Rule of thumb: If your ‘quick hit’ story takes twelve paragraphs to get past the spin, it’s useless.
I am told the purpose of the website Axios is to inform news junkies about current affairs without taking up much of their time. But, if it is, Axios is doing a pretty lousy job of it. Take, by way of example, this piece on Florida’s decision to pull an AP African American studies course because, inter alia, it smuggles in a bunch of contemporary progressive propaganda, implies that color-blindness is akin to racism, and features a section on queer theory in violation of state rules.
The story here is that Florida has rejected one AP course as a result of that content. It is not, as some critics have claimed, that the state has decided that African-American history will not be taught in Florida at all, or that Florida has banned AP African-American studies in toto. The very same law that the course contravened requires that students in Florida are taught about slavery, segregation, oppression, legal discrimination, and more. It does not allow them to be used as vehicles for radicalism. One might like that, or one might hate it, but that is the key fact of the affair, and it should be included as prominently as possible in any story that is not intended to mislead.
Is Axios’s story intended to mislead? It sure looks like it. Axios’s headline is: “Florida students threaten to sue DeSantis over AP African American studies ban.” Which isn’t true. There is no “AP African American studies ban.” Instead, the state rejected a course “as presented,” and made it clear that “in the future, should College Board be willing to come back to the table with lawful, historically accurate content, FDOE will always be willing to reopen the discussion.” Again: One might think that is a good thing or one might think it’s a bad thing, but it is the thing nevertheless. That it is impossible even to infer from Axios’s story until the very end is astonishing.
That story starts like this, and goes downhill from there:
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump joined Florida students on Wednesday in announcing they would sue the state and its Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, if they don’t reinstate the African American studies course in the Advanced Placement curriculum.
All that it would have taken to make it clear that this is a fight over the details, rather than over whether African-American studies should be banned per se, is the inclusion of the words “as written.” As in: “if they don’t reinstate the African American studies course as written in the Advanced Placement curriculum.” But, of course, that would have undermined Benjamin Crump’s claim, with which, for some reason, Axios chose to start.
The next paragraph is no better:
Driving the news: There’s growing outrage at the Florida Education Department’s decision to block the course. The department last week told the College Board, the nonprofit group overseeing the AP program, that it is “contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value.”
What about the third paragraph? Surely that contains the details?
It does not:
Crump, who is representing the three AP honors high school students with attorney Craig Whisenhunt, said at a press briefing Wednesday that blocking the course violated the federal and state constitutions.
And neither does the next:
What they’re saying: “If the governor allows the College Board to present AP African American studies in classrooms across the state of Florida, then we will feel no need to file this historic lawsuit,” Crump said.
Four paragraphs in, and, in concert with the headline, Axios’s piece — a piece that is supposedly designed to make readers “smarter, faster with news & information that matters” — is consistently implying that AP African-American history has been banned in the state of Florida.
Maybe the fifth paragraph clears it up?
“However, if he rejects the free flow of ideas and suppresses African American studies, then we’re prepared to take this controversy all the way to the United States Supreme Court.”
Or the sixth?
Context: The Florida State Board of Education unanimously approved an amendment in 2021 banning critical race theory, which links racial discrimination to the nation’s foundations and legal system, in a move backed by DeSantis.
Ooh, some “context.” We’re getting somewhere. And yet, somehow, even this section does not start with, or contain, the key piece of information, which is that the state has rejected the course “as presented,” but is willing to add it back in if the propaganda is removed.
Perhaps the next “context” paragraph adds that information in? Nah. It merely flicks at the broader controversy, before quickly pivoting away:
The state’s education commissioner last week tied the AP course to CRT, tweeting that the department had “rejected an AP course filled with Critical Race Theory and other obvious violations of Florida law.”
Next, we get “the big picture.” Will this do it at long last? Ah, no. Instead, this is a section in which Axios allows a bunch of activists to pretend that Florida will not teach black history at all:
The big picture: Community leaders and state lawmakers have criticized the decision to get rid of the curriculum.
Some speakers at a “Stop the Black Attack” voting rights rally in the state’s capital, Tallahassee, on Wednesday accused DeSantis of trying to further marginalize Florida’s Black community, per the Washington Post.
State Sen. Shevrin Jones (D) said DeSantis should fix issues like Florida’s “crumbling schools,” but these were “being ignored because we have to deal with the promotion of Jim Crow 3.0 by people who don’t know and don’t care about what’s happening in Black communities, but they desire to referee how you teach our history.”
State Rep. Michele Rayner (D) said DeSantis is on a political “witch hunt” and “there are 2.8 million students sitting in Florida public schools right now knowing that their governor does not want them to learn about Black history,” WashPost reports.
Surely, Axios must now present a counter-argument?
What we’re watching: The Florida Department of Education said earlier this month that it would be “willing to reopen the discussion” if the College Board develops a curriculum with “lawful, historically accurate content.”
The College Board said Tuesday it would release a new framework for the AP course in African American studies, per NBC News.
At last! Twelve paragraphs in, we learn what the story is about.
What a joke.