Good morning, you know what day it is…do I really need to tell you? OK, fine. It’s Friday!!
I plan to keep working in one capacity or another for as long as I am physically and mentally able to do so. I don’t know what that will look like, exactly, but I do know that staying busy and engaged is critical to my overall well-being. I need goals. I need structure. I am not a person who relaxes well. A life of leisure is not for me.
Assuming I get another 20 to 30 good years of work under my belt (at least), I will still have spent a good quarter to one-third of my professional life as a journalist. That’s a pretty sizable chunk of time, and since much of it was while I was still growing up and figuring life out, it was a formidable experience that shaped my world view and work ethic.
I know these days the media isn’t necessarily admired. In fact, in some corners it’s downright reviled.
Overall, Americans’ trust in mass media hit a record low last year, with 39 percent saying they have no trust at all in what’s reported. I’m sure some of this has something to with a certain former president and his anti-mainstream media messaging. Misinformation, disinformation, and just plain spin also don’t help matters.
Whatever the reason, the news business – and it IS a business, as well as a calling and a craft and critical element in protecting small-d democracy – is hurting. Well, the traditional news business is hurting, I should say, because the social media universe is doing just fine, thanks very much. But as for newspapers, readership has been trending steadily downward for years now.
The way Americans are consuming their news has steadily shifted to digital platforms. Even more concerning is that young people, in particular, are getting their news from unreliable and unedited sources like TikTok.
I don’t want to get too preachy here, so before I run out of room, the point of this post is to say that the work of news gathering, fact checking, and truth telling (to the degree that’s possible) is more important than ever before. Very few people are getting rich working as reporters, but more members of the Fourth Estate are putting their lives at risk in service of the pursuit of truth.
Last year, 99 reporters were killed on the job, up 44 percent from the previous year and the highest number of journalist deaths since 2015. The vast majority of these were Palestinian reporters, who, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, appear to be targeted by Israeli forces.
It goes without saying that reporting in a war zone is inherently dangerous, but there have been reporter deaths here in the U.S., too.
As Thomas Jefferson once famously said: “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” Today is World Press Freedom Day, which, according to the UN, is “dedicated to the importance of journalism and freedom of expression in the context of the current global environmental crisis.”
On this day I’m thinking of Terry Anderson, the AP reporter who was one of America’s longest-held hostages after he was snatched from a street in war-torn Lebanon in 1985 and held for nearly seven years. He passed away late last month at the age of 76 from complications related to heart surgery. Anderson taught at Columbia J School when I was a student there. He wasn’t a professor of mine, but I recall him as fascinating, supportive, and kind.
RIP, Terry.
It will be mostly cloudy today with temperatures in the low 70s. Tomorrow is looking a little better than it did a few days ago, with more clouds – but not rain – and temperatures again in the low 70s. Sunday, well, “blech” sums it up. Cold and rainy. Stay inside.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden has called Japan and India “xenophobic”, grouping them together with Russia and China as countries that “don’t want immigrants”.
The president made the remark at the off-camera event while arguing that Japan, along with India, Russia and China, would perform better economically if the countries embraced immigration more.
At the hotel fundraiser where the donor audience was largely Asian American, Biden said the upcoming election was about “freedom, America and democracy” and that the nation’s economy was thriving “because of you and many others”
The Justice Department this week filed a less-redacted version of the search warrant that authorized the raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate two years ago.
Trump is facing a “vindictive prosecution” because his vice president, Mike Pence, was not indicted for holding classified documents, the former president’s lawyer claimed.
Biden’s re-election campaign has come out swinging against Trump’s refusal in an interview to commit to accepting the results of the presidential election in November.
“If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results. I don’t change on that,” Trump said in the interview. “If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.”
Trump tried—and failed—to lure the judge overseeing his New York criminal trial into the position of greenlighting his angry screeds to ensure they don’t violate a gag order that seeks to stop him from continuing to intimidate witnesses and jurors.
Biden and Trump returned to the campaign trail this week, but while taking very different detours — one to handle sensitive presidential tasks and the other to appear before a criminal jury.
Trump’s attorneys yesterday sought to paint one of the witnesses at the heart of the hush money deal with Stormy Daniels as someone with a long history of extracting money from celebrities while going “up to the line without committing extortion.”
In 30 years of Senate bids, Biden was such a formidable incumbent that he did not face a serious threat to his return to office. His last re-election is shaping up to be something different: a fight.
Biden said he was praying for loved ones and all those left behind after he met privately with the families of law enforcement officers shot to death on the job. The visit came just a week after he sat down with the grieving relatives of two cops killed upstate.
Biden was already scheduled to travel to Wilmington, North Carolina, to deliver a speech on rebuilding infrastructure and creating good-paying jobs. The White House added a stop to Charlotte to his itinerary.
It was a toast to teaching at the White House last night as more than 50 of the nation’s top educators gathered for the first-ever Teachers of the Year State Dinner.
Biden yesterday addressed the pro-Palestinian protests that have spread to college campuses across the nation, saying he supported students’ right to free speech but that protests must not violate the rule of law.
“Dissent is essential for democracy,” Biden said at the White House. “But dissent must never lead to disorder.”
“We’ve all seen images, and they put to the test two fundamental American principles,” Biden added. “The first is the right to free speech and for people to peacefully assemble and make their voices heard. The second is the rule of law. Both must be upheld.”
His decision to speak out was an acknowledgment that it was unavoidable to stay quiet for much longer, according to three people familiar with the decision, while Americans were seeing nonstop images of students clashing with law enforcement.
A bipartisan push in Congress to enact a law cracking down on antisemitic speech on college campuses has prompted a backlash from far-right lawmakers and activists, who argue it could outlaw Christian biblical teachings.
One officer accidentally discharged his gun inside a Columbia University administration building while clearing out protesters camped inside, authorities disclosed.
The gun fired did not appear to be aimed at anyone and no one was injured. The incident is now under review by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s office.
The shooting was recorded by the officer’s body camera and has been provided to the Manhattan district attorney’s office. The police will hold a briefing at 11:30 a.m. today about the incident.
New bodycam video shows the short-lived confrontation inside Columbia University on Tuesday night after anti-Israel protesters fronted up to NYPD cops after they breached Hamilton Hall and deployed flashbang stun grenades.
Some of those arrested during the pro-Palestinian demonstration were outsiders, who appeared to be unaffiliated with the school, according to an analysis of Police Department data.
The mayor and police have consistently blamed the so-called agitators for the unrest but have not provided any details of the arrest.
A faculty group at Columbia University yesterday called for a vote of no confidence in Minouche Shafik, the newly minted university president whose tenure has been marred by campus protests and criticism of her use of the NYPD.
Columbia University and other private colleges should cough up and help foot the bill for the NYPD having to swarm the Ivy League campus and crack down on pro-terror protests, Mayor Eric Adams said.
At least 300 members of the union repping faculty and staff at the City University of New York called out sick as part of an “illegal” strike to support anti-Israel protesters who were arrested on campus this week.
Karen Bass, the Los Angeles mayor, condemned “harassment, vandalism and violence” at UCLA’s campus in a statement released yesterday afternoon.
The largest employee union in the University of California system said that it was preparing to ask some or all of its members to authorize a strike over the treatment of pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The Gaza solidarity protest encampment at Rutgers University in New Jersey is being peacefully disassembled by students after meeting with university administration and coming to a resolution.
A student organizer said Rutgers had met most of their demands and agreed to continue negotiations over divestment from companies supporting Israel. The police have detained more than 2,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators across the country.
Police with batons and dogs forcibly broke up a pro-Palestinian encampment at SUNY New Paltz, arresting several dozen and charging them with trespassing.
Gov. Kathy Hochul rolled out the details this week of a $40 million package filled with sweeping measures, including retail-focused anti-theft teams for police, to combat rising retail theft across the state.
“It won’t just be a misdemeanor anymore. You think it’s OK to walk in and assault a retail worker? You’ll be charged with a felony. There are serious consequences to this. Serious consequences,” said Hochul.
Hochul has nominated former state Assemblyman Walter Mosley to serve as the next secretary of state, the governor announced.
Business groups are urging Hochul’s administration to delay regulations that would significantly restrict widely used coolant chemicals that they say could wreak financial havoc on stakeholders ranging from grocery stores to hospitals.
Hochul highlighted New York’s status as the first state to enact a stand-alone prenatal leave policy, which is part of the 2024-25 budget.
After a Newburgh veteran was indicted on federal charges accusing her of doctoring her Army discharge records to make it appear she had received a Purple Heart, a state senator proposed legislation that would criminalize false claims related to military service.
A state lawmaker has proposed a law change that would allow the family of ex-FDNY firefighter Derek Floyd to collect hundreds of thousands in death benefits despite his firing.
The controversial first-in-the-nation $15 congestion toll to enter the Manhattan business district south of 60th Street will put a dent in the economy of tourist-reliant Chinatown, critics argued.
Adams is resurrecting a budget gimmick and charging rent to the city’s Water Board, which will pass on the costs to ratepayers.
A public school in Brooklyn was renamed in honor of a slain NYPD detective yesterday, a decade after he was shot and killed in the line of duty by a cop-hating maniac.
“Lempicka,” a new musical about an artistically and sexually adventurous painter, announced yesterday evening that it would close on May 19, just a month after opening.
Thousands of cyclists are gearing up to participate in the annual TD Five Boro Bike Tour on Sunday, with multiple road closures across New York City set to take effect that morning.
Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley said she would not resign after police bodycam footage caught her berating an officer who’d tried to pull her over for speeding in her hometown.
A former police officer in Brewster, N.Y., was sentenced to 36 months in prison for protecting two Queens-based sex-trafficking and prostitution businesses in exchange for free sexual services that were sometimes performed at a police station.
An Ulster County woman seeking to become a licensed marijuana cultivator and processor is suing state cannabis regulators accusing them of changing the licensing application rules in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner and without informing the public.
A provision of the MRTA that allows the state to revoke the license of a cannabis store owner who is convicted of a crime may face its first test following the arrest of a Schenectady man charged with multiple felonies related to a February car crash.
The federal government will begin clamping down on fentanyl traffickers, including seizing their financial assets in the U.S. through legislation tucked into a broad national security spending plan that was signed into law last week.
The Knickerbacker Ice Arena is expected to reopen in the fall after Rensselaer County uses $2 million in federal funds to replace the ice-making equipment that failed in January 2018, city and county officials said in a joint news conference.
The state Court of Appeals has ruled that management of a Town of Halfmoon apartment complex took retaliatory measures when it threatened to sue a nonprofit that accused it of discrimination.
An appeals court ruled that an Albany County jury erred in convicting a Troy man on assault and weapons charges in connection with a 2018 robbery and shooting, saying the evidence didn’t show he fired the gun or that he intended to take part in the crime.
HBO’s “The Gilded Age” production crew members were driving around the City of Troy scouting locations for Season Three to be filmed in August.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
