From the article: This essay makes a critical point about the costs of faux objectivity and ad-supported journalism. Most news sources aren't connecting readers to any forms of activism beyond...
From the article:
All of this makes me feel helpless and overwhelmed, as well as guilty. I am perfectly fine, but all around me terrible things are happening to people that I cannot stop, and cannot stop thinking about. I do not want to read the newspaper anymore, because it means I start my day depressed. And it feels less and less useful. Filmmaker Adam Curtis did a good mini-documentary years ago on what he called the phenomenon of “Oh Dearism” in media consumption: just passively watching a parade of horrible things and going “oh dear” without doing anything. We feel an obligation to watch in order to “stay informed,” because ignoring other people’s pain seems terrible. But we’re not actually offering anything beyond murmurs of pity.
This essay makes a critical point about the costs of faux objectivity and ad-supported journalism. Most news sources aren't connecting readers to any forms of activism beyond "send money", and the recipients recommended are almost always anodyne, low-controversy charities. Political implications of events are discussed in narrow horse-race terms, if at all.
Questions for readers, with the usual caveats (comfort in disclosure, etc.):
Have you been active in political or charitable causes?
If so, what forms of activism have you been engaged in - protest, organizing, fundraising, volunteer hours (programming, other labor), donations, etc.?
How has the COVID-19 crisis impacted your political activities?
Do you expect to change your activities and/or their intensity once the epidemic abates?
I'll kick off by saying that I've started as a local organizer for Organizing Together 2020, a U.S. national umbrella organization founded by Democratic Party governors, former national politicians, Presidential candidates, unions, Indivisible, and others to coordinate progressive activist groups starting at the local and regional levels. It's been adaptable in the absence of in-person events. The group is reaching out to registered Party voters to get out the vote, support local candidates, and identify locally important neglected issues. Hopefully, it fills in the gaps the national Democratic Party organizing committee and other groups have left for decades. There's been little or no media attention given as yet.
I'm also phone-banking for the Biden 2020 campaign. Right now, it's clear that it's much harder to generate campaign enthusiasm and obtain media attention in the midst of the coronavirus terror.
It's a bizarre argument given that defeating the virus has everything to do with practical actions that ordinary people can take. Staying home and social distancing is about practical action. The...
It's a bizarre argument given that defeating the virus has everything to do with practical actions that ordinary people can take. Staying home and social distancing is about practical action. The debate about mask-wearing was about practical action.
Although a lot of coronavirus news isn't directly about things you need to know, it seems like reading the news has been more useful than usual lately. It can and is being overdone, but being out of touch seems like a bad thing for people who didn't change their behavior. Travellers in particular.
I would like to see more news about the effectiveness of charities, though.
From the article:
This essay makes a critical point about the costs of faux objectivity and ad-supported journalism. Most news sources aren't connecting readers to any forms of activism beyond "send money", and the recipients recommended are almost always anodyne, low-controversy charities. Political implications of events are discussed in narrow horse-race terms, if at all.
Questions for readers, with the usual caveats (comfort in disclosure, etc.):
Have you been active in political or charitable causes?
If so, what forms of activism have you been engaged in - protest, organizing, fundraising, volunteer hours (programming, other labor), donations, etc.?
How has the COVID-19 crisis impacted your political activities?
Do you expect to change your activities and/or their intensity once the epidemic abates?
I'll kick off by saying that I've started as a local organizer for Organizing Together 2020, a U.S. national umbrella organization founded by Democratic Party governors, former national politicians, Presidential candidates, unions, Indivisible, and others to coordinate progressive activist groups starting at the local and regional levels. It's been adaptable in the absence of in-person events. The group is reaching out to registered Party voters to get out the vote, support local candidates, and identify locally important neglected issues. Hopefully, it fills in the gaps the national Democratic Party organizing committee and other groups have left for decades. There's been little or no media attention given as yet.
I'm also phone-banking for the Biden 2020 campaign. Right now, it's clear that it's much harder to generate campaign enthusiasm and obtain media attention in the midst of the coronavirus terror.
It's a bizarre argument given that defeating the virus has everything to do with practical actions that ordinary people can take. Staying home and social distancing is about practical action. The debate about mask-wearing was about practical action.
Although a lot of coronavirus news isn't directly about things you need to know, it seems like reading the news has been more useful than usual lately. It can and is being overdone, but being out of touch seems like a bad thing for people who didn't change their behavior. Travellers in particular.
I would like to see more news about the effectiveness of charities, though.