Episode Five: “Become Obsolete In The Best Way Possible”

Anita Varma
Founder, Solidarity Journalism Initiative

“Truly the hope is that all of this work becomes obsolete. In the best way possible.”

 Sophie: Hello, Anita. Thank you for being here. How are you today?

Anita: I'm good. Thank you for having me

Sophie: I'm so excited to have you. I think I've said this in another context, but, um solidarity history initiative. I don't know if it's entirely conscious, but we totally stole the name from you . Um, and I hope that's okay.

Anita: Completely. I think it's the highest form of flattery. Uh, so this is really exciting.

[theme song]

Sophie: Welcome. Welcome. Welcome everybody. Welcome to the final episode of our short podcast series. "What is solidarity history?" in which we ask how to apply solidarity to the history work that so many of us are doing.

Over the last four episodes we've talked to all sorts of wonderful and interesting people each one of our guests have told us about the role of solidarity in their work

We've heard about solidarity as showing up for people whose liberation is tied up with yours. We've heard about solidarity among movements. We've heard about solidarity across movements, intergenerational solidarity, how solidarity reaches both backward and forward in time. Indeed how perhaps talking about the past present and future gets a little bit more complicated in relation to the flow of care and intentionality of solidarity history.

We've also heard how solidarity manifests in oral history, performance art, archival practices, journalism and urban planning. .

For this episode, we'll again, touch on journalism, which I think is fitting, right? Because there seems to be so much overlap between the type of history work that we've been talking about and the work of journalism. Our guest today is Anita Varma. Anita is assistant professor in the school of journalism and media at UT Austin.

Among a whole lot of other things Anita also leads the solidarity journalism initiative, which helps journalist, journalism educators, and journalism students improve coverage of marginalized communities. And as you heard at the top of the episode, it is definitely the case that our very own solidarity history initiative owes it's own name and in large sense, our inspiration, to Anita.

Let's start off hearing her explain a little bit more about the solidarity journalism initiative.

Anita: So I lead the Solidarity Journalism Initiative, as you know. I started it at the tail end of 2019 and it's actually based on my doctoral dissertation, which I finished in 2018. And once I finished it, I realized that the audience for it was meant to be academics, but there was also potential, uh, usefulness to journalists who are trying to do the work of covering issues of marginalization and social injustice and trying to do it better than what we've seen historically in journalism. So that's where the seed started from and now I would really think of it as kind of three parts.

So one part of the Solidarity Journalism initiative is continued research on what solidarity in reporting means. How do we know it when it's happening, what is it not? Sometimes we see these sort of empty gestures of solidarity within journalism. Uh, so how do we distinguish those?

And then the second prong would be, Translating that kind of academic research into usable formats for journalists. And that includes web-based resources and workshops and individual consultations.

And then the third piece is getting this term solidarity to be understood a little better in spaces like journalism education, in different kinds of, Educational settings in schools and in conversations about journalism, like journalism training. So many journalists don't go through formal programs to become journalists, but they do often have some professional training that will tell them what terms describe what they're doing.

And so really socializing the concept of solidarity in journalism and encouraging folks to recognize when it might help what they're doing.

Sophie: So I've been thinking deeply about solidarity as it pertains to history work, right? Archival studies oral history, other types of documentation for only about a year. And my understanding has shifted considerably the closer I look.

Anita has been looking very closely at solidarity and journalism for at least the last four years. So I asked her if her understanding of what solidarity looks like in relation to journalism has changed.

Anita: Oh, that's a great question.

So my definition of solidarity journalism tends to stay pretty, firm, but the ways that it manifests out in the world, I think are often changing. So I define solidarity as a commitment to social justice that translates into action and solidarity Journalism is when that action is journalism, but not just any journalism, this would be journalism that prioritizes the perspectives, the firsthand knowledge, the insight from people directly affected by issues of social injustice.

So what that means out in the world can take a lot of forms. So originally I really thought that solidarity journalism meant that journalists had to start and end and have their middle be all about people impacted.

And gradually I started to see that that is one way that solidarity journalism happens, but another way. Is when there could be people outside of those directly impacted also included, but that friction that's happening between, let's say officials and people impacted by issues of marginal marginalization, that could be the story. And depending on how that story is written, it could very much be in solidarity, about the issue at hand.

Another level of solidarity journalism that was sort of in the mix, but I don't think I realized the importance of it until later research, is around the question of what numbers mean. And so you might have some numbers about number of people living unhoused and that number has been released by the city, and the story could be, this is the number.

Or you could have another interpretation of those numbers based on people on the ground who say, well, here's how they counted us, and they missed a bunch of people, and they don't seem concerned about the fact that this is a severe under count. So I think that kind of reporting may not always begin from the on the ground level that classically solidarity journalism starts from.

But I think it would also count. And then the other place that I've found solidarity in action is behind the scenes. So what is happening in conversations that never appear on the page? So that was my first study with Austin-based journalists to understand how they're covering low income housing conditions and unhoused communities.

They do a lot behind the scenes that you would never know from the published product. And so what it means to be doing journalism, of course, some of that is about what's published ultimately, but also definitely about their commitment to non extractive practices behind the scenes. The especially amazing thing that I found in this research is that I would also consider it an act of solidarity of what some of the Austin-based journalists do, which is that they come back to their sources with the published, uh, article or TV segment to show them.

Now, that's never gonna show in an article, hopefully journalists aren't writing an article about how great they are for going back. none of these journalists do report themselves that way. That act of going back, I think it has a lot of power to it, and it's not a dimension of solidarity that I really would've considered originally.

And then the other place that I'm starting to notice more and more are global issues where people who are directly impacted are also doing the reporting and how that can shift things as well. In cases like Sinking Cities is an effort that Unbias the New put together. Other examples of people affected by extreme heat conditions and they're covering extreme heat conditions. That can bring a whole different layer of solidarity into what they're doing and why.

Sophie: When thinking about solidarity, we're always asking solidarity with whom, right? We've discussed solidarity within communities and across communities. Anita's definition of solidarity journalism seems to imply that who a journalist is in solidarity with is contextual. Right? It depends on who the most marginalized people are in the story that's being told.

Anita: So the way I define marginalization or marginalized communities are people who are subjected to conditions not of their own making. Which in some way deny or disrespect their basic humanity. So it's actually a very basic standard that I'm after where people would have access to clean water, they would have clean air, they would have sufficient food and shelter, and really basic levels of public safety. To be able to walk down the street and not fear that you're not gonna come back home after walking down the street. Uh, so at that very basic level, what we see is that absolutely there are intersections between all kinds of axes of identity, of how people develop communities and affiliations. But it's very unlikely that conditions of marginalization abide by really tidy categories.

So we can say that in a particular city there are this many people affected by not having access to clean water, but it's very unlikely that that would be a homogenous group. And the same goes with things like evictions. There's absolutely disproportionate impact of evictions on people of color, but also to recognize that we see those dimensions, right, where members of majority groups may also be affected by eviction.

And that actually means the problem is even worse than if we abide by kind of census categories, which can under count some of the extent of those conditions.

Sophie: I love the idea that attention and care to the most vulnerable populations is the starting point of solidarity. But it's clear that not everybody loves us as much as I do. Solidarity. Journalism does definitely have his detractors within the field of journalism. And I asked Anita about that.

Anita: So solidarity is a really risky term in some journalism context and in some social contexts and in other contexts it's as obvious as, you know, the air we breathe or the water the fish swims in, which is always an interesting tension to work with. So in some spaces, when I say solidarity, folks will say, yeah, what else is new? Obviously of course solidarity.

And then there are other settings where people will say, what are you possibly talking about? We don't do that here. I think you got lost on your way to a protest. And you can imagine that that kind of reaction happens quite a bit in journalism schools, particularly journalism schools that have a long history of really, really urging, encouraging, in some cases, requiring their students to quote unquote, aim to be unbiased.

So in any space, I think where there's some pressure to be quote unquote unbiased, which obviously I don't think is ever truly possible, and I would also say is not truly desirable, there's gonna be some pushback or at least some discomfort with this term solidarity, because it suggests that there's a set of commitments.

So I always have to break some news to people who think that that is unique to solidarity, when in fact every single way of knowing that we have involves a set of commitments. The question is just, are we being upfront about what those commitments are, what those commitments uphold, what those commit challenge. And so it's often that solidarity is kind of positioned against objectivity, neutrality, impartiality, detachment, which have been since the 20th century really lionized as the things we need to pursue in order to get it right, in order to get stories right, in order to get science right, to get history right.

But the unfortunate reality is, well, let me be clear, if objectivity, impartiality and neutrality, detachment, if those things worked to lead us to really rigorous and accurate journalism, I would not see any need to turn to other ideals. But those concepts have led to lots and lots of journalists deferring to officials who have their own set of interests, right?

Objectivity becomes a form of solidarity, not with people affected by injustice, but with people who benefit from injustice. And so I think that we need to be realistic about what those outcomes have been. And I think, frankly, a century plus is long enough for us to know that those ideals don't lead us in the direction that journalism is aiming for, right? Ethical journalism is aiming for.

So I think at the same time though, solidarity has such a long history in journalism that is often either ignored or sort of assimilated into not really being solidarity. So I was just working on this chapter of my book, uh, where I look at how, since the 1830s, there's a narrative that that was the rise of objectivity in the US and it really flourished under a market imperative.

But the reality is that the 1820s and thirties were also the origins of the labor press, of the black press, of, the 1890s the muck rickers are often credited for this scientific approach, but they were also deeply concerned about vulnerable people. And it's not some coincidence that Nelly Bly was concerned about patients who were being forced to eat food with spiders in it.

And child labor conditions were being documented by other muck breakers, which was also the era of Ida B. Wells who had every intention of advancing solidarity for people who were directly impacted by lynching and also directly impacted by ongoing racism. And then as we get into the 20th century, there's a history that claims that it was a race to the middle, that to achieve all the things that the market could provide, journalists said, you know, what we're gonna do as part of news organizations, we're gonna keep it neutral, keep it impartial.

And yet, across every journalism award of the 20th century, journalists were receiving awards for coverage that-- the award ceremony, folks would write these descriptions and it's it's chapter and verse solidarity that's being rewarded, that these journalists have exposed conditions that mean that people working in labor conditions that are inhumane in hospital systems that are negatively impacting vulnerable people, that a wide range of other forms of injustice that journalism had exposed those and prompted change. And so, Exposing and prompting change is exactly solidarity. So I think the history is often misunderstood as something where until recently, solidarity was kind of this small, occasional alternative thing, when in reality it's always permeated.

But I think one thing that has changed is that now two things have happened. One is that with the rise of the digital , solidarity is much more visible, whereas previously, maybe it was easier to limit exposure or limit audiences. And the other aspect is that journalists by and large, who are coming up now are not in it because they think they wish to remain impartial in the face of climate crisis, right? Most journalists are doing journalism because they really, really want to make society a better place, and that brings with it a set of commitments that as far as I've seen, many journalists who are coming up now are not willing to pretend that they don't have commitments. So I think those things change the visibility of something that's been there for a long time.

Sophie: I love how Anita points out that there's always some commitment, right? There's always some type of solidarity happening. One could, for example, write about unhoused populations, quoting only a city's mayor and the wealthy residents who don't like to see encampments. And look at that. You've got yourself a piece of journalism in solidarity with the powerful elite.

So it's not about whether or not you have commitments. It's about how transparent you are about the commitments and who you're committed to

Anita: Right, and I think that's where, you know, this mythology of journalism's independence, I've never found evidence of it. Journalism has never been independent of society. The question is, which aspect of society are they showing their alignment with? With solidarity reporting, they'll show their alignment with people who are really at the base level being negatively impacted. And in other cases, they'll show their alignment with the power structure as it is, and suggest that the worst thing that could happen is for people to march for civil rights, right? Because that challenges the status quo. But in all cases, journalism inevitably has a set of attachments commitments, and it's a product of making judgements. There's no way to do journalism without making judgment. So I think sometimes journalists are made to feel as though they broke the rules when they somehow displayed that they made a judgment or displayed a commitment, when in fact, that is what journalism does.

The question is just which direction are you gonna do it?

The thing that I was writing about this week, and that part of my book is that it would have to be a wild coincidence, right? If it was just, we just so happened to award solidarity from the dates are 1928 to 2021. The Pulitzer Prizes just keep giving awards and their description of why they're giving the award is, I mean, they, they absolutely describe solidarity. So I think that it's just the endurance of that is also really once you see it, you can't unsee it. But yeah, I think that it's definitely a triumph of solidarity that even amidst the objectivity smoke screens, there's still this, this success of journalism that matters, that has these commitments.

That's the other thing, that there is no such thing as a journalism award for remaining objective in the face of human suffering. There's no journalism award for maintaining neutrality when people's basic humanity is being denied.

There's no journalism award that says, we gave this award for this journalism series because it displayed such detachment from basic humanity. There's no such thing . So I think that speaks volumes about what the profession itself wants to elevate. Because if they wanted to, they could have said, look, you all are exceptional cases you have no place in journalism award discussions. But instead they said, this is the journalism that matters. So I, I see it as a lack of clear vocabulary rather than a genuine change in what journalism is aiming to do. Unlike, I would say, I really respect people who are part of the positive news movement who are urging journalists to report more positive news.

That is a new direction for journalism to take if they take it. Whereas solidarity has been the direction for a while now. The encouragement that I try to push for is for us to all understand what solidarity is and to do it more intentionally.

Sophie: Given the history of journalism and the ever-present, if often ignored and denied presence of solidarity. I asked Anita what she'd like to see change. What a world would she like to see emerge from the work of the solidarity journalism initiative? How people would create and engage in journalism and decades to come.

Anita: I would love for them to live in a world much sooner than five or six decades from now, but definitely by then where it would seem confusing that there was ever a need for a solidarity journalism initiative. Because if we think about so many things that we take for granted, right, especially in this country, we might find it strange if someone said, you know what?

I'm gonna start, it's gonna be called, uh, Citizens should vote initiative. Right. And the whole point is to say, and to emphasize that citizens should vote. Now we have a lot of efforts right around making sure that people have access, that voting rights are protected. But that's a little different than just saying we need to socialize and popularize the idea of voting

And you know, it wasn't that many generations ago where that would've been a really, a really timely and important initiative to have. But that time is not, is no longer now. I think it's pretty normalized that voting is, is something that people are concerned about, whether they do it or not. And so I would hope that in five or six decades that the idea of solidarity in journalism seems completely obvious to people.

And I think one of the great achievements of that that I hope to see, Is for journalists who have been told, you know, you're not really doing journalism. You're doing something in solidarity. That's not real journalism. That's unprofessional, that instead, when we look back, we would see and consider that people who were not enacting solidarity for social justice to consider them the ones who were not doing true journalism. They were doing some strategic communication work for police departments. They were doing some political communication work to amplify officials who were in elected offices. But that, that would be what we look back on and say, well, that wasn't really journalism.

So the hope is that it would seem very confusing that there was ever such a thing as a solidarity journalism initiative, and that it would just be normalized as a definition of journalism that, you know, really reaches an ethical standard.

But truly the hope is that all of this work becomes obsolete. In the best way possible.

[theme song]

Sophie: I'm so thankful for Anita for taking the time to talk about solidarity, journalism with us, and to add her wisdom and experience to this project. As I mentioned before, this is our final episode. So I should just say a couple of things about how I think it went right?. this podcast project is an attempt for me to learn what I should be doing as a history worker.

After stepping away from my job as a librarian slash archivist, after starting a whole bunch of part-time jobs to keep myself afloat while devoting time to figuring this out.

This has been so meaningful to me. Big big, thanks to all of our guests. Thank you, Natalie. Nia. Thank you, Ray. Thank you, Jasmine. Thank you, Victoria. Thank you, Anita. Thank you Andrew. For donating the original music to our project. Thank you, Caroline. For lending your voice in previous episodes.

Now at this point, I'm off to continue working with a solidarity history initiative to bring these principles and insights to our history in documentation work. You can follow along by finding us on Mastodon, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

You can support us on Patrion. You can drop us a note through our website. I hope you'll be in touch. We've got a lot of great things coming and we feel much more in tune to what we should be doing.

Thanks everyone. It's been fun.