truthout--2020-07-06--Agonizing Lag in Coronavirus Research Puts Pregnant People and Babies at Risk

In late June , after three months of near silence on the topic , the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finally weighed in on a question of critical importance to millions of American women and families : How dangerous is the coronavirus for pregnant women and new mothers ?
The CDC had been asserting that pregnant women don ’ t seem to be at higher risk for severe complications from the virus .
As recently as late May , a spokesperson told ProPublica , “ Current evidence shows pregnant women have the same risk of severe illness from COVID-19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Then , the agency abruptly changed its tone .
In its first examination of U.S. data on COVID-19 in pregnancy , the CDC found that expectant mothers with the virus had a 50 % higher chance of being admitted to intensive care and a 70 % higher chance of being intubated than nonpregnant women in their childbearing years .
Pregnant Latina and Black women were infected at significantly higher rates than white women , researchers reported .
As of July 2 , at least 30 expectant and new mothers with the virus had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But what many experts found really worrisome were the glaring gaps in data that the study exposed .
The CDC acknowledged that crucial health information was missing for about three-quarters of pregnant women with the virus , including whether they had preexisting conditions or required an ICU stay or mechanical ventilation .
For the vast majority of U.S. women of reproductive age who tested positive — about 326,000 women through June 7 — there was no information about pregnancy status at all .
Researchers couldn ’ t even say how many of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the pregnant women in the study — had been admitted because of COVID-19 , versus how many were in the hospital for other reasons , such as giving birth .
The flawed CDC report highlights a problem that OB-GYN providers and researchers in the U.S. have been fretting about since the pandemic began .
Because emerging diseases can have catastrophic consequences for pregnant women and their babies , close monitoring of new illnesses in this vulnerable population is important .
So is rapid communication with providers trying to keep their patients safe .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ s efforts to understand the impact of the coronavirus in mothers and babies have been flat-footed , scattershot and agonizingly slow .
The holes in the CDC ’ s data are “ startling .
I won ’ t lie , ” said Cindy M. P. Duke , an OB-GYN who runs the Nevada Fertility Institute in Las Vegas .
“ It ’ s shocking to realize that we do not have a uniform system in place ” for collecting and analyzing basic maternal and infant health information during times of crisis .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ data available , ” said Christina Han , a maternal-fetal specialist who is on the clinical faculty at the University of California , Los Angeles , medical school , “ this pandemic will be over.
” To track the coronavirus in pregnant women and their babies , the CDC is instructing local health departments to check a box on the standard Case Report Form if a patient is currently pregnant .
Jurisdictions can also complete an “ optional , supplemental form ” providing information about disease severity and outcomes in mothers and babies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s a system that guarantees there will be huge data inconsistencies , time lags and gaps .
“ We ’ re talking about millions of cases that are having to be reported back to the CDC right now , ” Han said , “ And the clinicians who are taking care of these patients don ’ t have the time to be filling out the full case report forms.
” The CDC has “ initiated COVID-19 pregnancy surveillance , ” according to its study , working with local health departments to improve data @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t give any details .
“ We need to be set up prior to an outbreak to capture information about how any new or emerging or reemerging pathogen affects pregnant women and their infants , ” said Denise Jamieson , who spent 20 years at the CDC studying reproductive infectious disease and now heads the OB-GYN department at Emory University medical school in Atlanta .
“ And I think it ’ s clear … that [ the CDC ] are not well poised to do that.
” It Doesn ’ t Have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Europe this winter , researchers in the United Kingdom were ready .
Caught unprepared by the H1N1 outbreak of 2009 , and determined not to let that happen again , the National Institute for Health Research issued a call for studies in 2011 that could be up and running as soon as the next pandemic hit .
Nine proposals were chosen , all focusing on flu but adaptable to other types of outbreaks ; then they were “ hibernated ” — put on hold , the protocols periodically reviewed and revised , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ began blaring this February , eight of the studies launched , including one by the U.K. Obstetric Surveillance System , a research platform devoted to rare disorders of pregnancy .
“ I was told to activate [ it ] on a Friday , ” said Marian Knight , a professor of maternal and child population health at the University of Oxford , “ and by Monday , we were collecting the data.
” The UKOSS design was ambitious — a comprehensive , prospective study of COVID-19-infected pregnant women at the National Health Service @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was also straightforward , based on a two-page electronic form , with all patient information kept anonymous .
The careful planning allowed researchers to move quickly without being overly rushed , Knight wrote in a blog post for The BMJ journal , “ minimizing the risks of publication of , at best , misleading , or , at worst , erroneous , information ” — problems that have bedeviled other high-profile COVID-19 studies .
By mid-May , UKOSS released its first findings from an analysis of every pregnant woman hospitalized in Britain from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the virus , 427 in total .
Mothers-to-be did not seem to get as sick overall from COVID-19 as they had from H1N1 flu and SARS , but Black and Middle Eastern women were far likelier to be hospitalized with the virus than white women were .
About 1 in 10 women became so ill they required respiratory support .
Five mothers and five babies died .
The study provided the kind of high-quality data that doctors and policymakers value most : populationwide , scientifically rigorous , immediately actionable .
British medical organizations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ risks for women of color .
Medical groups also reaffirmed earlier recommendations that women in their third trimester should avoid job settings , such as working as a doctor or nurse on the front lines , that could expose them to the virus .
That ’ s a much more conservative position than American medical organizations and employers have taken , citing a lack of research that would suggest a different approach .
Knight said the UKOSS findings support stringent social distancing in late pregnancy .
“ That ’ s where we see @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The good news is that women now know when they should start to be particularly vigilant.
” Public health experts say UKOSS ’ proactive , big-picture approach is exactly what was needed in the U.S. , which has nearly 4 million births annually — about five times as many as Britain — and wide racial disparities in maternal and infant outcomes that COVID-19 has likely only widened .
By one estimate , more than 16,000 American women could be infected with the coronavirus when they give birth this year .
But the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gives the government access to vast amounts of patient data , making large-scale research like the UKOSS study more feasible .
The U.S. health care system is fragmented and inefficient , much of its data hidden in black boxes .
The two nations also have very different approaches to maternal health , exemplified by how they confront pregnancy-related complications and deaths .
The U.K. treats every mother ’ s death like a public health disaster ; the U.S. can barely keep track of its maternal mortality problem .
Women ’ s health in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American researchers and policymakers , said Barbara Levy , former vice president for health policy at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists , now a consultant in the Washington , D.C. , area .
In a public health system that ’ s been underfunded for decades , pregnancy-related issues get especially short shrift .
“ If we ’ re not seeing a red-hot button to raise our concern , then we just aren ’ t particularly curious about what might be going on.
” Yet the stakes of this kind of population-based @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Levy said .
“ This is the future of our world .
This is the next generation.
” Starting with the first , very limited case reports from China , there ’ s been a deluge of studies seeking to fill the information void about COVID-19 and pregnancy .
In the U.S. , much of the research has come from hot spots like New York City , Seattle and Chicago , where physicians in the throes of the pandemic have reported on their own patients and pushed out their findings with breakneck speed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reassuring : COVID-19 can make pregnant women very sick , but many seem to remain asymptomatic or become only mildly ill .
There have only been a few cases of suspected “ vertical transmission ” — mothers passing the virus to their babies in the womb — but those remain under investigation , and most infants born to COVID-19-positive women have done fine .
Some red flags have also emerged : A couple of cases of heart-related complications , indications of placental abnormalities and reports of asymptomatic women who spiraled after giving birth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these case reports is overlapping and confusing , with little or no peer review to vet the findings .
“ In none of these series can we be certain of the underlying population denominators nor the degree to which they are affected by the biases ” inherent in small-scale studies conducted in a single hospital or city , Knight wrote in her BMJ commentary .
“ The results are thus almost impossible to interpret.
” Meanwhile , numerous efforts are underway to do larger scale , longer-term , more scientifically meticulous studies that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the virus affects pregnant women and babies in different parts of the U.S. ( which is likely to be different from how it affects women in the U.K. or Sweden or Iran ) .
In late May , the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development announced a sweeping initiative , a series of studies at the 12 academic institutions in its Maternal-Fetal Medicine Units Network , the preeminent obstetric research collaborative in the U.S .
The network , which dates to the mid-1980s and stretches from the Rhode Island to Utah @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that can put protocols into place very quickly , ” said Diana Bianchi , a prenatal geneticist who heads the NICHD , which is one of the National Institutes of Health .
One big study will compare women who delivered at the various sites between March and December of this year with women who delivered in the same hospitals in the same period in 2019 , Bianchi said .
“ They ’ re asking , first of all , is there a difference in the number of deaths ?
Is there a difference @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been performed ?
Is there a difference in terms of the maternal near misses ?
… If we see any increased incidence of complications , death , whatever , then the presumption is the difference is due to COVID.
” Another study will follow 1,500 COVID-19-positive pregnant women to understand the course of the disease and its treatment .
A different approach , the PRIORITY study , originates at the University of California , San Francisco , and UCLA .
The idea is to build a large nationwide registry of women who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pregnancy and to follow them for at least a year after they give birth , miscarry or have an abortion .
A key goal is to make the registry more geographically , racially and economically diverse than is typical of many academic-based studies , “ because we want the results to accurately reflect the true representation of pregnant people that are being impacted by COVID 19 , ” said Vanessa Jacoby , an associate professor at UCSF who is one of the lead investigators .
To that end , the researchers are working @ @ @ @ @ @ @ around the country to get the word out to potential participants directly ; they don ’ t need a doctor or hospital to take part .
In the first few weeks , many of the women enrolled were pregnant health care workers .
Another UCSF-based study , the ASPIRE registry , will focus on early pregnancy , when the risks are greatest for birth defects and miscarriages , and aims to eventually enroll 10,000 participants .
“ This disease is so humbling because it ’ s new to humans , and we keep @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in real time , ” Bianchi said .
“ We have not gone through a nine-month cycle with pregnant women .
And so I ’ m very concerned about the consequences of infection in the first trimester.
” She points to Zika , a mosquito-borne virus that was once thought to be harmless because the symptoms in men and nonpregnant women were often quite mild .
Only after newborns exhibited devastating neurological disabilities did researchers realize how dangerous the virus really was .
Recent reports of COVID-19 ’ s unexpected effects — like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have intensified providers ’ unease .
On a Facebook group for OB-GYNs with 4,400 members , doctors have recently been trading stories about an alarming , if highly anecdotal , increase in miscarriages and stillbirths in some of their practices .
But the OB-GYNs didn ’ t know whether what they were seeing was a real spike caused by COVID-19 , an increase caused by something else or a statistical fluke magnified by their own anxiety .
And what , they worried , might the reports about clotting disorders in younger , nonpregnant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who are already more susceptible to life-threatening blood clots ?
“ The gap in knowledge — it ’ s chilling , ” said Jane van Dis , a Los Angeles-area OB-GYN who is the medical director at the Maven women ’ s health telemedicine platform and helps administer the Facebook group .
“ It ’ s very distraught-provoking to be expected to be an expert on a topic that we ’ ve spent our whole lives dedicated to , but for which we don ’ t have the answers right now , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be able to have.
” The truth is , answers may be elusive for a long time .
“ This virus keeps surprising us , ” said Sonja Rasmussen , former director of the CDC ’ s Office of Infectious Diseases , now a professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at the University of Florida medical school .
“ That was true for Zika and Ebola , too.
” One of the most important lessons of past outbreaks , she said , is that “ you can ’ t be too confident early @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of collecting data and not being too sure about what you think you ’ re going to see before you collect those data .
You ’ ve got to keep an open mind .
”

The CDC released a study with sobering findings, and experts say the data gaps are almost as worrisome as the results.
In late June, after three months of near silence on the topic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finally weighed in on a question of critical importance to millions of American women and families: How dangerous is the coronavirus for pregnant women and new mothers?
The CDC had been asserting that pregnant women don’t seem to be at higher risk for severe complications from the virus. As recently as late May, a spokesperson told ProPublica, “Current evidence shows pregnant women have the same risk of severe illness from COVID-19 as adults who are not pregnant.”
Then, the agency abruptly changed its tone. In its first examination of U.S. data on COVID-19 in pregnancy, the CDC found that expectant mothers with the virus had a 50% higher chance of being admitted to intensive care and a 70% higher chance of being intubated than nonpregnant women in their childbearing years.
Pregnant Latina and Black women were infected at significantly higher rates than white women, researchers reported. As of July 2, at least 30 expectant and new mothers with the virus had died.
That news was sobering enough. But what many experts found really worrisome were the glaring gaps in data that the study exposed.
The CDC acknowledged that crucial health information was missing for about three-quarters of pregnant women with the virus, including whether they had preexisting conditions or required an ICU stay or mechanical ventilation. For the vast majority of U.S. women of reproductive age who tested positive — about 326,000 women through June 7 — there was no information about pregnancy status at all.
Researchers couldn’t even say how many of the hospitalized mothers-to-be — 31.5% of the pregnant women in the study — had been admitted because of COVID-19, versus how many were in the hospital for other reasons, such as giving birth.
The flawed CDC report highlights a problem that OB-GYN providers and researchers in the U.S. have been fretting about since the pandemic began. Because emerging diseases can have catastrophic consequences for pregnant women and their babies, close monitoring of new illnesses in this vulnerable population is important. So is rapid communication with providers trying to keep their patients safe.
But the U.S. public health system’s efforts to understand the impact of the coronavirus in mothers and babies have been flat-footed, scattershot and agonizingly slow.
The holes in the CDC’s data are “startling. I won’t lie,” said Cindy M. P. Duke, an OB-GYN who runs the Nevada Fertility Institute in Las Vegas. “It’s shocking to realize that we do not have a uniform system in place” for collecting and analyzing basic maternal and infant health information during times of crisis.
“By the time we get the best data available,” said Christina Han, a maternal-fetal specialist who is on the clinical faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles, medical school, “this pandemic will be over.”
To track the coronavirus in pregnant women and their babies, the CDC is instructing local health departments to check a box on the standard Case Report Form if a patient is currently pregnant. Jurisdictions can also complete an “optional, supplemental form” providing information about disease severity and outcomes in mothers and babies, a spokeswoman said.
It’s a system that guarantees there will be huge data inconsistencies, time lags and gaps. “We’re talking about millions of cases that are having to be reported back to the CDC right now,” Han said, “And the clinicians who are taking care of these patients don’t have the time to be filling out the full case report forms.”
The CDC has “initiated COVID-19 pregnancy surveillance,” according to its study, working with local health departments to improve data collection going forward. But researchers didn’t give any details.
“We need to be set up prior to an outbreak to capture information about how any new or emerging or reemerging pathogen affects pregnant women and their infants,” said Denise Jamieson, who spent 20 years at the CDC studying reproductive infectious disease and now heads the OB-GYN department at Emory University medical school in Atlanta. “And I think it’s clear … that [the CDC] are not well poised to do that.”
It Doesn’t Have to Be This Bad
When COVID-19 arrived in Europe this winter, researchers in the United Kingdom were ready.
Caught unprepared by the H1N1 outbreak of 2009, and determined not to let that happen again, the National Institute for Health Research issued a call for studies in 2011 that could be up and running as soon as the next pandemic hit. Nine proposals were chosen, all focusing on flu but adaptable to other types of outbreaks; then they were “hibernated” — put on hold, the protocols periodically reviewed and revised, pending government action.
When the sirens began blaring this February, eight of the studies launched, including one by the U.K. Obstetric Surveillance System, a research platform devoted to rare disorders of pregnancy. “I was told to activate [it] on a Friday,” said Marian Knight, a professor of maternal and child population health at the University of Oxford, “and by Monday, we were collecting the data.”
The UKOSS design was ambitious — a comprehensive, prospective study of COVID-19-infected pregnant women at the National Health Service’s 194 obstetric hospitals; it was also straightforward, based on a two-page electronic form, with all patient information kept anonymous. The careful planning allowed researchers to move quickly without being overly rushed, Knight wrote in a blog post for The BMJ journal, “minimizing the risks of publication of, at best, misleading, or, at worst, erroneous, information” — problems that have bedeviled other high-profile COVID-19 studies.
By mid-May, UKOSS released its first findings from an analysis of every pregnant woman hospitalized in Britain from March through mid-April who tested positive for the virus, 427 in total. Mothers-to-be did not seem to get as sick overall from COVID-19 as they had from H1N1 flu and SARS, but Black and Middle Eastern women were far likelier to be hospitalized with the virus than white women were. About 1 in 10 women became so ill they required respiratory support. Five mothers and five babies died.
The study provided the kind of high-quality data that doctors and policymakers value most: populationwide, scientifically rigorous, immediately actionable. British medical organizations quickly issued new guidance about the heightened risks for women of color.
Medical groups also reaffirmed earlier recommendations that women in their third trimester should avoid job settings, such as working as a doctor or nurse on the front lines, that could expose them to the virus. That’s a much more conservative position than American medical organizations and employers have taken, citing a lack of research that would suggest a different approach. Knight said the UKOSS findings support stringent social distancing in late pregnancy. “That’s where we see the majority of women with critical disease. The good news is that women now know when they should start to be particularly vigilant.”
Public health experts say UKOSS’ proactive, big-picture approach is exactly what was needed in the U.S., which has nearly 4 million births annually — about five times as many as Britain — and wide racial disparities in maternal and infant outcomes that COVID-19 has likely only widened. By one estimate, more than 16,000 American women could be infected with the coronavirus when they give birth this year.
But the U.K. has universal health care, which gives the government access to vast amounts of patient data, making large-scale research like the UKOSS study more feasible. The U.S. health care system is fragmented and inefficient, much of its data hidden in black boxes.
The two nations also have very different approaches to maternal health, exemplified by how they confront pregnancy-related complications and deaths. The U.K. treats every mother’s death like a public health disaster; the U.S. can barely keep track of its maternal mortality problem.
Women’s health in general tends to be an afterthought for American researchers and policymakers, said Barbara Levy, former vice president for health policy at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, now a consultant in the Washington, D.C., area. In a public health system that’s been underfunded for decades, pregnancy-related issues get especially short shrift.
“If we’re not seeing a red-hot button to raise our concern, then we just aren’t particularly curious about what might be going on.” Yet the stakes of this kind of population-based research couldn’t be higher, Levy said. “This is the future of our world. This is the next generation.”
Patching Together a View
Starting with the first, very limited case reports from China, there’s been a deluge of studies seeking to fill the information void about COVID-19 and pregnancy. In the U.S., much of the research has come from hot spots like New York City, Seattle and Chicago, where physicians in the throes of the pandemic have reported on their own patients and pushed out their findings with breakneck speed.
The general trend has been somewhat reassuring: COVID-19 can make pregnant women very sick, but many seem to remain asymptomatic or become only mildly ill. There have only been a few cases of suspected “vertical transmission” — mothers passing the virus to their babies in the womb — but those remain under investigation, and most infants born to COVID-19-positive women have done fine. Some red flags have also emerged: A couple of cases of heart-related complications, indications of placental abnormalities and reports of asymptomatic women who spiraled after giving birth.
The underlying data in many of these case reports is overlapping and confusing, with little or no peer review to vet the findings. “In none of these series can we be certain of the underlying population denominators nor the degree to which they are affected by the biases” inherent in small-scale studies conducted in a single hospital or city, Knight wrote in her BMJ commentary. “The results are thus almost impossible to interpret.”
Meanwhile, numerous efforts are underway to do larger scale, longer-term, more scientifically meticulous studies that could give a fuller picture of how the virus affects pregnant women and babies in different parts of the U.S. (which is likely to be different from how it affects women in the U.K. or Sweden or Iran). In late May, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development announced a sweeping initiative, a series of studies at the 12 academic institutions in its Maternal-Fetal Medicine Units Network, the preeminent obstetric research collaborative in the U.S. The network, which dates to the mid-1980s and stretches from the Rhode Island to Utah, is “a very well-oiled machine that can put protocols into place very quickly,” said Diana Bianchi, a prenatal geneticist who heads the NICHD, which is one of the National Institutes of Health.
One big study will compare women who delivered at the various sites between March and December of this year with women who delivered in the same hospitals in the same period in 2019, Bianchi said. “They’re asking, first of all, is there a difference in the number of deaths? Is there a difference in the number of cesarean sections that have been performed? Is there a difference in terms of the maternal near misses?… If we see any increased incidence of complications, death, whatever, then the presumption is the difference is due to COVID.” Another study will follow 1,500 COVID-19-positive pregnant women to understand the course of the disease and its treatment.
A different approach, the PRIORITY study, originates at the University of California, San Francisco, and UCLA. The idea is to build a large nationwide registry of women who contracted COVID-19 at any point in their pregnancy and to follow them for at least a year after they give birth, miscarry or have an abortion. A key goal is to make the registry more geographically, racially and economically diverse than is typical of many academic-based studies, “because we want the results to accurately reflect the true representation of pregnant people that are being impacted by COVID 19,” said Vanessa Jacoby, an associate professor at UCSF who is one of the lead investigators. To that end, the researchers are working with birth advocates in communities of color around the country to get the word out to potential participants directly; they don’t need a doctor or hospital to take part. In the first few weeks, many of the women enrolled were pregnant health care workers.
Another UCSF-based study, the ASPIRE registry, will focus on early pregnancy, when the risks are greatest for birth defects and miscarriages, and aims to eventually enroll 10,000 participants.
“This disease is so humbling because it’s new to humans, and we keep learning more and more about its manifestations in real time,” Bianchi said. “We have not gone through a nine-month cycle with pregnant women. And so I’m very concerned about the consequences of infection in the first trimester.” She points to Zika, a mosquito-borne virus that was once thought to be harmless because the symptoms in men and nonpregnant women were often quite mild. Only after newborns exhibited devastating neurological disabilities did researchers realize how dangerous the virus really was.
Recent reports of COVID-19’s unexpected effects — like a life-threatening inflammatory syndrome in children — have intensified providers’ unease. On a Facebook group for OB-GYNs with 4,400 members, doctors have recently been trading stories about an alarming, if highly anecdotal, increase in miscarriages and stillbirths in some of their practices. But the OB-GYNs didn’t know whether what they were seeing was a real spike caused by COVID-19, an increase caused by something else or a statistical fluke magnified by their own anxiety. And what, they worried, might the reports about clotting disorders in younger, nonpregnant adults mean for expectant and new mothers, who are already more susceptible to life-threatening blood clots?
“The gap in knowledge — it’s chilling,” said Jane van Dis, a Los Angeles-area OB-GYN who is the medical director at the Maven women’s health telemedicine platform and helps administer the Facebook group. “It’s very distraught-provoking to be expected to be an expert on a topic that we’ve spent our whole lives dedicated to, but for which we don’t have the answers right now, and they’re really important answers to be able to have.”
The truth is, answers may be elusive for a long time. “This virus keeps surprising us,” said Sonja Rasmussen, former director of the CDC’s Office of Infectious Diseases, now a professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at the University of Florida medical school. “That was true for Zika and Ebola, too.” One of the most important lessons of past outbreaks, she said, is that “you can’t be too confident early on. It just shows the importance of collecting data and not being too sure about what you think you’re going to see before you collect those data. You’ve got to keep an open mind.”
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truthout--2020-07-06--Facebook and Its Big Tech Cronies Are Upgrading Their Anti-Union Tools

Recently , Facebook unveiled its new Facebook Workplace , a Slack Connect-like intranet-style chat and office collaboration tool that allows administrators to censor certain words , company spokespeople explained , such as “ unionize.
” The Workplace program with built-in labor suppression is simply the most recent example that suggests , contrary to stereotypes of open and egalitarian corporate cultures , big tech is not that different from Walmart when it comes to its attitudes towards unions .
The negative reaction to Facebook ’ s Workplace program announcement was swift and unsurprising , given the phenomenal reach and power of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s largest union federation , attacked Facebook for presenting itself “ as a champion of free speech , yet here it is marketing itself as a way for corporations to suppress the speech of their employees.
” It demanded that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg “ personally apologize to working people , pull this tool immediately and conduct a board-level investigation into how this product came into existence in the first place.
” Zuckerberg has not yet responded , but Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown has also written to him , stating he was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s potential use as an anti-union tool .
In Europe , which is generally much less tolerant of union busting , labor also expressed disgust .
The European Trade Union Confederation wrote that it “ firmly opposes these practices and would like to remind Facebook that union-busting and other discriminatory activities towards trade unions , their representatives and workers is absolutely prohibited by international and European human rights standards.
” In the face of its public relations blunder , Facebook officials tried to strike a conciliatory tone , apologizing for their “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But it ’ s implausible that Facebook had simply stumbled upon the union-busting example ( and far more likely that its program was designed with this in mind ) , and the effectiveness of Workplace in combating legal labor activity remains unchanged .
According to Christy Hoffman , general secretary of the global union federation UNI Global Union , “ the context is absolutely clear .
Facebook wants to monetize the anti-union behaviour of its customers … and it further believes that union busting is perfectly normal and acceptable , so much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in an internal presentation.
” Facebook is not alone .
In a departure from its previously touted open culture , Google came under fire in October 2019 for creating a spy tool in the form of a Chrome extension that would monitor its employees ’ discussion of labor rights and protests .
Employees attacked the tool , which could not be uninstalled , as “ creepy dark arts ” and condemned management ’ s attempt to “ immediately learn about any workers organization attempts.
” In addition to using tech to suppress union @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have used it to inform coworkers of their labor rights .
Last November , Google attracted widespread media attention for engaging the services of a notorious “ union avoidance ” firm , IRI Consultants .
To make matters worse , in December , Google management fired an employee after she developed a pop-up notification that informed tech workers they had the right to engage in union organizing when they visited the IRI Consultants website .
She was , in essence , fired for using the website of Google ’ s union-busting firm to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to form a union .
Big tech should be rewarding such ingenuity , not punishing it .
Notoriously anti-union Amazon has also used its tech to undermine employee efforts to organize .
Amazon was one of the nation ’ s first corporations to use an anti-union website to defeat a union campaign at its Seattle call center in 2000 .
In 2017 , Amazon purchased Whole Foods grocery stores for $ 14 billion , and in April , the company adopted interactive “ heat maps ” to assess the vulnerability of every Whole @ @ @ @ @ @ @ maps rank the stores ’ union vulnerability based on several external factors – such as the percentage of families in the store ’ s ZIP code living below the poverty line and the unemployment rate – and internal store factors , including the number of labor complaints filed by workers and a “ diversity index ” measuring the ethnic and racial profile of each store ’ s workforce .
Along with “ dark web ” sites and surveillance software , Amazon ’ s heat map is another example of the new frontier of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tech companies have suppressed labor activism with ruthless efficiency .
But voices of protest among tech workers are becoming louder , more frequent and increasingly collective – and are coming from some unlikely places .
Recently , Tim Bray , a former senior engineer and VP at Amazon , criticized the company ’ s termination of whistleblowing employees and called for the breakup of the company .
Bray , a legendary tech industry engineer for four decades , resigned in protest at Amazon ’ s decision to fire several tech employees who had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ safety precautions against COVID-19 infection in Amazon ’ s warehouses .
At a virtual meeting organized by UNI Global Union , Bray said that many tech employees would like an independent voice over Amazon ’ s employment policies .
Nor is Bray a lone voice .
In its largest ever employee protest on June 1 , Facebook workers , including some senior employees and one entire engineering team , held a “ virtual walkout ” in opposition to the platform promoting , without comment , President Trump ’ s “ when the looting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about Black Lives Matter protests .
Emboldened employees have subsequently discussed additional work stoppages to force a change in company policy on Trump ’ s inflammatory rhetoric , with several quoting South African human rights advocate Archbishop Desmond Tutu , in their tweets : “ If you are neutral in situations of injustice , you have chosen the side of the oppressor.
” One senior Facebook engineer tweeted on the protest : “ I ’ ve been at the company nearly seven years and I have never seen a protest or walkout anywhere @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wants to use tech innovation to stop its employees from discussing unions .
Worker surveillance and union suppression has a long and ignominious history in the United States .
In the late 19th century , Andrew Carnegie was so obsessed with anti-union espionage that he would personally read the reports of “ labor spies ” his company had planted among its steel workers .
Tech titans , such as Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg , have much in common when it comes to suppressing labor activity .
The tech industry ’ s labor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — and thus ideally suited for an era of social distancing and teleworking — but its obsession with unilateral control of the workplace is identical to that of the 19th-century robber barons .
If unchecked , the anti-union tech devices of Facebook , Google and Amazon will tilt union organizing even more in favor of powerful corporations and against ordinary workers .
Other giant corporations share their antipathy toward unions , but don ’ t have the same ability to develop surveillance tools that would so effectively destroy fundamental labor rights .
What @ @ @ @ @ @ @ potential Tim Brays are among the ranks of today ’ s tech employees .
Other tech workers have tried to organize , even in the face of employer intransigence .
Video game designers , for example , increasingly see unionization as a way of fighting against a punishing work culture .
If workers continue to organize , it ’ s possible that Big Tech ’ s big brother surveillance tools may not be sufficient to quell these collective voices of protest .

Recently, Facebook unveiled its new Facebook Workplace, a Slack Connect-like intranet-style chat and office collaboration tool that allows administrators to censor certain words, company spokespeople explained, such as “unionize.” The Workplace program with built-in labor suppression is simply the most recent example that suggests, contrary to stereotypes of open and egalitarian corporate cultures, big tech is not that different from Walmart when it comes to its attitudes towards unions.
The negative reaction to Facebook’s Workplace program announcement was swift and unsurprising, given the phenomenal reach and power of Facebook. The AFL-CIO, the country’s largest union federation, attacked Facebook for presenting itself “as a champion of free speech, yet here it is marketing itself as a way for corporations to suppress the speech of their employees.” It demanded that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg “personally apologize to working people, pull this tool immediately and conduct a board-level investigation into how this product came into existence in the first place.” Zuckerberg has not yet responded, but Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown has also written to him, stating he was “deeply troubled” by the platform’s potential use as an anti-union tool.
In Europe, which is generally much less tolerant of union busting, labor also expressed disgust. The European Trade Union Confederation wrote that it “firmly opposes these practices and would like to remind Facebook that union-busting and other discriminatory activities towards trade unions, their representatives and workers is absolutely prohibited by international and European human rights standards.” In the face of its public relations blunder, Facebook officials tried to strike a conciliatory tone, apologizing for their “poorly chosen” brazen union avoidance example. But it’s implausible that Facebook had simply stumbled upon the union-busting example (and far more likely that its program was designed with this in mind), and the effectiveness of Workplace in combating legal labor activity remains unchanged. According to Christy Hoffman, general secretary of the global union federation UNI Global Union, “the context is absolutely clear. Facebook wants to monetize the anti-union behaviour of its customers … and it further believes that union busting is perfectly normal and acceptable, so much so that it would nonchalantly be included in an internal presentation.”
Google’s Anti-Union Spyware and Amazon’s Anti-Union “Heat Maps”
Facebook is not alone. In a departure from its previously touted open culture, Google came under fire in October 2019 for creating a spy tool in the form of a Chrome extension that would monitor its employees’ discussion of labor rights and protests. Employees attacked the tool, which could not be uninstalled, as “creepy dark arts” and condemned management’s attempt to “immediately learn about any workers organization attempts.”
In addition to using tech to suppress union activity, Google has punished employees who have used it to inform coworkers of their labor rights. Last November, Google attracted widespread media attention for engaging the services of a notorious “union avoidance” firm, IRI Consultants. To make matters worse, in December, Google management fired an employee after she developed a pop-up notification that informed tech workers they had the right to engage in union organizing when they visited the IRI Consultants website. She was, in essence, fired for using the website of Google’s union-busting firm to inform coworkers about their federally protected right to form a union. Big tech should be rewarding such ingenuity, not punishing it.
Notoriously anti-union Amazon has also used its tech to undermine employee efforts to organize. Amazon was one of the nation’s first corporations to use an anti-union website to defeat a union campaign at its Seattle call center in 2000. In 2017, Amazon purchased Whole Foods grocery stores for $14 billion, and in April, the company adopted interactive “heat maps” to assess the vulnerability of every Whole Foods store to unionization. These heat maps rank the stores’ union vulnerability based on several external factors – such as the percentage of families in the store’s ZIP code living below the poverty line and the unemployment rate – and internal store factors, including the number of labor complaints filed by workers and a “diversity index” measuring the ethnic and racial profile of each store’s workforce. Along with “dark web” sites and surveillance software, Amazon’s heat map is another example of the new frontier of high-tech union busting.
Tech Workers Rising
So far, tech companies have suppressed labor activism with ruthless efficiency. But voices of protest among tech workers are becoming louder, more frequent and increasingly collective.
So far, tech companies have suppressed labor activism with ruthless efficiency. But voices of protest among tech workers are becoming louder, more frequent and increasingly collective – and are coming from some unlikely places. Recently, Tim Bray, a former senior engineer and VP at Amazon, criticized the company’s termination of whistleblowing employees and called for the breakup of the company. Bray, a legendary tech industry engineer for four decades, resigned in protest at Amazon’s decision to fire several tech employees who had spoken out against the lack of adequate safety precautions against COVID-19 infection in Amazon’s warehouses. At a virtual meeting organized by UNI Global Union, Bray said that many tech employees would like an independent voice over Amazon’s employment policies.
Nor is Bray a lone voice. In its largest ever employee protest on June 1, Facebook workers, including some senior employees and one entire engineering team, held a “virtual walkout” in opposition to the platform promoting, without comment, President Trump’s “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” remark about Black Lives Matter protests. Emboldened employees have subsequently discussed additional work stoppages to force a change in company policy on Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric, with several quoting South African human rights advocate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in their tweets: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” One senior Facebook engineer tweeted on the protest: “I’ve been at the company nearly seven years and I have never seen a protest or walkout anywhere near this large.” No wonder Facebook wants to use tech innovation to stop its employees from discussing unions.
Tech Titans vs. Robber Barons
Worker surveillance and union suppression has a long and ignominious history in the United States. In the late 19th century, Andrew Carnegie was so obsessed with anti-union espionage that he would personally read the reports of “labor spies” his company had planted among its steel workers. Tech titans, such as Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, have much in common when it comes to suppressing labor activity. The tech industry’s labor spies may be virtual rather than corporeal — and thus ideally suited for an era of social distancing and teleworking — but its obsession with unilateral control of the workplace is identical to that of the 19th-century robber barons.
If unchecked, the anti-union tech devices of Facebook, Google and Amazon will tilt union organizing even more in favor of powerful corporations and against ordinary workers. Other giant corporations share their antipathy toward unions, but don’t have the same ability to develop surveillance tools that would so effectively destroy fundamental labor rights. What remains to be seen is how many potential Tim Brays are among the ranks of today’s tech employees. Other tech workers have tried to organize, even in the face of employer intransigence. Video game designers, for example, increasingly see unionization as a way of fighting against a punishing work culture. If workers continue to organize, it’s possible that Big Tech’s big brother surveillance tools may not be sufficient to quell these collective voices of protest.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.


truthout--2020-07-06--Antiracism Must Be a Priority in Every Newsroom

As journalists in the United States reported on racial injustice and police brutality amid the murder of George Floyd , there was another story about racism brewing in the newsroom .
In this case , journalists became the story .
After publishing a column originally titled “ Buildings Matter , Too , ” The Philadelphia Inquirer received intense criticism not only from readers , but their employees , too .
Journalists of color at the publication spoke out against the column and organized a “ sick and tired day ” to protest racial injustice at the organization — all this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ predominantly white news staff in a city that is predominantly Black .
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette faces similar accusations of racial injustice .
After posting a tweet satirizing the mainstream media ’ s coverage of the looting that ensued after protests , Alexis Johnson , a Black reporter at the publication , was barred from covering the city ’ s protests for allegedly showing bias .
This led to a social media campaign using the hashtag # IStandWithAlexis in solidarity with the reporter .
On June 16 , Johnson filed a federal lawsuit against @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discrimination .
From The New York Times publishing Sen. Tom Cotton ’ s opinion piece advocating for the militarization of U.S. cities , to the hashtag # BlackatLAT to call out the lack of Black reporters at the Los Angeles Times , and the accusations of racial discrimination by former staffers of Refinery29 , news publications have to reckon with their own allegations of racism and the journalistic standards that uphold them .
It ’ s obvious that diversifying the pool of candidates considered for new positions and attending several diversity workshops mandated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what happens now ?
An Overhaul of Journalism Schools as We Know Them Journalism schools currently reflect the industry — they are in a state of uncertainty .
On one hand , the cries of “ fake news , ” “ the enemy of the people ” and other attacks from the White House when the news doesn ’ t portray the Trump administration in a favorable fashion has many young minds interested in the news industry .
On the other , journalism schools are facing a new reality of preparing students for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seems like every week there ’ s a different news organization laying off its reporters or even closing down .
According to the Pew Research Center , newsroom employment at traditional newspapers has dropped by half from 2008 to 2019 .
Furthermore , the COVID-19 pandemic has left hundreds of journalists unemployed and several publications permanently closed .
The digital era has introduced new ways for consumers to stay informed in a country with shifting demographics .
Journalism schools in the United States are starting to introduce and require courses on social media @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , none of those skills will matter if students don ’ t have a firm grounding on how to use them with diverse communities .
Every journalism school should require a course on racial justice in the newsroom , taught by journalists and professors of color .
A module on race in an introductory journalism course and a unit on inclusive practices in a class on journalism ethics are no longer enough .
Schools should prioritize antiracist and inclusive practices for every student who wants to enter a communication field .
For example @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s undergraduate journalism program requires students to take a course titled “ Engaging Diverse Communities.
” Topics in the course include the inequality marginalized communities face , language usage when reporting on diverse populations and the biases new technologies may promote in the newsroom .
The University of Missouri ’ s undergraduate journalism program also requires a similar course .
“ Cross-Cultural Journalism ” teaches students the importance of diversity in their reporting by providing tools for covering different social groups in the United States , including common mistakes made by journalists and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for reaching diverse audiences , and representations of gender , sexuality and race in media .
Moreover , racial and social justice should be fundamental parts of introductory courses where students first learn the ethical framework of the industry and how to report .
Classes should require students to report on topics like race , gender , sexuality and immigration so they can grow their social justice orientation — or at the very least , report consciously about identity and injustice .
Students should critically engage with the works of racial justice activists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to learn and improve upon their reporting of different cultures and social groups so they are aware of the best practices once gainfully employed .
Journalism schools can not go on with the assumption that general education courses and white professors are giving student journalists the antiracist foundation that allows them to confront their biases — and structural injustices — and equips them with the tools to report in equitable and just ways .
Furthermore , journalism schools should hire , retain and promote full-time professors of color .
Data collected by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the Pew Research Center , finds that in fall 2017 , white faculty members accounted for 76 percent of the entire faculty in postsecondary schools , while only 55 percent of the student body identified as white .
Schools have to reckon with drops in enrollment and government funding the same way the journalism industry has to adopt new business models to adapt to fewer consumers , increased competition and less funds from advertisement .
This , however , should not be an excuse to put racial justice on the newsroom ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ faculty at journalism schools .
Objectivity Is Dead .
Time to Spread Its Ashes .
Newsrooms need horizontal and vertical change .
From the entry-level reporter to senior leadership , newsrooms should reflect the communities they serve .
Unfortunately , those sentiments have been shared countless times with limited change .
If the industry as a whole really wanted to take initial steps toward meaningful change , it would collectively commit to adopting an affirmative action-style plan with the goal of making newsrooms representative of the publication ’ s regional demographics .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what became known as the Kerner Commission to address the root of deadly confrontations between Black residents and the police department in Detroit , Michigan .
In 1968 , the Kerner Commission released a report that , among other things , criticized the press for focusing on “ white men ’ s eyes and a white perspective.
” It ’ s been over 50 years since the report was published , and the criticism of a predominantly white media continues .
Decentering whiteness in the newsroom will be challenging — it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ male experience as the status quo to alter its framework to one that is intersectional and antiracist .
Nonetheless , many progressive ethnic and feminist news outlets have shown us it ’ s not impossible .
Decentering whiteness opens the door for better , more well-rounded journalism where the Black reporter isn ’ t limited to writing about race and crime , the Latinx reporter isn ’ t expected to only pitch stories on immigration and the Asian journalist reports beyond the tech beat .
Journalists in urban cities often get a bad @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to report on crime and fires .
To combat this , newsrooms must encourage reporters to respectfully immerse themselves in neighborhoods .
Reporters should get to know the neighborhood ’ s people , not the neighborhood ’ s problems .
They should build and sustain mutually beneficial relationships with community leaders and block captains , so they can be the first point of contact when writing a story .
Even better , newsrooms should even consider opening smaller news hubs in these neighborhoods and hire people from the community .
Instead of reporting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about Black people , ” they should encourage journalists to report with and from within these communities .
There ’ s a power shift that takes place when the preposition goes from “ about ” to “ with.
” The communities that often go underrepresented in every part of the reporting process should be integral parts of the final piece .
Who are reporters citing as experts ?
Who are the sources ?
Who are the reporters themselves ?
Whose story is being told ?
What neighborhoods are not being covered ?
What @ @ @ @ @ @ @ important and relevant to the communities we often ignore ?
Is this racist or antiracist ?
These are the questions editors should be asking on a daily basis .
As journalist and author Lewis Wallace once wrote , “ Objectivity is dead.
” Now it ’ s time to burn it and spread its ashes .
An industry that relies on the myth of objectivity is an industry that accepts the status quo and feeds into the division and hatred that promotes injustice .
Objectivity is a straight , cis white man ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that does not personally affect him .
We ’ re seeing the pitfalls of objectivity take center stage as our politics and media consumption becomes more partisan .
The left criticizes mainstream news media such as The New York Times and CNN for often representing more centrist views and for normalizing the chaotic and dangerous Trump presidency , while the right is becoming more critical of Fox News as President Trump disavows some of the outlet ’ s reporting and polling .
Objectivity contributes to the left-right binary that is not only reductive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ibram X. Kendi , historian and author of How to Be an Antiracist , defines antiracist as “ the idea that racial groups are equals and none needs developing , and is supporting policy that reduces racial inequity.
” Reporting that intentionally rejects racism and is vehemently antiracist should confront racial injustice and reject the notion of neutrality — an antiracist ideology has no room for objectivity .
Racism in the newsroom can not be swept under the rug or ignored once racial injustice leaves the top headlines .
This needs to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and significant systemic changes .
If the news industry is going to survive , it needs change — a change so radical that it becomes a shell of its former self with an antiracist ideology as a new ethical pillar .

As journalists in the United States reported on racial injustice and police brutality amid the murder of George Floyd, there was another story about racism brewing in the newsroom. In this case, journalists became the story.
After publishing a column originally titled “Buildings Matter, Too,” The Philadelphia Inquirer received intense criticism not only from readers, but their employees, too. Journalists of color at the publication spoke out against the column and organized a “sick and tired day” to protest racial injustice at the organization — all this after years of criticism for having a predominantly white news staff in a city that is predominantly Black.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette faces similar accusations of racial injustice. After posting a tweet satirizing the mainstream media’s coverage of the looting that ensued after protests, Alexis Johnson, a Black reporter at the publication, was barred from covering the city’s protests for allegedly showing bias. This led to a social media campaign using the hashtag #IStandWithAlexis in solidarity with the reporter. On June 16, Johnson filed a federal lawsuit against the Post-Gazette on the basis of racial discrimination.
From The New York Times publishing Sen. Tom Cotton’s opinion piece advocating for the militarization of U.S. cities, to the hashtag #BlackatLAT to call out the lack of Black reporters at the Los Angeles Times, and the accusations of racial discrimination by former staffers of Refinery29, news publications have to reckon with their own allegations of racism and the journalistic standards that uphold them. It’s obvious that diversifying the pool of candidates considered for new positions and attending several diversity workshops mandated by management are not working. So what happens now?
An Overhaul of Journalism Schools as We Know Them
Journalism schools currently reflect the industry — they are in a state of uncertainty.
On one hand, the cries of “fake news,” “the enemy of the people” and other attacks from the White House when the news doesn’t portray the Trump administration in a favorable fashion has many young minds interested in the news industry. On the other, journalism schools are facing a new reality of preparing students for an industry full of uncertainties where it seems like every week there’s a different news organization laying off its reporters or even closing down.
According to the Pew Research Center, newsroom employment at traditional newspapers has dropped by half from 2008 to 2019. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has left hundreds of journalists unemployed and several publications permanently closed.
From the entry-level reporter to senior leadership, newsrooms should reflect the communities they serve.
The digital era has introduced new ways for consumers to stay informed in a country with shifting demographics. Journalism schools in the United States are starting to introduce and require courses on social media, virtual reality and coding. However, none of those skills will matter if students don’t have a firm grounding on how to use them with diverse communities.
Every journalism school should require a course on racial justice in the newsroom, taught by journalists and professors of color. A module on race in an introductory journalism course and a unit on inclusive practices in a class on journalism ethics are no longer enough. Schools should prioritize antiracist and inclusive practices for every student who wants to enter a communication field.
For example, the University of Southern California’s undergraduate journalism program requires students to take a course titled “Engaging Diverse Communities.” Topics in the course include the inequality marginalized communities face, language usage when reporting on diverse populations and the biases new technologies may promote in the newsroom.
The University of Missouri’s undergraduate journalism program also requires a similar course. “Cross-Cultural Journalism” teaches students the importance of diversity in their reporting by providing tools for covering different social groups in the United States, including common mistakes made by journalists and how to avoid them, best practices for reaching diverse audiences, and representations of gender, sexuality and race in media.
Moreover, racial and social justice should be fundamental parts of introductory courses where students first learn the ethical framework of the industry and how to report. Classes should require students to report on topics like race, gender, sexuality and immigration so they can grow their social justice orientation — or at the very least, report consciously about identity and injustice. Students should critically engage with the works of racial justice activists and scholars. This will allow students to learn and improve upon their reporting of different cultures and social groups so they are aware of the best practices once gainfully employed.
Instead of reporting “about Latinx communities” or “about Black people,” they should encourage journalists to report with and from within these communities.
Journalism schools cannot go on with the assumption that general education courses and white professors are giving student journalists the antiracist foundation that allows them to confront their biases — and structural injustices — and equips them with the tools to report in equitable and just ways.
Furthermore, journalism schools should hire, retain and promote full-time professors of color. Data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics, reported by the Pew Research Center, finds that in fall 2017, white faculty members accounted for 76 percent of the entire faculty in postsecondary schools, while only 55 percent of the student body identified as white.
Schools have to reckon with drops in enrollment and government funding the same way the journalism industry has to adopt new business models to adapt to fewer consumers, increased competition and less funds from advertisement. This, however, should not be an excuse to put racial justice on the newsroom’s backburner or to reject diversifying the faculty at journalism schools.
Objectivity Is Dead. Time to Spread Its Ashes.
Newsrooms need horizontal and vertical change. From the entry-level reporter to senior leadership, newsrooms should reflect the communities they serve. Unfortunately, those sentiments have been shared countless times with limited change. If the industry as a whole really wanted to take initial steps toward meaningful change, it would collectively commit to adopting an affirmative action-style plan with the goal of making newsrooms representative of the publication’s regional demographics.
In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson established what became known as the Kerner Commission to address the root of deadly confrontations between Black residents and the police department in Detroit, Michigan. In 1968, the Kerner Commission released a report that, among other things, criticized the press for focusing on “white men’s eyes and a white perspective.” It’s been over 50 years since the report was published, and the criticism of a predominantly white media continues.
Decentering whiteness in the newsroom will be challenging — it’s asking an industry that sustains the white male experience as the status quo to alter its framework to one that is intersectional and antiracist. Nonetheless, many progressive ethnic and feminist news outlets have shown us it’s not impossible. Decentering whiteness opens the door for better, more well-rounded journalism where the Black reporter isn’t limited to writing about race and crime, the Latinx reporter isn’t expected to only pitch stories on immigration and the Asian journalist reports beyond the tech beat.
Journalists in urban cities often get a bad rep for only going to certain communities to report on crime and fires. To combat this, newsrooms must encourage reporters to respectfully immerse themselves in neighborhoods. Reporters should get to know the neighborhood’s people, not the neighborhood’s problems. They should build and sustain mutually beneficial relationships with community leaders and block captains, so they can be the first point of contact when writing a story.
Even better, newsrooms should even consider opening smaller news hubs in these neighborhoods and hire people from the community. Instead of reporting “about Latinx communities” or “about Black people,” they should encourage journalists to report with and from within these communities. There’s a power shift that takes place when the preposition goes from “about” to “with.” The communities that often go underrepresented in every part of the reporting process should be integral parts of the final piece.
Who are reporters citing as experts? Who are the sources? Who are the reporters themselves? Whose story is being told? What neighborhoods are not being covered? What perspective is missing? Is this story important and relevant to the communities we often ignore? Is this racist or antiracist? These are the questions editors should be asking on a daily basis.
Racism in the newsroom cannot be swept under the rug or ignored once racial injustice leaves the top headlines.
As journalist and author Lewis Wallace once wrote, “Objectivity is dead.” Now it’s time to burn it and spread its ashes. An industry that relies on the myth of objectivity is an industry that accepts the status quo and feeds into the division and hatred that promotes injustice. Objectivity is a straight, cis white man’s approach to reporting about an issue that does not personally affect him.
We’re seeing the pitfalls of objectivity take center stage as our politics and media consumption becomes more partisan. The left criticizes mainstream news media such as The New York Times and CNN for often representing more centrist views and for normalizing the chaotic and dangerous Trump presidency, while the right is becoming more critical of Fox News as President Trump disavows some of the outlet’s reporting and polling. Objectivity contributes to the left-right binary that is not only reductive, but often perpetuates racism.
Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, historian and author of How to Be an Antiracist, defines antiracist as “the idea that racial groups are equals and none needs developing, and is supporting policy that reduces racial inequity.” Reporting that intentionally rejects racism and is vehemently antiracist should confront racial injustice and reject the notion of neutrality — an antiracist ideology has no room for objectivity.
Racism in the newsroom cannot be swept under the rug or ignored once racial injustice leaves the top headlines. This needs to be a constant conversation backed by measurable actions and significant systemic changes.
If the news industry is going to survive, it needs change — a change so radical that it becomes a shell of its former self with an antiracist ideology as a new ethical pillar.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.


truthout--2020-07-07--Trump Gives Official Notice of Withdrawal From the World Health Organization

The Trump administration officially announced on Tuesday that the United States would be withdrawing from the World Health Organization ( WHO ) , giving formal notice to the United Nations secretary-general about its intention to do so .
The announced departure from the international agency comes after Trump has threatened for several months to cut off funding to the WHO , as well as leaving the organization altogether , over his belief that the UN agency has promoted a pro-China bias .
Despite lacking evidence to back its claims , the White House has alleged that the WHO aided Beijing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus at the start of the disease ’ s spread in Wuhan late last year .
In making these claims against the WHO , Trump claimed they were backed up by supposed reports from December 2019 in the medical journal The Lancet , which he said had shown the WHO and China were aware of the destructive possibilities of COVID-19 at that time .
Those claims , however , were immediately repudiated by The Lancet , which pointed out that it had “ published no report in December , 2019 , referring to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anywhere else in China.
” “ The first reports the journal published were on January 24 , 2020 , ” The Lancet added .
Other allegations by the Trump administration of misdeeds on the part of the WHO have been similarly disputed by fact-checking organizations .
Several health experts do not believe the president ’ s claims are legitimate , and view them more as a means to deflect criticisms from his own gross mishandling of the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S .
Removal of membership from the WHO requires a year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. will remain within the organization until at least July 6 , 2021 .
Because of the presidential election that ’ s set to occur later this fall , it ’ s possible that the decision made by the Trump administration this week could be reversed by next summer .
If Trump remains president , an exit by the U.S. from the WHO will go through as planned .
His main opponent in the race , meanwhile , Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden , has indicated on his campaign webpage his commitment to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ global fight against the spread of coronavirus , implying that a partnership with the organization would continue if he won the election .
Several health experts have warned that Trump ’ s decision to remove the U.S. from the WHO would be a mistake , particularly during a pandemic crisis .
“ The United States helped create the World Health Organization , ” Tom Frieden , former director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , said to NPR in May .
And we ’ re turning our back on it — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world .
That makes us less safe , it makes the world less safe.
” Nancy Cox , a former CDC virologist who spent 22 years leading the agency ’ s partnership with the WHO on influenza surveillance , expressed dismay last month about the idea as well .
“ To do this in the middle of a pandemic is breathtakingly dangerous , ” Cox said to ProPublica .
“ So I worry a lot about what ’ s going to happen to so many of the programs at WHO that were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ consultation with the U.S .
I just think it could be really bad .
”

If Trump remains president in 2021, an exit by the U.S. from the WHO will go through as planned.
The Trump administration officially announced on Tuesday that the United States would be withdrawing from the World Health Organization (WHO), giving formal notice to the United Nations secretary-general about its intention to do so.
The announced departure from the international agency comes after Trump has threatened for several months to cut off funding to the WHO, as well as leaving the organization altogether, over his belief that the UN agency has promoted a pro-China bias. Despite lacking evidence to back its claims, the White House has alleged that the WHO aided Beijing in covering up the initial response to coronavirus at the start of the disease’s spread in Wuhan late last year.
In making these claims against the WHO, Trump claimed they were backed up by supposed reports from December 2019 in the medical journal The Lancet, which he said had shown the WHO and China were aware of the destructive possibilities of COVID-19 at that time. Those claims, however, were immediately repudiated by The Lancet, which pointed out that it had “published no report in December, 2019, referring to a virus or outbreak in Wuhan or anywhere else in China.”
“The first reports the journal published were on January 24, 2020,” The Lancet added.
Other allegations by the Trump administration of misdeeds on the part of the WHO have been similarly disputed by fact-checking organizations. Several health experts do not believe the president’s claims are legitimate, and view them more as a means to deflect criticisms from his own gross mishandling of the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S.
Removal of membership from the WHO requires a year’s notice, which means the U.S. will remain within the organization until at least July 6, 2021. Because of the presidential election that’s set to occur later this fall, it’s possible that the decision made by the Trump administration this week could be reversed by next summer.
If Trump remains president, an exit by the U.S. from the WHO will go through as planned. His main opponent in the race, meanwhile, Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden, has indicated on his campaign webpage his commitment to the WHO and its policies in the global fight against the spread of coronavirus, implying that a partnership with the organization would continue if he won the election.
Several health experts have warned that Trump’s decision to remove the U.S. from the WHO would be a mistake, particularly during a pandemic crisis.
“The United States helped create the World Health Organization,” Tom Frieden, former director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said to NPR in May. And we’re turning our back on it — we’re turning our back on the world. That makes us less safe, it makes the world less safe.”
Nancy Cox, a former CDC virologist who spent 22 years leading the agency’s partnership with the WHO on influenza surveillance, expressed dismay last month about the idea as well.
“To do this in the middle of a pandemic is breathtakingly dangerous,” Cox said to ProPublica. “So I worry a lot about what’s going to happen to so many of the programs at WHO that were strongly supported financially and through expertise and consultation with the U.S. I just think it could be really bad.”
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
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truthout--2020-07-07--Trump’s Niece Says He Paid a Friend to Take the SAT For Him in High School

Mary Trump , niece to President Donald Trump , is set to publish a book chronicling her life in the Trump family later this month .
In the book , which is titled Too Much and Never Enough : How My Family Created the World ’ s Most Dangerous Man , Mary Trump makes several startling allegations , including the claim that the president paid someone to sit and take the SAT collegiate entrance exam on his behalf back when he was a high school student in Queens , New York .
While the president has often bragged about getting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the University of Pennsylvania , Mary Trump says her uncle got into the school using methods consistent with what she describes as his overarching practice of “ cheating as a way of life.
” Mary says in her book that only through paying someone else to take the SAT exam for him was the president able to earn a strong enough score to gain entrance into Fordham University , from which he later transferred to Wharton .
Donald Trump was able to secure a meeting with a Wharton admissions official in the 1960s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s father ) Fred Trump Jr. was friends with someone in that office .
In reporting from The Washington Post from 2019 , James Nolan , who was an admissions representative at the university at the time , described how Trump sat before him , with his father by his side , arguing for why he should be allowed to transfer .
Trump has described Wharton as being “ the hardest school to get into , ” and said that his admission into the school of business required “ super genius stuff.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump cheating on the SAT is true , it is particularly ironic that Trump has gone out of his way to draw public attention to the idea of his test-taking abilities throughout and preceding his presidency .
In 2017 , in response to an insult from then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson , the president alleged that he could beat his cabinet secretary in an intelligence quotient ( IQ ) test .
Mensa , responding to inquiries about administering such a test to both individuals , announced it would be ready to do so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to hold a testing session for President Trump and Secretary Tillerson , ” Charles Brown , Mensa ’ s communications director , said .
Neither Trump nor Tillerson followed up with Mensa .
Meanwhile , on Twitter in 2013 , Trump had also gratuitously introduced the idea of IQ testing by responding to a fan who called him a genius by saying , “ IQ tests confirm !
” Trump , however , has never allowed any media organization access to IQ tests he has taken , despite referencing them repeatedly .

In her book, Mary Trump chronicles how cheating has always been “a way of life” for her uncle, President Trump.
Mary Trump, niece to President Donald Trump, is set to publish a book chronicling her life in the Trump family later this month.
In the book, which is titled Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, Mary Trump makes several startling allegations, including the claim that the president paid someone to sit and take the SAT collegiate entrance exam on his behalf back when he was a high school student in Queens, New York.
While the president has often bragged about getting into the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, Mary Trump says her uncle got into the school using methods consistent with what she describes as his overarching practice of “cheating as a way of life.”
Mary says in her book that only through paying someone else to take the SAT exam for him was the president able to earn a strong enough score to gain entrance into Fordham University, from which he later transferred to Wharton.
Donald Trump was able to secure a meeting with a Wharton admissions official in the 1960s partly because his brother (Mary’s father) Fred Trump Jr. was friends with someone in that office. In reporting from The Washington Post from 2019, James Nolan, who was an admissions representative at the university at the time, described how Trump sat before him, with his father by his side, arguing for why he should be allowed to transfer.
Trump has described Wharton as being “the hardest school to get into,” and said that his admission into the school of business required “super genius stuff.”
If Mary Trump’s claim about Trump cheating on the SAT is true, it is particularly ironic that Trump has gone out of his way to draw public attention to the idea of his test-taking abilities throughout and preceding his presidency.
In 2017, in response to an insult from then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the president alleged that he could beat his cabinet secretary in an intelligence quotient (IQ) test. Mensa, responding to inquiries about administering such a test to both individuals, announced it would be ready to do so.
“American Mensa would be happy to hold a testing session for President Trump and Secretary Tillerson,” Charles Brown, Mensa’s communications director, said.
Neither Trump nor Tillerson followed up with Mensa.
Meanwhile, on Twitter in 2013, Trump had also gratuitously introduced the idea of IQ testing by responding to a fan who called him a genius by saying, “IQ tests confirm!”
Trump, however, has never allowed any media organization access to IQ tests he has taken, despite referencing them repeatedly.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.