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Journalists of Civil Rights Era and today to assess role of media in civil conflict

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A University of Richmond event Friday will host journalists to assess the role of media in civil conflict and the evolution of the role since the Civil Rights Movement.

The UR journalism department will present "Contested Spaces: Race, Media, and Journalism" as a part of the School of Arts & Sciences themed programming, Contested Spaces: Race, Nation, & Conflict.

The event aims to reflect on the 50th anniversary of the Kerner Report, a 1968 report tasked by President Lyndon Johnson that addressed the media and its role in instigating or mitigating civil conflict after a summer of race riots around the country the year before. Following the report, there was a call for more diversity in newsrooms in order for the media to be able to better communicate between conflicting segments of society.

“The themes of the report remain as relevant as ever,” said Shahan Mufti, journalism professor and panel moderator. “From a journalistic perspective, revisiting the report and applying it to the current political moment is a fruitful, much needed, exercise.”

The first panel of the day will be held from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. and will feature prominent African American journalists who joined newsrooms directly following the Kerner Report’s recommendations to increase diversity in newsrooms. They will discuss the climate of the newsroom and their experiences in it in the 1960s.

Panelists include:

• Maureen Bunyan, former news anchor, WTOP (now WUSA), Washington, D.C.
• Paul Delaney, former reporter, The New York Times
• Askia Muhammad, former editor-in-chief, Muhammad Speaks

The second panel will be held from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. and will feature journalists and media personalities who are Muslim or writing about Muslims in post-9/11 America. They will assess the evolution of the news media in productive engagement in civil conflict over the decades.

Panelists include:

• Wajahat Ali, contributing op-ed writer, The New York Times
• Hannah Allam, national reporter for BuzzFeed News
• Malika Bilal, Al-Jazeera English
• Carmel Delshad, editor and reporter at WAMU, Washington, DC

Both events will be held in Jepson Hall, Room 118. Registration is free but required and available at https://as.richmond.edu/about-school/programs/community/themed-years/race-media-journalism.html.

A reception also will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Brown-Alley Room in Weinstein Hall.