- Andrea Wenzel
I met Andre Simms after a particularly contentious community discussion connected to one of my research projects. We were in North Philadelphia, a majority Black and Brown neighborhood that has a long history of disinvestment fueled by racist redlining policies, and a contentious relationship with my employer, Temple University—who has been seen by many as a force of gentrification in the community.
Andre was participating in a workshop that invited North Philadelphia residents and community organizers to consider what it would look like for media to be accountable to North Philadelphia. Andre co-leads an organization he founded, DayOneNotDayTwo, which is also the name he goes by as a hip hop artist. The organization runs a variety of programs focused on restorative justice, ending youth incarceration (Andre himself served 8 years in an adult prison after being incarcerated at the age of 17), healing through creative expression, narrative change, and more.
When Andre and I first talked after a workshop, he pitched the idea of community members taking a course at Temple, so that they could gain the skills needed for them to share their own stories. So in the Fall semester of 2023, he launched the Community Apprentice Fellowship program (Community AF) and we collaborated to co-lead a solutions journalism course at Temple where a paid cohort of North Philadelphia resident fellows studied and reported alongside Temple undergraduate students.
Recently I sat down with Andre to talk through the experience. What follows is an excerpt of our longer interview, which has been edited for length and clarity. I’m sharing here the section which focuses on our collaboration that may be of most interest for journalism educators—as Andre and his colleagues from DayOneNotDayTwo also participated in our previous AEJMC preconference focused on making journalism education more equitable.
I began by asking Andre, why he wanted to start Community AF?
Andre: This short answer is that North Philly has historically been misrepresented in mainstream media. And it was very, very obvious that the community needed, prayed, and wanted stories that were made for them, by them. And so connecting people to resources to tell their own stories just made the most sense to us.
… Community members kept saying time and time again, that they don't trust the media, they don't want to work with the media, or mainstream media ... They don't trust journalism, they don't trust reporters. But, you know, journalism is important. Being able to be involved in democracy is important. Being able to have resources and have access to information is important. And that's really like at the core of what journalism is supposed to be, right? And so, because a lot of these institutions are controlled by the top 1% of society, I've seen my community reject what could be something that could be actually very useful, beneficial, even transformative if it's done the right way.
Andrea: What was it like to co-facilitate a solutions journalism class for you?
Andre: It was extremely weird. I never saw myself like co-teaching a class, especially at a college level. So it was it was strange. But I will say that I felt the impact and I felt how different the class was to not just the Temple students, but also the six fellows that we brought in…
I feel like everybody felt weird at first, but it was a very strange, but impactful experience because we had conversations that a lot of those people in the room probably never had in their life. You know, we talked about things that questioned and challenged perspectives that usually go unsaid. So I think that yeah, it was surprising. And also, I was surprised how much it resonated with folks.
…I feel like college usually is like dividing us, as a culture and as a people. So I felt like that was actually an opportunity to build a bridge from a place like Temple to North Philly, which there's already so much history, traumatic history there. And it felt like a step in rebuilding what has been a very challenging relationship to say the least.
Andrea: Can you share a little bit more about what kinds of conversations were happening that might not have happened otherwise?
Andre: I think one of the conversations that stood out, one of the discussions we had was about policing and the impact of the criminal legal system. And I honestly don't know how we got to this, because it was the very first class, but we started talking in depth about, you know, people's personal experience with the justice system, quote-unquote justice system, right. And I think that kind of, I want to say exposed the dichotomy. …I think it was kind of like a shock that then set the tone for the rest of the course. And I felt like after those types of conversations, you had folks from the community that felt surprisingly comfortable sharing their experiences about either being harassed by police being incarcerated, or having a family member that's been incarcerated—being, you know, impacted in different ways by the criminal legal system. And you had students, you know, …realize they’re privileged. I feel like a lot of them in that moment, they got a chance to acknowledge and appreciate the protection that they've had and the fact that they didn't have to experience these things.
…It started off asking questions about how has media been harmful? How has media harmed you or your community? …And then a lot of the answers from the community were connected in some way with the criminal legal system. And a lot of the answers from the students were very different.
…And to see just how easily folks connect on a human level, I think is important for everybody that was part of that experience. I wish it could happen more.
Andrea: Yeah, I remember those conversations being really impactful. How has the way you think about journalism changed over the course of this project?
Andre: I felt like, for a long time, I was in that segment of society that rejects journalism altogether, you know, and I still don't watch the news, to be honest. I still, don’t read the paper. But I think my perspective has changed from doing this work. Just because we're not happy with the quality of reporting and the quality of the stories and what we're being fed by these major media platforms, does not mean that journalism itself is bad, that journalism itself is flawed. …I think that I'm not the only one who has had that perception change. And I feel like that's something that is big, especially where I come from. You either have people that live and die by the news, and everything they see on TV is real, or you have people that rejected it all. And now I feel like we're growing this base in the community of this kind of middle section where it's like, we're challenging everything that we're hearing. And we know that it's partly our responsibility to change the narratives that are being put out there. And it's our responsibility to actually speak truth to power in as many ways as we can. And you know, journalism is part of that. …We want to blame journalists. We want to blame these media outlets, and these institutions definitely play a huge part perpetuating harmful narratives, stereotypes and stories. However, we do have individual responsibilities as a community. We can definitely make an impact and we have the ability to, …use our voices intentionally. So, yeah, I think that's been the biggest change in perception for me since this project.
Andrea: What would you like to share with other journalism educators who might be interested in doing this work? Do you have suggestions for them?
Andre: I think this is a model that I would love to see in as many places as possible. It is so powerful, when you're connecting, you know, future journalists, with the community that they're going to be reporting on. It is so powerful to start really planting those roots in community as early as you possibly can. And if you really want to do your students justice, want to do the community justice, it is important to seek out these relationships with community partners to seek out relationships with everyday people that you wouldn't usually. Let's start having conversations that might seem a little uncomfortable to begin with, but that's where often the best stories lie.
Andre Simms is the founder and co-director of DayOneNotDayTwo. Their Community AF project is continuing and they are now developing a Neighbors News Network platform to distribute community produced stories and information. Thanks to the Knight-Lenfest Local News Transformation Fund, Independence Public Media Foundation, and the Lenfest Institute for their support of this work.
Andrea Wenzel is an associate professor of journalism at Temple University’s Klein College of Media and Communication.
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