Posts Tagged media accountability

By Katherine Cross • 10 years ago

Our Days of Rage: What #CancelColbert reveals about women/of color and controversial speech

Content Warning: This article uses screenshots of extremely bigoted tweets to illustrate what it describes; thanks goes out to Twitter user @jennybaquing for screen-capping them, and John Weeks for Storifying them.

When a woman dares to speak her mind online, it can seem as if a thousand Gorgon visages rise to counter her violation of the expected order.

The surge of online hatred directed at Suey Park (and many of the women of color who defended her) for her #CancelColbert hashtag this week is disturbingly similar to other incidents involving outspoken women online. Taken together, they illustrate how women do not have a right to be controversial or equal participants in public discourse — or, put another way, that controversy ...

Content Warning: This article uses screenshots of extremely bigoted tweets to illustrate what it describes; thanks goes out to Twitter user @jennybaquing for screen-capping them, and John Weeks for Storifying them.

When a woman dares to speak ...

(Note: This is in no way photoshopped; it's his actual podcast) Credit to ESPN.com.
By Katherine Cross • 10 years ago

Nowhere for trans women to hide: What Bill Simmons’ apology gets right and so very wrong

Freelance journalist Caleb Hannan’s Grantland feature on the reclusive inventor of a golf club, which I wrote about earlier this week, caused a dam to break online; the inventor he researched against her will, Essay Anne Vanderbilt, was a trans woman who had—allegedly—lied about her educational credentials. Despite a pledge on Hannan’s part to write only about the science of her golf club, Dr. V found herself threatened with exposure of her trans status, a history she had worked tirelessly to suppress. She killed herself three months before Hannan’s article about her went to press.

Now Grantland’s editor in chief, Bill Simmons, has apologised at some length, focusing chiefly on the editorial process that produced the ...

Freelance journalist Caleb Hannan’s Grantland feature on the reclusive inventor of a golf club, which I wrote about earlier this week, caused a dam to break online; the inventor he researched against ...
By Amy S. Choi • 11 years ago

The Associated Press drops “illegal” from immigrant

In a stunning victory for immigration advocates, the Associated Press Stylebook, the bible of grammar and style for journalists in the U.S., will no longer describe people who live in a country illegally as “illegal immigrants.” The reasoning is one that activists have been making for years, with campaigns such as “Drop the I-Word”: People are not illegal. Actions are.

Kathleen Carroll, senior vice president and executive editor of the stylebook, described the organization’s reasons in a blog post yesterday:

The Stylebook no longer sanctions the term “illegal immigrant” or the use of “illegal” to describe a person. Instead, it tells users that “illegal” should describe only an action, such as living in or immigrating ...

In a stunning victory for immigration advocates, the Associated Press Stylebook, the bible of grammar and style for journalists in the U.S., will no longer describe people who live in a country illegally as ...
By Amy S. Choi • 11 years ago

I can’t stop thinking about other people who can’t stop looking at Korean women

Last week, Jezebel ran this story: “I Can’t Stop Looking at These South Korean Women Who’ve Had Plastic Surgery.” The subtitle: “UNNERVING PUSH TOWARDS UNIFORMITY.” (Emphasis original.) The piece discusses the penchant, among South Korean women, to elect for cosmetic surgery. One out of five women in Seoul, in fact. The writer looks at these pictures and finds them very disturbing.

One excerpt:

 What’s really unnerving is the push towards uniformity. Instead of celebrating quirks or camouflaging flaws, these photos show a burning desire to fit inside a very narrow scope of what’s seen as beautiful. It’s not about what’s inside, it’s not about character, it’s about an artificial ideal. What would the average South Korean teen think about ...

Last week, Jezebel ran this story: “I Can’t Stop Looking at These South Korean Women Who’ve Had Plastic Surgery.” The subtitle: “UNNERVING PUSH TOWARDS UNIFORMITY.” (Emphasis original.) The piece discusses the penchant, among South Korean women, to elect ...
By Samhita • 13 years ago

Reel Grrls and Comcast: What one tweet can show us.

As corporate takeover of media continues to infringe on our ability to have a free and objective press, last week one tweet from the amazing organization Reel Grrls, gave us a taste of just how vulnerable public dialogue and dissent can be to corporate media interests. Reel Grrls is a Seattle based group that builds the confidence and story-telling abilities of young and generally disenfranchised women through teaching them how to shoot and produce films. What was their beef? That Comcast-NBC Universal’s latest hire for VP of governmental affairs just happens to be a former FCC commissioner, Meredith Attwell Baker. Any onlooker would observe this with suspect.

The big nefarious tweet that caused the problem? “OMG! @FCC Commissioner Baker voted ...

As corporate takeover of media continues to infringe on our ability to have a free and objective press, last week one tweet from the amazing organization Reel Grrls, gave us a taste of just how vulnerable ...