Koch brothers' new Australian friends - Financial Review
Czech out Wordsmith Neil's Cold Steam
WE'RE ALL HUMAN: An afternoon of open
and honest stories of the lessons learned from failure, to be told by three
federal government senior executives.
Fourth things first
On this long holiday weekend, we recall the work of some of the nation's most notable early writers.
Shutterstock.
Occasionally, I turn the newsletter over to someone else for a
single item. That’s the case with today’s first piece, which I’ll turn over the
Founding Fathers. You’ve read this before, but this holiday weekend, in these
times, it feels like the perfect moment to really take notice of these words
again:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and
to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
'A cynical strategy to disqualify the press'
Washington Post Executive Editor
Marty Baron in 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
President Donald Trump knows exactly what he’s doing when he
uses phrases such as “fake news” and “enemy of the people.” Giving a keynote
address at Boston Bar Association’s annual Law Day last week, Washington Post
Executive Editor Marty Baron told an anecdote that gives insight into Trump’s
intentions.
According
to the Boston Herald, Baron recalled a quote Trump gave to CBS’s Lesley
Stahl before the 2016 election when she asked why he attacked the media.
“You know why I do it?” Trump said. “I do it to discredit you
all and demean you all, so when you write negative stories about me no one will
believe you.”
Baron told the lawyers in Boston, “That is, in fact, the
president’s goal. No one should believe the media if we contradict him. They
should believe only one person — him. … There is no mystery as to why this is
happening. It is a cynical strategy to disqualify the press as an independent
arbiter of fact. The aim is to disqualify other institutions and professions as
arbiters of fact, too: the courts, law enforcement, intelligence agencies,
historians, even scientists.”
Trump’s strategy might actually work. According
to a Hill-Harris X poll, one-third of Americans believe the media is the
“enemy of the people.”
No laughing matter
He tried to make a joke. He ended up losing his job. Kevin
Dietz, a TV reporter for WDIV-TV in Detroit who has won 15 Michigan Emmy
awards, was
forced to resign over a comment he made about a black colleague at a
reporters’ conference in Houston.
Dietz admitted
in a Facebook post that when WDIV staffers posed for a photo, he said,
“We are probably going to have to crop the black reporter out of the photo.”
He said it was meant as a comment to acknowledge the challenge
the company has had to achieve diversity goals. He said that the black reporter
was not offended and even stood up for him in a human resources meeting. He
added, “This is a serious subject that I approached through humor.”
WDIV didn’t think it was funny and Dietz was forced to resign.
It had no further comment because it said it was a personnel issue. Dietz said,
“I regret the fact that it happened, and apologize to anyone I might have
offended.”
Don't get ad, get even
The Indian government has stopped advertising with three major
newspaper groups, and the groups say it’s because of their critical news
coverage.
The Indian news website The
Print reported that the government stopped placing ads with The Times
Group, ABP Group and The Hindu prior to the beginning of India’s general
elections in April. Reuters
reported that about 15% of The Times Group’s advertising comes from the
government.
Steven
Butler, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Asia program coordinator, said,
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi cannot claim to be the leader of a democracy if
his administration continues to punish news organizations for critical
coverage. Withholding advertisements is a suffocating measure and a clear
effort to influence editorial decision, and amounts to censorship.”
It's gotta be the news
The limited edition Klay
Thompson shoes. (Courtesy)
If you’re a journalist, your favorite basketball player should
be Golden State’s Klay Thompson. For years, Thompson’s habit before games has
been to read the newspaper — the actual, hand-held newspaper.
Back in 2017, Thompson told the ESPN NBA show “The Jump”: “I
just think, especially my generation, we’re on our phones so much, all the
time, even me, I’m a bad culprit of it, that my mom actually suggested this to
me. She said, ‘Klay, instead of standing at your phone pregame all the time,
why don’t you get a newspaper or a book and read that before a game, try to
take your mind off things.’”
Now, he’s celebrating a recent contract (five years for $190
million) by dropping
a new Anta shoe that pays homage to his love of reading the newspaper.
Wonder who will be more interested in it: basketball players or newspaper
journalists?
On Poynter.org:
Screenshot.
- Kristen Hare chronicled how journalists said goodbye in New Orleans, plus some advice over the name of the “new” New Orleans paper.
- Samantha Sunne has a breakdown on what those who were laid off are planning to do. Rick Edmonds also wrote about the Advocate’s rise to power, and how the handoff was supposed to work this week.
- Ren LaForme has an overview of Sci-Hub, a repository of academic articles, in his weekly Try This! newsletter. Sign up here.
Hot type
Keith Olbermann. (AP Photo/Mark J.
Terrill)- Have you checked out Keith Olbermann’s Twitter page lately? He has gone from ranting about politics to rescuing dogs. So much so that The Hollywood Reporter’s Jeremy Barr did a story about it.
- You can now listen to the entire six-part riveting podcast, “The Man in the Window,” from The Los Angeles Times about the man known as the Golden State Killer.
- China is installing text-stealing malware on tourists’ phones at certain border points, according to a massive collaboration by The New York Times, Vice’s Motherboard, the Guardian and two German publications.
- Stonewall Forever is the most impressive thing you’ll see on the internet all day.
Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom
Jones at tjones@poynter.org.
Upcoming Poynter training:
- Fundamentals of Investigative Journalism (online seminar). Early-bird deadline: July 15.
- A Roadmap for Successful News Partnerships (webinar). Aug. 1 at 2 p.m. Eastern time.