A PLEA TO U.K. JOURNALISTS

You clearly signed up to the #dontmentiontheschools omertà from August to December.

No questions regarding why @educationgovuk allowed bubbles of 300, no SD, no masks, interchanging classes of 30 and poor ventilation

You refused to ask the questions

1. Was making a QAnon reading list for a journalist friend of mine, and thought the rest of you might find it useful as well – especially this week. Enjoy.

2. On origins, @QOrigins did a good summary piece a few weeks ago:

3. On spread outward, great piece by @BrandyZadrozny and @oneunderscore__

4. On mainstreaming:

5. On mainstreaming, by @AlKapDC:

Want to understand how pervasive media bias works? Read on.

Check out this awful headline from @AP. A gun was found on the scene, there are bullet casings and bullet holes on nearby walls.

This isn't simply an allegation. This was clearly was a gunman.

It would be bad enough if the Associated Press alone published this headline. But because @AP is a wire service, many other leading news outlets have republished this content, often verbatim.

Here's the article on the @WashingtonPost, for example.

And here's the same article, and same headline, on @YahooNews.

The article was republished in plenty more well-known media outlets. Here it is on the @ABC website.

Moving forward, the content of the article is deeply problematic. This is how an article about an attempted shooting attack begins: by focusing on the *response* of the security forces to being attacked.

Never forget that 2020 was the year that Black, Indigenous and otherwise racialized journalists in Canada stopped whispering and said it all out loud. In the order that I remember:

"Objectivity is a privilege afforded to white journalists," @Pacinthe on her time at CBC

Imani Walker, while still at the CBC, takes on one of its biggest names

"For Black women in media, a 'dream job' is a myth," @KathleenNB on her time at CTV

"Black Canadian voices are more visible now than ever — but will corporations act before this month’s motivation wanes?" @MorganPCampbell on his time at the Star

This is a thread on @EspinaNonoy ‘s FB which clearly shows what he means by a “mob howling for blood” — calling for summary execution of the killer cop. What follows is his post on the “attempt to twist the narrative of the uproar that followed the Paniqui executions.” (More)

The new lie, he notes, “blithely claims that so-called human rights advocates he been calling for the lynching of the cop and his kid while Duterte's disciples sought a trial.” (More)

“The truth is - and this is so easy to check on social media - the mob howling for blood, including that of the child, was made up of BOTH pro- and anti-Duterte partisans, though predominantly the former” (more)

“many professing shock and outrage at the double murder even as their social media accounts cheered on the deaths of drug suspects and, later, of activists-terrorists-who-the-fuck-cared-about-the-difference.”

“As for the many human rights advocates I know, and they come from the different colors of the political spectrum, I can vouch that they erupted in righteous anger, demanding justice, but not a single one of them even hinted of wanting the killer cop summarily executed.”

For the past 6 years, I & a few other journalists have been trying to get the mainstream press and political elites realize the major danger posed by the radical right. Unfortunately, moderate and liberal elites deluded themselves into thinking that conservatism wasn't a cult.

There is no secretly powerful "Republican establishment" that will fix things. There are thugs, deluded people, and there are quislings. There is no one else in the GOP. Instead of focusing on the radical right's danger, editors wanted stories about Trump tweets.

Instead of calling out the dangerous radicalism of the GOP, television debate shows and opinion pages invited the enablers of fascism to speak and write about how we all needed to give powerful insane people the benefit of the doubt.

Unlike Trump, who walled off the White House months ago into a fortress, Nancy Pelosi did not take the terrorist threat seriously enough to demand better security. She has the budget and the authority and did nothing similar. Now, fascists are on the floor of Congress.

Of course, it is Trump who bears the responsibility for this but the Capitol Police have totally disgraced themselves by not fortifying the building the way that the Secret Service did to the WH.

This is the view of numerous congressional staffers of both parties.