ReportWire

Tag: Journalism

  • David Ellison Aims to Rebuild Trust in News Through The Free Press Acquisition

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    Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison speaks during the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles on Oct. 9, 2025. AFP via Getty Images

    For months, it was one of the worst-kept secrets in media circles: Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison was angling to buy The Free Press, the provocative digital outlet founded by a culture warrior who left The New York Times over what she viewed as its anti-conservative groupthink. Yesterday (Oct. 9), just four days after Paramount Skydance confirmed its $150 million acquisition of The Free Press, Ellison finally explained his reasoning in detail at the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles.

    He described the deal—which also includes naming Free Press founder Bari Weiss the first-ever editor-in-chief of CBS News, the crown jewel of Paramount’s media holdings—as a cornerstone of his plan to rebuild trust in journalism and connect with audiences “where they are.” That means a mix of broadcast, digital and direct-to-consumer platforms aimed at the roughly 70 percent of Americans he believes fall between the ideological extremes.

    “Our goal in news is to become the most trusted destination in news media,” Ellison said. “Civil discourse that currently exists is not in a great place. We basically believe in all the things The Free Press believed in—speaking to the 70 percent of the audience that identifies themselves as center-left to center-right. We believe in the open exchange of ideas, and then fundamentally presenting both sides and allowing the audience to ultimately make their determination about how they feel about it. But they’re presented with the facts.”

    Ellison praised the heritage of CBS News and 60 Minutes but said the network lacks a cohesive digital strategy—one reason The Free Press became central to the deal. He said Weiss’s publication would continue to operate online while helping Paramount expand across formats such as broadcast, podcasts and eventually a direct-to-consumer platform that unites them all.

    Ellison also used the conference to outline a broader vision for Paramount Skydance as a company built for reinvention. He pointed to its 80 million streaming subscribers and what he called “one of the best content libraries in existence.” He drew a distinction between CBS’s broadcast business and the broader decline of linear TV, calling CBS “a remarkable asset that’s been number one in primetime for 17 straight seasons,” one that remains profitable and buoyed by sports rights.

    In addition to the Free Press deal, Paramount Skydance has also secured high-profile partnerships in recent weeks with the UFC, Activision’s Call of Duty and filmmaker James Mangold. Ellison called the acquisition of UFC rights a key piece of a “year-long sports strategy” that complements CBS’s existing portfolio of the NFL, March Madness and The Masters.

    Pressed about consolidation rumors, particularly speculation over a possible Warner Bros. Discovery merger, Ellison declined to comment. But he emphasized that any acquisition would be guided by storytelling, talent relationships and shareholder value. “Consumers don’t love going to seven different apps,” he said, arguing that any deal would need to produce “more content, not less,” and create something better for audiences.

    Ellison is the son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who was briefly the world’s richest person recently, thanks to Oracle’s surging stock. When asked about family dynamics, the Paramount Skydance CEO described their relationship as “phenomenal,” calling Larry Ellison a mentor with an unmatched record of value creation. “He’s the largest shareholder [in Paramount Skydance], but I run the company day-to-day,” Ellison said.

    Ellison closed his onstage talk by reflecting on the passion that started it all. “I fell in love with movies as a kid. My mom and I would go to the movies every single weekend. We went 52 weeks a year and just saw anything that was playing,” he said. “I have always loved and believed in this business. I love storytelling. I believe in the value of entertainment and media and what these stories mean, and it’s a privilege to get to tell them in our culture.”

    David Ellison Aims to Rebuild Trust in News Through The Free Press Acquisition

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    Andy Meek

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  • Journalists Work in Dire Conditions to Tell Gaza’s Story, Knowing That Could Make Them Targets

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    BEIRUT (AP) — Minutes after journalists gathered outside a Gaza hospital to survey the damage of an Israeli strike, Ibrahim Qannan pointed his camera up at the battered building as the others climbed its external stairs. Then Qannan watched in horror — while broadcasting live — as a second strike killed the friends and colleagues he knew so well.

    “We live side by side with death,” Qannan, a correspondent for the Cairo-based Al-Ghad TV said in an interview.

    “I still cannot believe that five of our colleagues were struck in front of me on camera and I try to hold up and look strong to carry the message. May no one feel such feelings. They are painful feelings.”

    Like the vast majority of Gaza’s population, most of its journalists have seen their homes destroyed or damaged during the war and have been repeatedly displaced after evacuation orders by Israel’s military. Many have mourned the deaths of family members.

    But journalists and advocates say the trials go well beyond. Every workday, they say, is shadowed by an awareness that covering the news in Gaza makes them singularly visible in the conflict, putting them at extraordinary risk.

    For journalists in Gaza, “it’s about dying or living, escaping violence or not. It’s something we cannot compare (to other wartime journalism) at any level,” said Mohamed Salama, a former reporter in Egypt who is now an academic, researching the life of news workers in the Strip.


    Israel calls strikes ‘a tragic mishap’ but also levels accusations

    After the August strikes, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that the military was not deliberately targeting journalists and called the killings a “tragic mishap.” After a preliminary review, the military said the attack had targeted what it believed to be a Hamas surveillance camera and that six of the people killed were militants, but offered no evidence.

    Late last month, the AP and Reuters — which lost a cameraman and a freelancer in the attack on the hospital — demanded that Israel provide a full account of what happened and “take every step to protect those who continue to cover this conflict.” The news organizations issued their statement on the one-month anniversary of the strikes.

    Israeli officials have previously accused some journalists in Gaza of being current or former militants. They include Anas al-Sharif, a well-known correspondent for Al Jazeera who was killed in an early August strike on a media tent outside another Gaza hospital. Four other journalists were also killed in the attack.

    The Israeli military, citing documents it purportedly found in Gaza, as well as other intelligence, had long claimed that al-Sharif was a member of Hamas. He was killed after what press advocates said was an Israeli “smear campaign” stepped up when al-Sharif cried on air over starvation in the territory.

    There is a long, sometimes tragic history of journalists risking personal safety to cover conflicts. But the risks, trials and toll of doing so have never been higher than they are in Gaza right now, experts say.

    Since the war was ignited by the Hamas attack on Israel nearly two years ago, 195 Palestinian media workers have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

    The toll recently prompted Brown University’s Costs of War project to label Gaza a “news graveyard.” Journalist deaths in Gaza have now surpassed the combined number killed during the U.S. Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Vietnam and Korean wars, the war in Yugoslavia that ended in 2001 and the Afghanistan War, the project said in a report issued earlier this year.

    In a separate survey of Gaza news workers last year by Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, nine in 10 said their homes had been destroyed in the war. About one in five said they had been injured and about the same number had lost family members. That was before Israel resumed fighting in March after a brief ceasefire.

    One Gaza journalist, Nour Swirki, told the AP in an interview that since her home was destroyed early in the war she has been displaced seven times. Swirki and her husband, who is also a journalist, arranged for their son and daughter to exit Gaza in 2024 and stay with family in Egypt while the couple continued to work.

    “I preferred their safety to my motherhood,” said Swirki, who works for the Saudi-based Asharq News and was a friend of Dagga’s.

    “Death is there (in Gaza) every moment, every second and everywhere,” Swirki said. She is reminded of that reality whenever she skims through photos and videos stored on her phone and is met by the faces and voices of the many colleagues and friends who have been killed in the war.

    “We get afraid and terrified and we work under the harshest conditions,” she said, “but we still stand up and work.”


    Journalists are pressured by violence, hunger

    Qannan, who saw his colleagues killed in the August strike, said Israel’s refusal to let foreign reporters enter Gaza puts tremendous pressure on local journalists, many of whom see their work as a duty to their fellow Palestinians.

    He recounted working without a break since the war’s start, grabbing sleep between live broadcasts. His family has been displaced seven times. Now he and other journalists struggle to find food. In a recent social media post, he and fellow journalists gathered to cook a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of pasta that had cost them the equivalent of $60.

    Yet when he goes on camera, Qannan said he makes an effort to appear strong in hopes of reassuring viewers. In fact, he and others journalists are exhausted and scared, he said.

    Qannan says his fears have increased since he aired video of his colleagues being killed in the hospital attack, because it could draw the attention of the Israeli military. “The situation is terrifying more than the human brain can imagine,” he said. “The fear that we are living and fear of being targeted are worse than is being described.”

    Another Gaza journalist, Mohammed Subeh, said the Israeli strike that killed the Al Jazeera reporter earlier in August left him with shrapnel lodged in his back and an injury to his foot. But hospitals are so overwhelmed with critical cases that he’s been unable to get treatment.

    “A journalist in Gaza lives between covering the war on the ground, following the news and at the same time trying to take care of his safety and the safety of his family,” said Subeh, who reports for Al-Ekhbariya, a Saudi Arabian news channel.

    Salama, who together with colleagues interviewed more than 20 Gaza journalists for their academic research, said that unlike foreign correspondents covering a war, Palestinian reporters have experienced decades of conflict firsthand. That experience makes them uniquely capable of telling Gaza’s story, he said — but they can never step away from it.

    “You don’t have the luxury to break your soul away from what is happening on the ground,” said Salama, now a doctoral student at the University of Maryland.

    Subeh, who works for the Saudi news channel, said he’d thought repeatedly of quitting and trying to flee. But, despite the extreme difficulties and dangers, he can’t bring himself to do it.

    “I feel that my presence here is important and that the voice of Gaza should be sent to the world from its own residents,” he said. “Journalism is not only a job for me, but a mission.”

    Mroue reported from Beirut and Geller from New York.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    Photos You Should See – Sept. 2025

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    Associated Press

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  • Behind bars but not silenced: Veteran Turkish columnist perseveres through ‘prison journalism’

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    ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish journalist Fatih Altayli has been imprisoned, but his reporting remains defiantly alive.

    From behind bars, the veteran journalist delivers news and sharp political commentary on his YouTube channel through letters relayed by his lawyers. The letters are read aloud by an assistant in an initiative Altayli’s peers have dubbed “prison journalism.”

    “Fatih Altayli has launched a new form of journalism: prison journalism,” fellow journalist Murat Yetkin, wrote on his news website, Yetkin Report. “Drawing on visits from legislators, letters, and his lawyers — he continues his journalism uninterrupted, conveying not only information from inside but also insights about the outside world.”

    Altayli, whose YouTube program attracts hundreds of thousands of views daily, was arrested in June on charges of threatening President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an accusation he strongly denies. Critics say his arrest, which comes amid a deepening crackdown on the opposition, was aimed at silencing a government critic.

    Prosecutors accuse Altayli of issuing and publicly disseminating a threat, a criminal charge under Turkish penal law, and are seeking a minimum five-year prison sentence. The first hearing of the trial is set for Friday.

    The charges stem from a comment he made on his YouTube program, “Fatih Altayli Comments,” following a recent poll that reportedly showed more than 70% of the public opposed a lifetime presidency for Erdogan, who has been in power for more than two decades.

    On the show, Altayli said he wasn’t surprised by the results of the poll and that the Turkish people preferred checks on authority.

    “Look at the history of this nation,” he said. “This is a nation which strangled its sultan when they didn’t like him or want him. There are quite a few Ottoman sultans who were assassinated, strangled, or whose deaths were made to look like suicide.”

    The 63-year-old journalist, columnist and television presenter whose career spans decades, was detained from his home on June 21, a day after the comment was aired – and charged with threatening the president.

    The Istanbul Bar Association described the detention order against Altayli as unlawful, insisting that his comment did not constitute a “threat” and should be considered as freedom of expression.

    The government-run Department for Combating Disinformation has responded to criticism over Altayli’s arrest, insisting that issuing a threat is a criminal offense and denouncing what it described as a coordinated campaign to manipulate public opinion and present the alleged threat as freedom of expression.

    Altayli has since turned his cell in the notorious high-security Silivri prison near Istanbul — now renamed Marmara Prison Campus — into a newsroom of sorts. He often writes commentary critical of the political climate that led to his imprisonment and shares news he gathers from a steady stream of visitors, including politicians and legal advisers.

    The YouTube program, now rebranded as “Fatih Altayli Cannot Comment,” opens with the journalist’s empty chair. His assistant, Emre Acar, reads Altayli’s letter out loud before a guest commentator, which has included journalists, politicians, academicians, actors and musicians, temporarily occupies the seat and delivers his or her views in a show of support.

    Altayli’s written commentaries, meanwhile, continue to be published on his personal website.

    Yetkin said many had assumed that because of his privileged lifestyle, Altayli would bow to pressure.

    “But Fatih didn’t bow. I won’t say he’s maintained his line; he’s elevated it. In my view, he’s standing firmer than before,” Yetkin wrote.

    Altayli’s “prison journalism” has included an interview with fellow inmate Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul, who was arrested in March on corruption charges. That interview was conducted through written questions and answers exchanged through their lawyers. Altayli also gives news of other prominent prisoners at Silivri.

    With a majority of mainstream media in Turkey owned by pro-government businesses or directly controlled by the government, many independent journalists have lost their jobs and have turned to YouTube for uncensored reporting.

    A total of 17 journalists and other media sector workers, including Altayli, are currently behind bars, according to the Turkish Journalists’ Syndicate. The government insists the journalists face prosecution for criminal acts, not for their journalistic work.

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  • Jane Fonda revives Cold War-era activist group to defend free speech

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    NEW YORK — Drawing upon her personal and political past, Jane Fonda has revived an activist group from the Cold War era that was backed by her father and fellow Oscar winner, Henry Fonda.

    Jane Fonda announced she had launched a 21st century incarnation of the Committee for the First Amendment, originally formed in 1947 in response to Congressional hearings aimed against screenwriters and directors — notably the so-called “Hollywood Ten” — and their alleged Communist ties. Signers of the new organization’s mission statement include Florence Pugh, Sean Penn,Billie Eilish, Pedro Pascal and hundreds of others.

    Wednesday’s news comes in the wake of Jimmy Kimmel’s brief suspension by ABC over his on-air comments after conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination. President Donald Trump was among those who had wanted Kimmel to be fired.

    “The federal government is once again engaged in a coordinated campaign to silence critics in the government, the media, the judiciary, academia, and the entertainment industry,” the committee’s mission statement reads in part.

    “We refuse to stand by and let that happen. Free speech and free expression are the inalienable rights of every American of all backgrounds and political beliefs — no matter how liberal or conservative you may be. The ability to criticize, question, protest, and even mock those in power is foundational to what America has always aspired to be.”

    The Fondas each have had long histories of activism, whether Jane Fonda’s opposition to the Vietnam War or Henry Fonda’s prominent support for Democratic Party candidates, including John F. Kennedy, for whom the elder Fonda appeared in a campaign ad in 1960.

    Henry Fonda, who died in 1982, joined the 1947 First Amendment committee along with such actors and filmmakers as Humphrey Bogart, John Huston, Lucille Ball and Frank Sinatra. Although highly publicized at the time, the committee had a short and troubled history. Bogart and others would find themselves accused of Communist sympathies and would express surprise when a handful of the Hollywood Ten, including screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, turned to have been Communist Party members at one time or another.

    By the following year, Bogart had published an essay in Photoplay magazine entitled “I’m No Communist,” in which he confided that “actors and actresses always go overboard about things” and warned against being “used as dupes by Commie organizations.” Trumbo and others in the Hollywood Ten would be jailed for refusing to cooperate with Congress and found themselves among many to be blacklisted through the end of the 1950s and beyond.

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  • Ezra Klein Argues for Big-Tent Politics

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    But it’s not in the spirit of giving counsel. I’m not saying you do it—

    No, I take that point. I don’t see myself in those conversations as a counsellor.

    Because, you know, there is a tradition of this—Walter Lippmann giving counsel to this one or that one.

    And doing secret diplomatic missions. The lines were blurry back then.

    So you keep it pretty on the up and up.

    I try to.

    Would you ever go into politics?

    No.

    Absolutely not? You’re making a Sherman statement.

    I’m making a Sherman statement. I think you have to know what you’re good at doing. I think I’m good at doing this.

    What is your sense of your mission as a podcaster, as a writer?

    My sense of mission is simple: I have values and beliefs about how the world should work and what would make the world better, and I try to persuade people of them, but I also try to explore them in an honest way. I do this because I care about where things are going. I’m not dispassionately observing from the sidelines. I am emotionally, intellectually, spiritually involved.

    But what I’m doing, and the way I’m doing it, has changed a lot over the years. In ways that I can follow more through intuition than through some framework. The version of me that was writing “Wonkblog,” and telling everybody about health care and aging in one chart, is not what I’m doing on my podcast now. My podcast is a forum in which I’m not primarily trying to be persuasive. Over time I think it has persuasive elements, but it’s mostly other people talking. I have a lot of people on the show whom I disagree with. And I think it acts as a space in which certain kinds of conversations can be had and then can be put into conversation with each other. And that matters.

    In my column, I’m more prescriptive. What goes into, eventually, the book “Abundance,” comes more from the column, and that’s me trying to understand the world and trying to find ways to confront things in it that I find puzzling or unnerving. I try to take seriously questions that I don’t love. I don’t try to insist the world works the way I want it to work. I try to be honest with myself about the way it is working.

    You are an important figure at what I think is still, today, the most important news-gathering organization on earth, the New York Times, but it’s also one that everybody has opinions about. And recently Thomas Chatterton Williams wrote a book about the summer of 2020, which was dramatic in a lot of quarters, including the Times. James Bennett fired. Bari Weiss left and created The Free Press. What’s your opinion about Bari Weiss’s increasing influence? It looks like she’s about to be a very important figure at CBS News.

    Yeah, it seems like she’s about to take over CBS.

    What do you think?

    My thing about Bari—and I’ve been on her show—I have a lot of admiration for how good she is at what she does. My disagreements with Bari are that I think she’s asymmetric in sympathy and generosity.

    Tell me what that means.

    I’ve thought The Free Press’ work on, say, starvation in Gaza has been really bad.

    Spell it out.

    It’s done this whole thing, like, Well, a lot of the kids who have died and have been reported on, well, they had secondary conditions. And, yes, when you starve a population the people who die first will be the most vulnerable. But that’s not exculpatory. There was overwhelming evidence of how bad things were in Gaza. I felt that they were trying to whitewash it.

    I think Bari, though, is an insane talent spotter. If you look at what she’s built at The Free Press, she’s very, very good at finding people, at pulling them in, at networking with them. She’s sort of an impresario. Bringing in Tyler Cowen to be a columnist was a very good idea for them.

    The economist.

    I’m somebody who’s edited a site, Vox, right? I know how hard this is to do. And Bari has an incredibly sensitive feel for the political moment. It is not my feel for the moment, and her politics are not mine.

    What are her politics? How would you describe them?

    What I see her trying to do is something that used to be somewhat more common, which is to self-consciously be what she would define as the center. And I see The Free Press tacking back and forth around that. It was much more sort of pro-Trump, I would say, when he was running and the Democrats were in power. But now that he’s in it’s, like, Oh, no, they’re the vandals. The publication is a little bit, to me, like the old New Republic, doing things they used to do. . . . Actually, it’s funny. When I was a blogger, this was something we all used to complain about all the time. All of these organizations that we felt were using this concept, this amorphous concept of the center as a positioning device—

    That it was a dodge.

    No, it wasn’t a dodge—it was navigational. They weren’t dodging. They were just kind of . . . there were a lot of politicians and a lot of players who had felt like their politics were hewing to some idea of the center, as opposed to a very consistent set of views and principles. And, as media has become polarized, many fewer places are doing that. I think Bari saw a market opportunity in that. Is her center what I think is the center? No. But I recognize a lot of editorial skill there.

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    David Remnick

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  • Minnesota Star Tribune to close its Minneapolis printing facility; 125 employees impacted

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    Family, community honor life of Annunciation shooting victim, and more headlines



    Family, community honor life of Annunciation shooting victim, and more headlines

    04:26

    The Minnesota Star Tribune says it plans to close its own printing facility on Dec. 27, a move the newspaper says will “affect” around 125 employees.

    The Heritage printing facility in Minneapolis has printed the Minnesota Star Tribune for nearly 40 years, according to a release sent on Monday. The newspaper said it will shift its print production to the Gannett printing facility in Des Moines, Iowa, and anyone who pays for print delivery will continue to get service “without interruption.”

    According to the release, the Minnesota Star Tribune will negotiate with the union representing the 125 impacted employees to determine “benefits and other resources available.”

    The newspaper said in-house print production has become unsustainable due to a drop in print circulation and that the Minneapolis facility currently uses only 18% of its available capacity. 

    Weekday and weekend print deadlines will shift to earlier times once print production begins in Des Moines, which may result in late-night content appearing in digital editions first, according to the release.

    “This is a difficult but necessary decision to position the Minnesota Star Tribune for future growth,” Steve Grove, CEO and publisher of the Minnesota Star Tribune, said in a written statement. 

    The newspaper said it will save “several million dollars” in expenses each year by closing the Heritage facility. 

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    Nick Lentz

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  • The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will stop printing newspapers on December 31

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    (CNN) — The Atlanta Journal-Constitution announced on Thursday that it will print its final physical newspaper edition on December 31, making it the latest storied newspaper to discontinue offering its news in print.

    The changeup means the AJC will be a digital-only publication starting January 1, 2026. The AJC said the transition is intended to transform the paper into a “modern media company,” as well as free up money to invest in its journalism.

    The AJC’s digital readership has outpaced its print circulation, a shift that is “only accelerating,” Andrew Morse, president and publisher of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, said in a statement.

    “Embracing our digital future means we can focus every resource and every ounce of energy on producing world-class journalism and delivering it to each of you in the most impactful way,” Morse said in a letter to readers.

    “We knew this day would come and have been planning for it,” he added.

    Andrew Morse, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s president and publisher, told readers on Thursday that the newspaper would print its final physical edition on December 31, 2025. Credit: Paras Griffin / Getty Images via CNN Newsource

    Despite doing away with its physical media, the AJC will continue producing an ePaper and launch an app this fall.

    The digital-only transition follows a two-year period during which the 157-year-old AJC has added muscle to its digital offerings. The publication has updated its newsroom, revamping its digital product services and introducing a suite of digital products to consumers, including newsletters, podcasts, and original video content. The AJC has also extended its ambitions beyond Atlanta, opening new offices in Athens, Macon and Savannah. It plans to reach additional markets.

    As a result of its transformation, the AJC said in a statement that it has experienced “double-digit digital subscriber growth and has expanded its audience in key content areas.”

    Alex Taylor, chair and chief executive of Cox Enterprises, AJC’s parent company, hailed the change as “an important decision in the evolution of the AJC.”

    “Journalism is critical to our community and society — and so is the way we produce it,” Taylor said. “I’m proud of our team for making these decisions, as much as I will miss the nostalgia of seeing the paper in my driveway every morning.”

    The AJC is only the latest periodical to discontinue its physical edition. Between diminishing physical circulation, dwindling physical ad revenue and high production and distribution costs, several publications have found it difficult over the last decade to rationalize maintaining a physical format.

    Just in February, the New Jersey’s Star Ledger opted to do away with its print edition entirely. Others have reduced the frequency of their physical circulation. In January, Iowa’s Dubuque Telegraph Herald and The Cedar Rapids Gazette announced they would print only three days a week.

    Still, there are some exceptions to this trend, especially where niche audiences are concerned. The Onion, the satirical newspaper that revived its physical newspaper in August 2024, has seen its print edition thrive.

    Some magazines, which readers often view as more premium experiences, are also partially enjoying a renaissance after years of struggle. In mid-August, The Spectator announced it plans to double the print output of its US edition to 24 issues this fall, as part of its relaunch.

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    Liam Reilly and CNN

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  • Israeli strike on Gaza’s Nasser Hospital kills 15, including 4 journalists, health officials say

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    Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip — An Israeli airstrike hit the fourth floor of southern Gaza’s main hospital Monday, killing at least eight people including several journalists, hospital officials told CBS News. An Official with the civil defense rescue agency in Hamas-run Gaza said later that at least 15 people were killed in the strike in total.

    Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told journalists at the scene that “the death toll is 15, including four journalists and one civil defense member,” according to the French news agency AFP.   

    The victims were killed in a double-tap strike on the hospital, with one missile hitting first, then another moments later as rescue crews arrived, the health ministry said.

    Khan Younis’ Nasser Hospital, the largest in southern Gaza, has withstood raids and bombardment throughout 22 months of war, with officials citing critical shortages of supplies and staff.

    Injured Palestinians are carried out of the Nasser Hospital by local residents and rescuers following an Israeli attack on the facility in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, Aug. 25, 2025.

    Abdallah F.S. Alattar/Anadolu/Getty


    Israel’s military did not immediately respond to questions about the strike or the reports that journalists were among the victims. Israel has come under mounting pressure over the number of journalists being killed in its military operations in Gaza — including in targeted strikes against individuals whom Israeli officials claim were Hamas operatives.

    A hospital official told CBS News that four journalists were killed in the Monday morning double-tap strike at Nasser Hospital. The official identified the four as Husam Al Masri, who worked for the Reuters news agency, Mohammad Salameh, who worked for Al Jazeera, and freelance journalists Maryam Abu Daqa and Mouth Abu Taha.

    The Associated Press’ news director for the Middle East, Jon Gambrell, said in a social media post that Abu Aaqa had “freelanced for the AP since the Gaza war began.”

    maryam-abu-daqa-gaza-journalist-killed.jpg

    Freelance Palestinian journalist Maryam Abu Daqa, who worked for The Associated Press throughout the war in Gaza until she was killed in an Israeli strike at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Aug. 25, 2025, is seen in an undated file photo.

    At least one other journalist was wounded in the strike, the hospital official said, identifying the man as Haithem Omar, who also works for Reuters.

    Reuters confirmed that al-Masri, a contractor working for the international news agency, was among those killed. It said photographer Hatem Khaled, who also worked as a contractor for the agency, was wounded.

    Israeli strikes and raids on hospitals are not uncommon. Multiple hospitals have been struck or raided across the Gaza Strip, with Israel claiming its attacks had targeted militants operating inside the medical facilities, without providing evidence.

    On August 11, Israel’s military targeted and killed five Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza, including correspondent Anas al-Sharif. The Israel Defense Forces said it had intelligence and documents from Gaza to prove al-Sharif was the head of a Hamas terrorist cell, and the IDF shared undated photos of Al-Sharif with Yahya Sinwar, the top Hamas leader in Gaza, who was killed last October.

    CBS News could not verify the authenticity of the photos. Al Jazeera and al-Sharif had previously dismissed Israel’s claims as baseless, The Associated Press reported. Just three weeks ago, al-Sharif had appealed to the Committee to Protect Journalists over fears he might be assassinated.

    Al-Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif

    This screen grab taken from AFPTV on August 11, 2025 shows Al-Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif speaking during an AFP interview in Gaza City on August 1, 2024.

    AFP/AFPTV/AFP via Getty Images


    A June strike on Nasser Hospital killed three people and wounded 10, according to the health ministry. At the time, Israel’s military said it had targeted Hamas militants operating from a command and control center inside the hospital.

    The Hamas-run health ministry said Sunday that at least 62,686 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its war in Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack that killed some 1,200 Israelis and saw 251 others taken as hostages.

    The ministry does not distinguish in its figures between fighters and civilians, but it says around half of those killed have been women and children. The U.N. and independent experts consider it the most reliable information available on war casualties, as such figures are difficult to independently verify as Israel does not permit foreign journalists into Gaza.

    Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.

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  • From 44 to 4000: NABJ documentary, “Beyond the Headlines,” screened At BronzeLens Film Festival in Atlanta

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    Photo by Donnell Suggs/The Atlanta Voice

    National Association of Black Journalists founding member Sandra Dawson Long Weaver was emotional as she sat on stage and retold a story from the most recent NABJ Convention in Cleveland. ESPN television personality Stephen A. Smith had seen her following a taping of “First Take” and ran over to hug her. Weaver said he held on tight while thanking her for giving him an opportunity to be a sports writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer some 30 years ago. Weaver hired Smith because she believed he had something special in him that would help him succeed in journalism; she was right.

    “I still get emotional thinking about that,” she said.

    Weaver and fellow founder Allison Davis received their flowers on the stage inside the Tara Theater on Friday night following a screening of the NABJ documentary Beyond the Headlines: The NABJ Journey. Both women, journalists in their own right during their careers in television production and at newspapers, were prominently featured during the film. “Beyond the Headlines,” which shines a light on the 50-year existence of NABJ, was screened as part of the annual BronzeLens Film Festival. 

    Both Davis and Weaver joined NABJ as 20-year-olds and had no idea they would still be talking about the organization five decades later. Each woman said there is a need now more than ever for a film about an organization such as NABJ.

    Photo by Donnell Suggs/The Atlanta Voice

    “We wanted to make sure, not only to commemorate NABJ, we felt it was important that we share our story,” said Davis, who was one of the film’s producers. “We feel the film does that.”

    Along with Atlanta, there are other cities where screenings of “Beyond the Headlines” is being screened, including in Cleveland during the annual NABJ convention earlier this month. 

    “It’s important because this film will reach a wider audience, not just only our NABJ convention audience,” Weaver said. 

    Having the idea of a NABJ documentary become an actual documentary was a process worthy of discussion. Davis and Weaver took questions from longtime NABJ member and Atlanta Journal-Constitution Editor-in-Chief Leroy Chapman following the conclusion of the screening. During the Q&A portion of the night, both founding members were open and honest about how they made it into the room on that faithful day in Washington, D.C. There are also moments in the film where other founding members spoke about how they found their way to D.C. from all over the country.

    “It is Black history,” Weaver said of the film. “That is one of the reasons we wanted to start this organization. Now it has over 4,000 members.” 

    “Our job is to not only tell our stories, but to make sure our young people know our stories,” Davis said during an interview with The Atlanta Voice before the screening.

    When asked if either founder believes watching “Beyond the Headlines” should be a required viewing for NABJ members, Weaver said it should.

    “I think it is critical that when you come into this organization and see this film,” she said.

    Davis agreed.

    “I absolutely think all members should see it,” she said. “We do that with our sororities and fraternities, why not with NABJ?” she reasoned. “This film is a way of saying we’re not letting our stories disappear.” 

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    Donnell Suggs

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  • ‘Star Trek’ Journalists, Ranked

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    The potential for what journalism looks like in Star Trek is a heady idea that’s been around as long as the series itself. What does reporting the news look like in utopia? What does it mean that the Federation has its own news networks, alongside a host of interstellar media organizations? What does freedom of information mean in a universe that has Starfleet? And yet, we’ve actually had very few characters appear in the series as fully dedicated journalists and reporters.

    That changed a little with this week’s episode of Strange New Worlds, “What Is Starfleet?”, which, well… okay, yeah. It was pretty atrocious journalism. But Mynor Lüken’s Beto Ortegas joins a rarefied crew of professional media in Star Trek to have significant roles in the series, for better or worse. So speaking of for better, at least, let’s take a look at who’s got their press hat on tightest in the arena of boldly going.

    9) Beto Ortegas

    © Paramount

    Again, you should probably just read our recap of “What Is Starfleet?” to see why Beto is ranked here. There’s certainly an argument to be made that not necessarily all documentary filmmakers are journalists, but it’s pretty clear that Beto was, at least, trying to engage in investigative journalism in documenting life aboard Enterprise and its reflection of the Federation’s role. Emphasis on the trying there, because what he did really, really sucked!

    8) Gannet

    Gannet Star Trek Enterprise
    © Paramount

    On the one hand, Gannet probably shouldn’t be on here. Her job as a journalist was in fact deep cover for her real work with Starfleet Intelligence during the events of Enterprise‘s fourth season—work that got her accused by Archer of potentially being a member of the human-supremacist group Terra Prime. On the other, while ostensibly acting as a journalist, Gannet did both wiretap translator devices at a conference to record attending delegates and, through Mayweather, did ultimately engage in a sexual relationship with a source while purportedly working on a story about the NX-01. Slightly different realm of ethics for an intelligence operative, but definitely not ideal for her cover story in journalism.

    7) Natima Lang

    Natima Lang Star Trek Deep Space Nine
    © Paramount

    Better known for her appearance in the Deep Space Nine episode “Profit and Loss” as a then-current professor of political ethics on Cardassia (and in actuality a radical member of the dissident movement fleeing the wrath of the Cardassian high command), Lang was previously a correspondent for the Cardassian Communication Service during the occupation of Bajor, working directly on Terok Nor. Unfortunately, it’s during that assignment that she met and fell in love with Quark, who promptly used her press access codes to directly steal money from the Cardassian government.

    Good for Quark (although he was obviously not stealing from the Cardassian occupation forces for altruistic reasons), but deeply embarrassing for Lang.

    6) Neelix

    Neelix Star Trek Voyager
    © Paramount

    Neelix briefly dabbles in the world of independent journalism early on in Voyager, when he attempts to kickstart a daily news program aboard the ship in “Investigations” called A Briefing With Neelix. Although Neelix does attempt to rigorously defend his hard pivot from general interest puff pieces to investigative journalism when he breaks the news that Tom Paris had purportedly been removed from the ship for collaborating with the Kazon, even when pressured by Tuvok to drop his investigation, ultimately he does end up collaborating with Captain Janeway and Tuvok to allow A Briefing With Neelix to be used as bait to catch the real collaborator, Michael Jonas. Can you be state media if the state is a single starship?

    5) Sylvia Ront

    Sylvia Ront Star Trek Lower Decks
    © Paramount

    Do you know how bad everyone below Sylvia Ront on this list has to be at journalism to not even get past a character with a handful of minutes of screentime who simply just reads the broadcast news?

    4) Jake Sisko

    Jake Sisko Star Trek Deep Space Nine
    © Paramount

    On the one hand, Jake gets away with an awful lot of his mistakes as a reporter for the Federation News Service on account of being a literal teenager on the front lines of one of the deadliest interstellar conflicts ever seen by the Federation. Hell, he reports from aboard the Defiant during military engagements and even willingly stays behind on the Dominion-occupied DS9 to report the stories of what is really going on there when the Federation is forced to abandon the station, even if his stories are ultimately censored from distribution by the Dominion.

    On the other hand, kid or otherwise, Jake is kind of just not that great at his job. For one of his first stories, about a potential non-aggression agreement between Bajor and the Dominion, Jake sources key contextual information—that Captain Sisko, and through him the Federation, is against the pact—from offhand conversations with his father, who was unaware that his son had joined the Federation News Service. Ben shouldn’t have been discussing Starfleet matters with his son, arguably, but Jake also should’ve reached out to his dad as commander of DS9 and Starfleet’s primary representative for comment officially, instead of simply going “the source is literally my dad.” Speaking of that, what he should’ve done was have the story assigned to another reporter, given his direct personal relationship to important figures involved in it!

    3) Marci Collins

    Marcia Collins Star Trek Voyager
    © Paramount

    Marci Collins—the late ’90s 3 Action News reporter we see in Voyager‘s Y2K-era flashback “11:59″—doesn’t really get to do much other than be a consistent voice reporting on the events the audience is watching unfold in the episode, as we see the story of how one of Janeway’s ancestors was convinced to close their bookstore and make way for the construction of the Millennium Gate, the first self-sustaining civic environment, a predecessor to future interstellar colonies. But the fact that the simple act of being a journalist who does their job completely perfunctorily makes her one of the best Star Trek has put on screen speaks to the franchise’s peculiar history with the press.

    We’re ranking her above Ront simply because she’s on screen a bit more.

    2) Richter

    Richter Star Trek Picard
    © Paramount

    A reporter for the Federation News Network who appears in Picard‘s very first episode, we as an audience are kind of meant to see Richter in part as a bit of an antagonist: she agrees to a very strict set of conditions in order to get access to interview the retired Jean-Luc, including the stipulation that she not ask questions about why he left Starfleet. She does so anyway, leading to Picard having an angry outburst on camera and storming off mid-interview, reflecting very badly on himself in the process.

    So sure, boo, the episode frames it as our beloved hero is seemingly ambushed and made to feel bad by a “mean” reporter. But even putting aside whether or not Richter should’ve agreed to the interview on the basis of controlling what questions she can ask, she did ask a perfectly reasonable question that was of considerable public interest to a person who still wielded a great deal of political power. She wasn’t particularly combative with him; she just didn’t offer a softball interview either. Sometimes journalism is about the risk of making people uncomfortable by asking the right questions!

    1) Victoria Nuzé

    Victoria Nuze Star Trek Lower Decks
    © Paramount

    The reporter behind the exposé “Starfleet’s Shame” that uncovered the misconduct (misconstrued or otherwise) by Captain Freeman aboard the Cerritos during the events of Lower Decks season three’s climax, Nuzé is shown to be an incredibly rigorous reporter, especially in light of Captain Freeman’s panicked overreaction to her presence aboard the ship. Her extensive report is not only built on interviewing tons of sources, but also her getting around Freeman’s attempts to blacklist certain personnel from talking to the press (mainly Mariner) speaks to her diligence as a reporter.

    Also, she’s literally named “Nuzé.” Talk about the perfect person for the job.

    Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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    James Whitbrook

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  • Ahead of US Elections, a Newsroom Blueprint for Journalists to Battle Fake News

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    LOS ANGELES, November 4, 2024 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Ahead of US elections on Tuesday 5 November 2024, The Rundown Studio, in collaboration with world-recognized Intelligence Expert Candyce Kelshall has released “Election Interference and Information Integrity: a Newsroom Blueprint”. Within the newly published handbook, media experts provide background on what to look out for when analysing content, as well as signpost to AI-powered tools to help fact check and dispel fake news. 

    Newsrooms around the world are battling unprecedented levels of AI-generated content, however they do not yet have the tools and apparatus to counter it. The interactive online handbook has been developed by global news anchor Zain Verjee and Product and Design lead Thomas Brasington, co-founders of The Rundown Studio and the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies Vancouver. It provides a practical and critical resource for newsrooms worldwide as journalists, commentators and bloggers continue to battle fake news. The Newsroom Blueprint offers comprehensive guidelines and speedy checklists to help media professionals accurately cover elections, in a bid to strengthen the integrity of electoral reporting across the globe. 

    “In an age where the very nature of truth is under attack, journalists must embrace critical and structured thinking akin to intelligence experts,” said Candyce Kelshall Executive Chair, Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies Vancouver who specializes in intelligence analysis and tradecraft. “Our goal is to transform newsrooms into trusted guardians of truth, ensuring that the public receives accurate and reliable information vital for democracy. In a true democracy, we all deserve access to fair and truthful news, so we can make informed decisions about our futures.”  

    “Election Interference and Information Integrity: a Newsroom Blueprint” addresses the increasing difficulty newsrooms face in verifying information in a polarized media landscape. In it, Kelshall outlines strategies drawn from intelligence agencies to counter misinformation effectively, emphasizing structured analysis, information assessment techniques and strict verification protocols. 

    The Rundown Studio co-founder and former CNN anchor Zain Verjee says “We are committed to advancing media trust through innovation and collaboration. The handbook is a vital tool amid escalating threats posed by AI-manipulated content to equip journalists with the skills needed to navigate this complex landscape.” 

    By adopting these information assessment best practices, newsrooms can rebuild audience trust and ensure the reliability of their election coverage.

    Rundown co-founder Thomas Brasington adds “Our tools demonstrate how AI can handle the time-consuming aspects of communications work, freeing professionals to focus on strategy and creativity.”

    Source: The Rundown

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  • Reporter killed in restaurant she owns hours after journalist shot dead in separate attack in Mexico

    Reporter killed in restaurant she owns hours after journalist shot dead in separate attack in Mexico

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    The U.N. human rights office in Mexico said Wednesday journalists in Mexico need more protection, after gunmen killed a journalist whose Facebook news page covered the violent western Mexico state of Michoacan. Then less than 24 hours later an entertainment reporter in the western city of Colima was killed inside a restaurant she owned.

    Journalist Mauricio Solís of the news page Minuto por Minuto was shot to death late Tuesday just moments after he conducted a sidewalk interview with the mayor of the city of Uruapan. State prosecutors said a second person was wounded in the shooting.

    Solís had just finished an interview on the street outside city hall with Mayor Carlos Manzo. Manzo told local media he had walked away and “two minutes later, I think, and just a matter of meters away, we heard gunshots, four or five gunshots.”

    “We sought cover because we thought the attack was aimed at us,” Manzo said. “After a few minutes we found out that Mauricio was the one they attacked.”

    Manzo said he could not rule out a connection between the interview and the killing.

    Mexico Journalist Killed
    Relative and friends of slain journalist Mauricio Solis carry his coffin during his wake in Uruapan, Mexico, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024.

    Armando Solis / AP


    The radio station where Solis worked mourned his killing in a statement published on social media.

    “Mauricio was more than a colleague, he was an unconditional friend, a source of inspiration and a tireless voice in the service of our community,” the station said.

    The U.N. rights office said Solís was at least the fifth journalist killed in Mexico this year. It said he had previously reported security problems related to his work. His Facebook page reported on community events and the drug cartel violence that has wracked the city.

    “His killing is a wake-up call to defend the right to information and freedom of expression in Mexico,” the office wrote.

    An increasing number of the journalists killed in Mexico have been self-employed and reported for local Facebook and online news sites.

    Uruapan is the nearest large city to Michoacan’s avocado-growing region, and it has been the scene of drug cartel extortions and turf battles between gangs. The cartels demand protection money from local avocado and lime orchards, cattle ranches and almost any other business.

    Solís was reporting on a suspicious fire at a local market just before the shooting. Gangs have sometimes burned businesses that refuse to pay extortion demands.

    Then on Wednesday afternoon, entertainment reporter Patricia Ramírez González was found with serious injuries inside her Colima restaurant and died at the scene, according to the Colima state prosecutor’s office.

    Local media said Ramírez, who was better known as Paty Bunbury, published a blog on local entertainment and was a contributor to a Colima newspaper.

    The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists condemned both killings and called for transparent investigations.

    Wracked by violence related to drug trafficking, Mexico is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists, news advocacy groups say.

    Reporters Without Borders says more than 150 newspeople have been killed in Mexico since 1994 — and 2022 was one of the deadliest years ever for journalists in Mexico, with at least 15 killed.

    Media workers are regularly targeted in Mexico, often in direct reprisal for their work covering topics like corruption and the country’s notoriously violent drug traffickers.

    In August, a Mexican journalist who covered one of the country’s most dangerous crime beats was killed by gunmen, and two of his government-assigned bodyguards were wounded.

    In April, Roberto Figueroa, who covered local politics and gained a social media following through satirical videos, was found dead inside a car in his hometown of Huitzilac in Morelos, a state south of Mexico City where drug-fueled violence runs rampant.

    All but a handful of the killings and abductions remain unsolved.

    “Impunity is the norm in crimes against the press,” the the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a report on Mexico in March.

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  • Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris, paper reports

    Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris, paper reports

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    The Washington Post Building at One Franklin Square Building in Washington, D.C., June 5, 2024.

    Andrew Harnik | Getty Images

    The Washington Post said Friday that it will not endorse a candidate in the presidential election this year — or ever again — breaking decades of tradition and sparking immediate criticism of the decision.

    But the newspaper also published an article by two staff reporters revealing that editorial page staffers had drafted an endorsement of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris over GOP nominee Donald Trump in the election.

    “The decision not to publish was made by The Post’s owner — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos,” the article said, citing two sources briefed on the events.

    Trump, while president, had been critical of the billionaire Bezos and the Post, which he purchased in 2013.

    The newspaper in 2016 and again in 2020 endorsed Trump’s election opponents, Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden, in editorials that condemned the Republican in blunt terms.

    In a 2019 lawsuit, Amazon claimed it had lost a $10 billion cloud computing contract with the Pentagon to Microsoft because Trump had used “improper pressure … to harm his perceived political enemy” Bezos.

    The Post since 1976 had regularly endorsed candidates for president, except for the 1988 race. All those endorsements had been for Democrats.

    In a statement to CNBC, when asked about Bezos’ purported role in killing the endorsement, Post chief communications officer Kathy Baird said, “This was a Washington Post decision to not endorse, and I would refer you to the publisher’s statement in full.”

    The Post on Friday evening published a third article, signed by opinion columnists for the newspaper, who said, “The Washington Post’s decision not to make an endorsement in the presidential campaign is a terrible mistake.”

    “It represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love, and for which we have worked a combined 218 years,” the column said. “This is a moment for the institution to be making clear its commitment to democratic values, the rule of law and international alliances, and the threat that Donald Trump poses to them — the precise points The Post made in endorsing Trump’s opponents in 2016 and 2020.”

    CNBC has requested comment from Amazon, where Bezos remains the largest shareholder.

    Amazon founder Jeff Bezos arrives for his meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the UK diplomatic residence in New York City, Sept. 20, 2021.

    Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images News | Getty Images

    Post publisher and chief executive Will Lewis, in an article published online explaining the decision, wrote, “The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election.”

    “We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates,” Lewis wrote.

    “We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility,” he wrote.

    “That is inevitable. We don’t see it that way. We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects.”

    Seven of the 13 paragraphs of Lewis’ article either quoted at length or referred to Post Editorial Board statements in 1960 and 1972 explaining the paper’s rationale for not endorsing presidential candidates in those years, which included its identity as “an independent newspaper.”

    Lewis noted that the paper had endorsed Jimmy Carter in 1976 “for understandable reasons at the times” — which he did not identify.

    “But we had it right before that, and this is what we are going back to,” Lewis wrote.

    “Our job as the newspaper of the capital city of the most important country in the world is to be independent,” he wrote. “And that is what we are and will be.”

    Post editor-at-large Robert Kagan, a member of the paper’s opinions section, resigned following the decision, multiple news outlets reported.

    More than 10,000 reader comments were posted on Lewis’ article, many of them blasting the Post for its decision and saying they were canceling their subscriptions.

    “The most consequential election in our country, a choice between Fascism and Democracy, and you sit out? Cowards. Unethical, fearful cowards,” wrote one comment. “Oh, and by the way, I’m canceling my subscription, because you are putting business ahead of ethics and morals.”

    The announcement came days after Mariel Garza, the head of The Los Angeles Times‘ editorial board, resigned in protest after that paper’s owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, decided against running a presidential endorsement.

    “I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent,” Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”

    Soon-Shiong, like Bezos, is a billionaire.

    Marty Baron, the former editor of The Washington Post, called that paper’s decision “cowardice, with democracy as its casualty.”

    ″@realdonaldtrump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner @jeffbezos (and others),” Baron wrote. “Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”

    The Washington Post Guild, the union that represents the newspaper’s staff, in a statement posted on the social media site X said it was “deeply concerned that The Washington Post — an American news institution in the nation’s capital — would make a decision to no longer endorse presidential candidates, especially a mere 11 days ahead of an immensely consequential election.”

    “The message from our chief executive, Will Lewis — not from the Editorial Board itself — makes us concerned that management interfered with the work of our members in Editorial,” the Guild said in the statement, which noted the paper’s reporting about Bezos’ role in the decision.

    “We are already seeing cancellations from once loyal readers,” the Guild said. “This decision undercuts the work of our members at a time when we should be building our readers’ trust, not losing it.”

    Read more CNBC politics coverage

    Former Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, whose stories about the Watergate break-in during the Nixon administration won the newspaper a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, in a statement said, “We respect the traditional independence of the editorial page, but this decision 11 days out from the 2024 presidential election ignores the Washington Post’s own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy.”

    “Under Jeff Bezos’s ownership, the Washington Post’s news operation has used its abundant resources to rigorously investigate the danger and damage a second Trump presidency could cause to the future of American democracy and that makes this decision even more surprising and disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process,” Woodward and Bernstein said.

    Post columnist Karen Attiah, in a post on the social media site Threads, wrote, “Today has been an absolute stab in the back.”

    “What an insult to those of us who have literally put our careers and lives on the line to call out threats to human rights and democracy,” Attiah wrote.

    Rep. Ted Lieu, a Democrat from California, in his own tweet on the news wrote, “The first step towards fascism is when the free press cowers in fear.”

    Trump in August told Fox Business News that Bezos called him after the Republican narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in July at a campaign rally in western Pennsylvania.

    “He was very nice even though he owns The Washington Post,” Trump said of Bezos.

    Bezos last posted on X on July 13, hours after the assassination attempt.

    “Our former President showed tremendous grace and courage under literal fire tonight,” Bezos wrote in that tweet. “So thankful for his safety and so sad for the victims and their families.”

    Trump on Friday met in Austin, Texas, with executives from the Bezos-owned space exploration company Blue Origin, among them CEO David Limp, the Associated Press reported

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  • An ex-politician faces at least 20 years in prison in killing of Las Vegas reporter

    An ex-politician faces at least 20 years in prison in killing of Las Vegas reporter

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    LAS VEGAS — A former Las Vegas-area Democratic elected official was sentenced Wednesday to serve at least 28 years in Nevada state prison for killing an investigative journalist who wrote articles critical of his conduct in office two years ago and exposed an intimate relationship with a female coworker.

    A judge invoked sentencing enhancements for elements including use of a deadly weapon, laying in wait and the age of the reporter to add eight years to the minimum 20-year sentence that a jury set in August after finding Robert Telles guilty of murder.

    Telles, 47, testified in his defense and denied stabbing Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German to death in September 2022. But evidence against him was strong — including his DNA beneath German’s fingernails.

    At the time, Telles was the elected administrator of a county office that handles unclaimed estate and probate property cases. He has been jailed without bail since his arrest several days after the attack.

    Telles’ defense attorney, Robert Draskovich, has said Telles intends to appeal his conviction.

    German was 69. He was a respected reporter who spent 44 years covering crime, courts and corruption in Las Vegas.

    Telles lost his primary for a second term in office after German’s stories in May and June 2022 described turmoil and bullying at the Clark County Public Administrator/Guardian office and a romantic relationship between Telles and a female employee. His law license was suspended following his arrest.

    Police sought public help to identify a person captured on neighborhood security video driving a maroon SUV and walking while wearing a broad straw hat that hid his face and an oversized orange long-sleeve shirt. Prosecutor Pamela Weckerly showed footage of the person wearing orange slipping into the side yard where German was stabbed, slashed and left dead.

    At Telles’ house, police found a maroon SUV and cut-up pieces of a straw hat and a gray athletic shoe that looked like those worn by the person seen on neighborhood video. Authorities did not find the orange long-sleeve shirt or a murder weapon.

    Telles testified for several rambling hours at his trial, admitting for the first time that reports of the office romance were true. He denied killing German and said he was “framed” by a broad conspiracy involving a real estate company, police, DNA analysts, former co-workers and others. He told the jury he was victimized for crusading to root out corruption

    “I am not the kind of person who would stab someone. I didn’t kill Mr. German,” Telles said. “And that’s my testimony.”

    But evidence against Telles was strong — including his DNA beneath German’s fingernails. Prosecutor Christopher Hamner said Telles blamed German for destroying his career, ruining his reputation and threatening his marriage.

    Telles told the jury he took a walk and went to a gym at the time German was killed. But evidence showed Telles’ wife sent text messages to him about the same time killed asking, “Where are you?” Prosecutors said Telles left his cellphone at home so he couldn’t be tracked.

    The jury deliberated nearly 12 hours over three days before finding Telles guilty. The panel heard pained sentencing hearing testimony from German’s brother and two sisters, along with emotional pleas for leniency from Telles’ wife, ex-wife and mother, before deciding that Telles could be eligible for parole.

    Clark County District Court Judge Michelle Leavitt was able to add up to eight years to Telles’ sentence for using a deadly weapon in a willful, deliberate, premeditated killing; because German was older than 60 years old; and for lying in wait before the attack.

    District Attorney Steve Wolfson said he was “hopeful and confident” the judge would impose a sentence that could keep Telles behind bars for the rest of his life.

    “This defendant has shown absolutely no remorse, no acceptance of responsibility,” said the Democratic elected regional prosecutor. “And in fact, his behavior is such that I believe he is an extreme danger to the community if he is ever released.”

    German was the only journalist killed in the U.S. in 2022, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. The nonprofit has records of 17 media workers killed in the U.S. since 1992.

    Katherine Jacobsen, the U.S., Canada, and Caribbean program coordinator at the committee, said in August that Telles’ conviction sent “an important message that the killing of journalists will not be tolerated.”

    Telles’ attorney, Robert Draskovich, has said Telles intends to appeal his conviction.

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  • John Dickerson says goodbye to

    John Dickerson says goodbye to

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    John Dickerson says goodbye to “The Daily Report” – CBS News


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    “The Daily Report” anchor John Dickerson bid farewell to the show Tuesday evening. He said its goal was to deliver news that treated viewers’ attention like the precious thing that it is. CBS News’ Lindsey Reiser will take over as anchor as Dickerson joins the Evening News team. He will continue to appear on CBS News 24/7.

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  • Hacking Generative AI for Fun and Profit

    Hacking Generative AI for Fun and Profit

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    You hardly need ChatGPT to generate a list of reasons why generative artificial intelligence is often less than awesome. The way algorithms are fed creative work often without permission, harbor nasty biases, and require huge amounts of energy and water for training are all serious issues.

    Putting all that aside for a moment, though, it is remarkable how powerful generative AI can be for prototyping potentially useful new tools.

    I got to witness this firsthand by visiting Sundai Club, a generative AI hackathon that takes place one Sunday each month near the MIT campus. A few months ago, the group kindly agreed to let me sit in and chose to spend that session exploring tools that might be useful to journalists. The club is backed by a Cambridge nonprofit called Æthos that promotes socially responsible use of AI.

    The Sundai Club crew includes students from MIT and Harvard, a few professional developers and product managers, and even one person who works for the military. Each event starts with a brainstorm of possible projects that the group then whittles down to a final option that they actually try to build.

    Notable pitches from the journalism hackathon included using multimodal language models to track political posts on TikTok, to auto-generate freedom of information requests and appeals, or to summarize video clips of local court hearings to help with local news coverage.

    In the end, the group decided to build a tool that would help reporters covering AI identify potentially interesting papers posted to the Arxiv, a popular server for research paper preprints. It’s likely my presence swayed them here, given that I mentioned at the meeting that scouring the Arxiv for interesting research was a high priority for me.

    After coming up with a goal, coders on the team were able to create a word embedding—a mathematical representation of words and their meanings—of Arxiv AI papers using the OpenAI API. This made it possible to analyze the data to find papers relevant to a particular term, and to explore relationships between different areas of research.

    Using another word embedding of Reddit threads as well as a Google News search, the coders created a visualization that shows research papers along with Reddit discussions and relevant news reports.

    The resulting prototype, called AI News Hound, is rough-and-ready, but it shows how large language models can help mine information in interesting new ways. Here’s a screenshot of the tool being used to search for the term “AI agents.” The two green squares closest to the news article and Reddit clusters represent research papers that could potentially be included in an article on efforts to build AI agents.

    Compliments of Sundai Club.

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    Will Knight

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  • Google agreed to pay millions for California news. Journalists call it a bad deal

    Google agreed to pay millions for California news. Journalists call it a bad deal

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    SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Google will soon give California millions of dollars to help pay for local journalism jobs in a first-in-the-nation deal, but journalists and other media industry experts are calling it a disappointing agreement that mostly benefits the tech giant.

    The agreement, which was hashed out behind closed doors and announced this week, will direct tens of millions of public and private dollars to keep local news organizations afloat. Critics say it’s a textbook political maneuver by tech giants to avoid a fee under what could have been groundbreaking legislation. California lawmakers agreed to kill a bill requiring tech to support news outlets they profit from in exchange for Google’s financial commitment.

    By shelving the bill, the state effectively gave up on an avenue that could have required Google and social media platforms to make ongoing payments to publishers for linking news content, said Victor Pickard, professor of media policy and political economy at the University of Pennsylvania. California also left behind a much bigger amount of funding that could have been secured under the legislation, he said.

    “Google got off easy,” Pickard said.

    Google said the deal will help both journalism and the artificial intelligence sector in California.

    “This public-private partnership builds on our long history of working with journalism and the local news ecosystem in our home state, while developing a national center of excellence on AI policy,” Kent Walker, president of global affairs and chief legal officer for Google’s parent company Alphabet, said in a statement.

    State governments across the U.S. have been working to help boost struggling news organizations. The U.S. newspaper industry has been in a long decline, with traditional business models collapsing and advertising revenues drying up in the digital era.

    As news organizations move from primarily print to mostly digital, they have increasingly relied on Google and Facebook to distribute its content. While publishers saw their advertising revenues nosedive significantly in the last few decades, Google’s search engine has become the hub of a digital advertisement empire that generates more than $200 billion annually.

    The Los Angeles Times was losing up to $40 million a year, the newspaper’s owner said in justifying a layoff of more than 100 people earlier this year.

    More than 2,500 newspapers have closed since 2005, and about 200 counties across the U.S. do not have any local news outlets, according to a report from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

    California and New Mexico are funding local news fellowship programs. New York this year became the first state to offer a tax credit program for news outlets to hire and retain journalists. Illinois is considering a bill similar to the one that died in California.

    Here’s a closer look into the deal California made with Google this week:

    The deal, totaling $250 million, will provide money to two efforts: funding for journalism initiatives and a new AI research program. The agreement only guarantees funding for a period of five years.

    Roughly $110 million will come from Google and $70 million from the state budget to boost journalism jobs. The fund will be managed by UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. Google will also kick in $70 million to fund the AI research program, which would build tools to help solve “real world problems,” said Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, who brokered the deal.

    The deal is not a tax, which is a stark departure from a bill Wicks authored that would have imposed a “link tax” requiring companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft to pay a certain percentage of advertising revenue to media companies for linking to their content. The bill was modelled after a policy passed in Canada that requires Google to pay roughly $74 million per year to fund journalism.

    Tech companies spent the last two years fighting Wicks’ bill, launching expensive opposition campaigns and running ads attacking the legislation. Google threatened in April to temporarily block news websites from some California users’ search results. The bill had continued to advance with bipartisan support — until this week.

    Wicks told The Associated Press on Thursday that she saw no path forward for her bill and that the funding secured through the deal “is better than zero.”

    “This represents politics is the art of the possible,” she said.

    Industry experts see the deal as a playbook move Google has used across the world to avoid regulations.

    “Google cannot exit from news because they need it,” said Anya Schiffrin, a Columbia University professor who studies global media and co-authors a working paper on how much Google and Meta owes to news publishers. “So what they are doing is using a whole lot of different tactics to kill bills that will require them to compensate publishers fairly.”

    She estimates that Google owes $1.4 billion per year to California publishers.

    The Media Guild of the West, a union representing journalists in Southern California, Arizona and Texas, said journalists were locked out of the conversation. The union was a champion of Wicks’ bill but wasn’t included in the negotiations with Google.

    “The future of journalism should not be decided in backroom deals,” a letter by the union sent to lawmakers reads. “The Legislature embarked on an effort to regulate monopolies and failed terribly. Now we question whether the state has done more harm than good.”

    The agreement results in a much smaller amount of funding compared to what Google gives to newsrooms in Canada and goes against the goal to rebalance Google’s dominance over local news organizations, according to a letter from the union to Wicks earlier this week.

    Others also questioned why the deal included funding to build new AI tools. They see it as another way for tech companies to eventual replace them. Wicks’ original bill doesn’t include AI provisions.

    The deal has the support of some journalism groups, including California News Publishers Association, Local Independent Online News Publishers and California Black Media.

    The agreement is scheduled to take effect next year, starting with $100 million to kickstart the efforts.

    Wicks said details of the agreement are still being ironed out. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has promised to include the journalism funding in his January budget, Wicks said, but concerns from other Democratic leaders could throw a wrench in the plan.

    ___

    This story has been updated to correct that, as well as Southern California and Texas, the Media Guild of the West represents journalists in Arizona, not Nevada.

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  • Google Agrees to Shell Out $250M to Support Journalism—But Not Everyone Is Thrilled

    Google Agrees to Shell Out $250M to Support Journalism—But Not Everyone Is Thrilled

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    The Big Tech company previously objected to similar proposals. JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images

    Google (GOOGL) has struck a rare partnership with California to support journalism across the state. The first-in-the-nation agreement, announced yesterday (Aug. 21), will see the Big Tech player invest around $170 million over the next five years to strengthen a struggling local media landscape and aid in experimentation with A.I. However, the seemingly well-intentioned deal met controversy from media industry members.

    The deal comes as lawmakers push for Big Tech companies to compensate news organizations. In recent decades, news organizations have suffered from dwindling ad revenue as advertisers and readers transition away from print to social media platforms and search engines. The journalism industry in the U.S. has lost nearly two-thirds of its reporters since 2005, according to a 2023 study from Northwestern University. Each week, two and a half local newspapers closed down, the study found.

    Under the new agreement, a total of $250 million in public and private funding will be funneled into initiatives encouraging the local sustainability of outlets. “This agreement represents a major breakthrough in ensuring the survival of newsrooms and bolstering local journalism across California—leveraging substantial tech industry resources without imposing new taxes on Californians,” said California Governor Gavin Newsom in a statement.

    In addition to continuing to dole out annual grants of $10 million to existing journalism programs it supports, Google will give $55 million over the next five years to a new fund that will be administered by the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. Known as the News Transformation Fund, it will distribute funding across California publications and emphasize underrepresented groups and news deserts.

    The search engine giant is also expected to pour $12.5 million each year into a new National A.I. Innovation Accelerator, a program that will be administered with a private nonprofit and provide resources to experiment with A.I. across a variety of industries. Both of the agreement’s initiatives are expected to go live in 2025. “California lawmakers have worked with the tech and news sectors to develop a collaborative framework to accelerate A.I. innovation and support local and national businesses and non-profit organizations,” said Kent Walker, chief legal officer for Google’s parent company Alphabet (GOOGL), in a statement.

    A questionable approach to saving journalism

    Google has previously fought more comprehensive proposals in California urging Big Tech companies to support news outlets. In response to a proposed bill that would have seen Google forced to pay outlets for surfacing their content, the company earlier this year described the solution as the “wrong approach to supporting journalism” and one that would lead to “uncapped financial exposure,” with the company even temporarily removing links to California news outlets from its search engine.

    Not everyone is pleased with the new agreement. The Media Guild of the West, which represents journalists across Southern California, described the partnership as an “undemocratic and secretive deal with one of the businesses destroying our industry” in a statement. In addition to taking issue with Google’s financial commitment, it described the A.I. accelerator project as embracing an initiative “that could very well destroy journalism jobs.”

    The threat of A.I. has been a key worry in recent years for news outlets concerned about its misuse of content and potential to replace jobs. A.I. companies have attempted to dissuade such fears by entering into partnerships with media companies, such as those struck between OpenAI and brands like Vogue, Time Magazine and The Wall Street Journal that see the startup compensate outlets in order to use their content in A.I. tools and to train models. Perplexity AI, an A.I.-powered search engine, also recently launched a revenue-sharing model that will offer publishing partners a portion of ad revenue when their material is used in its A.I. tool’s responses.

    Google Agrees to Shell Out $250M to Support Journalism—But Not Everyone Is Thrilled

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    Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly

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  • ‘We the Poisoned’: Flint water scandal uncovered in explosive new book

    ‘We the Poisoned’: Flint water scandal uncovered in explosive new book

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    Courtesy of Jordan Chariton

    Investigative reporter Jordan Chariton with his new book, We the Poisoned: Exposing the Flint Water Cover-Up and the Poisoning of 100,000 Americans.

    A decade after the Flint water crisis began, a new book chronicles the devastating impact on the city’s residents and how local and state officials covered up the disaster.

    We the Poisoned: Exposing the Flint Water Crisis Cover-Up and the Poisoning of 100,000 Americans was released Tuesday, and the 296-page book by investigative reporter Jordan Chariton features new bombshells that raise serious questions about the handling of the health disaster.

    The book also demonstrates that the catastrophic impact of the poisoned water continues today, even after local and national reporters have virtually stopped covering the crisis.

    Chariton calls the Flint water disaster “the biggest government cover-up this century.”

    One of the biggest revelations is that state officials, including then-Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, knew that the water was tainted long before alerting residents. The book also features exclusively obtained, confidential testimony from Snyder, who claimed under oath that he couldn’t recall details of the crisis and contradicted his congressional testimony.

    Chariton, an independent investigative reporter, also alleges in the book that Snyder lied about not knowing about the deadly Legionnaires’ outbreak.

    The book also explores Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s controversial decision to “shitcan” the criminal investigation involving city and state officials accused of covering up the crisis.

    Chariton, a frequent critic of corporate media, also casts blame on local news outlets for repeatedly failing to adequately cover the crisis. He writes that reporters often regurgitated local and state officials’ false claims while ignoring evidence that the water was poisoned.

    Chariton is a former producer for Fox News and MSNBC, and says he visited Flint 21 times; interviewed countless residents, and local and state officials; and combed through tens of thousands of records to write the book. At the time, he was writing news stories about Flint’s water for The Guardian, The Intercept, Vice, and Metro Times.

    “I didn’t even think about writing a book until about two years ago,” Chariton tells Metro Times. “I was getting frustrated because I had written several major stories about the cover-up. But it wasn’t really getting the reach that I wanted. I got so much information, and frankly I believe bombshell after bombshell of blatant corruption, so I thought the best way to tell this was through a book.”

    Chariton says the book is more than a retelling of a catastrophe.

    “I believe the book outlines very meticulously a pretty sinister conspiracy between public officials, Wall Street banks, and the state government,” he says. “I believe it really reveals in a timeline format the biggest cover-up this century. I don’t mean to be dramatic. I don’t know anything else that has killed so many people.”

    Chariton also scoffs at the state’s official claim that only 12 people have died as a result of the poisoned water.

    “It is unknowable how many people died from this because it has caused so many different health problems, from kidney and liver failure to cancer, which is surging right now in Flint. Legionnaires’ deaths could be in the hundreds,” he says.

    As he knocked on doors to interview residents, Chariton said he began to notice an unusual number of deaths of people in their 50s and 60s.

    The book, he says, is bigger than Flint.

    “In the broader psyche of America, when you think of a government coverup, a lot of older people think Watergate,” he says. “But I believe the Flint water cover-up makes Watergate look like child’s play. I say that because Watergate was a bunch of numbskulls screwing around. It didn’t kill anyone. Whereas with this, you have government officials, as it’s detailed in the book, knowing the water is unsafe while telling residents the water is safe. You have a governor who is aware the water is unsafe but is not taking action.”

    One of the still-unraveling tragedies, Chariton says, is the children who have been impacted from lead poisoning. Lead is highly toxic to the brain, nervous system, and other organs, especially in infants and young children. Even at low levels, lead is linked to reduced IQ, ADHD, irreversible brain damage, classroom problems, and even criminality and poverty. Lead can also cause headaches, hearing loss, and hyperactive behavior.

    There is no safe level of lead, and even a small amount can cause irreversible damage, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

    Despite the government-caused disaster, residents are not getting the help they need because there’s no access to free medical care, Chariton says.

    “There definitely is a lost generation,” Chariton says. “There are people dying slowly without the necessary health care because they can’t afford it. It’s really jarring. I saw people I’ve met in 2016, and I saw them two years later, and they looked like they had aged 10 years.”

    Chariton cautions that the failure to hold anyone accountable for Flint sends a dangerous message.

    “If the people who are responsible for this get away with this, it’s the playbook for everywhere else,” Chariton says.

    The forward to the book is written by Erin Brockovich, an American legal clerk and environmental activist who became famous for her role in building a case against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) of California in 1993.

    “Maybe we got comfortable, maybe we became complacent, or maybe we bought into the illusion that some Superman was out there about to fly in and save us all,” Brockovich writes in the forward. “But now we are seeing that there is no wizard coming to our rescue. In reality, it’s up to us to find our courage, to use our hearts, and to think for ourselves.”

    The Flint water crisis began when the city, while under state emergency management, switched its drinking water supply to the Flint River to save money in 2014. The decision created one of the nation’s worst public health disasters in decades, contaminating drinking water with dangerous levels of lead.

    State officials ignored signs of serious health hazards in the predominantly Black city and failed to implement corrosion-control treatments, causing lead, iron, and rust to leach from aging pipes into the water supply.

    In 2018, Chariton launched Status Coup, an on-the-ground, investigative journalism company on YouTube. It has nearly 200,000 subscribers.

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    Steve Neavling

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  • Metro Times two-part series on Detroit detective featured on popular podcast ML Soul of Detroit

    Metro Times two-part series on Detroit detective featured on popular podcast ML Soul of Detroit

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    Steve Neavling

    Mark Craighead, who was exonerated of murder in 2022, is interviewed on the podcast ML Soul of Detroit.

    Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter M.L. Elrick’s popular podcast is shining a spotlight on “The Closer,” Metro Times’s two-part series about a Detroit detective who terrorized young Black men and elicited false confessions and witness statements for two decades.

    The nearly 90-minute episode on ML Soul of Detroit explores the series with Mark Craighead, who was exonerated in 2022 after spending more than seven years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit.

    In the 1990s and early 2000s, detective Barbara Simon was known as “the closer” because of her knack for gaining confessions and witness statements. Her method of confining young Black men to small rooms at police headquarters for hours without a warrant, making false promises, and lying about evidence that didn’t exist led to the false imprisonment of at least five men.

    Many more innocent people are still behind bars because of her tactics, activists and lawyers say.

    On the podcast, Craighead described Simon’s interrogation of him as “unbearable.” He was locked in a small room for hours without access to an attorney. When he refused to incriminate himself, he was held in a vermin-infested jail cell.

    “I was tired, dirty. I had a migraine,” Craighead said. “Everything was going wrong. I was terrified.”

    The podcast provides new details about Craighead’s case and Simon’s handling of suspects and witnesses.

    Craighead also described how difficult it was to get out of prison, despite having evidence that he didn’t murder his friend.

    “I had to pick myself up spiritually, and I had to pick myself up physically because it’s a challenge. All these movies you see about prison, it’s pretty much true,” Craighead explained. “It’s a fight for the fittest.”

    After the series was published, neither the Detroit Police Department nor the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office has shown a willingness to investigate the cases of men who are still in prison after they said they falsely confessed because Simon had used illegal, terrorizing tactics during the interrogations.

    Craighead was among four Black men who have been exonerated after evidence showed they didn’t commit murder. In each of those cases, Simon was accused of investigative misconduct. A fifth man was freed from jail after DNA evidence showed he couldn’t have committed the crime.

    All five men have sued the city.

    Despite dozens of other inmates saying they too are innocent, judges and prosecutors have kept them in prison.

    In response to the Metro Times series last week, Detroit police commissioners called on the department to conduct a comprehensive investigation of all the cases handled by Simon. But police declined, saying that task belongs the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office. Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy responded that she doesn’t have enough information to investigate the cases.

    “This is just a nightmare for everybody,” Elrick said on the podcast. “First of all, Detroit police don’t have enough resources, and now you’re asking them to reinvestigate cases and investigate their own. It’s going to undermine confidence in the Detroit Police Department. It’s going to undermine confidence in the prosecutor’s office. It’s going to lead to lawsuits. … There really is no incentive whatsoever for the people who need to clean this mess up to clean it up — except for it’s the right thing to do. And that’s the problem.”

    Elrick, a longtime investigative reporter, shared the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting with fellow Detroit Free Press reporter Jim Schaefer in 2009. The Pulitzer committee praised them for uncovering “a pattern of lies by Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick that included denial of a sexual relationship with his female chief of staff, prompting an investigation of perjury that eventually led to jail terms for the two officials.”

    ML Soul of Detroit airs weekly on Tuesday. More information is available at mlsoulofdetroit.com.

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    Steve Neavling

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