QUAD CITIES — If you’re looking to help progressive causes, make a difference in your community, stand up for immigrants or defy the lies and cruelty of the Trump administration, Tuesday’s We C BS protest isn’t the ticket.
If you’re looking to stand up for truthfulness, better journalism, and accountability among public figures or officials, Tuesday’s protest won’t do that.
If you’re looking to help progressives everywhere earn back the public’s trust… Tuesday’s protest isn’t the way.
We’re calling out the BS of the We C BS protest announced for Tuesday. It’s the one that One Human Family QCA is presenting with at least three other organizations.
It’s an event built on distortions and selective omissions (though popular ones), and has already triggered well-known community members to join in spreading them. It’s an event that claims to be attacking Trump – but in practical reality does Trump’s own dirty work of attacking, undermining and distorting journalism as a whole.
And it’s an example of the worst of progressive activism: misinformed, misdirected, unnecessary, fueled by and looking to generate bandwagon grievance, and exploitive of the public’s pain. And also pressing this community to feel and express even more anger and polarization than it already has, at a time when our entire country can barely withstand the weight of its current polarization and anger.
What exactly is the BS in the We C BS Protest?
It is deep. And like all BS that piles up, you have to dig your way out of it.
Also, like often happens with BS, it’s hard to spot, and you might find yourself stepping right in it before you even know it’s there, making a mess of yourself and maybe those around you
What makes this particular pile of BS so offensively stinky is that it’s being smeared all over topics crucially important, that we haven’t even begun to fully address, and that urgently need our attention. I’m talking about immigrant rights and the CECOT detention center, where hundreds of immigrants have been held under inhumane and some might say health-threatening conditions.
And I’m also talking about journalism, one of the key American institutions keeping Trump’s authoritarian tendencies under check.
This protest exploits our pain over CECOT merely for the sake of adding yet another protest to the list of dozens these groups have held this year. It exploits the general wariness of the press that Trump has built to a fever pitch, both using his tactics and adding to them. It tosses around lofty journalism phrases like “freedom of the press” and “democracy dies in darkness” while itself failing Journalism 101: tell the truth and provide sources.
It confuses people, gives them bad information, and furthers an unhealthy attachment to performative protests that are missing the basic elements of effective protesting: clear goals, demands that withstand moral scrutiny – and also, that have more than a snowball’s chance in hell of winning over those not already on your side.
The false narrative on which the We C BS Protest is based
Let’s break this all down.
One Human Family, along with Indivisible QC and several other groups, called this protest in haste Friday. Its press release attempts to portray the event as countering censorship, standing up for free speech, and “in support of immigrants.”
And that’s where the BS begins.
The word “immigrants” only appears one more time in the entire press release. It’s as though the word itself is being dropped strategically at the beginning and end of the press release merely as bait to attract those who are feeling the brunt of Trump’s policies most deeply. Exploiting a challenged identity like this is repulsive.
The biggest chunk of BS in the We C BS protest is the untruths on which it is based. They were started by activist voices but since been discredited. They are untruths that could/should have been corrected, that OHF was asked to correct, but which OHF chose instead to double down upon – and even spread nationally:
- The press release announcing the protest falsely states the CBS report was “cancelled,” when it was instead held for additional reporting. “I look forward to airing this important piece when it’s ready,” said Bari Weiss, the CBS executive producer under fire for delaying the piece’s broadcast hours before it was to air.
- The event falsely accuses CBS and “60 Minutes” of withholding information from the public about CECOT. In truth, “60 Minutes” had actually already aired a much more detailed look at CECOT than this held piece, as did dozens of other media, months ago. “60 Minutes” was among the first to report the human rights abuses at CECOT most vividly, and more effectively than this latest held piece.
- The press release falsely states, “The CBS network’s decision followed requests from the Trump administration not to air the report.” Protest organizers committed two ethical no-no’s here: they falsely conflated fact with holding a popular theory, not bothering to distinguish them from each other (who does THAT sound like??). Then, they disregarded evidence directly disputing their theory (of which no proof has yet emerged) that the Trump administration spiked the story by refusing to respond.
- Protest organizers have since added a FOURTH layer of misinformation that’s now ALSO being spread by their followers: they’ve falsely claimed the leaked CECOT segment is being censored from the internet by Trump (even though I and anyone can find multicples links to it within seconds).
Sadly, One Human Family had a chance to correct these mis-statements. They refused, lapsing into exactly the response the Trump administration had been accused of: simply not responding.
The irony of a group presenting itself as a champion of journalism, through a protest based on provable untruths, and refusing to admit its errors, while also exploiting the very same evasive tactics it is criticizing?
Could we manufacture a more absurd example of activism gone astray?? That’s not even all of the red flag factors at play here.
The Problem With Ill-Informed Protests Built on Conspiracy Theories That Falsely Amplify Trump
With the We C BS protest, we find the most basic problem with all bad protests: gobbling up people’s valuable time and attention with cortisol-fueling group displays of anger that are misinformed and chip away at participants’ mental and physical health while not really making a difference, but heightening tensions.
Then there’s this extra layer of problem with this particular protest. It exploits a valid journalism discussion and converts it into simple “us versus them” fodder – which like all oversimplifications leads to falsehoods being embedded into the topic, which then fuels more unjustified rage, that further muddies the original issue, and flies off to dirty up anything nearby.
So much BS to clean up.
But this bad protest has even higher stakes. It amplifies Trump’s role to ridiculous proportions that only serve his purposes. It undermines the power of the media, which gains much of its power from the basic journalism steps that ACTUALLY led to “60 Minutes” delaying the segment (more on that later).
It drags a bunch of other organizations into this muckety-muck – so that they, too, suffer the hit on their credibility because of this effort to turn nuance into divisive, basic “us versus them” BS.
And it distracts us from that topic One Human Family only mentioned twice in its press release, and only in passing: immigrants and their civil rights. Instead of talking about those topics, we’re stuck off in this world of having to clean up false or misleading narratives.
“60 Minutes” CECOT hold is about Journalism Basics, not “censorship” or “free speech”
If you’ve actually fully informed yourself about this overall situation, and not just the spin fed to you by groups like OHF that are taking liberties with the narrative, these points I’m listing below are already clear. Being fully informed, by the way, means reading not just what angry activists are putting out, but what Weiss stated in her memos to staff. It also means being aware of the full array of CECOT coverage already provided by not just “60 Minutes,” but many, many other media:
- The report being held did not advance the story beyond what “60 Minutes” itself had reported about CECOT months earlier, and many other media, too. This also happens to be why CBS executive Bari Weiss said she held the piece. But I’m going to go one further than even Weiss: this report didn’t even match the quality of the previous “60 Minutes” report. Unless you believe journalism’s purpose is to inspire you to feel the same pain over and over and over by telling you the same horrific story over and over and over, it’s clear this piece was not up to muster.
- Seeking response from “the other side” is one of THE most basic tenets of journalism that every cub reporter is taught – or should be taught – from Day One. It’s pounded into us that this drive to be fair needs to apply even to those whose views that repulse us; they still deserve a fair shake. Furthermore, true journalists are taught, if someone is trying to stonewall you, get that stonewalling effort documented. Don’t just toss a line in, or exclude them. That full documentation of the pursuit of comment didn’t happen in the CECOT report that was held. In fact, we’ve since found that comment was provided by several Trump administration officials, but oddly not included by the reporter or other editors.
- The report had another flaw that, again, is something journalists are taught early in their careers: reach out to the relevant sources. Not just any source that riles up viewers or readers. Don’t play “gotcha” with your topic, pulling in some outlandish and inflammatory comment from an inappropriate source just because it gives your piece some emotional bite. It was clear in the held CECOT report that someone, somewhere dropped the ball on sourcing. After all, what Democrat would stand for the entire Biden administration philosophy on immigration enforcement to be communicated only through a snarky comment by Karine Jean-Pierre in the midst of a heated press briefing? Anyone informed of and trying to follow the most basic rules of sourcing should have seen through the held report’s poor, half-hearted effort to get comment from the side that is fully deserving of intense scrutiny.
- Who rats out their editor to the public, anyway? There are rules within newsrooms that are designed to let newsrooms do the delicate, fact-based, fairness-driven, and sometimes misunderstood work that separates a newsroom from a town hall, or a protest, or a therapy session, or propaganda. One of those is confidentiality, and letting newsroom happenings remain in the newsroom unless and until truth and justice give you no choice but to violate that code. By putting this newsroom decision out to the public, this reporter did journalism overall a disservice. I don’t care how many other television journalists sign on to any petition supporting her grievances.
- For activists like One Human Family, who chose to listen to that disgruntled reporter but selectively disregarded the editor’s decision-making process laid out in many memos, this is a bad example of good faith. It’s also an example of how an over-obsession with Trump literally erases others.
- And for good measure: even if the Trump administration HAD asked CBS to hold the report (no proof of which has yet emerged), you’re naive if you don’t already understand that every single president, and indeed government officials at all levels of government right down to the itty-bitty city council for a rural town of 100 residents, have been trying to pull strings to stop unfavorable coverage throughout all of time. It’s not suddenly an act worthy of protest just because you think Trump did it, too.
As for the over-arching theory that the pattern of Trump trying to squash national celebrities’ shows and influencing giant corporations on their story choices constitutes censorship? Just a reminder that dwelling on that theory, true as it may be, means you’re dwelling in the world of giant corporations, celebrities, and big money. Of privileged people and entities engaging in privileged decisions that affect their privilege more than anything else. That’s not censorship; that’s corporate and celebrity commerce.
After Tuesday’s protest is over, and it’s garnered all the sensational headlines and TV footage it was designed to draw, the protest will have done nothing but revved everyone up for a while and embedded even more suspicion of the media than before, which is exactly what Trump wants.
Once we can get past the distraction of the protest and all the narrative distortions that it helps to circulate, and we can get back to journalism the way it’s supposed to be done, here’s what I believe we’ll have:
- A “60 Minutes” report on CECOT that is strengthened, that actually answers questions for us, or guides us to new ones, rather than just drenching us in the same devastating emotional pain we’ve been drenched in for months over CECOT
- A “60 Minutes” report that holds administration officials’ feet to the fire for their actions or comments, rather than a quick nasty-ass soundbite from Caroline Leavitt
- A revived focus on journalism basics, honoring them, and why that matters more than ever today
- Better journalism all around, hopefully
- And a greater scrutiny of activist drives like this one designed to lather people into an “us versus them” frenzy over something that instead warrants thoughtfulness.
This is not the first time this particular group has thrust itself forth as a judge of journalism. Earlier this year, this same group led a coalition to hold an examination of the state of journalism – an event that featured only male panelists. In this day and age of extreme male domination through our presidential administration and in his policies, holding a “manel” to analyze the state of the media is a lot like asking police officers to comment on police brutality.
Like Tuesday’s case of propaganda packaged as protest, that event was also a mis-step that severely undercut the credibility of OHF and of the progressive movement it has positioned itself to champion in the Quad Cities.
Our community needs progressive activist groups. We need the work that One Human Family claims that it exists to do, work beyond protest after protest after protest. What we don’t need, is what they’re doing Tuesday: fast-food activism that cuts corners and uses shoddy substitutes for the real deal of truth, just to get an easy rise out of a vulnerable community
Enough of the BS.
