WHO is Richard Sharp? The new Chairman of the BBC?

1. Sharp worked for JP Morgan for eight years, then worked for Goldman Sachs, 23 years, rising to chairman of its principal investment business in Europe, .He was Rishi Sunak's boss at Goldman Sachs! Conflict of Interest MUCH?

Never forget that 2020 was the year that Black, Indigenous and otherwise racialized journalists in Canada stopped whispering and said it all out loud. In the order that I remember:

"Objectivity is a privilege afforded to white journalists," @Pacinthe on her time at CBC

Imani Walker, while still at the CBC, takes on one of its biggest names

"For Black women in media, a 'dream job' is a myth," @KathleenNB on her time at CTV

"Black Canadian voices are more visible now than ever — but will corporations act before this month’s motivation wanes?" @MorganPCampbell on his time at the Star

Thread: When I started doing investigative journalism full time, I fully understood the responsibility I was taking on. In a sea of disinformation from all sides, I vowed to be a place people could come where they knew they were getting the truth, even if painful.

As time went on and I looked at the landscape around me, I widened my goal. How could I start a new company that was FILLED with people who had the same commitment to honest journalism that I did? With the help of some amazing people, @UncoverDC was born.

We have a set of standards at @UncoverDC that I am honored to say are much different than elsewhere. Straight news, with NO partisan spin, investigative journalism, and opinion. This is what we do at @UncoverDC and we do it really well.

Since we “opened” a year and a half ago we have had some amazing accomplishments. I shared some of them in this post: “One year of Actual Journalism”

We’ve come so far even since this article, and I think it’s because we value and respect all of you so much as our equal. UncoverDC is for everyone. You are all a part of this family. A lot of folks have told me that what I will say next has been to my detriment.

A PLEA TO U.K. JOURNALISTS

You clearly signed up to the #dontmentiontheschools omertà from August to December.

No questions regarding why @educationgovuk allowed bubbles of 300, no SD, no masks, interchanging classes of 30 and poor ventilation

You refused to ask the questions

Parents watched our children and teachers get unnecessarily infected.

Yes, not all of them died, yes not all of them were hospitalised but THEY WERE unnecessarily exposed in school settings and you sat by and did nothing for FOUR MONTHS

We begged for your help...

We provided the UNSCIENTIFIC guidance to schools issued by @educationgovuk

We showed you how completely against ALL OF THE BASIC SAFETY MEASURES required in all other indoor settings where households mix it is.

We asked you to ask why it was this way...

Until the moves to close one or two days early by schools prior to Christmas were rejected, until the Unions began to take steps to protect their members, YOU showed no interest.

You were complicit in continuing to polarise the schools debate into OPEN vs CLOSED

...when the accurate discussion needed to be;

1. OPEN SAFELY for in-person education provision
or
2. Temporarily provide remote education until number 1 can be done

Why is this? Who gained from this polarisation?

Some thoughts from yesterday. A thread:

I have spent 23 years at The @nytimes, seven of them covering Congress. I made my home at a desk in the press gallery off the Senate chamber. I felt privileged to do so. I consider the Capitol sacred space. 1/

I have been there for any number of historic moments. The funeral of Ronald Reagan, a few years after 9/11, when the building had to be cleared in a panic because the governor of Kentucky flew his plane too close to the Capitol and the police thought it was a terrorist attack. 2/

The confirmation of Supreme Court justices, including John Roberts, the chief. The swearing in of Nancy Pelosi as the first female Speaker of the House. Twice. The impeachment of President Trump. I still have my own handwritten tally of the vote to acquit. I bore witness. 3/

I know that building inside and out. I know (or once knew) where the bathtubs in the basement are. They were put there in to the 1800s because senators didn’t have tubs in their own homes. The Senate historian once gave me a tour. 4/

I know where they keep the Lincoln catafalque – the funeral bier, or platform, that has held the casket of every person who has lain in state since Lincoln. It's housed behind a locked gate in a little alcove underneath the crypt, the circular room underneath the Rotunda. 5/

For the past 6 years, I & a few other journalists have been trying to get the mainstream press and political elites realize the major danger posed by the radical right. Unfortunately, moderate and liberal elites deluded themselves into thinking that conservatism wasn't a cult.

There is no secretly powerful "Republican establishment" that will fix things. There are thugs, deluded people, and there are quislings. There is no one else in the GOP. Instead of focusing on the radical right's danger, editors wanted stories about Trump tweets.

Instead of calling out the dangerous radicalism of the GOP, television debate shows and opinion pages invited the enablers of fascism to speak and write about how we all needed to give powerful insane people the benefit of the doubt.

Unlike Trump, who walled off the White House months ago into a fortress, Nancy Pelosi did not take the terrorist threat seriously enough to demand better security. She has the budget and the authority and did nothing similar. Now, fascists are on the floor of Congress.

Of course, it is Trump who bears the responsibility for this but the Capitol Police have totally disgraced themselves by not fortifying the building the way that the Secret Service did to the WH.

This is the view of numerous congressional staffers of both parties.