Every day, and in too many ways to accurately enumerate, credentialed members of the legacy/mainstream media provide fresh impetus to maintain the public’s distrust. It’s almost like they enjoy poking news consumers in the eye.
Just kidding. I worked in daily newspaper newsrooms (and press boxes) for more than 40 years. For some of my colleagues, there was no “almost like” to it. They genuinely relished the entire eye-poking process, even as they shrouded their intentions in both-sides reporting.
The current generation doesn’t even bother to camouflage the business. Every dawn brings fresh opportunities to play gotcha with disfavored groups, organizations, and people.
With so many striving for that look-at-me moment, it takes extra-special effort to stand out from the crowd. And that is why, on this first day of August 2023, we tip our caps to Ana Ceballos, a politics and policy reporter for the Miami Herald, who soared above the steamy hubbub Monday night by posting this to Elon Musk’s X machine:
Invite comes in official letterhead from taxpayer-funded office https://t.co/AUK5bAY7Uc
— Ana Ceballos (@anaceballos_) August 1, 2023
Horrors! The humanity! The sacrilege! Is there no level of the swamp to which this man, Ron DeSantis, will not stoop? Official letterhead! From a taxpayer-supported office! Challenging the very Vice President of These United States to a debate! Cajole Kamala Harris?! How brash! How brazen! Somebody get those articles of impeachment drafted stat!
The response from the universe formerly known as Twitter was swift and brutal — often comically so. (This is the thing about the modern media landscape: Those accustomed to doing the poking get poked back, and then some.) Here’s a sampling.
She flew in to Florida on a taxpayer-funded jet and attacked taxpayer-funded curriculum. Damn straight he busted out the gubernatorial stationery.
— Florida Dad (@FloridadadD) August 1, 2023
I can't believe our governor wants to talk about our government with another government official about stuff going on in the state of Florida and in sending the communication USED THE OFFICIAL LETTERHEAD! 😱
Grab the smelling salts and the clutching pears! We're gonna need…
— Helena Handbasket 🐊 (@hobbes16) August 1, 2023
Congrats on proving why few people trust your media anymore. Your bias is so so blatantly obvious.
— Reality Steve (@steveamac) August 1, 2023
Most of those responding advanced the point Reporter Ceballos somehow missed (or dodged, or ignored): Harris, as vice president, has on multiple occasions berated Florida — and, by extension, DeSantis — for its recently released standards for social studies.
When a government official criticizes a duly adopted policy openly debated and reviewed and approved by a government board (the Florida Department of Education in this case), it benefits the public when government officials accountable for the disagreement agree to argue in a forum accessible to all. And, precedent notwithstanding, it’s better to propose doing so formally, on proper official stationery, and not some grandstanding social media post.
Not in Reporter Ceballos’ world, apparently.
At particular issue, as followers of the hubbub know well, is a single clause in the 216-page document that notes that some Black slaves acquired skills they were able to use for personal benefit.
The record on this is abundantly clear, and has been corroborated both by the College Board’s AP African American Studies standards, as well as a then-wildly popular touring exhibit sponsored by the Library of Congress in the middle 1990s, Back of the Big House: The Cultural Landscape of the Plantation:
The services of slave blacksmiths, carpenters, coopers, shoemakers, tanners, spinners, weavers and other artisans were all used to keep plantations running smoothly, efficiently, and with little added expense to the owners. These same abilities were also used to improve conditions in the quarters so that slaves developed not only a spirit of self-reliance but experienced a measure of autonomy. These skills, when added to other talents for cooking, quilting, weaving, medicine, music, song, dance, and storytelling, instilled in slaves the sense that, as a group, they were not only competent but gifted. Slaves used their talents to deflect some of the daily assaults of bondage. They saw themselves then as strong, valuable people who were unjustly held against their will rather than as the perpetually dependent children or immoral scoundrels described by so many of their owners.
The passage above reflects a people who, despite lives burdened by unspeakable injustice, found the wherewithal to test their resourcefulness and embrace their personal nobility.
William B. Allen, a Black American who also is professor emeritus of political science at Michigan State University, was a member of the working group that assembled the Florida standards. As he recently told NPR’s Steve Inskeep:
[T]hose who were held in slavery possess[ed] skills, whether they developed them before being held in slavery, while being held in slavery or subsequently to being held in slavery, from which they benefited when they applied themselves in the exertion of those skills. That’s not a statement that is at all controversial. The facts sustain it. The testimonies of the people who lived the history sustain it.
In a separate interview, Allen — who lives now in Fernandina Beach — told ABC, “It is the case that Africans proved resourceful, resilient, and adaptive, and were able to develop skills and aptitudes which served to their benefit, both while enslaved and after enslaved.”
Harris is having none of it. And so, aboard Air Force Two, with the seal of her office prominently displayed, she came to Florida last week to rip on the standards drafted by a team of Black scholars, notably burning tractor-trailer loads of taxpayer funds in the process.
Did Reporter Ceballos mention that? Let’s see. Here’s her retweet about Harris’ planned return to Florida today for another round of distorting the Sunshine State standards.
Eyeing an opening against DeSantis, Harris plans to ramp up her attacks on his education policies tomorrow with her second visit to Florida in less than two weeks (w/ @KMaxGreenwood) https://t.co/YGvbZfAhcg
— Michael Wilner (@mawilner) August 1, 2023
Note the photo from last week’s appearance in Jacksonville. There’s the vice presidential seal. There’s the vice presidential flag in the background. What does Reporter Ceballos fail to mention at any point? Bingo: Harris is using the trappings of her taxpayer-supported public office in hopes of scoring political points against a potential Republican rival for the White House in 2024.
But DeSantis’ office printed out a copy of a letter on the governor’s letterhead. And that, for a Miami Herald journalist reporting on politics and policy, is the scandal.
Turnabout is fair play? That’s for suckers.
