What’s fair?
Americans pretend to love and value ?freedom of the press,? but if there is one point talking head Joe Scarborough should have made clear to those still relying on mainstream media for honest journalism chocked full of integrity Thursday morning, the notion of ?honest journalism? is relative and can, in fact, be thrown right out the window when that very press, program, network or journalist becomes so institutionalized as to promote journalists throwing down their pens, keyboards and cameras to support police-enforced media blackouts.
After Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery’s arrest by police in Ferguson, MO Wednesday evening, Scarborough responded as follows:
?I will just say, if I saw that video and my son was the one police arrested after that episode, I’d say, ‘Joey, here’s a clue. When the cops tell you for the thirteenth time, ‘Let’s go,’ you now what that means, son? It means, let’s go. I’m sorry . . . I don’t sit there and have a debate and film the police officer unless I want to get on TV and have people talk about me the next day.?
While dozens of responses come to mind in response to such a ?journalist? and such a response, Lowrey said quite enough on his own on CNN the following day.
?I would invite Joe Scarborough to come down to Ferguson and get out of 30 Rock where he’s sipping his Starbucks smugly. . . . I have little patience for talking heads. This is too important. This is a community in the United States of America where things are on fire. This community is on edge. There is so much happening here and instead of putting reporters on the ground we have people like Joe Scarborough running their mouth who have no idea what they’re talking about.?
The problem is that folks like Scarborough do think they know what they’re talking about. They think they speak from a center of ?civilized morality? while they are actually speaking from a place of institutionalization. Let’s just say, on the Great American Plantation, they work in the house, rather than the field. Some are unaware of that distinction, while others are all too aware, and comfortable.
Folks like Scarborough believe citizens should do what authorities say, follow the rules and everything (and everyone) will be okay. It’s because people don’t follow the rules that police kill widely and often. In essence, Scarborough believes that the Michael Browns, the Wesley Lowerys of the world deserve what they get because they are being difficult, breaking the rules of society; but what Scarborough sorely overlooks, ironically, is that the position of the journalist is to keep the cameras rolling, the keyboards slamming and the pens pouring no matter what, at all costs. Isn’t that why and how citizens of the world have been made privy to so many heartbreaking stories and images throughout time? Isn’t that why and how so often folks find themselves asking, ?Why didn’t they put down the camera and help?? Yet when the police come in beating and gassing people, shooting at journalists and ordering everyone out it is expected that even our journalists tremble at the knees and comply? If they do not do so in war zones, why should they in the streets of America?
Journalism has a professional obligation to record and transmit the truth, or as close as one is able to get to it at the very least. The press has a RIGHT to do so by the United States Constitution, and the fact that media blackouts have become so common in this country without so much as a protest, let alone heavy organization against such Stalin-esque actions, only illustrates all the more that what Lowery said in response to Scarborough was true, apt, and accurate.
So what’s fair, America? Do we allow freedom of the press to disintegrate under the shoddy propaganda and institutionalized dogma of the Joe Scarboroughs of the world, or do we stand up in defiance, hold strong the backs of our few honest journalists left and demand an end to the brutalizing of our presses and media?
Media blackouts are one more sign of the American empire’s death, demise and fading. Is it fair that millions of Americans are duped and left in the dark on the regular under the tyrannical boot of the militarized police state this country has turned heavily toward? Or is it more fair that journalists remember their roles, their rights, stand strong, and demand to keep filming, recording, and writing the truth, no matter how ugly, no matter crooked arrest, so that the people can err on the side of freedom and vigilance as was the intention of the founders of the U.S. Government?
The answer is clear. We must recognize the kept pets snuggled at the foot of the machine and boycott, by all means, journalists indicative of Scarborough’s ?fair.?
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Dylan Hock is a writer, professor, videographer and social activist. He earned an MFA in Writing from Naropa University in 2003 and has been an Occupier since Oct., 2011, both nationally and locally in Michigan. He is published in a number of little magazines and has an essay on the muzzling of Ezra Pound included in the anthology Star Power: The Impact Of Branded Celebrity forthcoming by Praeger August, 2014. He is also a contributing writer for Take Ten and Green Action News. Follow him on Google+! Hire him for freelance writing and editing projects through Elance.
