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Wanda’s Picks for November 2014
November 2, 2014
Maafa 2014 – The waves were as tall as mountains or perhaps redwood trees –their gigantic footprints in the sand left many pilgrims flat on their backs wet from head to toe. In 19 years, I’d never seen waves as tall as those that Sunday morning. Many thanks to all who came and made the commemoration a huge success. It was great to have co-founder, Minister Donald Paul Miller, back in the circle.
Wanda’s Picks for December 2012
December 7, 2012
Monday, Nov. 26, at the Bay Area Black Media Awards event hosted by Greg Bridges and sponsored by the San Francisco Bay View and Block Report Radio, it was so wonderful to see all the media friends and family for an evening of celebration. KPOO, KPFA, New California Media/Pacific News Service, Wanda’s Picks Radio, Oakland Post, Globe, Poor News Network, Oakland International Film Festival, Black Panther newspaper alumni and others were in the house as “Best” this and “Best” that were saluted.
Terry Collins and Willie Ratcliff, the OGs of KPOO and the Bay View, discuss life and Black Media Appreciation Night
November 25, 2012
Terry Collins, co-founder of KPOO 89.5FM, and Willie Ratcliff, publisher of the San Francisco Bay View, blessed the airwaves last Tuesday afternoon with a warm and revealing discussion of life and resistance and the upcoming Black Media Appreciation Night, honoring the champions of independent Black media. Black Media Appreciation Night is this Monday, Nov. 26, 8 p.m., at Yoshi’s, 510 Embarcadero West, Jack London Square, Oakland. For tickets and more information, go to http://www.yoshis.com/oakland/jazzclub/artist/show/3104.
A conversation with the MOI JR, author of ‘Block Reportin’’
March 13, 2011
Bay Area journalist JR Valrey, the voice behind Block Report Radio on KPFA and associate editor of SF Bay View, known as the Minister of Information, reports vital news about the struggle against oppression. In the 31 interviews in his new book, “Block Reportin’,” he shows what he calls the “big gap between what is going on in the world and what is being reported. I want to inspire people to become their own media and to truly speak on behalf of the people.” Meet JR at his first book signing Saturday, March 19, 6:30 p.m., at Marcus Books, 3900 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland.
Wealthy Menlo Hotel owner charged with arson scam is back in court
January 31, 2011
The wealthy Tiburon owner of Oakland’s low-income residential Menlo Hotel has been arrested and is facing 10 years in prison on suspicion of hiring someone to burn down the hotel, according to officials with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Review: ‘A Day Late in Oakland’
September 10, 2010
I recently watched the Zachary Stauffer documentary “A Day Late in Oakland,” which is about the murder of Oakland Post Editor Chauncey Bailey in August of 2007. It is truly a look into the mind of white power media spin-doctors.
Gentrification journalism
May 11, 2010
In this manifesto that shows why JR Valrey is rightly called the Minister of Information, he exposes “gentrification journalism” as “the public relations team that is put in place to make gentrifiers feel safe,” the media’s twisting of the murders of Chauncey Bailey and Oscar Grant to demonize Blacks and the hyper-funding of “hyper-local media” as an effort to drown out community media. Everyone who wants to stop the exodus of Blacks from the Bay must read this.
Coverage of Chauncey Bailey murder dramatizes need for Black media
April 17, 2009
Chauncey Bailey was probably the best known Black journalist in the Bay Area, yet his own Black newspaper is ignored by every agency investigating his murder. Justice for this Black journalist cannot be achieved by silencing Black journalism. By interviewing only the mainstream media, Democracy Now is implying that the Black press and the Black community have nothing significant to say about the murder of the Black editor of a Black newspaper.
My two cents on the engineering of media around the murder of Chauncey Bailey
August 8, 2007
On the murky day of Aug. 8, Black Oakland remembered the life of career journalist Chauncey Bailey, who had been murdered the week before on a downtown Oakland street. Hundreds of people filled every place imaginable in the East Oakland Catholic Church of St. Benedict.
