Will nonprofit newsrooms be transparent about their donors (after holding others to that standard)? "Language Justice" at DPS. And, because it's Friday, a murmuration of starlings.
The press love to point out a lack of transparency in political donations, will they hold themselves to that same standard?
Matthew 7:5 (New King James Version):
Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Take a look at the screenshot attached. It comes from the odds and ends section of a media newsletter I'm subscribed to.
If you're not familiar, the news outlet it mentions, The Colorado Times Recorder, is so progressive it makes CPR and the Colorado Sun look positively middle of the road. The other bit of context here is that both the reporters and the tone of the paper are beyond self-righteous.
Thus the Bible verse at the top; I have more than once seen them on social media chiding people and organizations about their lack of transparency.
If you want to read up more on their financials I put a link to what was hyperlinked in the screenshot first below.
This sort of thing is EXACTLY one of the problems I am concerned about with nonprofit newsrooms. Unlike for-profit news organizations which use advertising to pay the bills or places like CompleteColorado where you know they're sponsored by a particular organization, nonprofit 501(c)3's that don't have to disclose their donors are free to take in money and not share anything about who and why.
The news orgs that take donations swear there is no editorial control from donors, but I'd still like to know who's giving (and will then evaluate the reliability of this claim on its merits--besides the obvious logic that asks why one would hide a donor if they don't have influence).
We have seen with politics that dark money can creep in and buy up a whole bunch of influence without any sort of transparency or accountability. It's not far-fetched that donors might seek the same in a news organization.
Maybe they'd like to "buy" a paper to influence its content. Maybe they'd like to make sure that a paper whose voice they think useful is uplifted (when the market would have normally culled it). In either case it's monied interests turning handles in the dark without you and I aware of who is doing the turning.
I say that if we shouldn't tolerate this from politicians, we shouldn't from news organizations. At least not from ones that would like to claim themselves as independent news organizations.
Last little niblets.
The Colorado Sun just joined the ranks of nonprofit 501(c)3 news rooms. In email correspondence (see earlier posts) with the editor, they have pledge to reveal donors to the (my term) reasonable limit. That is, perhaps they won't publish the names of those that give $5, but maybe the ones that give $1000.
Mr. Ryckman, the editor promised a public policy on this to be forthcoming. I'll update as I know.
And CPR still has yet to reveal (to my knowledge, correct me if I'm wrong) who donated the millions for their new Denver buildling.
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/841267408
https://coloradosun.com/2023/12/05/colorado-sun-nonprofit/
"Language Justice" at Denver Public Schools
If you're anything like me, it's likely that those words up there (or any other "[fill in the blank] Justice") flip a switch in your brain that connects directly to the circuit that says, "God almighty, another one?"
I would urge you to, as I have to remind myself to, not give in to that impulse, but first investigate what SPECIFICALLY that term means.
It may still be absolute nonsense, but if you intend to join the conversation, it is not to your benefit to stay at the level of terms. It is much more effective to argue policies; if you stay at the level of the labels it's easy to dismiss what you think as just more culture warrior noise.
You need to, in other words, read beyond things like you see in the Center Square story. It simply doesn't have enough detail.
Let me pin this down specifically with a couple examples.
I am perfectly okay with school materials headed to parents and school meetings offering languages other than English. Every parent needs a chance to be involved in their child's education and I'm okay with the added expense here. I.e. that ethical value trumps the cost for me.
I think that it is wise to speak more than one language and I'm okay with teaching other languages to EVERYONE at school. Still, I do not think it at all wise nor (in reality) feasible to give instrution in all subjects in a variety of languages. Consider first just the cost, logistics, and decisions on where you put the boundaries! I mean, do you hire instructors or translators for the one kid speaking Russian? For the 20 Vietnamese speakers?
Now consider what the outcome might be. I might feel culturally honored if I'm taught in my own language, but am I prepared to work, contribute, and be a fully engaged and informed citizen in an English speaking country?
In search of hard details, I did actually look up the policy mentioned in the Center Square article. It's linked second below. Stand For Children's take on it was also linked in the story, so I put it third below.
With regard solely to the topic of this post (there is more there that is specific if you care to look around since the DPS plan has more than just language justice in the mix) the actual details on how language justice will be sought and how it will be achieved (even how we know we've arrived at full justice) are scant.
Mainly what you see is what you see when you read things like this. Definitions. Lots of definitions and jargon.
If I look through the table of goals for DPS, the only things that explicitly mention language or related terms are excerpted into the screenshot (note the rows are not contiguous in my screenshot). Reading those things, they seem pretty mild to me. Trying to get more people that either don't speak English or don't speak it as a first language to participate and have their voices heard is hardly controversial to me (depending, of course, on implementation).
Fitting within what I've noted as a pattern with regard to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion things, this document and the blog post by Stand For Children are long on talk and short on action. As I've written before, I can't help but be suspicious that this is intentional because tangible, implementable policy would be controversial enough to be off-putting to most. Thus we "hide the ball".
However, I can't read minds, and I'm not willing to engage on semantics because I think it's a waste of time. I hope you, if you don't fully agree, at least see the wisdom in waiting until you have something to talk about before having the discussion.
I'll keep watching, and, if you have a child in DPS and are worried about things like this, I urge you to do the same. If you hear something and don't see it here, please share.
https://www.thecentersquare.com/colorado/article_13d0ae60-893e-11ee-b736-97b64b2303cc.html
https://go.boarddocs.com/co/dpsk12/Board.nsf/files/CXLV3T7EBA8F/$file/23-24%20Ends%201%20-%20Equity%20DRAFT.pdf
https://stand.org/colorado/our-stories/language-justice-in-dps-where-we-are-and-where-we-are-headed/
Starlings don't look cute and they don't melodiously, but I'll be damned if they're not talented singers and mimics.
That time of the week again. Last post til Sunday and so that means something for fun, a curiosity.
Starlings are an invasive species released in the US by a fan of Shakespeare a long while back. He let them go in New York's Central park and they've spread across the country ever since.
They are cavity nesters like woodpeckers (they live inside things), but usually don't make their own cavities so they can be harmful to native birds that are cavity nesters. They are also (and this I can attest to personally having seen them at the birdbath in my yard) pretty aggressive and team up with each other well, making them hard to fend off I'm sure.
Still they are quite talented as singers producing song and sound that is, if not beautiful, quite complex. If you have any in your area, listen to them some time. Stop and really listen trying to pick apart all the different sounds that they make and you'll see what I mean.
One other habit they have is that starlings will often take bits and pieces of other birds' songs and incorporate them into their own repertoire. If raised by humans absent natural bird songs to pick from, they take their incredible talent and put it to use mimicking human speech.**
YouTube has tons of videos on this, but I put a neat one first below that shows both mimicking human speech and whistling (I've seen ones too with a bird using camera sound effects and beeps).
Despite their bad behavior and the threat they pose to native birds (thus I do not put out food for them), I can still appreciate wild nature and it's frequent that will sit and watch/listen to clouds of them in the neighbors' trees gossiping at each other in the early morning and evening.
Seeing them all take off and fly away in a swarm is quite striking. It actually has a fancy word: murmuration. I put a video showing a BIG one second below if you'd like to see.
Well, that's it. You got a new word to impress friends with.
Have a good Friday and back at it Sunday.
**They don't have any knowledge of the meaning of the sounds they copy, they just copy.