Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Rebecca Aguilar

Quote by Rebecca Aguilar

Author

Rebecca Aguilar
Rebecca Aguilar

Rebecca Aguilar, born in 1958, is an individual whose profession and category are not yet clearly defined. There is limited information available about her life, achievements, and impact. more

You May Also Like

“When I came to the Middle East, journalists had a kind of immunity that allowed us to travel freely and meet with militants who hated Israel and the United States. In 2000, when I was working for Agence France-Presse, I didn’t feel fearful when I went to Gaza to meet with Hamas leaders or to the West Bank to speak to Palestinian gunmen. These men didn’t much like me. We didn’t have anything in common. But they felt that they had to treat me with common decency and a modicum of respect because I was a journalist and I was writing about them. They wanted to spin me so that I would give the world their version of events. They were never completely happy, of course, because my pieces didn’t make them look as perfect as they looked to themselves. But they needed to talk to me and other reporters because we were the only way they could get their story out. Now jump ahead to 2006. Zarqawi was on his killing spree in Iraq, and suddenly the Internet had become ubiquitous, and uploading videos on YouTube and other platforms was literally child’s play. So Zarqawi and his henchmen said to themselves, “Why should we let reporters interview us and filter what we say? We can go straight to the Internet and say exactly what we want, for as long as we want to say it, and we can post videos that Western journalists would never show.” Journalists became worthless, at least as megaphones. But we became valuable as commodities to be stolen, bought, and sold, traded for prisoners, or ransomed for millions.”

JournalismJournalists
Book:And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East
Create image

“In a room full of journalists someone would already be doing an impersonation of the Robot Man. We’d also make fun of the smarmy host, who is a bit like Tom Bergeron, host of Hollywood Squares, America’s Funniest Home Videos, and Dancing with the Stars, only cheesier, which is remarkable because Tom Bergeron is already the gold standard of cheesiness, and yet here is this total amateur, this complete unknown, blowing Bergeron away.”

HumorJournalists
Book:Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble
Create image

“Depression is not dramatic, but it is total. It’s sneaky - you almost don’t notice it at first. Like a cat burglar, it comes in through an open window while you’re sleeping. It takes little things at first; your appetite, your desire to return phone calls. Then it comes back for the big stuff, like your will to live. Then next thing you know, your legs are filled with sand. The thought of brushing your teeth fills you with dread, it seems like such an impossible task. Suddenly you’re living your life in black and white – nothing is bright, nothing is pretty anymore. Music sounds tinny and distant. Things you found funny seem dull and off-key.”

PsychologicalSuspenseJournalists
Book:Sliver of Truth
Create image

“(Talking about the movement to deny the prevalence and effects of adult sexual exploitation of children) So what does this movement consist of? Who are the movers and shakers? Well molesters are in it, of course. There are web pages telling them how to defend themselves against accusations, to retain confidence about their ‘loving and natural’ feelings for children, with advice on what lawyers to approach, how to complain, how to harass those helping their children. Then there’s the Men’s Movements, their web pages throbbing with excitement if they find ‘proof’ of conspiracy between feminists, divorcing wives and therapists to victimise men, fathers and husbands. Then there are journalists. A few have been vitally important in the US and Britain in establishing the fightback, using their power and influence to distort the work of child protection professionals and campaign against children’s testimony. Then there are other journalists who dance in and out of the debates waggling their columns behind them, rarely observing basic journalistic manners, but who use this debate to service something else – a crack at the welfare state, standards, feminism, ‘touchy, feely, post-Diana victimhood’. Then there is the academic voice, landing in the middle of court cases or inquiries, offering ‘rational authority’. Then there is the government. During the entire period of discovery and denial, not one Cabinet minister made a statement about the prevalence of sexual abuse or the harm it caused. Finally there are the ‘retractors’. For this movement to take off, it had to have ‘human interest’ victims – the accused – and then a happy ending – the ‘retractors’. We are aware that those ‘retractors’ whose parents trail them to newspapers, television studios and conferences are struggling. Lest we forget, they recanted under palpable pressure.”

GovernmentPoliticalSufferingCrimeAbusePressureVictimDenialSurvivorChild AbuseSexual AbuseRapeCoercionChild Sexual AbuseSurvivorsIncestCriminalVictimsAbusersSociety DenialMedia ManipulationJournalistsFalse MemoriesPedophilePower DynamicsChild ProtectionAccusationsRapistsMedia DistortionSex OffendersMisuse Of PowerPaedophileHidden MotivesCrusadeAccused AdultsRetractorsPoliticspolitics
Book:Stolen Voices: The People and Politics Behind the Campaign to Discredit Childhood Testimony
Create image

“In this book we paint an unprecedented portrait of Britain’s first ‘false memory’ retraction and show that, like other ‘false memory’ cases which appeared in the public domain, memory itself was always a false trail – these women never forgot. We are not challenging people’s right to tell their own story and then to change it. But we do assert that the chance should be interpreted in the context that created it. Thousands of accounts of sexual and physical abuse in childhood cannot be explained by a pseudo-scientific ‘syndrome’. We have been shifted to the wrong debate, a debate about the malignancy of survivors and their allies, rather than those who have hurt them. That’s why the arguments have become so elusive. […]”

GovernmentPoliticalSufferingCrimeAbusePressureVictimDenialSurvivorChild AbuseSexual AbuseRapeCoercionSurvivorsIncestCriminalVictimsAbusersJournalistsFalse MemoriesPedophilePower DynamicsChild ProtectionAccusationsRapistsSex OffendersMisuse Of PowerPaedophileHidden MotivesCrusadeRetractors
Book:Stolen Voices: The People and Politics Behind the Campaign to Discredit Childhood Testimony
Create image