Our friends at explore.org have teamed up with this year's HATCHfest Asheville to award filmmakers who best showcase a group or individual hero striving for a better world. Winners will be flown to HATCHfest Asheville April 15-18th to receive the explore/Hatch Award, presented by explore.org founder and documentary filmmaker, Charles Annenberg Weingarten. Submissions are now open through March 25, so if you or someone you know has made a short film (20 minutes or less) about a cause that inspires others to make a difference, then submit now!

CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT OR LEARN MORE!

explore.org is a multimedia organization that documents the selfless individuals and leaders around the world who have devoted their lives to extraordinary causes. Visit explore.org.

The reproductive rights movement was shocked and dismayed when Dr. George Tiller, a well known provider of safe abortions, was shot to death in his church in May 2009. He was known to have worn a button that said on it "Trust women," and this was the motto on which he based his morals as a doctor and human being -- that women are citizens who have the capacity to make their own decisions regarding their bodies especially in regards to reproductive health care.
Today, his murdered was convicted of first degree murder as well as two other assault charges and sentenced to life in prison, with possibility for parole after twenty five years. Considering the fact that the feminist blogosphere has already extensively covered Dr. Tiller's murder and its implications for the reproductive rights movement, I wanted to focus my blogging on a slightly less obvious but, in my opinion, equally socially important fact that Dr. Tiller's murder revealed about American society at large. Actually, I would specifically like to discuss how the coverage of Dr. Tiller's death in the mainstream media seemed to me well... disturbing.
It seemed to me that the man who killed Dr. Tiller (whose name I refuse to mention) should be classed as what he is -- a terrorist. A terrorist is someone who kills or commits acts of violence in order to further political or religious beliefs. Surely, the reason Dr. Tiller was targeted was because he was a prominent and outspoken abortion provider. However, when I see the CNN headline covering his conviction on my google homepage, I do not see the word "terrorist." No. I see "activist."
In my mind, the word "activist" does not promote the image of a violent murder in a church. It brings to mind peaceful people (whether or not I agree with their politics) exercising their first amendment right to free speech, a right central to the functioning of the United States as a democracy. I shudder to think that we think of mudering as behavior typical of an "activist."
It seems to me that in America, there is this strange idea of who can be a "terrorist" and who is simply an "extremist activist." Terrorists use bombs, terrorists are anti-American. Terrorists are Muslim, not "Christians" fighting for "right to life." I think some awareness needs to be brought to the fact that just because a terrorist's politics are more or less popular with the public does not make them any more or less of a terrorist. There needs to be a strict definition in our minds, and people must stick to it. Without this definition, we get to pick and choose who see as an evil murderer and who we see as passionate martyr because of how much we can sympathize with the cause the person supposedly represents. And when we do this, it seems to me we are compromising the values on which America stands. It seems to me that we will never truly acheive nonviolent conflict resolution until we decide that murder for a political or religious cause is never appropriate, never even slightly sympathetic. It is wrong. It sets the conversation back. It undermines our country's principles. Worst of all, it steals from the world people like Dr. Tiller who had vibrant lives, careers, and --most tragically -- families.

This week in the entertainment world in the UK there were two interesting stories. The first being that presenter of popular BBC 1 evening programme “The One Show” Adrian Chiles has been asked to shave off his beard by BBC executives. When Adrian started on the show he was clean-shaven but since the show’s return after its Christmas break he has been sporting a well-developed beard. Now this could just be one big publicity stunt for the show but if it isn’t it raise an interesting point.

As a nation or a culture do we need or expect our TV hosts to be clean-shaven? Is it right that people should be asked to remove their beards in order to present on a TV show? As a viewer do we react differently to people with beards or without beards? What this has underlined is how image conscious the media world is, that is just incase you weren’t already aware.

The second story was about Susan Boyle being snubbed by the Brit Awards when they announced the nominees for this years awards this week. In my opinion any awarding body has the right to put forward any nominee they like as at the end of the day the awards are their awards. There is all this news about Susan Boyle but there have been other big acts this year that have done well this year like Chipmunk, Kelly Clarkson, Cascada etc. and nobody is asking why didn’t they get nominated for awards? The press are putting the story out that it is because of her image that she hasn’t got nominated and she is getting the headlines but if it wasn’t Susan Boyle no other artist would get as much press attention for not being nominated.

Susan Boyle not getting nominated could totally be an image thing and the press may very well have hit the nail on the head but it could also be a case of the media just again using image as a news story as like I say before it is what the media world revolves around.

I think image will continue to play a part in media and entertainment for many years to come and although this is very hard to change I think it is important that it is documented as much as possible and discussed as it is the only way we will ever change the situation. If we can’t change it in the short term we need to make sure there is a constant high awareness of it.


Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

As like a lot of other industries Media has been affected by the recession. Less people are advertising jobs in the Media Guardian and there is less new TV written and produced by new talent. The TV industry not only has the recession to contend with but the ever changing marketplace with the internet now playing a key role in its development so much so that the degree that I graduated from Broadcasting studies is now called Digital Media.

The question I want to pose this week is with audiences now watching TV more and more online has it opened up a greater opportunity for young people to get established and noticed so that they can move on to regular TV or has the recession stopped any chance of this?

I think with technological advances it is easier and cheaper today to produce a TV programme or film than it was ten years ago. This has been highlighted by the British film “Colin” which was made for £45 and got a limited cinema release. With more and more people using the internet and watching TV on the internet it is also easier to market your work and get people watching.

This development has given young talented people the chance to shine in TV which they wouldn’t have normally had but it is the next step which is the hardest and most important which is making your talent in to a career or securing a job off the back of it. With sites like YouTube, BBC iPlayer and illegal file sharing viewers online are reluctant to pay to view and securing an advertising deal which pays you any kind of real money is near on impossible to find so making money out of your work can be hard.

So the only way really to use the online world is for publicity to help you get paid work in industry however this is where we hit another snag. Because of the recession TV companies don’t have big budgets or money to waste so many are reluctant to take risks or to employ unproven talent no matter how good you are. The big networks are looking for cheap to make programmes and programmes they can make money out of and know they are going to get high viewing figures for. This is why we have the X-Factor, Strictly Come Dancing and I’m a Celebrity on at the moment, which takes up a huge chunk of weekly TV.

I think in the future there will be a way to draw more money out of screening programmes on the internet but until that day comes I think it is going to be hard for someone to make a decent living if they aren’t employed or funded by a major company. From an artists point however I encourage any budding TV and film maker to go out and produce something and put it up on the web as I think in the future there will be more cases like “Colin” that go on to do big things and get recognition.

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

By now, many of us have heard about the tragedy at Fort Hood. An army psychiatrist, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, killed 12 people, and injured 31 others on November 5th.

After the attacks, the media was quick to jump on the connection between Hasan's actions and his Muslim faith.
 
                           
I immediately checked out Eboo Patel's blog, The Faith Divide, to see his reaction to the events.  Eboo Patel, an interfaith leader, founded the Interfaith Youth Core, an organization dedicated to promoting religious pluralism in youth. His blog discusses religious issues that "bring us together and drive us apart".

I highly reccomend checking out his response to the tragedy. He had some great comments to make, things I hadn't even known before I read his blog.

One thing I learned that I found really interesting was that there were multiple Muslim groups who responded immediately after the event saying how their faith discourages such violence.  What was interesting to me was the fact that while I'd been hearing about Hasam and his Muslim faith and the question of terrorism from many TV stations and newspapers, I hadn't heard anything about these Muslim group's response. 

I've seen Eboo Patel speak multiple times, and during one speech he talked about how people who do violence in the name of faith shouldn't even be called members of that faith.  He said that those people don't even deserve the title of their faith, because their actions speak so strongly against it.  At one point, he said that people who commit crimes in the name of their faith are really all just members of one faith, they are all extremists. 

I think those statements are so important for us to remember, especially in these times, when so often the media wants us to look at our differences.  If it makes for a more intereting story, the media will talk about it.  The fact that Hasam was Muslim, and committed these horrible acts because of his faith is something that makes for interesting news, but other Muslims saying how violence isn't a part of their faith contradicts how interesting that is, and so the news doesn't mention it. 

Some questions to think about.....

What do you think about this situation?
How does the media represent your faith? Do you think it's a fair representation?
Do you ever find yourself judging people based on their faith because of what you've heard about it?
Do you think people should understand other religions better?
How do you think you can help increase religious tolerance in your community?