The Dictatorship

The data on vaccine safety is public and clear — but I just spelled it out for Congress anyway

Published

10 months ago

September 14, 2025

The data on vaccine safety is public and clear — but I just spelled it out for Congress anyway

(The following is testimony presented to the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on Sept. 9. It has been edited for style and length.)

The scientific evidence supporting vaccine safety and efficacy represents one of the most extensive and transparent bodies of medical research ever assembled. Vaccines have saved an estimated 154 million lives globally over 50 years, eliminated smallpox from the planet and reduced diseases like polio and measles by over 99% in the United States.

Anyone with internet access can read the same studies I read, examine the same data I examine and verify the same conclusions.

Since April 2025, I have co-led the development of a comprehensive public database cataloging 1,704 randomized controlled trials of vaccines spanning from 1941 to 2025, involving more than 10.5 million participants. Multiple independent U.S. surveillance systems continuously monitor vaccine safety in real time, detecting adverse events as rare as 1 per 1 million doses. Recent large-scale studies, including a Danish cohort following 1.2 million children, consistently demonstrate vaccine safety across diverse populations.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that vaccines given to U.S. children born between 1994 and 2023 will prevent approximately 508 million illnesses, 32 million hospitalizations and 1,129,000 deaths over their lifetimes, saving nearly $2.7 trillion in societal costs. This vast evidence base is publicly accessible, peer-reviewed and continuously updated. If vaccines caused a wave of chronic disease, our safety systems — which can detect one-in-a-million events — would have seen it. They haven’t.

I am also part of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy’s Vaccine Integrity Projectwhere our team is conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis of respiratory virus immunizations from approximately the last two years. This ongoing analysis has examined 590 studies from over 17,000 identified references to date.

As an infectious diseases physician at Stanford University School of Medicine, I have treated many adults with vaccine-preventable diseases throughout my career. These clinical experiences, combined with my research analyzing the extensive evidence base for vaccine safety and efficacy, inform my testimony today.

I should note that I am here in my personal capacity, and the views I share reflect my own professional experience and analysis of the scientific evidence. I have received minimal payments totaling $45.62 over multiple years for food and beverage at work-related events, as documented in the federal Open Payments database. My research time is either self-funded or supported by Stanford University. I testify in my personal capacity as a physician-scientist committed to rigorous evidence and transparent science.

The safety and efficacy data for vaccines is published in peer-reviewed journals, accessible through PubMed, analyzed by independent researchers worldwide, and scrutinized by regulatory agencies whose deliberations are public record. Anyone with internet access can read the same studies I read, examine the same data I examine and verify the same conclusions.

Our international team has built a public database of randomized controlled trials of vaccines. Every entry links directly to its peer-reviewed source publication, allowing anyone to examine the methods, data and results independently. This is how science should work — open, transparent and reproducible.

The transparency of vaccine science extends throughout history. When Edward Jenner published his vaccination findings in 1798, he self-published Variolae Vaccinae for public scrutiny. The 1954 Salk polio vaccine trial involved 1.8 million children in a publicly monitored study, with results announced to the world and data published for examination. This tradition continues today with large-scale epidemiologic studies published in peer-reviewed journals for all to examine.

The United States maintains multiple independent vaccine safety monitoring systems, each operating transparently.

When real risks exist, they are detected, quantified, disclosed and incorporated into guidance. That is how a functioning safety system works.

The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) makes every report publicly accessible at vaers.hhs.gov, where anyone can search, download and analyze raw data. The Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) covers over 10 million Americans across nine health care organizations, with findings regularly published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at public Advisory Committee meetings. The Post-licensure Rapid Immunization Safety Monitoring (PRISM) system monitors over 190 million people, publishing results openly.

These systems have successfully detected rare adverse events — including intestinal blockage with a rotavirus vaccine in 1999, leading to its withdrawal; rare blood clots with the Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine (3 per 1 million doses), detected within weeks; and myocarditis signals with mRNA vaccinespromptly investigated and quantified.

When real risks exist, they are detected, quantified, disclosed and incorporated into guidance. That is how a functioning safety system works.

Vaccination has historically united Americans across political lines. George Washington ordered Continental Army variolation against smallpox in 1777, declaring, “I have determined that the troops shall be inoculated.” His orders, preserved in the Library of Congress, reflect understanding that disease threatened his army more than British forces.

Throughout American history, presidents from both parties have championed vaccination as essential public health policy. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Poliomyelitis Vaccination Assistance Act in 1955, stating, “We all hope that the dread disease of poliomyelitis can be eradicated from our society.” President Ronald Reagan proclaimed National Adult Immunization Awareness Week, noting that “vaccination against infectious diseases saves lives and lowers health care costs.” President George H.W. Bush mobilized CDC teams to cities during the 1991 measles resurgence, urging parents: “The vaccines are available. Please, make sure your child is immunized.” Even recently, President Donald Trump acknowledged: “Look, you have vaccines that work — they just pure and simple work. They’re not controversial at all.”

The evidence of vaccine effectiveness is documented in every health department report and mortality database. This data is not hidden — it is published by the CDC and available to anyone.

Before vaccines, measles infected 3-4 million Americans annually, killing approximately 500 children each year. After widespread vaccination led to elimination in 2000, deaths typically numbered zero to two per year. We are currently experiencing our worst outbreak in decades — 1,431 cases through September 2025, with three deaths, overwhelmingly in undervaccinated communities.

Polio paralyzed 16,000 Americans annually in the pre-vaccine era. In 1952 alone, polio caused 57,879 cases and 3,145 deaths, and paralyzed 21,269 Americans. Since 1979there have been zero cases of wild poliovirus in the United States — a 100% reduction.

Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) caused 20,000 cases of severe disease in children under 5 each year, killing approximately 1,000 annually. After vaccine introduction in 1987, cases dropped by over 99%. From 2009 to 2018, only 36 total Hib cases occurred in American children under 5 — across that entire decade.

The transformation is striking: diphtheria killed 13,000-15,000 Americans annually in the early 20th century; in 2024, we had one case. Pertussis killed hundreds of infants yearly; today, typically fewer than 10. Vaccines have saved an estimated 154 million lives globally over 50 years, including 146 million children under 5 years old and 101 million infants. For every death averted, 66 years of full health were gained on average, translating to 10.2 billion years of full health gained. Vaccination has accounted for 40% of the observed decline in global infant mortality — 52% in Africa. In 2024, a child under 10 years old is 40% more likely to survive to their next birthday because of historical vaccination programs.

For respiratory virus vaccines, the primary goal and realistic expectation is to prevent severe disease and death, not infection.

During the 2023-24 influenza season, over 200 children died from flu; among vaccine-eligible children with known vaccination status, more than 80% were not fully vaccinated. Covid-19 vaccines, developed with unprecedented transparency through publicly broadcast Food and Drug Administration and CDC meetings, prevented catastrophic loss of life. A rigorous analysis estimated vaccines prevented 2.5 million deaths globally from 2020 to 2024 (with sensitivity estimates ranging from 1.4-4.0 million). Before vaccines, ICUs were overwhelmed. By mid-2021, nearly every fatal case was among the unvaccinated. During the delta surge, unvaccinated adults were 53 times more likely to die than those vaccinated and boosted.

I cared for hundreds of Covid patients and watched far too many die. I lost many unvaccinated patients across the age spectrum — from their 30s to their 90s — who I am certain would have survived had they been vaccinated. One mother in her 40s without underlying conditions declined vaccination and died, leaving her child behind. These statistics represent preventable human tragedies.

When vaccine safety is studied with robust designs — large, linked databases, matched cohorts, self-controlled methods comparing people to themselves over time — the findings are consistent: no broad increase in chronic diseases among vaccinated people.

Every medical intervention exists on a spectrum of effectiveness. Statins reduce heart attack risk by approximately 30%, not 100%. Cancer chemotherapy may help roughly 40% of patients, not all. We use these treatments because benefits outweigh limitations. Influenza vaccines, used since the 1940s, prevent an estimated 40%-60% of influenza illness in good years, perhaps 20% when the match is poor — yet still prevent thousands of deaths annually.

For respiratory virus vaccines, the primary goal and realistic expectation is to prevent severe disease and death, not infection. While vaccines cannot prevent viruses from initially entering the respiratory tract, they help our immune system recognize the pathogen and mount a rapid response that can prevent infection, transmission or severe disease, depending on the variant and vaccine match. But vaccines excel at keeping people out of the hospital, and for that critical goal, they perform remarkably well.

Our surveillance systems’ transparency was demonstrated during Covid-19 vaccine monitoring. When the possibility of an early myocarditis signal emerged, the CDC issued a Health Alert Network notice on May 27, 2021, urging clinicians to report cases to verify whether a true safety signal existed. Once confirmed through enhanced surveillance, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices reviewed data publicly on June 23. The FDA added warnings on June 25. The data showed rates peaked at approximately 106 per million second doses in teenage boys in 2021, mostly mild and short-lived. By 2024-25, rates with updated formulations returned to near background levels, as documented in public ACIP presentations.

Our surveillance systems can detect extremely rare adverse events — as rare as 1 event per 1 million doses or even less. These systems identified thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (blood clots and low platelets) after the J&J vaccine at a few per million doses overall. The sensitivity of these systems would make any widespread vaccine-related chronic disease impossible to miss.

We take vaccine safety extremely seriously. Vaccines are unique medicines given to large numbers of healthy people. Ensuring their safety through rigorous testing and continuous monitoring is critical.

The evidence for vaccine safety and efficacy exists in overwhelming abundance, accessible to anyone willing to examine it.

My current work exemplifies commitment to openness. Our public database is openly accessible, with search strategies available in the spreadsheets for anyone to examine and verify. The Vaccine Integrity Project team discussed our methods at a public webinardemonstrating our commitment to transparency even before publication. Every step of our research process is designed to be reproducible and verifiable.

Beyond clinical trials, thousands of additional studies examine vaccine safety through peer-reviewed research. When concerns arise, they are investigated and results are published, whether confirming or refuting initial hypotheses.

The evidence for vaccine safety and efficacy exists in overwhelming abundance, accessible to anyone willing to examine it. From Washington’s orders to inoculate the Continental Army to today’s real-time safety monitoring systems, American vaccination policy has been built on transparency and evidence.

The data supporting vaccines is not hidden — it is reviewed by the FDA, published in peer-reviewed journals, analyzed worldwide and tracked through public surveillance systems. If vaccines caused widespread chronic disease, our safety monitoring systems would have detected it. They haven’t.

The question before this subcommittee is whether public health policy will continue to be guided by transparent, peer-reviewed evidence. As we face both emerging infectious disease threats and the return of old threats due to declining vaccination coverage — like our current measles outbreak — maintaining public confidence through evidence-based communication remains essential.

The data is public. The evidence is clear. I welcome your questions.

Jake Scott

Dr. Jake Scott is an infectious disease physician and Clinical Associate Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine.

The Dictatorship

What Tom Emmer said about Somalis was racist. What’s worse is he doesn’t believe it.

Published

7 hours ago

June 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

What Tom Emmer said about Somalis was racist. What’s worse is he doesn’t believe it.

Jun. 26, 2026, 9:03 PM EDT

ByMichael Tisserand

There was a time when President Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans didn’t think House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., had a sufficient understanding of who his enemies ought to be. But in remarks he made Wednesday at a Capitol Hill event sponsored by Ralph Reed’s Faith & Freedom Coalition, Emmer did his best to signal that Trump’s enemies are his enemies, too.

Emmer’s 11-minute talk, during which he expressed racism and transphobia and railed against abortion, also served as yet another contrast to the memory of what Republicans in Minnesota used to be. The name of the state party used to be Independent-Republicansand the late U.S. Sen. Dave Durenberger used to describe the state party’s worldview, without irony, as progressive Republicanism.

Emmer’s talk served as yet another contrast to the memory of what Republicans in Minnesota used to be.

That party is long gone. At Wednesday’s event, Emmer theatrically dismissed a few sheets of paper he said were his talking points and proclaimed, Trump-like, that he was going rogue. He took aim at transgender youth (“there’s a reason why Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed”), at “elite radical lefties,” at “evil Marxists,” at the media, called his state’s abortion laws “as bad as North Korea” and called the state itself the “People’s Republic of Minnesota.”

But Emmer earned some of the most enthusiastic applause in his racist rant against the state’s large Somali American population. “Sometimes Minnesotans are so afraid that you’re going to call us a racist, you’re going to call us an Islamophobe,” he said, before saying, “But I’m done being careful. Even the least bit careful.”

He said, “I don’t really care where you come from. But if come to this great country, you have to understand, you’re coming here to be an American.” Somalis “don’t assimilate,” he said, “And if they don’t assimilate, then they should go the hell back to where they came from.”

Among the people who responded angrily to Emmer’s slander of Somalis was Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who was born in Somalia. “I assimilated all the way to Congress and this idiot still tells me to go back to where I came from,” she wrote on X.

In the debacle that followed Kevin McCarthy being voted out of the House speakership in 2023, Emmer was not elected to replace him because, by MAGA standards, he was too moderate. Trump called him a “Globalist RINO” and was still fuming that after Joe Biden won the race for president in 2020, Emmer voted to certify that election.

Emmer has worked harder to be seen as MAGA since then. In December, he appeared on “Varney & Co.” on Fox Business to support an Immigration and Customs Enforcement surge that made Somalis among its primary targets and became known as Operation Metro Surge. He offered up conspiracy theories and lies about Somali Americans committing 80% of the crime in the Twin Cities. He said money was being stolen from Minnesota state and federal programs to fund the Somali-based terrorist group al-Shabab.

When he signed up with the so-called Sharia Free America Caucus in February, he railed against letting “anti-American ideologies take root in our communities” and said he had been fighting against the nonexistent threat of Sharia law since he was a state legislator. I was unable to find stories of Emmer as a state legislator fearmongering about Sharia law. However, in 2015, when one of Emmer’s fellow Republicans was being rightly rebuked for attending an anti-Muslim event in St. Cloud, Emmer was a voice of reason and tolerance. He wanted his constituents to know that Somali Americans were contributing to the Minnesota communities they had made home and that they were “some of the fastest-assimilating populations.”

That same year, Emmer joined then-Rep. Keith Ellison, the Democrat who’s now the state’s attorney general, to found the Congressional Somalia Caucus: to help Somali Americans here and to promote peace and stability in Somalia.

Now Ellison is taking the lead in legal challenges against the ICE assaults Emmer champions.

This is the ticket into MAGA world: an embrace of abdication of decency and a necessary rejection of the spirit of welcome and tolerance one once held.

This is the ticket into MAGA world.

In April, a west central Minnesota event called “Understanding Immigration: A Community Conversation,” included Ayan Omar, a Somali American from St. Cloud, as a speaker. She works as equity director for the public schools and has been active in interfaith dialogues in the city.

Omar spoke of coming to the U.S. as a child, learning English by watching “The Simpsons” and learning self-value by watching “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.” The message from Mr. Rogers, she said, was especially important because “I just wanted to cower and hide away because I stood out. Not only because I was a Somali-American refugee, but I was also poor.” It was learning about Frederick Douglass that inspired her to become a teacher.

What she was describing was the process of her becoming more and more American. Countless other Somali Americans have had similar experiences. OEmmer knows that.

And not so long ago, he wasn’t afraid to say it.

Michael Tisserand

Michael Tisserand is a Minnesota-based writer whose works include “Krazy,” a biography of cartoonist George Herriman, and Sugarcane Academy, a memoir of his family’s experiences of Hurricane Katrina. With support from a Guggenheim Fellowship, he is currently writing a book about Charlie Chaplin and “The Great Dictator,” for Oxford University Press.

The Dictatorship

Harvey Weinstein’s California rape conviction upheld, resentencing ordered

Published

7 hours ago

June 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Harvey Weinstein’s California rape conviction upheld, resentencing ordered

An appeals court on Friday upheld Harvey Weinstein’s2022 rape and sexual assault conviction in California, but ordered the trial judge who gave him 16 years in prison to resentence him.

A three-judge panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal unanimously issued the decision, saying his trial judge did not violate the former movie magnate’s constitutional rights.

“We reject his attempts to disturb the jury’s guilty verdicts,” the judges wrote in their opinion.

Weinstein spokesperson Juda Engelmayer said in an email that “We are disappointed by today’s decision and respectfully disagree with the Court of Appeal’s conclusions regarding the fairness of Mr. Weinstein’s trial. At the same time, the court correctly recognized that his sentence cannot stand.”

The decision came a day after prosecutors in New York decided Weinstein would not face a fourth trial there, dropping the #MeToo-era case after the accuser said she could not bear to testify again.

The California panel said that resentencing was necessary because the judge that sentenced him considered New York convictions that were later thrown out as an aggravating factor. California’s attorney general agreed.

Weinstein, 74, still stands convicted of another sexual felony in New York, and he remains behind bars awaiting a September sentencing there. Prosecutors there are seeking a 20-year prison term.

In California, Weinstein was convicted in December 2022 of one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault against an Italian model and actor known during the trial as Jane Doe 1. He would serve his new sentence there only after his New York term is complete.

After the trial, Jane Doe 1 came forward under her name, Evgeniya Chernyshova, when she sued Weinstein in civil court.

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly as Chernyshova did. Her attorney also said she consented to being named.

Chernyshova testified that Weinstein arrived uninvited to her hotel room during the 2013 LA Italia Film Festival and assaulted her.

Weinstein’s defense argued that Weinstein deserved a new trial because Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa B. Lench wrongly prevented his trial lawyers from asking about Facebook messages between Chernyshova and festival head Pascal Vicedomini that would have shown they had a sexual relationship.

The questioning would have demonstrated that she perjured herself when she said she and Vicedomini were just friends and colleagues, the defense said. And the lawyers argued it would have bolstered their assertion that she was not even in her room on the night of the alleged assault.

“The lower court all but gutted Mr. Weinstein’s defense,” attorney Jennifer Bonjean told the appeals judges at April 23 oral arguments.

But the appeals court said in its ruling that Weinstein did make the arguments he wanted during the trial based on other evidence, including another set of Facebook messages that Lench allowed.

“Thus, there was no denial of Weinstein’s constitutional right to present a defense,” the panel wrote in its opinion.

The three judges also found that Weinstein’s lawyers failed to adhere to California’s rape shield law prohibiting evidence of an accuser’s sexual history when they tried to introduce the messages. Weinstein’s lawyers had argued that the shield law was not pertinent because they wanted to use the messages only to impeach the witness’s credibility.

And the appeals judges said testimony from accusers describing sexual assaults Weinstein was not charged with was appropriate, and allowed under state law.

Before his sentencing, Weinstein told the judge that this was a “made-up story” from a woman he had never met.

The Los Angeles jury acquitted Weinstein of the sexual battery of a massage therapist and failed to reach verdicts on counts involving two other women.

“This is not the end of the appellate process,” Engelmayer said in his email Friday. “We intend to seek review in the California Supreme Court because we continue to believe significant legal errors affected the proceedings and warrant further review.”

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said it would not have comment on the decision until the office reviewed it.

An email seeking comment from Chernyshova’s attorney was not immediately answered.

The Dictatorship

Haitians with Temporary Protected Status deserved better from the Supreme Court

Published

7 hours ago

June 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Jun. 26, 2026, 8:14 PM EDT

ByGarry Pierre-Pierre

One of the first people, and the very first doctor, to publicly receive a Covid-19 vaccine in the United States was Dr. Yves Duroseauthe chair of emergency medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan.

At a time when fear had emptied city streets and refrigerated trucks were lined up near hospital loading docksthat son of Haiti was a face of hope.

For Haitians, that image carried a deeper resonance. Ours is a community that America has often noticed only in moments of crisis. For once, the country was looking at a Haitian because he represented hope.

Ours is a community that America often noticed only in moments of crisis.

That memory from five and a half years ago is one reason the Supreme Court’s decision Thursday allowing the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians hit me so hard. Not with anger, but with deep sadness.

When I took the oath of citizenship decades ago, I believed America rewarded commitment with belonging. I still want to believe that. Thursday’s ruling suggests that, for some immigrants, the word “temporary” didn’t just describe their legal status but the nature of America’s welcome.

The first TPS recipients from Haiti arrived after the magnitude 7 earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince and killed hundreds of thousands of people in 2010. Today, Haiti faces a different catastrophe. Armed gangs control much of the capitalthousands have been killed or displaced and the State Department continues to warn Americans not to travel there.

For many TPS holders, the country they fled has not recovered. In many ways, it has become even more dangerous.

They believed something basic: that the United States would not send them back to a country engulfed by political violence, armed gangs and institutional collapse. TPS was created for those for whom returning home is unsafe. That humanitarian commitment should matter just as much as the lives those TPS holders have built since arriving.

They waited for Congress to do what some members had pushed for for years: create a pathway from temporary protection to permanent belonging. Instead, the years passed. Children became adults. Mortgages were paid. Careers were built. Entire lives unfolded while Washington postponed action. Temporary Protected Status became less a bridge than a waiting room. The finish line kept moving. Now, for many, it has disappeared altogether.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Haitian nurses, home health aides and other essential workers were hailed as heroes. Their work was indispensable then, and healthcare leaders say it remains indispensable today.

This dependence is not sentimental. It is measurable. The Boston Globe, citing data from the National Domestic Workers Alliancereported that roughly 13,000 Haitian TPS holders work as nursing assistants each day, caring for an estimated 65,000 patients.

According to a report by Massachusetts lawmakers Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, ending TPS for Haitians “threatens to seriously disrupt the health care, senior care and disability care workforces amid a nationwide health care crisis and persistent staffing shortages.”

Roughly 13,000 Haitian TPS holders work as nursing assistants each day, caring for an estimated 65,000 patients.

There is nothing temporary about the lives these TPS holders have built. There is nothing temporary about paying taxes for decades, buying a home, planting a garden or knowing your neighbors by name. There is nothing temporary about raising children who begin each school day by pledging allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. There is nothing temporary about risking your life to care for strangers during a once-in-a-century pandemic.

I never imagined that, decades after taking my own oath of citizenship, I would be writing about a generation of immigrants who walked that same path with the same faith only to discover that the road ended before they reached their destination.

As the nation celebrates its 250th birthday, it must also confront a question that has shadowed much of its history: Who gets to belong?

Too often, America has answered that question by welcoming people when their labor is needed most, only to question their place later.

Perhaps that is the greatest irony of all. The people we continue to call temporary have spent years proving their commitment to this country. This ruling is bigger than Haitians or Syrians. It speaks to the covenant a nation makes with the people who answer its call during moments of need.

Though that process has never been smooth, America has always been at its best when it expanded the circle of belonging. Italians, Jews, Asians and even Black Americans born here were all told at one time that they could never fully be American. The country was not diminished by widening the definition of who belongs — it was strengthened by it.

The question is no longer whether Haitians who have their built lives here belong. They have answered that question through years of work, sacrifice and service.

The question is whether America still remembers what it means to be a country that welcomes immigrants.

The U.S. has every right to enforce its immigration laws. But laws do not exist in a vacuum.

The U.S. has every right to enforce its immigration laws. But laws do not exist in a vacuum. They also reflect the promises a nation makes about who belongs. After more than 16 years, the Haitians affected by Thursday’s ruling are no longer strangers passing through. They are co-workers, parishioners, homeowners and taxpayers woven into the fabric of neighborhoods from New York to Florida to Massachusetts.

Pull one thread and you do more than remove one person. You weaken the fabric itself.

Garry Pierre-Pierre

Garry Pierre-Pierre is a Pulitzer-prize winning, multimedia and entrepreneurial journalist. In 1999, he left The New York Times to launch the Haitian Times, a New York-based English-language publication serving the Haitian diaspora. He is also the co-founder of the City University Graduate School of Journalism‘s Center for Community and Ethnic Media and a senior producer at CUNY TV