washingtonmonthly--2020-10-27--Reporters of Color Are Declaring Independence

In 1968 , a report issued by the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders—better known as the Kerner Commission—excoriated the national press for its role in the racial unrest that rocked America in the summer of 1967 .
“ The media report and write from the standpoint of a white man ’ s world , ” the commission wrote .
“ The ills of the ghetto , the difficulties of life there , the Negro ’ s burning sense of grievance , are seldom conveyed.
” Instead , the commission found , American coverage was rife with “ the biases @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white America.
” Especially appalling , the commission found , was the dearth of Black journalists in U.S. newsrooms .
Fewer than 5 percent of newsroom staff were Black ; fewer than 1 percent were editors .
“ The journalistic profession has been shockingly backward in seeking out , hiring , training , and promoting Negroes , ” the commission concluded .
More than 50 years later , after another summer of protest and racial reckoning , too much of what the commission wrote is still true .
While there ’ s no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ newsroom staff today who are Black , research suggests that it ’ s less than 8 percent—still far too low .
Overall , newsrooms are only about half as diverse as the U.S. workforce as a whole .
Controversies over insensitive and racist coverage have embroiled major legacy and digital outlets , including the Los Angeles Times and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette , Refinery29 , and the Ringer .
At The Philadelphia Inquirer , a story about the impacts of unrest on city infrastructure headlined “ Buildings Matter Too ” led to a staff @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the resignation of a top editor .
At The New York Times , an op-ed by Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton calling for military intervention to quell protests led to another high-level editor ’ s ouster .
Many of the paper ’ s own reporters took to Twitter to declare that the op-ed “ puts Black @ nytimes staff in danger.
” At the same time , energy and interest in a more diverse , equitable , and inclusive media has never been more intense .
Nor has the need for it been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is leading the way .
Champions of media diversity have stopped waiting for the establishment to fix itself .
Instead , a new crop of reformers is staging its own insurgency , working outside traditional media and often in spite of it .
“ I don ’ t know that we can integrate fairly at this point , ” Angela Ford , founder of the Black media start-up Obsidian Collection , says .
“ It ’ s time for the world to hear the Black voice from a Black filter.
” The result @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of nonprofits , philanthropic efforts , and media start-ups led largely by people of color .
New outlets are serving overlooked communities , experimenting with ways to engage audiences and giving journalists of color a platform for their voice .
Media upstart PushBlack , for instance , covers topics like voting rights and criminal justice reform and Black history .
Sahan Journal , launched in 2019 by a Somali American reporter , focuses exclusively on the concerns of Minnesota ’ s immigrant and refugee communities .
Both of these outlets have the financial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fund ( REJ Fund ) , an ambitious project recently launched by the Ford Foundation and other partners to grow and sustain an emerging sector in equitable media .
These outlets are critical sources of information for minority communities .
But minorities are not the only audience .
Billboard magazine , for instance , reported that the singer Mariah Carey urged all of her listeners to follow PushBlack .
Sahan Journal won an award from the Society of Professional Journalists for a piece on drug overdoses among Minnesota ’ s East African community @ @ @ @ @ @ @ content and learning , ” says Tracie Powell , a former journalist and independent publisher who is now a program officer at Borealis Philanthropy , which works on racial justice in media .
“ They ’ re plugged into Black Twitter ; they ’ re seeing content on Facebook and Instagram .
They are being exposed and being educated.
” Emerging outlets like these , Powell told me , are not just powerful advocates for communities too long ignored by white-led press , but also catalysts for broader reform .
Their goal is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against it , and , ultimately , to transform an industry that has been far too reluctant to change .
Journalists of color are justifiably frustrated by traditional media ’ s lackluster attempts at diversity .
There have been umpteen minority fellowships , internships , and splashy awards created by big-city newsrooms .
( I got my first clips via a minority high school journalism workshop sponsored by my hometown paper , The Kansas City Star . )
But the pace of change has been glacial ; diversity efforts have been inauthentic ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with tokenism , stigma , and bias , as well as systemic barriers to entry and promotion .
Paul Delaney , who cofounded the National Association of Black Journalists in 1975 , wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review in 2017 that when he started the NABJ , “ we felt empowered , on a righteous mission to lead America in the right direction , to egg it on to finally live up to its promise and principles .
We were so naively optimistic back then.
” Here ’ s one basic problem with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actually know the share of journalists in U.S. newsrooms who are people of color .
According to the News Leaders Association ’ s 2019 Diversity Survey , people of color make up 21.9 percent of the salaried newsroom workforce and 18.8 percent of newsroom managers .
( The U.S. population , by contrast , is 40 percent minority . )
However , just 23 percent of U.S. newsrooms participated in the survey , up from only 17 percent the year before .
“ As journalists , we put pressure on every industry there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ give us the information , ” Dorothy Tucker , the NABJ ’ s current president , told me .
“ Yet we won ’ t do it .
It makes you question whether there is a problem with the numbers.
” Certainly , other white-collar professions face equal or greater problems with diversity .
Just 10 percent of lawyers are Black or Hispanic , according to the American Bar Association .
Big Tech is also notoriously monolithic .
The press , however , has a particular obligation to the public because of its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It has an obligation to employ a workforce that reflects the communities it purports to serve , which makes its failure to do so all the more galling .
Why is it failing so badly ?
For aspiring journalists of color , perhaps the biggest obstacles are the lack of connections and capital .
Minority journalists often have a harder time plugging into the clubby networks of ( typically white , typically male ) editors looking for talent .
“ The journos of color and women aren ’ t networking with white dudes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t in their DNA , ” Shani Hilton , now deputy managing editor of the Los Angeles Times , wrote in a 2014 Medium piece .
“ Call it the Twice as Hard Half as Good Paradox : Many of us are so busy working twice as hard and hoping to get noticed that we don ’ t do the networking that seems like bullshit but is actually a key part of career advancement , ” she wrote .
Many young people of color also can ’ t afford the luxury of an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a freelancer , often prerequisites for scraping together enough bylines to land a full-time job .
In a 2015 analysis for the Columbia Journalism Review , Alex Williams found that while 66 percent of white journalism graduates found jobs in print or broadcasting in 2013 , the placement rate for minority graduates was only 49 percent .
Part of the problem , Williams surmised , was that minority students were less likely to have worked for their campus newspapers or to have had unpaid internships .
“ If you ’ re Black or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ low-income working-class community , you ’ re starting from behind compared to a middle-class white person who can rely on generational wealth while they pursue their passion career , ” says Manny Ramos , a Chicago Sun-Times reporter who described his own start in journalism as “ extremely difficult.
” “ At one point , I had an internship at a local paper , I worked full-time , and I went to school full-time , ” he told me .
“ I had no life and was barely sleeping .
A lot of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ For journalists of color who do make it through the door , the challenges continue .
Minority journalists are often seen , not heard , their advice ignored .
The result is another frustration : missed stories and unbalanced coverage that too often depends on stereotypes and assumptions—and leads to the kinds of controversies that beset big newsrooms over this past summer .
Promotion and influence are the next big hurdles .
Diversity efforts often end at the entry level , with little thought to retention and advancement .
“ They bring this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Black spot.
’ Unfortunately , too often , they don ’ t do much more than that , ” the NABJ ’ s Tucker said .
This is one reason why upper management in media is even less diverse than the rank and file .
For instance , just 8.2 percent of radio news directors are people of color , according to a 2019 survey by the Radio Television Digital News Association .
Just 5.5 percent of TV news directors are Black—down from 6.4 percent in 2018 .
Sadly , things aren ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ newsrooms , financially strapped even before the pandemic , now see diversity as an unaffordable luxury .
The NABJ said that as many as half of its members surveyed have been furloughed or laid off .
“ If it was hard to get diversity , inclusion , and representation before , it ’ s that much harder now because people are getting laid off , the industry is shrinking , and there ’ s a panicked focus on profit , ” says Jessica Clark , founder of the media strategy firm Dot Connector @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Foundation .
This bleak landscape in traditional media is why a growing number of journalists , social entrepreneurs , and philanthropists are embracing a different vision of diversity in media , and a different means to achieve it .
They ’ re tired of fighting for a place at the table , and then fighting for the kind of coverage they ’ d like to see .
For these reformers , diversity goes beyond the integration of big-city newsrooms .
Rather , it ’ s about multiplying the number of voices so that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and information relevant to them .
Instead of writing about their communities for primarily white audiences , they ’ re writing for these communities as active members .
“ Let ’ s be honest , ” Borealis Philanthropy ’ s Powell said .
“ We have been begging , pleading , crying , yelling at the top of our lungs for news organizations to reflect the communities they say they serve .
And those organizations made it very , very clear that they are not serving the Black and brown people in their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do you say , let ’ s stop ?
At what point do you try something different ?
” Among the journalists who broke from the establishment to blaze their own trail is Sahan Journal founder Mukhtar Ibrahim , whose editors at Minnesota Public Radio and the Minneapolis Star Tribune discouraged him from pursuing stories about the area ’ s immigrants .
“ I worked hard to open pathways to communities that were invisible to mainstream reporters , ” he wrote in The Investigative Reporters and Editors Journal .
“ I realized , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not committed to forging new relationships with these communities.
” Ibrahim launched Sahan Journal in August 2019 .
The journal is part of a larger boom in nonprofit publishing , much of it driven by journalists and social entrepreneurs who put diversity , equity , and inclusion at the heart of their mission .
The Institute for Nonprofit News reports that its membership is approaching 300 , double what it was three years ago .
Many of these new outlets are aimed at serving diverse populations , which is why the universe of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ traditional , for-profit media .
According to the INN ’ s 2020 Diversity Index , roughly one in three nonprofit news employees is a person of color , as is one in five executives .
“ These younger organizations are diverse from the get-go , ” the INN ’ s executive director , Sue Cross , told me .
These outlets ’ strategies are also as diverse as their staffs .
PushBlack , which reaches nine million readers exclusively through text messages and social media , runs campaigns on voter education and criminal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Black news and history .
MLK50 is a Tennessee-based investigative news organization founded in 2017 by the veteran reporter Wendi Thomas .
In 2019 , Thomas partnered with ProPublica on a series that led to the forgiveness of $ 11.9 million in hospital debts owed by low-income patients of Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare in Memphis .
Nonprofits are also still working to desegregate traditional newsrooms .
The NABJ , for instance , hopes to turn up the pressure on pipelines for retention and promotion so that more journalists of color populate the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as the highest echelons of investigative and political reporters .
At the entry level , Report for America trains and places emerging journalists in local newsrooms to cover underreported issues and communities .
This year , it placed 226 reporters in 47 states , in a variety of outlets ranging from big-city newsrooms to digital-only start-ups .
The organization also pays half of reporters ’ salaries , enabling outlets to get coverage they otherwise couldn ’ t afford .
“ I like to think that I ’ m good enough to get hired @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Report for America corps member placed with The Dallas Morning News .
“ But I do believe that without the funding , I ’ m not sure the newspaper was looking to bring in another Hispanic issues reporter.
” Manuel has since been hired full-time .
The emerging diversity ecosystem also has its share of for-profit outlets experimenting with new models for generating revenue .
The Chicago-based Obsidian Collection , for instance , aims to launch a stock photo service composed exclusively of images licensed from Black legacy newspapers and photographers .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ working to digitize nine million images from the archives of Black newspapers across the country , including such storied outlets as her hometown ’ s Chicago Defender .
She ’ s also working on a separate portal for Black photojournalists to upload and sell their work .
“ When we protest , when we celebrate , we want those images through the eyes of Black photo-journalists available to Black media , ” she said .
“ This gives photojournalists a revenue stream and the Black media access to images in a timely manner @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of innovation , however , many new outlets are still financially fragile .
A Borealis survey of 114 outlets led by and for people of color found that nearly four in five organizations have staffs of five or fewer and that one-third have experienced layoffs .
Just 39 percent of outlets reported revenues of more than $ 100,000 ( though one-fifth also declined to answer ) .
To preserve the progress made so far , the Ford Foundation , along with the Democracy Fund , Craig Newmark Philanthropies , and other partners , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in September 2019 with $ 6.1 million in initial commitments .
Administered by Borealis , the fund distributed $ 2.3 million to 16 outlets in April 2020 led by and serving communities of color .
It hopes to grow to $ 30 million over the next three years , according to cofounder Farai Chideya , a program officer at the Ford Foundation .
The grantees include PushBlack , Sahan Journal , and MLK50 ; Black legacy outlets such as The New York Amsterdam News and The Atlanta Voice ; organizations such as Buffalo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ communities in the Northern Great Plains ; La Noticia , a Spanish-language outlet based in North Carolina ; and WURD Radio , Pennsylvania ’ s only Black-owned commercial talk radio station .
Many of these are helping keep local news alive in places where regional newspapers have collapsed .
One purpose of the REJ Fund is to help fix an imbalance in philanthropic funding for media initiatives led by people of color .
According to a report by Chideya for the Ford Foundation , media outlets serving diverse communities received just 8 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and 2017 .
Given how much has already been achieved by outlets operating on a shoestring , the potential impact at scale could be transformative .
“ What I believe in this moment is that the field is being remade , ” said the INN ’ s Sue Cross .
“ It ’ s up to us to make sure it doesn ’ t dissipate.
” Fifty years ago , the Kerner Commission concluded its report with a call to action , urging that “ the painful process of readjustment that is required @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now.
” What ’ s demanded , the commission continued , is “ fair and courageous journalism—commitment and coverage that are worthy of one of the crucial domestic stories in America ’ s history.
” Traditional media outlets have so far failed to live up to that charge , but the new wave of media reformers—led by and for people of color—could be the ones who make a truly equitable media a reality .

This story is part of a package exploring how to rescue and revitalize journalism. Read the rest of the pieces here. And, if you enjoy what you’re reading, please consider making a donation—we’re a nonprofit media organization and rely on the support of our readers.
In 1968, a report issued by the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders—better known as the Kerner Commission—excoriated the national press for its role in the racial unrest that rocked America in the summer of 1967.
“The media report and write from the standpoint of a white man’s world,” the commission wrote. “The ills of the ghetto, the difficulties of life there, the Negro’s burning sense of grievance, are seldom conveyed.” Instead, the commission found, American coverage was rife with “the biases, the paternalism, the indifference of white America.”
Especially appalling, the commission found, was the dearth of Black journalists in U.S. newsrooms. Fewer than 5 percent of newsroom staff were Black; fewer than 1 percent were editors. “The journalistic profession has been shockingly backward in seeking out, hiring, training, and promoting Negroes,” the commission concluded.
More than 50 years later, after another summer of protest and racial reckoning, too much of what the commission wrote is still true. While there’s no definitive data on the percentage of U.S. newsroom staff today who are Black, research suggests that it’s less than 8 percent—still far too low. Overall, newsrooms are only about half as diverse as the U.S. workforce as a whole.
Controversies over insensitive and racist coverage have embroiled major legacy and digital outlets, including the Los Angeles Times and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Refinery29, and the Ringer. At The Philadelphia Inquirer, a story about the impacts of unrest on city infrastructure headlined “Buildings Matter Too” led to a staff walkout, a public apology, and the resignation of a top editor. At The New York Times, an op-ed by Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton calling for military intervention to quell protests led to another high-level editor’s ouster. Many of the paper’s own reporters took to Twitter to declare that the op-ed “puts Black @nytimes staff in danger.”
At the same time, energy and interest in a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive media has never been more intense. Nor has the need for it been greater. What has changed is who is leading the way. Champions of media diversity have stopped waiting for the establishment to fix itself. Instead, a new crop of reformers is staging its own insurgency, working outside traditional media and often in spite of it. “I don’t know that we can integrate fairly at this point,” Angela Ford, founder of the Black media start-up Obsidian Collection, says. “It’s time for the world to hear the Black voice from a Black filter.”
The result is a small but already flourishing ecosystem of nonprofits, philanthropic efforts, and media start-ups led largely by people of color. New outlets are serving overlooked communities, experimenting with ways to engage audiences and giving journalists of color a platform for their voice. Media upstart PushBlack, for instance, covers topics like voting rights and criminal justice reform and Black history. Sahan Journal, launched in 2019 by a Somali American reporter, focuses exclusively on the concerns of Minnesota’s immigrant and refugee communities. Both of these outlets have the financial backing of the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund (REJ Fund), an ambitious project recently launched by the Ford Foundation and other partners to grow and sustain an emerging sector in equitable media.
These outlets are critical sources of information for minority communities. But minorities are not the only audience. Billboard magazine, for instance, reported that the singer Mariah Carey urged all of her listeners to follow PushBlack. Sahan Journal won an award from the Society of Professional Journalists for a piece on drug overdoses among Minnesota’s East African community. “White audiences are seeing our content and learning,” says Tracie Powell, a former journalist and independent publisher who is now a program officer at Borealis Philanthropy, which works on racial justice in media. “They’re plugged into Black Twitter; they’re seeing content on Facebook and Instagram. They are being exposed and being educated.”
Emerging outlets like these, Powell told me, are not just powerful advocates for communities too long ignored by white-led press, but also catalysts for broader reform. Their goal is to challenge traditional media, to compete against it, and, ultimately, to transform an industry that has been far too reluctant to change.
Journalists of color are justifiably frustrated by traditional media’s lackluster attempts at diversity. There have been umpteen minority fellowships, internships, and splashy awards created by big-city newsrooms. (I got my first clips via a minority high school journalism workshop sponsored by my hometown paper, The Kansas City Star.) But the pace of change has been glacial; diversity efforts have been inauthentic; and journalists of color must still contend with tokenism, stigma, and bias, as well as systemic barriers to entry and promotion. Paul Delaney, who cofounded the National Association of Black Journalists in 1975, wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review in 2017 that when he started the NABJ, “we felt empowered, on a righteous mission to lead America in the right direction, to egg it on to finally live up to its promise and principles. We were so naively optimistic back then.”
Here’s one basic problem with the industry: We don’t actually know the share of journalists in U.S. newsrooms who are people of color. According to the News Leaders Association’s 2019 Diversity Survey, people of color make up 21.9 percent of the salaried newsroom workforce and 18.8 percent of newsroom managers. (The U.S. population, by contrast, is 40 percent minority.) However, just 23 percent of U.S. newsrooms participated in the survey, up from only 17 percent the year before.
“As journalists, we put pressure on every industry there is to show us the numbers, give us the information,” Dorothy Tucker, the NABJ’s current president, told me. “Yet we won’t do it. It makes you question whether there is a problem with the numbers.”
Certainly, other white-collar professions face equal or greater problems with diversity. Just 10 percent of lawyers are Black or Hispanic, according to the American Bar Association. Big Tech is also notoriously monolithic. The press, however, has a particular obligation to the public because of its power to shape opinions and events. It has an obligation to employ a workforce that reflects the communities it purports to serve, which makes its failure to do so all the more galling.
Why is it failing so badly? For aspiring journalists of color, perhaps the biggest obstacles are the lack of connections and capital. Minority journalists often have a harder time plugging into the clubby networks of (typically white, typically male) editors looking for talent. “The journos of color and women aren’t networking with white dudes doing the hiring because it isn’t in their DNA,” Shani Hilton, now deputy managing editor of the Los Angeles Times, wrote in a 2014 Medium piece. “Call it the Twice as Hard Half as Good Paradox: Many of us are so busy working twice as hard and hoping to get noticed that we don’t do the networking that seems like bullshit but is actually a key part of career advancement,” she wrote.
Many young people of color also can’t afford the luxury of an unpaid internship or the underpaid life of a freelancer, often prerequisites for scraping together enough bylines to land a full-time job. In a 2015 analysis for the Columbia Journalism Review, Alex Williams found that while 66 percent of white journalism graduates found jobs in print or broadcasting in 2013, the placement rate for minority graduates was only 49 percent. Part of the problem, Williams surmised, was that minority students were less likely to have worked for their campus newspapers or to have had unpaid internships.
“If you’re Black or brown and you grew up in a low-income working-class community, you’re starting from behind compared to a middle-class white person who can rely on generational wealth while they pursue their passion career,” says Manny Ramos, a Chicago Sun-Times reporter who described his own start in journalism as “extremely difficult.” “At one point, I had an internship at a local paper, I worked full-time, and I went to school full-time,” he told me. “I had no life and was barely sleeping. A lot of people can’t do that.”
For journalists of color who do make it through the door, the challenges continue. Minority journalists are often seen, not heard, their advice ignored. The result is another frustration: missed stories and unbalanced coverage that too often depends on stereotypes and assumptions—and leads to the kinds of controversies that beset big newsrooms over this past summer.
Promotion and influence are the next big hurdles. Diversity efforts often end at the entry level, with little thought to retention and advancement. “They bring this person in and give them the ‘Black spot.’ Unfortunately, too often, they don’t do much more than that,” the NABJ’s Tucker said. This is one reason why upper management in media is even less diverse than the rank and file. For instance, just 8.2 percent of radio news directors are people of color, according to a 2019 survey by the Radio Television Digital News Association. Just 5.5 percent of TV news directors are Black—down from 6.4 percent in 2018.
Sadly, things aren’t likely to get better. Many newsrooms, financially strapped even before the pandemic, now see diversity as an unaffordable luxury. The NABJ said that as many as half of its members surveyed have been furloughed or laid off. “If it was hard to get diversity, inclusion, and representation before, it’s that much harder now because people are getting laid off, the industry is shrinking, and there’s a panicked focus on profit,” says Jessica Clark, founder of the media strategy firm Dot Connector Studio and a consultant to the Ford Foundation.
This bleak landscape in traditional media is why a growing number of journalists, social entrepreneurs, and philanthropists are embracing a different vision of diversity in media, and a different means to achieve it. They’re tired of fighting for a place at the table, and then fighting for the kind of coverage they’d like to see. For these reformers, diversity goes beyond the integration of big-city newsrooms. Rather, it’s about multiplying the number of voices so that disparate communities are better equipped with news and information relevant to them. Instead of writing about their communities for primarily white audiences, they’re writing for these communities as active members.
“Let’s be honest,” Borealis Philanthropy’s Powell said. “We have been begging, pleading, crying, yelling at the top of our lungs for news organizations to reflect the communities they say they serve. And those organizations made it very, very clear that they are not serving the Black and brown people in their communities . . . At what point do you say, let’s stop? At what point do you try something different?”
Energy and interest in a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive media has never been more intense. Nor has the need for it been greater. What has changed is who is leading the way.
Among the journalists who broke from the establishment to blaze their own trail is Sahan Journal founder Mukhtar Ibrahim, whose editors at Minnesota Public Radio and the Minneapolis Star Tribune discouraged him from pursuing stories about the area’s immigrants. “I worked hard to open pathways to communities that were invisible to mainstream reporters,” he wrote in The Investigative Reporters and Editors Journal. “I realized, however, that editors and reporters were not committed to forging new relationships with these communities.” Ibrahim launched Sahan Journal in August 2019.
The journal is part of a larger boom in nonprofit publishing, much of it driven by journalists and social entrepreneurs who put diversity, equity, and inclusion at the heart of their mission. The Institute for Nonprofit News reports that its membership is approaching 300, double what it was three years ago. Many of these new outlets are aimed at serving diverse populations, which is why the universe of nonprofit news is decidedly more inclusive than traditional, for-profit media. According to the INN’s 2020 Diversity Index, roughly one in three nonprofit news employees is a person of color, as is one in five executives. “These younger organizations are diverse from the get-go,” the INN’s executive director, Sue Cross, told me.
These outlets’ strategies are also as diverse as their staffs. PushBlack, which reaches nine million readers exclusively through text messages and social media, runs campaigns on voter education and criminal justice reform in addition to its stories on Black news and history. MLK50 is a Tennessee-based investigative news organization founded in 2017 by the veteran reporter Wendi Thomas. In 2019, Thomas partnered with ProPublica on a series that led to the forgiveness of $11.9 million in hospital debts owed by low-income patients of Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare in Memphis.
Nonprofits are also still working to desegregate traditional newsrooms. The NABJ, for instance, hopes to turn up the pressure on pipelines for retention and promotion so that more journalists of color populate the ranks of top management, as well as the highest echelons of investigative and political reporters. At the entry level, Report for America trains and places emerging journalists in local newsrooms to cover underreported issues and communities. This year, it placed 226 reporters in 47 states, in a variety of outlets ranging from big-city newsrooms to digital-only start-ups. The organization also pays half of reporters’ salaries, enabling outlets to get coverage they otherwise couldn’t afford. “I like to think that I’m good enough to get hired,” says Obed Manuel, a Report for America corps member placed with The Dallas Morning News. “But I do believe that without the funding, I’m not sure the newspaper was looking to bring in another Hispanic issues reporter.” Manuel has since been hired full-time.
Nonprofits are still working to desegregate traditional newsrooms. The National Association of Black Journalists, for instance, hopes to turn up the pressure on pipelines for retention and promotion. Report for America trains and places emerging journalists in local newsrooms to cover underreported communities.
The emerging diversity ecosystem also has its share of for-profit outlets experimenting with new models for generating revenue. The Chicago-based Obsidian Collection, for instance, aims to launch a stock photo service composed exclusively of images licensed from Black legacy newspapers and photographers. The founder, Angela Ford, is currently working to digitize nine million images from the archives of Black newspapers across the country, including such storied outlets as her hometown’s Chicago Defender. She’s also working on a separate portal for Black photojournalists to upload and sell their work. “When we protest, when we celebrate, we want those images through the eyes of Black photo-journalists available to Black media,” she said. “This gives photojournalists a revenue stream and the Black media access to images in a timely manner they can afford.”
Despite the flurry of innovation, however, many new outlets are still financially fragile. A Borealis survey of 114 outlets led by and for people of color found that nearly four in five organizations have staffs of five or fewer and that one-third have experienced layoffs. Just 39 percent of outlets reported revenues of more than $100,000 (though one-fifth also declined to answer).
To preserve the progress made so far, the Ford Foundation, along with the Democracy Fund, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, and other partners, launched the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund in September 2019 with $6.1 million in initial commitments. Administered by Borealis, the fund distributed $2.3 million to 16 outlets in April 2020 led by and serving communities of color. It hopes to grow to $30 million over the next three years, according to cofounder Farai Chideya, a program officer at the Ford Foundation. The grantees include PushBlack, Sahan Journal, and MLK50; Black legacy outlets such as The New York Amsterdam News and The Atlanta Voice; organizations such as Buffalo’s Fire, which serves tribal communities in the Northern Great Plains; La Noticia, a Spanish-language outlet based in North Carolina; and WURD Radio, Pennsylvania’s only Black-owned commercial talk radio station. Many of these are helping keep local news alive in places where regional newspapers have collapsed.
One purpose of the REJ Fund is to help fix an imbalance in philanthropic funding for media initiatives led by people of color. According to a report by Chideya for the Ford Foundation, media outlets serving diverse communities received just 8 percent of journalism philanthropy funding granted between 2013 and 2017.
Given how much has already been achieved by outlets operating on a shoestring, the potential impact at scale could be transformative. “What I believe in this moment is that the field is being remade,” said the INN’s Sue Cross. “It’s up to us to make sure it doesn’t dissipate.”
Fifty years ago, the Kerner Commission concluded its report with a call to action, urging that “the painful process of readjustment that is required of the American news media must begin now.” What’s demanded, the commission continued, is “fair and courageous journalism—commitment and coverage that are worthy of one of the crucial domestic stories in America’s history.” Traditional media outlets have so far failed to live up to that charge, but the new wave of media reformers—led by and for people of color—could be the ones who make a truly equitable media a reality.


washingtonmonthly--2020-10-28--Pompeo and the Trump Crusade to Politicize the Federal Workforce

On Monday morning , Reps. Nita Lowey and Eliot Engel of New York , both Democrats , issued a press release accusing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of inappropriate political activity and made a promise .
“ Whether it ’ s before Secretary Pompeo ’ s departure or afterwards , ” the two wrote , “ the truth about this administration ’ s corruption will come out.
” Their statement referred to an investigation by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel ( OSC ) into possible Hatch Act violations , including Pompeo ’ s decision to deliver a speech from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his promise to publicly release emails to and from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton before Election Day .
The OSC shouldn ’ t be confused with Robert Mueller ’ s Special Counsel investigation that explored the Trump campaign ’ s connections to Russia during the 2016 campaign .
The OSC is a permanent government agency responsible for monitoring the merit system in federal employment , which it does by protecting whistleblowers and preventing politicization in hiring , retention , and promotion .
It ’ s a difficult mission in any administration and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It will become positively harrowing should the president win reelection and execute his plans to revamp the civil service in his image .
On October 22 , Trump issued an executive order which removes civil service protections from federal employees whose work involves “ confidential , policy-determining , policymaking , and policy-advocating positions , ” thereby making it possible to fire them without cause or the ability to appeal .
This caused the resignation of Ronald Sanders , a member of the Federal Salary Council , an advisory group in the executive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remain competitive with the private sector .
In his letter of resignation , Sanders described Trump ’ s order as “ nothing more than a smokescreen for what is clearly an attempt to require the political loyalty of those who advise the President , or failing that , to enable their removal with little if any due process.
” Enacted in 1939 , the Hatch Act limits the Executive Branch employees from engaging in partisan political activity .
The OSC guides federal workers on how to stay in compliance with the Act , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pressure to carry out partisan directives .
Once fully implemented , Trump ’ s new order would place “ policymakers ” outside the reach of the Hatch Act and the OSC ’ s protection .
As things stand , the president and vice-president are explicitly exempt from the Act , as are Senate-confirmed policy-making officers , like the Secretary of State .
Their staffs , however , are not exempt , which is why the OSC sent a letter to President Trump in June 2019 recommending that his adviser , Kellyanne Conway , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the president ’ s political opponents .
The OSC has no enforcement mechanism , but unlike Inspectors General , they can not be fired by the president .
This means they can be ignored but not silenced like State Department Inspector General Steve Linick who , the New York Times reported , was terminated in May after he began an investigation of Pompeo ’ s “ potential misuse of department resources and his effort to push arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
” Linick ’ s replacement , Stephen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ early August .
In practice , the Hatch Act is very much a real law for rank-and-file federal workers .
The OSC ’ s Merit System Protection Board disciplines and even terminates employees who violate the Act .
The statute has almost no effect against higher-ranking individuals like Conway , however , because department heads or the White House can refuse to enforce the OSC ’ s recommendations .
Secretary Pompeo has egregiously violated the spirit of the Hatch Act , and his staff may have broken the law in helping him plan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ department resources for partisan purposes .
As Lowey and Engel indicated in their press release , the State Department has defied congressional subpoenas by refusing to turn over the transcripts of partisan speeches Pompeo has delivered in the course of his official duties .
If there is a day of reckoning for Pompeo , it will come after his departure .
It will come after Lowey and Engel ’ s departures as well .
The 83-year-old Lowey is retiring after a 22-year congressional career that saw her become the first woman to chair @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , also elected in 1988 , was defeated by progressive primary challenger Jamaal Bowman earlier this year .
For a few more weeks , Engel , 73 , will chair the House Foreign Relation Committee , which oversees the State Department ’ s operations .
It will be up to his successor and Lowey ’ s to seek accountability and needed reforms .
The Trump administration defies oversight by ignoring Congressional subpoenas , firing internal watchdogs , and flouting OSC directives .
It ’ s now working to politicize the federal workforce .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ abuse of power will be exposed to sunlight .
Whether or not this results in criminal charges , it will begin a process of repair .
Lowey and Engel won ’ t directly participate in that process , but they ’ re right to note that the truth will eventually come out .
When it does , Congress will have to replace easily discarded norms with actual guardrails , and add penalties where laws already exist , so future administrations can not easily disregard the law .

On Monday morning, Reps. Nita Lowey and Eliot Engel of New York, both Democrats, issued a press release accusing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of inappropriate political activity and made a promise. “Whether it’s before Secretary Pompeo’s departure or afterwards,” the two wrote, “the truth about this administration’s corruption will come out.”
Their statement referred to an investigation by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) into possible Hatch Act violations, including Pompeo’s decision to deliver a speech from Jerusalem to the Republican National Convention and his promise to publicly release emails to and from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton before Election Day.
The OSC shouldn’t be confused with Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation that explored the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia during the 2016 campaign. The OSC is a permanent government agency responsible for monitoring the merit system in federal employment, which it does by protecting whistleblowers and preventing politicization in hiring, retention, and promotion.
It’s a difficult mission in any administration and especially this one, for obvious reasons. It will become positively harrowing should the president win reelection and execute his plans to revamp the civil service in his image. On October 22, Trump issued an executive order which removes civil service protections from federal employees whose work involves “confidential, policy-determining, policymaking, and policy-advocating positions,” thereby making it possible to fire them without cause or the ability to appeal. This caused the resignation of Ronald Sanders, a member of the Federal Salary Council, an advisory group in the executive branch which works to assure government salaries remain competitive with the private sector. In his letter of resignation, Sanders described Trump’s order as “nothing more than a smokescreen for what is clearly an attempt to require the political loyalty of those who advise the President, or failing that, to enable their removal with little if any due process.”
Enacted in 1939, the Hatch Act limits the Executive Branch employees from engaging in partisan political activity. The OSC guides federal workers on how to stay in compliance with the Act, but it also protects them from top-down pressure to carry out partisan directives.
Once fully implemented, Trump’s new order would place “policymakers” outside the reach of the Hatch Act and the OSC’s protection.
As things stand, the president and vice-president are explicitly exempt from the Act, as are Senate-confirmed policy-making officers, like the Secretary of State. Their staffs, however, are not exempt, which is why the OSC sent a letter to President Trump in June 2019 recommending that his adviser, Kellyanne Conway, be terminated for repeatedly taking shots at the president’s political opponents.
The OSC has no enforcement mechanism, but unlike Inspectors General, they cannot be fired by the president. This means they can be ignored but not silenced like State Department Inspector General Steve Linick who, the New York Times reported, was terminated in May after he began an investigation of Pompeo’s “potential misuse of department resources and his effort to push arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.” Linick’s replacement, Stephen Ackard, abruptly resigned without explanation in early August.
In practice, the Hatch Act is very much a real law for rank-and-file federal workers. The OSC’s Merit System Protection Board disciplines and even terminates employees who violate the Act. The statute has almost no effect against higher-ranking individuals like Conway, however, because department heads or the White House can refuse to enforce the OSC’s recommendations.
Secretary Pompeo has egregiously violated the spirit of the Hatch Act, and his staff may have broken the law in helping him plan and carry out partisan activities or use department resources for partisan purposes. As Lowey and Engel indicated in their press release, the State Department has defied congressional subpoenas by refusing to turn over the transcripts of partisan speeches Pompeo has delivered in the course of his official duties.
If there is a day of reckoning for Pompeo, it will come after his departure. It will come after Lowey and Engel’s departures as well. The 83-year-old Lowey is retiring after a 22-year congressional career that saw her become the first woman to chair the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Engel, also elected in 1988, was defeated by progressive primary challenger Jamaal Bowman earlier this year. For a few more weeks, Engel, 73, will chair the House Foreign Relation Committee, which oversees the State Department’s operations. It will be up to his successor and Lowey’s to seek accountability and needed reforms.
The Trump administration defies oversight by ignoring Congressional subpoenas, firing internal watchdogs, and flouting OSC directives. It’s now working to politicize the federal workforce. But under a Biden administration, this abuse of power will be exposed to sunlight. Whether or not this results in criminal charges, it will begin a process of repair.
Lowey and Engel won’t directly participate in that process, but they’re right to note that the truth will eventually come out. When it does, Congress will have to replace easily discarded norms with actual guardrails, and add penalties where laws already exist, so future administrations cannot easily disregard the law.


washingtonmonthly--2020-10-28--Whaddya know? Being Old Wound Up Being a Plus for Joe Biden

If Joe Biden wins ( and I still think there ’ s a real chance he won ’ t ) , one of the most surprising reasons , in my humble opinion , will be his age .
Pundits assume that Biden ’ s age has been a neutral to negative factor to his success .
I remember even moderate Democrats wishing there were someone with his same policy views but less cognitive decline .
But it ’ s turning out that Biden ’ s geezerhood has helped in a variety of ways .
HE TALKS BETTER .
Yes , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if you look at earlier Biden campaigns , he was both more fluid AND more verbose .
Sleepy Joe is actually much more effective than Yappy Joe .
That could just be a more disciplined campaign , but maybe he ’ s just too tired to talk more .
In all seriousness , Biden has slowed down but just to a normal and not a pathetic level ( usually ) .
He ’ s more concise and more repetitive — in an effective way .
HE IGNORED TWITTER .
During the primaries , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kamala Harris ) misread just how far to the left the party had moved , for instance , assuming that single-payer and legalized border crossings were the center of gravity .
Biden didn ’ t .
That ’ s helping him tremendously now .
Perhaps Biden ’ s advisors were especially conscious that the Twitter Left wasn ’ t the actual world .
But I bet it didn ’ t hurt that the candidate wasn ’ t perpetually barking out reactions to Tweets he ’ d just seen .
( Does Biden know @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has consistently had a better sense of what the political sweet spot was — for instance , during the primaries , it was Black Church Ladies in South Carolina more than it was Baristas in Brooklyn .
He fastened to a few big truths — that this is a fight for ‘ soul of America ’ and ‘ don ’ t forget the middle class.
’ At the time , he seemed like a pol from yesteryear mouthing platitudes .
Now it looks like brilliant message discipline .
HE ’ S SUFFERED MORE @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s suffering — and his graceful response — has made him more appealing .
This is often how aging works .
We might imagine that older folks have more wisdom because they ’ ve had more time to read Thich Nhat Hanh or Augustine .
But people often gain wisdom — or grace — because they ’ ve suffered more .
People see that in Biden .
NON-SENILE SENIORS SYMPATHIZE .
If Biden wins , it will be in part because he did better among seniors than Hillary did .
Now being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ll win over older voters .
It doesn ’ t work that way .
But something special happened this year .
Trump made Biden ’ s cognitive decline a key issue in the campaign , implying that he ’ s senile .
Here ’ s the reality that neither side has been willing to say : yes , of course , Biden has declined cognitively .
He ’ s seventy-frickin ’ -seven !
But that ’ s not the same as being senile .
Biden has shown that as we age , what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than made up for by the improvement of other traits — patience , wisdom , forgiveness , steadfastness .
Biden is a poster child for old men .
Of course , the bigger reason Biden is winning over seniors probably is COVID , but I do wonder whether there are elderly voters out there who resent Trump ’ s conflation of being old with being useless .
LOVE OF BIPARTISANSHIP .
One of the main lessons Biden seems to have taken from his decades in politics is the love of bipartisanship .
Almost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hate this about Biden .
Progressive thought this made him a dupe or neoliberal neocolonialist .
Trump activists don ’ t want to be bipartisan with Dems anyway .
It seemed to be an entirely foolish , out of date message .
And yet I suspect that this helped Biden quite a bit — both in permitting the Never Trumpers to fully join the campaign and in evoking an image of a less mean , less contentious future .
Obviously , if he wins , there will be many other factors that contributed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sadly possibly being one of them ) .
And , to be sure , being old would not have worked the same way with other candidates .
Seventy-one-year old Elizabeth Warren , for instance , would always have been perceived as too woke rather than insufficiently awake .
And if Biden loses , we ’ ll find plenty of age-related reasons .
But for now , it seems that Biden has aged well .
And — to use a phrase that was once seemed terrifying and now seems adorable – that ’ s @ @ @

If Joe Biden wins (and I still think there’s a real chance he won’t), one of the most surprising reasons, in my humble opinion, will be his age. Pundits assume that Biden’s age has been a neutral to negative factor to his success. I remember even moderate Democrats wishing there were someone with his same policy views but less cognitive decline. But it’s turning out that Biden’s geezerhood has helped in a variety of ways.
HE TALKS BETTER. Yes, Biden has lost a step, but if you look at earlier Biden campaigns, he was both more fluid AND more verbose. Sleepy Joe is actually much more effective than Yappy Joe. That could just be a more disciplined campaign, but maybe he’s just too tired to talk more. In all seriousness, Biden has slowed down but just to a normal and not a pathetic level (usually). He’s more concise and more repetitive — in an effective way.
HE IGNORED TWITTER. During the primaries, the younger, hipper candidates (like Kamala Harris) misread just how far to the left the party had moved, for instance, assuming that single-payer and legalized border crossings were the center of gravity. Biden didn’t. That’s helping him tremendously now. Perhaps Biden’s advisors were especially conscious that the Twitter Left wasn’t the actual world. But I bet it didn’t hurt that the candidate wasn’t perpetually barking out reactions to Tweets he’d just seen. (Does Biden know how to use Twitter?) He has consistently had a better sense of what the political sweet spot was — for instance, during the primaries, it was Black Church Ladies in South Carolina more than it was Baristas in Brooklyn. He fastened to a few big truths — that this is a fight for ‘soul of America’ and ‘don’t forget the middle class.’ At the time, he seemed like a pol from yesteryear mouthing platitudes. Now it looks like brilliant message discipline.
HE’S SUFFERED MORE. Not to be morbid but Biden’s suffering — and his graceful response — has made him more appealing. This is often how aging works. We might imagine that older folks have more wisdom because they’ve had more time to read Thich Nhat Hanh or Augustine. But people often gain wisdom — or grace — because they’ve suffered more. People see that in Biden.
NON-SENILE SENIORS SYMPATHIZE. If Biden wins, it will be in part because he did better among seniors than Hillary did. Now being old doesn’t mean you’ll win over older voters. It doesn’t work that way. But something special happened this year. Trump made Biden’s cognitive decline a key issue in the campaign, implying that he’s senile. Here’s the reality that neither side has been willing to say: yes, of course, Biden has declined cognitively. He’s seventy-frickin’-seven! But that’s not the same as being senile. Biden has shown that as we age, what we will lose cognitively may be more than made up for by the improvement of other traits — patience, wisdom, forgiveness, steadfastness. Biden is a poster child for old men. Of course, the bigger reason Biden is winning over seniors probably is COVID, but I do wonder whether there are elderly voters out there who resent Trump’s conflation of being old with being useless.
LOVE OF BIPARTISANSHIP. One of the main lessons Biden seems to have taken from his decades in politics is the love of bipartisanship. Almost everyone in the political class seemed to hate this about Biden. Progressive thought this made him a dupe or neoliberal neocolonialist. Trump activists don’t want to be bipartisan with Dems anyway. It seemed to be an entirely foolish, out of date message. And yet I suspect that this helped Biden quite a bit — both in permitting the Never Trumpers to fully join the campaign and in evoking an image of a less mean, less contentious future.
Obviously, if he wins, there will be many other factors that contributed (being white and being a male sadly possibly being one of them). And, to be sure, being old would not have worked the same way with other candidates. Seventy-one-year old Elizabeth Warren, for instance, would always have been perceived as too woke rather than insufficiently awake. And if Biden loses, we’ll find plenty of age-related reasons. But for now, it seems that Biden has aged well. And — to use a phrase that was once seemed terrifying and now seems adorable – that’s no malarkey.


washingtonmonthly--2020-10-29--The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Malick

The debut issue of Liberties , the new journal edited by Leon Wieseltier , * carries an essay by the contrarian film critic David Thomson arguing that A Hidden Life , the 2019 Terrence Malick film that nobody I know ever saw , ranks among Malick ’ s masterpieces Badlands , Days of Heaven and ( here I quarrel with Thomson ’ s judgment ) The Thin Red Line .
It was , Thomson argues , the greatest film of 2019 .
So last night I watched it .
Days of Heaven is one of the most deeply affecting films @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an aesthetic all its own that , to my mind , Malick has never recaptured .
All the hallmarks of Malick ’ s subsequent style are there : inarticulate protagonists dwarfed by larger forces they understand only dimly ; painterly beauty in every frame ; a hauntingly lush musical score drawing from the classical repertoire ( in this case , the “ Aquarium ” movement in Camille Saint-Saëns ’ “ Carnival of the Animals ” ) ; an exquisite sensitivity to nature ; a powerful but inscrutable blending of pantheist and Christian motifs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ performances , more on gesture than on dialog ; and banal narration to carry a spare plot forward .
It ’ s a difficult aesthetic to enjoy if you care about words .
Malick got me over that hump in Badlands and Days of Heaven by rendering the narration quite deliberately naive , expressed by children in a vocabulary of tabloid cliches of which they were touchingly unaware .
As in a Coen brothers film , this created satirical distance .
I never got with the program after Days of Heaven because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were asked to take the banal narration and interior monologues at face value , and I just couldn ’ t do that .
It wasn ’ t that Malick couldn ’ t write dialog ; in , for example , Nick Nolte ’ s masterful fog-of-war scene yelling angrily into a field telephone in The Thin Red Line , or in some of Brad Pitt ’ s powerful bullying scenes in The Tree of Life , he showed that he could .
He just preferred not to .
Thomson notes in his Liberties @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Tree of Life drifted further from human speech and the whole idea of narrative .
I gave up after the solipsistic To The Wonder .
A Hidden Life , Thomson argued , was a return to form .
Certainly , it ’ s a return to a more readily identifiable theme—in this instance , the profound mystery of martyrdom .
Saints are , as George Orwell famously noted , problematic figures , and they ’ re especially hard to dramatize .
Bernard Shaw succeeded in Saint Joan by rendering his heroine appealingly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interaction and played much of the resultant misunderstanding as comedy .
In A Hidden Life , Malick ’ s saint is Franz Jägerstätter , a real-life farmer in the Austrian alps who refused to pledge allegiance to Hitler and was executed as a result .
( He was beatified by the Catholic Church in 2007 . )
Unlike Joan , Malick ’ s Jägerstätter is aware that he ’ s a weirdo .
He knows he ’ s condemning himself to death with his actions , and , and that , apart from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ extends , he ’ s entirely alone .
Even the priests Jägerstätter consults advise him to betray Christian principles and align himself with evil .
In Malick ’ s telling , they aren ’ t unreasonable .
They ’ re human , and they want to live .
It isn ’ t normal to think otherwise .
Malick applies his usual technique of obliterating dialog and rendering his characters ’ thoughts mostly through banal interior monologue .
But in A Hidden Life these spare and unsophisticated words address questions so big that most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ age of 14 .
At least some of them surfaced in Malick ’ s earlier films , but here they appear in capital letters .
WHY DOES GOD PERMIT SUFFERING ?
IF HE EXISTS , DOES HE CARE ABOUT US AT ALL ?
WHY TAKE THE RIGHTEOUS PATH IF IT WON ’ T CHANGE THE OUTCOME ?
IS THERE SOME INTANGIBLE WAY THAT UNRECOGNIZED SACRIFICE BENEFITS LATER GENERATIONS ?
( The film ’ s title alludes to George Eliot ’ s observation that “ the growing good of the world is partly dependent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are not so ill with you and me as they might have been , is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs.
” ) Even more than in his other films , Malick shows his characters through the wrong end of the telescope .
They ’ re tiny , in this case literally dwarfed by snow-capped mountains above bright green fields , and they ’ re nearly as mute as the landscape .
Things happen to them , but what they think or say @ @ @ @ @ @ @ What matters is how they feel , which is expressed not in what they say ( especially when angry , they often speak German with no subtitles ) but in how they look against the backdrop of the natural world .
I ’ ve been to the Austrian Alps , and they appear godly even to a confirmed atheist like myself .
They ’ re also more saturated in Catholic devotion than any place I ’ ve ever been , including the Vatican .
You can ’ t walk five steps without tripping @ @ @ @ @ @ @ barns have crucifixes hanging on them as if someone were trying to convert the cows and pigs .
It takes an act of will to remember that it was in this overpoweringly beautiful and pious place that , in 1945 , Hermann Goering was taken prisoner by the 636th Tank Destroyer Battalion .
A Hidden Life is Malick ’ s most ambitious attempt yet to tell a human story through the sights and sounds of mountains and streams and animals , alive and dead , and rustic dwellings blended skillfully with lush symphonic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Stanley Kubrick ’ s Barry Lyndon , another film that was all sights and sounds , and which Pauline Kael dismissed memorably as a “ coffee table movie.
” But I don ’ t remember Kubrick using his painterly tableaux to demonstrate that God is all around you , if you ’ d only open your eyes .
A Hidden Life really is rapturously beautiful , and I wasn ’ t bored .
But in essence it ’ s a silent movie with sound .
Malick acknowledges that in startlingly literal fashion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ military prison yard in Berlin , where etched on the prison wall are the words , “ Sprechen verboten.
” There can be no more succinct description of Malick ’ s filmmaking philosophy .
He doesn ’ t want to make talkies .
He is perhaps the last of the great silent filmmakers .
I don ’ t know what to think of the result .
I tried to watch A Hidden Life with Thomson ’ s eyes , and to open my mind up to the idea that God is love and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also cruelty and suffering and horror .
I think Malick succeeds in communicating these things .
But he ’ s asking me to banish words entirely and to imbibe his film through my senses , and I ’ m not sure that ’ s enough .
I ’ ve never had a metaphysical bone in my body , so perhaps I ’ m not the best to judge .
But I ’ m glad Thomson nudged me to watch .
*Leon , a former colleague at the New Republic , was exposed three @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suffered public humiliation and appropriate condemnation , including from me , as a result .
He also suffered the loss of his livelihood .
Now he ’ s re-emerging from exile .
We can all debate whether he ’ s paid sufficiently his debt to society .
I believe he has .
Meanwhile , this first issue of Liberties deserves to be judged on its merits , and I think it ’ s quite good .
We now resume discussion of the topic at hand .

The debut issue of Liberties, the new journal edited by Leon Wieseltier,* carries an essay by the contrarian film critic David Thomson arguing that A Hidden Life, the 2019 Terrence Malick film that nobody I know ever saw, ranks among Malick’s masterpieces Badlands, Days of Heaven and (here I quarrel with Thomson’s judgment) The Thin Red Line. It was, Thomson argues, the greatest film of 2019. So last night I watched it.
Days of Heaven is one of the most deeply affecting films I’ve ever seen, with an aesthetic all its own that, to my mind, Malick has never recaptured. All the hallmarks of Malick’s subsequent style are there: inarticulate protagonists dwarfed by larger forces they understand only dimly; painterly beauty in every frame; a hauntingly lush musical score drawing from the classical repertoire (in this case, the “Aquarium” movement in Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Carnival of the Animals”); an exquisite sensitivity to nature; a powerful but inscrutable blending of pantheist and Christian motifs; an emphasis, in the actors’ performances, more on gesture than on dialog; and banal narration to carry a spare plot forward.
It’s a difficult aesthetic to enjoy if you care about words. Malick got me over that hump in Badlands and Days of Heaven by rendering the narration quite deliberately naive, expressed by children in a vocabulary of tabloid cliches of which they were touchingly unaware. As in a Coen brothers film, this created satirical distance.
I never got with the program after Days of Heaven because in Malick’s subsequent films we were asked to take the banal narration and interior monologues at face value, and I just couldn’t do that. It wasn’t that Malick couldn’t write dialog; in, for example, Nick Nolte’s masterful fog-of-war scene yelling angrily into a field telephone in The Thin Red Line, or in some of Brad Pitt’s powerful bullying scenes in The Tree of Life, he showed that he could. He just preferred not to.
Thomson notes in his Liberties essay that Malick’s films after The Tree of Life drifted further from human speech and the whole idea of narrative. I gave up after the solipsistic To The Wonder. A Hidden Life, Thomson argued, was a return to form. Certainly, it’s a return to a more readily identifiable theme—in this instance, the profound mystery of martyrdom.
Saints are, as George Orwell famously noted, problematic figures, and they’re especially hard to dramatize. Bernard Shaw succeeded in Saint Joan by rendering his heroine appealingly oblivious to the duplicities of ordinary human interaction and played much of the resultant misunderstanding as comedy. In A Hidden Life, Malick’s saint is Franz Jägerstätter, a real-life farmer in the Austrian alps who refused to pledge allegiance to Hitler and was executed as a result. (He was beatified by the Catholic Church in 2007.) Unlike Joan, Malick’s Jägerstätter is aware that he’s a weirdo. He knows he’s condemning himself to death with his actions, and, and that, apart from the unconditional love that his uncomprehending wife extends, he’s entirely alone. Even the priests Jägerstätter consults advise him to betray Christian principles and align himself with evil. In Malick’s telling, they aren’t unreasonable. They’re human, and they want to live. It isn’t normal to think otherwise.
Malick applies his usual technique of obliterating dialog and rendering his characters’ thoughts mostly through banal interior monologue. But in A Hidden Life these spare and unsophisticated words address questions so big that most of us seldom consider them past the age of 14. At least some of them surfaced in Malick’s earlier films, but here they appear in capital letters. WHY DOES GOD PERMIT SUFFERING? IF HE EXISTS, DOES HE CARE ABOUT US AT ALL? WHY TAKE THE RIGHTEOUS PATH IF IT WON’T CHANGE THE OUTCOME? IS THERE SOME INTANGIBLE WAY THAT UNRECOGNIZED SACRIFICE BENEFITS LATER GENERATIONS? (The film’s title alludes to George Eliot’s observation that “the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs.”)
Even more than in his other films, Malick shows his characters through the wrong end of the telescope. They’re tiny, in this case literally dwarfed by snow-capped mountains above bright green fields, and they’re nearly as mute as the landscape. Things happen to them, but what they think or say about them doesn’t matter. What matters is how they feel, which is expressed not in what they say (especially when angry, they often speak German with no subtitles) but in how they look against the backdrop of the natural world.
I’ve been to the Austrian Alps, and they appear godly even to a confirmed atheist like myself. They’re also more saturated in Catholic devotion than any place I’ve ever been, including the Vatican. You can’t walk five steps without tripping over a rustic shrine. Even the barns have crucifixes hanging on them as if someone were trying to convert the cows and pigs. It takes an act of will to remember that it was in this overpoweringly beautiful and pious place that, in 1945, Hermann Goering was taken prisoner by the 636th Tank Destroyer Battalion.
A Hidden Life is Malick’s most ambitious attempt yet to tell a human story through the sights and sounds of mountains and streams and animals, alive and dead, and rustic dwellings blended skillfully with lush symphonic music. It reminded me a bit of Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, another film that was all sights and sounds, and which Pauline Kael dismissed memorably as a “coffee table movie.” But I don’t remember Kubrick using his painterly tableaux to demonstrate that God is all around you, if you’d only open your eyes.
A Hidden Life really is rapturously beautiful, and I wasn’t bored. But in essence it’s a silent movie with sound. Malick acknowledges that in startlingly literal fashion in scenes that take place in a military prison yard in Berlin, where etched on the prison wall are the words, “Sprechen verboten.” There can be no more succinct description of Malick’s filmmaking philosophy. He doesn’t want to make talkies. He is perhaps the last of the great silent filmmakers.
I don’t know what to think of the result. I tried to watch A Hidden Life with Thomson’s eyes, and to open my mind up to the idea that God is love and beauty and standing up for principle and also cruelty and suffering and horror. I think Malick succeeds in communicating these things. But he’s asking me to banish words entirely and to imbibe his film through my senses, and I’m not sure that’s enough. I’ve never had a metaphysical bone in my body, so perhaps I’m not the best to judge. But I’m glad Thomson nudged me to watch.
___________________________________________________________________________
*Leon, a former colleague at the New Republic, was exposed three years ago as a sexual harasser and suffered public humiliation and appropriate condemnation, including from me, as a result. He also suffered the loss of his livelihood. Now he’s re-emerging from exile. We can all debate whether he’s paid sufficiently his debt to society. I believe he has. Meanwhile, this first issue of Liberties deserves to be judged on its merits, and I think it’s quite good. We now resume discussion of the topic at hand.


washingtonmonthly--2020-10-29--What Happens to Students Who Were Already Behind?

Candace Spencer , a literacy tutor in Washington , D.C. , logs onto her computer each weekday morning , opens recording software , smiles at the camera , and begins sounding out phonetics .
The response is silence ; in fact , there ’ s no one on the other end at all .
“ Mentally , you picture your student in your head , ” said Spencer , who works for The Literacy Lab , a non-profit focused on tutoring low-income students .
“ Maybe even some of the things that they would say in return.
” Before the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the organization ’ s partner schools every morning to tutor kids one-on-one all day .
Now , she pre-records literacy lessons for more than fifteen K-3 students .
Spencer conducts live virtual sessions too , but the recorded videos are crucial ; many of her students have parents who work two jobs , and the video lessons can be viewed whenever fits the family schedule .
“ The students that are going to fare best throughout all of this are coming from households that have access to a lot of learning resources @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Literacy Lab ’ s D.C. regional director .
Most parents can ’ t afford the private tutors or live-in nannies that affluent families are splashing out for .
But that means that many of the students most in need are being left behind .
NWEA , an education non-profit focused on learning assessments , estimated that reading gains would drop by 30 percent after about a semester of remote-only learning .
According to an AP analysis of U.S. Census data , about one in five schoolchildren in D.C. live in households without internet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ computer in their household , making it the worst in the nation for student technology access .
The students who need literacy tutoring the most often lack the resources to learn remotely .
The long-term consequences could be stark .
Poor literacy keeps people from graduating from high school and prevents them from studying at college .
As many as 43 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills , according to a 2019 report from the National Center for Education Statistics .
This cohort suffers a raft of ostracizing repercussions—from low-confidence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ low literacy are over-represented within incarcerated populations and among those receiving public assistance .
Many literacy tutoring organizations follow a similar model : tutors design weekly , individualized lessons for students who are behind their grade level in reading and comprehension .
Tutors often meet with students at their schools and work with them until they are back on track .
With many schools transitioning to virtual teaching , the in-person tutoring so important for building a rapport with students has become infeasible .
Tutors spoke of the “ terrifying ” divide between @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ These kids were behind to begin with , so you could be talking about a year ’ s slide in some cases , ” said Lois Fingerhut , board chair and tutor at Reading Partners D.C. “ It ’ s horrifying to me.
” Yet resourceful tutors are finding ways to keep their students learning .
By developing virtual teaching techniques and adapting to new platforms , literacy tutors can coach the next generation of readers .
The good news is , it seems to be working for the kids who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , not many do .
Some of the technical innovations for literacy tutoring during the pandemic have taken place in New York City , the one-time epicenter of the virus .
When Katherine Stahl got notice from New York University she would have to close the NYU Literacy Clinic , which she leads , she was thankful the directive came on March 12 , the day before spring break .
Her tutors are members of NYU ’ s Literacy Specialist master ’ s program , and , through the clinic , they teach @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reading needs for free every spring semester .
Traditionally , each student would come to Washington Square Park for hour-long sessions twice a week .
But this spring , the typical gains of 1-1.5 reading years during the semester of coaching felt impossible .
Stahl and her tutors spent spring break pivoting to online learning—calling parents , designing PowerPoints , diagramming on whiteboards , photographing book pages , sourcing and arranging various technologies , troubleshooting buggy apps , and crafting Zoom backgrounds .
It was worth it .
For many of these children @ @ @ @ @ @ @ instruction they were getting—period—was the hour of tutoring from us.
” One of the first things third-graders saw when they logged onto a lesson with Skye Russell , a tutor at NYU Literacy Clinic last semester , was a roadmap of the lesson decorated with cheerful photographs of rabbits .
Then , students might move onto some animal-themed exercise passages : “ Stinky Skunks , Millipedes and Beetles , ” or “ Smelly Goo Helps Opossums Play Dead.
” Attention is a scarce commodity over video call ; Russell often caught students ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sometimes students have a harder time focusing or , you know , maybe they ’ re hungry , ” she said .
The trick is to gamify the teaching .
Russell might cycle through nine activities in an hour , broken up by quick phonetics games .
The aim is to teach children the tools to decipher the words for themselves .
Without literacy , it ’ s difficult to be an active citizen .
“ Literacy permeates everything .
We read a lot in a day—whether it ’ s street signs or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Language is so powerful .
Not only in reading , but in feeling like we can express ourselves and represent ourselves.
” Utilizing new digital teaching methods has been critical .
Russell ’ s fiancé , a software engineer , helped her design an interactive portal for two-way phonetics activities , allowing Russell to simultaneously video chat and play interactive word games like jeopardy or bingo .
“ I will be using this when and if I go back in person , ” said Russell , who adapts every lesson based on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic has threatened the progress of adult literacy learners , too .
“ Not everybody even has internet , or has a computer , or knows how to use those things , ” said Amy Goodman , executive director of Washtenaw Literacy , a non-profit in Michigan offering tutoring for adults .
Around 90 percent of learners who come to the organization live below the poverty line , Goodman explained .
Some are native English speakers who never learned to read ; others are learning English as a second language .
Goodman ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work with whatever technology the learner has access to .
“ In some cases that ’ s a cell phone , in some cases that ’ s WhatsApp , in some cases that ’ s—God bless it—U.S .
mail , ” she said .
Goodman ’ s organization developed technology training sessions to bridge the digital skills divide .
“ Anything from ‘ What is a mouse ?
’ to ‘ How do I use my cell phone for Zoom ?
’ ” Like many literacy tutoring non-profits across the country , Reading @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aid virtual tutoring .
The organization offers free instruction for students in under-resourced schools , 79 percent of whom are low-income , and 90 percent of whom are students of color .
The hope is that remote learning innovations , with the right investment , could enable tutors to coach more kids with fewer resources— “ to expand our reach and work quickly to close the literacy divide , ” said Shukurat Adamoh-Faniyan , executive director of Reading Partners D.C .
But that dream is a long way off .
At the end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a celebration event at NYU for the students , who bring along parents , grandparents , and siblings to celebrate their achievements with pizza and lemonade .
Coinciding with national poetry month , the party is an opportunity for the children to show off their new reading skills , reciting poems from writers including Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky .
This April , the party went ahead virtually .
Stahl was delighted to share the news that—against the odds—the class had gained , on average , 1.5 reading years from the semester of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rigorous exit assessment .
Every student achieved at least a year of growth , the same as last year .
“ I was shocked , ” she told me .
The final poem of the celebration was read by a fourth-grade boy who , over the last two years , had struggled with text comprehension .
His mother had called Stahl crying , desperate for support .
After the semester of virtual tutoring , he ’ d not only chosen an adult-level poem , Maya Angelou ’ s “ Life Doesn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the courage to read it in front of everyone .
He started to read : “ Shadows on the wall / Noises down the hall / Life doesn ’ t frighten me at all / Bad dogs barking loud / Big ghosts in a cloud / Life doesn ’ t frighten me at all… ” Several parents and tutors teared up hearing him read with ease .
Stahl got emotional too .
“ What a perfect poem for the pandemic , ” she thought .
For Russell , it was evidence all their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But these students are the lucky ones .
The country is not even close to universal student access to laptops and broadband .
For cities , investing in broadband infrastructure tends to be cost effective so it usually gets the green light , said Morgan Ames , assistant adjunct professor at the University of California , Berkeley , who studies technological inequality .
Expanding broadband to more rural areas requires a change in thinking .
“ There would have to be a pretty major tone shift in the very market-oriented approach the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Ames told me .
Broadband should be treated as a public good , like landlines or the postal service , she said .
In July , the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives passed the Moving Forward Act , which includes $ 100 billion to expand broadband access in underserved and low-income areas .
Still , it ’ s unlikely to pass the Senate if it remains Republican-controlled .
Local policies that could close the digital divide include public library or school technology-lending programs—enacted in Goodman ’ s district in Michigan and funded by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in schools and more one-on-one literacy tutoring .
“ It only works if students have access to reliable technology , reliable internet access , ” said Jade Okunlola , senior program manager at Reading Partners D.C .
Many low-income readers are at risk of being left behind if technology isn ’ t in their hands this year .
“ The students that we work with , they absolutely need intervention .
”

Candace Spencer, a literacy tutor in Washington, D.C., logs onto her computer each weekday morning, opens recording software, smiles at the camera, and begins sounding out phonetics. The response is silence; in fact, there’s no one on the other end at all.
“Mentally, you picture your student in your head,” said Spencer, who works for The Literacy Lab, a non-profit focused on tutoring low-income students. “Maybe even some of the things that they would say in return.”
Before the pandemic, Spencer would arrive at one of the organization’s partner schools every morning to tutor kids one-on-one all day. Now, she pre-records literacy lessons for more than fifteen K-3 students. Spencer conducts live virtual sessions too, but the recorded videos are crucial; many of her students have parents who work two jobs, and the video lessons can be viewed whenever fits the family schedule.
“The students that are going to fare best throughout all of this are coming from households that have access to a lot of learning resources,” said Sarah Rose Dorton, Literacy Lab’s D.C. regional director. Most parents can’t afford the private tutors or live-in nannies that affluent families are splashing out for.
But that means that many of the students most in need are being left behind. NWEA, an education non-profit focused on learning assessments, estimated that reading gains would drop by 30 percent after about a semester of remote-only learning. According to an AP analysis of U.S. Census data, about one in five schoolchildren in D.C. live in households without internet access. Almost 30 percent lack a computer in their household, making it the worst in the nation for student technology access. The students who need literacy tutoring the most often lack the resources to learn remotely.
The long-term consequences could be stark. Poor literacy keeps people from graduating from high school and prevents them from studying at college. As many as 43 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills, according to a 2019 report from the National Center for Education Statistics. This cohort suffers a raft of ostracizing repercussions—from low-confidence to difficulty finding work. Adults with low literacy are over-represented within incarcerated populations and among those receiving public assistance.
Many literacy tutoring organizations follow a similar model: tutors design weekly, individualized lessons for students who are behind their grade level in reading and comprehension. Tutors often meet with students at their schools and work with them until they are back on track. With many schools transitioning to virtual teaching, the in-person tutoring so important for building a rapport with students has become infeasible. Tutors spoke of the “terrifying” divide between those with and without access to technology. “These kids were behind to begin with, so you could be talking about a year’s slide in some cases,” said Lois Fingerhut, board chair and tutor at Reading Partners D.C. “It’s horrifying to me.”
Yet resourceful tutors are finding ways to keep their students learning. By developing virtual teaching techniques and adapting to new platforms, literacy tutors can coach the next generation of readers.
The good news is, it seems to be working for the kids who get it. The bad news is, not many do.
Some of the technical innovations for literacy tutoring during the pandemic have taken place in New York City, the one-time epicenter of the virus. When Katherine Stahl got notice from New York University she would have to close the NYU Literacy Clinic, which she leads, she was thankful the directive came on March 12, the day before spring break. Her tutors are members of NYU’s Literacy Specialist master’s program, and, through the clinic, they teach between six and ten children with complex reading needs for free every spring semester. Traditionally, each student would come to Washington Square Park for hour-long sessions twice a week. But this spring, the typical gains of 1-1.5 reading years during the semester of coaching felt impossible.
Stahl and her tutors spent spring break pivoting to online learning—calling parents, designing PowerPoints, diagramming on whiteboards, photographing book pages, sourcing and arranging various technologies, troubleshooting buggy apps, and crafting Zoom backgrounds. It was worth it. For many of these children, Stahl said, “the only instruction they were getting—period—was the hour of tutoring from us.”
One of the first things third-graders saw when they logged onto a lesson with Skye Russell, a tutor at NYU Literacy Clinic last semester, was a roadmap of the lesson decorated with cheerful photographs of rabbits. Then, students might move onto some animal-themed exercise passages: “Stinky Skunks, Millipedes and Beetles,” or “Smelly Goo Helps Opossums Play Dead.” Attention is a scarce commodity over video call; Russell often caught students’ eyes wandering off the screen.
“Sometimes students have a harder time focusing or, you know, maybe they’re hungry,” she said. The trick is to gamify the teaching. Russell might cycle through nine activities in an hour, broken up by quick phonetics games. The aim is to teach children the tools to decipher the words for themselves.
Without literacy, it’s difficult to be an active citizen. “Literacy permeates everything. We read a lot in a day—whether it’s street signs or menus,” said Russell. “Language is so powerful. Not only in reading, but in feeling like we can express ourselves and represent ourselves.”
Utilizing new digital teaching methods has been critical. Russell’s fiancé, a software engineer, helped her design an interactive portal for two-way phonetics activities, allowing Russell to simultaneously video chat and play interactive word games like jeopardy or bingo. “I will be using this when and if I go back in person,” said Russell, who adapts every lesson based on the child’s technology access.
The pandemic has threatened the progress of adult literacy learners, too. “Not everybody even has internet, or has a computer, or knows how to use those things,” said Amy Goodman, executive director of Washtenaw Literacy, a non-profit in Michigan offering tutoring for adults. Around 90 percent of learners who come to the organization live below the poverty line, Goodman explained. Some are native English speakers who never learned to read; others are learning English as a second language.
Goodman’s lessons look different now. Tutors work with whatever technology the learner has access to. “In some cases that’s a cell phone, in some cases that’s WhatsApp, in some cases that’s—God bless it—U.S. mail,” she said. Goodman’s organization developed technology training sessions to bridge the digital skills divide. “Anything from ‘What is a mouse?’ to ‘How do I use my cell phone for Zoom?’”
Like many literacy tutoring non-profits across the country, Reading Partners D.C. fast-tracked new digital resources to aid virtual tutoring. The organization offers free instruction for students in under-resourced schools, 79 percent of whom are low-income, and 90 percent of whom are students of color. The hope is that remote learning innovations, with the right investment, could enable tutors to coach more kids with fewer resources—“to expand our reach and work quickly to close the literacy divide,” said Shukurat Adamoh-Faniyan, executive director of Reading Partners D.C. But that dream is a long way off.
At the end of the semester, Stahl usually hosts a celebration event at NYU for the students, who bring along parents, grandparents, and siblings to celebrate their achievements with pizza and lemonade. Coinciding with national poetry month, the party is an opportunity for the children to show off their new reading skills, reciting poems from writers including Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky.
This April, the party went ahead virtually. Stahl was delighted to share the news that—against the odds—the class had gained, on average, 1.5 reading years from the semester of online tutoring, as measured by a rigorous exit assessment. Every student achieved at least a year of growth, the same as last year. “I was shocked,” she told me.
The final poem of the celebration was read by a fourth-grade boy who, over the last two years, had struggled with text comprehension. His mother had called Stahl crying, desperate for support.
After the semester of virtual tutoring, he’d not only chosen an adult-level poem, Maya Angelou’s “Life Doesn’t Frighten Me,” but he had the courage to read it in front of everyone.
He started to read: “Shadows on the wall / Noises down the hall / Life doesn’t frighten me at all / Bad dogs barking loud / Big ghosts in a cloud / Life doesn’t frighten me at all…”
Several parents and tutors teared up hearing him read with ease. Stahl got emotional too. “What a perfect poem for the pandemic,” she thought. For Russell, it was evidence all their virtual planning and teaching had paid off.
But these students are the lucky ones. The country is not even close to universal student access to laptops and broadband. For cities, investing in broadband infrastructure tends to be cost effective so it usually gets the green light, said Morgan Ames, assistant adjunct professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies technological inequality. Expanding broadband to more rural areas requires a change in thinking. “There would have to be a pretty major tone shift in the very market-oriented approach the U.S. generally takes towards necessary infrastructure,” Ames told me. Broadband should be treated as a public good, like landlines or the postal service, she said. In July, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives passed the Moving Forward Act, which includes $100 billion to expand broadband access in underserved and low-income areas. Still, it’s unlikely to pass the Senate if it remains Republican-controlled.
Local policies that could close the digital divide include public library or school technology-lending programs—enacted in Goodman’s district in Michigan and funded by the CARES Act—as well digital skills training in schools and more one-on-one literacy tutoring.
“It only works if students have access to reliable technology, reliable internet access,” said Jade Okunlola, senior program manager at Reading Partners D.C. Many low-income readers are at risk of being left behind if technology isn’t in their hands this year. “The students that we work with, they absolutely need intervention.”


washingtonmonthly--2020-10-29--Mayo Clinic Takes a Stand On Trump’s Minnesota Rally

Donald Trump has scheduled one of his superspreader campaign rallies at the airport in Rochester , MN late Friday afternoon .
The last time he visited the state was just days before it was announced that he had contracted COVID-19 .
We now know that 15 people were infected as a result of his stops in Bemidji and Duluth .
Like many other states , Minnesota has experienced a spike in the number of COVID cases , hospitalizations , and deaths over the last couple of weeks .
State guidelines imposed by Democratic Gov .
Tim Walz mandate the wearing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crowds to no more than 250 socially distanced people .
Rochester , the city Trump will visit , is home to the famed Mayo Clinic .
A town filled with health care workers and patients with underlying conditions is especially vulnerable to spreader events .
All of that explains why an inherently conservative institution like the Mayo Clinic issued a statement to those who might be planning to attend the Trump rally .
Not only did the clinic support the state ’ s guidelines , affirming that they were “ put in place @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and protect the public ’ s health , ” it warned that “ community members who choose to attend a large event that exceeds recommended guidelines should contact their healthcare provider and be evaluated for possible COVID-19 testing.
” In many ways , the Mayo Clinic is Dr. Anthony Fauci writ large .
It has scrupulously avoided partisan politics .
But their entire organization is based on an embrace of medical science .
The political party that has rejected science and , in doing so , threatened the health of their employees and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mayo Clinic to take a stand—just like the New England Journal of Medicine , which declared that the Trump administration has “ taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy.
” Gov .
Walz , who previously represented the district that includes the city of Rochester , weighed in on the superspreader event by saying that “ these large rallies that are unmasked with elected officials going , I just have to be candid , they are incredibly unhelpful…If you need to hear them speak , just Google it .
Watch it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s get through this.
” No respectable politician in Minnesota wants to find themselves at odds with the Mayo Clinic .
But of course , Trump has never been one to worry about respectability .

Donald Trump has scheduled one of his superspreader campaign rallies at the airport in Rochester, MN late Friday afternoon. The last time he visited the state was just days before it was announced that he had contracted COVID-19. We now know that 15 people were infected as a result of his stops in Bemidji and Duluth.
Like many other states, Minnesota has experienced a spike in the number of COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths over the last couple of weeks. State guidelines imposed by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz mandate the wearing of masks in public and limit outdoor crowds to no more than 250 socially distanced people. Rochester, the city Trump will visit, is home to the famed Mayo Clinic. A town filled with health care workers and patients with underlying conditions is especially vulnerable to spreader events.
All of that explains why an inherently conservative institution like the Mayo Clinic issued a statement to those who might be planning to attend the Trump rally. Not only did the clinic support the state’s guidelines, affirming that they were “put in place to help limit the spread of COVID-19 and protect the public’s health,” it warned that “community members who choose to attend a large event that exceeds recommended guidelines should contact their healthcare provider and be evaluated for possible COVID-19 testing.”
In many ways, the Mayo Clinic is Dr. Anthony Fauci writ large. It has scrupulously avoided partisan politics. But their entire organization is based on an embrace of medical science. The political party that has rejected science and, in doing so, threatened the health of their employees and patients, made it necessary for the Mayo Clinic to take a stand—just like the New England Journal of Medicine, which declared that the Trump administration has “taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy.”
Gov. Walz, who previously represented the district that includes the city of Rochester, weighed in on the superspreader event by saying that “these large rallies that are unmasked with elected officials going, I just have to be candid, they are incredibly unhelpful…If you need to hear them speak, just Google it. Watch it on your phone, and let’s get through this.”
No respectable politician in Minnesota wants to find themselves at odds with the Mayo Clinic. But of course, Trump has never been one to worry about respectability.