Recently, a journalist (who I found out in interview is a student) who I had to tell not to use my quotes bc a boundary was crossed, asked me if I would field questions (i.e. unpaid consultation) for her article

bc paying subjects is “aGAinST EtHicaL cODe” (@ all journalists)

I want to caveat this with she was very thoughtful during interview, well intentioned - I didn’t feel uncomfortable talking to her, but I do wish had disclosed to me that she was a student - who I avoid bc of the strict academic guidelines I firmly disagree with.

Ethics should be a living, breathing, unfolding, constantly adapting method - not an inherited code decades old.

Journalism, documentary, and other subjective media forms should be better informed by now as we turn a more intense lens on the trauma of colonialism and imperialism

I say this from a both Indigenous and Rromani lens, as well as that of a criminalized sex worker; these engimatic archetypal identities, which we see imposed upon often by media makers of all kinds, carry a clear transcribable history that should INFORM practices of ethnography

Understanding that the “documentary” has an embedded history in the colonization of N Amer, placing the “objective” colonizer as a superior observer to the subject of the “savage.” Western narratives were then imposed on FN ppl, bc clnzrs couldn’t conceive of any other reality.

Along with this history, we also see the agency of FN people, aware of being recorded, defying the direction of the filmmaker, embedding their own communication of and for FN people and descendants through history, allowing us access to preserving our languages, cultures, rituals

The thing is that objectivity is a myth, and subjective media pieces will communicate in different ways to different peoples “initiated” into differing levels of understanding - some NOT MEANT for the writer.

This kind of work is *collaborative* and should be treated that way

This is why I need to see, edit, and approve a work I’m quoted in before it’s published

This is also why I (or anyone who’s become Subject to a journalistic or documentary endeavor) should be PAID FOR THEIR LABOR of educating, consulting, communicating, COLLABORATING

We now live in an era where power of documenting actually lies in the hands of people being documented, while the “outside observer” narrative is dissolving

Journalists can get with a community minded ethic, or die in the dust of old white men *cough* Curtis, Boas, Perrault...

Basically tho, if anyone wants to collab on a guide for a Future Ethics of Journalism living document or like creative commons publication idk, hmuuuu

also want to say that this journalist is not like my PRIME EXAMPLE OF UGH, just like... one of many pieces of straw on my back after the past six months of constant media requests and nonconsensual documentation - I really appreciate that she respected my ask to remove quotes

something most of the journalists who I’ve worked with wouldn’t do because *their ethics oppose it* so... if u read this, unnamed journalist, I hope you don’t feel totally @‘d and that maybe this smol experience w a jaded ol hooker can inform your development as a journalist <3