This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features the co-editor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, site of the Florida mass slaying, telling her truth on the media that it is a “form of activism.”
Appearing on CNN’s Reliable Sources during the weekend of anti-gun protests in Washington, Rebecca Schneid, co-editor-in-chief of the Eagle Eye, said the purpose of journalism is to be a change agent.
Host Brian Stelter interviewed her the day after she participated in the “March for Our Lives.”
Parkland students interview Bernie Sanders: ‘Your generation has the power to change America’ https://t.co/uxKfNw7beP
— Rebecca Schneid (@becca_schneid) March 23, 2018
The exchange on the March 25 edition of Reliable Sources on CNN:
Brian Stelter: Rebecca, I wonder what yesterday felt like for you because I see a lot of Parkland students becoming activists, but you all were there as journalists. Do you see a difference right now between journalism and activism and what you’re doing?
Some of my favorite signs from the March. ✊?✊? This is the revolution. #MarchforOurLives pic.twitter.com/q2aB1wkkWK
— Rebecca Schneid (@becca_schneid) March 25, 2018
Rebecca Schneid: I think that for me, the purpose of journalism is to raise, you know, the voices of people that maybe don’t have a voice and so, I think that in its own right journalism is a form of activism. And I think that there is distinctions for me, you know as a journalist and also as someone that wants to demand change, but I think that the partnership of the two is the only reason that we are able to make a change.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “The press corps have enthusiastically embraced the anti-gun rights sentiments of the high schoolers behind the ‘March for Our Lives’ while maintaining they are just covering the facts. High school journalist Rebecca Schneid, however, has shown the next generation of journalists may be more astute than their elders, recognizing how many members of the media really are activists using journalism to advance a political agenda.”
