Do you ever wonder where reporters find stories? From what they call “shoe-leather reporting”? Nah. This editor was a newspaper reporter back in the ’80s and ’90s, and just about every news story is just a rewritten press release. Someone with an agenda sends in a press release, the reporter makes a call to get some comments to sprinkle in, and then moves the words around. Then there are tips, also sent in by people with agendas. The reason we bring this up is that the mass shooting by a self-described white supremacist in Buffalo took place last Saturday; by Wednesday, NBC News had this piece ready to go, complete with a glamor shot of the teacher in question, so they went to the extra trouble to dispatch a photographer. It’s not quite as obvious as that backlit silhouette of Stacey Abrams with the fog machine, but it’s pretty much the same thing.
According to Elizabeth Close, she tried to talk about the shooting with students in her ethnic studies class Monday, but by Texas law, she has to give perspectives from both sides of the story:
Close told her students that under the law, one of several recently implemented across the country that limit the ways teachers can discuss racism and current events, she was obligated to inform them that there’s more than one way to view Saturday’s mass shooting.
…
“… I’m also supposed to tell you that that’s just one perspective,” Close recalled telling her students. “Another perspective is that this young man was out defending the world — or his kind — from being taken over.”
Close waited for her comment to fully register with her students, then added: “If you guys want to know why I’m thinking about quitting at the end of the year, it’s because of these types of policies — the fact that I have to have this conversation with you.”
Close said she was being intentionally provocative, trying to shock students into thinking critically about the Buffalo shooting as well as the Texas law. But she was also venting a frustration shared by many social studies teachers nationwide.
“I think we’re all just tired,” she said.
Yeah, we’re all pretty tired. Eugene Scott is a reporter with the Washington Post:
Laws restricting lessons on racism are making it hard for teachers to discuss the massacre in Buffalo https://t.co/MDq8XddAdn pic.twitter.com/av9c5gUQXs
— Eugene Scott (@Eugene_Scott) May 20, 2022
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This makes no sense. it's obvious the teacher has no understanding of what the law actually says or requires, yet NBC News and some journalists are pretending her reading of the law is accurate to justify claims about the law's consequences. https://t.co/BSYDIFzgF3
— AG (@AGHamilton29) May 20, 2022
She wants an award for 'Most Obtuse Teacher of the Year'
— aarond23 (@aarond23) May 20, 2022
https://twitter.com/castle_bravo/status/1527781512325873665
Eugene Scott won’t answer the question “what laws restrict teaching about racism” because there are none.
— Mark Ashworth (@marklarflash) May 21, 2022
The law even REQUIRES teaching “The history of white supremacy, including but not limited to the institution of slavery, the eugenics movement, and the KuKluxKlan, and the ways in which it is morally wrong”https://t.co/687DsMhs2L
— Turd Ocasio-Ferguson (@fargman80) May 20, 2022
https://twitter.com/Sgt_Llewelyn406/status/1528017095274864645
https://twitter.com/Desert_Stryker/status/1528028014361157633
Where are all of the stories about teachers being fired en masse for teaching about slavery, which is what they said the anti-CRT laws were all about? And then there’s still “Don’t Say Gay”:
Did you see this?
41st paragraph is where you learn she quit of her own volition. https://t.co/EeuDMkS08g
— Holden (@Holden114) May 20, 2022
These publications can’t help themselves. They have completely blurred the line between activism and reporting. And it’s apparent to anyone that pays attention. https://t.co/UVpeUS0ZUO
— AG (@AGHamilton29) May 20, 2022
The teacher says she’s thinking about quitting at the end of the year. Why wait?
Related:
Florida first-grade teacher in tears over the devastating effect the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law will have on her https://t.co/ntwRlJvRYZ
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) April 1, 2022
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