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<blockquote style="position: relative; padding-left: 55px;"><section><a href="https://hachyderm.io/users/inthehands/statuses/111158130334944418">Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 01-Oct-2023 14:34:27 JST</a><a href="https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands" title="inthehands@hachyderm.io"><img src="https://gnusocial.jp/avatar/53259-48-20231130154634.webp" width="48" height="48" alt="Paul Cantrell" style="position: absolute; left: 0; top: 0;">Paul Cantrell</a><div><a href="https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/111158013166926913" rel="in-reply-to">in reply to</a></div></section><article><p>Here is the email I send to the readers’ editor at The Guardian:</p></article><footer><a rel="bookmark" href="https://gnusocial.jp/conversation/2123346#notice-4168983">In conversation</a><time datetime="2023-10-01T14:34:27+09:00" title="Sunday, 01-Oct-2023 14:34:27 JST">about a year ago</time> <span>from <span><a href="https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/111158130334944418" rel="external" title="Sent from hachyderm.io via ActivityPub">hachyderm.io</a></span></span><a href="https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/111158130334944418">permalink</a><h4>Attachments</h4><ol><li><label><a rel="external" href="https://gnusocial.jp/attachment/1589393">As a subscriber who is usually quite happy with The Guardian’s coverage, I was distressed at the perniciously structured article “Democrat Jamaal Bowman pulled fire alarm on Capitol Hill before House vote” (link).In this article in which a Black man is accused of a crime, we hear his actions described by five people who are not him — all of them his political opponents, and all of them white — before we hear even a single word of his own account of what happened.Compare this article from The Hill, whose reporting I would not typically compare favorably to The Guardian’s:
linkThe Hill manages to say up front that Bowman says it was an accident involving a closed door. The Guardian, on the other hand, first lets us hear that it was a near-riot, a delay tactic, a felony, an attempt to shut down the government — all apparently false — before we get Bowman’s actual story.</a></label><br><a href="https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/111/158/125/079/004/030/original/996b2d2b9bf9d8ae.png" rel="external">https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/111/158/125/079/004/030/original/996b2d2b9bf9d8ae.png</a></li><li><label><a rel="external" href="https://gnusocial.jp/attachment/1589394">This might seem like a minor quibble. It is not. As a newsperson, I’m sure you understand that framing is everything. Our initial impression of an event colors everything that follows. Because of this, nobody accused of a crime should have to wait 10 paragraphs — ten! — for their version of the story to enter the picture painted by a news article. That principle is universal, but in a country whose criminal justice system routinely targets and convicts Black people without just cause, I would think a responsible news organization would be doubly careful about this problem of initial framing when the accused is Black.I realize it is a vexing problem these days for news organizations to figure out how to cover bullshit without amplifying it. The Guardian failed in that task today. Simply reordering the paragraphs of a story would have prevented that failure.</a></label><br><a href="https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/111/158/127/456/358/737/original/112c586c072ee0e9.png" rel="external">https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/111/158/127/456/358/737/original/112c586c072ee0e9.png</a></li></ol></footer></blockquote>

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Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 01-Oct-2023 14:34:27 JST Paul Cantrell
in reply to
Here is the email I send to the readers’ editor at The Guardian:
In conversationabout a year ago from hachyderm.iopermalink
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1. As a subscriber who is usually quite happy with The Guardian’s coverage, I was distressed at the perniciously structured article “Democrat Jamaal Bowman pulled fire alarm on Capitol Hill before House vote” (link). In this article in which a Black man is accused of a crime, we hear his actions described by five people who are not him — all of them his political opponents, and all of them white — before we hear even a single word of his own account of what happened. Compare this article from The Hill, whose reporting I would not typically compare favorably to The Guardian’s: link The Hill manages to say up front that Bowman says it was an accident involving a closed door. The Guardian, on the other hand, first lets us hear that it was a near-riot, a delay tactic, a felony, an attempt to shut down the government — all apparently false — before we get Bowman’s actual story.
  https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/111/158/125/079/004/030/original/996b2d2b9bf9d8ae.png
2. This might seem like a minor quibble. It is not. As a newsperson, I’m sure you understand that framing is everything. Our initial impression of an event colors everything that follows. Because of this, nobody accused of a crime should have to wait 10 paragraphs — ten! — for their version of the story to enter the picture painted by a news article. That principle is universal, but in a country whose criminal justice system routinely targets and convicts Black people without just cause, I would think a responsible news organization would be doubly careful about this problem of initial framing when the accused is Black. I realize it is a vexing problem these days for news organizations to figure out how to cover bullshit without amplifying it. The Guardian failed in that task today. Simply reordering the paragraphs of a story would have prevented that failure.
  https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/111/158/127/456/358/737/original/112c586c072ee0e9.png

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