rikla-kliakil:wetwareproblem:geekandmisandry:jamiemortara:reaaaaall. so much respect bb.Wow, this is

rikla-kliakil:wetwareproblem:geekandmisandry:jamiemortara:reaaaaall. so much respect bb.Wow, this is long but well worth the read.This desperately needs transcription, and I’m terrible for it. It’s important; I want to see it hit as wide an audience as possible. Is anyone up to the task?[[November 2013: I am hired by the press of atlantic city as acopy editor and told by the copy desk chief that the desk has a “hands-off”culture. “we pretty much just fix spelling and grammar errors and design thepages.” I don’t want to totake the job but I want to move away and to do that Ineed money.December 2013: I change the label over a photo of peopleplacing poinsettias onto church pews from ‘preparing for the coming of thelord’ to ‘preparing for Christmas services’ and my coworker ignores my edit andsays she doesn’t see the difference.Spring 2014: disciplined for changing a headline about karawalker’s sphinx from ‘purely sweet homage to black labor.’ Disciplined forcalling out the fact the press ran ‘real mother’ in a headline about adoptivekids meeting up with their birth mothers.August 2014: lay out a nation and world page day afterferguson protests; take a lot of time making sure the page includes historicaland social context; (middle-class, white, suburban) copy desk chief pulls articleon police militarization and writes on the proof “that dead horse has alreadybeen beaten,” then goes on to redo the entire page. Throughout that month Icontinually reword “riot” as “protest” or “demonstration” and change “was shotby police” to “police officers shot x” substituting the name of the officerwhenever I had it.Spring 2015: An article comes to the copy desk about a mannamed Philip White who died in police custody in vineland. The story is vague,its only source is the police department’s press release (white, ~30, died inpolice custody after being arrested for disorderly conduct. No furtherinformation is available.) The next few paragraphs were Philip White’s arrestrecord (he was arrested last year for stealing baby formula from walmart) thatwas the entire thing. Outraged, I google him to at least get a quote from hisfriends or family or more information about him for the photo caption. Thegoogle search for his name are 12 pages long. It turns out the vineland copsset their dogs on Philip White and they ripped out his throat in front ofwitnesses, and there’s cell phone footage. He was unarmed, in his early 30s, adad. Hot fury engulfs me. I call every editor I need to and tell them we’re changing thisstory. I’m rewriting the headline and the lede and the first five paragraphsand I’m taking his arrest record out and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.I’m sorry, I will actually walk out right now over this if I have to. All theeditors say ok, yes, and the next day I hear that the reported complained Ishouldn’t have messed with his story, that he had reasons for not talking towitnesses. Yeah?Have you ever read an article on an arrest and thought, thisis actually just a rewritten press release from a police department? How aboutan article on a “clash between protestors and police” (note that language) thatrelies only on police department sources, not acknowledging that the officersare active agents in the clash? Have you ever thought, the only reason policeofficers release people’s criminal records after they kill them is to try todemonize and blame the victim, to absolve themselves of responsibility, to say,he was dangerous, he had it coming? Have you thought about how disproportionatethe policing of black and white communities is? How “disorderly conduct” is acharge that could mean anything (same with “resisting arrest” and a literalsuitcase of other charges)? Have you ever thought about how fucked updepictions of women and minority groups in the mainstream media are, how all ofthis serves to uphold and maintain a toxic and destructive white supremacistheteronormative patriarchal status quo? How trauma is collectivized? How lastnight my boss told me to “bump up the drama” on a label over a photo of twopeople who were shot and killed at work yesterday? “try ‘slain on camera’instead of ‘virginia shooting’” how, also last night, we had to get “his sideof the story”  after a boxer punched hischild’s mother six times in the face, getting her airlifted to the hospital? Andthen we quoted him- saying “it’s not that serious”- before her? Oh, but wealways have to “consider both sides”! Have you thought about the precedent thatsets?I’ve thought about this – all of this – every day for twoyearsI can’t decide if I’ll remember copy editing at a newspaperas the worst thing I’ve ever done to myself or the best. I will never stopbelieving that these changes need to be made. Copy editing is political. It’sthe most political thing there is, as a copy editor, as a journalist, every dayyou make an active decision to either uphold or subvert the status quo. Don’ttell me it’s not a decision. Don’t tell me you’re being led around by thenewspaper voice and your editors and you just have to quotes that press release,don’t you? The police are the official source, you have to listen to them,yeah? You don’t. ask yourself: why? Why? Why? You aren’t amouthpiece for power you’re a fucking human animal and you need to care aboutwhat other people are going through. Broad brush depictions of groups of peopleas they come through the newspaper affect people’s perceptions and as a resultthey fuck with people’s daily lives and well-being. Even if it is in the mostminiscule way, as a copy editor you have the power to change this. Don’t actlike it’s just spelling and grammar.Becky and I got into an argument once about I don’t evenremember what but in it she said, “it’s not the words that matter, it’s theattitude behind the words. Changing that word doesn’t matter.” She’s right andwrong. It is the attitude behind words that matters – that is exactly why wechange the words.I’m leaving my job September 4 to move to los angeles. I don’tknow if I’ll ever work at a newspaper again but I am proud of myself forshowing up every day. I’m proud of myself for the changes I ws able to make. I willnever stop believing this is important. At the journalism program at my college we were taught ‘objective’we were taught ‘stay out of it.’ If you are reading this and you haven’t figureit out, I want you to know: there is no ‘objective’. There’s only the shithistory has given you. You’re either upholding the status quo or disrupting it,but the status quo is not and has never been neutral.]] -- source link

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