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We hear about the mass killings in America.

We see the after effects - the police cordons, the funerals, the bereft families who have lost loved ones. But usually we don't witness the horror.

"For now, words will have to stand for images we'll probably never see, and to be clear, I don't want to see those images. I don't want to take those images. But even more, I never want this to happen again." So wrote New York Times photojournalist Damon Winter recently, after covering the mass killing at the Tree of Life synagog in Pittsburgh. How do you capture such a tragedy? Winter noted that the images he shot in Pittsburgh "have become all too familiar, scenes that could as easily be from Parkland, Orlando, Las Vegas, Newtown, Aurora, Columbine, places whose names have become shorthand for the tragedies that have befallen them."

"They depict intense suffering and genuine grief, but they also make it easier for us to swallow and over time we become numb," wrote Winter. "They give cover to politicians who offer thoughts and prayers and then do nothing."

This week we spotlighted Winter's essay, along with images from Pittsburgh by National Geographic photographer Lynn Johnson. Covering the tragedy, she explained, was personal for her. "I was born here," she said. "This is my hometown. One thinks it can never happen in your hometown." Johnson, noted Nat Geo, lived in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill enclave - where the synagog is located - for seven years when she was a photographer for the Pittsburgh Press. Among the 11 people killed in the massacre were two brothers, Cecil and David Rosenthal, who lived at the end of her street.

Again: How do you capture such a tragedy?

At first, Johnson couldn't do it. "I walked up to one of the temples where one of the funerals was and I turned around and walked away. I called and said 'I'm not doing this,'" Johnson recalled.

Only days later there was another killing to report on - this one in a college bar in Thousand Oaks, California, that took the lives of 12. The gunman, identified as Ian David Long, a 28-year-old Marine veteran who was cleared by a mental-health specialist after an encounter with police earlier this year, was found dead inside after apparently killing himself, noted The Washington Post.

The American College of Physicians released a paper suggesting an epidemic of mass murders be considered a public health crisis and advocating gun control. The National Rifle Association wasn't having any of it.

"Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane," the NRA tweeted.

But as BuzzFeed noted this week, doctors began pushing back, not only with words, but with pictures - the kinds of pictures we usually don't see, the gruesome images showing what it's like to treat shooting victims.

"Do you have any idea how many bullets I pull out of corpses weekly? This isn't just my lane," Judy Melinek, a forensic pathologist, noted on Twitter. "It's my fucking highway."

Here are some of the other photo stories we spotlighted this week:
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1. How Photos Evolved Underwater
2. The Invisible Toll of Skin Conditions
3. How Hip-Hop Learned to Pose for the Camera
4. Russian Neopagans Go Mainstream
5. Vivian Maier's Color Work

What's the most famous underwater photo ever taken? Perhaps the shot of a baby swimming after a dollar bill that helped make Nirvana's album "Nevermind" unforgettable, noted CNN, which recently looked back at the history and art of underwater photography (including Christy Lee Rogers's image "Alive," above). The first underwater photograph, a blurry image of aquatic life, was taken in 1856 by William Thompson, who didn't actually dive in to capture it. That's why French marine biologist Louis Boutan is widely considered the early pioneer of the genre.
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Throughout her teens and early-20s, Sophie Harris-Taylor suffered from severe acne. "At the time I felt shame and embarrassment," the London-based photographer told the British Journal of Photography. "It affected my self esteem in those critical years when you are desperately trying to fit in." It was this experience that prompted Harris-Taylor's latest project, titled "Epidermis." The series features portraits of women with varying skin conditions shot in natural light in the intimacy of Harris-Taylor's home studio.
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The new book Contact High "is a wondrous tribute to the way hip-hop overturned not just the sound of culture but also ways of seeing," noted The New Yorker. The book comes from Vikki Tobak, who worked in the music industry and as a journalist throughout the nineties, experiences that gave her an insider perspective on the culture's rise. Tobak shows (with contact sheets) how photographers taught stars to strike a pose for the camera - thus giving hip-hop its powerful visual edge.
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For centuries, Russia's pagans practiced their faith on the fringes. But lately, noted photographer Pavel Volkov at The Washington Post, the community of rodnovers, or neopagans, is growing - and finding a home in the country's biggest cities. Russia's first pagans were largely wiped out by the Russian Christian church 1,000 years ago. But a modern iteration of the movement was reborn during the collapse of the Soviet Union, added Volkov, who has photographed the modern-day pagans.
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Vivian Maier has been known primarily for her black-and-white street photography, which was discovered in a storage locker after her death. Now New York's Howard Greenberg Gallery focuses on another aspect of Maier's work with the exhibition "Vivian Maier: Color Work." The exhibition coincides with the publication of Vivian Maier: The Color Work, the first book devoted to her color images. "Maier was an early poet of color photography," writes Joel Meyerowitz in its foreword.
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At top: From Damon Wnter

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AI-AP | Pro Photo Daily " What We Learned This Week: After Mass Killings, Doctors Push Back with Photos

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We hear about the mass killings in America. We see the after effects - the police cordons, the funerals, the bereft families who have lost loved ones. But usually we don't witness the horror. "For now, words will have to stand for images we'll probably never see, and to be clear, I don't want to see those images.

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For more than 20 years, the American College of Physicians (ACP) has advocated for the need to address firearm-related injuries and deaths in the United States. Yet, firearm violence continues to be a public health crisis that requires the nation's immediate attention. The policy recommendations in this paper build on, strengthen, and expand current ACP policies approved by the Board of Regents in April 2014, based on analysis of approaches that the evidence suggests will be effective in reducing deaths and injuries from firearm-related violence.

For more than 20 years, the American College of Physicians (ACP) has advocated for the need to address firearm-related injuries and deaths in the United States. In 2014, the ACP published a comprehensive set of recommendations ( 1). In 2015, it joined the American College of Surgeons, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Public Health Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Emergency Physicians, and American Bar Association in a call to action to address gun violence as a public health threat, which was subsequently endorsed by 52 organizations that included clinician organizations, consumer organizations, organizations representing families of gun violence victims, research organizations, public health organizations, and other health advocacy organizations ( 2). Yet, firearm violence remains a problem-firearm-related mortality rates in the United States are still the highest among high-income countries ( 3).

Firearm violence continues to be a public health crisis in the United States that requires the nation's immediate attention. The ACP is concerned about not only the alarming number of mass shootings in the United States but also the daily toll of firearm violence in neighborhoods, homes, workplaces, and public and private places across the country. The policy recommendations in this paper build on, strengthen, and expand current ACP policies approved by the Board of Regents in April 2014 (1) and are based on an analysis of approaches that the evidence suggests will be effective in reducing deaths and injuries from firearm-related violence. The ACP has long advocated for policies to reduce the rate of firearm injuries and deaths in the United States and once again calls on its members, nonmember physicians, nonphysician clinicians, policymakers, and the public to take action on this important issue.

This policy paper was drafted by the Health and Public Policy Committee of the ACP, which is charged with addressing issues that affect the health care of the U.S. public and the practice of internal medicine and its subspecialties. The paper builds on, strengthens, and expands current ACP policies approved by the Board of Regents in April 2014 (1). The authors determined that many positions were still relevant and did not revisit those positions or the evidence supporting them. They identified gaps in policy and existing positions that needed to be strengthened, clarified, or expanded on the basis of emerging research and new initiatives on which the ACP did not have clear policy. The authors focused solely on evidence related to the new or modified recommendations and reviewed available studies, reports, and surveys related to firearm violence from PubMed, Google Scholar, relevant news articles, policy documents, Web sites, and other sources. Recommendations were based on reviewed literature and input from the ACP's Board of Governors, Board of Regents, Council of Early Career Physicians, Council of Resident/Fellow Members, Council of Student Members, and Council of Subspecialty Societies. The policy paper and related recommendations were reviewed and approved by the ACP Board of Regents on 21 July 2018. Financial support for the development of this position paper came exclusively from the ACP operating budget.
1. The American College of Physicians recommends a public health approach to firearms-related violence and the prevention of firearm injuries and deaths. a. The College supports the development of coalitions that bring different perspectives together on the issues of firearm injury and death. These groups, comprising health professionals, injury prevention experts, parents, teachers, law enforcement professionals, and others, should build consensus for bringing about social and legislative change. 2. The medical profession has a special responsibility to speak out on prevention of firearm-related injuries and deaths, just as physicians have spoken out on other public health issues. Physicians should counsel patients on the risk of having firearms in the home, particularly when children, adolescents, people with dementia, people with mental illnesses, people with substance use disorders, or others who are at increased risk of harming themselves or others are present. a. State and federal authorities should avoid enactment of mandates that interfere with physician free speech and the patient-physician relationship. b. Physicians are encouraged to discuss with their patients the risks that may be associated with having a firearm in the home and recommend ways to mitigate such risks, including best practices to reduce injuries and deaths. c. Physicians should become informed about firearms injury prevention. Medical schools, residency programs, and continuing medical education (CME) programs should incorporate firearm violence prevention into their curricula. d. Physicians are encouraged, individually and through their professional societies, to advocate for national, state, and local efforts to enact legislation to implement evidence-based policies, including those recommended in this paper, to reduce the risk of preventable injuries and deaths from firearms, including but not limited to universal background checks. 3. The American College of Physicians supports appropriate regulation of the purchase of legal firearms to reduce firearms-related injuries and deaths. The College acknowledges that any such regulations must be consistent with the Supreme Court ruling establishing that individual ownership of firearms is a constitutional right under the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights. a. Sales of firearms should be subject to satisfactory completion of a criminal background check and proof of satisfactory completion of an appropriate educational program on firearms safety. The American College of Physicians supports a universal background check system to keep guns out of the hands of felons, persons with mental illnesses that put them at a greater risk of inflicting harm to themselves or others, persons with substance use disorders, domestic violence offenders, and others who already are prohibited from owning guns. Clear guidance should be issued on what mental health and substance use records should be submitted to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). This should include guidance on parameters for inclusion, exclusion, removal, and appeal. States should submit mental health records and report persons with substance use disorders to the NICS. The federal government should increase incentives and penalties related to state compliance. The law requiring federal agencies to submit substance use records should be enforced. i. ACP supports strengthening and enforcing state and federal laws to prohibit convicted domestic violence offenders from purchasing or possessing firearms. Domestic violence offenders include dating partners, cohabitants, stalkers, and those who victimize a family member other than a partner or child. ACP supports federal legislation to require that such domestic violence offenders be reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. a. Individuals subject to domestic violence restraining orders, including temporary orders, should be prohibited from purchasing and possessing firearms and be required to surrender their firearms for the duration of the order. b. Individuals convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor should be prohibited from purchasing and possessing firearms based on existing federal law. The federal government should encourage states and localities to create a process for these individuals to surrender firearms they already possess. c. States should be required to report domestic violence offenders, as defined above, to the NICS. b. Although there is limited evidence on the effectiveness of waiting periods in reducing homicides, waiting periods may reduce the incidence of death by suicide, which account for nearly two thirds of firearm deaths, and should be considered as part of a comprehensive approach to reducing preventable firearms-related deaths. c. Lawmakers should carefully consider the growing but limited body of evidence that suggests the concealed-carry laws may create a greater risk of firearms injuries and deaths than any protective value they may provide. i. ACP opposes concealed-carry reciprocity legislation that would force every state to accept concealed-carry weapons permits from other states, necessitating states with stronger requirements to allow individuals traveling to their jurisdiction to carry concealed firearms, even if they have not met that state's more stringent requirements. ii. States that decide to permit concealed carry in their jurisdictions should at a minimum require, as a condition of obtaining a permit, training in appropriate handling and storage of firearms in their homes, automobiles, workplaces, and on their person to reduce the risk of unintentional deaths or injuries. d. The College supports a ban on firearms that cannot be detected by metal detectors or standard security screening devices, including but not limited to 3D-printed firearms. e. The College favors strong penalties and criminal prosecution for those who sell firearms illegally and those who legally purchase firearms for those who are banned from possessing them ("straw purchases"). 4. The American College of Physicians recommends that guns be subject to consumer product regulations regarding access, safety, and design. In addition, the College supports law enforcement measures, including required use of tracer elements or taggants on ammunition and weapons, and identifying markings, such as serial numbers on weapons, to aid in the identification of weapons used in crimes. 5. Firearm owners should adhere to best practices to reduce the risk of accidental or intentional injuries or deaths from firearms. They should ensure that their firearms cannot be accessed by children, adolescents, people with dementia, people with substance use disorders, and the subset of people with serious mental illnesses that are associated with greater risk of harming themselves and others. ACP supports child access prevention laws that hold firearm owners accountable for the safe storage of firearms. Firearm owners should report the theft or loss of their firearm within 72 hours of becoming aware of its loss. 6. The College cautions against broadly including those with mental illness in a category of dangerous individuals. Instead, the College recommends that every effort be made to reduce the risk of suicide and violence, through prevention and treatment, by the subset of individuals with mental illness who are at risk of harming themselves or others. Diagnosis, access to care, treatment, and appropriate follow-up are essential. a. Physicians and other health professionals should be trained to respond to patients with mental illness who might be at risk of injuring themselves or others. b. Ensuring access to mental health services is imperative. Mental health services should be readily available to persons in need throughout their lives or through the duration of their conditions. Ensuring an adequate availability of psychiatric beds and outpatient treatment for at-risk persons seeking immediate treatment for a condition that may pose a risk of violence to themselves or others should be a priority. c. Community understanding of mental illness should be improved to increase awareness and reduce social stigma. d. Laws that require physicians and other health professionals to report those with mental illness who they believe pose an imminent threat to themselves or others should have safeguards in place to protect confidentiality and not create a disincentive for patients to seek mental health treatment. Such laws should ensure that physicians and other health professionals are able to use their reasonable professional judgment to determine when a patient under their care should be reported and should not hold them liable for their decision to report or not report. 7. The College favors enactment of legislation to ban the manufacture, sale, transfer, and subsequent ownership for civilian use of semiautomatic firearms that are designed to increase their rapid killing capacity (often called "assault weapons") and large-capacity magazines, and retaining the current ban on automatic weapons for civilian use. a. Although evidence on the effectiveness of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 is limited, the College believes that there is enough evidence to warrant appropriate legislation and regulation to limit future sales and possession of firearms that have features designed to increase their rapid killing capacity and can, along with a ban on large-capacity magazines and bump stocks, be effective in reducing casualties in mass shooting situations. b. ACP favors a comprehensive definition, including generic feature tests, of semiautomatic firearms that are designed to increase their rapid killing capacity that would be subject to a ban on sale, ownership, and transfer, to ensure that these firearms are no longer lawful in the United States and in individual states. This comprehensive definition should include effective regulation of grandfathered weapons. c. Such legislation should be carefully designed to make it difficult for manufacturers to get a semiautomatic firearm that is designed to increase its rapid killing capacity exempted from the ban by making modifications in its design while retaining its semiautomatic functionality. d. Exceptions to a ban on such semiautomatic firearms for hunting and sporting purposes should be narrowly defined. e. Only as an interim step toward a complete ban, ACP supports increasing the minimum age to purchase semiautomatic firearms that are designed to increase their rapid killing capacity and large-capacity magazines to 21, consistent with the existing federal requirement for handguns. 8. The College supports efforts to improve and modify firearms to make them as safe as possible, including the incorporation of built-in safety devices (such as trigger locks and signals that indicate a gun is loaded). Further research is needed on the development of personalized guns. 9. More research is needed on firearm violence and on intervention and prevention strategies to reduce injuries caused by firearms. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, and National Institute of Justice should receive adequate funding to study the impact of gun violence on the public's health and safety. Access to data should not be restricted. 10. ACP supports the enactment of extreme risk protection order (ERPO) laws which allow family members and law enforcement officers to petition a court to temporarily remove firearms from individuals who are determined to be at imminent risk of harming themselves or others while providing due process protections.
The ACP has pressed for the adoption of policies to reduce the number of deaths and injuries related to firearms for more than 20 years and is disheartened by the lack of action to protect the American public. Although there is more to learn about the causes of firearm violence and the best methods to prevent it, the available data support the need for a multifaceted and comprehensive approach to reducing firearm violence that is consistent with the Second Amendment. Firearm violence is a public health threat in the United States that must not be allowed to continue.

The following statements represent the official policy positions and recommendations of the ACP. Positions 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 9 are reaffirmations of existing ACP policy. The background and rationale for these positions can be found in "Reducing Firearm-Related Injuries and Deaths in the United States: Executive Summary of a Policy Position Paper From the American College of Physicians" (1). The remainder of the positions represent new or revised policy.
1. The American College of Physicians recommends a public health approach to firearms-related violence and the prevention of firearm injuries and deaths. a. The College supports the development of coalitions that bring different perspectives together on the issues of firearm injury and death. These groups, comprising health professionals, injury prevention experts, parents, teachers, law enforcement professionals, and others, should build consensus for bringing about social and legislative change. 2. The medical profession has a special responsibility to speak out on prevention of firearm-related injuries and deaths, just as physicians have spoken out on other public health issues. Physicians should counsel patients on the risk of having firearms in the home, particularly when children, adolescents, people with dementia, people with mental illnesses, people with substance use disorders, or others who are at increased risk of harming themselves or others are present. a. State and federal authorities should avoid enactment of mandates that interfere with physician free speech and the patient-physician relationship. b. Physicians are encouraged to discuss with their patients the risks that may be associated with having a firearm in the home and recommend ways to mitigate such risks, including best practices to reduce injuries and deaths. c. Physicians should become informed about firearms injury prevention. Medical schools, residency programs, and continuing medical education (CME) programs should incorporate firearm violence prevention into their curricula. d. Physicians are encouraged, individually and through their professional societies, to advocate for national, state, and local efforts to enact legislation to implement evidence-based policies, including those recommended in this paper, to reduce the risk of preventable injuries and deaths from firearms, including but not limited to universal background checks. 3. The American College of Physicians supports appropriate regulation of the purchase of legal firearms to reduce firearms-related injuries and deaths. The College acknowledges that any such regulations must be consistent with the Supreme Court ruling establishing that individual ownership of firearms is a constitutional right under the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights. a. Sales of firearms should be subject to satisfactory completion of a criminal background check and proof of satisfactory completion of an appropriate educational program on firearms safety. The American College of Physicians supports a universal background check system to keep guns out of the hands of felons, persons with mental illnesses that put them at a greater risk of inflicting harm to themselves or others, persons with substance use disorders, domestic violence offenders, and others who already are prohibited from owning guns. Clear guidance should be issued on what mental health and substance use records should be submitted to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). This should include guidance on parameters for inclusion, exclusion, removal, and appeal. States should submit mental health records and report persons with substance use disorders to the NICS. The federal government should increase incentives and penalties related to state compliance. The law requiring federal agencies to submit substance use records should be enforced. i. ACP supports strengthening and enforcing state and federal laws to prohibit convicted domestic violence offenders from purchasing or possessing firearms. Domestic violence offenders include dating partners, cohabitants, stalkers, and those who victimize a family member other than a partner or child. ACP supports federal legislation to require that such domestic violence offenders be reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. a. Individuals subject to domestic violence restraining orders, including temporary orders, should be prohibited from purchasing and possessing firearms and be required to surrender their firearms for the duration of the order. b. Individuals convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor should be prohibited from purchasing and possessing firearms based on existing federal law. The federal government should encourage states and localities to create a process for these individuals to surrender firearms they already possess. c. States should be required to report domestic violence offenders, as defined above, to the NICS. b. Although there is limited evidence on the effectiveness of waiting periods in reducing homicides, waiting periods may reduce the incidence of death by suicide, which account for nearly two thirds of firearm deaths, and should be considered as part of a comprehensive approach to reducing preventable firearms-related deaths. c. Lawmakers should carefully consider the growing but limited body of evidence that suggests the concealed-carry laws may create a greater risk of firearms injuries and deaths than any protective value they may provide. i. ACP opposes concealed-carry reciprocity legislation that would force every state to accept concealed-carry weapons permits from other states, necessitating states with stronger requirements to allow individuals traveling to their jurisdiction to carry concealed firearms, even if they have not met that state's more stringent requirements. ii. States that decide to permit concealed carry in their jurisdictions should at a minimum require, as a condition of obtaining a permit, training in appropriate handling and storage of firearms in their homes, automobiles, workplaces, and on their person to reduce the risk of unintentional deaths or injuries. d. The College supports a ban on firearms that cannot be detected by metal detectors or standard security screening devices, including but not limited to 3D-printed firearms. e. The College favors strong penalties and criminal prosecution for those who sell firearms illegally and those who legally purchase firearms for those who are banned from possessing them ("straw purchases").
A 2013 study ( 4) found that the number of firearms per capita per country strongly correlated with and was an independent predictor of firearm-related deaths. The authors found that the United States, which has the most firearms per capita in the world, has the highest rate of deaths from firearms, whereas Japan, which has the lowest rate of firearm ownership, has the lowest rate of firearm deaths. Within the United States, analyses comparing the quantity and type of gun laws enacted in states have found an association between stringent gun laws and lower firearm death rates. The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which issues grades to states by using a points-based formula, found that 7 of the 10 states with the most stringent gun laws had the lowest rates of firearm deaths ( 5). The correlation between stringent gun laws and reduction in firearm violence can be seen in the contrast between the high levels of gun violence in California during the early 1990s and the relatively low rate of gun violence after the adoption of state laws and city and county ordinances aimed at reducing gun deaths. In the early 1990s, California's gun violence rate was 15% higher than the national average (17.48 vs. 15 per 100 000 persons). The rate of gun violence in California has since decreased substantially: The number of Californians killed by gunfire decreased by 56% between 1993 and 2010, to 7.7 per 100 000 persons, compared with the national average of 10.1 per 100 000 persons ( 6, 7). The abundance of firearms in the United States is a public health hazard, and sensible regulations must be put in place to ensure that persons who should not possess firearms are unable to access them.

The ACP supports requiring criminal background checks for all firearm purchases, including sales by gun dealers, sales at gun shows, and private sales. The "gun show loophole," which refers to all private sales, including those at gun shows, should be closed to ensure that prohibited purchasers, such as felons, persons who have been involuntarily committed for mental illness or are otherwise "adjudicated mentally defective," and others who are prohibited from owning firearms, cannot make purchases. Such a system will be successful only if records are complete and submitted in a timely manner.

Evidence suggests that states with laws to address the gun show loophole export fewer guns that are later used in crime. States with laws limiting or eliminating the gun show loophole have an average export rate (controlled for population) of 7.5 crime guns per 100 000 inhabitants. In contrast, 34 states that do not require background checks for all handgun sales at gun shows have an average export rate of 19.8 crime guns per 100 000 inhabitants (10).

There is considerable public support for a comprehensive background check requirement and for closing the private seller and gun show loopholes. An ACP survey of internists revealed that respondents overwhelmingly favored universal background checks (94%) ( 11). A survey conducted in 2017 by the Pew Research Center ( 12) found that 84% of Americans favored closing the loopholes, with a large majority of Democratic (90%) and Republican (77%) support. A February 2018 poll conducted by Quinnipiac University revealed that 97% of those surveyed supported universal background checks ( 13). Despite strong public support, legislation in Congress has not gained enough support to pass.

Between 1990 and 2005, firearms were used in more than two thirds of homicides involving spouses or former spouses ( 14). Almost half of intimate partner cases involved current dating partners ( 15), although federal laws prohibiting domestic abusers from accessing guns apply only to spouses and not dating partners. States that have implemented laws prohibiting domestic abusers from accessing firearms have found that female intimate partner homicide rates decreased after implementation ( 16, 17). In 57% of mass shootings between January 2009 and June 2014, the perpetrator killed an intimate partner, and in nearly 18% of these cases, the perpetrator was previously convicted of domestic violence ( 18). The proportion of intimate partner homicides committed by a dating partner (48.6%) was higher than the proportion committed by a spouse (46.7%) ( 10), although dating partners are not covered by law. The presence of a firearm in an episode of domestic violence increases the likelihood of homicide by 500% ( 20). One survey of women in a California domestic violence shelter found that nearly two thirds who resided in households with firearms reported that their intimate partner used or threatened to use the firearm against them ( 14). Women in the United States are 16 times more likely to be murdered by a firearm than women in other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ( 3). In 2015, about 55% of intimate partner homicides were committed with a firearm ( 21).

Federal law restricts firearm purchases by persons who have been convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor or have protective orders against them. Under this law, the offender must be a current or former spouse; be a parent or guardian of the victim; have a child with the victim; be a current or former cohabitant with the victim as a spouse, parent, or guardian; or be similarly situated to a spouse, parent, or guardian of the victim (22). It does not apply to dating partners, stalkers, or persons who commit violence against another family member. Federal law does not restrict an abuser's access to firearms until a restraining order is permanent, allowing violent abusers the opportunity to purchase and use a firearm during the period when a victim has filed for a temporary restraining order. Many states do not comprehensively submit data on domestic violence and protective orders into the databases used during background checks. Domestic abusers can also circumvent the background check by purchasing from private sellers, further emphasizing the need for a universal system that would require background checks for firearms purchased through gun dealers, sales at gun shows, and private sales.

Gaps in federal laws must be addressed to ensure that victims of domestic violence are protected. The ACP supports strengthening federal and state laws to ensure that convicted domestic violence offenders, including dating partners, cohabitants, stalkers, and persons who victimize a family member other than a partner or child, are prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms. Persons who are subject to domestic violence restraining orders, including temporary orders, should be prohibited from purchasing and possessing firearms and should be required to surrender their firearms for the duration of the order. Those convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor should be prohibited from purchasing and possessing firearms and should be required to surrender their firearms. States must do their part to ensure that records regarding domestic violence offenders in the NICS are complete.

Federal law currently prohibits convicted felons; persons who use or are addicted to unlawful substances; those who have been involuntarily committed to inpatient mental health institutions; and those who have been deemed incompetent to stand trial, found not guilty on the grounds of serious mental illness, or otherwise deemed adjudicated mentally defective from receiving or possessing a firearm ( 23). Reporting of disqualifying records to NICS by states is voluntary, and states vary in what and how much they report. In 2007, the NICS Improvement Amendments Act (NIAA) included financial incentives and penalties to encourage states to submit disqualifying records to NICS. A U.S. Government Accountability Office report examining progress made by states reporting to NICS after enactment of the NIAA ( 24) found a 9-fold increase in reporting, growing the database from 126 000 records in 2007 to 1.2 million in 2011, primarily from 12 states. The Government Accountability Office acknowledged that this increase in records could be a factor in the increase in the number of purchase denials based on mental health records, from 0.5% of total denials in 2004 to 1.7% in 2011 ( 24).

Waiting periods have generally been considered to serve as "cooling-off" periods for persons who would otherwise commit suicide or a violent act in the heat of the moment. Opponents of waiting periods believe that they hamper a law-abiding citizen's right to access firearms and could hinder their ability to protect themselves. The evidence on waiting periods is limited, and more research is needed on their benefits and on ideal wait times. One study (27) showed that waiting periods enacted in the interim portion of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act slightly reduced suicide rates in adults aged 55 years or older but did not statistically significantly reduce homicides. The ACP cannot make an evidence-based recommendation on waiting periods because of the lack of data but believes that they should be considered as part of a comprehensive approach to reducing firearm-related deaths because of potentially positive effects on suicides.

As a condition of obtaining a permit, states that permit concealed carry in their jurisdictions should require, at a minimum, training in appropriate handling and storage of firearms in their homes, automobiles, and workplaces and on their person to reduce the risk for unintentional deaths or injuries. Connecticut's permit-to-purchase law, which requires a minimum of 8 hours of approved handgun safety training, was estimated to reduce firearm homicides in the state by 40% between 1996 and 2005 (30).

In December 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 38, the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017, which would allow persons with a concealed-carry permit in one state to carry a concealed weapon in another state. The ACP opposed this legislation because it would force every state to accept concealed-carry permits from other states, necessitating states with stronger requirements to allow travelers to their jurisdiction to carry concealed firearms even if they have not met that state's more stringent requirements. For example, 27 states and the District of Columbia currently prohibit persons convicted of misdemeanor violent crimes from carrying concealed firearms in public. Reciprocity would allow them to carry firearms across the country, even if they are prohibited from doing so in their own state. In addition, reciprocity would preempt stronger state laws requiring training in firearm safety as a condition of obtaining a permit, would weaken background checks, and would endanger victims of domestic violence by preempting state laws that prohibit persons who have been subject to restraining orders or have been charged with domestic violence from obtaining a concealed-weapon permit.

Under the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988, it is a federal offense to manufacture, sell, import, export, deliver, possess, transfer, or receive a firearm capable of passing through an airport metal detector undetected or unseen. The act requires that any firearm, minus the stock, grips, and magazine, have an x-ray detection signature no less than that of a calibration sample containing 3.7 ounces of stainless steel (31). The law contained a sunset provision after 10 years and was allowed to expire in 1998. A 5-year extension of the law was signed by President Bill Clinton in 1998, and a 10-year extension was signed by President George W. Bush in 2003. On 9 December 2013, the law was reauthorized for an additional 10 years.

Three-dimensional (3D) printing, a relatively new process, works by using software to map out blueprints of a subject, slicing it into sections for the printer to read, and using various materials to layer the sections until the item is built. On 6 May 2013, Cody Wilson, the director and founder of the nonprofit organization Defense Distributed, successfully built and fired the first 3D-printed weapon, which he called "the Liberator." Wilson previously demonstrated an ability to print magazines capable of firing up to 30 rounds without breaking or melting as well as printing the receiver of a semiautomatic assault rifle, which is considered the primary component of a firearm and is regulated by the government. The process of building the firearm entailed assembling several distinct parts printed individually. The Liberator, which requires standard ammunition and a metal firing pin, shot 1 bullet without damage (32).

Wilson obtained a federal firearms license from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which allowed him to manufacture and sell firearms that do not violate the Undetectable Firearms Act. A week after the blueprints were published online, Wilson complied with a request by the U.S. Department of State to remove them because of potential violations of International Traffic in Arms Regulations (33). Despite the removal of the blueprints from Wilson's Web site, they have been downloaded more than 100 000 times and others have modified and printed other weapons and accessories, including a rifle.

Straw purchasers-persons who unlawfully purchase firearms for others who are in a prohibited category-move several thousand firearms into criminal channels each year, and penalties for such purchasers must be strong ( 36). In a 2000 report from the ATF, "Following the Gun: Enforcing Federal Laws Against Firearms Traffickers" ( 37), the agency found that over a 2.5-year period between 1996 and 1998, 46% of all trafficking investigations involved straw purchases and approximately a third of illegally diverted firearms were associated with such purchases. The proportion is concerning to the ATF, which reported that the numbers underscore a significant public safety problem. A survey of federally licensed firearm dealers in 2011 found that 67.3% of respondents reported potential straw purchases ( 38), indicating that both attempted and successful straw purchases are obstacles in keeping guns out of the hands of persons who are prohibited from having them.

The month after "Following the Gun" was released, the ATF, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Office of Justice Programs, and the National Shooting Sports Foundation collaborated on the creation of the "Don't Lie for the Other Guy" campaign to educate gun dealers about detecting potential straw purchases. In 2008, the program added an awareness component for consumers through the Department of Justice's Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative about the consequences of participating in straw purchasing ( 39). In 2014, the Supreme Court upheld the federal law banning straw purchases in a 5-4 decision on Abramski v. United States ( 40).
4. The American College of Physicians recommends that guns be subject to consumer product regulations regarding access, safety, and design. In addition, the College supports law enforcement measures, including required use of tracer elements or taggants on ammunition and weapons, and identifying markings, such as serial numbers on weapons, to aid in the identification of weapons used in crimes. 5. Firearm owners should adhere to best practices to reduce the risk of accidental or intentional injuries or deaths from firearms. They should ensure that their firearms cannot be accessed by children, adolescents, people with dementia, people with substance use disorders, and the subset of people with serious mental illnesses that are associated with greater risk of harming themselves and others. ACP supports child access prevention laws that hold firearm owners accountable for the safe storage of firearms. Firearm owners should report the theft or loss of their firearm within 72 hours of becoming aware of its loss.
Firearm owners should take every step possible to reduce the risk for accidental or intentional injuries or deaths from firearms. The ACP supports child access prevention laws that hold firearm owners accountable for the safe storage of firearms by imposing criminal liability on those who negligently store firearms under circumstances where minors could or do gain access to them. A disproportionately large share of unintentional firearm fatalities was found to occur in states where gun owners were more likely to store their firearms loaded. The greatest risk occurred in states where loaded firearms were more likely to be stored unlocked ( 41). Parents of adolescents, who have the highest risk for firearm-related injuries among youths, were found to be more likely than parents of younger children to unsafely store household firearms (42% vs. 29%) ( 42). A study of rural households ( 43) found that the prevalence of loaded, unlocked guns was 4.5 times higher in households with a handgun than in households with a long gun (that is, a rifle or shotgun) only. The study also found that households with someone with a lifetime prevalence of alcohol abuse or dependence were about twice as likely as other households to report having loaded, unlocked firearms. An estimated 40% to 60% of people with dementia live in a home with a firearm, where they are less likely to be safely stored ( 44, 45). A study of household firearm storage practices in Oregon ( 46) revealed that an estimated 6.2% of households with children had firearms that were loaded and unlocked, and about 40 000 children lived in these households. Drinking 5 or more alcoholic beverages on 1 or more occasions in the past month or drinking 60 or more alcoholic beverages in the past month was independently associated with living in households with loaded and unlocked firearms. Laws to prevent child access to firearms have been shown to be effective at reducing suicides and unintentional firearm injuries and fatalities among children. Keeping a gun locked, keeping it unloaded, storing ammunition locked, and storing it in a separate location have each been found to be associated with a protective effect ( 47). A study of child access prevention laws in 12 states found that unintentional firearm deaths decreased by 23% from 1990 to 1994 among children younger than 15 years ( 48). These laws were also associated with an 8.3% decrease in suicide rates among those aged 14 to 17 years ( 49).
6. The College cautions against broadly including those with mental illness in a category of dangerous individuals. Instead, the College recommends that every effort be made to reduce the risk of suicide and violence, through prevention and treatment, by the subset of individuals with mental illness who are at risk of harming themselves or others. Diagnosis, access to care, treatment, and appropriate follow-up are essential. a. Physicians and other health professionals should be trained to respond to patients with mental illness who might be at risk of injuring themselves or others. b. Ensuring access to mental health services is imperative. Mental health services should be readily available to persons in need throughout their lives or through the duration of their conditions. Ensuring an adequate availability of psychiatric beds and outpatient treatment for at-risk persons seeking immediate treatment for a condition that may pose a risk of violence to themselves or others should be a priority. c. Community understanding of mental illness should be improved to increase awareness and reduce social stigma. d. Laws that require physicians and other health professionals to report those with mental illness who they believe pose an imminent threat to themselves or others should have safeguards in place to protect confidentiality and not create a disincentive for patients to seek mental health treatment. Such laws should ensure that physicians and other health professionals are able to use their reasonable professional judgment to determine when a patient under their care should be reported and should not hold them liable for their decision to report or not report. 7. The College favors enactment of legislation to ban the manufacture, sale, transfer, and subsequent ownership for civilian use of semiautomatic firearms that are designed to increase their rapid killing capacity (often called "assault weapons") and large-capacity magazines, and retaining the current ban on automatic weapons for civilian use. a. Although evidence on the effectiveness of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 is limited, the College believes that there is enough evidence to warrant appropriate legislation and regulation to limit future sales and possession of firearms that have features designed to increase their rapid killing capacity and can, along with a ban on large-capacity magazines and bump stocks, be effective in reducing casualties in mass shooting situations. b. ACP favors a comprehensive definition, including generic feature tests, of semiautomatic firearms that are designed to increase their rapid killing capacity that would be subject to a ban on sale, ownership, and transfer, to ensure that these firearms are no longer lawful in the United States and in individual states. This comprehensive definition should include effective regulation of grandfathered weapons. c. Such legislation should be carefully designed to make it difficult for manufacturers to get a semiautomatic firearm that is designed to increase its rapid killing capacity exempted from the ban by making modifications in its design while retaining its semiautomatic functionality. d. Exceptions to a ban on such semiautomatic firearms for hunting and sporting purposes should be narrowly defined. e. Only as an interim step toward a complete ban, ACP supports increasing the minimum age to purchase semiautomatic firearms that are designed to increase their rapid killing capacity and large-capacity magazines to 21, consistent with the existing federal requirement for handguns.
The law contained a grandfather clause that allowed for the continued possession and use of semiautomatic firearms and LCMs that were banned under the law but obtained legally before implementation. This provision is sometimes cited as the reason that the law did not have as much of an effect on crime rates related to assault weapons or LCMs.

Nevertheless, some evidence suggests that the Federal Assault Weapons Ban had an effect on the use of assault weapons in crimes. The last of 3 reports submitted to the Department of Justice on the ban's effect (54) analyzed crime data from 6 major cities after the ban took effect and found that crimes involving the most common types of assault weapons decreased by 17% to 72% and that the number of assault weapons used in crimes decreased by 24% to 60% in the same areas. The author noted a steady or increasing use of other guns equipped with LCMs in the same jurisdictions.

A ban on LCMs has been shown to be effective in reducing the number of casualties associated with mass shootings. One study ( 36) found that semiautomatic firearms were 34% to 56% more likely to be used in a crime. Such weapons are associated with significantly more wounds per gun in homicides than revolvers or long guns and are associated with higher mortality ( 55, 56). Semiautomatic and automatic pistols are believed to be capable of inflicting greater injury because more bullets can be fired in a shorter period ( 57). Thirty-seven percent of police departments surveyed indicated an increase in the use of assault weapons by criminals after the Federal Assault Weapons Ban was lifted ( 58). When Maryland imposed a more stringent ban on assault pistols and LCMs in 1994, it led to a 55% decrease in assault pistols recovered by the Baltimore Police Department.

Although evidence on the effectiveness of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban is limited, the ACP believes that there is sufficient evidence that appropriate legislation and regulation to limit future manufacture, sale, transfer, and possession of weapons that are designed to increase their rapid killing capacity, along with a ban on LCMs and such devices as bump stocks that accelerate the rate of fire of a semiautomatic firearm, can be effective in reducing casualties in mass shootings. Although such a ban may not reduce overall crime or firearm deaths significantly, it would reduce the number of casualties that would occur in mass shootings before the shooter could be disarmed, arrested, or subdued by police. The ACP acknowledges the need for more research in this area to better inform policy.

As an organization representing physicians, the ACP's view is that the overriding objective of a ban must be to keep semiautomatic firearms that are designed to increase their rapid killing capacity, as well as LCMs and bump stocks (which are designed to enable a user to kill people rapidly and effectively), from being available to civilians and that definitions and regulations must be comprehensive enough to achieve this goal. Accordingly, the ACP favors a comprehensive definition, including generic feature tests, of semiautomatic firearms that are designed to increase their rapid killing capacity that would be subject to a ban on sale, ownership, and transfer to ensure that such firearms are no longer lawful in the United States and in individual states. This comprehensive definition should include effective regulation of grandfathered weapons.
8. The College supports efforts to improve and modify firearms to make them as safe as possible, including the incorporation of built-in safety devices (such as trigger locks and signals that indicate a gun is loaded). Further research is needed on the development of personalized guns. 9. More research is needed on firearm violence and on intervention and prevention strategies to reduce injuries caused by firearms. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, and National Institute of Justice should receive adequate funding to study the impact of gun violence on the public's health and safety. Access to data should not be restricted. 10. ACP supports the enactment of extreme risk protection order (ERPO) laws which allow family members and law enforcement officers to petition a court to temporarily remove firearms from individuals who are determined to be at imminent risk of harming themselves or others while providing due process protections.
Extreme risk protection order (ERPO) laws allow family members or law enforcement officers to petition a judge to issue an order to prevent a person who may be at imminent risk to themselves or others from purchasing firearms and to confiscate firearms they already possess. Generally, the judge can make an expedited initial ruling after submission of the petition, which takes effect immediately, without the subject of the petition being present. A hearing would then be held within weeks, if not days, with the subject present. If the judge upholds the order, it can be extended; the confiscated firearms and revocation of firearm purchasing rights can be withheld from the subject of the order for a few weeks to up to a year. To date, 5 states have enacted ERPO or ERPO-style laws, and 24 states are considering them. The ACP supports the enactment of these laws because they enable family members and law enforcement agencies to intervene when there are warning signs that a person is experiencing a temporary crisis that poses an imminent risk to themselves or others while providing due process protections.

Although most of these laws have been enacted recently, data from Connecticut (the earliest adopter) suggest that they have been effective in reducing the suicide rate (64). Between 1999 and 2013, there were 762 cases where an ERPO was used to confiscate a firearm from a person in Connecticut. Most of these cases involved men who intended to harm themselves. An analysis of population-level data for self-injury mortality rates determined that about 72 suicides by firearm were averted due to ERPOs.

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Reducing Firearm Injuries and Deaths in the United States | Annals of Internal Medicine | American College of Physicians

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For more than 20 years, the American College of Physicians (ACP) has advocated for the need to address firearm-related injuries and deaths in the United States. Yet, firearm violence continues to be a public health crisis that requires the nation's immediate attention.

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November 5, 2018
The Visual Representation of the US/Mexico Border Wall in the Media
Program: An expert panel will examine the visual depiction of the wall, and how photographers and the news media are using imagery to frame the politics and the human rights issues surrounding the wall. Special attention will be paid to images published since the White House implementation of the "zero tolerance" policy, the family separation crisis and "the caravan."This salon is co-produced with the Magnum Foundation with the support of the Howard Chapnick Grant via W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund.

Date: December 6th, 2018

Time: 7:30 to 9 PM EST
Panel:
Anne Demo, Assistant Professor, Communication Arts and Sciences, Penn State University (Moderator). Teddy Cruz, Architect, Professor of Public Culture and Urbanism, Visual Arts, UCSD. Fonna Forman, Associate Professor of Political Science / Co-Director, UCSD Center on Global Justice; Erin Siegal McIntyre, Senior Fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism; Nick Oza, Staff Photographer, Arizona Republic; Griselda San Martin, documentary photographer focusing on issues of immigration and identity, Michael Shaw, Publisher, Reading The Pictures

Where: The live webcast will be held online. Viewers are encouraged to participate via live chat. Registration is required to access the program. Once registered, you will receive a link to join.

Sign Up:Please register at Bit.ly/borderwallsalon OR fill out the form below.

About: The Reading the Pictures Salon is an on-line, real-time discussion between photojournalists, visual scholars and other visual or subject experts. Each salon examines a set of images relevant to the visual stories of the day with a focus on the media and social media framing of a significant social issue. The photo edit is the key element and driver of each Salon discussion. These 9 photos are derived from an extensive review of the content and themes of published photos representing the depth and breadth of media representation. The Salon is produced by Pam Sullivan.

We look forward to having you with us!

( Photo: Nick Oza. Caption: September 22, 2017. Women looking through the fence in Tijuana, Mexico, talking to a family member on the U.S. side.)

Anne Demo Moderator, Assistant Professor, Communication Arts and Sciences, Penn State University. Ann Demo studies visual and digital advocacy. Her research has examined photography in early environmentalism, feminist art activism, and the immigrant rights movement.

Teddy Cruz Professor, Public Culture and Urbanism, Visual Arts Department Director of Urban Research, UCSD Center on Global Justice. Teddy Cruz is a professor of Public Culture and Urbanization in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego. He is known internationally for his urban research on the Tijuana/San Diego border, advancing border neighborhoods as sites of cultural production from which to rethink urban policy, affordable housing, and public space.

Fonna Forman Associate Professor of Political Science / Co-Director, UCSD Center on Global Justice. Fonna Forman is a political theorist and founding Director of the UCSD Center on Global Justice. Her research engages issues at the intersection of ethics, public culture, urban policy and the city - including human rights, climate justice and border ethics.

Erin Siegal McIntyre Senior Fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism. Erin writes, reports, produces, and consults for a variety of media outlets and publications. Based on the U.S-Mexico border in Tijuana, Mexico, her work currently focuses on the intersections of human rights, immigration policy, and border issues.

Nick Oza Staff Photographer, Arizona Republic. Nick specializes in social issues such as immigration and children's care. He was a member of the the 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning Arizona Republic/USA Today team that created the multimedia series, THE WALL.

Griselda San Martin Documentary photographer. For the past six years, San Martin has documented the U.S.-Mexico border, focusing on the issues of immigration, deportation, inequality and human rights abuses through an optic of identity and belonging. Her photography and video projects have been exhibited internationally and featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New Republic, and California Sunday Magazine as well as other publications. Focusing on issues of immigration and identity

Michael Shaw Publisher, Reading The Pictures. An analyst of news photos and visual journalism, and a frequent lecturer and writer on visual politics, photojournalism and media literacy, Michael is the founder of Reading the Pictures.

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The Visual Representation of the US/Mexico Border Wall in the Media - The Reading the Pictures Salon

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November 5, 2018 The Visual Representation of the US/Mexico Border Wall in the Media Program: An expert panel will examine the visual depiction of the wall, and how photographers and the news media are using imagery to frame the politics and the human rights issues surrounding the wall.

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"I've never gotten used to telling a mother their child is lost to gun violence. I hope I never do." Warning: This article contains graphic images.

Posted on November 12, 2018, at 2:58 p.m. ET

Medical professionals are sharing gruesome photos of what it's like to treat shooting victims in response to a tweet by the National Rifle Association that admonished doctors who were advocating for tighter gun restrictions to "stay in their lane."

"Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane," the NRA tweeted last week, the same week a gunman opened fire inside a bar in Thousands Oaks, California, killing 12 people.

The NRA was criticizing a new paper by the American College of Physicians that details suggestions for addressing gun violence, but it set off a firestorm of responses from doctors who regularly treat shooting victims.

"Do you have any idea how many bullets I pull out of corpses weekly? This isn't just my lane," Judy Melinek, a forensic pathologist, responded on Twitter. "It's my fucking highway."

Other medical professionals also challenged the NRA, sharing gruesome photos and anecdotes about what it's like to be on the front line of gun violence. Four of them told BuzzFeed News on Monday via email that the toughest part of their jobs is speaking to the families of victims.

Robert Lyons, a cardiothoracic surgery fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles, told BuzzFeed News that "the raw emotion of that moment stays with every physician for the rest of their life."

"The death affects that family and all of those that tried to save them forever," he added.

"16 y/o GSW to the Aorta. @NRA his mother is in the waiting room," Lyons wrote on Twitter with a photo of blood spattered on his face mask. "Should you tell her he didnt make it? Didnt think so. #stayinmylane #ThisISMyLane"

"What the photo doesn't show is the vast number of nurses, doctors, techs, [and] staff that poured their heart and soul into treating not only this victim of violence, but every victim that comes in," he said.

Adam Shiroff, the director of the Penn Center for Chest Trauma in Philadelphia, told BuzzFeed News he has treated shooting victims for more than 10 years.

"Without question, the most difficult part, as has been echoed recently by friends and colleagues on Twitter, is not the technical aspects of complicated and high-risk operations, it's the human aspect," he said. "It's having to change your bloody scrubs before you go talk to the family to tell them that their son is dead."

"It's standing at the sink after someone didn't make it to wash your hands six times to get the blood off because there was no time to change the glove with a hole in it. The realization that it could have been your son, daughter, father, mother who was shot because bullets don't care if you are black or white or rich or poor."

"It's devastating to the health care team and we do it every single day."

Another apparent medical professional also responded by sharing a photo of a bloodied hospital room, tweeting: "She didn't make it."

Esther Choo, an associate professor at Oregon Health & Science University, told BuzzFeed News she has worked as an emergency physician in urban trauma centers her entire career and has treated "countless patients" with firearm injuries.

"I've never gotten used to telling a mother their child is lost to gun violence," Choo said. "I hope I never do. And I'll never forgive all of us for failing to advance science and public health measures in this area."

Melinek, the forensic pathologist in San Francisco whose tweet response to the NRA took off on social media, told BuzzFeed News she has performed autopsies for more than 300 gunshot wound cases.

"Some have as few as one gunshot wound and others as many as 43," she said. "I have autopsied children accidentally caught in the crossfire and even intentionally killed by their own parents."

But Melinek wants Americans to know "that there is a solution."

"The doctors and scientists told us how to mitigate auto vehicle deaths and deaths from smoking," she said. "We should listen to them and fund gun violence research if we want to see a drop in gun deaths."

Shiroff also wants people in the US "to understand the breadth of this problem."

"Mass casualties, like the ones recently in Thousand Oaks and Pittsburgh, are unquestionably horrific events, but the truth is that each major city in the US sees a mass casualty of gunshot violence every week," he said. "The public should understand that the majority of us in the medical community are not anti-gun; we are anti-meaningless, preventable deaths."

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Doctors Are Sharing Gruesome Photos Of What It's Like To Treat Gun Violence Victims

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"I've never gotten used to telling a mother their child is lost to gun violence. I hope I never do." Warning: This article contains graphic images. Posted on November 12, 2018, at 2:58 p.m.

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November 8
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders on Wednesday night shared a video of CNN reporter Jim Acosta that appeared to have been altered to make his actions at a news conference look more aggressive toward a White House intern.

The edited video looks authentic: Acosta appeared to swiftly chop down on the arm of an aide as he held onto a microphone while questioning President Trump. But in the original video, Acosta's arm appears to move only as a response to a tussle for the microphone. His statement, "Pardon me, ma'am," is not included in the video Sanders shared.

Critics said that video - which sped up the movement of Acosta's arms in a way that dramatically changed the journalist's response - was deceptively edited to score political points. That edited video was first shared by Paul Joseph Watson, known for his conspiracy-theory videos on the far-right website Infowars.

Watson said he did not change the speed of the video and that claims he had altered it were a "brazen lie." Watson, who did not immediately respond to requests for comment, told BuzzFeed he created the video by downloading an animated image from conservative news site Daily Wire, zooming in and saving it as a video - a conversion he says could have made it "look a tiny bit different."

Side-by-side comparisons support claims from fact-checkers and experts such as Jonathan Albright, research director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, who argued that crucial parts of the video appear to have been altered so as to distort the action.

A frame-by-frame breakdown by Storyful, a social-media intelligence firm that verifies media content, found that the edited video included repeated frames that did not appear in the original footage. The repeated frames were shown only at the moment of contact and made Acosta's arm movement look more exaggerated, said Shane Raymond, a journalist at Storyful.

The video has quickly become a flashpoint in the battle over viral misinformation, turning a live interaction watched by thousands in real time into just another ideological tug-of-war. But it has also highlighted how video content - long seen as an unassailable verification tool for truth and confirmation - has become as vulnerable to political distortion as anything else.
[White House suspends press pass of CNN's Jim Acosta after his testy exchange with Trump]
Albright said videos like this pose an even greater risk of perpetuating misinformation than completely faked news videos, because they contain a grain of truth and will likely be given the assumption of accuracy.

"The most dangerous type of fake news and reporting and evidence is when you get into the fine details, the nuanced things that are shaped to present a certain viewpoint or decision or news a certain way," he said. "It's not AI-generated or completely false. It's something that's real but has been literally stretched ... and molded into weaponized evidence."

Sanders's tweet of the edited video, in which she said the White House would "not tolerate the inappropriate behavior clearly documented in this video," has at least 20,000 retweets and more than 2 million views. Watson's video, posted two hours before, has been seen at least 740,000 times.

Matt Dornic, a CNN communications executive, tweeted that Sanders's sharing of the video was "absolutely shameful." "You released a doctored video - actual fake news. History will not be kind to you," he wrote.

On Thursday, Sanders said, "The question is: did the reporter make contact or not? The video is clear, he did. We stand by our statement."

The White House News Photographers Association said in a statement Thursday that it was "appalled" that Sanders may have "shared a manipulated video." "We know that manipulating images is manipulating truth. It's deceptive, dangerous and unethical," said association president Whitney Shefte. "Knowingly sharing manipulated images is equally problematic, particularly when the person sharing them is a representative of our country's highest office with vast influence over public opinion."
['You're a very rude person.' 'That's enough.' 'Sit down.' Trump's news conference turns hostile.]
During Wednesday's White House news conference, Acosta and Trump sparred over a question of whether Trump had "demonized immigrants" by calling a caravan of Central American migrants "an invasion." Following a lengthy back-and-forth, a White House intern tried to take the microphone from Acosta, who held onto it. "Pardon me, ma'am," Acosta said in the original video, though the audio was stripped from the edited version.

On Wednesday night, Sanders accused Acosta of "placing his hands on a young woman" and said his press credentials would be suspended "until further notice." Press advocates called the move an unprecedented retaliation against a journalist.

The seconds-long interaction has been analyzed in excruciating detail and likened to a 21st-century "Zapruder film," the closely scrutinized amateur video of late President John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963. On social media, it has quickly become an object of massive ideological division, in which the same scene is open to very different interpretations.

Watson wrote on Infowars that Acosta "clearly uses his left arm to physically resist/restrain the woman," and that he "overpowered her." Infowars, whose conspiracy theories include the baseless claim that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax, was banned this year by Facebook, Google and Twitter for sharing offensive or threatening content.

In another video of the encounter tweeted by Sarah Burris, an editor at the left-leaning political blog Raw Story, the footage has been slowed down and annotated to show the four times the White House intern touches Acosta while trying to take the microphone. It has been viewed more than 1 million times.

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White House shares doctored video to support punishment of journalist Jim Acosta

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November 8 White House press secretary Sarah Sanders on Wednesday night shared a video of CNN reporter Jim Acosta that appeared to have been altered to make his actions at a news conference look more aggressive toward a White House intern.

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The "caravan" of thousands of Central Americans currently travelling through Mexico has become a touch-point for U.S. President Donald Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric. This group, made up primarily of Hondurans, but including people from other countries in the Northern Triangle, left San Pedro Sula on Oct. 13, 2018.

They are fleeing abject poverty, violence, extortion and the threat of forced recruitment into international gangs. People are travelling together because the company of others provides some protection from the usual dangers they would face as undocumented migrants in Mexico. On their own they would be targeted both by criminal organizations, who are involved in kidnapping and human trafficking and by Mexican officials who beat, rob and apprehend migrants, as well as collude with the cartels.

While the conditions themselves are not new, the heated political response makes the current situation more concerning than ever.

When mainstream news agencies report on Central American migration, they frequently use a series of visual tropes to turn complex issues into predictable narratives. Editors often select formulaic photographs from subscription news agencies to illustrate stories. Many of these borrow from religious iconography or draw on stereotypes to portray the displaced.

The images shape readers' understanding of stories, often without their awareness. In my research into representations of 21st-century global migration, I have identified a series of recurring tropes.

Here I concentrate on two images that media have used in coverage about the current "caravan" of Central American migrants: one; a group of people on the move and two; the disorderly crowd. This story discusses the implications of using these visual tropes and offers an alternative approach.

'Waves of foreigners'

The popular motif of a group of people on the move is typically used to convey the scale of migration from Central America. Sometimes these stories are in sympathy with the plight of migrants, but often the images are used to express or agitate already existing anxiety about waves of foreigners.

(AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

In Moises Castillo's photograph (right) we see a stream of bodies stretching as far as the eye can see. The people are represented as an anonymous mass, making it harder for viewers to identify with their plight. The figures spill off the edges of the frame suggesting an unceasing flow, an allusion to the exodus. While the image references the biblical story of a people escaping from persecution for a new life, it could be used to suggest a foreign invasion.

Whether you perceive the migrant caravan as deserving of aid or a threat to national security, this trope elicits polarized viewpoints. Although the same image may be used to support different ideologies (normally in different publications and with modified captions), a visual trope invariably simplifies a story by making it familiar.

'Disorderly crowd'

The trope of the disorderly crowd is a common means of representing migrants as a threat. In Oliver de Ros's photograph (below) of migrants attempting to cross the Guatemala-Mexico border, we see three men in the foreground climbing a fence, while a large crowd fills the street in the background.

(AP Photo/Oliver de Ros)

Photographs of unruly young men call to mind age-old fears of "the Other." In North America, there is a long, racist history of associating non-white men with violence and criminality, and images of unrest tend to feed intolerance. They convey the idea that humans are merely bodies that need to be managed and function as a call to order.

The effect is to disconnect migrants from the problems that have caused their displacement and to conceal the political failures that have led to the crisis. Instead of picturing the dangers migrants face on their journey, they themselves are portrayed as a menace.

Trump would like you to believe that people fleeing desperate circumstances in Central America represent a threat to the United States. Research on immigration indicates otherwise. By using tropes that maintain the status quo, the media avoids a more complicated story about how immigration policy results in violence perpetrated against migrants.

Photographs can inspire change

Photographs engage our emotions and have the power to inspire change, but each one can only convey a limited view of a complex reality. When we allow visual tropes to represent complicated situations, we misunderstand events, sometimes with dire consequences.

(AP Photo/Oliver de Ros)

Another photograph by Oliver de Ros presents a different impression of the migrants at the Guatemala-Mexico border on the same day, Oct. 19th. In this image, women hold their children close as they wait to find out if they will be able to cross the bridge. A man at the centre of the photograph conveys his distress with a gesture as a child sits on his shoulders, clasping her small hands around his neck. Stuck in a crowd and unable to move on, the young men in the foreground look pensive and vulnerable.

This photograph resists a simple reading. Each person has a story about why they left their home and what they hope to achieve. The faces and gestures convey hardship and suffering, emphasizing the human cost of political failure.

When visual tropes are used to represent an event, they situate viewers as mere spectators to predictable narratives with foregone conclusions. Photographs have the potential to affect us deeply, and in some cases may have an impact on public perception and even policy decisions, but well-worn motifs do not inspire such a response. Instead, they shut down interpretation and turn viewers into passive observers who are less inclined to speak out.

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Visual tropes of migration tell predictable but misleading stories

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The "caravan" of thousands of Central Americans currently travelling through Mexico has become a touch-point for U.S. President Donald Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric. This group, made up primarily of Hondurans, but including people from other countries in the Northern Triangle, left San Pedro Sula on Oct. 13, 2018.

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What does migration look like?

How do photographers and the news media use imagery to frame the politics and the human rights issues surrounding the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico?

"When mainstream news agencies report on Central American migration, they frequently use a series of visual tropes to turn complex issues into predictable narratives," wrote Sarah Bassnett, an associate professor at Western University, in a recent essay at The Conversation. Bassnett's analysis of the imagery of migration took its cue from news coverage of the "caravan" of thousands of Central Americans traveling through Mexico, which became a touch-point for President Donald Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric in a ramp-up to the midterm elections this month.

Bassnett focused on two images that media have used in coverage about the so-called caravan of migrants: one, by AP photographer Moises Castillo, shows a group of people on the move - or, as Bassnett put it, a "wave of foreigners" approaching the border. "While the image references the biblical story of a people escaping from persecution for a new life, it could be used to suggest a foreign invasion," noted Bassnett.

The other image, an AP photo by Oliver de Ros (at top), shows migrants attempting to cross the Guatemala-Mexico border. "The trope of the disorderly crowd is a common means of representing migrants as a threat," noted Bassnett.

"The effect is to disconnect migrants from the problems that have caused their displacement and to conceal the political failures that have led to the crisis. Instead of picturing the dangers migrants face on their journey, they themselves are portrayed as a menace," she wrote.

Want to learn more about the subject? This week we also spotlighted a upcoming online salon from Michael Shaw's Reading the Pictures blog that will explore the media's visual representation of the US/Mexico border. The salon, which will take place on December 6 from 7:30 to 9:00 pm ET, is co-produced with the Magnum Foundation with the support of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund. Special attention will be paid to images published since the White House implementation of the "zero tolerance" policy, the family separation crisis and the migrant caravan.

Here are some of the other photo stories we featured recently:
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1. Two New Looks at the American South
2. The Female Polio Vaccinators of Jalalabad
3. An Intimate Look at the Lives of Irish Travellers
4. Arbus's Towering Achievement of American Art
5. The Joy of Dogs Eating Treats

Mark Steinmetz loves the warmth and chaos of the South. "The vegetation grows rampant; the light is softened by humid air...The unexpected happens here a lot," notes the photographer, whose new book Past K-Ville is, as he puts it, "a poetic journey around the outskirts of K-Ville: a fictional town somewhere between Knoxville, Tennessee and Athens, Georgia" (above). We spotlighted the book along with the the exhibition "Southbound: Photographs of and about the New South," at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art in Charleston, South Carolina.
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In 2013, photojournalist Anastasia Taylor-Lind spent three days in Jalalabad, in eastern Afghanistan, photographing the campaign to eradicate polio. Most of her images were taken over a weekend during which she followed female vaccinators providing polio immunizations to children under five. "The outcome is a collection of quietly observant photographs that depict what she sees as 'the far-reaching effect of conflict on infrastructure, community and healthcare,'" noted the British Journal of Photography.
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Photographer Mary Turner has spent years documenting a tight-knit, reclusive community of Irish Travellers - and, fueled by curiosity about how they live their lives, she continues to document them to this day, noted The Washington Post. The project began in 2011, when the British government began the mass eviction of 86 families of Irish Traveller heritage from their homes on a former scrapyard in Southeast England. Although the Travellers owned the land, the surrounding community would not tolerate their presence.
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Beginning in 1969 and continuing through the last two years of her life, Diane Arbus traveled regularly by bus to New Jersey to photograph people at residences for the developmentally and intellectually disabled. Her resulting "Untitled" series was "one of the towering achievements of American art" noted The New York Times. The work is on view at the David Zwirner gallery through Dec. 15; it's the first exhibition in Zwirner's new partnership with the Fraenkel Gallery of San Francisco to co-represent the Arbus estate.
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German photographer Christian Vieler knows what dogs want. Vieler has been taking pictures of canines catching dog treats since 2013, when he bought a portable flash that allowed him to work with shutter speeds as fast as 1/8000 second, noted CNN. He was with Lotte, his Labrador retriever, when the equipment arrived. "To make her move and in order to test the 'freezing options' of the flash, I started throwing treats at her," Vieler noted. "Days later, when I cleaned my hard drive, I noticed how funny the shots were."

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AI-AP | Pro Photo Daily " What We Learned This Week: Understanding the Visual Tropes of Migration

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What does migration look like? How do photographers and the news media use imagery to frame the politics and the human rights issues surrounding the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico?

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These two juxtaposed photos were retweeted over 35,000 times with the caption “perspective matters”. Perspective matters, and so do dates and places… because these two photos were taken on two different days in two different places, in Paris 🔍
1/8

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These two juxtaposed photos were retweeted over 35,000 times with the caption “perspective matters”. Perspective matters, and so do dates and places… because these two photos were taken on two different days in two different places, in Paris 🔍
1/8 https://t.co/d0ECWMF7N1

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These two juxtaposed photos were retweeted over 35,000 times with the caption “perspective matters”. Perspective matters, and so do dates and places… because these two photos were taken on two different days in two different places, in Paris 🔍
1/8 pic.twitter.com/d0ECWMF7N1
— AFP Fact Check 🔎 (@AFPFactCheck) December 11, 2018

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.data.text
These two juxtaposed photos were retweeted over 35,000 times with the caption “perspective matters”. Perspective matters, and so do dates and places… because these two photos were taken on two different days in two different places, in Paris 🔍
1/8 https://t.co/d0ECWMF7N1

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
These two juxtaposed photos were retweeted over 35,000 times with the caption “perspective matters”. Perspective matters, and so do dates and places… because these two photos were taken on two different days in two different places, in Paris 🔍
1/8 https://t.co/d0ECWMF7N1

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
These two juxtaposed photos were retweeted over 35,000 times with the caption “perspective matters”. Perspective matters, and so do dates and places… because these two photos were taken on two different days in two different places, in Paris 🔍
1/8

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One of the most viral photos of the past few days has been a side-by-side comparison of two photos that purports to show how photographers covering the Paris protests are misrepresenting the truth.

"Paris burns" pic.twitter.com/VpG7nAVdhY

- Miko Flohr (@mikofLohr) December 9, 2018

Perspective matters ... pic.twitter.com/BOk7p4z7Ex

- Dovey Wan 🦖 (@DoveyWan) December 9, 2018

Social media posts of the comparison have been shared tens of thousands of times, and even certain media sites have used the images as proof that photographers are using dishonest perspective and framing to turn tiny insignificant fires into giant blazes that seem to show Paris burning.

The international news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) looked into the allegations and concluded that the side-by-side debunking is fake.

"Perspective matters, and so do dates and places... because these two photos were taken on two different days in two different places, in Paris," AFP writes. "Criticism of media coverage is legitimate, but this isn't the best example of it.

"These photos were taken on 2 different days in 2 separate places... and AFP did not find a single photo combining a scooter on fire and the Arc de Triomphe in the background."

And although AFP is being accused of this deception, neither of the photos were shot by AFP photographers or handled by AFP editors.

It turns out the photo of the large fire was captured on December 1st by photographer Katerine Pierre for Hans Lucas.

AFP discovered that the second photo of a burning scooter was shot on December 8th by a staff photographer of the French magazine LePoint, which then Tweeted it:

Une trottinette brûle avenue de Friedland. pic.twitter.com/uKIyMhYqVP

- Le Point (@LePoint) December 8, 2018

What's more, AFP also found that the two photos weren't even shot on the same side of the Arc de Triomphe.

The juxtaposition of two photos from two different weekends is a clever move: by positioning oneself on the spot where the burning scooter was photographed, on Friedland avenue in Paris, the perspective of the Arc de Triomphe is the same https://t.co/bumLxiGMkR
6/8 pic.twitter.com/HGKqlqIsEo

- AFPFactCheck 🔎 (@AFPFactCheck) December 11, 2018

The two photos aren't of the same place. The Hans Lucas photo was taken exactly on the other side of the Arc de Triomphe, on Foch Avenue. This is verifiable by looking at:
1) this lamp post
2) this stoplight
3) this fence and the beginning of Traktir Street on the right
7/8 pic.twitter.com/LOvBcuhBbV

- AFPFactCheck 🔎 (@AFPFactCheck) December 11, 2018

And that's how the AFP discovered that the viral photos showing "fake news" is itself actually fake news.

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That 'Debunking' of a Paris Protest Fire Photo is Fake

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One of the most viral photos of the past few days has been a side-by-side comparison of two photos that purports to show how photographers covering the Paris protests are misrepresenting the truth. "Paris burns" pic.twitter.com/VpG7nAVdhY - Miko Flohr (@mikofLohr) December 9, 2018 Perspective matters ...

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The checklist that follows is a reminder of things we all know we should do. It's meant to be particularly useful to correspondents and producers. They collect the information we put on the air and online and they are expected to do all they can to make sure that what we report is accurate.

Think of the checklist as a tool. Print a 3″x5″ copy for yourself and please use it. We know we will make mistakes. But we all need to do what we can to reduce them.

13 things to double-check

1. Ages -Get the date and birth - and do the math.

2. Days, date -Are you sure it happened then?

3. Grammar and spelling - Listeners and readers notice mistakes and forget your great story

4. Historical "facts" - Don't trust your memory.

5. Locations - Get them right and pronounce them correctly.

6. Names of businesses, groups and schools - For the 100th time, it's Dartmouth College.

7. Numbers - Check your math. Don't say "millions" if it's "billions." Learn about percent vs. percentage point.

8. Personal names - Get the correct spelling and pronunciation.

9. Pronunciations - Not only names, but places and terms, too. The dictionary is your friend!

10. Quotes - Make sure they're accurate and correctly attributed.

11. Superlatives - If something is said to be the "first," "last," "best," "worst," "only," "oldest," "youngest" etc., that claim must be verified. If it can't be, the claim should be deleted or qualified - and clearly attributed.

12. Titles - President, CEO, professor, etc. They must be accurate.

13. Web addresses and phone numbers - Never report them without testing them first.

When an NPR journalist says something is ready for editing, that journalist is confirming that all such double-checking has been done. If something hasn't yet been nailed down, the journalist will alert the editor. When news is breaking and we're covering it live, NPR journalists make clear what is "known" and what is "not known."

NPR editors

- Will ask: Has everything that needs to be double-checked been double-checked?

- Will still check: The accuracy of the reporting.

When mistakes are made

- We own them. This is important: If you realize a mistake has been made, email corrections@npr.org and notify the appropriate editor or producer. Senior managers need to be told about "serious" mistakes.

- We correct them.
Mark Memmott is NPR's Standards & Practices Editor. A version of this post originally appeared in one of his "Memmos."

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The checklist that follows is a reminder of things we all know we should do. It's meant to be particularly useful to correspondents and producers. They collect the information we put on the air and online and they are expected to do all they can to make sure that what we report is accurate.

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What do you want to know about fact-checking and ethics in journalism?
Updated January 23, 2018:
A recording of this conversation is embedded below. And it needs, unironically, a correction. At 1:20, Korva mischaracterized KPBS in San Diego as a "friend" of NPR, not an NPR Member station. Mark amplified the mistake. Lesson: Everyone needs to double- and triple-check their "facts" - and yes, it's hard to do so during a live interview.
Original post continues:
One of the most challenging parts of a journalist's job is thinking through the ethical issues that come up frequently. Should we grant anonymity to someone who's in the country illegally and fears deportation? When is it necessary to get a parent's permission before interviewing a minor? Have we been fair to the accused? Does this person understand that their name will "live" on the Internet? And what will we do if they later ask that their name be removed?

Meanwhile, copy editors and stand-alone fact-checking desks are increasingly rare. How do we fact-check ourselves, and what are the 10 (or 15 or 20 or ...) most common mistakes we all make that could be avoided?

We want to help - and we want to learn from you. to get a reminder when we're live on the NPR's Standards and Practices Editor Mark Memmott will be taking your questions about journalism ethics and fact-checking on Facebook Live on Tuesday, January 23 at 12:30 p.m. Eastern. Make sure you've subscribed to the NPR Training newsletter NPR Extra Facebook page. We'll publish some of the questions and answers on the Training site afterward.

In the meantime, check out some of Mark's favorite tools - the accuracy checklist and the NPR ethics guide .

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What do you want to know about fact-checking and ethics in journalism?

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Updated January 23, 2018: A recording of this conversation is embedded below. And it needs, unironically, a correction. At 1:20, Korva mischaracterized KPBS in San Diego as a "friend" of NPR, not an NPR Member station. Mark amplified the mistake.

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"It's very easy for an editorial team to appear to be taking a position. And that's exactly what I don't want. We don't ever want to do that. We don't want to take a position on the news. We want the viewers to take a position on the news."

Objectivity, the tenet being expressed here, may be the most poorly understood, tenacious, dangerous illusion journalism has ever believed in. Misunderstood, because it's confused with independence and impartiality. Tenacious, because it seems easy and it's cheap. Dangerous, because it's the biggest lie you can tell the public. And an illusion, because it doesn't exist.

The origins of the ideal

Journalistic objectivity, like many Western articles of faith, began as a late 19th-century ideal with very different aims than we attach to it The free market is another. Invented in the 19th century to combat economic inequality, it's now one of the main engines behind growing economic inequality. Originally, journalism was nothing more than a megaphone for the powerful: the king dictated, and the reporters wrote it down. Newspapers were filled with pronouncements from on high: declarations of war, changes in navigation routes, calls to prayer, that kind of thing.

The Enlightenment and the rise of modern science eventually ushered in the idea of journalism as a critical counterpower: it should act as a watchdog, not a messenger. This conviction was rooted in a new ideal known as objectivity, which was linked to independence. We, the press, would decide what to report on. And we'd only do so once we'd made sure it was true.

Now, more than a century later, we've gained a fully professionalized PR and information industry and lost every modern illusion about Truth with a capital T, and objectivity has come to mean precisely the opposite. What gets reported, we believe, shouldn't be determined by the press but by "what's happening in the world." For which Marcel Gelauff uses the misleadingly neutral term "the news," as if news arrives from outside rather than being defined as such by him and his editorial team. The media's job is merely to "report the news." In Gelauff's words, we shouldn't take a position.

"We'll figure it out" has become "You figure it out."

Here's why.

1. There's no such thing as objectivity

Marcel Gelauff says he doesn't want his editorial team to take a position on the news. Let me be the first to say that, alas, it's a vain hope. Describing the world with no idea of what's good or bad, relevant or trivial, true or false is literally impossible.

Behind every report, every feature, every news item, lies a worldview rooted in assumptions ontological (what's real?), epistemological (what's true?), methodological (how do we find out?), and moral (why does it matter?). Or, to put it in Gelauffian terms, all news comes from As a metaphor, try to imagine the earth without choosing a point of view: you can't. By definition, we view the earth from a single point (and thus no more than half of it).

Why doesn't the evening newscast ever lead with crop circles made by UFOs? Because the editorial department takes the position that UFOs don't exist.

Why doesn't the news ever lead with a delayed train between St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk? Because the editors take the position that a late Russian train doesn't matter here.

The reverse is true too: why does the news open with a Trump tweet, a bombing in Syria, a domestic policy proposal, chaos at a national transportation hub? Because the editors take the position that statements by a US president, wars in the Middle East, our own leaders' plans, and travel snafus in our own country matter.

And why does the news always call bombings by ISIS "terrorist attacks" and those by Western governments "bombardments"? Because the editors take the position that that's what they are.

Why does the news always frame the growth of the economy as something positive and not as a disaster for the climate, the environment, or the corals in the ocean? Because the editors take the position that economic growth is good.

So when an editor claims not to take a position on the news, he or she is making the most basic misrepresentation possible.

2. Objectivity is a poor ideal

So there's no such thing as objectivity. But even if there were, journalists would need to steer clear of it.

That's because the word "objectivity" is usually understood in terms of its moral dimension. Journalists are expected to suspend moral judgment. They're not supposed to say what they think.

Yet this has never been an amoral business. On the contrary, journalism is moral through and through. It's about what we as a society consider important, or should. All journalism, then, begins and ends with ideas about good and evil. The planet getting hotter isn't news because it's fact. The planet getting hotter is news because that's a bad thing.

Journalism is moral through and through. It begins and ends with ideas of good and evil

Objective journalism, defined as not taking a position or having an opinion, has become precisely the opposite of what it was originally intended to be. Today, it equates to unquestioningly repeating the opinions of the powerful. By leaving the position-taking to the public, we reduce our task as journalists to issuing press releases on behalf of elites.

In short, we fail to fulfill our most basic duty.

That brings us to the third and most urgent problem with objectivity.

3. Objectivity threatens democracy

News is one of the most important sources of information in a democratic society. Today more than ever, it determines what we know, understand, and think about the world. It influences our voting behavior and how we see other people, cultures, and countries. To a large degree, it even shapes our image of ourselves.

Our view of the world is increasingly fueled by half-truths, whole fairytales, and bald-faced lies issuing from the uppermost ranks of global politics, amplified by the loudest yellers in domestic politics, and spread across millions of phones, laptops, and TVs in milliseconds. Today it's more crucial than ever that journalism stand for something. We must commit to the values that are essential to a democratic society: to a check on power, to the pursuit of truth, to providing context and perspective.

When the president of the United States fabricates the number of attendees at his inauguration and then lashes out at every media organization that presents the evidence to show he's lying, it's not enough to report "Trump accuses media despite ample counterevidence," as the NOS news did. Or to broadcast some even-handed variant that leaves the public in the lurch: "So-and-so reports X number of people, Trump says there were Y. And now over to Philip with the weather."

If demagogues loathe political correctness, journalistic correctness is their best friend. And democracy's no match for that.
-Translated from Dutch by Laura Martz and Erica Moore
Your weekly antidote to the daily news grind Sign up for our free newsletter and get new stories every week from De Correspondent. Yes, send me more stories!

More from De Correspondent:

This is how we can fight Donald Trump's attack on democracy The news provokes outrage every day, but it rarely inspires sustained resistance. Now that Donald Trump has launched a frontal assault on democracy, the press needs to fundamentally change tack. Journalists have to beat historians to the punch and write history - before it repeats itself. Read my story here Podcast: Economics deals in good and evil, says this Czech economist Economists are calling the shots. Through their computational models and mathematical formulas, they direct the course of our political and social debate. But one essential dimension is missing, says Tomáš Sedláček: ethics. Life's most important values can't be expressed in figures. Listen to Lex's podcast here Big news! A year from now, you'll be reading a full-fledged antidote to the daily news grind The best in international journalism on an independent, ad-free platform with a global reach - we're one step closer to making this dream come true. Here's what's next on the horizon. Read Rob and Ernst-Jan's story here

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Why objective journalism is a misleading and dangerous illusion

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"It's very easy for an editorial team to appear to be taking a position. And that's exactly what I don't want. We don't ever want to do that. We don't want to take a position on the news. We want the viewers to take a position on the news."

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Dalos told Brown that he had seen the police around Fawnbrook and that the victim's mother told him that the boys had been arrested. He also pointed Brown to a couple of Facebook groups that were created in response to the crime. Brown scrolled through them on his cellphone and saw links flying back and forth with articles that said that the little girl had been gang raped at knife point, that the perpetrators were Syrian refugees and that their fathers had celebrated with them afterward by giving them high fives. The stories also claimed that the City Council and the police department were conspiring to bury the crime.

Over the weekend, Brown plowed through his daily packs of cigarettes as he watched hundreds, then thousands, of people joining the groups. Their panic appeared to be piqued by a mass shooting, the deadliest in American history, that had just occurred at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. The perpetrator had declared allegiance to ISIS. The commenters also posted stories that claimed refugees were responsible for a rash of rapes in Europe and that a similar phenomenon in the United States was imminent. "My girl is blond and blue-eyed," one woman wrote. "I am extremely worried about her safety."

The details of the Fawnbrook case, as it became known, were still unclear to Brown, but he was skeptical of what he was reading. For one thing, he knew from his own previous reporting that no Syrians had been resettled in Twin Falls after all. He woke up early on Monday to get a head start on clarifying things as much as possible in order to write a follow-up article. Before he got into the office, a friend texted him, telling him to check the Drudge Report. At the top, a headline screamed: "REPORT: Syrian 'Refugees' Rape Little Girl at Knifepoint in Idaho."

As the only city of any size for 100 miles in any direction, Twin Falls serves as a modest hub within southern Idaho's vast agricultural sprawl. Its population of about 45,000 nearly doubles each day as people travel there to work, primarily in the thriving agribusinesses. But its bucolic rhythms still allow for children to play outside unattended and make driving a meditative experience. Surrounding the city and sprinkled among its tidy tract neighborhoods, potatoes, alfalfa, sugar beets and corn grow in fields. Half a million dairy cows in the area produce three-quarters of the state's milk supply. Because of its location, Twin Falls is home to major food processors like Chobani Yogurt, Clif Bar and Glanbia Nutritionals, a dairy company. All have large facilities in town and have helped to push down the unemployment rate to just under 3 percent, below the national average. The wealth of easy-to-find low-skilled jobs made Twin Falls attractive as a place for resettling refugees, and they began arriving in the 1980s, at that time mostly from Cambodia and the former Yugoslavia. Nearly 2,500 refugees have moved to the town over the years.

Most Twin Falls residents are churchgoing, and about half of those are Mormons. Locally owned stores and restaurants are generally closed on Sundays, and the city has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1936. Liberals often register as Republicans just to have an opportunity to participate in the electoral process, by voting in the primaries. If a Republican is going to win regardless, the thinking goes, they would at least like to play a role in deciding which one prevails.

The same qualities that bind the townspeople together can, in turn, be alienating to newcomers. The refugee community has begun to experience this effect as its demographic makeup has changed. Over the past decade and a half, as conflict spread across North Africa and the Middle East, Twin Falls started to resettle larger numbers of refugees with darker skin who follow an unfamiliar religion - two things that make it difficult to blend into a town that is 80 percent white.

On a national scale, an ascendant network of anti-Muslim activists and provocateurs has exploited the fears brought on by these changes, finding a platform and a receptive audience online. The narrative they espouse - on blogs with names like Jihad Watch - is that America, currently 1 percent Muslim, is in the midst of an Islamic invasion. Central to the worldview of these bloggers, some of whom have celebrity-size social-media followings, is that Muslims have a propensity toward sexual violence. They seize on any news item that bolsters this notion. Perhaps their biggest touchstone is an incident that took place in Cologne, Germany, on New Year's Eve in 2015. Mobs of men, many of them asylum seekers from the Middle East, pick-pocketed and groped more than a thousand women in and around a train station. The German police acknowledged the incident had taken place only under pressure, as the women's stories began to leak out through the media. This established, for these activists, the contours of a narrative that they believe has been repeating itself. The Fawnbrook incident quickly drew their interest.

What happened in Twin Falls was sadly somewhat commonplace but not in the way the activists believed. The local Police Department investigates sex crimes on a weekly basis, and in about half a dozen of those that proceed to court each year, the victims and the accused are both minors. "If it's younger kids, it's them being curious," J.R. Paredez, the lead investigator on the case, explained to me. Some children who act out sexually have been victimized themselves, he said, while others have been exposed to explicit material at home or at school or, as is more common recently, on their cellphones. "As they start to get older, there's more of the actual sexual component to it."

Two weeks after the incident, the boys were charged with lewd and lascivious behavior against a minor. (The 14-year-old who lent his cellphone to the boys was initially charged with the same crime. He was not present in the laundry room, and his charge was eventually reduced to make him an accessory.) In Idaho, this statute applies to physical contact "done with the intent of arousing, appealing to, or gratifying the lust or passions or sexual desires of such person, such minor child, or third party." Paredez said that the cellphone video made clear what specifically had happened between the children, but that he couldn't show it to the reporters who asked him about it, because doing so would have constituted criminal distribution of child pornography. He called most of the details that he read about the case on the internet "100 percent false, like not even close to being accurate." (The family of the accused declined to comment.)

As more time passed without a solid account of what happened inside the laundry room, lurid rumors continued to surface online and came to dominate conversations in grocery stores and at school events. And while the City Council members did not have control over the case, the bloggers who wrote about it placed much of the blame on them.

On the Monday when Twin Falls was the top story on Drudge, the City Council held another weekly meeting. Normally only a handful of people attend, and Brown is one of the few reporters among them. But that night, the auditorium filled until there was standing room only, and television news crews appeared from Boise and other nearby cities. When it came time for public comments, one man got up and praised the city's handling of the case, followed by more than a dozen others who laid into the council members. Terry Edwards handed each of them a small copy of the Constitution and told them to do their jobs. A woman named Vicky Davis, her hair in a satiny white bob, stood up and proclaimed that Islam had declared jihad on America.

"They are not compatible with our culture," she said. "They hate us. They don't want to be Americans. They don't want to assimilate. What do you need to see? What more proof do you need?"

This was a highly unusual meeting, but Brown wasn't exactly surprised. Several months earlier, when the anti-refugee activists began to organize, he started reading up to try to better understand their views. He picked up a book by Ann Coulter and began to follow the anti-refugee blogs. At the meeting, he felt as if he were hearing all that he had read being repeated aloud by his neighbors.

Kingsbury, the police chief, read from a statement while fumbling with a thicket of microphones piled onto the lectern by visiting reporters. In between exasperated breaths, he explained why he could not disclose the details of the incident but said that he could address some of the misinformation that was spreading online. There was no evidence of a knife, he said, or of any celebration afterward or of a cover-up, and no Syrians were involved: The boys were from Sudan and Iraq. "I'm a kid who grew up in Idaho," he said. "Law enforcement takes these types of allegations very seriously. However, we can't act on them within an hour. It's not like a crime show." He told the audience that the boys had been arrested, to applause.

But online, Kingsbury's words only inflamed the activists more. Just after midnight, someone posted his work email address on Jihad Watch, along with those of the council members and the mayor. A commenter on another website called The Muslim Issue posted the phone numbers and email addresses for the town's government officials, the head of the refugee-resettlement center and some administrators at the college, which runs the refugee resettlement program. From there, the information spread to more blogs and to the comments sections of far-right news outlets with massive audiences.

By 9 the next morning, messages were pouring into the inbox of the mayor of Twin Falls, Shawn Barigar, nearly every minute. Barigar grew up in a neighboring town and went to work in Boise as a television news anchor before moving back to start a family. His even keel and the air of sophistication he picked up while living in a comparatively big city have made him popular politically. He is left of the town on many social issues, which has made some of his constituents suspicious of him. But most of the people who contacted him that summer were from other states and even other countries. Some people demanded that the city pay for a new car and apartment for the victim and her family. Others said that local officials' attempts to correct inaccurate details about the incident were veiled efforts to suggest that no crime had occurred at all, in order to protect the refugees. Others accused him of being a "globalist," a word that has taken on many definitions but in this case meant he was part of a vast, arcane conspiracy. They believed that establishment politicians wanted to turn red states like Idaho blue by starting wars and then importing refugees from those war zones as cheap labor who would not only displace American workers but also reliably vote Democratic.

Many of the people who wrote to the mayor had a much simpler goal: to unleash their hatred of Islam. One message, with the subject line "Muslims," said that refugees were committing rapes and hit-and-runs and urinating on women and that the mayor was guilty of treason. "It's out of the bag, [expletive]," it read. "We will and are holding you responsible for any and all crimes committed by these quote refugees. No courts. No police. Just us. You will answer to us in the darkness of night."

The next day, Camille Barigar, the mayor's wife, arrived in her office at the college, where she ran the performing-arts center, and started listening to her voice mail. In a calm, measured voice, a man who sounded as if he was reading from a script went on for nearly four minutes. "I wonder, Miss Barigar, if your residence was posted online and your whereabouts identified, how you would feel if half a dozen Muslim men raped and sodomized you, Miss Barigar, and when you tried to scream, broke every tooth in your mouth," he said. "And then I wonder how you'd feel if, when you went to the Twin Falls Police Department, they told you to run along, that this is simply cultural diversity."

The caller said that life was "becoming difficult" in the United States, just as it had in England. He referenced Jo Cox, a British member of Parliament who spoke out in support of refugees and later "met with opposition in the form of a bullet to the head."

"She's dead now," he said. "They've buried her."

The Twin Falls story aligned perfectly with the ideology that Stephen Bannon, then the head of Breitbart News, had been developing for years, about the havoc brought on by unchecked immigration and Islamism, all of it backed by big-business interests and establishment politicians. Bannon latched onto the Fawnbrook case and used his influence to expand its reach. During the weeks leading up to his appointment in August 2016 to lead Donald J. Trump's campaign for president, Twin Falls was a daily topic of discussion on Bannon's national radio show, where he called it "the beating heart" of all that the coming presidential election was about. He sent his lead investigative reporter, Lee Stranahan, to the town to investigate the case, boasting to his audience that Stranahan was a "pit bull" of a reporter. "We're going to let him off the chain," he said.

Then 50, Stranahan was relatively new to journalism. He had spent a few decades as a television producer and a graphic illustrator in Los Angeles, and on the side he shot erotic photography, which is how he met his wife. Stranahan's transition into journalism began during the television writers' strike of 2007 and 2008. To keep himself entertained, he created parody political advertisements and posted them on YouTube. One of the first was a satirical Rudy Giuliani ad, asking Republican primary voters to support him because he had taken good care of his mistress, offering her private security courtesy of the N.Y.P.D., whereas Mitt Romney "didn't even bother" to take on a paramour. Stranahan says that within weeks, the videos led to invitations to appear on CNN and to meet with a vice president at NBC and to a job offer, which he accepted, writing political comedy for The Huffington Post.

In college, Stranahan was a libertarian and even attended Ayn Rand's funeral. But when he moved to California, he became a liberal, vehemently opposing the Iraq war and the presidency of George W. Bush. He voted for Barack Obama in 2008. Two years later, Stranahan interviewed Andrew Breitbart, a fellow Huffington Post alumnus, for an article he was writing about Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. They spoke for more than three hours, bonding over their shared love of Depeche Mode. Eventually, Breitbart became Stranahan's mentor, converted him to conservatism and offered him a job. In 2011, Breitbart took Stranahan to the Conservative Political Action Conference and introduced him to Michele Bachmann, who, in Stranahan's recollection, convinced him that she had uncovered disturbing details about Islam that no one in the establishment was willing to talk about. Stranahan says this conversation was the genesis of his concerns about the religion.

Stranahan arrived in Idaho in August, after covering the national party conventions. The sealed nature of the case prevented any journalist from an exhaustive examination, and the accused and the victim's families refused to speak to the mainstream media. But Stranahan thrived in the void of facts. He was granted one of the few interviews with the victim's family, but his account of the crime offered little more information than others' had - and far more inaccuracies, according to the police and the county prosecutor. He described what took place as a "horrific gang rape" and wrote graphic details about the incident, which the Twin Falls Police say are untrue. On Breitbart radio, Stranahan openly wondered whether Barigar, the mayor, was "a big, you know, Shariah supporter." And he suggested repeatedly that mass rapes by refugees had occurred in Europe and were inevitably coming to the United States. "If you want to wait until your country turns into France or Cologne, Germany. If you want to wait, you can wait," he warned the audience. "But if you want to watch it and stop it now, you've got a chance to do it in November."

Stranahan says his Breitbart editors sent him to Twin Falls to report on the "Muslim takeover" of the town. (Breitbart denies this and says it's "absurd.") But he soon became enamored of a grander theory about what was happening in southern Idaho: globalism. He wrote that local businesses received government kickbacks for employing foreigners instead of Americans. (Stranahan did not cite any evidence of this, and it is untrue, according to the state Department of Labor.) And he often referred to a Syrian refugee crisis, though no Syrians were ever resettled there. Then, to bring the story full circle, he claimed these Muslim refugees were being used to replace American workers and that the government, big business and law enforcement were either conspiring to conceal the sexual-assault case or intentionally looking the other way, in order to keep the machine turning.

"Bottom line, this is bad for business," he told me in an interview last winter, explaining his interpretation of the city officials' rationale: " 'I'm not really going to look into this too deeply because if I find out the truth, if I discover what actually happened, if I figure out the truth, it's not really good for business.' " Stranahan believed that Chobani, a Greek-yogurt company, was at the center of the scheme. Breitbart had been covering the company for months, ever since the owner, Hamdi Ulukaya, a Turkish-born businessman, made a speech at the World Economic Forum at Davos encouraging other chief executives to pledge financial and political support to refugees.

While he was in town, Stranahan embedded with critics of the refugee program. They drove him to some of his interviews and to the yogurt factory to shoot drone footage. Stranahan doesn't get around well on his own in part because he has been mostly blind in one eye since grade school, when a neighborhood kid threw a rock at him, shattering his right optic nerve. Rather than a round pupil, his is jagged-edged, and so large that it nearly covers his iris. He shuffles when he walks because of neuropathic foot pain from diabetes, which he regulates by eating a ketogenic diet, usually one meal a day, consisting entirely of protein and fat. In Twin Falls, he subsisted most days on blackened chicken from Popeyes.

During the three months he was in Twin Falls, City Council members refused his interview requests, leaving him stuck inside an echo chamber with the activists, which he amplified online. When I was in Twin Falls, I found myself empathizing: These same activists refused to speak with me. One of the most outspoken among them is a woman named Julie DeWolfe, who lives atop a grassy hill 20 minutes outside town and who spent significant time with Stranahan. When I went there to ask for an interview, she came outside with several barking dogs and told me to leave. "The company you work for is not trustworthy," she said.

As the summer came to a close, The Times-News was bombarded with threatening phone calls and email from all over. After it received a threat that was deemed credible enough to engage the F.B.I., the editor of the paper told Brown and the other reporters to conduct their interviews outside the office and ordered the entire staff to walk in pairs when going out to their cars. For months, the reporters covered protests around town, which were widely hyped on social media but, for the most part, sparsely attended. At least once the Police Department deployed plainclothes officers into the crowds, with instructions to look after the journalists. Later, it turned out that fake Facebook accounts linked to the Russian government helped to spread stories about Twin Falls and even organized one of the rallies there. The event was also poorly attended but is the first known Russian attempt to spark a demonstration on American soil.

The phone and email attacks continued through the fall and spiked each time a new conspiracy theory was posted online. One council member told me that she gained 15 pounds from the stress. At night, Shawn Barigar would lie down with his iPad and spend hours reading stories that called him a crook, a liar or an ISIS sympathizer. He had to shut down his Twitter account after someone accused him of having been convicted of sexual assault. Before he could debunk the myth, the post had spread, leaving untold numbers of constituents under the impression that he was a rapist. He stopped sleeping and struggled to focus at work or to be present with his family. He and his wife say they bickered all summer.

"It was like being in a hole," he told me, his eyes welling up with tears. "It was all-consuming."

Stranahan now works out of a trendy shared workspace in Washington, across the street from the White House. He quit his job at Breitbart, which he said was being mismanaged in Bannon's absence, to host a drive-time FM radio show with Sputnik, a state-run Russian news outlet. He told me that he jumped at the chance to transition to a Kremlin-funded outfit and, knowing that it would be controversial, spoke to every media outlet that inquired about it, in order to draw even more people to his work.

He expressed no contrition about the reporting he did in Twin Falls, though many of the conclusions that he drew on the radio and online have been debunked. Still, many of the outlets that covered Twin Falls made only minor tweaks to their stories or did nothing at all. Many of the falsehoods that were written about the Fawnbrook case still appear at the top of a Google search of the city.

The most transparent course-correction resulted from a lawsuit against Alex Jones, the publisher of InfoWars, for its misleading stories about Chobani. After initially vowing to fight the yogurt company in court, Jones retracted several stories and issued an apology in order to make a lawsuit go away. Stranahan said that his editors forced him off the Twin Falls story during the fall and suggested that they had done so under threat from Chobani. (Breitbart denies this.)

Stranahan and I spoke a handful of times over the course of the last year, each time for several hours. Talking with him feels like being inside one of his conspiracy theories. When you ask him a question, he begins to answer and then immediately swerves in a different direction, bouncing like a pinball between topics that barely connect to one another - from the Fawnbrook case to clitorectomies and stoning, then Syrian refugees, then a prominent Wahhabi cleric - and seems to increase in velocity as he ricochets off them. It's an exhausting exercise, but also a fascinating one. He seems perpetually on the precipice of pulling the argument together, sparking just enough curiosity that you let him keep going. Stranahan uses this talent most effectively in his work, painting himself as a champion of people who are understandably uninformed about other cultures and religions based on their own experiences. "It's just easy to brand these people as a bunch of Islamophobic, racist yokels," he told me, with a hint of disgust in his voice. "I just don't like it."

Stranahan struck me as passionate about his stories; not about their veracity but about the freedom he and the critics of refugee resettlement should have to speculate as they wanted without being belittled by the fact-mongering mainstream. When I reached him by phone this June, he told me he was planning to travel back to Idaho for more reporting on Fawnbrook, now that he was no longer constrained by his editors at Breitbart. He told me that he believed that he had uncovered another dimension of his globalist theory related to Chobani's participation in the federal school-lunch program. He felt compelled to follow up on the earlier coverage, because he was frustrated that Alex Jones and others were forced to retract their stories and apologize under pressure. "I don't like people getting shut up like that," he said. "Even if their stories have problems, I don't like journalists getting shut down."

I started to ask why anyone should be allowed to publish false information for the express purpose of angering their audience and pushing them further away from those with whom they disagree, but Stranahan cut me off. "Hey, I'm walking into the White House right now," he said. He had just arrived for a press briefing with the president's spokesman. "Let me call you back."

This April, the boys accused in the Fawnbrook case admitted guilt - the juvenile court equivalent to pleading guilty - and were sentenced in June. The judge prohibited city officials from commenting on the outcome of the trial, but juvenile-justice experts told me that the boys would most likely be placed on probation and required to attend mandatory therapy to correct their behavior. Even in Idaho, a state with tough sentencing requirements, the law bars anyone under 10 from being jailed and only allows it in extreme cases for anyone under 12.

Late one Monday night in June I received a phone call from Dalos, the Scanner Man. He asked if I had heard about the "fireworks flying around Twin Falls." The news of the boys' fate had somehow reached the public. "The suspects didn't go to jail or nothing," he said, adding that people in town were "irate." Facebook posts about the story were again flooding his feed. "They're blaming it on Muslim law," he said. One of the articles circulating, from a site called Bare Naked Islam, included a photograph of the judge in the case with a large red arrow pointing toward his head, next to the caption "Corrupt Judge." Another article published the judge's home address and phone number, inciting another flood of harassment, a year after the initial onslaught.

Shawn and Camille Barigar's bickering has subsided, but they have discovered that they disagree over whether Islamic teachings conflict with American social norms. "I can't take the leap," Shawn told me, "that because you are Muslim therefore you are reading the Quran verbatim, and you're going to go out and do genital mutilation." Camille said she supported the local resettlement program but thought that her husband's unwillingness to even consider cultural differences or acknowledge any nuance was naïve. "I think we've got to be careful," she said. "And I don't want to be afraid to talk about it entirely or, like, sound racist." It is precisely this discomfort that provides an opening for people like Stranahan to dominate the conversation.

Part of the reason a fear of Islam has persisted in Twin Falls is because the local leadership refused to defuse it, according to Matt Christensen, 36, the editor of The Times-News. While Brown wrote articles that sorted out the truth about the Fawnbrook case, Christensen was publishing commentary that castigated the people who were spreading falsehoods. He told me that he had closed-door meetings with city officials, in which he asked them to write guest editorials doing the same, but none of them did. Christensen suspected that they were afraid of one of the most reliable political dangers in the region, the same force that leads would-be Democrats there to register as Republicans: being outflanked on the right is the quickest way to lose your job.

"Behind closed doors, they would all tell you they were pro-refugee, and we wanted them to step forward and make that declaration in a public arena, and it just never really happened," he told me. "That was frustrating to us especially at the beginning because it really felt like the newspaper was out there all alone." He continued: "There were days where we felt like, Godammit, what are we doing here? We write a story and it's going to reach 50,000 people. Breitbart writes a story and it's going to reach 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 million people. What kind of a voice do we have in this debate?"

The refugee resettlement center received a dramatic increase in donations from local residents during the last year. But those in the town who support the program have often been drowned out by the relatively smaller, but louder, group of activists who oppose it. Brown said he expected to see an anti-Shariah bill introduced in the State Legislature when the next session starts in 2018. Bills like this, which try to bar Islamic law from being used in American courts, have been introduced in the past two years in Boise but never passed. He speculated that the momentum of the past year could force a different outcome. "There are a lot of people who feel like society is changing too quickly, like the community is changing too quickly," he told me. "And who view other people not like them or who don't speak their language as a threat or a sign that their culture is going to be weakened. And they want to do what they can to stop that."

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How Fake News Turned a Small Town Upside Down

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Dalos told Brown that he had seen the police around Fawnbrook and that the victim's mother told him that the boys had been arrested. He also pointed Brown to a couple of Facebook groups that were created in response to the crime.

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He tries it again, keystroke by keystroke. His password is right, but the system still doesn't accept it.

"I can't log in," he hears a colleague beside him say.

None of Radio Tamazuj's staff can log in on that December morning. Turns out the Dutch aid organization Free Press Unlimited, which founded Radio Tamazuj and provides its funding, has revoked the journalists' access.

Free Press Unlimited - an organization fighting to achieve global freedom of the press - is censoring its own radio station. The reason? Money. Radio Tamazuj had published items that criticized Internews, one of Free Press Unlimited's donors.

A reconstruction based on interviews with those involved and internal documents and email exchanges that are in De Correspondent's possession reveals a shocking picture of the actions taken by Free Press Unlimited's management. Donations took precedence over journalistic integrity. "Try not to bite the hand of the person that is feeding you," writes Joop Daalmeijer, chair of the FPU board, to Radio Tamazuj's editor in chief.

This is the story of a development aid organization whose focus on money made it lose sight of its own objectives. It is also the story of millions of donated dollars that are spent in South Sudan on "independent media" that are independent in name only.

But let's start at the beginning: What is Radio Tamazuj?

It was a humble start: in the early years, around 2010, the station ran on a radio signal generated by wires strung between the trees.

With help from the Dutch development aid organization Free Voice - which merged with Press Now in 2011 to become Free Press Unlimited - the project evolved into a news broadcaster whose signal can be received on shortwave radio across the entire border region between Sudan and South Sudan.

The relationship between Free Press Unlimited and Radio Tamazuj is simple: FPU is responsible for Tamazuj's editor in chief and for content. As laid down in the project's editorial charter, Radio Tamazuj performs its editorial activities freely and independently.

Free Press Unlimited supports independent outlets throughout the world. The Amsterdam-based organization has projects in 46 countries. Its FPU's 2016 budget was €16.5 million; the Dutch government provided €13.3 million of that, and FPU raised another €817,935 in donations. "Third-party activities" (such as money from other funding organizations) brought in the bulk of the remainder. See Free Press Unlimited's 2016 financial report which was roughly $18 million in 2016, is largely funded by the Dutch government. FPU also raises roughly $1 million in donations each year.

In 2014 Free Press Unlimited Radio Tamazuj's "overall objective" as to "[i]ncrease freedom of expression and access to relevant information for South Sudanese people." Starting in January 2012, Tamazuj broadcasts and has an estimated listenership of half a million people per day.

Crackdown on the media in South Sudan

In South Sudan (and many other poor countries), it's not unusual for the media to be funded by development organizations. Of course there are also state-run media outlets, but they present a one-sided picture in times of conflict. Aid organizations nurture independent stations because they believe that in situations like these, independent media further a country's development, and are thus a good use of development funds. The South Sudanese capital of Juba is also home to Eye Radio, supported by the The American development aid organization Internews works around the world to promote freedom of the press.
The Internews website. and Radio Miraya, supported by the United Nations.

On the radio in Juba things are quiet. Too quiet. People are being slaughtered in the streets, but not a single radio station is reporting it.

Radio Tamazuj decides - since no one else is doing it - to start broadcasting in Juba itself. It's precisely in times of conflict that the dissemination of independent information is vital, believes Free Press Unlimited - just as you'd expect from an organization whose tagline is "people deserve to know."

And so Tamazuj expands again, into a radio station that reports on all of South Sudan and the southern states of Sudan. Its English-language website becomes one of the most reputable sources of reliable news from the war-torn region.

Most of the country's media outlets buckle. They stop reporting on civilian deaths and human rights violations, adopt the government's rhetoric, or focus on "humanitarian reporting" - things like how you can prevent cholera, or what to do if you find a land mine. In truth, the South Sudanese people no longer have access to a domestic independent press.

Tamazuj in exile

The editors at Radio Tamazuj take a handful of journalists and go into exile, to escape the government's censorship. They set up shop in where they continue to report on the conflict through a network of underground South Sudanese journalists. Because they broadcast over shortwave, the government can't jam their

Other media projects supported by development aid organizations, such as Internews's Eye Radio, do keep operating in South Sudan. Though these development organizations still claim to be supporting an independent press, in reality that independence is all but gone. This worries Free Press Unlimited enough that the organization reports the situation to the Dutch embassy.

Against this backdrop, the journalists at Radio Tamazuj begin to keep a close and critical eye on the South Sudanese media, including Eye Radio. "There's no real difference between government radio and Eye Radio," one staff member explains. "They shouldn't deceive people."

In June 2016 Radio Tamazuj's English website publishes some reports critical of Eye Radio and its funding organization, Internews. calls into question an article Eye Radio had published. (Eye Radio subsequently that piece.) criticizes an Internews-funded survey of radio listeners.

The articles are the starting point for Free Press Unlimited's interference in Radio Tamazuj's editorial decisions - an interference that will steadily grow.

What's happening behind the scenes at Internews

To understand why, we have to take a brief trip back to early 2013 - and the US. There, the American NGO Internews receives some $75 million from for a five-year project that comes to be known as Strengthening Free and Independent Media in South Sudan. Internews is in charge of dividing USAID's funding over various organizations that develop media projects in South Sudan - and it can make these subgrants, as they're called, entirely at its own discretion.

Internews turns off FPU's funding in June 2016. FPU, working to salvage what it can, negotiates with Internews to keep paying the subgrant through the end of July.

Right in the middle of these negotiations, Radio Tamazuj publishes its articles criticizing Eye Radio and Internews.

On June 23 Radio Tamazuj's editor in chief, the American Daniel van Oudenaren, receives an email from Free Press Unlimited's team leader for Sudan and South Sudan, with the subject line "Strategising under duress - let's talk!"

FPU's team leader gets right to the point:
"I would like to see if we can find a moment to talk [...] about the forced termination of the iStream project and about our concerted efforts in saving our budget as much as possible through negotiations with Internews and other US channels that are ongoing... "I am sure you understand this multi-targeted approach requires careful and strategic manoeuvring by all of us on the management side, both in convincing and arguing but also in communication on all levels within ourselves and with our partners and other donors. "Whatever nice strategy we deploy at our end, however, can be easily and rapidly undone by Tamazuj content or framing of content on Tamazuj. I do not want to intrude in Tamazuj's editorial policy, and will of course fiercely defend the editorial freedoms of Tamazuj towards any outside party as a core freedom that we are exactly here to protect and defend. However, I do believe there is also place for a strategic approach towards the presentation and timing of media productions without compromising on journalistic principles and editorial policies. "In the case of the rather abrupt ending of the iStream funding I am afraid that the seeming Tamazuj approach is presently counterproductive to the ongoing efforts to mitigate the damage as much as possible, and even find new opportunity in this setback. "Today evening I received an e-mail from a concerned donor who felt that Tamazuj is bashing Internews, warning me this can lead to a tarnished reputation for us all also in the eyes of other donors. If their observation is right, this is potentially a big threat to our existence. "I would be devastated if content published in Tamazuj that seems to target Internews, at least according to that concerned donor and quite possibly also in the eyes of Internews and USAID, would stand in the way of us being able to care for the people and achieving our dreams for Tamazuj."
Never before has Free Press Unlimited interfered in editorial decisions. Editor in chief Van Oudenaren decides not to respond to the email. "There was nothing in it about editorial content, only concerns about institutional interests," he explains. As an independent journalist, Van Oudenaren doesn't want to be drawn into those.

A few days later, on June 29, two representatives from FPU fly to East Africa to speak with Van Oudenaren. The notes taken during that conversation by one of the FPU delegates again emphasize FPU's real concern:

"[FPU's team leader and grant manager] explain they have had constructive talks with the Internews team dealing with the implementation of the termination and have been able to get as much as possible lenience out of them, covering costs incurred after the end date of 17 June. [...] They had agreed that for any issues coming up, they could connect with Internews to see how to solve these. However, this leniency is now most likely out the window as a result of the badmouthing of Internews on the RT website."

And: "Meanwhile, Leon [Willems, FPU's director of policy and programs] has been having talks in Juba with USAID, aiming to get them to cover the damage to RT caused by the termination. This process is ongoing and [the team leader and grant manager] fear that it may be negatively impacted by the timing and framing of the mentioned publications."

So Free Press Unlimited isn't accusing Radio Tamazuj of factual, journalism-related errors, but of

"The point is: we had something to say, we tried to say it, and that discussion was shut down," he explains. "We were free to have a discussion about human rights, about the war, about basically anything - as long as it didn't touch on something Free Press Unlimited actually disagreed with or had institutional concerns about."

How the argument unfolds

A week later, on July 2, Radio Tamazuj publishes an on its website about a new project to measure viewership and listenership in South Sudan, in which Internews is once again named with a critical note.

On July 5 one of Free Press Unlimited's sends a pair of letters Radio Tamazuj's way: one to its staff, and one to its editor in chief.

To the staff he writes, "We have discovered a pattern emerging on the English website that we find self destructive, and which in our opinion has to stop and requires immediate action."

Willems asks Tamazuj's staff to set up a complaints mechanism "to increase editorial transparency." He also asks them to hold what's called an editorial review, in which they put their own reporting under a critical microscope to see whether mistakes have been made.

"In the meantime," he adds, "we urge you to stop publishing additional stories along the same line which are disputed. That includes new stories that harm persons and organizations who have been the subject of these already published stories."

Where these warnings are perhaps a little cryptic, chair of Free Press Unlimited's supervisory board, leaves no doubt in an email to Van Oudenaren that the issue is

"As a journalist, and as a former chairperson of the Journalists Union in the Netherlands, I totally support freedom of speech and press freedom. But, on the other hand, [...] Freedom is also restricted by financial means, especially is this important for media, supported by donors. Try not to bite the hand of the person who is feeding you. Try not to offend a donor, so you can no longer fulfil the more important task of a paper or radio/tv-station."

The editor in chief, Daniel van Oudenaren, receives an official warning for misconduct.

Willems writes, "Well, this is not about press freedom but about your unacceptable behavior and insubordination as well as your lack of professionalism regarding complaints. [...] The recent string of stories, the complaints as a result and/or the comments received which are not addressed by you, clearly indicate to us that you intend to persist in this unprofessional behavior [...] We will not accept further violation of the code of conduct and such violation will lead to your (immediate) dismissal."

"It needs to be clear," Van Oudenaren responds, "that your demands - and your threat to fire me - would result in the suppression of reporting that is legitimate and newsworthy. [...] Complaints in themselves are not evidence of any kind of wrongdoing, and none of the emails that you shared constitute any evidence of misreporting."

On July 20, 2016 a conversation takes place in Amsterdam between Daniel van Oudenaren, Joop Daalmeijer, and Leon Willems. They agree that Tamazuj's staff will hold an internal editorial review to explore whether mistakes were made in their reporting on Internews. A panel of independent specialists will then evaluate this review and advise Tamazuj and FPU on how to proceed.

Three months later, the station's staff sends a 130-page report to Free Press Unlimited's management, which explains in minute detail how the six articles came to be and how they led to the disagreement with FPU. The main conclusion? "There is no evidence to substantiate allegations that there were serious ethical breaches on the part of any journalist or journalists at Radio Tamazuj, nor any serious inaccuracies."

In the accompanying email Van Oudenaren writes, "We seek endorsement of our findings and recommendations by the review panel, or, if they feel that they are unable to do so for whatever reasons, we invite any or all of them to a workshop or conference call so that we hear from them their different conclusions and learn from the experience overall."

Director Leon Willems responds with a single sentence: "Thanks Daniel, We will look into it and i will get back to you."

The censorship is complete

Van Oudenaren won't be there to hear the director's feedback: At the end of November, Willems travels to East Africa to meet with Tamazuj's entire editorial staff. Prior to the meeting, he tells Van Oudenaren that his contract won't be renewed in January. That has nothing to do with the editorial review, Willems says - it's just time for new leadership.

The station's staff is furious, and shocked. "It was sickening," says one employee who asked to remain anonymous. Van Oudenaren has been the driving force behind the radio station for years. "Since we started broadcasting, we've never been off the air for any reason. Security concerns, exile, whatever. We never, ever, in five and a half years failed to broadcast. Except that one day. Everybody went home." Radio Tamazuj aired an old show that day.

Two days later, Tamazuj's staff publish parts of their editorial review on Twitter.

They also publish Joop Daalmeijer's response.

When they arrive at work the next morning, no one can log in.

Free Press Unlimited has changed the website's passwords, they learn, and transferred the new passwords to the radio station's recently hired director - who, just days into his new role, finds himself squarely in the middle of an argument between Tamazuj's staff and FPU that's spiraled out of control.

In an email exchange between editor in chief Van Oudenaren and the station's new director, the latter expresses his bewilderment: "It is, at the very least, an anomalous situation." He promises to look into it, and says, "I reiterate my complete commitment to protecting the editorial integrity of Radio Tamazuj, from those who threaten to undermine it, whoever they may be."

It takes seven days before full website access is returned to all the station's editors. Meanwhile, the editor in chief has been asked to transfer control of the station's Twitter account to Free Press Unlimited.

In its response to this article, Free Press Unlimited confirms that it "took possession of and changed the passwords and additional security measures" and "immediately returned them to the station's director at that time." The organization explains why as follows: editor in chief Van Oudenaren supposedly used Tamazuj's social media accounts to vent his personal displeasure, and FPU was afraid "he would do the same with the website."

Van Oudenaren denies this. His version of events is confirmed by another editor who worked there at the time.

The aftermath

What came next was a chaotic period for Tamazuj's staff. "We only did the routine news that could be done by any other media house," says one of the editors, who asked to remain anonymous to protect his job, about the period directly after Van Oudenaren's departure. "But the investigative stories, the conflict reporting: they killed it."

In May, the station's director resigned. The managing editor also left.

In its response to this article, Free Press Unlimited noted that it worked with Tamazuj's staff to appoint a new editor in chief, who is now on board. And in July of this year, external journalist Michael Alexander led FPU and the station's staff in a discussion of the editorial review. According to FPU, he came "to the conclusion that the articles in question were lacking in journalistic rigor. The station's staff agreed with him."

Notably, Michael Alexander - whom Free Press Unlimited calls an "independent expert" in its response - also worked for Internews for years.

Last July Tamazuj's staff also devoted a workshop to the station's future: by January 2020, they hope, Radio Tamazuj will be fully independent of Free Press Unlimited.

-Translated from Dutch by Grayson Morris and Erica Moore
Free Press Unlimited was given 24 hours to respond to this article. Its response has been incorporated above. The organization also says it does not agree that it committed censorship. "We did not engage in censorship and we never will."

We also directly contacted Joop Daalmeijer for comment. FPU's spokesperson responded, also on Daalmeijer's behalf. Internews did not respond to our request for comment. Note: Given the importance of accuracy in a story like this one, we haven't corrected any language errors in the cited material - not even typos. Please remember that many of the people being quoted speak English as a second language, and even significant errors do not reflect a lack of integrity, intelligence, or education.
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Update - September 19, 2017
Three days after we sent this article to Free Press Unlimited - and two days after we published it - FPU sent us a list containing 31 points they take issue with in the article. We were very happy to receive that list. It's enabled us to clarify a few points and add extra context to others. We've also made three key changes to the article. These changes concern 1) the administrative details of the relationship between Free Press Unlimited and Radio Tamazuj (point 9), 2) our original statement that the new editor in chief had resigned, when he was in fact an interim editor in chief (point 30), and 3) our original claim that Tamazuj's staff was forbidden to report on its personnel changes (point 31). We're publishing Free Press Unlimited's full list here, with our response to each point Here's Free Press Unlimited's full list, along with our point-by-point response Free Press Unlimited's full list here, with our response to each pointHere's Free Press Unlimited's full list, along with our point-by-point response as well as the changes we've made to this article. FPU's list confirms that our article's conclusions remain fully intact.
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How Free Press Unlimited silenced its own journalists

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He tries it again, keystroke by keystroke. His password is right, but the system still doesn't accept it. "I can't log in," he hears a colleague beside him say. None of Radio Tamazuj's staff can log in on that December morning.