WTT MEDIA CLASS

HATE LIKE THE PRESS 101

Welcome to class everyone. Today we will learn 2 different kinds of news story. Then we will ignore the good one and go for the one that (if done enough) will create a profitable moral panic against transgender people. (Long Thread)

1/25

A "This is" story (the type we tend to do on our podcast ALMOST exclusively) explains an issue or specific event from a "this is" angle and reports what the SUBJECT is. This analyzes the SUBJECT of the story from as many angles as possible with evidence (sources, data etc).

2/25

A "They said" stories are entirely on what a selected group or person has said. What is said about the subject does not have to be factually accurate. A "they said" story is making only one claim: that a specific person said it. This story is easy, cheap and profitable.

3/25

A "They said" story must have 5 things

1. A statement that someone has said

2. Proof that they said it

3. Other views BRIEFLY at the end (which most people will not get to)

4. Lies that are presented as equal to the (optional) truth

And

5. Few/No Trans quotes or names

4/25

With this you can pretty much do anything. You can twist it to any political ideology you like. You can put this out in a broadsheet, tabloid, TV news segment, web article, YouTube video, Tweet or podcast.

Almost every transphobic news report fits a "They said" model.

5/25

Free gyaan to law students on my timeline. Pl take it seriously - most lawyers will tell you the exact opposite. So take a call.

Most lawyers, specially when they come recruiting to campus talk about how inadequately prepared law students are for ‘real life’ as a lawyer. They will also say this ad naseam. They will also lecture academicians incessantly about how it’s a pain to teach students the ‘real law’

That the curriculum should be overhauled, as it’s not preparing students with real skills. IGNORE THEM.

What you will learn as students, the focus, the depth and width of your learning will never ever be replicated in your professional life. What you learn today will be your foundation - focus on the wrong thing i.e. ‘real law’ and your foundation will remain weak for a lifetime.

What lawyers call ‘real law’ varies from practice to practice and you literally have a lifetime to learn. Research will often be hurried, be on a very narrow point (sometimes literally a comma), and often that narrow research, though adding to your knowledge, be never used again.

@KaylaAncrum 1) This reminds me of junior high back in the Chicago suburbs when some classmates pretended my name was ‘too hard’ & relentlessly teased me as ‘Shoehead,’ ‘Shitvo,’ & ‘Shamu’ for almost 2 years until my social studies teacher Mr. C decided to absolutely GO OFF on them:

2) In class one day, to everyone’s utter astonishment, he stopped his lecture & said ‘I think some of you are having trouble pronouncing Shuvo’s name. It’s easy to say shoo-VOH, but your behaviour inspires me to give you new names now. Let’s point out a few examples.’

3) Mr. C turned to a red-haired jerk who often led the bullying and said ‘If you don’t shape up, you’ll be known as Carrot Head in my class, since you’re uglier than Carrot Top and you’re certainly bigheaded and arrogant.’

His face turned redder than his hair.

4) He then then turned to a classmate named Edie & said to her ‘I won’t call you Edie anymore, I’ll call you Dedie, as in DD, since that’s the grade you get in my class & it’s short for Dum-Dum, which is what you proved to be.’

I actually felt bad for her she was so mortified.

5) Then he turned to another kid whose last name was McCracken & said ‘You will be known as McChicken, since you’re a coward, & based on your performance it seems the most you can ever aspire to be is a fast food server, so wipe that smug grin off your face, cluck cluck.’

!!

Improving Remote Education - A Thread.

Over the last couple of weeks, the discussion has been about what primary schools are offering to their communities and how we can improve on it.

I'm relistening to the sessions, so points may not be in order as I add them... 1/

1. Non-teaching SLT are not experts on remote learning, what can they base any judgement on?

2. Facilitating staff discussion and sharing is likely to be far more effective to develop practice within your school. /2

3. Increasing access to devices/internet is a step towards making offers more equitable, but it is only part of the process.

4. Entertainment and engagement are different things.

5. Pre-recording should not be perfection, perfection wastes time and energy.

6. It is scary being beamed into someone's home, but having your home on show is also stressful. (perhaps something for Ofsted to consider, we are guests in other people's homes)

7. Giving over staff meetings to staff discussion and sharing is probably a better use of the time than other stuff you have planned.

It's been hot takes on LGBTQ. Let's get some Islamic edu on "gender nonconformity" i.e. "identifying as a gender different from what was assigned at birth."

There're 64 genders* today—not just male/female anymore. Anything of such & how's gender established in Islam?

THREAD

Is gender about anatomy (the genital you were born with) or personal decision?

That's summarily the question this thread seeks to illuminate as per Islamic perspective. It doesn't matter if you're a Muslim or not. So far you're a knowledge-seeker and here for that, be my guest.

Like you're probably confused about the LGBTQ arguments, some persons around are confused about their biological sex and gender. The exact reason they (the few real ones among them - not trans) appear noncomformist.

This problem is called gender dysphoria.

Gender dysphoria is the feeling of unease that occurs in people whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth or genitals (sex-related physical characteristics).

See attachments on gender identity, gender expression & sexual orientation. All.. different things.

Forward. Is there anything different from male/female known to Islam? Yes, there're gender-atypical persons.

1. The ambiguous khunthā (al-khunthā al-mushkil)
2. The congenital mukhannath (al-mukhannath al-khilqī)
3. The non-congenital mukhannath (al-mukhannath ghayr al-khilqī)

#PhD INTERVIEW EXPERIENCE + TIPS/TRICKS (mine were for #biomed)

A thread.👇

Before I begin, all of you are awesome and never let anyone tell you otherwise😃

Share and RT 😁❤
@AcademicChatter @OpenAcademics @PhDspeaks @firstphdchat

You made it. You have an interview for a #PhD program! And we are in the middle of a pandemic! Be proud of this accomplishment, you are amazing 👏

It took me a while to become confident and actually acknowledge this as something to be excited about and not anxious about.

Remember that the committee is impressed and wants to recruit you.
They would want to impress you with their the same way you want to impress them.

Now let's move on to interview prep.

An interview really is you marketing your best self as a candidate to the committee/your faculty interviewers.
If you know your interviewers prior to your interview (I also had the opportunity to pick them), read up on them, their research, recent publications/projects.

Faculty interviewers will be impressed if you have an understanding and interest in their work. It is also a good conversation starter.

One on one interviews with faculty will have more room for conversation than panel interviews.

Why I love learning.
Personal reflections from an #ActuallyAutistic perspective.
#ActuallyAutistic
#AllAutistics
#education
#edutwitter
#teaching
#studying
#autistic
#autism
1/

I realised I loved learning at nursery school. I pressed my painted palms onto sugar paper and slid smooth wooden beads on an abacus. I sat on a vintage tractor in the grounds and marvelled at its mechanics. To learn was to wonder.
#earlyyears
#education
#nursery
#autism
2/

I loved the fabric of the building. A small human sized door set in a large wooden gate. My coat peg with its sunflower motif. The canvas and metal camp beds we slept on after lunch. Collaborating with my cousin David, who helped do up my buttons, while I tied his shoe laces.
3/

My memories of primary school are even more vivid. Immersing objects in water, seeing what would float. Making kites out of sticks and paper. Translating shapes on paper into meaning and sound. Planting seeds then scraping back the earth to find red radish globes. Watching.
4/

One day we made a sorting machine out of index cards with holes in different places threaded onto knitting needles. It would answer questions for us. It was a rudimentary computer. I learned that I could answer questions myself by reading books, or sometimes just by thinking.
5/

Press conference starting shortly calling on @DonHarmonIL to let the elected school board bill have a floor vote in the Senate like he promised. We'll live tweet it here.

Labor leaders standing with elected, parents, community orgs and teachers @AFTunion, @J1Ramann, @SigchoFor25, SEIUHC,

of @KOCOmmunity & @J4J_USA: Mayor Lightfoot who said she would be different and support an elected board wants a hybrid that she controls

Brown: The senate president @DonHarmonIL who said he would be different and would stand with labor is refusing to call a bill

Next up Bob Reiter, @chicagolabor: the appointed board just represents the mayor's office. There is no reason why this school district should be different than any other district in IL. Parents need to elect their representatives

Masters Scholarships for guys that wanted more.
Open Scholarships Thread:
LEGAL.
Master in Transitional Justice Scholarships
Program: Masters
Organisation: Geneva Academy
Country to study: Switzerland
Course: Not specified
Deadline January 29,

DAAD-EPOS
ENVIROMENTAL SCIENCE
MSc WASTE
Scholarship Type: Masters Organisation German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)
Country to study: Germany
Application Deadline: February 15,

Queen Elizabeth Commonwealth
OPEN COURSE
Scholarship Type: Masters Organisation Commonwealth Scholarships
Country to study: Bangladesh, Barbados, Ghana, Jamaica, Kenya, Malaysia, Mauritius, Pakistan, Rwanda, Tanzania.
Deadline: January 18,

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)
HEALTH
Type: Masters
Organisation: LSHTM
Country to study: United Kingdom
DeadlineMarch 28,

University of Oulu
OPEN COURSE
Masters
Scholarship Type: Masters
Organisation: University of Oulu
Country to study: Finland
Deadline: January 20,

This is the 4th instalment of #deanehistory. Back to the Second World War today, but whilst in the 2nd instalment we looked at the very end, this is the very beginning.
Captain Sigismund Payne Best was a monocle sporting British intelligence officer in both world wars.

Based in the Netherlands between the wars, he ran our spy network in Holland & was drawn into a trap by the Nazis who dangled officers supposedly representing those interested in removing / assassinating Hitler. But were really, er, Nazis.

A series of meetings took place between Best & his team & the fake plotters.

The aim was to humiliate the Brits, paint us as manipulating / abusing Dutch neutrality, & provide a pretext for saying Dutch were violating their own neutrality (claims not without some merit).

As with much good subterfuge, the Nazis played hard to get, making Best & co fret that they didn’t believe that he was really an intelligence agent. We obligingly played some agreed codewords over the BBC to assure them he was.

A series of meetings took place, the location nudging closer to the German border – until finally at a café outside Venlo, right on the Dutch / German border.

When schools (rightly) closed last week, we knew many working mums (& dads) would be plunged into the nightmare of trying to work AND look after their kids AND homeschool. So we @the_TUC asked them how they were managing. 55,630 parents replied (!), in four days, 7-10 Jan 1/

We knew the last lockdown hit mums hard. I say mums, cos it's still mums that do the majority of the childcare and who stepped back from paid work to look after their kids. Yes I know many dads do their fair share.

Here's what they told us. 9 in 10 said they were stressed and anxious. No wonder. Even with an understanding boss, it's hard. And for many mums, the kids at home all day meant they faced a catastrophic loss of income.

How are they managing? 65% are working from home and doing childcare. 25% are using annual leave (but that stores up problems for the long summer holidays later in the year). 18% have reduced their working hours. 14% are taking unpaid leave.

The government says furlough can be used if parents can't work cos childcare. But 40% didn't know this. 78% have not been offered furlough by their employer. And a totally unacceptable 68% who did ask for furlough were turned down for it by their boss.

When you do media training for TV interviews, you learn some of the tactics for avoiding difficult questions. I'm speaking about
- deflection
- bridging
- deferring
These skills are key when you face high-level interviews on media.

Deflection is usually the easiest.

Q: Didn't you say Bitcoin was going to keep rising to $100k?
A: That's one thing I actually wanted to talk about. We are pretty rigorous with our research. In fact, recently, we upgraded our research platform with an AI System...

Bridging as the name implies means you connect from the question and move away to what you want to focus on. The emphasis on connecting the question to your answer is the key difference with deflection, which takes a sharp turn away from the question right from the beginning.

Q: Categorically, do you believe Nigeria can solve its power issue?
A: Categorically speaking, Nigeria's problem with power needs a proper definition. Is it Generation or transmission or tariffs? or Financing or a lack of political will? I think if we take the telecoms ndustry...

Deferring is the default practice for non-comms people when faced with a question about their company or a subject they don't want to talk about. This involves notifying the interviewer that there is someone better equipped to answer and that your response does not represent..