I didn't know. I didn't know when I taught a course called Media Ethics this semester that my class would end on the same exact day COVID-19 was declared a "global pandemic." I had no idea the nine weeks I spent with students teaching them to analyze and scrutinize the media would culminate right as the world went on lockdown. I had no idea I would spend the rest of the spring semester on a fearful maternity leave, wondering if I would be able to find food in the stores to feed my family or whether I would give birth in a hospital all alone. I didn't know that our entire lives would be turned upside down by doctors and journalists and politicians in the days after my class ended. I had no idea my students would be flooded with media information in the coming weeks and that citizens everywhere would be desperately trying to figure out which messages were true and which sources they could trust. I didn't know the topic of vaccines would be plastered on every newspaper and news broadcast around the globe. I had no idea when I assigned my students a research project called "What's up with Bill Gates?" that the entire world would be asking the same question over the next few weeks. I didn't know. But here is what I do know. I know SB276 passed in California in September and I could not stop reading about it. I know that the information presented in my doctor's office and by the CDC and dispersed by every mainstream newspaper does not match up with what I read in peer-reviewed studies on the efficacy and risks of vaccines. I know that I found a growing number of moms, nurses, and doctors who were beginning to speak out about medical freedom and informed consent and the prevalence of vaccine injury and the dangers of mandated medicine. I know that as I poured over the research and the debate and the nuance I noticed that no mainstream media publications were talking about the conflicting information available. None of them were covering both sides or asking questions about the staggering rates of childhood chronic illness in the United States. And, one day, I realized that I had to teach my upcoming Media Ethics course on precisely this topic -- medical freedom. I know that I asked my students to examine the ethics of our media and its relationships with both pharmaceutical companies and our government. I know that I reached out to doctors, pharmacists, immunologists, and mothers with differing viewpoints and they all agreed to speak to my students and share their experiences. I know when I reached out to three different local journalists who had covered vaccine-related news stories in the past year NOT ONE OF THEM RESPONDED. I wanted to hear their perspectives. They gave me the cold shoulder. As I sat in front of my students week after week, simply asking questions, giving them sources to research, teaching them to carry out their own investigations and to come to their own conclusions, I knew that the time was coming where they would have to fight for freedom, for bodily autonomy, and for the right to protect themselves and their families. But I thought that day was years away -- maybe decades even. I didn't know the fight would begin the day they turned in their final papers... ... Read more
