Old Media Watch Section

ESPN’s Wolverine Nation looks at how college athletes – including University of Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson – handle the challenges of celebrity status. The report quotes Robinson and his reaction to meeting president Barack Obama at a UM event earlier this year: ”That’s one of those days I’m going to sit down and tell my grandkids, sit down I’ve got a story for y’all. I met the President. That’s one of the things I’ll always remember and always cherish. As soon as I got done meeting him, I called my dad, my mom, my brothers and said, ‘I just met the President. I just met the President of the United States.’” [Source]

Michigan Radio reports on the 50th anniversary of the Ann Arbor Film Festival, which starts today and runs through April 1. The segment includes an interview with Leighton Pierce, a filmmaker and installation artist who submitted his first entry to the AAFF in 1981: “It’s probably the festival’s fault that I became a filmmaker because that kind of encouragement early on can really like be a dangerous thing.” More information about this year’s schedule is on the festival’s website. [Source]

Boxoffice Magazine profiles Ann Arbor’s Michigan Theater, including an extensive interview with executive director Russ Collins: “I think seeing large format images and wonderful sound on a screen in a public setting is a profound aesthetic experience that human beings want to have now and will want in the future. The only thing we can do at the Michigan Theater is work to make cinema relevant to our community and I think that’s a very powerful dynamic. I think that if we think about making communities good places for cinema to be experienced then cinema will always have a home.” [Source]

The Detroit News previews next week’s Ann Arbor Film Festival, which is celebrating its 50th season. The article quotes AAFF executive director Donald Harrison: “Along with all the new films, contemporary works and competition films, we’re going to be playing a lot of historic, rare and archival films from throughout the festival’s history. So people are going to get a chance to see what has changed, what is different. …For a film festival that wasn’t founded by a celebrity or a billionaire, it’s had incredible longevity.” The festival runs from March 27-April 1 at the Michigan Theater and other venues. [Source]

A week after a tornado touched down in the Dexter area, Channel 7 Action News – Detroit’s ABC affiliate – reports on cleanup progress there. The report quotes resident Penni Jones: ”I’m glad that it’s getting quiet again. It was very noisy from all the trucks and all the construction. They’ve cleaned up very quickly so it’s a relief to see it shape up so fast.” [Source]

The Detroit Free Press reports that the Governor’s Council on Educator Effectiveness – a group chaired by Deborah Ball, dean of the University of Michigan School of Education – won’t be submitting a final report by its April 30 deadline. The report quotes Ball: ”We don’t want to take this opportunity in Michigan and do something that’s damaging. There are so many ways it can go badly. But done right, we can be a total leader in the country.” The council has been asked to make recommendations for teacher evaluation, as well as an evaluation plan for school administrators and a student growth and assessment tool. [Source]

The Detroit News reports that the March 15 tornado that touched down in Dexter was likely an F3 category, with winds in the 158-206 mph range. [Ratings are based on the Fujita Scale, used to categorize the intensity of tornados.] From the Detroit News report: ”The worst hit areas were Carriage Hills and Huron Farms neighborhoods of Dexter, with more than 100 homes registering serious damage and 13 homes completely destroyed. Dexter-Pinckney Road remains closed Friday to through traffic from Island Lake Road to North Territorial just north of the Dexter village limits. Homes along the road were damaged and emergency personnel are only letting residents drive the stretch of road to get to their homes, officials said.” [Source]

The Detroit Free Press reports that Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation Tuesday morning that prohibits graduate student research assistants (GSRAs) from unionizing. An effort was underway at the University of Michigan to organize GSRAs. The Michigan Employment Relations Commission (MERC) had been scheduled to meet later in the day to discuss the issue. [Source]

The New York Times profiles University of Michigan students Meryl Davis and Charlie White, who will be defending their first world title in ice dancing later this month. (A photo accompanying the article was taken at UM’s law library.) The article reports that after winning the silver medal in the 2010 Olympics, “they have their minds set on bringing home the gold at the 2014 Games in Russia. Many think the two, with their Disney good looks … might finally bring the American figure skating world out of a lull that began the moment one Olympic champion, Michelle Kwan, hung up her skates.” [Source]

Publishers Weekly reports that “Space in Chains” by Laura Kasischke has won the National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry. The awards were presented in New York on March 8. Kasischke teaches creative writing at the University of Michigan. According to the PW report, in accepting the award Kasischke said, “I’ve never won anything like this before,” and thanked her husband and son for giving her all her material, “for better or for worse.” [Source]

Alec Anderson of Ann Arbor is one of three finalists in the current New Yorker cartoon caption contest. Readers can vote, with the winner to be posted online on March 12 and in the March 19 print edition. Anderson’s caption: “Nope, it’s not a new haircut. Try again.” [Source]

A New York Times report looks at Detroit area student designers – including students in the University of Michigan’s integrated product design class – who are making clothing for people who are homeless. [Source]

The Wall Street Journal’s Venture Capital Dispatch highlights a $5 million investment, led by Google Ventures, in the Ann Arbor tech startup Duo Security. The column interviews founder and CEO Dug Song: “We leverage something most people already own – a cell phone – to protect pretty much anything that requires a login.” [Source]

The Boston Globe reports on last-minute campaigning by Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney as he attempts to hold off Rick Santorum in the Feb. 28 Michigan primary. The article quotes Michael Heaney, a University of Michigan political science professor: “If Romney doesn’t win the state of his birth then people will look seriously at whether he is viable at all. Even people within the Republican establishment are going to start rethinking their support, and money could start moving toward Santorum.” [Source]

HLN – formerly CNN Headline News – published a feature on the cash mob phenomenon, and included an interview with Paul Hickman, the main organizer of the Ann Arbor Cash Mob. Hickman describes the two main goals for the local cash mob: “To give a little shot in the arm so to speak to local owned and independently operated businesses that are struggling against the chains and on line stores. We hope to help raise the awareness of where you’re spending your money and how it impacts your community. And two, many of the locals still have never been to some of these areas so this is a way to get them to see what’s out there. And it’s … [Full Story]

Detroit Metro Times publishes a cover story on Matt Jones, an Ypsilanti singer-songwriter who’ll be performing at the publication’s Feb. 29 Blowout pre-party: “Though Jones, like any songwriter worth his salt, has had to work through heady personal problems, his tunes have never slipped into the goofy supernatural or the too sentimental. Jones is not one of those ‘Midwest beardo-sensitive types’; in fact, if the cello and upright bass creak out stark lullaby basics, it always is given a warm, just-barely jovial gloss by Jones’ melodies, words and breathy delivery.” [Source]

Matt Roush of WWJ Newsradio 950 reports on a Recycle Ann Arbor Earth Day video contest. The nonprofit is asking students in grades 6-8 who live in Washtenaw County to submit a video on “Why I Recycle.” It should be less than three minutes in length and submitted by March 30. More details and contest entry forms are online at www.recycleannarbor.org. [Source]

The Detroit Free Press reports that the U.S. National Institutes of Health has authorized an embryonic stem cell line developed by University of Michigan researchers to be eligible for federally funded research. The line – known as UM4-6 and cultivated by Gary Smith, co-director of the UM Consortium for Stem Cell – is now listed as the 147th stem cell line in the NIH registry, according to the report. [Source]

The New York Times profiles the University of Michigan men’s lacrosse team, and its transition from a club to a varsity sport. “Although women’s varsity teams have cropped up at high-profile Football Bowl Subdivision universities like Florida and Southern California in recent years, men’s programs have been elusive quarry. Michigan, which opens its inaugural varsity season Sunday, is one of 13 F.B.S. colleges with a men’s lacrosse team — and the first to add the sport since President Reagan took office. The expansion of Division I men’s lacrosse, which is not a revenue sport, at F.B.S. universities has been hindered largely by high overhead costs and Title IX compliance. Michigan leapt these hurdles with a grass-roots approach.” [Source]

The Detroit Free Press published a guest column by Jenny Oorbeck of Ann Arbor, who argues that decisions like the state’s recent ban on public employers offering benefits to domestic partners make Michigan an unwelcoming state. She notes other reasons why Michigan falls short: ”Thanks to our discriminatory laws, I have no legal relationship with my younger son, who was born here (I am not his biological mother), which is absurd. By contrast, our older son, born in California (again, I am not his biological mother) is legally my child. I was listed on his birth certificate because California recognizes our marriage. To us, it is a mark of shame on Michigan that only one of our sons has two legally recognized … [Full Story]

National Public Radio reports on the hiring of a Muslim chaplain this year at the University of Michigan – the first public university to have this kind of endowed position. The chaplaincy is funded through donations solicited by the Michigan Muslim Alumni Foundation. The job is held by Mohammed Tayssir Safi, who told NPR: “There’s not a solid environment where a Muslim feels — perhaps ‘safe’ is the right word, not from violence but safe as in they feel safe and at home in being able to express themselves and who they are.” [Source]

Michigan Radio reports on a Feb. 6 panel discussion at the University of Michigan about the state’s emergency manager law. The forum included Ann Arbor Democrats Jeff Irwin and Conan Smith – Irwin is a state representative and Smith is chair of the Washtenaw County board of commissioners – as well as Flint mayor Dayne Walling and Howard Ryan, a state treasury official. Responding to a question about the salaries paid to EMs, Ryan said: ”It is one of the hardest, most difficult jobs imaginable. You’re going into a very hostile environment where nobody wants you there, nobody, not even…I mean…nobody.” Because EMs make tough decisions in cities with a great level of complexity, “you just can’t find people who will do … [Full Story]

In advance of Sunday’s Super Bowl matchup between the New York Giants and New England Patriots, Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press interviews Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady about how his time on the University of Michigan football team has influenced his NFL career: ”I think I was very fortunate in college to go through some pretty stiff competition. A lot of the lessons that I learned when I was 18, 19 years old have served me well when I was 23 and 24. This game is about competition. You have to compete every single day in practice, because if you don’t, you’re not going to be around very long.” [Source]

The Detroit Free Press reports that Michigan attorney general Bill Schuette is asking the state Supreme Court to stop a hearing set for Wednesday, Feb. 1 –  a hearing that could determine whether University of Michigan graduate student research assistants (GSRAs) can unionize. “Schuette, a Republican, has been barred by the Court of Appeals from taking part in the hearing. The hearing is to decide whether to overturn a 1981 Michigan Employment Relations Commission ruling stating the GSRAs are students and not employees, meaning they can’t unionize. Schuette argues in his filing, which was made public late today, that because the U-M Board of Regents voted to recognize the GSRAs as employees, no one will be arguing against unionization during … [Full Story]

The Michigan Daily reports on a University of Michigan town hall meeting held in January to discuss issues related to bicycling on campus and in Ann Arbor, including a planned campus bike rental system. The article quotes Steven Dolen, executive director of UM’s parking and transportation unit: “The rental program is our first step in really showing our commitment. I think it’s a small step, but it is something we can do quickly that we know there is a need (for) and what people want to see more (of). So we think this is a great way to start.” [Source]

The Detroit News reports that president Barack Obama will make a speech at the University of Michigan’s Al Glick Field House on Friday, Jan. 27, but details aren’t yet available about the time of the speech or who’ll be allowed into the venue. Obama, who’ll deliver his State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, last visited the UM campus to deliver the May 1, 2010 commencement address at Michigan Stadium. [Source]

The Eastern Echo reviews the band Team Ethic, with Ypsilanti musicians Joel Skene, Carl Greene, Ed Golembiewski and Abbott Daimler. The review quotes Daimler: “We’re enamored with ’90s rock music, and are leftist, working class slobs. We have mortgages and day jobs and tend to spend every bit of free time at one of the many fine taverns in Ypsilanti, at a dance party, or playing music. On a good night, we get to do all three.” For Chronicle readers looking for local government connections, Golembiewski is Washtenaw County deputy clerk and director of elections. [Source]

The Detroit Free Press reports on allegations that a University of Michigan graduate student research assistant was pushed out of her academic program because she supported unionizing GSRAs. Jennifer Dibbern told the Free Press: “I lost my job because I was openly supportive of the union. They are essentially prohibiting me from a career in my chosen field.” The university administration opposes unionization efforts, but UM officials dispute Dibbern’s claim. [Source]

Writing in the Jackson Citizen Patriot, Zeke Jennings describes his recent trip to Ann Arbor for lunch at Zingerman’s Deli. He’s not impressed, though his experience seems to be colored in large part by his parking challenges: ”After waiting for a good while to get my food, I finally got out of there after approximately 30 minutes. I quickly paced back to my car, and to my horror, there was the meter man punching up a parking ticket. I pleaded with him: ‘Come on, I’m only about five minutes late.’ ‘Ten,’ he said, ‘and there is no grace period.’ (My official count was eight minutes.) Now disgusted, my attitude became: this had better be the best (bleeping) sandwich I ever eat!” … [Full Story]

The Detroit News reports on a protest march being organized by critics of Michigan’s emergency manager law. Protesters plan to converge on the Ann Arbor area home of Gov. Rick Snyder at 4 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 16 – Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Rev. Al Sharpton and U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit, are expected to lead the protest. The article quotes Sharpton: ”If Snyder gets away with it here, it will spread nationally.” [Source]