Journalists and their sociopolitical opinions on Twitter

I think you run a serious risk of pissing off half your readers by spouting political viewpoints. When I was a SE, I never posted about politics on Twitter and restricted my occasional political posts to friends on FB. I've completely stopped commenting on politics online because I'm not going to persuade anyone and no one is going to change my mind either. It becomes a pointless shouting match.

Even though I cover a state legislature, I refrain completely from offering any commentary on either platform unless it is in a designated opinion column.

If you read my Twitter wanting my opinion on the issues of the day, all you're going to get are links to my stories, breaking news and weather pictures. It's a boring policy, but nothing good comes out of sharing your view on a controversial topic on Twitter.

 

I agree it's a good policy.

But I think some sportswriters very much think they're good that comes out of sharing political opinions on Twitter - so long as they are the correct progressive ones - and that good is the acceptance of other journalists.

Which I suspect matters much more to some journalists - especially young ones who work nationally - than what their readers think.

You see it on this board, where a concern or critique of the left is met with a GFY attitude.

 

Isn't that at all.

People are tired of being fed bullshit lies.

We get better service from his McDonald's than from his government.

Above all the Trump regime was a failure of imagination.

 

Eh. I write that it's paramount for kids to be in school and that's "clueless." I'm insane. Not according to American Academy of Pediatrics.

U.S. Pediatricians Call For In-Person School This Fall

Their recommendation is too late, I suspect.

Even if my philosophical loyalties - hell, my theological ones - lean more left than right, the left is drunk on emotions, fake piety, and self-righteousness that makes the right - a Pontius Pilate operation if there ever was one - look more measured than it should.

 

I've read and worked columns that argue the same. I agree and don't care if that's seen as clueless.

We need to move heaven and earth to get them back to school. There are developmental issues at play.

 

As far as I can tell, the opposition to sending primary and secondary school students back to in-person school does not fall into a left-right divide. It comes from teachers and other school staff members concerned about their own health.

 

No. The opposition is the lack of political will to this point and vague, decentralized fear. You poll teachers, and I've polled the ones I know, and it's 85-90%, let's roll. This ain't a teacher thing.

This is probably better discussed on the rona thread but, seriously, the last month has not been a real good one in the US. A lot of frittering around. Lots of eyes taken on the ball. Trump's to blame some, other stuff, too, but it's only this week that a lot of people are pulling their heads out of their asses and saying "oh, yeah, school."

 

Just the last month?

And my wife is a teacher and I can tell you she's not casually ready to roll in September. Way too many unknowns.

 

Bet that's a real scientific poll you got there.

A half dozen people in one city - hell, I'll give you a dozen people in a couple states - say to start school in the fall.

Nevermind that teachers in a different state might disagree. Or that teachers even in the next district might disagree. Or maybe young teachers are for it while the 55-year-old science teacher is more hesitant. Maybe English teachers are cool with it but special education teachers, who might have to be more hands-on, are not. Same with high school, where teens understand social distancing even if they don't always comply, versus elementary school.

All of this is just a long-winded way of saying you are once again throwing shit against the wall just to perpetuate your absurd board moralist and contrarian act.

 

It's important to get kids back in school.

The children need it; parents are at their wits' end; a functioning economy requires it.

The question remains how. What's the plan?

Journalism's function, local or national, is to keep asking that question.

 

I could be a lot of things. I’m not really a moralist. It is not being moralist to think poor children, and their working parents, may be considerably hampered by some 2-days-in, 3-days-out plan. Or to consider in-person education essential.

Of course the poll is unscientific. But my argument suggests teachers are willing to do what’s needed, to be the kind of heroes needed, to get kids back in school.

 

Guarantee you that where I am, teachers are not ready to roll. Do they want to? Yes. But not blindly, not without a plan and not in a way that creates danger for them. The Palm Beach County teachers, for example, are being quite vocal about not wanting to return. So, to say the three, five, seven? teachers that you know are 'damn the torpedos, full speed ahead,' is sophomoric, at best.