University of Massachusetts Amherst: Journalism’s Kathy Roberts Forde Speaks at Opening of Center for Journalism & Democracy

Kathy Roberts Forde, professor of journalism and associate dean for equity and inclusion in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, participated in a panel discussion at the Democracy Summit at the Center for Journalism & Democracy at Howard University in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 15. The summit served as the opening celebration event for the center, which is led by founder Nikole Hannah-Jones, the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of “The 1619 Project” and the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard.

Forde’s panel, “The Call Is Coming from Inside the House,” focused on the past complicity of mainstream American news media in white supremacy and its echoes in contemporary coverage of events. Joining her in the discussion were Jodi Rave Spotted Bear, founder and executive director of the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa, anchor and executive producer of National Public Radio’s Latino USA.

The issues Forde and her fellow panelists discussed mirrored those she covered in her acclaimed recent book, “Journalism and Jim Crow,” which showed how white newspaper leaders actively helped build violent, white supremacist, near-totalitarian political and economic systems in American South from for generations following the Civil War.

Following the event, Forde tweeted, “How perfect that a storied Black institution, Howard University, is lighting the way, embracing the pro-democracy spirit that has animated the Black press since 1827, led by Nikole Hannah-Jones, whose spiritual godmother is Ida B. Wells, a model practitioner of pro-democracy journalism.”