Thread by @LaFleurDelSur

A THREAD

There's been a meme around for a long time that goes like this:

"First they came for the journalists. We don't know what happened after that."

Of course, it was obvious to all those who looked with open eyes that #JulianAssange was the canary in the #FreePress coal mine.

Or was, perhaps, Alexander Pope's butterfly - broken on a (Catherine) wheel. [From Pope's "Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot"]

Some journalists argued that Julian #Assange was "not a journalist" - maybe that made them feel safer.

Most just looked away - maybe after a carefully crafted sentence at a state-sponsored, glittery #FreePress event (where news platforms like #RT were shut out in the cold).

A few brave journalists spoke out - but mostly only those already marginalised by the mainstream publishers.

One of the most dogged speakers in support of #Assange and #Wikileaks was that great world treasure @johnpilger.

With the US #extradition request for #Assange still being argued in a UK (adjourned) lower court hearing (with probably years of appeals still to go), most journalists did not feel any urgency to stand up for (or with) him.

Closed eyes. Closed ears. Closed mouths. Stilled pens.

And then along came @coronavirus ...

On 1 April 2020, bauermedia.co.nz announced it was closing shop.

Most of NZ's iconic magazines - which have for decades published much of that county's investigative journalism - just GONE. In a day.

stuff.co.nz/business/12075…

There are more ways of getting rid of journalists than imprisoning (or killing) them - as astute people like @ChrisLynnHedges have warned.

Salaried jobs, opportunities for in-depth investigation, continuity, have all been disappearing over decades.

Après #Assange, le déluge.

It's late. But not too late.

Rise, like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you:
Ye are many—they are few!

- Percy Bysshe Shelley (1819)

Here's the @ChrisLynnHedges video noted above.
(I couldn't fit the link in the tweet.)

Well worth a watch - as is almost anything by Hedges.
This one recorded in Troy, NY on 29 May 2015.

More on the sudden closure of most of #NZ's iconic magazines (that just happen to have done quite a bit of NZ's investigative journalism in the past) from one of the journalists made redundant.

#coronavirus kills more than people ...

stuff.co.nz/national/healt…