What Do You Need to Do to Be a Reporter for the Ruling Class' Media in Ferguson?

August 20, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Here’s what you need to be able to do to be a reporter for the ruling class’ media in Ferguson, MO:

  • You need to report on a situation where the authorities are engaging in a massive cover-up of a murder of a Black youth—Michel Brown—by police in broad daylight WHILE HARDLY MENTIONING THE WHOLE POINT—THAT THE MURDER WAS AN OUTRAGE AND THE MURDER IS WALKING FREE.
  • You need to be able to smugly dismiss eyewitnesses who are speaking up and exposing how Michael Brown was MURDERED BY POLICE.
  • When damning medical evidence emerges from a medical expert hired by the victim’s family, you need to bury that under irrelevant bullshit and slanders about the victim, and endlessly promote totally un-credible police gossip put out over talk radio.
  • You need to be able to tune out people—over and over again—who are trying to tell you that police brutality, disrespect, violence, and terror are an EVERYDAY event in Ferguson and communities of the oppressed around the United States.
  • You need to be able to claim you “really do care” about the people who suffer daily from police brutality and oppression, even though until the people of Ferguson rose up in rebellion, you acted like they didn’t exist or demonized them as “criminals.”
  • You need to be able to stand in the midst of a massively militarized police force blasting away night after night with rubber bullets and tear gas and arresting dozens of protesters, and blame the protesters who won’t shut up and submit to injustice and fascist repression.
  • You need to be able to shamelessly channel J. Edgar Hoover and blame “outside communist agitators” for an explosion of anger over the historic and ongoing oppression of Black people. And you need to do anything you can to drive a wedge between the communists—who represent the interests of the people in getting out from all oppression— and the people.
  • And no matter what happens, you need to CONTINUE to IGNORE THE FACT THAT THE COP WHO MURDERED MICHAEL BROWN IS WALKING FREE— and to endlessly fill the airwaves and Internet with every kind of attack or slander on those who are demanding justice.

Now why do you need to be able to do this?

Because the ruling class for whom you speak has a fear—deep in their bones—that those who they have enslaved, exploited, brutalized, and oppressed, have a justified anger at the way things are, and those who you serve have some sense that these people can be part of a bedrock force that will lead millions and millions to bring about an end to your rule.

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