Power 104.7 video removed due to threats of violence against the subject; Somali community
- Harry Colbert, Jr.
- Jan 19
- 3 min read
“I will do no harm or injustice to them.”
That passage is taken from the Hippocratic Oath, the ethical proclamation physicians take before they can practice their craft. Journalists have no such oath. Now that’s not to say we aren’t bound by a set of morals, but as far as an official oath, nope. It’s sort of ironic that the profession of words somehow forgot to pen the words that should bound our ethical code.
For each of us, our ethics are different. For me, I tend to adopt a blend of the Hippocratic Oath and the Juanita S. Martin Oath. Juanita S. Martin is my grandmother, and though she’s no longer with us, her legacy lives within me. The Hippocratic Oath says do no harm … the Juanita S. Martin Oath, “Leave it better than you found it.”
Sadly, in an effort to leave it better than we found it, it seems harm was done.
This past Saturday a white supremacists march was planned by so-called influencer Jake Lang. It was to start in downtown Minneapolis and culminate in the heavily Somali, Cedar Riverside neighborhood. Oh, and Lang planned to burn a Quran. But call it poor planning on his part, he never made it to his destination. For whatever reason, he didn’t get the turnout he wanted. There was turnout, just not for those supporting him. With single digit temps, little security and almost no police presence, Lang was forced to abort his stated mission.
But the mere threat of a white supremacists march on an already beleaguered community was enough to activate a plan of response. Not wanting to give light to the white supremacists – and not wanting to place our reporter in harm's way, as we correctly assessed that violence could occur – we decided to have our reporter focus on the response team. We wanted to give light to the people doing the work of good, not evil. And in doing so, evil once again targeted good.
Our reporter did a ride-along with one of the members of the response team and produced a video of a driver on rounds, a young Somali woman, talking about the group’s efforts to keep the community safe. The woman was never identified by name and only a profile view of her face was shown. The length of the video is all of 45 seconds. But 45 seconds was enough. On the Power 104.7 Instagram and Facebook pages, the video garnered nearly 15,000 views in less than 24 hours. The video was posted on Saturday and was taken down on Sunday.
I took it down. I did so at the request of the response team. The team requested the removal of the video because it began being targeted by white supremacists. While our post got a lofty 15,000 views, a reposting of the video on X by a far right-wing account – an account that is followed by Elon Musk and President Donald Trump – is up to 150,000 views. And the comments are sickening. Some call for the outright killing of Somali human beings (I’m intentional in reminding people that these are human lives we’re talking about here).
This telling of why the video no longer lives on our social media is both us being transparent as a news organization, and being a steward of the tenet “do no harm.” As journalists, we must always remain vigilant to the commitment to do no harm. We must always recognize that with our platform comes great responsibility.
There are not enough pageviews, clicks or likes in the world to have us in good conscience leave human beings vulnerable to actual violence or threats of violence. We will continue to be fluid and flexible with our editorial decisions in this new age of information and climate of hate and rage. Hopefully, when it’s all said and done, we can leave it better than when we found it.