Beyond the Frame 36/
Independent journalism is imperilled. Threats to democracy are intensifying. What can we do?
Make art, not war
Jessie Tarbox Beals
“Health and strength, a good news instinct, a fair photographic outfit, and the ability to hustle.”
According to the first female photojournalist in America, Jessie Tarbox Beals, these are the essential attributes required to be a successful photojournalist.
Beals received her first assignment in 1899 and if this archive photo is any guide, she took her own advice about owning a “fair photographic outfit” seriously in all senses.
 collection.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F52fbb06d-f2ff-45e6-a256-64336f0c0b9a_2968x4000.jpeg "Jessie Tarbox Beals and her assistant, ‘Pumpkin’, from the [Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery](https://www.si.edu/object/jessie-tarbox-beals-self-portrait:npg_NPG.81.137) collection.")
Assisted by ‘Pumpkin’ and her husband, Alfred, who made her darkroom prints, Jessie opened a New York studio in 1905. She became renowned for her tenacity and determined self-promotion, documenting many news events, including the 1904 World’s Fair.
Scaling a tall ladder in Edwardian skirts and petticoats with a weighty glass-plate camera is not for the faint-hearted but I suspect Jessie conquered greater obstacles. Clearly, she was a force to be reckoned with and I’d guess that she loved her profession.
Jessie lived through turbulent times, overcame prejudice and fought for her rights. One wonders how she might react to knowing that 120 years after reaching the top of ladders, both literal and metaphorical, her fellow photojournalists are routinely facing abuse, violent attacks, imprisonment and death.
May you live in interesting times
It’s known as The Chinese Curse, the ominous desire that your enemies experience upheaval, chaos and conflict. For “interesting”, read “tempestuous”.
Oh, to live in times that are merely “interesting”. We are faced with escalating geopolitical tensions, environmental degradation, the proliferation of misinformation and the rise of authoritarian regimes.
As Jon Williams, Executive Director of the Rory Peck Trust, put it in his introduction to the trust’s recent awards ceremony, 2024 was “the year of everything, everywhere, all at once”.
For field-based journalists in particular, the increased threat to their safety is reflected in sobering statistics.
"A record number of journalists and media workers have been killed in the past 12 months, at least 137 in Gaza alone.”
Escalating attacks on press freedom
The arrival of a new administration in America’s White House brings with it fears of an increased rate of erosion of press freedom. This is a President who has, after all, mounted an escalating war against the media and whose response to the prospect of journalists being shot is, “I don’t mind that so much.”
The chilling consequences are in plain sight.
“Threats of violence and online harassment have in recent years become routine. CPJ”
“[This] marks a dangerous moment for American journalism and global press freedom. (RSF)”
Press freedom advocates have issued stark warnings about the threats now facing fact-based journalism.
The Poynter Institute and Mother Jones magazines have both recently shared solemn press releases from The Committee to Protect Journalists, the Freedom of the Press Foundation and Reporters Without Borders.
“In his second term, Trump will make good on these anti-press threats to try to destroy any news outlet, journalist, or whistleblower who criticises or opposes him.” (Freedom of the Press Foundation)
Godwin’s Law Updated
Whilst press freedom groups warn of the potential dangers facing ethical journalists, other parts of the media are emboldened by the rhetoric. The Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of more local television companies in the United States than any competitor (173 at the last count), recently instructed news anchors to read a prepared script, verbatim. Whilst on the surface, the scripts endorse impartial journalism, they belie the group’s shift towards a right-wing agenda.
“I felt like a Prisoner of War recording a message,” one of the anchors said.
If that sounds to you suspiciously like an edict from a 1935 edition of the Third Reich Minister’s Public Enlightenment and Propaganda manual, I’d be inclined to agree.
Weaponise the media. Silence dissenters. Demonise vulnerable groups. It is not a complicated formula. It’s certainly not new. It is, however, happening right now.
Any comparison of contemporary politics with Nazi Germany is likely to prompt accusations that I am falling foul of Godwin’s Law, the perceived collapse of an argument that resorts to Reductio ad Hitlerum. In my defence, “a MAGA corollary to Godwin’s Law recognises the pernicious embrace of Nazi-inspired tropes and phrases by the alt-right”.
Politics is downstream from culture
On a second front, mainstream media is struggling against the growing dominance of social media in a battle that may already be lost. As Carole Cadwalladr observes, social media is “where the majority of the world gets its news… It’s where the world gets its memes and jokes and consumes its endlessly mutating trends. Forget “internet culture”. The internet is culture.”
If social media is replacing mainstream media, how well equipped is it to deliver impartial, judiciously reported news coverage?
I doubt many would argue that social media platforms have largely become the antithesis of spaces where fair, balanced and authoritative journalism can be found.
Twitter used to be a space where it was possible to find reliable news and relatively reasoned opinion. Then Elon Musk appeared. “Under Musk’s leadership, X (Twitter) has descended into a cesspool of unmoderated misinformation.” (RSF)
Mark Zuckerberg has swiftly upended the policies of Facebook, Instagram and Threads to align with the wishes of the incoming American administration by abandoning all fact-checking.
“They’ve come a long way.” enthused the new President.
Global Witness, a human rights group, said:
“Zuckerberg’s announcement is a blatant attempt to cozy up to the incoming Trump administration – with harmful implications. These changes will make it more dangerous for women, LGBT+ people, people of colour, scientists and activists to speak out online, where they already face disproportionate harassment and attacks.”
“LGBT+, People of Colour, Scientists, Activists…” If that sounds like the start of a list that might go on to include Socialists, Trade Unionists, and Romani people then, well, it’s perhaps another reasonable justification for a comparison with 1930s Germany.
The similarities are obvious. They are lit up in flashing neon.
“It began as a tear in the information space, a dawning realisation that the world as we knew it – stable, fixed by facts, balustraded by evidence – was now a rip in the fabric of reality. And the turbulence that Trump is about to unleash – alongside pain and cruelty and hardship – is possible because that’s where we already live: in information chaos.”
But what good is recognising the threats we now face if our response is limited only to a nervous clutching of pearls? We might agree that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it’s most probably a duck but recognition alone won’t change anything.
Why does it matter?
As Katya Mulvaney reminds readers in an article for Lightrocket, “the ‘fourth estate’ forms an essential part of the democratic system of checks and balances.”
Freedom House puts it just as succinctly:
“The ability of journalists to report freely on matters of public interest is a crucial indicator of democracy.”
If we accept that authentic journalism is threatened — and it clearly is — there’s no doubt that the heart and soul of democracy is similarly under siege. The damage is being done swiftly and aggressively and in plain sight by people with little fear of being held to account. I say “people”, it’s almost exclusively white men, which is another duck-shaped parallel.
Fighting to protect a free and independent press is what comes next.
What can we do?
Defend Institutions
“It is institutions that help us to preserve decency. They need our help as well. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions do not protect themselves. So choose an institution you care about and take its side.” — Timothy Snyder
Even a modest donation carries much-needed encouragement to the people working hard for organisations devoted to protecting and defending journalists.
Here are a few links to the donation pages of reputable organisations:
The Committee to Protect Journalists
The International Centre for Journalists
Make it personal
“Know who you are. Know what your values are and what you believe in.”
Read Tim Snyder’s Twenty Lessons for Fighting Tyranny.
Historian Tim Snyder’s books, On Freedom and On Tyranny place current events into a meaningful, historical context.
Investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr offers suggestions for How to Survive the Broligarchy.
“You have more power than you think. We’re supposed to feel powerless. That’s the strategy. But we’re not.”
Take action. Speak. Write. Create.
Tim’s insights and Carole’s recommendations echo an article written by Toni Morrison more than twenty years ago.
Voicing her unease at the re-election of George W. Bush in 2004 and describing a feeling of paralysis, a fellow artist implores her, “No, no, no! This is precisely the time when artists go to work — not when everything is fine, but in times of dread. That’s our job!”
“There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilisations heal.”
Toni Morrison was writing at a different time about a different President but her article is an uncannily prescient call to arms for artists, writers, journalists and anybody who has felt demoralised by the rapidity and brutality of recent gut-wrenching policy announcements.
“I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence.”
Reasons to be optimistic
There are always reasons for optimism, even if they’re not always immediately obvious.
There are projects like the ICFJ’s Disarming Disinformation.
“The International Center for Journalists’ Disarming Disinformation initiative aims to slow the spread of disinformation through multiple programs such as investigative journalism, capacity building and media literacy education.”
The programme that taught media literacy skills to Kenya’s Harriet Atyang won’t ever reach the headlines but such programmes do exist and, with the necessary resources, can make a real difference.
The Rory Peck Trust provides crucial resources to freelance journalists who operate without the support of an employer’s insurance or medical cover.
The News Literacy Project is working to “ensure all students are skilled in news literacy before they graduate high school, giving them the knowledge and ability to participate in civic society as well-informed, critical thinkers.”
FactCheck assesses “the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases… to increase public knowledge and understanding.”
There are many similar organisations which aim to protect the spaces in which creativity and learning can flourish. What we might call The Basics.
But their message can be drowned out by the sound of Techbros in Jackboots stomping petulantly upon the rights and freedoms that we are all entitled to. We have to talk about these organisations, write about them, advocate for them, and share their message at every opportunity.
The Strength of the Sensitive
“In times of political crisis, we seem to forget that societies are made of selves, that they are collaborative acts of the imagination, works of the creative spirit emanating from the collective conscience of this constellation of individuals.
— Maria Popova
One can always rely upon Maria’s Marginalian for inspiration and guidance.
Maria quotes E. M. Forster:
“The people I admire most are those who are sensitive and want to create something or discover something, and do not see life in terms of power.”
We might indeed be cursed to live in “interesting” times but the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice — providing that the quiet artists, solitary writers, dreaming poets, thoughtful scientists, deep thinkers, resolute activists, and people of good conscience are encouraged to create, to act, and to speak the truth.
It’s up to all of us to safeguard the spaces in which they work.
This is a Tuesday newsletter masquerading as a Thursday newsletter. Friday’s (more jovial) edition will appear over the weekend. Normal service will resume next week.
Until next time, go well.
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And so it begins, within walking distance of memorials to the United States’ Founding Fathers and those who have fallen in defense of our Freedoms. The President bans reporters from Associated Press from attending Oval Office events because of the agency’s use the term Gulf of Mexico instead of the “Gulf of America” as recently re-named by the President’s decree. The First Amendment is certainly under attack before our eyes.