On journalism
Jun. 30th, 2018 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pallas_athenaOn Thursday night, the newsroom of the Capital Gazette— a local Maryland paper not far from my hometown— was broken into by a man who shot out the glass door, then killed five staff members, four of whom were journalists.
I don’t talk about journalism much here. But the fashion for bashing “the media” as a whole is reaching my friends, and there are things that need saying.
I’m not talking about criticism of individual media sources, or inspection of biases— those are both healthy, and needed. I’m talking about people who say “the media” as though it were all one thing, from one source rather than many. Often it will come with an adjective: “the liberal media” or “the centrist media”.
To be sure, the Murdochs, Sinclairs, Mercers, Dacres and their ilk are not forces for good. Far from it. One should be suspicious of any site that puts a political agenda ahead of the facts. That isn’t journalism.
Journalism is the courage of reporters like Ibrahim Alfa Ahmed, who went deep into territory held by Boko Haram militia. As a radio journalist, his reputation made strangers trust him enough to give him hard drives and phones with material recorded in Boko Haram bases and training camps. If he had been caught with these, he would have been killed— but he escaped with his life and brought the story back.
Journalism is the fortitude of Jason Rezaian, a journalist with the Washington Post. While working as their Tehran correspondent, he was taken prisoner for a year and a half. He was prevented from communicating with his wife and his mother. His illnesses went untreated. The charge was espionage: a frequent excuse used by totalitarian governments to imprison journalists. He's now free and writing again.
It’s not just in war zones that journalists risk their lives. I’m thinking of my friend Petra Mayer, a books journalist who found a homemade bomb in a New York street and phoned it in to the police and the newsroom.
I think of the tenacity of David Fahrenthold and Carole Cadwallader, who spend years of their lives combing through accounts, travel records, emails, interviews— finding the connections, the falsehoods, the illegal money. I think of the harassment, abuse and death threats they get from those who wish they'd stop asking questions.
Abuse of journalists has long been normalised in the online comments section, which few news sites have the staff or the resources to moderate effectively. Comments sections are also popular targets for professional Russian trolls working individually or in groups.
During his 2016 campaign, Donald Trump encouraged abuse of journalists. As President, he has continued that, calling them “enemies of the people”. His supporters have taken this as permission to step up their harassment.
Earlier this week, Milo Yiannopoulos texted two Observer reporters who had questioned him: “I can’t wait for the vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight.”
Meanwhile, journalists continue to annoy the powerful, ask awkward questions and uncover hidden truths. And the Rezaians, Fahrentholds and Cadwalladers of tomorrow continue to come up through local journalism.
On Thursday, the Capital's newsroom was attacked. Thursday night, they mourned their dead-- and prepared the next day's paper.
I don’t talk about journalism much here. But the fashion for bashing “the media” as a whole is reaching my friends, and there are things that need saying.
I’m not talking about criticism of individual media sources, or inspection of biases— those are both healthy, and needed. I’m talking about people who say “the media” as though it were all one thing, from one source rather than many. Often it will come with an adjective: “the liberal media” or “the centrist media”.
To be sure, the Murdochs, Sinclairs, Mercers, Dacres and their ilk are not forces for good. Far from it. One should be suspicious of any site that puts a political agenda ahead of the facts. That isn’t journalism.
Journalism is the courage of reporters like Ibrahim Alfa Ahmed, who went deep into territory held by Boko Haram militia. As a radio journalist, his reputation made strangers trust him enough to give him hard drives and phones with material recorded in Boko Haram bases and training camps. If he had been caught with these, he would have been killed— but he escaped with his life and brought the story back.
Journalism is the fortitude of Jason Rezaian, a journalist with the Washington Post. While working as their Tehran correspondent, he was taken prisoner for a year and a half. He was prevented from communicating with his wife and his mother. His illnesses went untreated. The charge was espionage: a frequent excuse used by totalitarian governments to imprison journalists. He's now free and writing again.
It’s not just in war zones that journalists risk their lives. I’m thinking of my friend Petra Mayer, a books journalist who found a homemade bomb in a New York street and phoned it in to the police and the newsroom.
I think of the tenacity of David Fahrenthold and Carole Cadwallader, who spend years of their lives combing through accounts, travel records, emails, interviews— finding the connections, the falsehoods, the illegal money. I think of the harassment, abuse and death threats they get from those who wish they'd stop asking questions.
Abuse of journalists has long been normalised in the online comments section, which few news sites have the staff or the resources to moderate effectively. Comments sections are also popular targets for professional Russian trolls working individually or in groups.
During his 2016 campaign, Donald Trump encouraged abuse of journalists. As President, he has continued that, calling them “enemies of the people”. His supporters have taken this as permission to step up their harassment.
Earlier this week, Milo Yiannopoulos texted two Observer reporters who had questioned him: “I can’t wait for the vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight.”
Meanwhile, journalists continue to annoy the powerful, ask awkward questions and uncover hidden truths. And the Rezaians, Fahrentholds and Cadwalladers of tomorrow continue to come up through local journalism.
On Thursday, the Capital's newsroom was attacked. Thursday night, they mourned their dead-- and prepared the next day's paper.