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Uptown West Fest
UC throws yearly music festival
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Wichita State
Wichita State increases competition in the AAC
THE NEWS RECORD / UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI MONDAY, APR. 10, 2017
NEWSRECORD.ORG
Tamaya Dennard at Diversity Summit JUSTIN REUTTER | NEWS EDITOR
Cincinnati City Council candidate and University of Cincinnati alumna Tamaya Dennard delivered the keynote address at the UC Diversity Summit on Saturday, which was hosted by UC’s student-led Diversity and Inclusion Council. Dennard graduated from the Carl H. Lindner College of Business, with a degree in international business. While Dennard was a student at UC, she was a member of the UC Racial Awareness Program (RAPP). RAPP was instrumental in forming her as a social justice advocate. “RAPP helped open my eyes to things I really didn’t see. RAPP really put me on this quest for social justice and economic justice,” said Dennard. Dennard urged social justice conscious students not to lose
hope due to Trump, but to focus on what they can do here everyday. “I turned off my phone notifications. I don’t watch the news anymore, because I’m trying to hold onto my hope,” she said. Dennard noted that if anything good came out of electing Donald Trump, it is seeing people engaged at a local level. “I’d bet that before the election of 45, most of you had never written to your local representatives before.” But marginalized people who are under represented are not just about Trump, she said. “People who are most affected by problems often are the ones with solutions, but are often denied a seat at the table,” said Dennard. Recent civil unrest has popped up by marginalized people who are left out of the conversation or are only asked for feedback later, said Dennard. She quoted from “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” written by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city’s white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative,” said Dennard. It is not even Donald Trump and other Republicans who are currently doing the most damage, but the bystanders who do nothing. One specific concern that Dennard raised was about the UC women’s basketball team being forced to play in St. Ursula Academy’s gym while Fifth Third Arena is renovated. “These women are putting their body on the line and work hard…this is why we need your voices heard,” she said. Meanwhile, the men’s basketball
team will be playing at NKU’s BB&T Arena. “There is no way that the men’s team would have to play in a gym,” said Madison Filzer, a member of the Diversity and Inclusion Council. “This is a clear breach of Title IX.” Dennard also discussed how in the midst of a heroin crisis, we must still work to create policies that encompass all addictions. “What we have to realize is that the face of heroin is mostly white, as opposed to crack, for example, which is mostly black. So, what we have to remember is that addiction is bad, no matter what the drug is, and people with addictions all deserve to be treated with equal compassion. So we must create policy that targets addiction in general, and not specifically heroin.”
JEAN PLEITEZ | CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER
PHOTO PROVIDED BY TAMAYA FOR CINCINNATI’S FACEBOOK PAGE
City Council candidate Tamaya Dennard.
UC’s Social Media Week draws
attention to dangerous fake news
FILE ART
The University of Cincinnati’s Social Media Week generated a discussion of the role that social media has in generating and proliferating fake news. Social media is instrumental in spreading misinformation that has even occasionally caused violence. Jeff Blevins, head of the UC Department of Journalism, presented on several factors that social media has contributed to in the manufacturing of fake news and the toll it takes on the credibility of mainstream news sources. The motivation behind fake news does not only reside in the benefits gained by politicians and authorities in power, but also by those who merely want money, said Blevins. Fake news aids in this by getting clicks and advertising revenue. This is done with the help of bots and botnets. These bots are a type of malware that allows a source or attacker to take control over a series of computers. Botnets are made of more than one machine that do the same thing on a much larger
scale. With the use of these bots, fake news is generated and is spread. One possible solution is to implement more media education and literacy in the education system, so younger generations are more prone to check the source of their news, said Blevins. “By the time they reach university level, it’s too late,” said Blevins. There are ways, however, to further check the credibility of these articles. “Check the article against other sources and news outlets, and check national and international sources, if necessary,” said Blevins. Unfortunately, these fake news outlets – with the help of social media – are delegitimizing journalism and are taking credibility away from reliable news sources, said Blevins. Social media sites are not obligated to combat this. These sites are not responsible for the content of the third-party posts due to section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and have no legal duty to police fake news. Consistently reliable reporting is crucial for news media outlets in deterring the influence of
Diversity not translating to athletics DAVID WYSONG | SPORTS EDITOR
African American Resource Center, April 5, 2017.
NOELLE ZIELINSKI | STAFF REPORTER
JUSTIN HILES | CONTRIBUTOR
Sophomore A.J. Bumpass (20) scores a run against Northern Kentucky on March 25, 2017, at Marge Schott Stadium.
fake news and maintaining credibility and trust among readers. “They have to keep doing good reporting. A news outlet could have 99 good stories and one bad one, and all anyone will focus on is the bad one,” said Blevins. Dr. Ivan Ivanov, assistant professor and undergraduate director of political science, believes that more educated people are less likely to fall for fake news. “Generally speaking, younger people are better educated, so I don’t think they are as likely to fall for ‘fake news’ that older and especially less educated people,” said Ivanov. Social media can be used for marketing and creating a big reach for organizations. “I wanted to see the trends of social media and to learn the analytics on how to best reach the students,” said Mae Hanna, assistant dean of marketing and communications for UC Clermont College. She also was interested in learning more about making data informed decisions for the school, as they purchase ads through Facebook and Twitter among other platforms.
Athletic organizations have worked to improve diversity in the workplace. With stipulations like the Rooney Rule put into place – a policy requiring NFL organizations to interview minority candidates for head coaching positions – diversity in head coaching and management positions have improved through the years. But there is still a large margin in the racial makeup between athletes in specific sports. During 2016 in Division I Collegiate Football within the Football Bowl Subdivision, about 53 percent of the studentathletes were African American, around 41 percent were white and the next highest percentage were Latinos with around 2 percent, according to NCAA College Sport Racial and Gender Report Card conducted by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport. This is compared to the NFL in 2016 where nearly 70 percent were African American, about 27 percent were white and the next highest were Asian/Pacific Islanders with nearly 2 percent. Dennis Bardwell, a white offensive lineman for the University of Houston, believes the numbers are just based around how athletes grew up and how their parents pushed them; however, he said he thinks the hitting of the game is what attracts everyone to football, but not him. “Personally, what attracted me to football was the bonds you create with the players and the repetition to be perfect as a unit, not just as a person,” Bardwell said. But while the gap between African Americans and whites playing football is 12.5 percent in college and just over 42 percent in the NFL, the numbers are even more crucial in baseball and basketball. In Division I baseball during the 2015-16 season, nearly 82 percent were white. Latinos were second with 6.5 percent and about 3 percent of collegiate baseball players were African American. In the MLB, about 59 percent of their players were white in 2016, 28.5 percent were Latino and about 8 percent were African American. Basketball was on the other side of the spectrum. In Division I men’s basketball, 55.6 percent of the student-athletes were African American in 2015 and 27 percent were white. During the 2015-16 season in the NBA, about 74 percent were African American and about 18 percent were white. When looking at the numbers, AfricanAmericans seem to gravitate more toward basketball and football than they do baseball. William Richardson, who has a bachelor’s degree in Africana Studies from the University of Connecticut and is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists, believes African-Americans are not attracted to baseball because it is a sport associated with class. “They are associated with having money to buy all SEE DIVERSITY PG 4
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