We are elated to announce today that North Coast Journal arts and features editor Jennifer Fumiko Cahill won the Association of Alternative Newsmedia’s 2020 award for best food writing, while the paper’s Media Literacy Issue took second place for best special section. The nonprofit association includes nearly 100 member papers throughout the country, including many […]
Media literacy
Posted inNews
Because Media Literacy Matters
Welcome to our second annual Media Literacy Issue. A lot has changed since last year’s inaugural offering (June 7, 2018), penned as the fake news chorus gripped the nation. The inspiration behind that issue was transparency, wanting to bring you, our valued readers, into the proverbial newsroom to help you understand how this newspaper works […]
Posted inNews
‘Insurmountable’
When Daniel Squier returned to the Times-Standard in January of 2018 to take a reporting job covering local courts, he knew he would be stepping into a newsroom fundamentally changed from the one he left 12 years earlier. When Squier served as the paper’s sports editor in the early 2000s, he was one of four […]
Posted inNews
Journalism at Three Arcata High Schools
The journalism adviser hands skinny reporter notebooks to students filing into her Arcata High School classroom. Today is a favorite day for English teacher Danielle Witten and her 30-person journalism class. “It’s the first day of our news cycle,” Witten tells students, reminding reporters and editors of the importance of getting all student voices heard. […]
Posted inNews
Endangered
Consider the worm. Some species of worm are parasites that live off the human body. But others are essential to our ecosystem. They add nutrients to our soil that enable food to grow and they serve as essential food for all kinds of animals. Some worms have been so decimated by loss of habitat and […]
Posted inNews
Representation Matters
Johnny Depp is likely not going to read this article. He’s very busy. He owns his own island, after all, and imagine the upkeep on emptying his Roomba of all the sand it’s collected from visiting guests traipsing through his island house without a care in the world. I honestly can’t imagine Johnny Depp even […]
Posted inNews
The Invisible Primary
Welcome to the invisible primary, the season leading up to official primaries and caucuses, in which candidates fight for media attention and pundits stupify the campaign into a horse race, dissecting who is “most likely to win” rather than reporting on political platforms. Four years ago, the television news media gave Donald Trump an inordinate […]
Posted inNews
Hey Reporters! The Environment is Everything
Imagine this: Meteorologists warn that a huge storm is poised to hit Humboldt County. We can expect howling winds to uproot trees and knock out power. The Eel River Valley and Arcata Bottom will surely flood. Driving to get food or other supplies will be foolhardy in such conditions. Without urgent action, hospitals will be […]
Posted inMusic
I’m Your Man in thePeanut Gallery
I was in my early 20s when I realized that I would never cut it as a strictly objective journalist. I had just sold my second piece of freelance writing to a now-defunct magazine called Clamor. It was an interview with Christian Parenti, the author and Iraq War correspondent for The Nation magazine. Hearing about […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Confessions of a Movie Nerd
My editor informs me this week’s issue will be focused on media literacy. I don’t believe I could be accused of possessing said literacy and, as a writer of movie reviews for print media, could more aptly be called obsolete or deaf to the mewl and clamor of contemporary culture — perhaps a relic. But […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
The Unraveling of the Times-Standard
It’s difficult to watch what’s been happening at the Times-Standard over the last several months, even from my seat on the sidelines. If you’re unaware, the region’s only daily just weathered another round of layoffs, including three members of the newsroom. I’m not sure how they are managing to put out a paper six days […]
Posted inNews
Journal Named a Finalist for two National Awards
The accolades keep coming. We were proud to report last month that the Journal took home a dozen awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association’s annual statewide contest, and we’re prouder today to announce that we’ve been named a finalist in two categories in the esteemed national Association of Alternative Newsmedia’s annual throwdown. The association, […]