
Performaces 9591 tiph 1
Photo Credit: Vickey Ford for Okayplayer.com
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The last few months have been rife with disturbing stories and graphics as the world has suffered an insurmountable loss due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, a pandemic that, like most things, disproportionally affected communities of color. As if that wasn't enough, we've continued to see a rise of our own homegrown American plague that has resulted in a continuous loop of disturbing videos exemplifying fatal violence against Black people.
As we move through our work on the Internet we are constantly met with these stories and the graphic images that accompany. These images are traumatizing, there is no way around it. And we are not in the business of traumatizing our readers.
While I have always worked with the Okayplayer editorial team to make sure we were mitigating the trauma associated with news consumption, while still doing our part to inform you, our audience, we handled most of these instances on a case-by-case basis. Today, I am sharing with you what originated as an internal document of Okayplayer's commitment to handling all coverage of this type on all of our associated platforms. I thought it necessary to be transparent with our readers about where we stand so our community can feel free to hold us accountable.
Moving forward I wanted to share the below guidelines for news coverage on all of violence of any kind on OKP's platforms:
This is, by no means a blueprint for other publications, these are simply the guidelines we will be following here on Okayplayer and what you can expect from our content going forward.
"But Okayplayer is a music site, why do you need to run this kind of content at all?"
When I took on the role of Editor in Chief of Okayplayer in 2017 it was important to include political justice coverage in our beat. This is simply not a time where anyone can have the luxury of consuming the output of the culture without considering and educating our readers on the full spectrum of the life that influences the culture. You cannot turn a blind eye to political reform and enjoy the craft created despite injustice.
Not on my watch.
Take care of your spirits, I look forward to seeing you on our pages.
With warmth,
Editor in Chief
Okayplayer + OkayAfrica