“I am a person who believes in asking questions, in not conforming for
the sake of conforming. I am deeply dissatisfied – about so many things,
about injustice, about the way the world works – and in some ways, my
dissatisfaction drives my storytelling.”
–– ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The reported murder of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi, allegedly ordered by Saudi Arabia’s violent, volatile 33-year-old crown prince, has created a perfect storm of outrage.
–– ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Sometimes
even I am surprised by the people I write about. Here's one: a
vexatious litigant and a bogus shrink, who has convictions for
pretending to be a doctor, has been sprung using forged documents AGAIN
www.smh.com.au/national… via @smh
Saudi Charm Offensive Got Hollywood Production Hopes Up. Now Those Hopes Are Dashed
“It's absolutely going to have a profound impact. There’s no question. Everyone was lined up on the tarmac to make films there and make financing deals. That party, overnight, is going to be over.” … Read More
For 14 years, Kathleen Carroll ran The Associated Press
with the clear, direct, grounded language for which the news service is known.
As chair of the Committee to Protect Journalists, she still
doesn't mince words.
Asked about Jamal Khashoggi and the slayings of other
journalists in recent years, Carroll answered simply: “Someone feels they have
the right to kill someone because they disagree with them. ... If these
murders go unanswered, the killers are further empowered."
Carroll praised the Washington Post's "multi-pronged
approach" in covering the assassination of Khashoggi, the Saudi dissident
and Post columnist. She also credited Reuters with its sustained effort to
keep the public focused on the imprisonment in Myanmar of two of its
reporters, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who documented the nation's genocide
of its minority Rohingya population.
The stakes are high. “If somebody doesn’t create a fuss,
then it doesn’t matter,” Carroll said.
Khashoggi's family on Tuesday called for an independent
international inquiry into the death of the Saudi journalist, who had been
critical of the nation's impulsive, volatile 33-year-old crown prince, Mohammed
bin Salman. The reported killing and dismemberment of Khashoggi inside the
Saudi Consulate in Istanbul prompted media partners and business leaders
to skip a Saudi business conference, and at least three U.S. public relations
firms and a think tank have cut ties with the Saudi government.
The Post launched an ad campaign urging authorities and readers
to demand answers into the Khashoggi slaying. That's the right focus, Carroll
said. Everyone, she said, should be asking: “What happened to him?
And what will happen to those who did what they did to them?”
Powerful figures in the past year have silenced a host of investigative
reporters, including Daphne Caruana Galizia of Malta, Viktoria Marinova of Bulgaria, Ján Kuciak of Slovakia and Mario Gomez Sanchez, one of many
journalists slain in Mexico.
Transparency International says 9 of 10 journalists slain since
2012 have died in nations it deems very corrupt.
The contract killing of Kuciak and his fiancée, both 27, prompted
Slovakia's prime minister to step down.
"When a journalist is murdered, all of society
suffers," Margaret Atwood wrote Tuesday, the first
anniversary of Caruana Galizia's assassination in a car bomb in Malta. "We
lose our right to know, to speak, to learn."
Post columnist Anne Applebaum said changes in technology have increased pressure
on corrupt politicians — and on journalists who expose wrongdoing. Those
changes make it easier for the officials to stash money overseas, but also can
enable journalists to track the funds. Autocrats used to be able to muzzle the
dissemination of news in their own country, but technology allows anyone with a
smartphone in Saudi Arabia to read what Khashoggi wrote in the Post.
Years ago, the Committee to Protect Journalists would
train reporters in trouble spots how to evade kidnappers,
Carroll said. These days, trainings are just as likely to focus on government
spyware trying to infect your phone and computer, or gain access to your online
accounts.
The root of the violence against journalists, Carroll said, is the
mentality that people think they can kill another — and wager that they
can get away with it.
Before Caruana Galizia was slain, not only did she get death
threats, her bank account was frozen; her house was set on fire; her family’s
pet dogs were killed. Even in death, the Maltese journalist's memory
has been sabotaged, her reputation tarnished, her heirs sued, Atwood wrote
in The Guardian.
"Since her assassination," Atwood wrote, "a
memorial that was erected as a protest for justice in her case has been
repeatedly demolished by government workers." Activists guarded the
memorial Saturday night and Sunday, when hundreds of people turned
out to honor the journalist.
Quick hits
BIG CHANGE AT NPR: Houston Chronicle executive editor Nancy Barnes is moving to
the public broadcaster as its new senior vice president of news and editorial
director. "Nancy has the news judgment to guide our
storytelling, believes in the power of the NPR mission, sees the tremendous
opportunity in unifying NPR and member station newsrooms, and has the business
acumen to think creatively about how we can bring our journalism to even more
eyes and ears," said Jarl Mohn, NPR’s president and CEO. Michael Oreskes,
NPR’s former SVP for news, quit in November following sexual harassment
allegations. The interim news head, Chris Turpin, will become vice president
for editorial innovation and newsroom development. In Houston, Chronicle
president and publisher John McKeon said a national search will be conducted to replace
Barnes, who also was executive vice president and editor of Hearst Texas
Newspapers. Barnes told her paper that she was approached by NPR in May and
accepted the job last week.
STIFLING: The literary group PEN America has sued President Trump,
claiming that he has stifled First Amendment rights — and that is hurting America’s writers. So far,
the group is not asking news publishers to get involved, the AP’s Hillel Italie
reports.
CHEROKEE NATION NOT PLEASED: Let’s just say
Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s DNA test didn’t go down well. “It makes a
mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their
citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is
proven,” Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. said.
ONCE BURNED: This is agony season for FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver,
watching midterm election predictions abound. “Media understanding about
probability, margin of error and uncertainty is very poor,” he tells Margaret Sullivan.
PUTTING THE $ in READER$: BuzzFeed is starting a monthly book
club, connecting its 160,000-person book newsletter list with a Facebook chat
group and a deal from Amazon. Here’s the pitch. The Atlantic and New York
Magazine also have bulked up their book verticals. (h/t Shan Wang)
IF AT FIRST: So the blockchain cryptocurrency-based journalism platform Civil
failed to reach its goal for capitalization,
but said it would try for another, less complicated token sale. Meanwhile,
none of the 14 newsrooms seeded by the company would lose any investment,
officials told Nieman Lab's Laura Hazard Owen.
The reported murder of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi, allegedly ordered by Saudi Arabia’s violent, volatile 33-year-old crown prince, has created a perfect storm of outrage.
A PR firm and a think tank ditched contracts. High-profile
business leaders quit working with the Saudis. Media partners deserted an
upcoming Saudi business conference. A bipartisan U.S. Congress
called for punishment of Saudi Arabia.
And messages abounded from journalists such as New York Times
diplomatic writer Peter Baker, who said the Khashoggi inquiry isn't "going away without answers."
Adding to the momentum: Disclosures of dubious Donald Trump
and Jared Kushner ties with Mohammed bin Salman. The NYT's Nick
Kristof dubbed him a mad prince. The Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt
asked why any retired U.S. diplomat or military officer would want to work for a murderer.
On what would have been the journalist's 60th birthday,
heartbroken accounts emerged from Khashoggi's friends and from his fiancée, Hatice Cengiz.
Experts say the incident and intense coverage might provide an
awakening to young people worldwide of Saudi Arabia’s sordid practices,
including the deadly Yemen war and its blistering bullying of Qatar. For many
millennials and Gen Zers, “this horrific incident” will be first time Saudi
actions are on their minds, tweeted Farah Pandith, the State Department’s
first-ever special representative to Muslim communities under Barack Obama and
an NSC official under George W. Bush.
Pandith says younger consumers will “ask businesses what they
stand for." She wonders if the Khashoggi crisis will translate into
companies asking "What is our red line?"
Developments in the case:
— If you only have time for one story to figure out this
dissident journalist and his importance, I'd suggest this look at Khashoggi and
his overarching drive to get the truth out. It's written by longtime
intelligence columnist David Ignatius, and covers decades of Khashoggi's
life. (Washington Post)
— The Saudi leader who ordered the operation has admired Putin’s
way of getting away with intimidating, deflecting and denying objective facts
to his own people. (The Guardian)
— Mohammed bin Salman's dark, bullying side. (The Washington Post)
— The Saudi stock market plunged after Trump suggested
"severe punishment" if the oil-rich nation is found to be behind the
killing. (AP)
— The Brookings Institution joined tech companies,
lobbyists, media partners and international leaders in turning away from a
Saudi Arabia business conference. Those ditching from the media include
Bloomberg, CNN, CNBC, The Economist, Financial Times, The Los Angeles Times and
The New York Times. Who hasn't ditched yet? Fox Business Network. (NYT)
— Related:
9 of 10 assassinations of journalists since 2012 came in nations deemed deeply
corrupt, says a report by Transparency International. (Foreign Policy)
Jamal Khashoggi murder suspect studied forensic medicine in Australia in 2015
A
doctor suspected of killing and dismembering dissident Saudi journalist
Jamal Khashoggi trained at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine
in Melbourne ...
Doctor implicated in reporter's disappearance studied in Melbourne
A
forensic doctor implicated in the reported assassination of Washington
Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi spent three months studying at the
Victorian Institute of ...
Suspect in Saudi journo's death was in Vic
A
Saudi doctor named as a suspect in the killing of Saudi journalist
Jamal Khashoggi spent time training at the Victorian Institute of
Forensic Medicine.
Saudi autopsy expert ‘who butchered Jamal Khashoggi’ was trained in Britain
The
man accused of butchering Saudi journalist Jamal Kashoggi inside the
Saudi consulate in Istanbul is a doctor who trained in Britain - it has
been revealed.
Daily Mail
Doctor suspected killing Saudi journalist Khashoggi trained in Melbourne sponsored Saudi Government
The
doctor suspected of killing and dismembering a Saudi journalist,
trained at a facility in Melbourne on sponsorship from the Saudi
Government, reports claim.
Marijuana in Canada
Dispensaries selling various strains of marijuana and high-potency extracts, called budder and shatter, have opened on main streets. Regular pop-up markets like the one in Hamilton have sprouted, to the point vendors can attend five a week in the Toronto area.Cannabis lounges have expanded, offering not just a place to smoke and take hits, but classes on growing cannabis at home and making cannabis creams. Cannabis-infused catering has gone so mainstream that the national association of food service businesses, Restaurants Canada, is hosting a seminar on it. Cannabis tour companies have opened, as have cannabis “bud-and-breakfasts.”Universities and colleges across the country have introduced courses on cannabis business, investing, retail and cultivation.Newspapers, which have hired full-time cannabis reporters, have published cannabis sections, filled with editorial ads by government-licensed producers advertising lines of cannabis-infused beverages, coffee and dog chew toys they are developing for when such products become legal.…Ms. Roach see cannabis becoming almost like corn in its derivative form, threaded through everyday Canadian consumer products. Although people eat a minimal amount of corn each day, she said, “there’s corn syrup in everything.”
That is from Catherine Porter at the NYT. I increasingly believe that decriminalization will prove a more stable solution than outright legalization.