April Ryan has been a member of the White House press corps for 25 years, reporting for the American Urban Radio Network from January 1997 to November 2020. She also served as an anchor for WTOP. She is currently the chief white house correspondent for The Grio.
Yesterday, right leaning pundit Eddie Scarry, who reports for The Federalist and The New York Post, shared this on his Twitter feed. “Good god someone needs to put April Ryan out of her misery.”
The temperatures as we lead up to the next U.S. Presidential Election is warming up. More money and attention will be spent to drive ridiculous amounts of content to as many eyeballs as possible. The news, was always a place to trust the facts. That has now been exposed as an ignorant way to go about getting the real story as of late.
Fake News, a term used by former President Trump, has taken on a new life form. The technological advances of artificial intelligence is also a matter of concern with deep fake content popping up more and more on social platforms.
Eddie Scarry is no stranger to the game. His attempt to drive a violence-based tone to his followers is a tactic to topple the likes of journalists like April Ryan. The job of a journalist is to ask the right questions at the right time. The opposition to the truth, are violently trying to stop questions from being asked because protecting the truth is more relatable than exposing it. It is a page out of the Maga GOP handbook. A few of the rules have changed since the RICO investigation in Fulton County. Starry, like his friends who sit at Fox News lying directly to the camera, knows that there is a voting electorate in the country they can swindle. If they can get you to be angry about something, they can get you to vote for Donald Trump. It is really sad a pathetic. But it is the current climate.
Earlier this month, the SJP, Society of Professional Journalist, called for the protection of journalists working in Gaza. “During this time, it is imperative that journalists are able to document what’s happening on the ground so the public can remain informed,” said SPJ President.
Earlier in June, the International Journalist’s Network published a story about the increase in online threats towards women who are journalists in particular. Below is an excerpt of their reporting.
The scope of the violence
Nearly three in four women journalists – 73% – have faced online violence while carrying out their reporting, according to The Chilling, ICFJ and UNESCO’s global study on online violence targeting women journalists. Of these, 25% have received threats of physical violence and 18% of sexual violence. One in five women surveyed reported that acts of abuse or violence offline were seeded first online.
Physical consequences
Online violence leads to physical attacks, creating an environment of fear that abuse will move beyond the internet. Perpetrators of online violence rarely, too, are held accountable for their actions. They know this and use it to intimidate journalists further, said Northern Irish journalist Patricia Devlin: “That impunity stays on – it stays on in multiple threats against journalists.”
Exploiting the law
Online attacks are increasingly coordinated, too, often supported or directed by powerful actors in national governments, and designed to sow the seeds of future legal action against journalists.
“What starts as a lie, power uses it to turn reality upside down,” said 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa, appearing via video link, and reflecting on her own experience as the target of trumped up criminal libel and tax charges and multiple legal attempts to shut down her independent outlet in the Philippines, Rappler. The women journalists sharing their experiences as targets of online violence all emphasized the importance of acknowledging the physical harm the attacks cause. The attacks won’t end with the women journalists, either, they warn – they’re just the initial targets.
