ANALYSIS: Academia's woke influence on the media
This marriage of intelligentsia with newsmakers is particularly concerning as it creates an elitist system of rule by experts who tell the public what they can and cannot know based on such a pessimistic view of society.
Higher education’s push for Critical Race Theory influences not just college campuses, but also American society and media.
Earlier this year, Campus Reform reported on a Jan. 20 speaking event at the University of Pittsburgh where three scholars used the Critical Race Theory framework to examine three controversial court cases decided in Nov. 2021.
Speaking on the Charlottesville Rally trial, Kathleen M. Blee explained that scholars influenced how the media covered this case and ensured that videos shown in the trial by the defendants were not publicized.
“We were able to work with the media, who were at the trial, to point out to them that covering that kind of detail of the trial would only enable and amplify the White supremacist messages,” the University of Pittsburgh dean said.
“If you wonder why you didn’t see much of the coverage of the trial, the media really took seriously their role in this, in not trying to amplify those messages,” Blee stated.
Campus Reform reached out to Dean Blee asking about the intentions of scholars “work[ing] with the media,” and in response, she backtracked on her comments heard by the audience of the event.
”I didn’t mean that we worked with the media during the trial. We did not,” she said.
”I meant that over the years, scholars have talked to media about the dangers of providing an open platform for messages that glorify or promote violence of any type.”
This marriage of intelligentsia with newsmakers is particularly concerning as it creates an elitist system of rule by experts who tell the public what they can and cannot know based on the left’s pessimistic view of society.
The view is that if people see or hear about a minority committing a crime, they’ll generalize minorities as inferior or violent.
Accordingly, public transportation officials in the San Francisco Bay Area have refused to release surveillance videos of crimes, arguing that doing so “create[s] a racial bias.” The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) further stopped issuing press statements about criminal incidents in their system.
BART’s Assistant General Manager Kerry Hamill announced, “Disproportionate elevation of crimes on transit interfaces with local media in such a way to unfairly affect and characterize riders of color.”
The way crimes and victims are covered in the news are the practical implications of the Critical Race Theory framework and “anti-racism” principles applied to everyday life.
In the words of Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
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