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Where have you gone, Bill Maher?

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Bill Maher likes to say he hasn’t changed — that it’s his audience who changed.

But he certainly did evolve, and I can pinpoint the precise year that evolution began: 2014.

That was the year students at the University of California, Berkeley, protested Maher’s December commencement keynote. Though he ended up delivering the address, the incident chafed and bruised Maher’s thin skin. You see, some of the students didn’t like Maher’s take on Islam; they felt his comments had crossed a line from fair criticism to overt racism. Maher argued that the tolerance they were demanding was entirely lacking from the religion they were championing.

I am not debating either point here. My point is that the experience changed him. It soured him to liberalism. He hasn’t been the same since.

On Friday night, he began his show with a taunting, “Yeah, I did it again, bitches. … Fuck you. I like these dinners,” referring to a dinner he attended with the President, Kid Rock and Stephen A. Smith this week.

Maher spends a lot of each “Real Time” episode mocking the Left — while turning a blind eye to his dinner companion as he literally sets the world ablaze.

The contrast between Maher of the aughts and Maher of the 2020s is glaring.

It’s hard to overstate how impactful Maher’s show was as President George W. Bush took the country to war in the aftermath of 9/11. It was a time when anyone who spoke out against the President or the Iraq War was labeled a terrorist sympathizer, a traitor. And Maher, to his credit, had people on his program like Michael Moore, who rightfully questioned the administration and the justification for war.

Maher asked the tough questions at a time when it was wildly unpopular to break free of the groupthink — a sort of stupor the nation had collectively fallen into. He threaded the needle between humor and earnest, probing curiosity — a comedian who could actually do journalism.

He could be self-deprecating. He could express empathy. He still had a sense of humility and could admit when he didn’t know something, or when he’d been wrong about a topic. He was genuinely funny. Even in the darkest times, he made us laugh, and it felt like a release, a long-awaited exhale when we did.

All of that is gone.

Once, an unapologetic atheist who highlighted atrocities made in the names of all religions, Maher now wholly sides with Israel in the Israel-Palestinian war, portraying the millennia-old conflict as black and white — the good guys versus the bad guys. It’s hard to square that with the Maher of 20 years ago, who could’ve objectively looked at the war to see atrocities on both sides. He could’ve held two truths in his mind: That Hamas is a terrorist organization and committed horrific acts on October 7, which must be punished, and that Israel’s response was relentless, indiscriminate and arguably criminal.

That Maher is gone, too. This Maher routinely dismisses pro-Palestinian protesters as anti-Semitic, immature and ignorant. He nitpicks the definition of genocide.

The past few years, Maher has dedicated a lot of his show to rants about a woke bogeyman, elevating the lore and amplifying the fear.

He frequently smack talks Democrats, insisting there’s a big contingent in the party that espouses anarchy and seeks to abolish the police. But there is not a single candidate running for election this year whose platform includes defunding the police. Granted, there are TWO candidates who came under fire for previously shitposting about cops.

Maher may forget that he was once a fierce critic of militarizing local police departments. Not a peep about that now.

There are 23 U.S. House and Senate candidates who won their primaries based on a platform that includes abolishing ICE. But ICE is a whole other animal, and of course, Maher knows that.

Politicians on the Right, many of whom can’t define the distinctions between the economic models of Capitalism, Communism and Socialism, have followed the President’s lead, choosing a blanket term: communists! And Maher’s fallen in lockstep with them.

Outlets like the Associated Press, PolitiFact and FactCheck.org have all done investigations into communist sympathies among this season’s candidates. The Associated Press even interviewed Joe Sims, the co-chair of the Communist Party USA, who said there are no — none, zero — candidates for either congressional chamber who are communists, nor anyone who subscribes to its Marxist ideologies.

On the matter of Socialism, across the entire country, there are 10 Democratic Socialists of America-endorsed congressional candidates this midterm cycle. They represent just 2.3% of the Democrat’s House candidates. It would be interesting to put Bernie Sanders (an Independent and avowed Democratic Socialist) in front of Maher again — a politician he used to respect if not revere — and see if he suddenly remembers what it means to be a Democratic Socialist, or if he’d conflate it with communism and call Sanders a communist to his face.

On this week’s show, Maher strangely pressed guest Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) to renounce communism, like some modern-day Joe McCarthy, but with a TV show and a stoner podcast.

Meanwhile, Maher and his writers largely ignore the hugely consequential democracy-destabilizing things like voter suppression, the politicization of the Justice Department, the destruction of allied relationships around the world, the Trump administration’s egregious attack on the free speech and the free press, growing Christian Nationalist influence over the federal government, and the unbridled, rampant corruption committed by the President, his family and his cronies.

There is so much he could sink his teeth into. But what we get, instead, is another bit about Sydney Sweeney’s breasts and Maher advocating for the President’s vanity ballroom.

You may have noticed that, like the current President, Maher is easily seduced by flattery, celebrity and awards. For as long as he’s been on TV, he’s been a shameless name-dropper. Count how many times he refers to guests on his show as friends. He wants you to know he has access to celebrities and people in power. I’d argue that’s what he likes most about Trump — that he has access to the President of the United States, and he doesn’t want to lose it.

So, every show feels like appeasement now — like he’s playing to an audience of one.

Or maybe the “Real Time” viewership only comes from producing MAGA clickbait now? Have all the liberals, progressives — and those scary communists and socialists — tuned out?

I mourn the Bill Maher of 20 years ago. Back then, I paid for an HBO subscription when I “didn’t have two nickels to rub together,” because I valued the conversations he moderated, the thoughtfulness of the guest bookings. The show felt serious, timely — in fact, urgent — and impactful. I was such a fan of the show that my family would tease me that I had to be home at 10 p.m. on Friday nights to watch my “boyfriend’s” show, a standing weekly date.

It’s probably too wishful to think “Real Time” will return to that format — accessible, conversational, earnest, LIVE journalism. It suited Maher as a host, and it was exponentially more constructive for the audience. He might also ponder a tip from this old reporter: Consider your sources. When you give a guest like Karoline Leavitt that coveted first chair and your one-on-one attention, it signals to the audience that honesty, integrity and truth are no longer of consequence to you.

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Longtime New York Times Obituaries Editor William McDonald reflects on the intersection of history, biography, life and death

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After 49 years in journalism, William McDonald’s recent retirement was well-earned. For the past 20 years, McDonald was The New York Times’ obituaries editor. In July, E&P spoke with him about his remarkable career; how the obituaries team operated; and his thoughts on life and death.

Read on at Editor & Publisher:

https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/longtime-new-york-times-obituaries-editor-william-mcdonald-reflects-on-the-intersection-of-history,262734?newsletter=262128&vgo_ee=obzL%2FC3OoT%2BpeN%2FwI4ay1mbhIM%2B8ZisUDj4AwaVazNmOKhJ6xD%2BP%3AUzjhkB1E7%2BByEfw0AAllyLzerfvFygwU
Food, Travel, Culture, Non-fiction, photography, Real Estate, Architecture, Interior Design and Landscaping

Philadelphia’s City Hall — a closer look, after all these years

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For 20+ years, I walked and drove by Philadelphia’s iconic City Hall. I had one of my most memorable occasions in its heart — an open-air courtyard you can access from north, south, east and west. It was the day before Christmas Eve, and I’d gone to happy hour with some friends from work before we all took a few days off to celebrate the holiday. 

We’d congregated at McGlinchey’s (RIP), a favorite dive bar on South 15th, and spent hours nursing beers and smoking, in defiance of the new rules prohibiting smoking in bars and restaurants. McGlinchey’s was like that, rebellious in spirit, old and dingy in décor. We shared laughs about office antics, and as the evening wore on, we turned our conversation to more serious topics, like religion and philosophy, the meaning of life. 

It came time to head home. My best friend from work and I linked arms with another coworker and strolled through Center City, into City Hall’s south entrance and headed toward the courtyard. In its center, stood Philly’s version of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. It was towering and glorious. Its magnificence brought our trio to a halt, and we stood there, silent, arm-in-arm staring up at it. 

“What time is it,” someone asked, breaking the silence and the spell. 

“Almost midnight,” came a reply. 

Just then, it started to snow the most perfect, fluffy, big-flaked snow imaginable. We stood there a little longer, looking up, catching the snow on our knit hats and eyelashes. It felt … quintessentially Philadelphia. 

City Hall at night. Photo: G.A. Peck

So, I’ve long been an admirer and frequent passerby, but I’ve never gotten a keen look at the building’s remarkable detail. Recently, I returned to Philadelphia and had a bird’s eye view of the east side of the building from my high-rise hotel room — close enough to get a long-lens view of some of the remarkable sculptures adorning its façade. There are 250 statues, reliefs and caryatids created by sculptor Alexander Milne Calder, adding intrigue and storyline to the historic building.  

City Hall, Philadelphia, detail of ornate Second Empire architecture. Photo: G.A. Peck

The statue of William Penn that tops the highest tower is made of bronze and is itself 37 feet tall and a formidable 53,000 lbs. I’ll never forget seeing it sporting a Philadelphia Flyers sweater in 1997. Until 1987, when One Liberty Place debuted on the scene, “Billy Penn” was the tallest point in all of the city. These days, Comcast’s imposing towers dwarf City Hall. 

The clock tower at Philadelphia’s City Hall is made of cast iron. The statue of William Penn was made of bronze by Alexander Milne Calder, sculptor. Photo: G.A. Peck

In the 1990s, scaffolding surrounded the clock tower and Penn’s statue. The City had invested in a multimillion-dollar cleaning project. When the scaffolding came down, the tower was a completely different color than the rest of the building, nearly white next to the building’s stone and its sooty patina. I mistakenly wondered if the city had run out of money for power washing the rest of the building, content to keep the two-toned look. But that’s not at all what happened. 

While the rest of the building is constructed in granite and marble, the tower is made of cast iron. It had rusted, necessitating the restoration. Naturally, it would be a different color than the stone. As you can see from the daytime photos, rust is starting to return. 

Knowing how heavy cast iron is, imagine the feat of hoisting it into place in 1894!

The clock tower has four eagles, facing north, south, east and west. The statue to the right depicts a Lenape Native American man with his hunting dog. Photo: G.A. Peck

The clock tower surrounded by eight bronze statues, including a Lenape man and his hunting dog, and four bronze eagles facing north, south, east and west. 

Calder’s statues depict people of different races — immigrants practicing new trades and professions in their new land. 

Philadelphia City Hall, Juniper Street. Photo: G.A. Peck
Calder incorporated statues of men and women of many ethnicities, countries of origin, vocation or profession. Perhaps he intended this one to depict a scholar or a printer.
The marble’s patina mimics the stained limbs and attire of a pressman. Photo: G.A. Peck

Besides statues of people, Calder also incorporated animals into his designs. This elephant looks out over Juniper Street, and you’ll also find a tiger, camel, bison, bull, horse, and a group of cats chasing a mouse among the sculptures.

An elephant gazes down upon Juniper Street from its high perch on City Hall. Photo: G.A. Peck
Philadelphia’s skyline is a study in architectural-period contrasts. Photo: G.A. Peck

The building takes on a different quality at night, its angles and curves accented against dark sky. To keep the structure unencumbered by lights and hardware, City Hall is illuminated at night by 222 color-programmable LED spotlights mounted on 10 neighboring buildings. 

City Hall takes on a different quality at night; it is illuminated by LED spotlights mounted on neighboring buildings. Photo: G.A. Peck
Railing detail, Philadelphia’s City Hall. Photo: G.A. Peck
“Philadelphia Maneto” loosely translates to “Let brotherly love continue.”
The country could use more of that spirit today. Photo: G.A. Peck

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QUICK READ: Lenfest connects local newsrooms with the expertise they need to grow

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Local newsrooms around the country continue to grapple with challenges related to audience, business models and revenue. Many lack the dedicated personnel and expertise to plan and manage new strategies. That’s the disconnect the Lenfest Expert Network (LEN) intends to bridge.

https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/lenfest-connects-local-newsrooms-with-the-expertise-they-need-to-grow,262082

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World Press Freedom Day 2026

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Today, we commemorate World Press Freedom Day. It comes at a troubling time for the international press — and for the public it serves. Particularly concerning for the United States, data shows that the U.S. is far from the beacon of this democratic principle it once was.

Before you read on at the link, think of where you’d expect the U.S. to fall in a press freedom ranking of 180 nations and territories. See how your number compares to the annual Reporters Without Borders’ RSF Press Freedom Index.

https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/world-press-freedom-day-2026-press-freedom-around-the-world-is-at-an-historic-low-including-a,261438

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The News-Gazette launches local radio show to expand its journalism into audio

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This year, the News-Gazette team — a staff of 16 full-timers — found a new way to develop its audience, serve the public, extend the reach of its journalism and innovate on a new platform. In January 2026, it launched News-Gazette Radio.

https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/the-news-gazette-launches-local-radio-show-to-expand-its-journalism-into-audio,261259?newsletter=261269&vgo_ee=u8QGC1I%2BWuSLN8dpInoluKjCmDFX3rU%2FJJrxfLZWCOGiPASTsxe9%3A2D83Xs2mlkNJFK5R4soYEkKl1MfcsSwC
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Nerd Prom’s worrisome guest list

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I’ve long been ambivalent about the annual White House Correspondents Dinner — otherwise known as “nerd prom.”

This year’s red-carpeted gala will be held on Saturday, April 25 and televised on C-SPAN. President Donald J. Trump, the First Lady, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will all be in attendance. 

Even among the press itself, there are two sides to this debate:

It was a terrible idea since its inception. The press shouldn’t be rubbing elbows with the people in power on whom they report. It’s a valid argument, though anyone who knows Washington, D.C. knows this type of social-circle intermingling happens all the time.

vs.

It raises money for scholarships! It’s a feel-good event, not to be taken too seriously — one night of the year when we can set aside our roles as “the power” and “the people tasked with holding power to account,” and celebrate the spirit of the nation and the brilliance of the First Amendment. 

And, in the past, it has been an occasion where the press, politicians, cabinet members, press secretaries and Hollywood celebrities found common ground through comedy and self-deprecation.

The President last attended the gala as a guest in 2011, but sat them out during his first administration. This year, he’s back, having accepted the WHCA’s standing invitation to the President of the United States, and questions swirl about what Trump will say about the press in the room — and what they’ll have the courage to say about him. 

No President nor politician ever adored the press, but President Trump comes close. His rhetoric would lead one to believe that he detests the media, but I think the opposite may be true. 

It’s like the boy in 5th grade who has a crush on the girl sitting next to him in class, but he doesn’t know how to get and keep her attention. So, he acts silly, says mean things to her and relentlessly kicks the leg of chair while his friends laugh. 

Prior to politics, Trump flirted with and manipulated the press to his gain — as a businessman, man about town and reality-TV star. As Commander in Chief, he is drawn to microphones, cameras, a pool of reporters, a press pen at one of his stadium rallies. And they’ve given him what he craves and needs to sustain his brand. 

Yet the harm he’s inflicted on the press, in return, has been ruthless and harsh. He seizes every opportunity to lambast, to personally insult reporters, and to portray the news media as “enemies of the people.” He’s sued the press, negotiating millions in settlements — monies allocated to his future Presidential Library, now allegedly unaccounted for. 

Trump famously shrugged off the murder of The Washington Post’s Jamal Khashoggi, saying “things happen.” More recently, when asked about Khashoggi’s murder, the President said, “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman,” as if it were justification.

Under the leadership of his appointments at the Department of Justice and FBI, Washington Post’s Hannah Natanson’s home was raided, her digital devices confiscated, igniting a costly court battle and sending a purposeful chill through newsrooms, government sources and would-be whistleblowers. 

CBS News made the odd choice to invite Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth as its guest to the dinner. 

You’ll recall, Hegseth was picked to lead the most sophisticated, well-financed military ever known from his former role stirring up controversy at Fox News. Despite media being the reason for his brand and livelihood, the Secretary takes predictable, daily, ad hominem shots at the press. He booted Pentagon reporters from their convenient closet-sized workspaces. He required them to sign pledges that narrowed the scope and tone of their work. Earnest, ethical journalists refused.

In fact, it’s difficult to imagine a guest list more hostile to the press — and corrosive to the First Amendment— than Saturday night’s. 

Absent from this year’s gala is a keynote comedian, so there goes the fun, self-deprecating part of the tradition. Instead, a “mentalist” will perform. Make of that what you will. 

And the President will speak. 

I’m not making any predictions about how the evening will unfold, but on paper, it reads cringy and toxic. Perhaps it is past time for the WHCA to consider a fresh fundraising event, the start of a new tradition.

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Find your joy at the library.

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There are a few things in life that bring me joy, and one of them is my weekly trip to the library. Stepping inside feels like entering a portal of possibility.

I’ve written a lot about libraries as a local community amenity and myriad ways our libraries support our communities beyond providing free access to books and periodicals. There’s also the individual, personal connection many of us have to libraries, including fond memories from childhood. Some of my earliest memories are accompanying my grandmother and great-grandmother to the library, where we’d all load up with a stack of books to devour in a weekend. (Pictured: My great-grandmother volunteers at the library.)



Now, from the vantage point of my work at Editor & Publisher, I see the shared missions of libraries and local news media: to inform and build communities, expand access to knowledge and defend the First Amendment. In honor of National Library Week, I spoke with the American Library Association’s president, Sam Helmick, about the week of celebration—with the theme “Find Your Joy”—and its critical call to action. Click the link to read, and please share your thoughts on your local library in the comments.

https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/find-your-joy-at-the-library-ala-urges-communities-and-news-media-to-stand-against-book-bans,260821



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Books that resonate

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I believe divine intervention happens in library stacks. Something beyond a captivating cover leads you to certain books that you didn’t even know you wanted to read. During my last library visit, I left with two surprisingly related titles in my book bag — one nonfiction, one fictional: 

Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America, by journalist Beth Macy, recounts her reflections on Urbana, Ohio, her hometown. 

And Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver, which is a retelling of Dickens’ David Copperfield, set in Appalachia during the height of the opioid crisis. It earned the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2023.

Both are stories about places where hope dissipates over time and across tragedies. Jobs move out. Drugs move in. Despair abounds. Local newspapers shutter, while social media conspiracies run rampant. Politics becomes pastime and pew fodder. 

Education becomes devalued. Truancy goes up. For example, in Paper Girl, Macy recounts how Ohio lifted the rules and benchmarks for home-schooling students. Parents struggling with their own addictions and paying the bills simply took their kids out of school while providing no formal education at home, essentially ensuring a generation of drop-outs and if-they’re-lucky minimum-wage earners. 

Even with best-laid plans, people in communities like these run the risk of becoming mired in their circumstances, not by virtue of geography but by fear and poverty. Both stories articulate how often it takes aligned stars to escape — someone to see you, someone to recognize your talent, someone to believe in you, someone to give you a fair shot, plus a little dumb luck.

In both books, I recognized glimpses of my own hometown in the late-1960s and 1970s. It was easy to circle the drain there if you were a teenager. We spent our weekends at the skating rink, or cruising the downtown circuit in some senior’s car, drinking and driving (do not do this, kids), and getting loaded on whatever we could put our hands on — mostly dirt weed and liquor our parents wouldn’t notice missing from their wet bars. I smoked my first cigarette in my friend Pam’s attic bedroom when we were in 7th grade. I developed an affinity for weed and pills before I entered the 8th.

Now, kids contend with synthetic drugs and opioids, including cheap, accessible and deadly heroin and fentanyl. 

In my hometown, one of the biggest events of the year was the town fair. There was a midway with rides, junk food and dizzying lights. As tweens and teens, we’d get high or drunk and walk around the fair every night for a week — our parents assuming we were off pigging out on fried foods and having wholesome fair fun. On one of those occasions, my friends dragged us into a fortune teller’s tent. For a few bucks, she’d read your fortune via tarot cards or a crystal ball like the Wicked Witch’s. When it was my turn, she snatched my cash and didn’t bother consulting either. She simply said, “You’re going to die before your 21,” and pointed me toward the exit. 

That’s how far gone I was. 

Much of my self-destructive behavior, I learned later in life, can be traced to childhood trauma I won’t recount here, but a lot of it was also culture. We had our share of kids who aspired, who got voted “Best This” or “Best That” in the yearbook, who played sports and avoided the allure of drugs, some whose parents socked away college funds as if it was a given. 

But for so many of my peers, aspiration was as pragmatic as a daydream. 

Like Journalist Beth Macy and the fictional Demon Copperhead, I had the good fortune of people who helped me transcend what could have been a wasted, brief life. There were my parents, who moved us out of the town — partly to be closer to their jobs in the D.C. suburbs, and partly to save me from the wrong crowd. 

There was Debbie Riley, a court-appointed social worker assigned to me when I got busted for grand theft auto at 15 (I was a runaway who went joyriding in my friend’s brother’s car. He pressed charges, which were dropped on condition of counseling.) 

Debbie Riley asked my parents to come to our first session. My father spent the hour red-faced and irate that he had to be there — and because he couldn’t seem to discipline me with tough love, nor keep me from running away from home. My mother sat stone faced and said nothing. She didn’t know what to say or do with me. At the end of the session, Debbie Riley told them they didn’t have to come to any more of our meetings; she’d meet with me alone from then on. 

I never had to tell Debbie Riley about my childhood trauma, not specifically, anyway. Back then, I couldn’t have choked out the words. It took me decades to process it and to talk about it, even today, somewhat superficially. I don’t like to go too deep into those rough seas. 

But it was like Debbie Riley — who probably spent every day with kids like me — could read me, or smell it on me. She knew I was broken and spiraling, but that I might be salvageable, if I wanted to be. 

Way more than a decade before Robin William’s famous scene in “Good Will Hunting,” Debbie Riley took my hands in hers across her cold-metal police-department desk, and looked me in the eyes and said, “It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault.” 

That scene with Matt Damon brings me to my knees every time. I see us in that moment, me and Debbie Riley — as much a breakthrough for young Will Hunting as it had been for me. 

Just feeling seen lifted me a fraction of the way out of the dark pit. I started thinking about a future, about who and what I wanted to be. But I still had a long way to go.

(Spoiler alert: Beth and Demon make it out of their hometowns, too, though not unscathed.)

Sometimes the tides shift for communities like these. In the case of Urbana, new industry came to town, and there were jobs again and a little more disposable income, Macy recalls. That happened in my hometown, too. Washington, D.C.’s sprawl crept in, bringing with it new taxpaying residents who cashed big paychecks signed by defense contractors and lobbying firms. The main street transformed. No more drunken high schoolers cruising the circuit. No more 5-and-10 store once owned by my great-grandmother. Now, there were art galleries and microbreweries and restaurants with Top Chefs in their kitchens. 

People who survived the leaner years now sit-pretty on homes worth 10x what they paid for them. But for so many rural communities, there’s no D.C. sprawl to swoop in like a superhero to save the day. And for too many kids, there are too few Debbie Rileys who care.

You may buy the books here, but please consider checking them out from your local library. One of the best ways to support your library is by signing up for a free library card and then using it. 

Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America, by Beth Macy

Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver