This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareFor black journalists, the civil unrest in cities across America isn’t just a big story. It’s personal.This was underscored for Branden Hunter in Detroit Saturday night. A rifle-toting police officer walked up to a group of reporters covering a chaotic night of demonstrations. As they all yelled “press” and held up their credentials, he made a beeline to one in particular.It was Hunter — one of the few black news reporters at the Detroit Free Press and the only one on that sidewalk — who drew the officer’s attention,...…This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareFor black journalists, the civil unrest in cities across America isn’t just a big story. It’s personal.This was underscored for Branden Hunter in Detroit Saturday night. A rifle-toting police officer walked up to a group of reporters covering a chaotic night of demonstrations. As they all yelled “press” and held up their credentials, he made a beeline to one in particular.It was Hunter — one of the few black news reporters at the Detroit Free Press and the only one on that sidewalk — who drew the officer’s attention,...WW…

Vice News reporter Michael Anthony Adams shouted nearly a dozen times that he was a member of the media as police in Minneapolis poured out of a van on the street where he was covering the protests and yelled for people to leave."I don't care," said one officer, who ordered Adams to the ground. So he laid face-down, showed his press badge and tried once more."I am press. Please do -" That's when an officer hit Adams with pepper spray.The entire exchange, caught on camera, mirrored similar scenes that unfolded across the country through early Sunday morning: police spraying tear gas and...…Vice News reporter Michael Anthony Adams shouted nearly a dozen times that he was a member of the media as police in Minneapolis poured out of a van on the street where he was covering the protests and yelled for people to leave."I don't care," said one officer, who ordered Adams to the ground. So he laid face-down, showed his press badge and tried once more."I am press. Please do -" That's when an officer hit Adams with pepper spray.The entire exchange, caught on camera, mirrored similar scenes that unfolded across the country through early Sunday morning: police spraying tear gas and...WW…

This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareThis is what was on Thomas Chatterton Williams’s mind when he decided to write a short letter on the risks to liberalism and open discourse and get some like-minded thinkers to sign on.He was thinking of the Poetry Foundation, after their four-sentence statement in support of Black Lives Matter was deemed too tepid by 1,800-plus petition-signers. And the National Book Critics Circle, over its own attempt at such a statement.He was thinking of after tweeting about a study suggesting that violent street protests helped tip...…This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareThis is what was on Thomas Chatterton Williams’s mind when he decided to write a short letter on the risks to liberalism and open discourse and get some like-minded thinkers to sign on.He was thinking of the Poetry Foundation, after their four-sentence statement in support of Black Lives Matter was deemed too tepid by 1,800-plus petition-signers. And the National Book Critics Circle, over its own attempt at such a statement.He was thinking of after tweeting about a study suggesting that violent street protests helped tip...WW…

This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift SharePresident Trump has a long history of using the bully pulpit to take jabs at reporters. Yet the pandemic-era briefings have become especially fraught — and an unusually barbed exchange with one journalist on Monday raised questions about whether he reserves special contempt for some.At a Rose Garden press briefing, CBS News correspondent Weijia Jiang asked the president why he so frequently claims that the United States is doing “far better than any other country” at testing for coronavirus. “Why does that matter?” she...…This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift SharePresident Trump has a long history of using the bully pulpit to take jabs at reporters. Yet the pandemic-era briefings have become especially fraught — and an unusually barbed exchange with one journalist on Monday raised questions about whether he reserves special contempt for some.At a Rose Garden press briefing, CBS News correspondent Weijia Jiang asked the president why he so frequently claims that the United States is doing “far better than any other country” at testing for coronavirus. “Why does that matter?” she...WW…

This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareDr. Phil about the coronavirus lockdown the other night on Fox News.“Look, the fact of the matter is we have people dying — 45,000 people a year die from automobile accidents, 480,000 from cigarettes,” the talk-show host said Thursday, “but we don’t shut the country down for that. But yet we’re doing it for this?”Social media with fury and derision as viewers pointed out the hopeless apples-to-orangeness of his argument: Cars and tobacco aren’t exactly communicable diseases; and both, in fact, have inspired extensive...…This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareDr. Phil about the coronavirus lockdown the other night on Fox News.“Look, the fact of the matter is we have people dying — 45,000 people a year die from automobile accidents, 480,000 from cigarettes,” the talk-show host said Thursday, “but we don’t shut the country down for that. But yet we’re doing it for this?”Social media with fury and derision as viewers pointed out the hopeless apples-to-orangeness of his argument: Cars and tobacco aren’t exactly communicable diseases; and both, in fact, have inspired extensive...WW…

This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareAt the height of Fox News’s coverage of a would-be treatment for the novel coronavirus, the network’s medical correspondent, Marc Siegel, during Tucker Carlson’s show.Siegel said his 96-year-old father, suffering from symptoms of the virus and fearing he would die, made a full recovery thanks to the drug, hydroxychloroquine, and a course of antibiotics. “He got up the next day and was fine,” Siegel told an astonished Carlson.Siegel’s miraculous-recovery story was part of a near-campaign for hydroxychloroquine by Fox News...…This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareAt the height of Fox News’s coverage of a would-be treatment for the novel coronavirus, the network’s medical correspondent, Marc Siegel, during Tucker Carlson’s show.Siegel said his 96-year-old father, suffering from symptoms of the virus and fearing he would die, made a full recovery thanks to the drug, hydroxychloroquine, and a course of antibiotics. “He got up the next day and was fine,” Siegel told an astonished Carlson.Siegel’s miraculous-recovery story was part of a near-campaign for hydroxychloroquine by Fox News...WW…

This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareJournalists following high-profile court cases in Alamance County, N.C., a community racked by racial justice protests this year, have been running into trouble lately: They can’t get through the courtroom door.It started last week, when a district court judge blocked them from a hearing in his courtroom. Though many assumed it had to do with the pandemic, he offered no explanation.So this week, three newspapers filed a motion asking for clarity and demanding access to observe a Tuesday hearing in a case that has drawn...…This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareJournalists following high-profile court cases in Alamance County, N.C., a community racked by racial justice protests this year, have been running into trouble lately: They can’t get through the courtroom door.It started last week, when a district court judge blocked them from a hearing in his courtroom. Though many assumed it had to do with the pandemic, he offered no explanation.So this week, three newspapers filed a motion asking for clarity and demanding access to observe a Tuesday hearing in a case that has drawn...WW…

This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareIconoclastic journalist Glenn Greenwald on Thursday afternoon, signaling an abrupt and acrimonious end to his time at the publication he in 2014 with journalists Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras.Greenwald, who shared the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for his reporting on National Security Agency domestic surveillance that was uncovered by contractor Edward Snowden, said his departure was related to a piece that he planned to write about former vice president Joe Biden.In a lengthy note published on Substack,...…This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareIconoclastic journalist Glenn Greenwald on Thursday afternoon, signaling an abrupt and acrimonious end to his time at the publication he in 2014 with journalists Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras.Greenwald, who shared the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for his reporting on National Security Agency domestic surveillance that was uncovered by contractor Edward Snowden, said his departure was related to a piece that he planned to write about former vice president Joe Biden.In a lengthy note published on Substack,...WW…

This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareFox News cut away from White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s remarks at a news conference Monday evening because she claimed without evidence that Democrats were inviting fraud and illegal voting.“There is only one party in America trying to keep observers out of the count room, and that party, my friends, is the Democrat Party,” she said, adding, “You don’t oppose an audit of the vote because you want an accurate count. … You take these positions because you are welcoming fraud and you are welcoming illegal...…This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareFox News cut away from White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s remarks at a news conference Monday evening because she claimed without evidence that Democrats were inviting fraud and illegal voting.“There is only one party in America trying to keep observers out of the count room, and that party, my friends, is the Democrat Party,” she said, adding, “You don’t oppose an audit of the vote because you want an accurate count. … You take these positions because you are welcoming fraud and you are welcoming illegal...WW…

This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareThrough war, depression and every kind of turmoil the country endured over the past 100 years, the Morning Call’s newsroom was on the same downtown corner in Allentown, Pa. Until now.Hit this year by a pandemic and an economic downturn, Tribune Publishing informed journalists at the Morning Call and four of its other newspapers last Wednesday that their newsrooms would permanently close.“These decisions were not made lightly or hastily,” reads a memo sent to reporters for the Capital Gazette of Annapolis that promised to...…This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareThrough war, depression and every kind of turmoil the country endured over the past 100 years, the Morning Call’s newsroom was on the same downtown corner in Allentown, Pa. Until now.Hit this year by a pandemic and an economic downturn, Tribune Publishing informed journalists at the Morning Call and four of its other newspapers last Wednesday that their newsrooms would permanently close.“These decisions were not made lightly or hastily,” reads a memo sent to reporters for the Capital Gazette of Annapolis that promised to...WW…