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THREAD: I've spent much of the past month covering the free speech/anti-racism controversy @Princeton, so I was rly excited yesterday to see the story in @TheAtlantic. Lots than can be said here, but here's my 2 cents on the piece's journalistic practices. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/what-princeton-professors-really-think-about-defining-racism/614911/
1. How do you write a ~2500 word piece about the faculty letter on anti-racism and the discourse surrounding it without speaking with a single Black student/prof/alum and including their perspective? (2/7)
2. I know (b/c I've talked to them) that there are signatories of the letter willing to go on the record defending the demand for a faculty committee on anti-racism and/or speak about their support for the letter generally — @esglaude, @platanoclassics, Tracy Smith, others (3/7)
Check out some of their thoughts in my past coverage for @princetonian: https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2020/07/joshua-katz-black-justice-league-terrorist-organization-quillette-letter-princeton (4/7)
The fact that only 17/350 signatories (!!) agreed to provide comment for this piece (and most of the 17 seem to regret signing) gets painted as representative. Implication: those who didn’t respond to request for comment did so b/c they, too, regret (5/7) https://twitter.com/kcjohnson9/status/1290722640651603970?s=20
But perhaps the author just didn't succeed in gaining the signatories' trust that their voices/perspectives would be reported honestly? A clue: how he describes the process via which he reached out to speak with them. Hard hitting is one thing... leading is another. (6/7)
Generally: I learned several interesting, valuable, and doubtlessly real perspectives from this piece and really appreciate having read it. Take my thoughts with a grain of salt, b/c after all, I’m just a 20-year-old trying my best here to report on this issue. (7/7)
