#it's become second nature to me to rewrite and rephrase news articles as I'm reading them

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

I'm so frustrated with news media culture

This CBS article showed up in my newsfeed. I normally don't click on articles like these, but I read the headlines. My instinctive response to this headline was "what a tepid, noncommittal response from an uncaring administration." Mainly because that's the mental framework that media & social media has taught me to use.

Then I clicked the article:

What Biden actually said was that these laws are an atrocity (they are). He literally called them "Jim Crow in the 21st Century" (completely true). He made a sweeping condemnation, taking a far stronger stance than the headline implied--stronger than the media has taught me to expect. A much more accurate headline would have been "Biden condemns Georgia election laws" or "Biden calls Georgia election laws an "atrocity"".

As a progressive, I have enough complaints about the Biden administration without media companies purposely trying to mislead me with this shit. Keep in mind the vast majority of people who read the headline will not click on the article. That is just how headlines work. And this is just one of dozens of small but incredibly harmful journalistic practices. Too many U.S. media companies consistently twist words & highlight the wrong information in order to drive wedges between liberal voting blocs while unifying the far right and I am sick of it.

Always read critically, and hold your news sources accountable.

#reminder of the extreme importance of supporting independent news sources #especially nonprofits like Mother Jones #but always always always examine word choices and tone #it's become second nature to me to rewrite and rephrase news articles as I'm reading them #i go into mental 'editing' mode. #just rephrasing sentences a different way as an experiment can do a LOT to quickly uncover invisible bias #for every phrase there are two synonyms that could have been used instead. and the writer made the choice they did for a REASON #anyways. TONE POLICE MEDIA COMPANIES NOT MINORITIES #serious post #not a shitpost #no I'm not a fan of the Biden administration #but falling for shit like this is ultimately why we got that orange fucker instead of clinton #Christ think about how much better the last year alone would have been if we'd had Clinton #again not a clinton fan but we would have had a functional center for disease control for one thing #would have had a center for disease control in the midst of a global pandemic #remember the CDC? the thing Trump got rid of along with 100 other essential government services #well putting children in cages is expensive I guess. Walls don't pay for themselves #anyway. vote as a form of harm reduction #yes the system should probably be torn down and built from fucking scratch #but until you figure out a way to do that will you please just fucking vote to reduce harm #wow. this was such a small thing but apparently I was set to go off I guess #I am possibly just beginning to process the last 4 years of social trauma.