Making Enemies

Posted on April 27, 2023 by Joe Weber

For decades, journalists have made enemies as they report on corrupt politicians, companies that behave illegally and criminals infuriated by coverage of their misdeeds. Nowadays, however, some reporters have become the target of right-wing zealots who, in some places at least, seem to be on the ascent in the seemingly never-ending, stunningly vile Trump era.

Consider the case of Doni Chamberlain, a 66-year-old small-town journalist in northern California. The Guardian profiled the challenges she is facing in publishing a news site, A News Cafe, that has covered the rise of a motley bunch of conservatives in Shasta County, the home of about 250,000 people some 250 miles north of San Francisco.

As the outlet reports, Chamberlain has seen a nasty turn in the atmosphere over her nearly 30 years reporting on the area. Some critics have called her a communist who doesn’t deserve to live and a radio host suggested she should be hanged. “Her writing has made her a public enemy of the conservative crowd intent on remaking the county,” The Guardian account says. “Far-right leaders have confronted her at rallies and public meetings, mocking and berating her. At a militia-organized protest in 2021, the crowd screamed insults.”

As a result, Chamberlain has to watch over her shoulder. “No meeting sources in public,” the outlet reports. “She livestreams rowdy events where the crowd is less than friendly and doesn’t walk to her car without scanning the street. Sometimes, restraining orders can be necessary tools.”

With her critical coverage, Chamberlain has earned the enmity of a new majority that has arisen in a county that was long red but in recent times has tilted into the Twilight Zone. The group, The Guardian reports, is “backed by militia members, anti-vaxxers, election deniers and residents who have long felt forgotten by governments in Sacramento and Washington.” This group has “fired the county health officer and done away with the region’s voting system. Politically moderate public officials have faced bullying, intimidation and threats of violence. County meetings have turned into hours-long shouting matches.”

Her battle with the new right has commanded the attention of news outlets elsewhere. The Los Angeles Times in a 2021 profile called her a “one-woman watchdog” and explained how she had reported for and then wrote a column for a local newspaper, Redding’s Record Searchlight, until she and an editor in 2007 split on the direction her writing should take. She was so popular back then that 100 supporters picketed the paper in protest of her departure. Soon, she started the blog that grew into A News Cafe.

To be sure, as an opinion-writer (someone once quaintly called a columnist), Chamberlain has been vocally unhappy with the changes she has seen in Shasta County. She has documented the turn away from civility in an era where a president made it acceptable to insult critics and the media in what once were intolerably coarse terms. “As the shit storm of civil unrest piles up, the North State has become a tinderbox at the ready, on the verge of ignition,” she wrote she wrote in August 2020. “Slogans and memes are the kindling. Calls to action, aggression and civil war are often found on the same Facebook pages as family photos, holiday greetings and birthday wishes.”

More recently, she wrote critically about a local district supervisor, Kevin Crye, who, she said, “has racked up a host of stunningly destructive decisions at breakneck speed. He gallivanted to Minnesota on the county’s tab to visit MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell for hand-counted-ballot advice. (Although the public paid for his jaunt, Crye has still not disclosed exactly that happened on that trip.) Following his Lindell visit, in short order Crye introduced to Shasta County a number of election-machine-denying Lindell pals, such as Alexander Haberbush and Clint Curtis, each of whom were graciously granted by Chair Jones permission to speak well over the public’s 3-minute allotments.”

There’s no question that Chamberlain has little use for election-deniers and the rest, much as they have no use for her. So, perhaps, she should not be surprised by the hostility she runs into. Still, as with any good journalist, her work is fact-based, something even that district supervisor would be hard pressed to deny. And the question then arises: why would reporting such facts be objectionable to right wingers, so unsettling that some would call for her to be hanged?

Whether the material it uses is opinionated or a matter of straightforward reporting, the press shines a light on news developments and trends that may make some blanch. It illuminates hypocrisy and nonsense. It uncovers abuses and misuses of public money. That, it seems, is enough to earn the hostility – perhaps the unprecedented venom — of some who apparently cannot abide the glare.

Local news, of course, has been under assault by economic forces, as well as political ones, for a long time now. The answer in many places has been the creation of online outlets that have spread far and wide across the country (Nebraska, for instance, has Flatwater Free Press and the Nebraska Examiner. Colorado has outfits including The Colorado Sun and, more locally, the Boulder Reporting Lab).

One must hope that outlets like those and A News Café can long brave the storms and that journalists such as Chamberlain can endure.

Muzzling the Press

Posted on April 24, 2023 by Joe Weber

Freedom of the press, a revolutionary idea pioneered in Britain by courageous government critics in the 1720s and then enshrined in the American Bill of Rights in 1791, is under extraordinary assault at home in the United States and elsewhere. That’s no wonder; the right to free expression threatens politicians everywhere who equate criticism of them with criticism of all that’s right and proper.

Of course, the assault is driven partly by ego — “L’etat, c’est moi,” said King Louis XIV, a phrase echoed in various forms by Donald J. Trump and his imitators (see Ron DeSantis) who seek to tame a rambunctious press. And, in places such as Russia and China, it reflects longstanding state policy that lately is growing more troublesome. Elsewhere, the threats to journalists are from literally murderous non-state actors.

Kyle Pope of the Columbia Journalism Review outlines the varying (and vastly unequal) threats around the world. He focuses on Russia, where Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich is a victim of Vladimir Putin’s ego and the fragility of the Russian military, but he sets that into a global context. “The fact is that journalism and democracy are in retreat around the world, including in the United States. The Committee to Protect Journalists, in its annual tally, reported that at least sixty-seven journalists and media workers were killed in 2022, the highest number in four years and a 50 percent jump from the previous year,” Pope writes. “Nearly as many journalists were killed in Mexico as in Ukraine.”

Jeff German, source: Las Vegas Review-Journal

Thankfully, threats to journalists’ lives are not as much an issue in the United States (though isolated assassinations have occurred, such as that last year of Jeff German of the Las Vegas Review-Journal). But other threats to American journalism are more subtle, including such matters as technological change and economic forces that are killing newspapers nationwide, as well as efforts by DeSantis and others to change laws that have protected journalism. As Pope notes, DeSantis “has proposed a series of measures that hobble reporters’ ability to do their jobs, including one that would ensure comments made by anonymous sources would be presumed false in defamation lawsuits.”

Pope also notes that threats to the media come from within, from a decline in credibility. He points to Fox’s settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, suggesting that Fox News had “essentially abandoned its role as an independent chronicler of the news.” He went on: “Here we had executives and on-air anchors at the most-watched cable network in the country admitting that their devotion was more to advancing a cause—the easily disputed notion that Donald Trump had won the presidential election—than in reporting the facts. Fox’s viewers cheered the lie along. Journalism was not what they had in mind when they turned on the television.”

In that regard, it’s heartening that in the wake of embarrassing disclosures in that case Tucker Carlson is now leaving Fox. He shredded his credibility by publicly embracing Trump while privately saying he hated the man “passionately” and calling the voter fraud claims “insane.”

Yes, there are bad actors in journalism as in any other field. Carlson’s departure suggests that the marketplace — when it includes the proper functioning of the legal system — gets things right, at least over time.

Matters of life and death are at stake in censorship. State restrictions and their cousins — efforts to rewrite the past — ill serve history and the lessons we can learn from it. Some governments have sought to maintain private histories at times (one thinks of The Pentagon Papers), presumably with plans to keep such accounts secret until some undisclosed time in the future. But such efforts risk bias by the authors and deprive the public of vital information on a timely basis.

Leaders of all sorts, though particularly government officials, are threatened by free expression, of course. When the public learns of their failures, it can cost them their coveted positions, something few politicians can abide. That is why the separation of media and government must be preserved.

A Chinese colleague and I in 2016 published a study in Human Rights Quarterly, “How Chinese Journalism Students View Domestic and Foreign Media: A Survey on Credibility, Censorship, and the Role of the Communist Party in Media,” detailing how idealistic young people in China at the time valued independent thought and the freedom to publish information. Since then, the leashes have been tightening around journalism there and elsewhere and, while that may serve politicians in the short run, it shortchanges the citizens of particular countries and the world.

For a couple decades, Paris-based Reporters Without Borders has published a World Press Freedom Index that assesses the state of journalism globally. In 2022, it ranked 180 nations and territories based on the health of their media environments. Some of the results are surprising (the United States, for instance, placed 42^nd, with the group explaining that “chronic issues impacting journalists remain unaddressed. These include the disappearance of local newspapers, the systematic polarisation of the media, and the erosion of journalism by digital platforms amid a climate of animosity and aggression towards journalists, among others.”) Other results are more predictable: China placed 175^th and Hong Kong fell 68 places to 148^th, as a result of Beijing’s crackdown there. Russia ranked 155^th.

Citizens across the globe are hurt when press freedom suffers. Britain, now ranked 24^th in the world index, taught the world that centuries ago. It’s a lesson best never forgotten.

Are Book Publishers Censors?

Posted on April 21, 2023 by Joe Weber

Much-published novelist Richard North Patterson’s disturbing piece in The Wall Street Journal, “Why My New Novel About Racial Conflict Ran Into Trouble,” recounts his problems as a white author getting a publisher for his new novel, “Trial.” The book, which he says focuses on “America’s accelerating racial discord,” was rejected by about 20 imprints of major New York publishing houses, even though some editors in them said it was this New York Times best-selling author’s best work.

Why the turndowns? His ethnicity had much to do with it, Patterson writes. “One publisher responded that I would be ‘rightly criticized’ for writing the book; another that she only cared to hear on such subjects from ‘marginalized voices’; another, more colorfully, that I was ‘too liberal for white people and too white for Black people.’”

“Not once did anyone suggest that any aspect of the manuscript was racially insensitive or obtuse,” writes Patterson, a lawyer and journalist who interviewed many people of all backgrounds to write the book. “Rather, the seemingly dominant sentiment was that only those personally subject to discrimination could be safely allowed to depict it through fictional characters.”

Perhaps he was lucky that he was not pitching university presses. Patterson’s woes reminded me of my troubles in getting my second book, “Divided Loyalties: Young Somali Americans and the Lure of Extremism,” published. While my race and gender did not seem to be at issue – so far as I know – the topic certainly was. The book, a journalistic work of nonfiction, focuses on a group of young Black Muslim men in Minnesota who conspired to make their way to Syria to join ISIS between 2013 and 2015 (some got there and were killed, while others were tried and sentenced to prison for terms of up to 35 years).

Because the book is both journalistic and academic, I pitched it to several academic presses. It passed muster with an editor and the staff at the distinguished Columbia University Press, but was tripped up in the final step, consideration by the press’s publication committee. Such committees, staffed by faculty, ultimately make the call on whether to issue a book contract or not at university presses.

Why the problem? As the editor wrote me: “Our internal staff is very much in favor of your book, but the publications committee had some reservations. In particular, we have one board member who is generally very skeptical of our terrorism studies list and books that align with it. This member felt strongly that your book needs to be vetted by a scholar with a background in the study of the Muslim-American experience before it could be approved, and the rest of the board agreed.”

In other words, a faculty member didn’t care to have Columbia publish books about terrorism and found my book unpalatable, even though it was written from the viewpoint of a young Somali Muslim man (a would-be terrorist who became an FBI informant). Two out of three independent reviewers had recommended publication. But, as requested by the committee, the editor found a fourth reviewer, who sided with the objecting faculty member. Indeed, this fourth reviewer took umbrage at the idea that I relied in part on law enforcement sources, as well as on the would-be ISIS members (evidently, an unacceptable breadth and fairness in sourcing).

Defeated by her faculty committee, the kindly editor suggested I seek another publisher. So, in 2020, Michigan State University Press published the book. Indeed, the MSU press relied on the four reviews Columbia had obtained to make the decision to publish (the Columbia editor was kind enough to share those reviews with her MSU colleague). And, in fairness to the academic review process, the helpful suggestions in those critiques, as well as advice by both editors, did improve the book.

Irrespective of the merits or shortcomings in “Divided Loyalties,” the decision by the Columbia publication committee was troubling on several counts. First, why would it be unacceptable for a non-Somali journalist to write (sympathetically) about Somali American culture by relying on members of that community, including academics, for their insights about it? Second, why should one faculty member’s skepticism about an important area of publication – Columbia’s distinguished list of books about terrorism – carry such sway?

Indeed, given that Columbia is a mere 10 miles from the worst terrorist incident of the modern era, the 9/11 attack, wouldn’t it be natural for the university’s press to publish works about terrorism? Thankfully, the press has continued to publish on the topic (though I don’t know whether the faculty member remains on the committee).

As with Patterson’s novel, which will be released in June by an independent publisher, readers are free to find flaws in “Divided Loyalties.” But that’s only because officials at one university press took a viewpoint differing from that of another. In my Columbia press experience, it seems that biases based on cultural, religious and political factors play an insidious role, a role perhaps as troubling as the idea that a person from one ethnic group cannot write well about members of another such group.

I look forward to reading Patterson’s book.

Fox News Could Have Made Things Right

Posted on April 18, 2023 by Joe Weber

Fox’s settlement of the defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems comes as a great disappointment to anyone interested in truthful, accurate and fair journalism.

For those who stand against demagoguery and ignorance — the stock-in-trade in the journalistic Potemkin village that is Fox News — the chance to see Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Maria Bartiromo (among others) squirm on the courtroom stand would have been a great consolation. Having them admit their dishonesty and hypocrisy under the aggressive questioning of the brilliant Dominion legal team would have gone far to correct the public record for those who still cling to Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election.

As of this writing, full terms of the settlement have not been disclosed. Certainly, the $787.5 million that Fox reportedly will pay will be welcomed by Dominion, which asked for $1.6 billion. But here are a few suggestions that would have been helpful to everyone else:

have each host say on the air that they lied and misrepresented the truth about that election.
have them say that they routinely did so to pander to their audiences’ demands, chasing ratings, no matter how irrational those demands were.
have them say that they, in fact, repudiate Donald J. Trump and all he stands for and that they hope he is convicted of the various crimes for which he stands accused.
have them urge the man to never run again and say they will speak only ill of him in any future commentaries, on the air or off.

Ideally, the hosts would make these statements while wearing signs around their necks that say “I am a liar.” And they would do so during each show for a month. Such repetition – perhaps matching the repetition of their untruths – may be required for the message to sink in with the Fox audience.

In addition, Fox owner Rupert Murdoch would publicly apologize for his refusal to rein in the dishonest impulses of his staff and he should commit to turn Fox News into a genuine news source after this month of public shaming. The new Fox would be recast into a true fair and balanced entity, not a mouthpiece for the partisan biases of any political party or racist right-wing group in the United States.

The new Fox would be staffed by decent, fair-minded journalists and commentators. They would reject support of dictators far and wide, domestic and foreign. And, in the new Fox, commentary would be the least of its offerings. Instead, straight reporting would fill the airwaves for all but an hour or so a night — with none of the aforementioned commentators on board.

Does any of this seem unreasonable, in light of the potent influence that Fox had in the rise of Trump and his continuing support? Is it unreasonable to demand such contrition for the outlet’s role in leading up to the potential overthrow of the government on that infamous Jan. 6, its spreading of untruth at the behest and in the service of Trump, its feeding of misinformation to the mob and to the broader electorate among its viewers?

Such terms, of course, would be impossible. Indeed, Fox’s statement about the settlement conspicuously avoided any detailed admissions, other than to say “We acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.” Then, Fox added the gaslighting and ludicrous sentence: “This settlement reflects FOX’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards.”

For those who believed the election falsehoods, it will be all too easy to dismiss the Dominion settlement as a bow to pressure from the Deep State. They likely will gin up some conspiracy theory to buttress such beliefs.

Fox owed Dominion an enormous amount for its perfidy. But it owes far more to the American public, to the preservation of democracy at home and abroad, and to our system of government. The outlet is responsible for a host of woes that it had the opportunity to correct with at least some form of public contrition. It failed in even that.

What Are the Limits of Free Speech?

Posted on April 11, 2023 by Joe Weber

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear,” George Orwell famously said.

That, of course, is just one of innumerable quotes about free speech. Another handy one, attributed to George Washington, warns: “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”

My favorite, however, comes from Oscar Wilde. His riff on a noted comment from S.G. Tallentyre was: “I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself.”

Lately, lots of speakers — and many who would prefer not to hear them — have either been making asses of themselves or – depending on one’s viewpoint – prompting profound questions. Consider the infamous March 9 flap at Stanford Law School, where hecklers shouted down a conservative judge, who then was criticized by the school’s associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion.

First, let’s grant that this was not so much about speech – really – but about a person the students deemed beyond the pale.

The noisy students weren’t furious about the subject of Appeals Court Judge Kyle Duncan’s comments – which dealt with guns, Covid and Twitter. Instead, they were offended by his record, which included defending Hobby Lobby against requirements that it provide contraceptive healthcare benefits to employees; his criticism of Obergefell v. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that recognized a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, as an “abject failure” that “imperils civic peace,” as well as his defense of Louisiana’s gay-marriage ban before the Supreme Court and his defense of a North Carolina law keeping transgender people out of their preferred bathrooms.

They were troubled that Duncan, a Trump appointee, had denied a transgender woman’s request to be called “she” or “her.”

But all of it – both Duncan’s appearance and the student outrage – smacked of being a setup, an orchestrated affair more reminiscent of a WWE bout than an academic gathering. His visit, at the invitation of the university chapter of The Federalist Society, was tailor-made for controversy — and it began early.

Beforehand, students posted flyers warning that Duncan advocated for laws that “would harm women, LGBTQ+ people and immigrants,” as The Stanford Daily reported. Students in the organizations OutLaw and Identity and Rights Affirmers for Trans Equality (IRATE) asked the society to cancel his event or move it to Zoom. Their email said: “While acknowledging your right to freely associate with speakers and gain mentorship from those you choose, we are writing to express specific concerns about the effect of bringing this person into our campus community…”

After the society refused the request, Duncan’s visit did not disappoint those who expected a brawl. As the school paper reported, Duncan’s critics outnumbered Federalist Society members. The paper reported that his opponents “brought posters condemning him; some also had trans flags painted on some of their cheeks. Short speeches about how Duncan’s actions are harmful to many communities were made by protest leaders and the protesters shouted call and response chants, including, ‘When our trans neighbors are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!’”

For his part, Duncan seemed to relish the attention, even as the specific attacks infuriated him. A lawyer who posted his views of the event on Substack noted that Duncan “walked into the law school filming protesters on his phone.” When asked if he tried to record, Duncan responded with, “Damn right I did. I wanted to make a record.” And, in his opening remarks, the judge said: “I’m not blind — I can see this outpouring of contempt.”

Hecklers made it difficult for Duncan to speak, so much so that DEI Associate Dean Tierien Steinbach stepped in. As reported by Bloomberg Law, she told Duncan: “Your advocacy, your opinions from the bench, land as absolute disenfranchisement of their rights,” referring to the students. But Steinbach also defended free speech, even as she questioned whether his provocations were worthwhile. She said she “wholeheartedly” welcomed Duncan to campus, but told him, “For many people here, your work has caused harm.” Twice Steinbach asked, “Is the juice worth the squeeze?” seeming to question if he believed his speech was worth the reaction.

Despite her attempt at even-handedness, right-wing outlets demanded Steinbach’s firing. While they appear not to have gotten that, Steinbach has gone on leave (voluntarily or otherwise). The conservatives also won an apology, with criticism of Steinbach, from Law School Dean Jenny S. Martinez and university president Marc Tessier-Lavigne. Indeed, the dean mandated a half day of special free speech training for law students.

Now, as The New York Times reported, Martinez released a lawyerly 10-page memo that rebuked the activists. “Some students might feel that some points should not be up for argument and therefore that they should not bear the responsibility of arguing them,” she wrote. But, she continued, that “is incompatible with the training that must be delivered in a law school.” She added, “I believe that the commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion actually means that we must protect free expression of all views.”

But does she really mean “all views?” Would one of the many neo-Nazis riling America be welcomed to speak at Stanford? Would a KKK leader be cordially invited? How about a zealous homophobe?

The debate over free speech roiling so many campuses now seems to come down to what speech goes beyond the pale, or more properly, which speakers do. Duncan has standing, of course, because of his role as a judge. But should his positions on such matters as whether to call a transgender woman “she” put him over the line of acceptability?

Mores are moving fast these days, perhaps too fast for some conservatives. But remember that there was a time when eugenicists were acceptable on campuses. Indeed, some venues encouraged flagrantly racist and anti-Semitic academics to publish, speak and teach their views. Has the line simply moved too far for some?

As they exercised what critics called “the heckler’s veto,” there’s no question that the students behaved badly. The fact that they were law students who will need to trade and tolerate views with civility in the most potentially heated courtroom situations makes it worse.

But did Duncan serve the cause of civil discourse well by calling one critic “an appalling idiot” as he left the classroom and later calling his hecklers “bullies” and “hypocrites?” Later, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, he doubled down, writing “They are, and I won’t apologize for saying so. Sometimes anger is the proper response to vicious behavior.”

Indeed, one wonders how much Duncan is basking in the attention his appearance provoked. As a opinion-writer at The San Francisco Chronicle wrote: “No matter who you think behaved worse here, the answer doesn’t matter for Duncan, because he got what he wanted: fame.” Referring to a Slate writer’s comments, he added, “it’s hard not to view Duncan’s performance as a not-so-subtle audition for the next Supreme Court vacancy that arises under a Republican president.”

Like it or not, free speech has limits and, if nothing else, simple decorum demands restraint even when it’s most difficult. The problem today is we don’t know what the limits are yet. Almost certainly, l’affaire Duncan will not be the last test of them.

Putin’s Inhumane Gambit

Posted on April 8, 2023 by Joe Weber

Reporter Evan Gershkovich is a pawn in a cruel geopolitical game

The drumbeat of condemnation in the U.S. of Russia’s detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich continues. In a rare show of bipartisanship, U.S. Senators Charles Schumer and Mitch McConnell issued a joint statement demanding “the immediate release of this internationally known and respected independent journalist.” This came a week after the Biden Administration, through Secretary of State Antony Blinken, similarly condemned Gershkovich’s arrest, blasting “the Kremlin’s continued attempts to intimidate, repress, and punish journalists and civil society voices.”

And it follows other expressions of support by news organizations such as the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing, which warned that, “The arrest of Gerschkovich may signal a broader crackdown on the remaining Western reporters in Russia, which already has made it a crime for its citizens to criticize the unlawful invasion of Ukraine.” The National Press Club awarded its highest honor for press freedom, the John Aubuchon Award, to the journalist well ahead of its normal year-end schedule. A club official said: “we want to do what we can to call out his situation and stand up next to him.”

For its part, The Wall Street Journal has run a continuing series of pieces about such developments. In one piece it described how readers can offer their support for the reporter through social media posts featuring his photo and such phrases as “#IStandWithEvan. “Readers can download this collection of media assets to surface and share across their personal social-media accounts—from Twitter and Facebook to LinkedIn, Instagram and beyond,” the Journal advised. “They can be added as user profile photos, banners or posts.”

Of course, the Journal also editorialized against his detention. “The timing of the arrest looks like a calculated provocation to embarrass the U.S. and intimidate the foreign press still working in Russia,” the paper’s editorial board opined. “The Kremlin has cowed domestic reporting in Russia, so foreign correspondents are the last independent sources of news. Mr. Gershkovich’s arrest comes days after his byline was on a revealing and widely read dispatch documenting the decline of the Russian economy. The Kremlin doesn’t want that truth told.”

The New York Times also weighed in, pairing its condemnation with an attack on Putin and a defense of Ukraine. “The Kremlin’s readiness to seize an accredited journalist as a hostage demonstrates again why the United States and its allies need to stand firm to block Mr. Putin’s designs on Ukraine,” the Times argued. “Ukraine has chosen to be part of a Europe that is stable, peaceful and governed according to rules and law. Mr. Putin would supplant that with fear and force.”

Both papers also suggested that Putin may have grabbed Gershkovich in retaliation for the United States indicting Sergey Vladimirovich Cherkasov, a Russian national suspected of spying against the U.S. Noting that Cherkasov posed as a Brazilian and reportedly entered an American university, the Times added the caveat that “there has been no indication so far that the Russians are looking to swap for him.” The papers also recalled the swap of athlete Brittney Griner for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, with the Times noting she was held for about 10 months. In an unhelpful note, the Journal took a swipe at the Biden Administration, expressing its thanks for the administration’s condemnation but adding, “But it’s fair to ask why Mr. Putin believes he can snatch Americans and come out ahead.”

All these protests are necessary, of course. If Gershkovich’s arrest were met with silence, the Kremlin would likely take away the absurd message that this distinguished journalist was spying for the U.S. In fact, what he was doing – in open sight and perhaps even more infuriating to Putin – was churning out exceptional journalism, including work about how the war in Ukraine was weakening the Russian economy. The Journal republished much of his work here.

The question, though, is whether such protests will have any effect on Putin. Instead of finding them troubling, would he take narcissistic and sadistic delight in so riling up his enemies? Would he be gladdened that in Gershkovich he has taken a prize that really stings? Will he milk that for all its worth by keeping the gifted reporter in the notorious Lefortovo Prison for months to come. Putin is, after all, a former KGB operative who understands the West’s emotional reaction when individuals are tormented and who himself is insensitive to immiserating others: witness his murderous attacks on thousands of Ukrainians and his tolerance of huge losses on the Russian side. To say the man is an animal is an insult to animals.

Sadly, despite the condemnatory reporting, Putin already has cowed Western reporters with this move – or at least made it difficult for Western media to get reporting on the ground in Russia. The Journal’s bureau chief has left and the Times has no staffers in the country any longer, as the Times reported. From his perspective, Putin has won big with this single arrest.

Western media and governments, as well as ordinary citizens, should keep up their criticisms of Putin for this appalling move, if only to remind themselves of the sort of man and government they are dealing with. However, if the past is prologue, only two things will really matter: when Putin has squeezed the arrest for all its value to him and the size of the ransom – human or otherwise — he’ll get for Gershkovich.

Will this move weaken the West’s resolve on Ukraine, moving it down the isolationist path some Republicans hope for? That is doubtful, but Putin’s gamble suggests that the reporter could be a captive as long as that war goes on. Happily, that didn’t happen with Griner. But Putin’s game with Gershkovich seems much more calculated and inhumane.

A Local Newspaper with a Taste for Wit

Posted on April 2, 2023 by Joe Weber

The Sort of Thing that Matters Outside the Big City

Folks who work for Big Media in such places as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles or Washington, D.C., tend to think their outlets produce the only news that matters – or at least the only stuff that is interesting. So, every once in a while, it’s helpful to get out into what people elsewhere in the U.S. regard as real America to see what folks are really concerned about.

I just got back from a few days in Moab, Utah, where I came across a most intriguing weekly paper (and it’s actually a newspaper, though it also boasts a website). This was the March 31-April 6 edition of what was flagged “Moab’s Un-News” on the outside, but which admitted to being the Moab Sun News on an inside page.

The cover page included a most illuminating piece on how Utah Gov. Spencer Cox plans to stave off the drying out of the Great Salt Lake by distributing absorbent garments to residents that are designed to collect bodily moisture. Once filled with sweat, the garments will be squeezed directly into the lake. “I just hope the folks down south are wearing their deodorant,” one lakeshore denizen was quoted as saying. “I’m afraid the water will be too stinky for us to boat in.”

Another piece told of how tourists would be shuttled away from such sites as the [incredibly stunning] Arches National Park and brought to Moab businesses so they could “watch skilled dishwashers do their thing, or even shadow the housekeeping staff in the hotels they’re already staying in!,” one county official said. This piece was headlined “Economic De-Diversification efforts begin, Tourists forcibly funneled to local businesses.”

Of course, this was an April Fools edition (as the editors acknowledged in small print above their ersatz flag). It was the sort of spoof that no serious-minded urban paper could pull off, but which works just fine in a town of 5,462 residents (and many more visitors). It’s a reminder that not all the news needs to be deadly serious (and indeed far too much is).

Inside, the editors promised that “the rest of the content in this paper is as truthful as we can make it.” And, indeed, there were legit stories, such as one on the city’s budget (suggesting it could be problematic because revenue would be $2.3 million short of what departments asked for) and another on a school district nurse who helped to get needed shots for unvaccinated children whose families were short on money or transportation. A feature profiled a local nonprofit that provides science education and outreach programs.

Another intriguing feature discussed a most peculiar phenomenon – an academic piece from www.theconversation.com that reported the finding by researchers at Wayne State and Auburn universities that female Airbnb hosts in the U.S. on average earn 25% less than their male counterparts. The average nightly rate of a female host’s listing was $30 cheaper than those of male hosts, the researchers reported. And this was so even though women made up 53% of hosts and had slightly more valuable properties than male hosts. The authors didn’t explain this discrepancy, but they suggested that other research found that men typically negotiate for higher pay than women and in professional fees, women tend to set lower rates.

Not only was the piece interesting in its own right, but in Moab, where Airbnb places are popular, it might have prompted a few women property-owners to up their rates. (Because I was staying in an Airbnb there, this might not be something I’d particularly like). The paper included plenty of other items of local interest such as community events, a bit of history, area sports, and a surprising number of obituaries (which, I recall from my days writing obits at a small New Jersey daily, are among the most-read sections of any local paper).

The Moab Sun News, I learned from its website, is now marking more than a decade of providing local news and material that would interest Moab residents. The paper is free, though readers on the site are asked for monthly donations of $3 to $25 or one-time donations of any amount. The paper distributes news through a weekly print edition, email newsletters, its website and social media channels.

“We are committed to helping residents get involved locally through civic engagement, publicizing events and promoting an inclusive and passionate community,” the paper says in an “about” section. “Our journalism responds to your questions and priorities and our community’s pressing needs.”

It notes that its small staff collaborates with a local radio station, KZMU, and several other outfits, including Science Moab, The Moab Museum, the Grand County Public Library, the Utah News Collective, High Country News, Writers on the Range and the Corner Post.

I learned in a quick Google search that the paper’s editor-in-chief and owner, Maggie McGuire, bought it in 2021. She had been hired as managing editor there in 2019 after freelancing a while for the paper. Earlier in her career, she led digital strategy campaigns for nonprofits. Her work drew attention on CNN, Bitch Magazine and the Rachel Maddow Show.

According to the NewStart Alliance, both her parents worked for their hometown newspaper in Michigan. Her great-grandfather also ran a newspaper.

NewStart, as I also learned in a Google search, is a local news ownership initiative, created by West Virginia University’s Reed College of Media. It collaborates with the West Virginia Press Association. The outfit’s mission is “to recruit, train and support the next generation of community news publication owners and publishers across the country.”

McGuire was a fellow at NewStart.

“I’m excited for all the ways the paper can expand the sense of the community, (showcase) itself as a viable business, but that it also is a social good and serves a social purpose,” she told folks at the outfit. “It’s really cool. We’re not just selling burgers, so that’s rad. I’m 100 percent getting to live my values, and that’s awesome.”

Indeed, local newspapers may also sell burgers – or, at least, their advertisers do – but they are essential and terribly endangered as newspapers around the country disappear. May the Moab Sun News live long and prosper — and keep its sense of humor.

The Big Picture

Monthly Archives: April 2023