The 243rd Block: On the media, democracy, science, health, and the environment
Five things as we enter Year 5 of The Starting Block
This week…
Your reading time is about 5 minutes and it’s going to be a little bit different. I’m going to keep it short. Let me just share a few things from this year that I think you would like to tide you over to the new year—these five topics have been the typical focus of my journalism, and the focus of this newsletter (well, sometimes I have lost my bearing tbh lol idek).
Your Wikipedia this week: Media imperialism
ICYMI: The Previous Block was about how the media and tech industries changed so much, it didn’t really change at all. Something something horseshoe theory.
CORRECTION NOTICE: None notified.THE INTERNET
What’s it like to be a refugee in the UK without internet access? Mostly impossible – and often unbearable
Joel Mordi, as told to Lucy Pasha-Robinson in The Guardian:
My early years in Nigeria were tough. Since childhood, I always knew I was different. At school, I suffered merciless bullying for being LGBT+. Where I grew up, there was no yearly celebration of difference – but I had been to Pride in London and the US, and knew how influential it could be to show young people that being LGBT+ is nothing to be ashamed of.
In 2019, I launched Nigeria’s first month-long Pride protest in Lagos and Abuja. But soon after, I realised I had been identified as a person of interest by the government. It was no longer safe for me to stay in Nigeria and in November 2019, I fled persecution to the UK.
I arrived just months before the first Covid lockdown, and was unaware how much life was about to change for me. I was taken to a detention centre where my phone was confiscated. For five days, I was held there without any meaningful contact with the outside world. I was bullied and sexually assaulted by other detainees. The Home Office gave me a dumb phone to make calls and texts. But I couldn’t access the internet with it – I was completely isolated.
Housing, banking, job applications, doctor’s appointments… Everything is managed online these days. Originally published on 13 March 2024.
THE MEDIA
Failing Gaza: Behind the lens of Western media
Richard Gizbert on Al Jazeera:
When political leaders speak of genocide, they repeat a timeworn mantra: “Never again.”
Over the past year, for the Palestinians of Gaza, “again” has become reality – mass casualties broadcast almost in real time by its victims.
This film is about an alternative version of that reality – the one told by major Western news organisations – and how it has provided cover for Israel’s war on Gaza.
Based on interviews with more than a dozen insiders, it lifts the curtain on the inner workings of agenda-setting outlets like CNN, the BBC and The New York Times.
First aired on 5 October, 2024—and not very much has changed.
PUBLIC HEALTH
A manifesto against for-profit health insurance companies
Michael Moore:
It’s been three days since Luigi Mangione’s manifesto was discovered in his backpack explaining why he assassinated the CEO of United HealthCare.
In Mangione’s manifesto, he said that he was not the “most qualified person to lay out the full argument” against our for-profit healthcare industry. Apparently, to Mangione, one of those qualified people — is me. In his manifesto, he references how I’ve “illuminated the corruption and greed,” implying folks should go to my work to understand the complexity — and the power-hungry abuse — within our current system.
It’s not often that my work gets a killer five-star review from an actual killer. And thus, my phone has been ringing off the hook which is bad news because my phone doesn’t have a hook. Emails are pouring in. Text messages. Requests from many in the media. The messages all sound something like this:
“Luigi mentioned you in his manifesto. That people should listen to you. Will you come on our show, or talk to our reporter and tell them that you condemn murder!?”
Hmmm. Do I condemn murder? That’s an odd question. In Fahrenheit 9/11, I condemned the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi people and the senseless murder of our own American soldiers at the hands of our American government.
In Bowling for Columbine, I condemned the murder of 50,000 Americans every year at the hands of our gun industry and our politicians who do nothing to stop it.
Moore ended the piece, written on 13 December 2024, by inviting everyone reading it to watch his movie, SICKO, provided for free, and then, join him in “condemning this murderous health insurance system.”
THE ENVIRONMENT | EL MEDIO AMBIENTE
Una alianza indígena transfronteriza trabaja para salvar la Amazonía
Francesc Badia i Dalmases en Pulitzer Center/Mongabay:
A bordo viajan dos líderes indígenas, Uyunkar Domingo Peas, del pueblo Achuar de Ecuador, y Wrays Pérez Ramírez, de la nación Wampís de Perú. Se dirigen a visitar comunidades de los pueblos indígenas Kandozi y Kickwa, tras participar en la Asamblea General de la Alianza de las Cuencas Sagradas del Amazonas en Tarapoto, en el departamento de San Martín, Perú. La colaboración de pueblos indígenas y organizaciones de la sociedad civil de ambos países busca proteger de forma permanente más de 35 millones de hectáreas, hogar de 600.000 personas de más de 30 nacionalidades y pueblos indígenas históricamente unidos por los ríos que interconectan sus territorios, y sus vidas.
“Nuestro concepto es Amazonia/ser vivo, que tiene una conexión espiritual con el mundo indígena,” dice Domingo Peas. “O nos unimos frente al formidable desafío de la crisis climática que está arruinando nuestro mundo y el planeta entero, o sucumbimos.”
Publicado el 23 de diciembre de 2024. Read in English here.
THE FAR RIGHT | L’EXTRÊME DROITE
White Power | Au cœur de l’extrême droite européenne
Christophe Cotteret dans Arte:
En Europe, l’extrême droite s’installe progressivement dans le paysage politique. Mais derrière une façade de plus en plus lisse se cache une idéologie demeurée fondamentalement raciste et violente. Une enquête implacable au sein d’un écosystème de la haine.
Les élections européennes de 2024 ont confirmé qu’une vague brune déferle sur l’Europe : 31 % pour le Rasemblement national (RN), 15,9 % pour l’Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), 14,5 % pour le Vlaams Belang belge... Derrière des façades plus souriantes et policées qu'autrefois, et la respectabilité proclamée par leurs têtes d’affiche Marine Le Pen, Alice Weidel et Tom Van Grieken, ces partis restent liés à une idéologie violente, profondément xénophobe et raciste, inspirée des théories suprémacistes du nazisme ou du Ku Klux Klan.
Publié le 27 août 2024, disponible jusqu’au 2 juin 2025.
Enjoy the rest of the year. Gracias por leer. À l'année prochaine.