Threats Towards Journalists: The Power of Community
Photo via The New Humanitarian
KAHWIT TELA: On November 5, Donald Trump won the presidential election against Vice President Kamala Harris and secured his re-election as the 47th President of the United States.
In his decades-long appearances in the public eye, President-elect Donald Trump has become a man known for many things, his sexist, racist, xenophobic, transphobic, and homophobic remarks. The only president who has been impeached twice and convicted of 34 felony counts. And a man who made 60 dollar “God Bless the U.S.A.” bibles.
The American people have decided who they want as president and now, Donald Trump will be our president once again.
Blame in the Democratic Party quickly followed regarding Vice President Harris’ loss. However, the “blame game” or how the Democrats lost the election isn’t what I’m writing about in this article.
I’m not writing this article to point fingers at anyone or hold anyone accountable for this re-election. I am also not writing this article to blame third-party voters or those who didn’t vote. After speaking to many anti-genocide protesters - be they Palestinian, Israeli, Jewish, Muslim, etc. - during my time with on-the-ground reporting coverage of protests, I certainly don’t blame those who said they won’t be voting.
How can one look into the eyes of a protester with family in the Middle East and tell them to vote for a candidate whose administration helped send arms to the devastation happening in Gaza?
What happened with the election has happened. What I am writing about is the need for community these next four years.
Those from marginalized communities who fear for their lives (and rights) are now looking toward finding and building community during the upcoming Trump Administration.
While I do strive to look for those communities with my identities as a black man and child of immigrants, I am looking towards finding community in a field I aspire to be in: Journalism. Despite its shortcomings and shaky future in terms of layoffs and closures, I deeply want to continue to be in this field.
However, if there is one thing that I continuously struggle to find in this field is community and solidarity, especially with Western journalism and journalists who are currently reporting from war zones.
As a student journalist, I will admit that I’ve not only been concerned with the falling apart of the industry but with the constant dangers journalists face worldwide.
In October, The Committee to Protect Journalists released a 2024 Impunity index, listing where punishment for murdering journalists is highly unlikely. According to CPJ, the top three countries on the list were Haiti, Israel, and Somalia. In the same month, six journalists from Al-Jazeera were targeted and deemed a threat to the Israeli Defense Forces.
Aside from news reports regarding this issue, I see little to no outcry from Western media outlets. I have seen more outrage from Western publications over not being able to endorse a presidential candidate than with the targeting and deaths of Palestinian journalists and other international journalists who are constantly putting their lives on the line.
I’m saddened by the silence and utter lack of support from Western media outlets as our colleagues in places such as Gaza or Haiti are facing dangers as they report unspeakable horrors known to humankind.
All in all, I’ve been filled with grief and distraught not only by the world around me but also by the future field I hope to have a career in.
However, when I was feeling jaded about the field’s future and the state of the world today, I thought about something a professor once told me. They told me “If I, including myself and all journalists in general, were feeling hopeless, then who else will tell the story?”
Journalists shouldn’t (hopefully) go into the field for fame, glory, or riches. They should go into the field because they strive to report the truth no matter how heartbreaking it might be.
When your future president says that he wouldn’t mind if journalists were “shot at” in a world where that is the reality for journalists in areas of conflict, that should motivate journalists to protect one another and condemn the violence that our colleagues from around the world face for simply doing their job.
Community is all we have. As an aspiring black student journalist, the community is all I have.
For other marginalized individuals living in the US these next four years who don’t have the privilege to leave a red state or the US, community will be all they have too.
Whatever happens these next four years under the Trump Administration, journalists need to come together to uplift and protect one another.
As tension is only increasing in America, Western journalists and media outlets need to come together in solidarity with journalists worldwide as they face danger from simply doing their job and reporting the hard truth.
A new generation of journalists, including student journalists, are currently looking at how journalists today are behaving with the silence and lack of condemnation towards the dangers of press freedom around the world. Now, more than ever, is the time to change that.
Kahwit Tela is a Staff Writer for On The Record from Nashville, Tennessee. He is a second-year Master of Professional Studies in Journalism student at The School of Continuing Studies. He is passionate about human rights advocacy, reporting on global affairs, and making comic book zines.