https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/race-and-leadership-news-media-2020-evidence-five-markets

https://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org

The desires of the consumers of journalism greatly dictate what forms of journalism are most prevalent in mainstream media. The idea of “Harmonia,” that consumers want reliable and varying information, is often overshadowed by the fact that many people (a disconcerting amount) want news that pertains to celebrities or sensationalized events. 

The public of the United States is less likely to invest their time in reading articles about somber truths without sensationalizing, environmental travesties (because it forces the reader to think about how they may have contributed) or civil injustices. As they mentioned in the video “What are Journalism Ethics?” the consumers in “Harmonia” see a high value in voting as well as supporting “regulations that defend news in the public interest…” I feel that the same people who overvalue sensationalized news are the same who don’t see value in voting and so on. 

While thinking in black and white is not something I condone, and there are an immense number of nuanced pieces that create this larger puzzle, I do feel that this country is largely divided into people who consume and create news in the way described in the fictional world of “Discordia” and those who fight for media freedom from large corporations and the government, supporting non-profit-esc local and non-sensationalized media, i.e. “accurate and responsible reporting.”

In the documentary Ruben Salazar: Man in the Middle, Salazar speaks about his experience coming from an immigrant family and how he always felt torn between two sides of himself, stating “This has been the story of my life. Confusion of what I am. This has made me lonely, unadjustable, and in a way lost.” This internal conflict affected him as a writer. 

This is something I relate to on a personal level. How to fit into the professional world and to be well known and well respected as an individual beyond your cultural and ethnic heritage, but still have that cultural strength burn brightly. Luckily times are changing somewhat in that regard but there are still many distressing challenges, not just as someone who is ethnic, but as a woman as well. As they mention in the film, it can be both hostile and lonely. 

In the world of “Harmonia,” such issues as discrimination would not affect one’s ability to be a respected journalist who can write about the things that best serve the reader and come from a place of honesty and integrity. Salazar did his best to write news that would be consumed by average readers while still maintaining the status of ethical journalism. 

For the most part, due to the social climate of the U.S. at the time, Salazar built up his career by reporting on Anglo-Saxon topics and doing global reporting, such as his work in Vietnam, but when the 60s came around he began to write more about topics relating to Latin America. During that time, in Mexico City, violent protests were breaking out in which “at least 27 persons are [were] known dead,” with more wounded, and Salazar missed the story.  

The L.A. Times decided that Salazar was of more use to them in L.A. than in Mexico City, against his greater wishes. While the intentions of the paper may have been well, this is when you really see the “Discordian” nature of the journalistic world at that time. A world in which Salazar was not only separating from his heritage because of the misled priorities of the United States but also of the paper he was employed by. 

As a foreign reporter doing his job outside of the country, especially in the country of his family’s origin, to be called back to the general newsroom, was a great insult. However, Los Angeles was experiencing an immense amount of police brutality toward Black and Brown folks at that time. The L.A. Times decision to include more people of color in their newsroom came with this social justice upheaval. 

In the documentary, it is mentioned how at that time the newsroom was overwhelmingly filled with white middle-aged men, and the unnerving this is that is still largely true in most places in the present day. “People have a notion that media should present an objective viewpoint, but it never is the case,” Raul Ruiz said. Not long after, Ruben left the L.A. Times to join a much smaller news station that focused on Spanish-speaking news and began to chronicle the Chicano movement. He used television as a catalyst for his message, which was “I’m only advocating the Mexican-American community, just like the general media is advocating, really, our economy, our country, our way of life.” 

When he wrote about the Sanchez brother’s death, he did such impeccable reporting that he was able to get the police indicted. The police visited him after to warn him about the effect his reporting was having on the police department’s image, which he went on to write about in the L.A. Times column. His perceived threat to the image of the LAPD caused him to be targeted by them. Not long after, a massive protest against Brown people being killed in disproportionate numbers in Vietnam resulted in an incredible assault against the protestors by Los Angeles sheriffs.

 “What I saw at the moratorium that day with the police response, was in fact the system declaring war on its own people,” Steve Weingarten said. On that day, Salazar was convinced he was being followed. They went into the Silver Dollar Café to seek refuge from whoever was following them, but someone saw them and reported that they saw someone go into the café with a gun. The sheriffs fired tear gas into the café which resulted in the end of Ruben Salazar’s life. 

The sensationalism that came after Salazar’s death was derailed away from finding truths about his death and turned into ensuring that the LAPD did not come out looking bad. Those associated with the LAPD tried to achieve this result through the use of misinformation. This comes back to the level of destruction and confusion that perpetuating misinformation can cause, and how it is the duty of journalists to not give much ludicrous misinformation the time of day. “The inquest was a band-aid to cover what should have been a full-blown investigation [of Sal

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, a film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, paints a visually stunning image of a post-apocalyptic world in which most of nature was destroyed by humans. It is revealed that it was the soil that became toxic from the devastation, poisoning and mutating the plants of the immense Toxic Jungle, which is a manifestation of the consequences of human actions on the environment. 

“Nausicaä, the protagonist, is the princess of a kingdom in the Valley, which has so far escaped destruction because of a strong wind that perpetually keeps the village free from toxic penetration,” Phacharawan Boonpromkul says. One of the scenes that is most dazzling, and also makes a pertinent note in the film, is when we are shown Nausicaä’s plant room, or greenhouse if you will, full of non-mutated jungle plants. She found that if the jungle plants are grown in healthy soil with clean water, they grow in a stabilized fashion.

In our own world, of all things abstract and related to nature, soil is one of the most feminine aspects to me, because its job is to nurture plants into great health, which in turn, sustains the world as the first link in the vast and biodiverse food web. Just like all women nurture and sustain the world and those who reside here. “Ecofeminists argue that dealing with practical environmental problems is both an ecological and a feminist task because the uses and abuses of the environment that have led to what they see as the potentially catastrophic present are largely due to a patriarchal environmental ethic that has conceptualized land as ‘woman,’” Gretchen T Legler says. Mother Earth, if you will. 

Nausicaä herself embodies unity between a connection to the ecological world and strength in femininity by being a compassionate and unassailable force, exhibiting an immense amount of perseverance, bravery and leadership. Her approach to leadership emphasizes empathy, cooperation, and ecological consciousness, a stark departure from the patriarchal leadership often seen in post-apocalyptic narratives. 

Nausicaä’s strength does not come from domination, but from nurturing and fostering harmony with the natural world. Instead of viewing nature as an object to be dominated, she embraces a profound understanding and reverence for the Toxic Jungle, recognizing its intrinsic value and interconnectivity with all life.

For instance, Nausicaä’s deep connection with nature is her bond with the Ohmu, the giant insects of the Toxic Jungle. Usually, fear is what is felt toward the Ohmu, however, Nausicaä’s willingness to understand them and establish a connection shows that humans are not more important than nature. Through bonding with them, she discovers that the Ohmu are not mindless monsters, but rather, are beings capable of deep emotions and complex interactions. This realization incites her into calling for a respectful and equal relationship with the non-human world.

The Toxic Jungle is dynamic and ever-changing. It gives the impression that the environment is a speaking, sentient being of sorts. The Jungle’s ability to communicate and react to human actions depicts nature as its own entity in the story of the world. Nausicaä’s journey to understand the language of the Toxic Jungle speaks to the significance of considering nature as being that has agency over itself and should not be at the will of humans.

The film has both ecological literary criticism and ecofeminist ideals and asks us to reflect on our role in preserving the environment as stewards of the land. The film portrays a symbiotic relationship between humans and nature, as well as challenging traditional gender roles/norms and emphasizing interconnectedness between the natural world and humans. 

“Ecofeminists suggest that reimagining what nature is and what kinds of relationships can exist between humans and the nonhuman world is part of the elimination of institutionalized oppression on the basis of gender, race, class, and sexual preference and part of what may aid in changing abusive environmental practices,” Gretchen T Legler says. 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368465302_Women_Representation_as_Symbols_of_Mother_Nature_An_Ecofeminism_Perspective_in_Moana_Film

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwi1pbqVosKAAxXXPUQIHbzrB0Y4ChAWegQIBBAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fjournal.universitasbumigora.ac.id%2Findex.php%2Fhumanitatis%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F1255%2F715%2F&usg=AOvVaw16ND8E8zdYgnPl2tbhpEmf&opi=89978449

https://filmfreeway.com/ARTfromHEART

In Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy’s article “Toward a Tribal Critical Race Theory
in Education” he underscores instances where Native teachers speak about the importance of having teachers who look, talk, and think like Native students so that the teachers are not only meeting the students’ educational needs, but their cultural needs as well. A student of the University of Utah’s American Indian Teacher Training Program (AITTP), mentioned in Brayboy’s article, mentions the salience of being able to have someone teaching the students who understands what it means to be Indian. 
 
This disposition reminds me of something that Victor Joseph tells Thomas Builds-the-Fire in the movie Smoke Signals. When the two are on the bus traveling to retrieve Victor’s fathers’ ashes, Victor tries to teach Thomas how to act like an Indian. He speaks of being stoic and looking mean so that White people don’t try to intimidate and walk all over them and speaks to the injustices that white people enacted on Indians whenever they welcomed them in a friendly manner. 
 
One example of many that can be found of this happening is when many Native tribes signed treaties with the U.S. government in the mid 1800s with hopes of finding peace and compromise, yet President Jackson still signed the Indian Removal Act into law. The type of Indian that Victor describes to Thomas is the stereotypical mainstream image of a Native person and is so because Native people acted that way out of necessity. This is of course horrible, as people should feel safe to be softer when they want without feeling threatened. 
 
Brayboy further explores his own conflicts with academic colleagues in “Toward a Tribal Critical Race Theory in Education” after highlighting the feelings of the students in AITTP, in which he was told that his people tell good stories, and because of that, theory was beyond his abilities. A large part of his examination of Tribal Critical Race Theory is that stories and theories are more than connected, they are one in the same. TribalCrit both recognizes that differences between Native communities and individuals and celebrates their commonality. 
 
Brayboy argues that TribalCrit is an understanding which recognizes:
–       “Colonization is endemic to society.”
o   Brayboy feels that colonization has been so successful that modern day Natives are solely depicted as how they once were and that even Natives struggle at times to express themselves in a way that does not challenge colonization but is rather in line with their motives for Native peoples, in regard to behavior. 
o   Colonial policies serve the desires of White settlers and allow them to rationalize stealing land from Indigenous people by claiming that Indians weren’t correctly using the land and would be okay being moved to different territories. 
o   The idea that settlers have predominant rights over the lands of the United States is legitimized as a moral obligation by colonizers with Manifest Destiny which argues that God gives them rights over this land, completely disregarding the original inhabitants of the land they are stealing. 
–       “U.S. policies toward Indigenous peoples are rooted in imperialism, White supremacy, and a desire for material gain.”
o   White supremacy is the idea that the European was of being is superior to any other ways of being, which in reality is psychopathic narcissism on a huge scale. 
–       “Indigenous peoples occupy a liminal space that accounts for both the political and racialized natures of our identities.”
o   Brayboy states that Native people are political, legal, and racialized beings but do not get treated that way. This can cause a loss in a sense of belonging which is harmful to Native communities. 
–       “Indigenous peoples have a desire to obtain and forge tribal sovereignty, tribal autonomy, self-determination, and self-identification.”
o   This means having control over their own lands, resources, and to decide what their boundaries are with other tribes, not at the will of the U.S. government. 
–       “The concepts of culture, knowledge, and power take on new meaning when examined through an Indigenous lens.”
–       “Governmental policies and educational policies toward Indigenous peoples are intimately linked around the problematic goal of assimilation.”
–       “Tribal philosophies, beliefs, customs, traditions, and visions for the future are central to understanding the lived realities of Indigenous peoples, but they also illustrate the differences and adaptability among individuals and groups.”
o   Indigenous knowledge, culture, and understanding is just as important and valid as European centric culture or any other and should be treated as such. Each tribes culture is specific, individualized and unique. 
o   Indigenous culture should be a part of the education system rather than trying to assimilate Indigenous peoples into western culture through education. Doing so brings a sense of pride and cultivates Indigenous identity. Academic knowledge should not outweigh cultural knowledge.
–       “Stories are not separate from theory; they make up theory and are, therefore, real and legitimate sources of data and ways of being.”
o   Brayboy illustrates that there is a difference between listening to stories and hearing them. 
–       “Theory and practice are connected in deep and explicit ways such that scholars must work towards social change.”
 
Going back to the film Smoke Signals, the film begins with literal fiery intensity. The fire that killed Thomas’s parents symbolizes how destructive it is for Native peoples to celebrate a holiday that is for white independence and does not honor them. From the start, the dynamic between Thomas and Victor is tenuous. Their differences are clearly noticeable from a young age with Victor having a great amount of pent-up anger from seeing his father and mother be alcoholics from a young age, being hit by his father, watching his father hit his mother, and having his father leave him. 
 
These pieces of his father colors Victors view of his father, and of the world. While each of the boys had a strong motherly figure in their lives, the lack of having a father affected them both greatly in different ways. In one scene, Victor’s dad reflects on a vision he had of the world in which white people would go back to where they came from, and the reservation and everything that came with it would disappear, including him. To me this speaks to a great sense of frustration with colonization and an attempt to cope with the loss of identity colonization caused. 
 
We find out later in the film that his father never really wanted to leave and intended to come home one day. Unfortunately, he died before he ever got the chance. Victor’s father was the one who was responsible for killing Thomas’s parents because he accidently shot off a firework in their house on fourth of July when he was drunk. This is a very powerful symbol of the way that colonization has harmed Native people. The pain of that act and of hitting his son and wife drove him away out of shame. It was not his fault to be in the circumstances that led him to alcoholism, and he quit drinking after moving away, but that kind of pain is hard to overcome. 
 
The central theme presents itself plainly at the very end of the movie which is “how do we forgive our fathers,” (Smoke Signals). To me, this is not just in a literal sense but also in regard to generational trauma. When people go through as much trauma as Native people have gone through due to colonizers, it leaves an imprint on the people that harms people intergenerationally. Having a loss of control over one’s own existence and having so much destruction happens to ones people can have a devastating effect on peoples psyches. This movie highlights that truth and more, and clearly expresses those effects of colonization. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/06/12/generational-trauma-passed-healing/

https://medicine.usask.ca/news/2018/mymd/understandings-of-colonization-on-indigenous-health.php