NEW YORK (October 8) – Feet in Two Worlds, a cross-platform media project of the Center for New York City Affairs at New School University, is helping ethnic and immigrant journalists expand the reach of their reporting, and bring new perspectives to public debate on critical issues facing the City.
A two-year matching grant of $92,500 was made to The New York Community Trust by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for the project. The Trust is providing an additional $80,000, with other private sources completing the match.
“Ethnic and immigrant communities remain unfamiliar to and isolated from mainstream, native-born communities, and from one another,” said John Rudolph, executive producer of Feet in Two Worlds. “Opinions and perceptions of important issues vary radically across ethnic and cultural line—yet these lines are often crossed only in the heat of crisis, rather than in the everyday life of the City. And, too often, the experiences of immigrants are described in the English-language press only by people looking in from the outside.”
Feet in Two Worlds is providing training seminars and networking events for 20 City journalists employed at outlets such as El Diario La Prensa, Nowy Dzienik (the Polish Daily Newspaper), and The Pakistani Newspaper. Stories published by these journalists will appear on news.feetintwoworlds.org, and a smaller group of journalists is learning how to produce segments for public radio.
“As a city of immigrants, we have prided ourselves for our ability to embrace newcomers from all over the world and the unique contributions they make to New York’s cultural, social, and economic life,” said Pat Swann, senior program officer at The New York Community Trust. “But the recent discourse on the proposed Islamic cultural center in the Financial District has been anything but civil and is a symptom of fissures that are created when there has been little dialogue. We think that this project will contribute to increased conversations among the City’s residents and better understanding.”
The Knight Foundation grant is part of the Knight Community Information Challenge, a five-year, $24 million initiative to help community and place-based foundations invest in news and information projects.
“The New York Community Trust and other foundations like it are at the front line of an increasing movement of place-based foundations to improve the information health of America’s communities,” said Alberto Ibargüen, president and CEO of Knight Foundation. “Their work helps residents have the information they need to make important decisions about their communities. Ultimately, our democracy will only thrive if we have informed and engaged communities.”
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The New York Community Trust
Contact: Ani Hurwitz, VP of communication, 212 686-0010 x 224, [email protected] Since 1924, The New York Community Trust has been the community foundation of the New York metropolitan area, an aggregate of 2,000 funds created by charitable individuals, families, and corporations to improve the quality of life for all the area’s residents. Grants made from these funds meet the changing needs of children, youth, and families; aid in community development; improve the environment; promote health; assist people with special needs; and support education, arts, and human rights. In 2009, The Trust made grants of $123 million from assets of $1.7 billion. Find out more at www.nycommunitytrust.org.
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Contact: Marc Fest, VP for communication, 305 908-2677, [email protected] The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation advances journalism in the digital age and invests in the vitality of communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. Knight Foundation focuses on projects that promote community engagement and lead to transformational change. For more, visit www.knightfoundation.org. For more about the Knight Community Information Challenge, visit www.informationneeds.org.
Feet in Two Worlds
Contact: Andrew White, Director, Center for New York City Affairs at The New School, 212 229-5400 x 1506 or [email protected] Feet in Two Worlds is a multimedia news and information project as well as a training program that promotes direct, skillful participation of immigrant journalists in the political, social, cultural and economic life of New York and other US cities. Through public radio and the web, Feet in Two Worlds offers a valuable window into the lives of urban immigrant communities and brings new voices into discussions of immigration, globalization and transnational culture. More information can be found at news.feetintwoworlds.org and www.centernyc.org.