Un-Erasing History
Top Story: Un-Erasing History
If journalism is “the first rough draft of history” what should journalists do about efforts to erase our history?
Reporting Right has been thinking a lot about this after reading Medicine River, A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools, a scathing account of our nation’s efforts to “educate” young Native Americans in the early 1900’s.
The book is an important read; if only because of recent efforts by The White House to erase online references of dispiriting chapters in American history like this one.
Erasing historical mentions on The White House website might not seem like news — except that as Suzanne Nossel, the former CEO of PEN America, wrote in Foreign Affairs recently: “the eraser is a key tool of autocrats.”
So, what should we be doing about this?
Reporting Right has some ideas.
Understand why this matters for you.
If you are putting your stories in historical context - and we should all be making sure to do that — then historical erasing/rewriting is going to be a problem for you. Suddenly you can find yourself referencing an historical accomplishment/event/tragedy or political crime that the White House, your governor or your state legislature no longer recognizes. That’s awkward!
Get a plan.
Help your newsroom establish uniform methods for flagging historical events that officials are seeking to ignore/dispute.
That way:
You avoid inadvertently using language on deadline that suggests the historical event is actually in dispute.
You remind/inform your audience that certain events actually happened. (Remember: a shockingly low number of Americans know much history at all. So, consider this a public service.)
Don’t fall for the DEI spin.
It can be easy to throw this historical erasing into the “opposing DEI” bin — a story that has already gotten a lot of play. But slapping the“DEI” label on an historical event/period in world history is political spin. It’s also a clever way to keep journalists from addressing/thinking about/writing about important issues related to historical erasure.
Get to know The Wayback Machine. See: The Wayback Machine is preserving the websites The Trump White House is taking own.
Be a newsroom opportunist.
Use efforts in your community to erase history as a prime opportunity to launch video essays/explainers or “Did you know” Tik Tok or Instagram posts about state/local/national history. Young audiences are always looking for quick, easy-to-watch explainers. And this is a great time to think of innovative ways to engage them. (See: a shockingly high number of Americans don’t know a lot about history.)
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We’re Reading
Medicine River, A Story of Survival and The Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools —by Mary Annette Pember
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Alex Aronson, executive director of Court Accountability
David Armiak, research director for the Center for Media and Democracy
Connor Gibson, founder of Grassrootbeer Investigations
Maurice Cunningham, retired associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and author of Dark Money and The Politics of School Privatization.
Isaac Kamola, associate professor of political science at Trinity College, founder of Faculty First Responders and co-author of Free Speech and Koch Money, Manufacturing a Campus Culture War
Nancy MacLean, William H. Chafe distinguished professor of history and public policy at Duke University and author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America
Ralph Wilson, founder of the Corporate Genome Project and co-author of Free Speech and Koch Money, Manufacturing a Campus Culture War
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