triggerhappymedia

From the New York Times:

[…] According to a survey released in January by the Food Research and Action Center, an antihunger group, nearly 37 percent of residents in the 16th Congressional District, which encompasses the South Bronx, said they lacked money to buy food at some point in the past 12 months. That is more than any other Congressional district in the country and twice the national average, 18.5 percent, in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Such studies present a different way to look at hunger: not starving, but “food insecure,” as the researchers call it (the Department of Agriculture in 2006 stopped using the word “hunger” in its reports). This might mean simply being unable to afford the basics, unable to get to the grocery or unable to find fresh produce among the pizza shops, doughnut stores and fried-everything restaurants of East Fordham Road.

[…] Full-service, reasonably priced supermarkets are rare in impoverished neighborhoods, and the ones that are there tend to carry more processed foods than seasonal fruits and vegetables. A 2008 study by the city government showed that 9 of the Bronx’s 12 community districts had too few supermarkets, forcing huge swaths of the borough to rely largely on unhealthful, but cheap, food.

“When you’re just trying to get your calorie intake, you’re going to get what fills your belly,” said Mr. Berg, the author of “All You Can Eat: How Hungry Is America?” “And that may make you heavier even as you’re really struggling to secure enough food.”

For the center’s survey, Gallup asked more than 530,000 people across the nation a single question: “Have there been times in the past 12 months when you did not have enough money to buy food that you or your family needed?”

The unusually large sample size allowed researchers to zero in on trouble spots like the South Bronx.

New York’s 10th Congressional District, which zigzags across Brooklyn and includes neighborhoods like East New York and Bedford-Stuyvesant, ranked sixth in the survey, and Newark ranked ninth, both with about 31 percent of residents showing food hardship. (At the state level, the South is the hungriest: Mississippi tops the list at 26 percent, followed by Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, the Carolinas and Oklahoma. New York ranks 27th, with 17.4 percent; New Jersey is 41st, with 15.5 percent; and Connecticut is 47th, with 14.6 percent.)

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Trigger: The Obesity-Hunger Paradox by Sam Dolnick

and I’ve been up to…

…post-production for a documentary that will air on the History Channel. That’s all I can say for now. But the subject is amazing and I am incredibly excited about it!

… directing my own short documentary. I was given the opportunity to film (with a Flip MinoHD, the smallest HD camera available- it’s the size of an iPod) right here in Brooklyn. I will be editing it over the next few weeks, and hope to have something to show soon.

…working at the Food Bank For New York City. Approximately four million New Yorkers experience difficulty affording food, and the Food Bank’s soup kitchens and pantries serve 1.3 million-pretty staggering numbers.

In some triggerhappymedia-type news, the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper, The Observer, may be closing with speculation that it will be replaced by a mid-week magazine. As magazines stateside are faltering or failing, it’s interesting that Guardian News and Media would go that route.

In the meantime, I expressed my love for the current Observer Magazine (tucked away in every Sunday edition) to my friend who arrives today from London. She has been collecting them for me week by week in case they are, in fact, the best of the last.

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Trigger: Guardian Media admits The Observer may be closed

Exploring how my hometown of Phoenix, Arizona, has changed in the last ten years.

Wide open spaces no more.

No longer satisfied with multi-acre estate homes, the well-off are now actually choosing to live in the mall. Residents of the Waterfront at Scottsdale Fashion Square and Kierland Commons were keen to invest in million-dollar condominiums situated above huge shopping plazas.

The only logical reason for this phenomenon is that the city’s super rich were determined to have both the urban feel of condo-style living and the suburban comfort of having a Gap nearby. When the Arizona Republic asked one young couple why they purchased a Waterfront unit for more than the price of a single-family home, they were sure of their decision: why do we need a sprawling back yard for our daughter to play in when we live just steps away from a toy store?

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Trigger: “Home buyers trade in houses for mall living” by Lisa Nicita

Ways to celebrate: Purchase independent publications // Support organizations or journalists whose work challenges that of the corporate media // Keep discussing online and in your communities issues that the mainstream media won’t cover // Use your consumer power. Don’t give money or viewership to media that lies, misleads, or omits for the sake of a story or agenda.

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Trigger: Media Democracy Day

The copy for the latest Louis Vuitton ad reads: A journey brings us face to face with ourselves. Berlin Wall. Returning from a conference. Mikhail Gorbachev and Louis Vuitton are proud to support Green Cross International.

For Louis Vuitton, this campaign is meant to convey the rich heritage of the company. It’s also a bit of green marketing (which is oh so fashionable even if there isn’t a clear connection between the product and green initiatives). Gorbachev is the Chairman of the Board for Green Cross International, an organization comitted to environmental issues.

Photographer Annie Leibovitz captures Gorbachev in what can only be called chic discomfort, and the message is confusing. If the former leader of the Communist Soviet Union has a Louis Vuitton bag, should I want one, too?

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Trigger:”Grobachev Made Me Buy It” by Eric Wilson
Site: NY Times

Awhile back, I wrote about a potential flaw in the Truth Isn’t Sexy campaign: men who pay for sex might not be concerned with the large-scale effects of their behavior (slavery, abuse, etc).

From The Guardian’s lead article on the increased incidence of sex trafficking into Britain:

“In a recent study by the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University, researchers asked men arrested for kerbcrawling to pick from a list of factors which might deter them from buying sex. While some agreed that large fines or being publicly shamed would do so, none cited knowing that a woman was forced into prostitution.”

The British government hopes that harsher laws against clients will be the key to stalling the growing sex trade.

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Trigger: “Men who buy sex could face prosecution” by Tania Branigan
Site: Guardian Unlimited

A friend of mine who visited New Orleans in May wrote of Hurricane Katrina: “it’s a reflection of every single one of us and the vulnerability we all share as natives of this country. None of us are safe from abandon.”

We must keep talking about it.

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Trigger:”Summertime - and after Katrina, life still ain’t easy” by Ewen MacAskill
Site: Guardian Unlimited
Quote: “When Hurricane Katrina struck on August 29, 2005, the resulting water surge left 80% of New Orleans flooded, and devastated the small communities dotted along the surrounding coastline. More than 1,800 were killed. The federal government, Louisiana state and the city council have rebuilt some of the flood protection. But bureaucratic bungling and lethargy have stalled reconstruction. Of almost $27bn (£13.4bn) in federal aid allocated for housing and infrastructure, only a quarter has been spent.”

A recently-released survey from Technorati has revealed that less people are signing up for blogs, while social networking sites continue to take off at warp speed.

The reason appears to be a preference for the more interactive sites like MySpace. Of course, there are blogs that boast their own passionate audiences. But what about the blogs that no one is reading?

Victor Keegan writes for The Guardian:

“Far better to communicate through a peer group in a social networking environment where shared interests will guarantee you an audience, rather than propel your thoughts in the blogosphere where often they will be read by no one unless you have managed to build up a ‘brand’.”

But this statement is dependent on many factors. Primarily, which social networking environment is suitable for what you want to communicate? And should your goal be to reach just any pair of eyes, or those with an interest in what you have to say?

MySpace has boosted the careers of musicians, but the platform isn’t designed for writers. The site also has the power to get you some traffic and a “thanks for the add!” This is a validation, sure- not of your ideas, but simply that you exist.

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Trigger: ‘To the average Joe, blogs aren’t cutting it’ by Victor Keegan

A certain multinational media company is encouraging its employees to include the following as part of their e-mail signature:

Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail.

What a brilliant reminder to think before needlessly wasting paper!

For more green news, check out IHT’s report on the recycling in Paris, Stockholm, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Milan, and Berlin.

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Trigger: Recycling: a global work in progress