MEDIA

To Build a Fire by Jack London

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Editor’s Note: To Build a Fire is a short story by American author Jack London. John Griffith Chaney was his real name. He was born on Jan. 12, 1876 and died on Nov. 22, 1916 at the age of 40 on the sleeping porch in a cottage on his ranch in Glen Ellen, California. London…

If A Tree Falls in the Forest, Will it Ever Be Heard From Again?

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Under the Microscope – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it really make a sound? This, of course, is an age old thought experiment that is tinged with the stink of Anthropocentrism, homocentricism, or if you like, human…

Letters: Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

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Editor’s Note: “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” is a line from an editorial by Francis Pharcellus Church. Written in response to a letter by eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon asking whether Santa Claus was real, the editorial was first published in the New York newspaper The Sun on September 21, 1897. “Is There a Santa…

Verified Accounts on X Thrive While Spreading Misinformation About the Israel-Hamas Conflict

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By Jeff Kao, ProPublica, and Priyanjana Bengani, Tow Center for Digital Journalism – ProPublica – “My sisters have died,” the young boy sobbed, chest heaving, as he wailed into the sky. “Oh, my sisters.” As Israel began airstrikes on Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack, posts by verified accounts on X, the social…

Study: Google and Meta Owe News Publishers at Least $12 Billion

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Do you like reading news online but hate paywalls and popup ads? There is a solution. But it will take a smart law firm to file the right kind of legal case against Google and Meta to bring it about. It has long been…

Alabama Journalists Arrested for Investigating Mishandling of Covid Funds

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Staff Report – Freedom of the Press Foundation – An Alabama newspaper publisher and reporter were arrested last week and charged under a grand jury secrecy statute for the “crime” of reporting on a grand jury subpoena provided by a source. The publisher, Sherry Digmon, was arrested again — this time for soliciting ads from…

Public Attention to Political News Drops: Implications for the Future of News and Democracy

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By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — As wars continue to rage in Israel-Gaza and Russia-Ukraine, and the Republicans still can’t seem to find a Speaker of the House they can get behind, what is the American public paying attention to and concerned about these days? Judging by what people seem to be interested in…

Part 5: On Unfulfilled Hopes, Shattered Dreams and Covering News in Washington, D.C.

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Within days of moving to the nation’s capital in 2004, I was the last reporter hired by States News Service operating out of a cool newsroom on Pennsylvania Avenue, a couple of blocks from the White House. It was right near a Metro tunnel,…

Part 4: On Unfulfilled Hopes, Shattered Dreams and the Big Easy

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — It was as hot as I believed hot could get when I landed at the Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans in the midst of the first August of the new millennium. Even in a summer Searsucker Suit the hot air hit you…

Part 3: On Unfulfilled Hopes, Shattered Dreams and Journalism

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — One of the themes that emerges from this life analysis is that kids need heroes to inspire and emulate. That’s why it’s so important for young women to have role models, along with African Americans and other minorities in America. All I can do…

Part 2: On Unfulfilled Hopes, Shattered Dreams and Baseball

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Do you ever feel like you are marking time, waiting for something to happen? Something that is supposed to happen, but the timing is not yet right? I was thinking that recently when watching the movie “Field of Dreams.” “The one constant through all…

Part 1: On Unfulfilled Hopes, Shattered Dreams

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — A person with character may pickup a few nicknames in a life. A famous Baptist preacher once called me “Cowboy,” and it stuck. That worked for a couple of decades, and I was locally famous as the only drummer to ever wear a cowboy…

The Price of Liberty is Eternal Vigilance: How Authoritarian Leaders Mutilate Reality, History and Culture

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“The first thing every totalitarian regime does along with confiscation and mutilation of reality is confiscation of history and confiscation of culture.” – Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – Introduction WASHINGTON, D.C. — When I first walked into the administration building of an Alabama community…

The State of the News Media and What That Means for Democracy

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“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” — Thomas Jefferson,…

Right-Wing Websites Connected to Former Trump Lawyer Are Scamming Loyal Followers With Phony Celebrity Pitches

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By Craig Silverman – ProPublica – Oprah Winfrey looked upset. The photo caught her midsentence, her left hand jabbing at the camera. “They are twisting everything,” the TV icon was quoted as saying, under a red “BREAKING NEWS” banner. The ad featuring the Winfrey image and quote ran on the conservative website DC Swamp Tales.…

Exploring the Mind of the Raven and the Bird’s Role in Human Culture and Evolution

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“This is an amazing book by an amazing author. Heinrich is a naturalist of the first rank, champion ultramarathoner, woodsman of skills seldom seen in modern times, and not least, as Mind of the Raven illustrates, a nature writer of uncommon talent. By living with the ravens for many years, literally at home and in…

#BoycottCNN: Do Not Give the Criminal Trump a Platform for Lies

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“Our government … teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.” – Justice Louis Brandeis “The Press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the…

The Secret But True Story of Network News and The Happy Pill

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Satire – Fiction – Film Proposal -  By Glynn Wilson -  WASHINGTON, D.C. — Here’s a movie script idea for Netflix or one of the other streaming companies. FADE UP FROM BLACK – A secret cabal of corporate executives are huddled in a conference room in a New York skyscraper. They are watching video clips…

Operation Zap: A Novel and Film by Aaron Murphy

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Editor’s Note: In 1992, while working as a staff writer and reporter for a chain of newspapers on the Gulf Coast, I stumbled onto a dangerous story involving electromagnetic fields and pulses being developed by Naval Intelligence in Pensacola, Florida. The stories I wrote about it were so controversial that a rogue agent working for…

The American Crisis: By Thomas Paine – 1776

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Editor’s Note: We publish this here today in honor of President’s Day, and especially to honor George Washington’s brilliant plan to cross the Delaware River and attack the British Red Coats at Trenton, New Jersey on the night of December 25, 1776, which turned the tide and gave the American Revolution the public opinion boost…