In this riveting and deeply thought-provoking episode, host Ryan Sorrell is joined by Dr. Anita Varma, a leading Journalism scholar renowned for challenging traditional, white supremacist values in media. Currently she is an Assistant Professor at the School of Journalism and Media at UT Austin, and leads the Solidarity Journalism Initiative at the Center for Media Engagement. Dr. Varma shares her journey and what led her to work in journalism, particularly in solidarity work. Her recent, unprecedented paper Solidarity Reporting on Marginalization, challenges the notion of journalistic objectivity and provides a new framework rooted in traditions like the Black Press, ethnic press and labor press. The conversation turns to the history of white American journalism and its role in white supremacy, including how white media enabled and empowered white supremacist fascism and racial terror during slavery and Jim Crow. Dr. Varma discusses how solidarity reporting, such as the Black press, differs from traditional journalism (what she terms “monitorial reporting”) and its importance in centering the voices and experiences of marginalized communities. The podcast also delves into the issue of police departments and their use of state-sanctioned disinformation, particularly in the case of the Kansas City Police Department. Dr. Varma provides insights on how news outlets can cover police departments and hold them accountable. This episode provides an insightful and thought-provoking discussion on the importance of solidarity journalism and its role in addressing systemic issues affecting marginalized communities.
Ryan Sorrell 0:00
What's going on y'all? This is Ryan's Sorrell and you are now tuned in to the Kansas City defender podcast.
We are a radical black nonprofit community media organization based in Kansas City, Missouri. We cover news, politics, Arts and Culture Technology, and quite frankly, anything that is of concern to black people both in our region and nationally, our news organization is centered around events and movements that are taking place in our local community. But we are very much interested in generating and critically examining national conversations as well. Things like these white supremacist fascist movements taking place in school districts across the country, or things like the rapid proliferation and deployment of artificial intelligence and large language models, such as chat GPT, and Google's lambda. So we will be bringing on guests to discuss these kinds of what I perceive as threats to black people in communities, but equally discussing positive visions and manifestations of the black radical imagination, and radical Black joy as well. As always, we'd like to provide you all with some background about our organization and the show here. But now that we have got that out of the way, we can go ahead and jump right in. Today we are joined by the one and only Dr. Anita Varma. Dr. Anita Varma is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Media at UT Austin, where she focuses on media ethics. She also leads the solidarity journalism initiative at the Center for Media Engagement, where she is a senior faculty research associate, as a publicly engaged scholar, Her work focuses on the role of solidarity in journalism, which is what our conversation today will be largely centered around. So thank you so much, Dr. Varma for coming on to the show today.
Unknown Speaker 2:00
My pleasure, thank you for having me. Absolutely. In generally, just to kind of start the conversation off, I love to ask people, how you got here. And just to learn a bit more about your journey and help us ground the conversation and what led you to both journalism and specifically solidarity journalism? Yeah, I love that question. I asked myself how I ended up here all the time. So I became really interested in journalism when I was a very young child, because my grandfather lived with us. And he subscribed to no fewer than five local newspapers. In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he had just arrived in the US after his grandchildren were born here from India. And I think the local news aspect was really important to his understanding of the country. But I also noticed as I grew up, and was able to read these newspapers to that I rarely saw stories about anyone who was not a politician, anyone who is not in some fancy official titled, office. And so noticing that I also saw lots and lots of people who weren't in these fancy positions and wondered where their stories were. So that's really driven a lot of my work. I ended up here at UT quite by mistake, I did my PhD at Stanford, and thought that I would stay in the Bay Area. But then ut was really interested in learning more about the solidarity journalism approach and integrating that into their school of journalism. So I brought the solidarity journalism initiative here.
Ryan Sorrell 3:38
That is a very inspiring story. Certainly in can you maybe just talk about what solidarity journalism is for our listeners?
Unknown Speaker 3:50
I would love to so the solidarity journalism initiative includes a phrase that isn't always used commonly, which is solidarity journalism, I will start by defining solidarity because it gets used in a lot of different ways. So as I define it, solidarity is a commitment to social justice. That translates into action. And solidarity journalism is when that action is the decision to report the decision to represent not just to cover a social justice issue that's happening somewhere over there, but to make the decision to amplify people who are directly experiencing the issue. So flipping the script, instead of saying we're going to talk to the mayor first about what's happening here. Let's talk to the people first. So that would be solidarity journalism in a nutshell.
Ryan Sorrell 4:42
Absolutely. And that's definitely something that you know, as a black news outlet as a startup like news outlet that is really helping to go against the grain. I remember last year when we first started you were one of the first scholars whose work I came across that really resonated with my philosophy really on how journalism, in my opinion should be practiced and has been practiced in marginalized communities. So definitely very inspired by your work. ButI want to move on to talk maybe just about what traditional so called traditional journalists, journalistic practices are, which a lot of it has to do with things like objectivity. I know it's something that both in journalism schools is taught very frequently. It's even in a lot of existing newsrooms today. Objectivity is something that is still,we're told that that's what we're supposed to be trying to achieve. And so I'm wondering if you can give us some background on where did that even come from? Why do people think that that's something that we're supposed to be striving for?
Unknown Speaker 5:49
That's such a great and important question. Especially that second part, why why would that be what journalists are striving for? But to say the first part of the question first, you know, the idea of objectivity in journalism is relatively recent, it's not something that journalism has always had in mind. In fact, partisanship has a longer history than objectivity in journalism. But 20th century journalism, particularly in the United States, has become quite preoccupied with this ideal of objectivity, that even if we can't get to objectivity, we should the argument goes, aspire towards it. So objectivity also grew out of this response and fear in an environment of wartime propaganda and public relations. How is the public to know what is actually going on. So the hope was, if journalists can check their biases at the door, if they can bracket their perspectives, then journalism would be able to provide a baseline truth to society, which sounds great on paper, except for the part where it does not work, objectivity in journalism does not work. So it specifically doesn't work when we're looking at issues of marginalization of social injustice of ongoing affronts to people's basic dignity. I think, objectively, it does work to report that it is not currently raining in Austin, Texas, right? That that statement has nothing to do with a judgment or you know, anything needing to come in other than the fact of the matter is, it's not raining, I just looked out my window. The problem, though, is that objectivity imagines that journalists are primarily concerned with reporting things that can be ascertained simply by looking out the window. And if that's all journalists wanted to do, maybe it would work. But given that journalists are very much in the business of covering issues like public safety, housing, instability, cost of living, abortion, access, none of those things can be ascertained just as easily is deciding whether or not it's raining. And even with the rain example, you know, it's unlikely you're going to see a new story that just says it's not raining right now. Instead, there's going to be a discussion of what's important, what's newsworthy, what matters to our readers, to our audiences. And that might get into discussions of whether it's unseasonably warm right now. Is this an example of climate change? Is this an example of other weather patterns that are changing and potentially becoming dangerous, but already, even in that weather example, we've left that realm of saying judgments can be set aside in journalism. So that's the main reason objectivity doesn't work. But I think in a lot of newsrooms, they get very frightened at the idea that objectivity that was supposed to be their great guidepost, their signal of credibility. If you believe in science, and you believe in scientific objectivity, you must believe in journalistic objectivity. Right, it was supposed to be a way for journalism to to be able to say we have this authoritative account of what's going on. But if you take away objectivity from that discourse from how they think of themselves, then that authority would also go away. Now, in some cases, I know with with some of the best news reporting, there's not much concern about that, because people aren't trying to make journalism some mantle of authority society, but in other settings, more traditional settings, that is threatening their very sense of self. So I think that's in a nutshell, where objectivity came from I don't, I don't buy into the idea that objectivity was some conspiracy plot to dis inform us. I think it did come from a place of wanting to ensure rigor in journalism, but it just hasn't taken us they're taking us instead to a place where journalists end up quote, unquote, objectively amplifying claims that are really untrue. And so that's why I work so strongly. To help journalists reassess those presumptions of the value of objectivity.
Ryan Sorrell 10:06
Absolutely. And I know that people like Walter Lippmann also played a role in really creating the philosophy of objectivity within journalism as well. Well, I think that really helps transition us well into your paper that you recently released, which I know is titled solidarity, reporting marginalization. And it talks a lot about not only pushing back against objectivity, but specifically the differences between monitoring, reporting and solidarity reporting. So maybe could you help us understand what is monitoring reporting?
Unknown Speaker 10:52
I would love to some monitoring and reporting is often in journalism studies talked about as the heart and soul the core function and purpose and need for journalism, which is to shine a spotlight, so not just shine a spotlight on anyone but to shine a spotlight specifically on people with institutional power. And again, I think it starts from a good place of believing that through transparency, officials cannot enjoy this veil of secrecy. Many officials would like to be able to operate in secret with no public accountability whatsoever. And monitor Oriole reporting. Also, sometimes term watchdog reporting, says no, you can't just do things in secret or going to expose what you're doing whatever it may be, it could be something quite mundane. It could be something normal, it could be something outrageous. But monitoring and reporting says the new story is whatever happened at the Texas Legislature today might have been exactly what we expected might have been completely unexpected. But monitoring reporting is basically like your home monitor, right? It's watching at all times. I think that the the downside of monitoring and reporting comes up very quickly, when for some reason, issues that officials are not experts on and may have very limited understanding of somehow they become the story. So the example that I use in the paper is a case study of coverage of homelessness in San Francisco, which disproportionately voted officials instead of voting people who are actually living on housed. Right. And I think that disconnect is where this problem starts to arise from journalists and opportunity in journalism, positioning journalists to say, well, you need to have an official, you need to have a credentialed expert in this story for it to be journalism, what that does is that it sets the stage for that journalism to be very far removed from the reality, it was supposed to be trying to cover homelessness. And yet, we're hearing on officials version of what homelessness means and doesn't mean instead of actually hearing from people
Ryan Sorrell 13:04
affected. Gotcha. And so I'm guessing that solidarity reporting would be the flip side of that almost then and instead of going to, like I know, here in Kansas City, a lot of our local news outlets, when they report on things like homelessness, they might go to the mayor, or they might go to the executive director of some big nonprofit organization, or they might go to city council member, but they very rarely ever, actually go to people who are experiencing it. And so would that be kind of WHAT SOLIDARITY reporting is, is going to people actually on the ground and figuring out, you know, how can what kind of resources do you need? Or those types of things? Or what else would go into what solidarity reporting looks like?
Unknown Speaker 13:50
Yeah, so solidarity reporting definitely would go to the people who are affected by the issue. That could be homelessness, that could be climate crisis, that could be sexual assault, across the range of issues that might place a person's basic humanity at stake, starting with the people who know because they're living the issue. So I think it's very reasonable. That you know, if you want to know more about a study that I wrote that you come to me, but wouldn't it be strange if you wanted to know more about a study that I wrote, and you go to someone completely removed from me and my research and my life? Maybe? Yeah, technically, they might be in some organization that has something to do with research. But that disconnect gets addressed in solidarity reporting by actually going into the person that or people that a story is supposed to be about. And then the second piece to keep in mind is that with solidarity reporting, it's not necessarily a matter of replacing official sources with people impacted instead, it becomes a question of prioritization. So we would hear first and foremost, from people impacted by social injustice hearing, not just their sadness or their trauma, but hearing their perspectives, their views, what is going on? And what needs to change that it's very often a question that journalists only ask officials or they only ask researchers with a PhD. But the question that they'll ask quote unquote, regular people is, how do you feel about that? And I encourage journalists to question themselves, I mean, would you go to the mayor and say, How do you feel about that? Probably not. You're asking the mayor for a perspective. So that's the goal with solidarity reporting to secure those perspectives, those experiences and those firsthand observations, right, I think in journalism, it's supposed to be really, really important to know based on right firsthand knowledge, not second or third hand. And yet somehow officials often get a free pass in getting to spout a lot of things that aren't at all first hand observations. Solidarity reporting brings us back to some core principles in that way. And then we may hear from officials right. And I think really great solidarity reporting often takes what the journalist hears from people impacted, and asks the official, how would you respond to this? I mean, you've said that you're providing housing to everyone who can no longer staying in a tent encampment now that they're illegal. But here's folks saying that there is no housing available. So what is your response to that? That's a very different question than just saying, How is the city responding to homelessness, right? Because that that formulation gives them an open slate to say, here's how we're responding, we have a great plan, whereas coming to them with actual firsthand experiences that you've collected on the ground, you know, I think that creates a different mechanism for accountability. So I would never want to encourage reporting that ignores officials when officials are irrelevant, because I think officials need to take and be held responsible. So we can't really do that if we kick the officials out altogether. But making sure that those questions are informed by first, the the experiences, perspectives and needs of people on the ground. That would be the solidarity approach.
Ryan Sorrell 17:16
Cuts in I definitely do a little bit later in the conversation want to get to what happens when officials purposefully provide what I consider to be state sanctioned disinformation, to communities, I think that that's something that we are certainly dealing with here in Kansas City. But before we get to that aspect, I know, also firsthand by being an organization that I would certainly say practices solidarity reporting, and I'm interested in how have you gotten any pushback from people who might say things like, this is not real journalism, this is advocacy. This is whatever other things people like to label it besides saying, This is not journalism. So I'm interested in what kind of critiques you have heard, and how you generally respond to those?
Unknown Speaker 18:12
Yeah, the number one question I get, and it disproportionately comes from editors. Occasionally, I'll get it from academics. I've never gotten it from a reporter though, which I think is is revealing. But that question is, this is all very interesting. Solidarity. Sounds like a very intriguing concept for some news outlets. But is it really journalism? Or are you talking about advocacy? And that's a parallel, phrase it and then I'll go somewhere in a completely different state city venue? And I'll get exactly the same question again and again, such that I'm in the process of writing a book, and that's the concluding chapter is in quotation marks. Is that really journalism? Or are you talking about advocacy? And I think it's a really revealing question. So when I first thought that question, I used to push back and say, of course, it's journalism and not advocacy. And then I caught myself at some point, because I realized that I was buying into this separation, as if the only way I can really legitimately be in a room talking about journalism is if I maintain that wall between journalism and advocacy, but in reality, all journalism advocates, all journalism advocates, journalism that is ostensibly supposed to be abiding by objectivity, routines, that journalism is advocating for the status quo for officials to be the people who are in power, because they are in power. It's just circular reasoning. There's journalism that very much advocates for democracy. Washington Post says democracy dies in the darkness. I think democracy is a perfectly defensible and strong principle to advocate for but let's be clear, democracy is not just in the air. It is a political ideology. GE. And so I think that in journalism, there's often some pushback. And the irony is sometimes that pushback is coming from places that have very proudly in their award letters, which I've read, in great detail claimed a lot of credit for not just revealing problems, but having a real world impact that through journalism, change has happened, Justice has been advanced. And so I think that pushback is an attempt to say that journalism and advocacy are two different things, when in fact, the best journalism, the journalism that gets remembered and honored and taught in journalism, schools, all of that journalism is always aligned with social justice, right? So to suggest that those two journalism and advocacy or journalism and social justice are somehow different endeavors. It's really an A historical claim. And I think it serves a certain power dynamic by trying to keep this fake separation. But it's just it's not it's not accurate. And I think in journalism, people need to be concerned about accuracy, to be clear that every school of journalism is the end of the day, it's a school of advocacy. The question is just what is that school advocating for?
Ryan Sorrell 21:20
Absolutely, and I know, I'm certainly very inspired by organizations like the North Star from Frederick Douglass or I to be wells, the Chicago Defender, even even here in Kansas City, the Kansas City Call has a long history. And the black press specifically I know, has a long tradition of very much being an advocacy press, basically, and, unapologetically. So I know even one of my favorite documentaries is soul soldiers without swords, were part of the commentary on it says, We like are very clear about the fact that the black press historically has been oppressive advocacy. So I think that that is just an incredibly powerful point that you make. But also, I also think a lot about the role that white American journalism has played in enabling, empowering and evoking the white supremacist fascism and racial terror, especially during the years of slavery and Jim Crow, things like how the Wilmington massacre was not only caused by the hysteria and white media, but also actually directly led by the editor Joseph Daniels of the news, news and observer, who actually took up arms and initiated the massacre of black people in 1898, are also how the first American newspaper in United States history of the Boston newsletter began literally selling slave ads and that their business model was fully reliant on black exploitation within his first month of existence. So I think again, my understanding is that white journalism in the United States has never existed outside of a violently white supremacist context. So I'm interested in from your perspective, do you think that solidarity reporting such as the black press the ethnic press the labor price, is it something altogether different than what? You know, white journalism is often what I call it, the tradition of white journalism? And the United States? Is something altogether different? Should they even be in the same category? Or just any thoughts you have in that regard?
Unknown Speaker 23:33
Yeah, you know, when I started this work on solidarity journalism, I really expected it to abide by divisions at the level of the news outlet. So I thought that I would find solidarity reporting, I mean, as researchers, so maybe not totally dissimilar to journalists, we might think about something and then go try to find it out in the world. And so my expectation was that I was going to find tons of examples of solidarity reporting in venues that were outside of the quote unquote, mainstream or outside of a white dominant press. And on the contrary, it continues to surprise me that certainly the black press, labor press, ethnic press, are all much more likely to do solidarity reporting. But there's a lot of variation on the news outlet level. So some news outlets, including in the quote unquote, alternative category, will actually still end up monitoring officials. They may they may monitor different officials, but they still may end up in this paradigm or in this framework of believing that what they need to really focus on is, for example, monitoring black political officials. And that is a arguably worthwhile endeavor, but it's still monitoring reporting. It still sets them up to be very laser focused. on what a set of people with official power are doing. Whereas other news outlets, other black LED news outlets will focus much more on a community level at grassroots level. So that variation still comes up. And then on the white mainstream press sigh, I also see a surprising number of cases where venues like NBC News USA Today, these are not best in them, you know, self consciously social justice reporting, yet, they still end up doing solidarity reporting. And it might be by mistake. Sometimes when I talk to journalists who are doing this reporting, they tend to skew younger. And they also have a lot of misgivings about the idea that they should be upholding any kind of officialdom is what some of them have told me when I've interviewed them. And I think in those spaces, it's fascinating to me that solidarity reporting, doesn't signal any kind of organizational commitment doesn't signal any kind of editorial endorsement. And yet these journalists just kind of do it. And they're able to do it precisely because solidarity reporting improves and enhances accuracy, way beyond monitor Oriole reporting for a lot of the issues that they're covering. So I think that through an accuracy lens solidarity reporting ends up sometimes in otherwise white supremacist spaces. Whereas in the black press, ethnic press, labor press, it's often more aligned with the the original mission, right? Why would the labor press be advancing solidarity? Well, that's what they exist to do. So there's nothing so a novelist there.
Ryan Sorrell 26:46
Gotcha. So it's like a, it's just more likely, essentially, to happen in the black press, the labor press, ethnic press than it is. And these more white mainstream outlets, I think that definitely makes sense, because I've also even seen, sometimes it might vary from reporter to a reporter, but sometimes it might even vary within the same reporter where one time they might be doing monitoring or reporting, and then the next, they might do solidarity reporting. And I've definitely seen reporters who have been like, wow, that's an amazing solidarity article. And the next piece, they're amplifying something that the police chief said, in our city, so yeah,
Unknown Speaker 27:30
really, I, I definitely see that. And I totally agree that that happens. And that's one reason in my work that I focus not on individual journalists, who are, you know, the best and the brightest, have solidarity reporting, and not the news outlets that necessarily have this explicit commitment, but on the practices that journalists are doing, to try to make that clear about what the differences are. Because I think that exactly as you said, sometimes it's astonishing to me that the same journalist can end up doing so many different kinds of approaches that can't possibly be something that is, you know, limited to just one kind of journalist being able to do this sort of reporting. But yeah, I definitely resonate.
Ryan Sorrell 28:17
If and I just have a few more questions here. But just to provide some context that Kansas City Police Department is well documented for a serially lying for covering up planting evidence and other egregious crimes. It has been proven in court cases as recently as last year, or in cases with unarmed black killing, such as people like Ryan Stokes, Cameron lamb, Malcolm Johnson, who was killed two years ago by the Kansas City Police Department. They are all the Kansas City Police Department is also currently under federal investigation for racism and discrimination. And I think especially as it relates to the black community, they've proven time and again, that they will lie with no remorse, and that they actually weaponized the trust and the monitoring reporting practices of local white press to disseminate their state sanction and disinformation. And so I'm interested for you if you have recommendations on how you suggest news outlets can cover police departments, such as this, because I think it's very difficult really being a reporter, and like, like, I think you mentioned earlier, that we do still kind of have to include their perspectives and our articles, but at the same time, we have seen time and time again that they frequently provide disinformation purposefully to our communities.
Unknown Speaker 29:47
Yeah, well, I would say that I consider the Kansas City defender to be the gold standard for how to deal with police claims even before we know whether they're disinformation or myths This information. But I think what you all have raised the bar on is treating police claims skeptically. So all too often journalists are trained to I mean, it's said explicitly in many journalism classes, you need to you need to become best friends with the police department of whatever city you're covering, you need to become, in what universe are journalists told that they need to become best friends with any other sources, but all of a sudden, when it's the police, suddenly journalistic independence, autonomy, skepticism seems to go out the window. And that speaks to this long standing deferential dynamic, that the police are a source, not only of information, but a source of story ideas, and that that symbiosis somehow serves society when we know that it doesn't. And so what I've been so impressed by with how you all have approached the covering issues around policing and the police department is not allowing it to be the case that, you know, police officers and police spokespeople are deciding what your coverage is, I think the the coverage of the the residents who are going missing, right and being told, but there's no story here, there's nothing happening, nothing to see here, move it along. And is so commonly we're monitoring stories stop, because all they're saying is that we monitor the officials, the officials told us nothing to see here, move it along. So that's that's what we reported End of story. And that's what a lot of news outlets were reporting, whereas can see the defender, you know, took that that step to get out of, of that toxic dynamic, and to actually figure out on the ground, what is going on. And so that's really the coverage that I point to, for my students, for journalists I work with, to really show them that not only is this a good idea, but it's already being practiced. I don't think you all did that with some infinite number of resources or infinite amount of time, but you did the work. And that's what journalism is all about not taking source claims wherever they may come from at face value, but actually going to the people impacted who would know not through their years of police experience, but precisely through their years of living in police states and places that are, you know, dealing with issues of police deception on a regular basis. So I think maintaining skepticism is number one, an activist recently said in a different context to me that, you know, we really need journalists to understand that when the police make a statement, treat it like you treat a lobbyist making a statement, right? There is a set of us there. This is not a window on the world that just happens to be a police officer. Right. I mean, police officers will admit that to that they have a set of interests. And so I think being cognizant of those interests, and not just saying, okay, their interests everywhere, but going that next step, as you all did to not just say here's what one person or five people said, but here's what the truth is, I think that's crucial.
Ryan Sorrell 33:15
Yeah, I think that is I couldn't agree more. And I think that one of the things that's funny to me is how we a lot of times we can if it's like a person in the community, that's saying something, then the phrasing will be like a person alleges this thing happened. But whenever is the police, it's like, Sergeant that and it's just stated as if it is unquestionable fact. And so that's actually something that we have started to like shift the phrasing to say the Police allege, because it's not something that a lot of people have, like, even think to say, because it's so off so frequently taken, that whatever the police say is the fact and I think even in that situation with the missing black woman, it was difficult. It was a very difficult situation for us, because so long, the police department has been like the central source of information for news. And so when they said, There is nothing to see here, it was almost like what do we even do? Like how we don't have like a database in the same way that they do? And so it's like, how do we prove that there are people in the community who provided us with testimonies aren't lying and that their voices matter? And really, I think if it wasn't for the woman who escaped from the man's basement and said herself that she was from the same street that we had reported on, I'm not even sure how we would have verified that information. So I think it's very difficult, honestly, because of how much on earned I would say trust that the police have created especially and their relationships with journalists as well. So yeah,
Unknown Speaker 35:07
yeah, I was just teaching. Last week, my students about a case when President Reagan cut disability benefits the claim from his administration was that no one who is genuinely disabled was affected by these cuts, these cuts only impact people who don't have a real disability, they were just, you know, leeching off the state. And so those journalists also really struggled to find the names of people because, right, those databases, least at that time, weren't going to straightforwardly give you names of people and where to find them. But they did find someone whose disability benefits had been cut, that person was blind and unable to walk. And, you know, the claim that no disabled people were affected by these cuts, he said, they they cut my benefits I can't afford to eat. I certainly, you know, due to my conditions that can't work. And I think that, that is definitely the challenge, right? How do we find the people affected? And I think finding people affected, right, it's never gonna start from talking to officials, right? It has to start from talking to people on the ground, who can continue to connect and develop some consensus on the ground to I think, if you hear a claim for one person, probably in journalism, we wouldn't necessarily think that's immediately newsworthy. But once it starts to build, and it's one to 1020, who are saying that this is actually what's going on, that's where I think the pursuit really needs to happen to start to dismantle those dynamics where only one official needs to say it's not a story. And suddenly it's not a story, but to try to displace that presumption that that'll lead us to truthful reporting.
Ryan Sorrell 37:00
Absolutely. I know that you also tweeted, quote, from a letter that James Baldwin sent to Angela Davis, which read, since we live in an age in which silence is not only criminal, but suicidal, I have been making as much noise as I can, for if they take you in the morning. They will be coming for us that night. So I was just very interested when I saw that, because I think that's a very powerful quote and letter. And I'm just interested in what made you or inspired you to tweet that?
Unknown Speaker 37:32
Yeah, I think about that letter and that quote, quite often. And I think it comes up most for me, when I'm hesitating about doing social justice work about talking about solidarity, journalism, and the connection between journalism and social justice. I definitely recognize that I work in an institution of privilege. I also recognize that the privileges of this institution do not always extend to people with my intersectional identities as a woman of color, who talks about social justice. And recently, especially when I was tweeting that, quote, I have really been feeling the dangers attached to talking about social justice right now. I've always known as a researcher kind of intellectually, that people who do social justice work, as Angela Davis has done in her whole life, face a lot of dangers and the obstacles and threats and just uneasiness due to the pushback and, and retaliation, but I'll be honest, before I moved to Texas, I had not experienced those things firsthand. So I started this work in California in the Bay Area, which is a place where my ideas are often considered not progressive enough. And it is a very different story in Texas right now. There's a lot going on in higher education in Florida, as well. And I think when we see these things happening in Florida, they tend to happen in Texas. And then it happens in another state and another state, we saw this with discussions around abortion, we see this around discussions with trans kids and trans adults and human rights. And I think it's very easy sometimes to hope and to assume or optimistically think that Well, that's something happening where I'm not. So I'll keep my mouth shut for now. And I just see how dangerous that becomes because what's happening somewhere else in this country as it relates to social justice is almost assuredly going to grow and and affect people that are not just limited to one region or state. But I think that the dangers attached to this work can make it really terrifying to continue to speak, it seems almost like self preservation to stay silent. And I know it's a really selfish thing to say. But I also think that there, there are a lot of dangers attached to what people who are against the idea of social justice will do the extent to which they'll go to try to make sure that we no longer say the words. But I go back to this letter. And I think it gives me a lot of important reminding that those threats are nothing new, I may have only recently moved to Texas. That doesn't mean this is a new phenomenon. And you know, this need for work on social justice and the need for people in all kinds of institutions, including academic institutions, especially in academic institutions, and journalism, to say the word social justice has always been really crucial. But what really upsets me is that this word, social justice has been so twisted and contorted that the actual meaning of it, which is quite simply dignity for everyone in a society, somehow saying that in the United States, we should stand for dignity for everyone in our society has become such an incendiary notion that I am sometimes afraid to say it. So I think this letter from James Baldwin to Angela Davis is just a really good grounding, to keep in mind that the threats and the dangers are real, and so is the importance of the work.
Ryan Sorrell 41:40
That's very powerful. And there has certainly been a very concerted effort, I would say to propaganda campaign, even to pervert that the word or phrase social justice, amongst other phrases, of course, like critical race theory, anything else where anything that is bad can just be tossed onto that phrase. And now, that phrase, which used to mean like, have very powerful meaning people, like don't even want to associate with the phrase social justice anymore. So. And I know that also, as you mentioned, in Florida, I was wondering if you had seen the recent proposal for a journalist or Blogger was to have to register with the state in order to have publications? Were you aware of that?
Unknown Speaker 42:35
I saw it in the context of several journalists on social media saying we will not be following. It does become law. And I think that one thing I admire most about a lot of journalists is their insistence that the First Amendment press clause not be diluted. And so I think that any lawmaker who thinks that kind of law will pass should be prepared for a fight in the Supreme Court. Because one thing I know the Supreme Court is a contentious space. But historically, in this country, the Supreme Court has upheld press freedom that that law clearly would violate
Ryan Sorrell 43:16
this one very last question is do you have a favorite reporter of all time, or writer of all time, who kind of encapsulates everything that your work is about?
Unknown Speaker 43:31
Wow, that's a tough question. Do I have a favorite reporter or writer who encapsulates solidarity journalism? There are so many, how can I possibly pick just one? Let me say this, the the thinker who I admire the most, and who I state, every chance I get is Mikki Kendall, and she is the originator of the hashtag solidarity is for white women and wrote the book called feminism, about the women that it movement forgot and left behind in the context of white feminism and excluding or ignoring women of color. And I think that her her formulation of solidarity and solidarity reporting and the way she's brought that into broader discussions that are not solely found in, you know, organizing spaces, or social justice, dedicated spaces, I think that's really been an inspiration for me. For specific journalists. I do. We do have a website for the solidarity journalism initiative, which is now also available in Spanish. And the website is media engagement.org. And if you click under journalism, you'll see solidarity journalism, and there's a section called examples under that Examples page deals. see so many amazing journalists work featured. So please do take a look at that when you have a chance you'll see more names than I could say right now.
Ryan Sorrell 45:11
Definitely, definitely. Well, thank you so much again for taking the time and sharing these amazing insights and knowledge and your most recent work. I hope everyone will go read your most recent paper. I think that there is a lot that a lot of people and really just the broader industry can learn from the work that you're doing. So thank you so much again.
Unknown Speaker 45:37
Oh, my gosh, thank you for having me on. And just a quick plug that that study is published open access, so there is no paywall for folks who would like to check it out. Thank you again.
Ryan Sorrell 45:52
Awesome, well, thank you. That was amazing.