Good morning, it’s Thursday.
I spent the majority of my professional life – just over two decades – as a reporter, covering local, state, and federal government and politics.
I was not one of those people born with proverbial ink in my veins. I didn’t aspire to be a reporter. I don’t think I even read the newspaper with any regularity until I got to college and my dad insisted that daily perusal of the New York Times would be a helpful habit to adopt – especially for a Political Science major.
Though I did take AP English, which focused a lot on persuasive essay writing, I was not a member of the yearbook committee, and our school didn’t have a student newspaper (at least not that I can recall). I headed off to college thinking that I eventually would go to law school, but that was only the vaguest of notions.
Without taking you through all the gory and rather boring details, I fell into journalism entirely by accident. I started writing for my hometown weekly more or less on a whim, and found that I liked it.
I was able to exercise the nosy/pushy/hyper-curious aspect of my personality and get paid for it. Also, it was fun – even the long local government meetings. Maybe I need to get out more.
I was lucky enough to get accepted to Columbia Journalism School, and through their career day met a fellow alum named Rex Smith, who was recruiting for the Albany Times Union at the time. The rest, as they say, is history. And over time, being reporter became far more than just a job, but a fundamental aspect of who I was and how I defined myself.
I struggled with the decision to leave journalism five years ago, wondering who I would be when I wasn’t “Liz Benjamin, Capital Tonight host” anymore. As it turns out, there IS, in fact, life after reporting. Departing the spotlight wasn’t as hard as I feared it might be. Anonymity has its benefits.
I continue to have the utmost respect for my former fellow ink-stained brethren, even though the next generation of them wouldn’t know a dead tree newspaper if it bit them in the butt. I lament the loss of newsprint newspapers, and worry about the future of the profession in the face of AI and deepfakes and social media, etc.
I also worry about the rise in threats against reporters who are just doing their jobs – something we saw increase during the Trump era. Traditionally, at least here in the U.S. for those who did not engage in war reporting, journalism wasn’t a high-risk proportion. That is no longer the case.
Consider, for example, the Virginia newsroom shooting in 2018 that left five people dead. Or the murder, again in Virginia, of reporter Alison Parker and photojournalist Adam Ward, who were shot and killed in 2015 while they were conducting an interview on live TV. Or, more recently, the death of Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative reporter Jeff German, who was allegedly murdered by a corrupt elected official.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
According to the watchdog group the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 67 journalists and media workers were killed in 2022, most during the war in Ukraine or in Latin America. And that number has only increased since then, and will likely grow further due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.
Over my 20+ years of reporting, I engaged with my fair share of, let us say, kooks. There was one person who followed me from one workplace to another, calling with some regularity. And I got a lot of hand-written, sometimes faintly threatening, letters from incarcerated individuals unhappy with my reporting about Rockefeller Drug Law reform.
Toward the end of my career, I did receive a fairly harrowing death threat that was antisemitic in nature. It never amounted to anything, nor did the authorities manage to ever track down the source. But it made me think twice about whether one’s work is worth dying for. I don’t think so, personally, but I know there are many others who disagree.
Today is the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, which, according to the UN, “seeks to raise awareness of the main challenges faced by journalists and communicators in the exercise of their profession, and to warn of the escalation of violence and repression against them.”
Without an active free press, operating without fear or favor, where are we, really? I don’t like to think about it, even though ink is no longer running in my veins.
I don’t know about where you are, but there was some SNOW at my house on the Troy-Brunswick line yesterday morning, and I was not at all happy about it. Neither was Gizmo, the four pound Shi-Poo puppy who vastly prefers to pee in the warm house. Can’t say I blame him.
Today will be slightly warmer than yesterday, thankfully, with highs around 50 degrees and sunny skies.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden said that a “pause” was needed in the Israel-Hamas war to allow more time to get “prisoners” out.
“I think we need a pause,” Biden said in response to a question from a protester who interrupted him at a campaign reception in Minnesota. Asked to clarify what a pause meant, he said: “A pause means give time to get the prisoners out. Give time.”
The president’s remarks marked a shift in the position of the White House, which has previously said it would not dictate how Israel conducts its military operations.
Biden and top aides have discussed the likelihood that Benjamin Netanyahu’s political days are numbered — and the president has conveyed that sentiment to the Israeli prime minister in a recent conversation.
A US official says that the expectation within the administration is that Netanyahu would only be able to remain in power for a few more months or until the early phase of Israel’s ground incursion into Gaza ends.
After weeks of waiting, hundreds of people were allowed to leave the besieged Gaza Strip yesterday, the first of thousands of foreigners, aid workers and critically wounded patients who were expected to exit in the coming days.
Fears that Israel’s expanding military operations in Gaza could escalate into a regional conflict are clouding the global economy’s outlook, threatening to dampen growth and reignite a rise in energy and food prices.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ripped into the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, calling it a “racist and bigoted organization.”
Two NYU Langone doctors have been suspended after they each shared controversial social media posts tied to the raging Israel war.
Biden and first lady Jill Biden will travel to Maine tomorrow to honor the victims of an October mass shooting that killed 18 people.
The president and first lady will “pay respects to the victims of this horrific attack and grieve with families and community members, as well as meet with first responders, nurses and others on the front lines of the response,” the White House said.
A Republican-led resolution to expel embattled Rep. George Santos failed in the House last night. The resolution needed a two-thirds majority to succeed, but fell well short. The final vote was 179 to 213 with 19 members voting present.
“One can’t say that they are pro-Constitution and at the same time act as judge, jury and executioner. Where is the consistency?” Santos said of his New York colleagues in a defiant floor speech ahead of the vote.
Even as House members condemned Santos for lying to voters and donors about his biography, résumé and more, many said that expelling him now — nearly a year before his trial is even set to begin — would set a dangerous precedent.
This was the second attempt this year to remove Santos from office. In May, the House voted to refer a Democrat-led expulsion resolution to the Ethics Committee, even though the panel had been looking into the congressman for months.
The House turned aside a Republican effort to formally reprimand Democratic Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib for her participation in a pro-Palestinian protest in which she accused Israel of genocide, as a solid bloc of Republicans joined Democrats to reject the move.
A Colorado judge refused former President Trump’s attorneys’ request to throw out a case challenging his eligibility to hold office again, saying she was not yet prepared to decide on “significant legal issues, many of which have never been decided by any court.”
The first of two days of testimony from Trump’s adult sons got underway yesterday in the $250 million civil fraud trial against the former president’s family and their company.
Donald Trump Jr. took the stand and faced questions about his role at the Trump Organization, particularly as it pertains to financial statements that the New York Attorney General’s Office said were purposely inflated to benefit the company.
Trump Jr. testified he was not involved in the preparation of his father’s financial statements at any point in time, even after his father became president in 2017 and he was appointed trustee on Donald Trump’s revocable trust.
During his latest rally, while criticizing rival Joe Biden for his gaffes as a candidate, Donald Trump had some stumbles of his own.
Fewer than 1,700 affordable housing units were built in New York City in the first nine months of this year, according to a new analysis by a housing advocacy group.
The paltry figure emerged in a report, released by Metro IAF New York, that also found the construction of only 45 of those units began under the leadership of Gov. Kathy Hochul.
A California company that makes electronic components for the aerospace and defense industries plans to spend at least $100 million expanding its plant in Syracuse’s eastern suburbs, almost doubling the size of its local workforce.
Parents and legal experts packed a state Senate hearing to testify about the Family Court system, with many dismissing the venue as “dehumanizing” as they seek to change how cases — often dealing with poor or marginalized families — are handled statewide.
Three of the offshore wind developers that have signed contracts with New York state to build large wind farms off the coast of Long Island have had to take large write-offs on their investments in the projects.
Instead of gathering momentum as the long-promised benefits of offshore wind farms are about to be realized, the industry is now mired in an existential crisis.
Mayor Eric Adams has blamed the rise in prostitution in Corona, Queens, on an influx of female Venezuelan migrants who are struggling to find other work.
Popular radio and television personality Charlamagne Tha God mocked Adams’ efforts to evacuate migrants out of the self-described “sanctuary city,” saying the Democrat was only a progressive “in theory.”
Adams and several other Democratic mayors from big cities across the country are demanding that Biden meet with them and provide additional aid to cope with the growing migrant crisis.
The Democratic leaders of Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles and New York say in a letter that while they appreciate Biden’s efforts so far, much more needs to be done to ease the burden on their cities.
A coalition of big city mayors is headed to Washington today to urge the federal government to offer more help with the surge in migrants that are overwhelming their cities’ budgets and services.
In a closed-door meeting with DOT staffers, the mayor said he didn’t feel bound by city requirements — and his campaign promises — to add hundreds of miles of new bike and bus lanes, but was more concerned about hearing from constituents “on the ground.”
Adams said he was unaware of his son’s appearance at a San Francisco community association with Winnie Greco, Special Advisor to the Mayor and Director of Asian Affairs, and the leader of a business association connected to a Chinatown development.
After touring the soon-to-open migrant shelter at Floyd Bennett Field, homeless advocates are asking Adams to reconsider housing children there, calling it a “patently dangerous” plan due to insufficient bathroom access, lack of privacy and other concerns.
Correction Commissioner Louis Molina recently tapped a longtime colleague and former union rep for state prison guards with no apparent experience as an investigator for the No. 2 spot in the unit that probes misconduct by city correction officers.
Adams is trying to get New Yorkers to live longer, healthier lives. And now he has a plan to do so.
HealthyNYC will organize existing city initiatives around targets for reducing the greatest drivers of early death: chronic diseases, overdoses, suicide, maternal mortality, violence and coronavirus.
New York City police officers shot and killed a man this morning, three days after investigators said he killed a father and son inside a Brooklyn apartment building during an argument over noise.
An installation will put 17,000 illuminated, flowerlike stems on a vacant lot in Midtown facing the East River that is the site of a potential future casino.
The mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey filed a federal lawsuit that aims to stop the MTA’s congestion pricing program, claiming the tolls planned for Manhattan would increase air pollution in the Garden State.
Sokolich, who was joined by other northern New Jersey officials, said more vehicles would go through Fort Lee on the way to the George Washington Bridge once congestion pricing took effect, because drivers would avoid Midtown Manhattan and the new tolls.
A sprawling electronics store in Union Square has been replaced by a tech start-up incubator and training campus, a $30 million project hailed by city officials as a sign of things to come for the booming sector.
City Council members are pushing legislation to make it easier to padlock the hordes of unlicensed pot shops that are choking their neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs.
As the Nov. 7 election nears, in which every City Council seat will be up for grabs, Asian Americans’ strength — as well as their political alliances — will be put to another test.
Thousands of New York City residents are still waiting more than a month to receive cash assistance or food stamps, even as city staffers cut through record-high backlogs.
The number of homeless students in New York City public schools reached a record high last year, with roughly one in nine schoolchildren lacking a stable place to call home.
New York City’s iconic Magnolia Bakery, which is famous for its cupcakes and banana pudding and is often the first stop for legions of tourists, announced a new lineup of THC treats – none of which are available for purchase in New York.
Police are investigating after a body was found in the parking lot of Colonie strip club Nite Moves.
Rensselaer County Executive Steve McLaughlin’s son, Sean, saw his time on the ABC reality series “Bachelor in Paradise” end last week after he failed to make a romantic connection with any of the other contestants and was sent home.
Proctors Collaborative is suing its insurance carrier for more than $200,000 after the company refused to pay for water damage to the theater’s historic Wurlitzer organ, known as Goldie, that rendered the instrument unusable for more than two years.
Regeneron Pharmaceutical seeks to expand on an 18-acre site in the village of Menands, the Albany County executive’s office said.
The City of Troy has reached the end of its free food composting pilot program that resulted in 101,085 pounds of food scraps diverted by about 250 households from the dump to being used to create a nutrient-rich compost.
The Texas Rangers are World Series champions for the first time in the franchise’s 63-season history, defeating the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-0-yesterday in Phoenix to secure the title in Game 5.
It was 13 years ago to the night that San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy knocked off the Rangers to win the World Series title.
Photo credit: George Fazio
