Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Getty Images A journalism professor raises some excellent points. It’s damn near impossible to turn on a cable-news show and not see Kellyanne Conway sitting there, doing verbal parkour to try to explain how whatever awful thing Donald Trump (or his press secretary) just did was actually neither offensive nor terrifying, and really, it’s all…
Someone needs to write a book about how literally insane it made you being constantly lied to about Iraq by sloppy propaganda as a teenager. Right now, I’m slowly working my way through Susan Faludi’s The Terror Dream, a meticulous deconstruction of the media’s response after 9/11. In it, Faludi argues that producers, pundits and executives…
Women march to Roberto Clementi Field in Boston to protest a continuing trend of violence against women and minorities in the city on Aug. 9, 1980. (Photo by Deborah Petto/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) This week, countless American journalists have been weighing the costs of joining the Women’s March in Washington, DC, or one…
Washington Post video reporter Dalton Bennett was pulled back and knocked down by riot police in downtown Washington D.C., while trying to video tape the arrest of dozens of anti-Trump protesters in Washington D.C. Protesters wearing all black were arrested as part of an unauthorized march by a group calling itself the “Anti-captialist, Anti-Facist Bloc.”…
Rex Tillerson appears before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations for his confirmation hearing as secretary of state. (Photo by Melina Mara/The Washington Post) There’s a joke among Asian Americans that people think we all look the same. That joke became my own personal Pizzagate late Wednesday: I got caught in a terrible case of mistaken identity…
President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a news conference at Trump Tower on January 11, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) The most confrontational moment of Donald Trump’s first press conference in 168 days featured the President-elect pointing his finger at a CNN reporter and declaring, “You are fake news.” CNN Senior…
Where does transparency meet irresponsibility? Right at the line that BuzzFeed’s editor Ben Smith approached Tuesday and decided to step over in the name of serving citizens’ best interests. With caveats and explanations aplenty, Smith published a 35-page “dossier” — actually just a bunch of scurrilous allegations dressed up as an intelligence report meant to…
At the recent meeting of tech executives at Trump Tower — orchestrated by Mr. Thiel — the president-elect caressed Mr. Thiel’s hand so affectionately that body language experts went into a frenzy. I note that he looked uneasy being petted in front of his peers. “I was thinking, ‘I hope this doesn’t look too weird…
Photo Credit: Richard Drew/AP Despite what anyone may want to believe, the chances of Donald Trump moving into the White House in January are not trivial. He is still a candidate; he still has ardent supporters; and he still could be our next president. This means that, now more than ever, journalists with relevant information…
Photo: AP Donald Trump spent much of what was intended to be a press conference on his finances attacking news organizations for reporting on intelligence reports suggesting he might be compromised by Russia. The press conference had barely begun when incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer decried BuzzFeed—which published a 35-page document cited in…