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Media Must Stop Asking Youth Activists to 'Save the World'

Graceffo, Loretta
http://fair.org/home/media-must-stop-asking-youth-activists-to-save-the-world/

Publisher:  FAIR
Date Written:  19/06/2021
Year Published:  2021  
Resource Type:  Website

Graceffo explores the recent trend in which young activists are granted international fame. She argues that the media places too much responsibility on these youth with little protection against scrutiny and hate speech while also continuing to silence voices from the Global South.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

Greta Thunberg, as a Swedish 15-year-old, became the public face of the school climate strike movement in 2018. While allowing all manner of hateful, absurd insults, media simultaneously laud Thunberg as the “voice of the planet” (CBS, 8/13/19), while young organizers of color doing equally laudable work receive far less media recognition, even when they come from communities that are already facing the consequences of climate disruption.

This proactive neglect was made glaringly evident when the Associated Press published a picture of Thunberg alongside three white climate activists at the World Economic Forum in 2020. Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate was cropped out of the photo, and her comments from the press conference were not included in the article.

Upon discovering the omission, Nakate said that she felt “sad and worthless,” and condemned media for disregarding voices from the Global South in favor of news that would sell, adding that “Africans have truly been erased from the global map of climate action.

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