As long as there’s been an internet, people have forwarded one another stories and photos and award offers, some inspiring, some horrifying, some valid, some fictional. What some reporters are now calling “fake news” is a sub-category of the content we information traders are willing to traffic in and share with each other. During this fall’s US […]
Being the first
While scrolling through Twitter tonight, I glimpsed a news tweet about Tracee Ellis Ross rallying supporters for one of the US presidential candidates. “Let’s make history” is the phrase Ross used to hype the crowd; the Black Voices editors highlighted this phrase in their promotions. It’s a phrase that sometimes comes up when a member of […]
How religious analogies mimic political structure
Monarchy as the traditional theological model All Western religions have taken the form of celestial monarchies, and therefore have discouraged democracy in the Kingdom of Heaven. Until, as a consequence of the teachings of the German and Flemish mystics in the 15th Century, there began to be such movements as the Anabaptists, the Brothers of the […]
Recurring nightmares
I’m still recovering from the UK’s EU referendum count yesterday. I’d tuned into Twitter after work and found the Britain Elects feed tallying up the counted votes as they came in. Sign times have changed: The tally is in a view-only Google Sheets file. Most counties hadn’t submitted results by midnight Eastern Time, so I […]
Editing Means Reality Shaping
Black History Month means unearthing grainy black-and-white photos of Black people from archives, backrooms, and attics everywhere. The New York Times played this storyline literally this year, announcing a month-long series of photos never before published in the print newspaper or digital site. The newspaper’s photographers once wandered Black neighborhoods and followed Black civil rights leaders and […]
Philanthropy, Misanthropy, and Outrage
If there were a stock for outrage, conventional media, 501(c)3 and 501(c)4 non-profit and lobbying groups, and fundraising platforms would be mutual investors. Outrage is hot right now, and it’s making some people hundreds of thousands of dollars. Earlier this month I shared an Indiegogo campaign that closed having raised over $17,000 for a Chicago youth homelessness […]
