Posted on 08/03/2016 11:25:43 AM PDT by Drango
On the final night of the Republican National Convention last month, as Donald Trump formally accepted his party's nomination for president, my Code Switch co-host Shereen Marisol Meraji fired off a tweet about how unnerved she was watching Trump's address, with its angry denunciations of Muslims and Mexican immigrants.
"This speech is difficult to listen to as a Latina and an Iranian," she wrote. "So much fear-mongering."
Another NPR colleague — a person of color, and a friend — quickly texted her and told her the tweet might be inappropriate, work-wise. Shereen considered it, and took her tweet down.
But then she took to Twitter to pose a question that a lot of journalists have been wondering about during this heady, racially charged summer — and particularly those of us of who are reporters of color:
Follow Shereen Marisol @RadioMirage How do we address this critically without being labeled partisan? Is there precedent to understand how to do this as journalists of color? 8:57 PM - 21 Jul 2016 69 69 Retweets 175 175 likes
A lot of Twitter folks responded that journalists should simply strive to share the facts and be objective, and that the truth will out. But others, including several journalists, hopped in the conversation to point out that that advice, however well-intentioned, oversimplifies some very complex reader-audience dynamics.
How someone hears a story is inextricable from who they are, but also from the notions they have about who the storyteller is. Black reporters and Latino reporters are often especially sensitive to the idea that the work they do on their beats — especially if race is heavily implicated in what they cover, like policing or immigration policy — is less than fair or rigorous.
That's what we're getting into on this week's episode of the podcast, which happens to coincide with a huge joint convention of black and Latino journalists in Washington D.C. Shereen and I talk to Pilar Marrero and Wesley Lowery, who are both on news beats where race is central — but they've come to some very different conclusions about what fairness and truth look like in how they cover those beats.
Lowery, a reporter at the Washington Post who covers race and justice issues, told us that he's uncomfortable describing an individual as "racist," in large part because the response to the story then tends to get bogged down in arguments about whether the use of that term was fair or not. He tends to describe specific policies or actions as racist instead.
"I do think it's our job to say true things," he said. "But I also think...that people might be more amenable to a conversation — especially the type of people you're trying to convince that this is true — might be more amenable to [the idea that a specific policy has disparate racial effects]."
But Pilar Marrero, a veteran political reporter who now writes for the Spanish language news site La Opinion, has no problem using that kind of pointed language when referring to Donald Trump. "To be clear, we don't call [Trump] a racist just because he looks racist," she said. "We call him a racist because he says racist things, he promotes racist policies and he retweets white supremacist Twitter accounts." And as she pointed out, since her readership is primarily Latino — a group among whom Trump is enormously unpopular — they are far less likely to be bothered by that characterization of Trump than the Post's mostly white readership might.
You can check out our lively conversation with Pilar and Wesley at NPR's podcast directory, and on iTunes and other places podcasts are found.
FULL ON HATE FROM NPR
Here is what the NPR so called "code of ethics" says....
All NPR journalists should read and follow the guidance in this handbook. Those who work for shows, podcasts and programming that are not part of the News division should understand that these principles also apply to them... Because our words and actions can damage the public's opinion of NPR, we comport ourselves in ways that honor our professional impartiality. We have opinions, like all people. But the public deserves factual reporting and informed analysis without our opinions influencing what they hear or see.
Why would you want to address it critically -- unless you are partisan?
– This “social media guideline,” which says, in part: “Refrain from advocating for political or other polarizing issues online. … Don’t express personal views on a political or other controversial issue that you could not write for the air or post on NPR.org.
What a joke. If you’re an American try going to Iran for a visit.. or overstaying your time there.
Maybe NPR should look into it.
Besides, I sick of totalitarian thugs getting the vapors over us deciding we have the right to control our borders.
” But the public deserves factual reporting and informed analysis without our opinions influencing what they hear or see. “
Yeah,right,NPR. Guess you forgot the rules.
.
Get thee to a safe-space.
Those evil racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted white skinned bastards with their southern drawls and lack of education have the audacity to judge people by race, how they talk and where they’re from!
/sarc(????)
Here’s a clue: the story is NOT supposed to be about YOU, reporters!
To be able to say that they are saying it because they are nonpartisan, even though they are, and become more believed.
How can someone be Iranian AND Latina?
The speech is probably somewhere on line. Please advise what part of the speech denunciated Muslims and Mexican immigrants.
Thank you.
Hey wise latina reporter of “color”. Please write an essay on how securing our border so that people cannot simply cross it when and where they want carrying whatever they want with no controls, and no screening for diseases or anything else...just anybody from anywhere in the world just simply walking into our country with absolutely no knowledge of who and what they are, hurts you personally
all these libtard weasels need to go burrow into their “safe space” — they are obviously unfit to report factually on political campaigns and controversial issues of the day....
NPR will lose its funding in 2017 and become a footnote re losers in life.
That dumbass most definitely does not speak for this Latina-she makes us look bad by letting her alligator mouth overload her hummingbird ass like that...
I do not believe that Trump is going to win the Presidency. He is a bad candidate for the general election. He does not project competence or wisdom, and he has no filter.
I do believe however that his candidacy has created a paradigm shift on the right, and that in short order, someone will pick up Trump’s ideas and will run with them. When that leader emerges, the press will, again, abandon even the illusion of objectivity, and will come after him like they have with Trump. We need to determine how we are going to deal with that.
God willing, I am walking barefoot over rough gravel
to get to the polls on Election Day to vote for
DONALD JOHN TRUMP for President of the United States
against that hideous snake Hitler-y Rotham Clintoon and
her little First Laddie, Billious!
Ever heard of an OTM?
That's "Other Than Mexican", and it's a category of illegal border-crosser. We get a lot of them, and many are Arab or Persian mohammedans. The offspring of an OTM illegal alien and a Mexican illegal alien could well be an Iranian-Latina ...
Exactly. In an ideal world, journalists address the news *impartially*.
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