Meet the press turning tragedy to triumph

By S. Mitra Kalita and Sara Lomax-Reese

Friends,

What a week.

Derek Chauvin was found guilty, the first time in Minnesota history a white police officer was convicted of killing a Black civilian on the job. The U.S. Senate passed a bill to speed up review of hate crimes, the first legislative action taken to protect people of Asian descent from attacks.

All progress comes against the tide of business as usual, though. The death of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant in Columbus and the death of Adam Toledo, 13, continue to draw protest and scrutiny. Meanwhile, vaccine inequity rears its head, in our communities and overseas. Covid-19 is surging in India, Brazil and other parts of Asia and Latin America. Places like Haiti have yet to see a single dose of vaccine.

URL Media was founded to shift our perspective on the news. We operate from a place of power, strength and triumph instead of victimization and surrender. Despite so much grim news, we’re heading into the weekend with that vibe.

Join us. Starting Sunday, we’re thrilled to announce that we’ll be collaborating with the Laura Flanders Show on PBS on a monthly basis. This is the first of many special media round-tables you're going to see featuring URL where Laura will literally hand over the mic to us. It’s our take on “Meet the Press” — but better. You’ll hear new voices and perspectives, from our partner networks and communities.

Watch the YouTube premiere with us this Sunday at 11:30am EST, and join us afterward for a Live Chat with all three of our guests: S. Mitra Kalita of Epicenter, Sara Lomax-Reese of WURD Radio and Cierra Hinton of Scalawag.

We’d love to hear what you think and how you’re processing this moment in our history. We’re thinking of a recent Scalawag headline: Freedom wasn’t given; it was seized.

Onward.

Mitra and Sara

URL Media hires Ariam Alula as Audience Manager

Ariam Alula (how to say it) brings a range of skills and interests to URL Media, including newsletter curation, audience strategy and research, and measuring and tracking impact. Most recently, she has consulted with several organizations in the journalism support space, including the Institute for Nonprofit News, the Public Square Team at Democracy Fund, Online News Association and Women Do News. She has also written for the American Press Institute’s Need to Know newsletter. Alula is also a proud graduate of the engagement journalism program at the Craig Newmark Journalism School at the City University of New York.

On my first mentor, Henry Fuhrmann

Senior Recruiter Sonali Kohli here. I want to talk to you this week about the joy of having and being a mentor, and the grief of losing a mentor. I want to talk to you in particular about Henry Fuhrmann, who was my first journalism mentor. Henry died earlier this month at the age of 65, a few years after entering semi-retirement. He had so much left. Henry and I met when I was an extremely eager (perhaps too eager) student at the University of California - Los Angeles [UCLA]. As an undergraduate, I went to the Los Angeles Times building downtown every chance I could — for everything from tours to events and panels. At one such panel, I met Henry, who was an assistant managing editor overseeing the copy desk. At our college newspaper, the Daily Bruin, we were grappling with a decision (remember that this was circa 2011): my editor and I wanted to honor a source's request to use they/them pronouns in a story, which we'd never done. Neither had the Los Angeles Times, yet. But Henry believed in respecting a person's identity and using language as a tool to do that. He told me that journalists must strive for accuracy, and it is reasonable to deduce that the name or pronouns a person uses for themselves are the most accurate. He supported our decision to respect the source's identity and then used the Bruin as an example when the LA Times had that conversation about pronouns not long after.

Meet Andaiye Taylor. She joins URL Media as our first-ever Editorial Director.

Andaiye brings a unique cross-section of professional experiences to the role. She joins URL Media from her own company, Angle Content, which helps companies and publications exceed their audience and customer acquisition goals through strategic content planning, production and distribution. Before that, Andaiye spent more than a decade working at high-performing ad tech startups in roles spanning account management, product management, and content strategy. And from 2013 to 2019 Andaiye ran her own hyperlocal publication, Brick City Live, which covered her beloved hometown of Newark, NJ.

The URL Media team is growing

We are thrilled to announce an addition to the URL Media team: Ellah Nze is our new Director of Operations. URL Media is a network of high-performing Black and Brown media outlets that share content and revenues; the company, launched in January 2021, also operates a growing recruitment, coaching and executive placement arm that centers diverse talent and excellence.

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