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

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

This is a thread on @EspinaNonoy ‘s FB which clearly shows what he means by a “mob howling for blood” — calling for summary execution of the killer cop. What follows is his post on the “attempt to twist the narrative of the uproar that followed the Paniqui executions.” (More)

The new lie, he notes, “blithely claims that so-called human rights advocates he been calling for the lynching of the cop and his kid while Duterte's disciples sought a trial.” (More)

“The truth is - and this is so easy to check on social media - the mob howling for blood, including that of the child, was made up of BOTH pro- and anti-Duterte partisans, though predominantly the former” (more)

“many professing shock and outrage at the double murder even as their social media accounts cheered on the deaths of drug suspects and, later, of activists-terrorists-who-the-fuck-cared-about-the-difference.”

“As for the many human rights advocates I know, and they come from the different colors of the political spectrum, I can vouch that they erupted in righteous anger, demanding justice, but not a single one of them even hinted of wanting the killer cop summarily executed.”

If journalism and the press are "the first draft of history," as many reporters and media like to say, then many more of them and their organizations need to have the temerity, intellectual honesty, and integrity to call out what happened in Washington, DC and simultaneously...

...in other places across the country on January 6, 2021, exactly what it was, coordinated domestic terrorist attack, insurrection, and rebellion. There is a constitutional break down in progress, and in some ways it seems that journalism is part of the constitutional crisis.

With all of the reportation around the Black Lives Matters marches and the violence and vandalism that was attempted to be seeded, the news media had absolutely no hesitation in reporting out the incidences while leaving plenty of space for doubt...

...even when it was crystal clear that peaceful marchers had nothing to do with the negative incidents. Sabotage was the specific goal, and the saboteurs were Proudboys and other racist, anti-government, anti-democratic elements aligned with Trump. But equivocating analysis.

...and false equivalency in reporting persists. Thus, unhelpful even harmful dialogue, discussion and propaganda has been permitted to persist to color the goals and objectives of the marchers, unfairly sway public opinion, and stunt some of the progress of that movement.