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by Minister of Information JR Valrey
The San Francisco Bay View newspaper’s Community Journalism Program has completed its second session of the year and graduated three student journalists in the six week summer session: Chinyere Egu, Floyd Gordon and Taylor Zachary.
The purpose of the program is to train citizen journalists in the local Black community, using the neighborhood and newspaper instead of academia to do the teaching. The Black community needs journalists who can document what’s happening in our communities from our perspectives instead of perspectives that originate outside of our community – who in most cases have the interests of the system and the status quo.
We need politically educated journalists who are sensitive to the community’s pain and struggle. We also need journalists who are committed to the empowerment of the grassroots and can highlight collective and individual milestones, accomplishments, campaigns and efforts. That’s what was taught in the summer ‘23 edition, as well as last Spring’s edition of the Community Journalism Program.
“I received insight and got a political education on community based journalism, the history of prison and police abolition in the Bay, and Black liberation media tactics,” said graduate of the Community Journalism Program’s summer session Taylor Zachary.
The summer session of the Community Journalism program was held weekly on Mondays and Thursdays, for 2.5 hours, at the San Francisco Bay View newspaper’s office. I, JR Valrey, am the teacher for all of the sessions. There were two guest speakers in the summer session: filmmaker Kevin Epps and horticulturalist, cannabis and psilocybin educator Stephanie Mack.
“The guest speakers are what interested me the most, because we were able to see the various important topics that the Bay View covers ranging from historical film documentaries to using hallucinogenic as a form of therapy,” said summer Community Journalism Program graduate Floyd Gordon.
Students were paid a $25 transportation stipend for attending class and $75 in addition to that for every published piece. Once the student writers publish three articles, their pay per published article increases to $100. Their articles will be published in the San Francisco Bay View National Black newspaper upon completion.
The next session of the Community Journalism Program, for ages 17 and up will start on October 23. If you are interested, you can email jr@sfbayviewnews.wpenginepowered.com for more info and an interview.
JR Valrey, journalist, author, filmmaker and founder of Black New World Media, is also the editor in chief of the San Francisco Bay View newspaper. He teaches the Community Journalism class twice a week at the San Francisco Bay View newspaper office.
