stringerbabble

One Nostril: I’m cool

How to be evil:

It’s really easy as a bystander to pass judgment on how/why journalists do things. I will not presume to speak on behalf of all journalists, but I was one and I can explain the “strictly observer” thing from at least one perspective.

You see, any time you are not actively observing - ie, taking photos/videos/recording observations - you are missing the story. When you miss the story, you miss the opportunity to tell the story. 

Since we live in the digital age, it’s easy to forget that 1) we didn’t always have the ability to record, transmit, and view information across the globe instantaneously, and 2) not everyone has access to that utility now. 

In 1992, James Nachtwey took this photo:

Because he took this photo (among the other equally horrifying and heartbreaking images he brought back from Somalia) and it was published to a large Western audience in the New York Times, The Red Cross received the largest influx of donor aid since WWII, and they were able to save 1.5 million people. Representatives from The Red Cross have directly cited the Nachtwey photos as inspiring that flood of help. 

These photos helped save more than a million lives. 

It is easy as a bystander - someone who isn’t a journalist, who probably hasn’t been in a war or famine zone - to make sweeping judgments about what journalists should or shouldn’t be doing.

Like this photo from the Sudan by Kevin Carter:

Hundreds of people contacted the paper questioning whether the little girl had survived to which the paper responded through an unusual editor’s note saying that the girl garnered enough strength to walk away from the vulture but her ultimate fate was not known. It was a rule for the journalists in Sudan not to touch victims of the famine, to avoid the risk of transmitting diseases. Carter though came under a lot of criticism for not assisting the girl. The St. Petersburg Times wrote this about him: “The man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene.”

He chased the vulture away after taking this photo. Note that journalists in the Sudan were not supposed to touch the famine victims to avoid the risk of transmitting disease. 

You’ll be pleased to know he committed suicide in 1994, shortly after winning a Pulitzer for this photo, leaving behind a note that talked about the horrors he saw and photographed. 

“I am depressed … without phone … money for rent … money for child support … money for debts … money!!! … I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain … of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners…I have gone to join Ken if I am that lucky.”

Now that we just blissfully assume everyone has both a smartphone and access to unrestricted internet, I guess it’s safe to feel critical of the people still putting themselves in the trenches to tell these stories.

These people told stories, and they are continuing to tell stories, that need to be told. We talk about silencing and rewriting history, then criticize the people trying to document it. 

When people talk about immigration and refugees, you can show them this picture of the actual human beings sent to their deaths when we turned away the St Louis:

If you want to talk about the violent militarization of law enforcement, you can show someone this photo from the Kent State shootings:

Or maybe the horrific futility of war:

Or maybe the impossible way we connect with each other:

Or you want to showcase dignity:

And bravery:

I won’t disagree that “when you lose your humanity, you lose your journalistic integrity,” but I will disagree that intervention is a key component to maintaining journalistic integrity. 

Journalistic integrity is telling an authentic story. 

The social justice corner of Tumblr often discusses what one person can do to make a difference in the world, yet posts like this get 700,000+ reblogs crapping all over one of those things a single person can do to make a difference. 

Net neutrality in the US is on the chopping block and states are debating the ethics of lying in history text books. I’d dare say that the journalists who are out there documenting the world as it exists are doing a job that is as important today as it was in WWII when a single photo from Iwo Jima helped turn the tide of the Pacific campaign. 

His name is MoonPie!!!

“I am now 73 years old. I was at Indian residential school from age 11-15. I had to work in the infirmary, where there were many sick and hungry children. I’d steal food like peanut butter and bread to feed them. A lot of kids died there. I had to handle the dead children — wrapping them to be buried. Once I got caught speaking my native language. I wasn’t aware my language was different. My punishment was having four fingernails pulled out. At residential school we all received numbers. I was known as #702. But my name is Sphenia. It’s an Ojibwa name that means ‘on my way’. For many years now I’ve worked as an advocate for abused children. I started a school for indigenous kids in Vancouver called Spirit Rising Cultural Survival School.”

We were there to defend Max’s right to exist in public. That’s what this bathroom stuff is really about, because let’s face it: If you prohibit someone from using a public bathroom, how much is he really going to be able to exist in public? He couldn’t go to school, he couldn’t see a movie with friends, he would have to worry about being able to find a bathroom to use every single time he left our house. The Texas Legislature is trying to erase my son and shove him into a dark corner — and no one does that to my baby, even the Governor of Texas. […]

Max knows what’s at stake. We don’t talk about it much, because he’s 9, and social justice and gender identity aren’t really top of mind for him. But even without all the lengthy, adult conversations, he gets it. Max wanted to be present that day, to speak to our legislators face to face and remind them that he is important, too. So I proudly brought my baby with me, to show him that it’s important to stand up to bullies, even if some of those bullies work in marble offices in your state capitol.

It was a long day, and I was proud of his composure and courage. We do things big down here in Texas, and our state capitol building is no exception: with wings, extensions, chambers, and security at just about every turn, it can be intimidating even to enter the building. When the legislature is in session, the building is crammed with elected officials, their staff, interns, lobbyists, reporters, and constituents from every corner of the state, and the noise and crowds are overwhelming, especially for a kid like Max, who is only half the size of everyone there.

Local reporters who had been following these “bathroom bills” closely had also been following us around all day, too, and Max was on his best behavior because of it. After the hot outdoor press conference with cameras trained right on his adorable freckled face, the noise and commotion happening inside the building, and the frustration of having to articulate to grownups that the only people who are bothered that he’s transgender are the very people who swore an oath to protect him, Max had had enough.

Exhausted, he sat his little butt down, confessed to me how tired he was, and asked if we could go home. So I did what any loving mother would do: I canceled the rest of our legislative visits, wiped his tears, and took him out for ice cream. That’s what parents do when their kids have a tough day. That’s what you see in this photo.

boy am I glad you asked

i’m gonna do this from memory so i’m sorry if the details are vague or a lil wrong… i am but a humble canadian history student. 

so. it wasn’t a zombie. it was actually a oujia board a la OP’s idea. but see, the canadian public didn’t know about it — so it was like, a secret nercrocratic dictatorship. not a dictatorship, that is an exaggeration. but i mean… imagine the conspiracy theorists being like… the country is secretly run by ghosts… and they’re right about it.

basically, William Lyon Mackenzie King, canada’s on-again off-again PM during parts of WW1 and the depression and WW2 (he was super wishy-washy on stuff, which meant he lost office often, but also meant it was easy for him to get back into office) was secretly an edgy gothik preteen. and also an orphan. because he was a firm believer in the occult and privately used ouija boards to have consultations with his dead parents to make political decisions sometimes. that was a thing.

for example he communed with the ghosts to decide whether to declare war when hitler started being an ass and england was all like, yo, canada, we’re going to war and as you’ve recently been given autonomy we have to ASK you whether you wanna fight too. so King asked the ghost of his dead father and the dead father was like “nah son, hitler totally just got shot by some polish guy and is dead. you’re fine.”

spoiler alert, he wasn’t dead. but King of course trusted his dead dad who, being dead, is clearly the expert on death and dead things. which is why canada didn’t join WW2 right away. we didn’t get in on the conflict until later.

(of course, though, we didn’t learn about King’s involvement with the dead until he was dead himself and historians started going through his diaries like the creepers that historians are. i bet that was a bit of a shock…)

King was a very unique Prime Minister because of his strong interest in spiritualism through mediums and seances. He tried to contact the dead, it was told that he had been in contact with his dead mother and important figures of the past for political advices, such as Laurier. He had contact with Laurier because he entered Laurier’s Cabinet as the minister of labour in 1909.