DEC 10 UN HUMAN RIGHTS DAY

How to hold the line: 4 journalism survival tips from 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa

The champion of press freedom shares insights for journalists who are fighting to hold power to account amid relentless harassment and misinformation on social media.

by Carmen Nobel | December 9, 2021 |

Maria Ressa speaks at Harvard Kennedy School on Nov. 29. (Carmen Nobel)

Nobel Prize winner Maria Ressa believes newsrooms around the world need to band together — and stop thinking of each other solely as competitors — in order to fight the good fight against misinformation. 

“We’re on the same side,” says Ressa, co-founder of Rappler, an independent Philippine news outlet known for its deep-dive investigations into the administration of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte and the spread of online disinformation on social media. “If you are a news group, you are on the side of facts. I think we should be sharing each other. I think we should be working together — letting go of the old-school idea that everything is homegrown, that this is our brand. Because we’re in a battle for facts.” 

Ressa received the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, along with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov, “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression.” The Nobel committee noted the laureates “are representative of all journalists who stand up for this ideal in a world in which democracy and freedom of the press face increasingly adverse conditions.”  

For the past year, Ressa and Rappler have been fighting multiple court cases that threaten the future of the publication and Ressa’s personal freedom. In June 2020, she was found guilty of “cyber libel” for a story published on Rappler in 2012. Ressa was executive editor of Rappler at the time, but she neither wrote nor edited the story, which was published four months before Philippines’ cybercrime law even existed.

In general, laws can’t be enforced retroactively in the Philippines. But in 2014, Rappler corrected a typo in the 2012 story – changing the word “evation” to “evasion.” The Department of Justice decided this counted as a republication, and thus decided the story was published after the law went into effect. Ressa is appealing the case, and she implores journalists to keep holding the line for press freedom. 

“I appeal to you — the journalists in this room, the Filipinos who are listening — to protect your rights,” Ressa said in a press conference immediately following that ruling. “We are meant to be a cautionary tale. We are meant to make you afraid. So, I appeal again: Don’t be afraid. Because if you don’t use your rights, you will lose them. Freedom of the press is the foundation of every single right you have as a Filipino citizen. If we can’t hold power to account, we can’t do anything.”  

In early November, the Philippine Court of Appeals permitted her to travel to Harvard Kennedy School, where she is a Fall 2021 Hauser Leader at the Center for Public Leadership and a Fall 2021 Joan Shorenstein Fellow at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy — also home to The Journalist’s Resource. The same court granted her permission to travel to Oslo to receive her Nobel Peace Prize this week.

Before returning to the Philippines at the end of November, Ressa sat down with JR to share tips and insights for journalists who are fighting to hold power to account in the face of relentless harassment and misinformation on social media.

These are four key takeaways from our conversation.  

1. Online attacks are harmful to journalists’ mental health. Newsroom managers can help ensure journalists get the counseling they need, but professional counselors need to understand the specific needs of journalists.

Last spring, UNESCO published a discussion paper called “The Chilling,” a report of online attacks against women who are journalists, based on a book-length study by the International Center for Journalists. The research included a survey of 901 journalists from 125 countries; long-form interviews with 173 international reporters, editors, and press freedom and safety experts; and two case studies of attacks against women whose journalism has exposed problems with online platforms like Facebook — one focusing on Ressa, the other on Carole Cadwalladr, the British journalist who exposed the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal in 2018.  

Of the survey respondents who identified as women, 73% said they had experienced online violence (including misogyny and other forms of hate speech), 25% said they had been threatened with physical violence online, and 20% said they had been attacked or abused offline in connection with the online attacks they had experienced. Some 11% reported missing work to recover from online attacks and 2% quit journalism altogether. 

The case study on Ressa includes a big-data analysis of nearly 400,000 tweets targeting Ressa from December 2019 to February 2021, and more than 56,000 Facebook posts and comments about her, published between 2016 and 2021. The data shows that 60% of these online attacks seek to damage Ressa’s professional credibility — calling her a “fake news queen,” for example, or a “presstitute.” Some 40% are personal, including death threats and attacks on her personal appearance. 

“Name any animal, I’ve been called it,” Ressa said calmly during the 2021 Salant Lecture on Freedom of the Press  on Nov. 16, which was livestreamed internationally. “I have eczema, extremely dry skin — and the meme they created was ‘Scrotum Face.’” 

This is all to say that Ressa understands the importance of anticipating a harassment onslaught, the importance of transparently acknowledging personal and professional threats, and the importance of helping journalists deal with them. 

While Ressa gets the worst of it, she’s just one of many Rappler journalists facing a routine barrage of hate on social media. “When we all came under attack, we actually became better friends,” she says.  

A couple of years ago, the news organization actively started offering professional counseling for its reporters and social media team. “Because you’ve got to,” Ressa says. “You’ve got to take it home.” 

Asked whether anyone accepted the therapy offer, “Yeah, of course,” Ressa says. “But then, you know what we realized? That our counselors in the Philippines didn’t understand the impact of exponential attacks. So, we had to then go to Dart and ask them to train the trainers.” 

She’s talking about the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, which last summer launched the Journalist Trauma Support Network, a pilot program that teaches therapists about the types of trauma and harassment journalists encounter in the course of their work.  

Early in 2018, the Philippine government initiated multiple legal proceedings against Rappler, including revoking its operating license. Before holding a press conference to tell the world what was happening, the Rappler leadership team met with the newsroom’s reporters.  

“We held a general assembly among our people, and we flagged it for them,” Ressa says. “We’re walking into a different era and a different time. They’re actively trying to shut us down, and everyone is facing different risks. And we told them, ‘If you want to move to another news organization, we will help you.’ No reporter came to us. …Because when we were transparent and told them what to expect and gave them a choice, they committed even more.”  

2. In the battle against misinformation, journalists must promote and share the work of other journalists.

“The biggest shift in the world was that the creation of journalism was separated from distribution,” Ressa says, referring to the way information is spread on social media platforms. “And the principles of distribution allowed facts and lies to be [treated as] identical.” 

She notes that research indicates lies have a distribution edge on social media. In addition to citing reports that Facebook’s algorithms prioritize hateful messages, Ressa points to a 2018 study in the journal Science, “The spread of true and false news online,” in which researchers analyzed the spread of true and false news stories on Twitter from 2006 to 2017.  

The study finds that fake news stories were 70% more likely to be retweeted than real news stories, even when controlling for factors like the age of the Twitter account, the number of followers and followees of the original tweeter, and whether Twitter had verified the account with a blue check. 

“70% more,” Ressa says, her voice rising. “70% more! That’s part of the reason I think you need journalists all around the world to keep standing up to power. Now what we do have are standards and a mission. And courage. Because we’re foolish enough to keep standing up to power even at the detriment to the organization or to the journalist. So that’s what we have. But how can we then get the distribution? We should be thinking about strategies of distribution. So my solution to that is we should be sharing each other. That’s what is in our control, right?”  

3. For journalism to matter, journalists must empower the communities they serve. 

Rappler’s name combines the root words ‘rap’ (to discuss) and ‘ripple’ (to make waves).

“It was born to a new world of possibilities — driven by uncompromising journalism, enabled by technology, and enriched by communities of action,” reads the organization’s mission statement. “For journalism to matter, the community must be a part of it.” 

Ressa maintains that one the biggest and important challenges for news media outlets is to warn their readers, viewers and listeners about the dangers of misinformation on social media.

“How are you going to tell your communities that they’re being manipulated?” she says. “And how can you pull the community together? Think of it like this: If we’re prioritizing toxic sludge, if we’re prioritizing anger, hate, conspiracy theories — everything that feeds on your fear and your us-against-them — then you’ll also preclude the best of humanity, the miracle of how we do impossible things together. And that’s the opportunity loss that I see.

“I get emotional when I talk about this,” she adds, with tears in her eyes.

Ressa now spends more time focused on technology regulation and distribution issues than she does on reporting the news. “If I write something today, it will be about how tech and data are manipulating you, or how it is impacting the world today,” she says.

4. Accept that it’s a terrifying but vital time be a journalist. 

“We have to accept that in this time period, it will be thankless,” Ressa says. “We will be vilified. Everyone will attack us. But we must keep doing what we’re doing because no one else is doing it.”

According to data from the Committee to Protect Journalists, 1,421 journalists have been killed since 1992. And 293 journalists have been imprisoned for their work in 2021 alone. 

“You have to hold the line,” Ressa says. “The quality of the democracy is as good as the quality of the journalist. If the questions aren’t asked, then power gets away with what it wants.”  

To learn more: 

• Among Rappler’s investigations is this recent series of stories about state-sponsored killings under the Duterte regime. The series highlights a lengthy affidavit by a former police officer in the Philippines, which was accepted by the International Criminal Court. “It should have been published by everyone,” Ressa says. (Information about using Rappler’s content can be found on its Site Use Policy page.)

• Frontline produced the documentary “A Thousand Cuts,” which follows Ressa as she navigates Duterte’s crackdown on the news media in the Philippines. You can watch it in full on YouTube.

• In “The Chilling: Global trends in online violence against women journalists,” UNESCO presents an edited excerpt of a book-length study by the International Center for Journalists. The report begins with a quote from Ressa: “The easiest part is dealing with the impact of online violence and disinformation on me. I just see the impact on the world, and I don’t know why we’re not panicking.”  
  
• The Journalist’s Resource recently published a list of self-care tips and resources for journalists who cover and experience trauma, featuring insights from Dr. Elana Newman, research director at Columbia University’s Dart Center.

• Reporters Without Borders publishes an annual index ranking press freedom in 180 countries.  Norway tops the list for having the most press freedom in 2021, while Eritrea ranks last. The Philippines is 138th on the list. The United States is 44th.

• Ressa was the featured speaker for the 2021 Salant Lecture on Freedom of the Press. The title of her talk: “What Would You Sacrifice for the Truth?” Watch it below.

About The Author


Carmen Nobel
Program Director Carmen Nobel joined The Journalist’s Resource in 2018 after serving as senior editor of Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, where she covered economic research and forged content partnerships with Quartz, Forbes, HBR Ascend and the World Economic Forum. Her work also has appeared in the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, Inc., NPR Science Friday, PC Magazine, eWeek and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

Hold the line': Maria Ressa fights for press freedom under Philippines' Duterte



'Hold the line': Maria Ressa fights for press freedom under Philippines' DuterteRessa co-founded investigative news site Rappler in 2012 (AFP/JOEL SAGET)


Thu, December 9, 2021

Veteran Philippine journalist Maria Ressa, who will accept the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Friday, has battled multiple legal cases and online abuse in her campaign for press freedom under President Rodrigo Duterte.

The former CNN correspondent co-founded investigative news site Rappler in 2012, bringing together multimedia reporting and social media to offer an edgy take on Philippine current events.

Ressa, 58, has been a vocal critic of Duterte and the deadly drug war he launched in 2016, triggering what media advocates say is a grinding series of criminal charges, probes and online attacks against her and Rappler.


She was named a Time Person of the Year in 2018 for her work on press freedom, but a series of arrests and one conviction for cyber libel further grew her international profile and drew more attention to her struggle.

Rappler has had to fight for survival as Duterte's government accused it of violating a constitutional ban on foreign ownership in securing funding, as well as tax evasion.

It has also been accused of cyber libel -- a new criminal law introduced in 2012, the same year Rappler was founded.

Duterte has attacked the website by name, calling it a "fake news outlet", over a story about one of his closest aides.

Though the government has said that it has nothing to do with any of the cases against her, press freedom advocates disagree.

Yet through the campaign against her, Ressa, who is also a US citizen, has remained based in the Philippines and continued to speak out against Duterte's government despite the risks.

Ressa is on bail pending an appeal against a conviction last year in a cyber libel case, for which she faces up to six years in prison.

It is one of seven cases she is fighting after two cyber libel suits were dismissed earlier this year.

- Threats and abuse -

Ressa's position at the head of the Rappler news site meant getting, by her own estimate, up to 90 abusive messages per hour online at one point towards the end of 2016.

The threats came in the months after Duterte took power and launched his narcotics crackdown that rights groups estimate has killed tens of thousands of people.

Rappler was among the domestic and foreign media outlets that published shocking images of the killings and questioned its legal basis.

International Criminal Court judges have authorised a full-blown investigation into a possible crime against humanity during the bloody campaign.

It was an entirely new set of threats for Ressa, who was a veteran of conflict zones before co-founding Rappler.

As CNN's former bureau chief in Manila and Jakarta, Ressa specialised in terrorism, where she tracked the links between global networks like Al-Qaeda and militants in Southeast Asia.

The Princeton graduate later returned to the Philippines to serve as news chief at the nation's top broadcaster ABS-CBN, which has also fallen foul of the Duterte administration.

Ressa's new book "How to stand up to a dictator" is due to be released ahead of the country's 2022 presidential elections, which Duterte is not allowed to contest due to constitutional term limits, although he is planning to run for the Senate.

But the son and namesake of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos has a commanding lead among front runners for the top job.

After the Nobel Prize was announced in October, Ressa was defiant in her defence of her battle for freedom of expression and independent journalism.

"What we have to do as journalists is just hold the line," she said.

bur-amj/je/jah

Filipino journalist shot dead while watching TV in store

Jim Gomez
The Associated Press
Thursday, December 9, 2021 
\
Calbayog City is seen in this Google Maps image. (Google Maps)

MANILA, PHILIPPINES -- A gunman shot and killed a journalist who was watching TV at a store in a central Philippine city, in a brazen attack in what has long been regarded as one of the world's most dangerous countries for journalists.

Jesus Malabanan, a 58-year-old provincial correspondent for the Manila Standard newspaper, died while being transported to a hospital after being shot once in the head by one of two motorcycle-riding men Wednesday night at a family store he was tending in Calbayog city in Samar province, police and officials said Thursday.

The suspects escaped and a police investigation is underway to identify them and a motive for the attack.

Media watchdog groups condemned the killing, including Malabanan's colleagues in Pampanga, a province north of Manila where he was based and worked for years as a news correspondent and as a stringer for Reuters.

A media protection body created by President Rodrigo Duterte strongly condemned the killing and vowed to arrest the killers. But Duterte himself has long been in the crosshairs of media watchdogs and human rights groups, which have repeatedly condemned him for fostering impunity among the police forces that have enforced his crackdown against illegal drugs and left thousands of mostly petty suspects dead.

Dozens of journalists have been killed or come under attack under Duterte and his predecessors. In 2009, members of a powerful political clan and their associates gunned down 58 people, including 32 media workers, in a brazen execution-style attack in southern Maguindanao province that horrified the world.

While the mass killing was later linked to a violent electoral rivalry common in many rural areas, it also showcased the threats faced by journalists in the Philippines. A surfeit of unlicensed guns and private armies controlled by powerful clans and weak law enforcement in rural regions are among the security concerns journalists face in the poverty-stricken Southeast Asian country.

Thirty-two of those gunned down in Maguindanao's Ampatuan town were local reporters and media workers. It was the deadliest single attack on journalists in recent history, media watchdogs say.

A Philippine court found key members of the Ampatuan family guilty of the mass killings in 2019 but many more suspects remain at large.

DEC 10 UN HUMAN RIGHTS DAY
Global media group says journalist imprisonments on rise


Thu., December 9, 2021

BRUSSELS (AP) — Media freedom continued to be under attack across much of the world in 2021, with nine journalists killed in the line of duty in Afghanistan alone and 102 imprisoned in China, according to a new report released Thursday.

The International Federation of Journalists said in a bleak assessment that imprisonments were especially on the rise, with 365 journalists behind bars compared to 235 last year.

“The world needs to wake up to the growing violations of journalists’ rights and media freedoms across the globe,” IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger said. The report was released on the eve of the United Nations’ Human Rights Day.

Apart from China, Turkey had 34 journalists in prison, Belarus and Eritrea 29, Egypt 27 and Vietnam 21.

The IFJ said that the rise of detentions in China was linked to the coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, the further arrests of Uyghur journalists reporting on the treatment of the Muslim minority in western China. Many have called it genocide. It said that coverage of the demonstrations in Hong Kong also led to further arrests.

Bellanger said the attacks on journalists went well beyond the personal losses suffered and affected society as a whole. “They also point to the violation of the people’s fundamental right to access accurate, objective and fair information so that they can make properly informed choices about public affairs.’’

With three weeks left in the year, overall deaths in the line of duty were set to go down this year, with 45 so far, compared to 65 overall last year. With Afghanistan topping the list with nine journalists killed, Mexico came close behind with eight, all of them murders. India had four and Pakistan three.

The Brussels-based IFJ represents 600,000 media professionals from 187 trade unions and associations in more than 140 countries.

The group also highlighted a “rare positive development,” which was the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to two journalists. Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia won for their fight for freedom of expression in countries where reporters have faced persistent attacks, harassment and even murder.

Russia still has 12 journalists behind bars, and three reporters were killed in the Philippines.

Raf Casert, The Associated Press

Champions of press freedom to accept Nobel Peace Prize


Maria Ressa, co-founder of the news website Rappler, and Dmitry Muratov, chief editor of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, won the Nobel Prize for 'their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression' (AFP/Torstein Bøe)

Pierre-Henry DESHAYES
Thu, December 9, 2021

She risks prison, he has buried several colleagues: Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia, two champions of the free press, will on Friday receive this year's Nobel Peace Prize honouring a profession under attack.

Ressa, co-founder of the news website Rappler, and Muratov, chief editor of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, won the Nobel Prize in early October for "their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression."

"A healthy society and democracy is dependent on trustworthy information," the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Berit Reiss-Andersen said on Thursday, taking a swipe at propaganda, disinformation and fake news.

Free and independent journalism is however under threat around the world.

Asked whether the prestigious award had improved the situation in the Philippines -- currently ranked 138th in freedom of the press by Reporters Without Borders -- Ressa said on Thursday it had not.

"It's like having a Damocles sword hang over your head," the 58-year-old journalist said.

"Now in the Philippines, the laws are there but ... you tell the toughest stories at your own risk."

She mentioned her compatriot and former colleague, Jess Malabanan, a reporter for the Manila Standard who was fatally shot in the head on Wednesday.

Malabanan, who also worked for the Reuters news agency, had reported on the sensitive subject of the war on drugs in the country.

If the murder is confirmed to be linked to his profession, he would be the 16th journalist killed in the Philippines since the start of Rodrigo Duterte's presidency in 2016, according to Reporters Without Borders.

Ressa, a vocal critic of Duterte and his deadly drug war, is herself facing seven criminal lawsuits in her country.

Currently on bail pending an appeal against a conviction last year in a cyber libel case, she had to apply to four courts for permission to travel to Norway for Friday's ceremony.

- Foreign agent? -

Meanwhile, 60-year-old Muratov heads one of the rare independent newspapers in a Russian media landscape largely under state control.

Known for its investigations into corruption and human rights abuses in Chechnya, Novaya Gazeta has seen six of its journalists killed since the 1990s, including famed investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya murdered in 2006.

"If we're going to be foreign agents because of the Nobel Peace Prize, we will not get upset, no," he told reporters when asked of the risk of being labelled as such by the Kremlin.

"But actually... I don't think we will get this label. We have some other risks though," Muratov added.

The "foreign agent" label is meant to apply to people or groups that receive funding from abroad and are involved in any kind of "political activity".

It has however been given to many Kremlin-critical journalists and media, rendering their work exceedingly difficult.

Russia is in 150th spot on the Reporters Without Borders country ranking of freedom of the press.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that the Nobel Prize is not a "shield" protecting journalists from the status.

- 'Reporting shouldn't be deadly' -

According to a report compiled by Reporters Without Borders up to December 1, at least 1,636 journalists have been killed around the world in the past 20 years, including 46 since the beginning of the year.

"Reporting the news should cease to be a deadly activity," the organisation's secretary general Christophe Deloire said as he presented the report this week.

The number of journalists imprisoned around the world has also never been higher, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Thursday, with 293 currently behind bars.

The Nobel Peace Prize will be presented to Ressa and Muratov at a ceremony -- scaled back due to the pandemic -- at Oslo's City Hall on Friday at 1:00 pm (1200 GMT).

The award consists of a diploma, a gold medal and a cheque for 10 million Swedish kronor (975,000 euros, $1.10 million) to be shared by the two laureates.

This year's other Nobel laureates in the fields of medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and economics would normally receive their prizes at a separate ceremony in Stockholm on Friday.

But due to the pandemic, they received their awards in their home towns earlier this week.

A ceremony will be held in their honour in the Swedish capital on Friday, attended by the royal family.

phy/po/har

Muratov and Novaya Gazeta: Russia's independent media stalwarts



Nobel Peace Prize goes to journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov (AFP/Viken KANTARCI)


Michael MAINVILLE
Thu, December 9, 2021

Newspaper Novaya Gazeta, whose editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov won the Nobel Peace Prize, is a bastion of independent media in Russia with a commitment to free speech that has cost some of its journalists their lives.

Muratov, who was among a group of journalists who founded Novaya Gazeta in 1993 after the fall of the Soviet Union, dedicated the award to the paper's murdered journalists and jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

It came amid a historic crackdown on the opposition and independent media in Russia.

A number of outlets were forced to close this year and several prominent journalists fled the country. Navalny, 45, was jailed in February and his organisations were subsequently outlawed.

Novaya Gazeta has paid a heavy price for its independent stance and investigative coverage.

Since 2000, six of its journalists and contributors have been killed in connection with their work, including top investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya. Their black-and-white portraits now hang in the newspaper's offices in central Moscow.

Politkovskaya, a critic of President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin's wars in Chechnya, was shot dead on October 7, 2006, in the entrance hall of her apartment building.

In an interview with AFP in March, Muratov said the newspaper's reporters knew their work put their lives at risk, but that unlike some other Kremlin critics they would not go into exile.

"This newspaper is dangerous for people's lives," Muratov said. "We are not going anywhere."

- Putin's warning -

Grey-bearded and round-faced, Muratov has been one of Russia's most prominent independent journalists for decades.

He and Novaya Gazeta's other founders were inspired by the newfound freedoms that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

A key early supporter was former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who donated part of his 1990 Nobel Peace Prize money to buy the new publication its first computers -- one of them still on display in their office.

The heady optimism of those early days is long gone. In the years since Putin came to power in 1999, critical voices have been increasingly pushed to the sidelines.

Novaya Gazeta has become one of the few remaining independent voices in a grey media landscape.

Kremlin critics say authorities are waging a campaign against independent and critical media, with many branded "foreign agents" and others forced to shut down.

Novaya Gazeta is one of the few prominent independent outlets that still do not carry the "foreign agent" tag, a status reminiscent of the Soviet-era term "enemy of the people".

While the Kremlin congratulated Muratov on winning the prize, Putin warned the editor not to use it as "a shield" to break Russian laws.

While the Kremlin congratulated Muratov on winning the prize, Putin warned the editor not to use it as "a shield" to break Russian laws (AFP/Natalia

- Investigative journalism -

Novaya Gazeta, which is published three times per week, focuses on deep-dive investigative reports into corruption and rights abuses, and its journalists have long faced intimidation and violence.

In 2018, a funeral wreath and a severed ram's head were delivered to the newspaper's offices with a note addressed to one of its reporters who covered the shadowy Wagner mercenary group operating in the Middle East and Africa.

The investigations had shed light on Wagner's operations abroad and on its alleged ties to a Kremlin-linked businessman, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Earlier this year, the paper was again targeted in what editors said was an apparent chemical attack.

Despite the pressure, the newspaper has refused to shy away from tough investigations. It was one of the publications that dug through the trove of documents leaked in the Panama Papers scandal, exposing offshore wealth of Russian officials.

Muratov was born in the southwestern city of Kuybyshev, now called Samara, on October 30, 1961.

He worked early in his career for the populist daily Komsomolskaya Pravda, but left with several of his colleagues who were not happy with its editorial policies. Together, they founded Novaya Gazeta and Muratov has served several times as its editor-in-chief since 1995.

Novaya Gazeta has a print circulation of around 100,000 and, according to the paper, had 18.4 million online views in November.

bur-mm-as/oc/cdw

CANADA
In scathing report, auditor general says feds failed to protect foreign farm workers from the pandemic

Thu., December 9, 2021

A temporary foreign worker from Mexico plants strawberries on a farm in Mirabel, Que., Wednesday, May 6, 2020. (Graham Hughes/Canadian Press - image credit)

The federal department charged with inspecting farms that hire temporary foreign workers failed to keep tabs on how well employers were protecting their staff during the pandemic, Canada's auditor general reported today.

Auditor General Karen Hogan said inspectors working for Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) did not properly enforce new pandemic regulations designed to protect workers from COVID-19 — frequently skipping checks on whether employers offered drinking water, cleaning products, separate accommodations for infected workers and dedicated quarantine spaces for workers who were supposed to self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival in Canada.

Foreign farm workers — who come to Canada on a seasonal basis to fill labour shortages in the agricultural sector — are uniquely vulnerable to COVID-19 because they often live in tight quarters in shared employer-provided accommodations.

There were large outbreaks on some farms in the early days of the pandemic. At least three foreign farm workers have died from COVID-19, the AG found.

To address the gaps that were making workers sick, the federal government in July 2020 earmarked $16.2 million in new funding to ramp up ESDC's agricultural inspections. The AG found the new money did little to improve the quality of their work.

Jacques Boissinot/Canadian Press

The auditor general found that, over a two-year period, the department's inspectors produced shoddy reports most of the time.

The AG found problems in 73 per cent of all quarantine inspection reports filed in 2020.

The AG reports that even though her office flagged these "significant" shortcomings to the department's most senior bureaucrat earlier this year, the problem only got worse in 2021 — when 88 per cent of all inspections examined showed deficiencies. Inspectors also failed to "complete the vast majority of inspections in a timely manner," the AG said in her report.

Department 'did not do a good job'

Speaking to reporters after the report's release, Hogan said the department "did not do a good job." She said ESDC is grappling with "systemic problems throughout the entire regime" and needs to "step back" and "do things differently going forward" to show they actually care about the welfare of temporary foreign workers.

WATCH: AG says there is a 'systemic problem' with inspections in the temporary foreign worker program

The AG's report shows that, in many cases, ESDC inspectors approved employers' pandemic protocols even though "poor-quality evidence or no evidence was collected" in most inspections "before employers were found compliant or the inspection became inactive."

In other cases — 16 per cent of all inspections reviewed by the AG — inspectors had actual evidence that an employer wasn't compliant with the pandemic regulations, but ESDC bureaucrats gave them a passing grade anyway.

A lack of 'diligence'

This year, 100 per cent of all inspected employers were found to be in compliance, despite the fact that in many instances, ESDC inspectors did not actually verify if workers' housing was free from serious health and safety risks.

The AG said the inspections lacked "diligence" and "urgency," shortcomings that left workers exposed to a dangerous virus during a health crisis.

While ESDC investigators were tasked with ensuring farm workers had space to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in Canada, the AG found many inspections were delayed for so long that reviews "were still incomplete and inactive long after workers' quarantines had ended."

And when COVID-19 outbreaks were identified on farms, the AG found inspections were initiated quickly "but were inactive for long periods" — meaning ESDC investigators did little to help curb active infections.

Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press

In one particularly troubling case cited by the auditor general, it took a week for an ESDC inspector to first make contact with an employer after they reported an outbreak.

The auditor's report says that during an interview with the inspector, the employer said they weren't offering separate accommodations for workers who tested positive — both infected and non-infected workers were also sharing a bathroom and a kitchen.

After learning of this serious breach, the ESDC investigator "did not follow up on corrective measures for more than one month," the AG found.

The AG provided other examples of inadequate work produced by ESDC over the last two years.

During one 2020 inspection, bureaucrats were trying to determine whether 26 temporary foreign workers could safely quarantine at a particular farm. The evidence collected to show there was adequate social distancing in the workers' quarters amounted to just two photos — one of a table and one of a single bedroom.

"No follow-up occurred, and the employer was found compliant," the AG said.

'Poor-quality evidence'

During another 2020 inspection, bureaucrats assessed the quarantine accommodations for three temporary foreign workers. The employer sent along photos that clearly demonstrated the distance between workers' beds in a shared bedroom was far less than the required two metres.

Again, "no follow-up occurred, and the employer was found compliant," the AG said.

In a 2021 inspection to assess whether 10 workers could safely live in a particular facility, inspectors found the employer compliant after only reviewing "one photo of one bedroom." This review was also conducted two months later than required by departmental guidelines.

These are not unique cases. The AG found that in 76 per cent of all inspections reviewed, EDSC bureaucrats collected "poor-quality evidence or no evidence" to show compliance with the two-metre distancing regulation.

Andrew Vaughan/Canadian Press

While ESDC inspectors were tasked with interviewing workers about their living conditions as part of their checks, most didn't bother. In half of all inspections, ESDC inspectors did not interview the required number of workers. In some cases, no workers were interviewed at all.

And even when the workers interviewed flagged serious concerns — some workers said they had no access to food while in isolation — the AG found no evidence that inspectors had acted to address these issues.

Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough, the minister responsible for ESDC, said Thursday she accepts the AG's findings.

Qualtrough said the department hired more inspectors, implemented a tip line and invested money in migrant workers' associations last year.

"Clearly, despite our efforts, we fell short," she said.

Qualtrough pledged to "rebuild" the temporary foreign worker inspection program and do more to support the inspectors tasked with carrying out this work in the future. "Rest assured, we'll do better," she said.

Syed Hussan, executive director of the advocacy group Migrant Workers for Change, said the AG's report is "deeply, deeply concerning" but not all that surprising, given ESDC's track record in this area.

"The auditor general is saying what we already know — inspections cannot and will not protect migrant farm workers," Hussan said in an interview. "ESDC was not created to protect migrant farm workers. It was created to ensure a steady supply of cheap labour.

"The fact that these inspections found all employers are compliant shows that the federal government is unable and unwilling to protect migrant farm workers."

Hussan said the federal government should make all would-be farm workers permanent residents so they can enjoy more legal protections.

Conservative MP Stephanie Kusie, the party's employment critic, called the situation "simply unacceptable." She said that even though the auditor general warned earlier this year that ESDC's processes were "flawed", the track record of the inspectors only got worse.

"Once again, this Liberal government has been caught saying the right things to reassure Canadians, but failing to take action," Kusie said.

#DECRININALIZEDRUGS

CANADA

Divert police funds to community groups, coalition says in decriminalization platform

Thu., December 9, 2021


OTTAWA — A group of organizations, including some that represent drug users and their families, are calling for money to be diverted from police to community agencies that promote safe supply and address mental health concerns.

The coalition, which also includes human rights organizations, front-line service providers and researchers, has released a framework for drug decriminalization.

Their framework calls for funds that would flow to police to be invested instead in community-based organizations, services that promote harm reduction and address mental health issues, safe supply programs, and other forms of healing.

The organizations said in a statement that the current approach to drug use, which is punitive and tries to deter people from using, is a "failed experiment" that has disproportionately harmed Indigenous and Black people.

Sandra Ka Hon Chu, executive director of the HIV Legal Network, said the coalition felt the need to develop their own vision of drug decriminalization that met the needs of people who use drugs, instead of what municipalities, police or prosecutors felt was the right way to approach the issue.

Donald MacPherson, executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, one of the contributors to the platform, said their proposed policy shift would help change a "historically cruel" use of criminal law that has harmed Canadians.

Ka Hon Chu said that since the majority of drug use is not problematic in that most people who use drugs are not dependent. The coalition takes the position that most of the time there is no need to make mandatory referrals, and if there is a health-related need for interventions, the person involved should opt for it voluntarily.

This national call comes days after the federal government tabled Bill C-5, which would repeal mandatory minimum penalties for drug offences and some gun-related crimes, and would require police and prosecutors to consider alternative measures for cases of simple drug possession.

The coalition said that the government's bill "is a step in the right direction, but doesn't go far enough."

She said the coalition would want firstly a full repeal of section four of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which is the section that criminalizes personal drug possession, a move that would go further than the changes proposed in Bill C-5.

Ka Hon Chu said they would also want to decriminalize necessity trafficking, which is the selling or sharing of drugs for subsistence to support personal drug use costs.

"No one has been unaffected by the overdose crisis in Canada. I think it's really touched so many of us and there's a feeling of urgency that the government needs to act now," she said.

The offices of Justice Minister David Lametti and Mental Health and Addictions Minister Carolyn Bennett did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 9, 2021.

---

This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

Erika Ibrahim, The Canadian Press

2021 now deadliest year for illicit-drug overdoses in B.C., after record 201 deaths in October, coroner says

Thu., December 9, 2021,

The Moms Stop the Harm group is seen walking down Hastings Street in the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood to mark five years of B.C.’s overdose crisis on April 13, 2021. With 201 deaths, October saw the highest ever number of fatal overdoses recorded in a single calendar month in B.C. (Ben Nelms/CBC - image credit)More

As the number of people dying from illicit drug overdoses in British Columbia continues to climb to grim heights, the province's coroner is calling for an urgent and immediate response from all levels of government to expand safe supply.

"Simply put we are failing," said B.C. chief coroner Lisa Lapointe. "With six people now dying every single day in our province, the status quo cannot be accepted."

Numbers released from the B.C. Coroners Service show a death toll through the first ten months of 2021 of 1,782, surpassing the 1,765 deaths recorded in all of 2020.

B.C. also saw a single month record high of 201 illicit drug overdose fatalities in October. Deaths were recorded in all age groups and in every local health area in the province.

Lapointe said fentanyl continues as the main factor in overdose deaths, but increasing levels of stimulants and benzodiazepine are being detected in the illicit drug supply. Benzodiazepine is a depressant that cannot be reversed by naloxone, which is used to treat fentanyl overdoses.

Illicit drug toxicity deaths by year in British Columbia

While the province has embarked on a safe supply program, Lapointe said it is too limited in scope and facing too many barriers, including the lack of prescribing clinicians and slow action from regulators on drug decriminalization.

"I know that work is being done but we are too far along in this crisis with these number of deaths to have 12 or 18 or 24 months to plan a roll out. We need a massive roll out on an urgent basis," she said.

"Today we will lose six more people. Tomorrow we will lose six more people. And by Christmas we will lose another 40 or 50 members of our community."

B.C.'s minister of mental health and addictions said the government is pushing out safe supply programs in every health authority, but there are challenges.

"This is a first in Canada. We don't have models of what prescribed safe supply looks like in our provincial-federal system," said Sheila Malcolmson.

Illicit drug toxicity deaths by month in B.C.

Malcolmson said addressing the COVID-19 public health emergency has been easier because it is being fought on the foundation of a strong health-care system, something that doesn't exist in the realm of mental health and addictions.

"We've been working to fight two public health emergencies while also building up [the mental health and addictions] system of care. And at the same time the health authorities are unrolling the largest vaccination program in our province's history," she said.

"We are pushing the system in every way we can."

Safe supply advocate Garth Mullins said governments are abdicating responsibility by not acting quickly in the face of a worsening crisis.

"We call it a kind of 'necro-politics,'" said Mullins, a member of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. "People sit in capitals like Victoria or Ottawa and they just decide who's going to live and who's going to die by policy."

The B.C. Coroner Service report said more than 70 per cent of illicit drug overdose deaths in 2021 were among those aged 30 to 59. Men account for 79 per cent of the deaths.

Vancouver, Surrey and Victoria saw the most overdose deaths so far this year, according to the report, with 602 deaths in the Fraser Health Authority and 494 in Vancouver Coastal Health.

The highest rates of fatal overdoses per local health area from January to August were in Upper Skeena, Lillooet and Merritt.

Over 8,500 British Columbians have died of toxic drugs since the province declared a public health emergency in 2016.

Back then the rate of overdose deaths per 100,000 people was 20.4. It has now doubled to more than 41.2 deaths per 100,000.

Toxic drugs are now by far the most common cause of unnatural death in the province, and the leading cause of death among British Columbians aged 19 to 39.

The report noted that no deaths have yet been recorded at overdose prevention sites, or due to prescribed safe supply.

Maggie MacPherson/CBC

Give gig workers more rights, transparency, benefits, Ontario committee recommends

Thu., December 9, 2021


TORONTO — Ontario should develop a worker benefits plan that is not tied to employers, set up a job board for gig work, and force greater transparency in gig work contracts, a new report on the province's changing employment landscape recommends.

The report from a committee of experts tasked by the government with addressing labour market disruptions from COVID-19 also recommended creating a "dependent contractor" category for app-based gig workers with guaranteed employment rights, including severance pay and minimum wage.

The final report from the Ontario Workforce Recovery Advisory Committee, including 21 recommendations, was made public Thursday.

"The recommendations are about designing a policy regime that takes into account how changes in technology and COVID, which coincide, are changing the workplace," said Rohinton Medhora, chair of the committee that began its work in June.

Labour Minister Monte McNaughton said he was impressed with the recommendations and would consider all of them.

Of particular interest, he said, was the recommendation that the government look into developing a portable benefits plan that’s tied directly to workers, not their employers.

"This is one that's a priority for me and I really want to move forward with looking at this seriously,” McNaughton said in an interview Wednesday.

The report said a portable plan might see the benefits administered through "an independent body, through government, the private sector or some combination," and would support worker mobility, give certainty to their futures and potentially help businesses attract more workers.

McNaughton said he’s "excited" by the concept, which he said could cover gig workers and others in restaurant and retail jobs who don't have health, vision or dental benefits.

Medhora, the committee chair who is also president of the Centre for International Governance Innovation, said the portable benefits idea goes "hand-in-hand" with the advice to better ensure rights for gig workers, and also addresses the changing nature of careers as people hold more jobs through their lives.

The committee recommends appointing an expert to study how the program would best work.

The group's short consultation period over the summer and the makeup of the committee, which didn't include any worker or union representatives, has sparked concerns from worker groups that the recommendations lack fulsome research and could skew towards the interests of large employers like Uber, leaving gig workers more vulnerable.

The Ontario Federation of Labour wrote in submissions to the committee of serious concerns about what it called a "rushed and deeply flawed" consultation process that didn’t include public hearings.

McNaughton said he wanted the work completed quickly because "there is an urgent need to act" in response to economic changes from the pandemic. He also pointed to consultations with gig workers and said he would welcome more feedback now that the report is published.

Uber spent the last year asking the province to require app-based gig employers to accrue self-directed benefit funds that can be dispersed to drivers for prescriptions, dental and vision care and provide safety training and tools like reflective vests. The proposal called Flexible Work+ would not designate gig workers as employees and does not include minimum wage or severance pay requirements.

Uber is still reviewing the committee's recommendations, spokesperson Laura Miller said.

"Given the diverse and complex needs of drivers and delivery people, a comprehensive policy plan is the only way forward," she wrote in an email.

Brice Sopher, vice-president of Gig Workers United, said he was alarmed by how many similarities there are between the committee's recommendations and Uber's pitch, which many workers have long denounced.

His organization feels the "dependent contractor" category is unnecessary and workers should instead be recognized as employees.

"These portable benefits and new category is a lowering of the bar for all workers because once it is legislated, there is very little stopping other workplaces from transforming their workers into this new category," said Sopher, who couriers food for UberEats and works as a DJ.

"So we are sad for ourselves and we fear for the long-term."

The committee's "dependent contractor" recommendation suggested creating that worker category through the Employment Standards Act "or elsewhere." The recommendation said those workers should have basic employment rights like termination pay, minimum wages, benefits, pay stubs, regular wage payment and notice of termination with severance pay entitlements.

The committee further said gig platform companies that operate in Ontario should be required to provide basic, clear and transparent contracts with information on payment, penalties, suspensions or pay deductions.

The report also said contracting companies should be forced to state they are complying with employment standards, specifically on worker classification, so there is no ambiguity over liability.

It also suggested piloting a virtual platform "that matches supply and demand for various types of gig and contract work," which could start with some occupation types and expand to more if found to be effective.

It also recommended a dedicated communications strategy promoting the province as a desirable place to work, and giving greater clarity to the definition of "independent contractors."

The Progressive Conservative government has already acted on some of the committee's recommendations, which it saw in an interim report.

Labour legislation that passed this month requires medium-sized workplaces to have policies on employees disconnecting digitally after work hours and limits non-compete clauses. It also requires that businesses give delivery drivers access to washrooms — something that wasn’t explicitly recommended by the committee but came up repeatedly during consultations, McNaughton said.

— with files from Tara Deschamps.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 9, 2021.

Holly McKenzie-Sutter, The Canadian Press

European Commission drafts directive designating gig workers as employees

Lyft and Uber logos are shown on a car. The European Commission proposed a directive Thursday that could turn gig workers for ride-share companies and others into employees. File Photo by Raysonho/Wikimedia/UPI

Dec. 9 (UPI) -- The European Commission announced initial steps that would turn independent contractors, or gig workers, into employees, giving them traditional labor rights and benefits enjoyed by other full-time employees.

The move would target such companies as ride-sharing business Uber and various delivery jobs but could have a wide-ranging effect on numerous other industries as well.

"The proposed directive seeks to ensure that people working through digital labor platforms are granted the legal employment status that corresponds to their actual work arrangements," the European Commission said in a statement about the directive. "It provides a list of control criteria to determine whether the platform is an 'employer.'

"If the platform meets at least two of those criteria, it is legally presumed to be an employer. The people working through them would therefore enjoy the labor and social rights that come with the status of 'worker.'"

RELATED Judge rules California's new law for app-based drivers is unconstitutional

The directive said the "worker" status, would give that person the right to a minimum wage, collective bargaining, working time and health protection, the right to paid leave or improved access to protection against work accidents and unemployment and sickness benefits among other benefits.

"The clear criteria the commission proposes will bring the platforms increased legal certainty, reduced litigation costs and it will facilitate business planning," the commission said.

The directive could change the employment status of up to 4.1 million gig workers throughout the European Union. It said more than 500 digital platforms using gig workers generated revenue of $15.8 billion in 2020.

RELATED Labor Dept. terminates Trump-era gig worker rule to favor contractors

Uber has pushed back, saying the directive will put jobs and the business models at risk, shrinking revenues. It said those services have proven vital during the pandemic.

Industrial Gothic: Workers, Exploitation and Urbanization in Transatlantic Nineteenth-Century Literature by Bridget M. Marshall 

Bridget M. Marshall
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This volume carves out a new area of study, the ‘industrial Gothic’, placing the genre in dialogue with the literature of the Industrial Revolution. The book explores a significant subset of transatlantic nineteenth-century literature that employs the tropes, themes and rhetoric of the Gothic to portray the real-life horrors of factory life, framing the Industrial Revolution as a site of Gothic excess and horror. Using archival materials from the nineteenth century, localised incidences of Gothic industrialisation (in specific cities like Lowell and Manchester) are considered alongside transnational connections and comparisons. The author argues that stories about the real horrors of factory life frequently employed the mode of the Gothic, while nineteenth century writing in the genre (stories, novels, poems and stage adaptations) began to use new settings – factories, mills, and industrial cities – as backdrops for the horrors that once populated Gothic castles.

‎December 6 anniversary: Media must be an integral part of the fight against femicide‎

Thu., December 9, 2021, 8:47 a.m.

‎People attend a rally on the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in Canada on Parliament Hill.‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick‎‎ ‎

‎On December 6, 1989, in a misogynistic gesture of extreme violence, fourteen young women were shot dead at ‎‎the École Polytechnique of the Université de Montréal.‎

‎Although perpetrated by one man, this mass femicide stems from a social environment marked by gender inequality, misogyny, colonialism, racism and other intersectional phenomena of oppression.‎

‎Femicide — the murder of a woman or girl because of her gender — is no coincidence. Although the media often portray femicide as spontaneous "crimes of passion," when a man kills his partner, it is the culmination of a history of violence ‎‎in more than 70% of cases‎‎ — and more frequently the result of controlling behavior of a criminal nature.‎

‎Femicide is also ‎‎more premeditated, compared to the murder of a non-intimate partner.‎‎ Therefore, many of these deaths are preventable, and we must use all the tools at our disposal to increase public awareness of the phenomenon and improve prevention strategies.‎

‎ Read more: ‎‎Polytechnique, 30 years later: a first anti-feminist attack, finally named as such‎‎ ‎

‎Engaging decision-makers‎

‎Public health efforts during the Covid-19 pandemic have illustrated the importance of spreading a clear message, making room for science and holding political leaders and social institutions to account in order to save lives.‎

‎As these efforts continue, we will once again mark December 6, the ‎‎National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women,‎‎and reflect on the pandemic of male violence that continues to take the lives of many women and girls around the world.‎

‎A woman gathers near the Women's Monument in London, Ontario, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the 2014 Polytechnique massacre.‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Dave Chidley‎‎ ‎

‎Part of our work at ‎‎the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability‎‎ is to monitor this extreme form of sex- or gender-based violence. As the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted, the ‎‎media play a vital role‎‎ in informing us about threats – how they define themselves, what aspects deserve our attention or how to address a particular issue.‎

‎In short, the media frame the problem and propose solutions. To this extent, the media can be a key mechanism for primary prevention, as long as they provide an accurate representation of the problem.‎

‎The media have a crucial role to play in the coverage of femicides, not only in raising awareness and general education, but also ‎‎by actively participating in the construction of attitudes and beliefs‎‎ that can contribute to prevention efforts.‎

‎In contrast, harmful portrayals, such as those depicting this type of murder as an ‎‎isolated act or the work of a single person,‎‎have the effect of shining a ‎‎spotlight on the victims' behaviour‎‎ and suggesting (implicitly or explicitly) that they are responsible for their own deaths or ‎‎marginalizing certain groups.‎‎ because of their race, religion, socio-economic status, participation in the sex trade, sexual orientation or other factors.‎

‎There is also the question of those who are not represented at all. The ‎‎"missing white woman syndrome"‎‎ is a good illustration of the media bias in which White victims, usually from privileged backgrounds, ‎‎receive significant coverage,‎‎while the case of missing and murdered Indigenous or non-white women and girls is considered to be of lesser interest to society. As a result, some women and girls remain invisible, in life as well as in death.‎

‎Girls gather for the annual Women's Memorial March in Vancouver in February 2021, an event held in memory of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. The route is punctuated by stations in various places where women were last seen or found.‎‎ ‎‎ ‎‎THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck‎‎ ‎More
‎

The importance of media coverage of femicide‎

‎When it comes to accurately informing the public, the way journalists portray femicide is therefore of paramount importance. Indeed, media coverage of femicide ‎‎helps to address broader issues related to violence against women‎‎ and, in so doing, to raise public awareness of these crimes, their underlying societal causes, consequences and implications.‎

‎Such media coverage may include terms specific to femicide, statistics on the number of women killed by their intimate partners, support resources for victims of domestic violence, or new sources of expertise that are better qualified to treat femicide, including those who provide primary care, are involved in advocacy and research.‎

‎In addition to providing a deeper context, supported by empirical data, this type of coverage has the power to raise public awareness of the problem. Instead of reporting femicide as isolated incidents, it sheds more light on community and societal solutions.‎

‎These may include funding services for victims of violence, prevention education initiatives, legislative reforms or cultural changes, such as targeting attitudes that support or normalize violence against women.‎

‎As we honour the memory of women and girls who have died as a result of violence in Canada, we can take a critical look at how their stories are told in the media, as well as how they tell us about their deaths. We can take our analysis beyond police reports and ‎‎cultural references surrounding femicide,‎‎drawing on the experience and expertise of survivors and people who have lost a loved one to violence.‎

‎It is possible to deviate from sensational and explicit reports and stop insinuating that the gestures, behaviors or lifestyles of the victims may have contributed to their deaths.‎

‎Femicide is a tragic loss. It is a gesture of extreme violence directed against women. This is a violation of human rights and a real public health issue. However, in order to accurately portray this crime, the media must take all these aspects into account.‎

-----

Yasmin Jiwani, Professor of Communication Studies; Research Chair on Intersectionality, Violence and Resistance, Concordia University, 

Myrna Dawson, Professor and Research Leadership Chair, Sociology, University of Guelph, Jordan Fairbairn, Associate Professor, Sociology, King's University College, Western University,

Ciara Boyd, PhD Student, Sociology, University of Guelph

‎Jordan Fairbairn receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.‎

Ciara Boyd, Myrna Dawson, and Yasmin Jiwani do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

ORIGINAL IN FRENCH Anniversaire du 6 décembre : les médias doivent faire partie intégrante de la lutte contre les féminicides (yahoo.com)

THE VIEW FROM CANADA

With Donald Trump’s ‘next coup’ underway, it’s a bit rich for the the United States to be holding a democracy summit

TORONTO STAR
December 9, 2021


WASHINGTON — When representatives from more than 100 nations convene virtually on Thursday for a “democracy summit” hosted by the White House, U.S. President Joe Biden will greet them “from a place of humility,” according to a senior administration official speaking on background.

“The president has been forthright and clear about the challenges facing democracy here at home throughout his presidency,” the official added, “and I think you can expect him to do so as well at the summit.”

The challenges facing democracy here at home. Yup. Hosting a global symposium on democracy in Washington today feels a little like holding a fire prevention conference next to a blazing wood stove in a log cabin with faulty wiring.

My colleagues Susan Delacourt and Martin Regg Cohn have already directed readers to “January 6 was Practice,” the cover story in the current issue of The Atlantic magazine, in which Barton Gellman warns that former president Donald Trump’s “next coup” is already well underway. That story is being heard in Washington like the “hurrying hoof beats” of Paul Revere’s ride, warning of impending danger that requires action. (Incidentally, Longfellow’s 1860 poem that immortalized Revere’s “voice in the darkness” — and served as a call to action on the eve of the U.S. Civil War — also first appeared in The Atlantic.)

“The democratic emergency is already here,” University of California Irvine professor Richard L. Hasen says in the story. “We face a serious risk that American democracy as we know it will come to an end in 2024, but urgent action is not happening.”

The essay compiles the developments that, taken together, history might come to view as the defining story of 2021. There is Trump’s ongoing and blatantly false insistence that he won the 2020 election, and the heavily armed and increasingly open-to-violence segment of America that believes him.

There are Republican legislators, who have embraced Trump’s message and have been perversely gerrymandering state legislature and congressional districts, rewriting state laws to allow them to throw out future election results they don’t like, restricting who can vote and how in the future, and replacing state election officials with those who are openly on the side of Trump’s power-highjacking schemes. And there are published accounts of the last days of Trump’s presidency detail the logic of his failed attempt to steal the 2020 election, and making clear how the actions Republicans are taking now could make such a scheme successful next time around.

So this isn’t a moment when the U.S. will be in a position to lecture other countries about democracy.

What’s more, everyone knows it. A timely survey of global attitudes to democracy released this week by the Pew Research Center shows that around the world, 57 per cent of people who think the U.S. used to be a good example of democracy for other countries to follow, say it isn’t any more. In Canada, only 14 per cent of people think the U.S. remains a model of democracy. Even in the U.S., there isn’t a lot of patriotic chest-thumping: 80 per cent of Americans say the U.S. is not, or never was, a good democratic model.

That lines up with 85 per cent of Americans who say that their political system either “needs to be completely reformed” or “needs major changes.” (Only 47 per cent of Canadians, by comparison, say the same about theirs.)

Clearly, not all those Americans would agree on what changes are needed. As Gellman points out, 68 per cent of Republicans (and 31 per cent of all Americans) believe Trump’s big lie that the election was stolen from him. Those are the people who are doing something about it — and it is their actions that Gellman, the Biden administration and most reasonable observers and experts think is posing the threat to democracy that the rest of Americans perceive.

But because of their reluctance to override the Senate filibuster rule, which gives the minority Republicans a legislative veto, Biden’s party has failed to pass two voting rights laws, which would have ended gerrymandering and imposed protections against voter suppression and partisan sabotage of elections. On Wednesday, the eve of Biden’s summit, the House of Representatives brought another measure intended to curb presidential corruption and protect elections to a vote. Like the other two, it might be expected to languish in the Senate.

Time may be running out for these Democrats, who proclaim themselves defenders of democracy. The midterm congressional elections, which at this point are widely expected to give Republicans control of at least one and possibly both houses of Congress, are less than a year away. If that happens, the opportunity to pass any democratic protections at all will have passed.

Meanwhile, the members of his own party continue to wrangle over Biden’s economic agenda — and probably will continue to through the end of the year.

So the “democracy summit” offers an opportunity to “put the issue on the front burner,” the Biden official told the media briefing, with a planned announcement of a “year of action” coming out of it. We may find out Thursday and Friday what actions are contemplated in that year, and how successful the meetings are at pushing this up higher on the congressional agenda.

The administration’s self-proclaimed “humility” is justified. You’ll have to stay tuned to see whether bringing that attitude to an international summit can prompt the kind of action needed to head off an unfolding crisis of U.S. democracy.

New CDC report finds increase in autism, with 1 in 44 8-year-olds diagnosed

Katie Shepherd, (c) 2021, The Washington Post
Tue., December 7, 2021, 

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - JUNE 22: Young children dance with their umbrellas at the launch of an art installation called the Umbrella Project, featuring 200 brightly coloured umbrellas suspended over Church Alley on June 22, 2017 in Liverpool, England. The project is to raise awareness of ADHD and autism in children. 

ADHD IS NOT RELATED TO NOR IS IT AUTISM 

Local school children also performed a dance at the launch despite the rain. The ADHD Foundation wants the project to inform the public "that young people with ADHD and other conditions possess many gifts and can succeed in their community despite their condition". 

(Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)More

The rate of 8-year-olds in the United States diagnosed with autism rose in 2018, to about 1 in 44, according to data tracked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - an increase attributed to better access to early interventions that result in more comprehensive identification of the condition.

A March 2020 report from the CDC estimated that 1 in 54 8-year-olds had received an autism diagnosis. Between the release of that report and the findings presented this month, the prevalence of autism increased from about 1.9% to 2.3% of children in that age group.

"The substantial progress in early identification is good news because the earlier that children are identified with autism, the sooner they can be connected to services and support," Karen Remley, director of CDC's National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, said in a statement. "Accessing these services at younger ages can help children do better in school and have a better quality of life."

The federal agency collects data from 11 communities in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, Tennessee, Utah and Wisconsin. Though those communities are not a representative sample of the U.S. population, researchers have tracked changes in autism prevalence in those areas since 2000 to understand the developmental condition over time.

The latest report found that autism rates varied greatly throughout the United States. California had the highest incidence rate, with 1 in 26 8-year-olds receiving a diagnosis. Missouri had the lowest rate, with 1 in 60 children in that age group assessed with the condition. The report said those differences may reflect how communities identify children with autism, because some regions have more services for children with autism and their families.

Andy Shih, interim chief science officer at the advocacy group Autism Speaks, agreed that regional differences may be tied to more robust services in some of the 11 locations studied by the CDC, which tend to draw families seeking treatment options for their children.

"We often hear about parents moving to a state where it's easier for them to access services and regular support," Shih said.

Some experts caution that the way the CDC collects data could skew the numbers and make it seem like autism is more common than it is. Developmental psychologist Bryna Siegel warned that the CDC is likely overcounting autism cases in many places.

In some states, an autism diagnosis is often a path to affordable services for a child with special needs. That dynamic can create an ethical dilemma for doctors who want to help families find services to improve a child's quality of life.

"If a child gets a diagnosis of a language disorder, maybe he'll get group speech therapy once a week when he goes to Head Start, but if you say that he has autism, he might get home-based one-to-one applied behavior analysis services for 25 hours a week," said Siegel, executive director of the Autism Center of Northern California, an assessment clinic that provides services to children with autism. "And, truthfully, any kid is going to do better with 25 hours a week of one-to-one service than with a 20-minute group speech therapy session each week."

Because doctors want to connect patients with the best services available, they may be inclined to justify an autism diagnosis so that children can get access to the services that come with it.

"And so clinicians are put in a terrible bind to use the diagnosis of autism," Siegel said.

A CDC epidemiologist said the agency's data reflects practices and services.

"There is not a universal and objective 'gold standard' diagnostic procedure; there is variability in diagnostic practices and policies, and experts (and diagnostic instruments) can disagree on their conclusions," Matt Maenner, an epidemiologist for the CDC's National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, said in an email. "The [Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring] Network data allow people to see what is happening in their communities, including how and when children are identified as having autism."

Maenner said issues with improper diagnoses should be addressed by providers, and would not affect how the agency collects data.

"If the data raise questions about how communities are identifying children with autism, it would seem better to work to improve practices rather than adjust the surveillance data to mask these issues," Maenner added.

Still, the CDC's data gives some insight into who is being diagnosed with autism and where.

Boys were four times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than girls - a trend that has held up since the CDC began collecting data on the condition in 2000. The researchers found few differences in prevalence based on race, with similar rates among 8-year-olds in Black, White, and Asian or Pacific Islander communities. Fewer Hispanic children were diagnosed with autism compared with other groups, according to the report. The data showed that about one-third of the children diagnosed with autism also had an intellectual disability.

Shih said the CDC's study suggests that efforts to expand early intervention have been succeeding, but some states could be doing more to reach children in underserved and lower-income communities.

"It's really imperative for us trying to identify children as early as possible, to get them into support and services," he added.

In additional findings regarding children who turned 4 years old in 2018 in those same 11 communities, new patterns in diagnosis emerged, according to the CDC. There were more diagnoses among Black, Hispanic, and Asian or Pacific Islander children than among White children in that cohort. Lower-income neighborhoods also had higher prevalence rates, the agency said.

Those children who were born in 2014 were 50% more likely to have received a diagnosis by their fourth birthday, compared with children who were born in 2010. The researchers said that data reflected improved access to early intervention, which can help children with autism thrive later in life.

"We're doing a better job for the younger kids," Shih said.

Welcome to Temple Grandin's Official Autism Website

https://www.templegrandin.com

Dr. Temple Grandin of CSU Named One of the Top 10 College Professors in the Country. Read the full article here. About Temple Grandin. Dr. Grandin did not talk until she was three and a half years old. She was fortunate to get early speech therapy. Her teachers also taught her how to wait and take turns when playing board games. She was mainstreamed into a normal kindergarten at age five 

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https://jamesrollins.com/book/the-last-oracle-a-sigma-force-novel

A master at combining historical and religious intrigue with edge-of-your-seat adventure, New York Times bestselling author James Rollins brings back Sigma Force to battle a group of rogue scientists who’ve unleashed a bioengineering project that could bring about the extinction of humankind.

• Estimated Reading Time: 6 mins