvy crystal ball is suggesting that Monday, January 23, 2012 will be a very bad day for communicators. If you haven’t heard the troubling news already, Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Paypal and other major Internet websites will be staging an “Internet blackout” on January 23 to protest proposed federal legislation that will make them liable for lawsuits for content posted on their websites.

Congress is considering a new bill – called the Protect IP Act or Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) – which would allow companies to sue websites for posting protected content without permission, forcing the entire site to be shutdown. For example, if I posted a video on YouTube of my friend dancing at a party with our favorite Adele song playing in the background, if SOPA passes, the record company would be allowed to sue YouTube and force them to close their whole website. There will be a hearing on Tuesday, January 24, hence the reason for the scheduling of this online protest the day before.

It’s not clear how long these websites will keep their content and services offline on January 23; it could be a few hours to an entire day. For communicators, the uncertainty of the  Internet blackout means we need to find and plan for alternative ways to do our online-heavy tasks on January 23. It is rare for a public relations activity to not have at least Internet-related tactic that needs to be executed, so avoid scheduling events or releases for January 23; it will be a day that our normally big world will be smaller just to make us – and Congress – understand how dependent we are on the World Wide Web and social media.