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The Chokehold
Bill Gates and The Gates Foundation have directed millions of dollars towards major American media outlets like NPR, PBS, ABC, BBC, Al Jazeera, The Daily Telegraph, The Financial Times, Univision, and The Guardian. The Guardian’s“Global Development” section was made possible by partnering with the Gates Foundation. It gives the foundation tremendous influence on how global…
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Journalism’s Gilded Cage
By the early 2000s, when I arrived at newspaper offices searching for assignments, the journalism industry was undergoing cataclysmic shifts. The entire political economy of the news industry was changing. The last twenty years have seen a significant transformation in the political economy of the journalism industry. There had been substantial changes in ownership at…
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Is It A Bird? Is It A Plane? It’s a Photojournalist!
When the photojournalist James Nachtwey was given the Dresden Prize in 2012, Win Wenders, who handed him the prize, went out of his way to construct Nachtwey as an individual conscience, acting and witnessing on our behalf. [Lily Rothman, “Wim Wenders Presents the Dresden Peace Prize to James Nachtwey,” Time Magazine, February 20, 2012]. [Aside:…
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The Lone Ranger
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the…
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How To Pass As White
A few select non-white bodies manage to walk through the doors of US media organisations. These are the compradors. They parrot the imperialist discourses of the West, celebrate its achievements, speak from Eurocentric frames, and volunteer to act as “go-betweens” between the West and the rest. They are the “native informants” who speak the local language, perhaps…
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Whiteness As An Institutional Wall
Then there are the Institutional walls. Discussions about the lack of gender and ethnic diversity often blame a lack of access to “diverse” journalists on lousy hiring practices, failure of self-promotion, lack of professional commitment, an inability to locate talent or some organisational operations failure. They often call for more decisive efforts and better campaigns…
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Whiteness As Unfinished History
It took me a while to fully understand this wall’s nature and its many layers [Much of my understanding of these walls comes from my readings of feminist scholar Sara Ahmed. Her work on institution walls and the way racism and sexism continue to inform the cultures at the academy is the basis of much…
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The Promise Of The Other
The very serious function of racism…is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being…None of that is necessary. – Toni Morrison Diversity initiatives veil the structural whiteness and persistent Eurocentricity of US media. The more media institutions announce their commitment to diversity, the more…
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Laundering War
NGOs are complicit with political power and are today a critical element in Western imperial projects. This issue alone warrants an entire book, and I cannot do it justice here. However, it is a critically important issue that should give journalists pause. Human rights organizations have a long and sordid history that traces its lineage…
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Angels of Mercy, Have Mercy!
The assumption of the apolitical and neutral nature of humanitarian and development aid NGOs has stood for too long. Any serious engagement and desire for impact must begin by adopting a more realistic understanding of the roles and influences of the various actors on the ground. Furthermore, journalists must see that the “development” perspective silences…