Thread by @IBJIYONGI

I’m disappointed at the number of people in Aura Bogado’s mentions who are giving her a hard time about not reporting #FamilySeparation content that is told to her off the record. A note about how journalism works:

First of all, Aura is one of the people who has been at the forefront of breaking stories about abuse of children during these family separations. She’s a goddamn national hero (yes immigrants can be those too!), and she and her team deserve a Pulitzer for it.

Second of all, just because the NYT basically says “we protect off the record sources and also on the record sources” doesn’t mean that’s how journalism is supposed to work. When someone is off the record it means the journalist is giving their word not to publish what’s said

“But how dare she protect these child abusers!” You foolishly say. But look, all a journalist has is their word. There are many reasons content might stay off the record, including protecting an at risk family member, an at risk child.

Off and on record give witnesses power too. Like you can say, “I will go on the record only if you give me anonymity.” With serious shit like child separations, there are powerful people who don’t want these stories to get out. So protecting witnesses is paramount.

Also, ppl like Aura are trying to report more and more of the story as they’re able to verify and meet other standards of journalistic integrity. The moment they blow up their relationships by publishing stuff they agreed not to, they can’t report anymore. No one will trust them.

Aura saying there is more off the record stuff should NOT be interpreted as, “she’s protecting a collaborator.” She may be protecting someone who lives next door to a building being used to imprison and torture children. Given who is involved, lives may be on the line.

And if someone at DHS *is* feeding her info — we currently need that. We need whistle blowers. Off the record helps nurture relationships with whistle blowers and helps point journalists in the right direction.

So lay the fuck off and if you need to say something to Aura, let it be “thank you for doing this harrowing, first amendment-protected work to save children’s lives.”

Also: the NYT is protecting collaborators like Stephen Miller by refusing to report *on the record* audio, so maybe harass them instead

Also please consider that all of this must be hard on the people doing the report. They, more than us, are coming face to face with the evil that is DHS’s family separation policies and HHS’s collaboration with it:

https://twitter.com/aurabogado/status/1015233093559468040?s=21