“If journalists aren’t there to tell the stories of what’s happening, who will be there?”

From senior media writer Tom Jones at The Poynter Report:

In a column for Columbia Journalism Review, Amanda Darrach writes, “We must stop focusing on ourselves. The journalist breathlessly detailing their own victimhood  has become a sub-genre of a story that is, and should be, about the killing of George Floyd, its systemic causes, and the chaotic hostility of a president who fetishizes violence perpetrated by the strong over the weak (from the safety of his bunker).”

Darrach also writes — and I agree — that the focus must remain on those who can’t publicize the stories themselves.

However, we also should not ignore these attacks on the media. I’ve written this several times now, but if journalists aren’t there to tell the stories of what’s happening, who will be there?” It has become a favored saying of late, maybe even a cliche, but this message is true: “First, they came for the journalists. We don’t know what happened after that.”