Adventures of a Gonzo Journalist
Posted in Austin, Journalism, LGBTQIA, SXSW, and The Texas Observer
When the drag queen known as Hermajestie the Hung reached her breaking point, she transformed into the Joker, becoming the scourge of patriarchy, homophobic lawmakers, and anti-transgender bigots everywhere.
“She’s that queen that’s just had enough,” Hermajestie told the Texas Observer.
Posted in Journalism, and The Texas Observer
I’ve been laid off at the Texas Observer today. The publication no longer has a digital editor or social media manager (I was both), and…
Posted in Austin, Journalism, and The Texas Observer
Big-city traffic and a resolution on New Year’s Eve of 2020 led Pflugerville resident Kelsey Black to become a bookseller.
An avid reader, she disliked the hour round trip required to get from her suburb of 65,000 to downtown Austin to browse a bookstore. “OK,” she told herself, “I think it’s just going to be easier for me to … start my own bookstore.”
Turned out, it wasn’t easy at all, “but it’s OK because I have now found my calling,” Black said. The Book Burrow began as a pop-up and online business and finally, on August 6, opened as a brick-and-mortar store. She said the 200-square-foot space has become a haven for those who don’t feel like they fit in elsewhere, drawn by the store’s motto: “Embrace your weird.” For her, the phrase means cultivating love for whatever makes you unique: “Embrace your gender identity; embrace your sexual identity; embrace your racial background; embrace your spiritual path.”
Posted in Creative Commons, Journalism, and Occupy Wall Street
Over 5 years since the election of Donald Trump and the rise of the powerful white supremacist movement he empowered, the mainstream media still struggles to fact-check fascists.
It always interests me which organizations get the benefit of the doubt from the mainstream media.
I (and many others) have written about how the mainstream media tends to take the words of police at face value. Reporters often use whatever language makes police seem blameless after violent interactions.
Just like cops, right-wing fascists frequently get platformed by reporters who fail to ask vital questions.
Which brings us to an article by Asher Price, an Austin reporter for Axios.
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.
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:
