What if Ida B. Wells Depended on Facebook?

http://www.counterpunch.org/2018/05/08/what-if-ida-b-wells-depended-on-facebook/
Date Written:  2018-05-08
Publisher:  Counterpunch
Year Published:  2018
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX22648

The work of Ida B. Wells, the crusading journalist who forced Americans to pay attention to lynchings and human rights abuses, is a reminder why we need a tax-dollars-funded, and journalism focused, commitment to public media.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

At the memorial, a special place is set aside for Ida B. Wells, the crusading journalist who forced Americans to pay attention to these murders. Over a lifetime made shorter by repeated attacks, she documented and publicized the killings, collecting names, dates and descriptions.

She wrote editorials for various newspapers, but her longest running outlet was her own, the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight, which she edited and published until it was burned to the ground by her critics. And this is where the opening of the memorial intersects with another important story from this week.

Would Wells's Free Speech ever have made it into my news feed on Facebook? I doubt it, because Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced May 1st in a meeting with media executives that his company had started ranking news organizations by trust.