I appeared on the Visu.News podcast to discuss my recent article on the language media uses when discussing the police. The hosts, Aaron Cynic and Zach Roberts, had just watched the recently released bodycam footage of the police murder of Adam Toledo. They were understandably shaken, and it gave our discussion an increased urgency.
Tag: Black Lives Matter
Officer-Involved Shootings: How Was The Officer Involved?
Posted in Creative Commons, and Journalism
I found a really stark example this week of how the mainstream media continues to misreport about police killings, or as they too-often call them, “officer-involved shootings.”
I’m not the first one to point out that this is a problem. Experts on journalism discourages the use of vague language like “officer-involved shootings.” So why does the media persist in it?
Again, this happens all the time. I’m only calling out ABC here because it’s so blatant: two contrasting examples from the same 24-hour period. Here’s the first tweet:
Any Journalist Can Become A Media Troll, Even ‘Neutral’ Journalists
Posted in Creative Commons, and Journalism
The First Amendment doesn’t grant you the right to film people’s faces or put protesters at risk without facing social consequences.
Recently, I’ve watched protesters turn increasingly hostile against some media, especially livestreamers. Even though I’m a journalist, I find myself agreeing with protesters that streamers can put them at risk.
Any journalist, even well meaning ones, can become a media troll if they endanger movements. And right now, as we face off with ascendant fascism, the potential risks to activists are very high.
Reminder: It’s Against The Law To Fire Austin’s Police Chief
Posted in Austin, Creative Commons, and Journalism
Did you know it’s literally against the law to fire Austin’s chief of police?
I found myself tweeting this fact over and over again, each time some new fresh horror surfaced from Austin’s police force. So I thought I should write something too.
It would be an extraordinary fact at any time, but it seems worth repeating at this moment when so many people are demanding accountability from our nation’s police. One of the key forms of accountability under capitalism, firing a bad worker, is actually off limits.
Over at Ministry of Hemp, I wrote about our feelings about the current Black Lives Matter uprising and how it ties to the hemp and cannabis industries:
In this time of extraordinary global protest, hemp advocates and the hemp industry must live up to our ideals by supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and working towards real change.
Going even further, our involvement can’t stop with just the protests. In order to build an ethical and sustainable industry, we need to be active participants in undoing the damage that the War on Drugs caused. We need to lobby to defund police forces which grew out of control during this “war.”
Starbucks Racism & The Media: There’s Nothing New Except The Attention
Posted in Creative Commons, and Journalism
As a journalist, I want to talk to other white people about recent coverage of “Starbucks Racism” incidents.
People of all races are horrified by the reports filling the news of black people targeted by whites for everyday activities. I’m calling it “Starbucks Racism” in this post not because I particularly hate Starbucks. It’s simply that the incident in which police arrested two black men waiting for a third friend at a Philadelphia Starbucks is now infamous. This story ushered in renewed interest in the media in this kind of “casual” but extremely dangerous racism.
There’s a reaction to these Starbucks Racism stories I’ve mostly noticed among white people. It reflects both a misunderstanding of systemic racism and a misunderstanding of how the media works. I’ll paraphrase something I saw on a friend’s wall: “What’s wrong with people? I’m so disgusted at how people act recently.”