50 States, 50 Fixes: How local climate solutions are resonating across America — my conversation with The New York Times’ Climate Editor Lyndsey Layton.
#NYTimes #climate #localnews
Tag: politics
What’s next for DEI in newsrooms? Legal risks, political pressure and resilience
“This is an area where more boards of directors than ever are looking for continued updates, not just on the state of the law and the state of enforcement policy, but what it all means in terms of their own companies’ practices. … This is complicated stuff.” — Camille Olson, partner, Seyfarth Shaw LLP
E&P’s August 2025 Cover Story: Experts weigh in on how DEI can survive and evolve in today’s volatile media and legal landscape
https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/whats-next-for-dei-in-newsrooms,257042
Weary, but resolved at year’s end
I spend many of my days telling the stories of local newsrooms around the country doing exemplary work, serving their communities with practical information, uplifting perspectives — building community, as we say. Over the decades I’ve been on this “beat,” it’s been thoroughly rewarding work. Not only do I enjoy turning the spotlight on these storytellers, it’s fortified my long-standing belief that journalism is foundational to democracy. Without the First Amendment, nothing that becomes before or after it in the U.S. Constitution really matters. Without it, a nation spirals into autocracy, theocracy, despotism. Without it, corruption runs unbridled.
And I still believe this with every cell and synapse of my being.
But I’ve grown weary. The constant onslaught of anti-press rhetoric, endorsed by the highest offices in the land has admittedly weakened my resolve in recent years. The nation’s slide toward authoritarianism — our inability to even argue from a baseline of facts — is such a profound disappointment. At times, it makes me wonder if all the hard work of my colleagues in the media is worth it when it increasingly feels like screaming into a void.
I felt at the lowest point when I read the news that ABC News had settled a lawsuit brought by the President elect for comments made by anchor George Stephanopoulos during a “This Week” interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC). During the interview, the news anchor pressed Mace on her endorsement of the then candidate, considering Mace herself has spoken openly about being raped when she was a teenager. During his query, the anchor said that Donald J. Trump had been found liable for rape in the civil defamation suit E. Jean Carroll brought and won — with the jury awarding her $83.3 million.
Trump took issue with the word “rape” and filed suit against the network. Keep in mind that even the judge in the case described the initiating offense in this way: “The jury’s finding of sexual abuse therefore necessarily implies that it found that Mr. Trump forcibly penetrated her vagina.”
If forcibly penetrating a woman’s vagina – whether with a penis, an object or a hand — isn’t “rape,” then once again, it feels as if we’re not operating from a baseline of facts. It feels like arguing semantics in Atwood’s Gilead.
Before the case could advance further to the discovery phase, ABC News and George Stephanopoulos agreed to a settlement that required an escrowed $15 million to fund a future Donald J. Trump Presidential museum, another $1 million for Trump’s legal fees, and a public apology by the journalist – in other words, an admission of defamation.
Tim Miller and William Kristol — notably former Republicans — had a conversation about the perils of criticizing Trump. They wrote on thebulwark.com, “ABC News and George Stephanopoulos have joined the preemptive capitulation parade by settling Trump’s defamation suit—and by conspicuously paying out protection money ahead of the inauguration. The potential chilling effect on a key First Amendment issue is breathtaking.”
Northeastern Professor Dan Kennedy opined in his newsletter: “What Stephanopoulos said arguably wasn’t even false, and surely it didn’t amount to actual malice. A deep-pockets defendant like Disney ought to stand up for the First Amendment lest its cowardly capitulation to Trump harm other media outlets without the wherewithal to fight back.”
On Twitter/X, Jeff Jarvis, author and journalist, issued a warning:
Of course, none of us had a seat at the conference table surrounded by high-hourly-rate lawyers, so it’s purely speculation as to why the news media publisher agreed to settle. Some say the legal definition of rape in New York is a higher benchmark than this form of sexual assault. Others said the network didn’t want to be forced into protracted and expensive discovery, during which the President’s legal team could request all sorts of documentation, from producers’ correspondence to business strategy, personal calendars and diaries, footage from every show that mentioned Trump, social media posts, you name it.
Discovery is long and hard fought, typically with the Plaintiff asking for everything under the sun, and the Defendant having to go to court to argue against each non-related or protected journalist-source item.
Still others speculated that the $15 million settlement was such an insignificant amount for the parent organization, the Walt Disney Company, that it just made sense to pay it and get it over and done with. After all, an ongoing legal battle would’ve further impeded the network’s ability to gain access or fairly report on the incoming Administration. All of these reasons could simultaneously be true, too.
But the impact of the settlement has ripples — no, asphyxiating currents — that will reach far beyond the parties. It’s ammunition for a President and party that has continued to portray the press as “the enemy of the people.” It may not further embolden Trump himself to bring lawsuits against news outlets — he’s done that, usually unsuccessfully, for decades and long before he fatefully descended down the Trump Tower escalator to declare his first candidacy. And there’s no sign that he plans to slow down. Last week, he filed suit against the Gannett-owned Des Moines Register and pollster Ann Selzer over an unfavorable poll they published prior to election, alleging the poll — a poll, for goodness sakes — was akin to “election interference.”
But it will embolden others, particularly the political and powerful classes, to wield lawfare as a weapon to intimidate the press, to send a chill through the media, and in some cases, to kill off news outlets entirely — destroyed by the weight of defending protracted legal battles. Death by billable hour.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Cartoonist Mike Luckovich so perfectly memorialized the settlement, shared on Twitter/X:
In E&P’s January issue, Columnist Rob Tornoe shares a conversation with Luckovich about being a political cartoonist in the era of Trump. You’ll want to read it.
And let’s be clear, lawfare is not just a threat to large media conglomerates. It oozes down to regional and local newsrooms, as well.
“I fear the federal attack on the press will trickle down locally, and it will be harder to get information through normal channels and freedom of the press requests,” Katie Honan, reporter for THE CITY, observed in Nieman Lab’s “Predictions for Journalism, 2025” series.
The other way it corrodes our profession is by signaling to journalists that your company, your superiors, may not have your back. They may, in fact, sell you out, make you pay, make you grovel. As a journalist there is little that’s more demoralizing than feeling as though your superiors would throw you under the bus rather than stand in solidarity with you.
Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark wrote that “Disney has cut off ABC News at the knees and put everyone in its news division on notice that they will not be supported by corporate if they make enemies with Trump world.”
But I’m feeling a little better, a little stronger, more resolved for a couple of reasons. This Des Moines Register case is so petty, so meritless, it’ll surely be tossed out, right?
Right?
And I spent the past few weeks learning about the journalism program at the University of Oregon, where the curricula, the practical experiences and skills the students learn, and the remarkable faculty who guide them have sent some welcome breezes from the west to lift my wings. Asked about the aspirations and temperament of the new class of journalists coming into the profession, one member of the faculty described them generally as motivated, inspired, idealistic, energetic.
I figure, if they can be, I can muster, too.
Reporting on the war in the Middle East: Reporters contend with lack of access, harassment, censorship, arrests and danger to bring the front lines to readers worldwide
In late summer, I spoke with two journalists — Julian Borger, world affairs editor for The Guardian, and Nabih Bulos, who is the Los Angeles Times’ Middle East bureau chief — tasked with telling the story of the broadening war in Gaza. We spoke about the challenges of war coverage — about safety, working with local fixers and other journalists on the ground, about reporting on a region that it was nearly impossible to gain access to, and about the unpredictable nature of the work itself. For foreign correspondents, war means perpetual motion, a never-ending chase for anecdotes and atrocities, and meaningful context in sea of gray.
The only certainty, it seemed to me, was the volatility and the potential for the war to entrap or entice other nations and other terrorist groups to join the fight. And that’s precisely how it’s playing out. With just a few days of my discussions with Bulos and Borger, Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel.
Since, Israel retaliated by detonating pagers and mobile devices they believed to be in the hands of Hezbollah operatives. Iran-launched missiles rained down on Israel, and now the world holds its collective breath for Israel’s inevitable response to Iran’s assault. The one-year anniversary of the war passed.
The statistics I cited in the story are already obsolete. Since October 7, 2023, the war has now claimed the lives of 1,706 Israelis, 42,409 Palestinians, and 2,448 in Lebanon.
It is also one of the deadliest wars in the modern era for journalists. 128 have died. 40 have been wounded. At least 2 remain missing, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Please consider their sacrifices as you read this latest installment in our “Reporting On” series:
https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/reporting-on-the-war-in-the-middle-east,252455
“Pancakes & Politics” brings Detroit together for conversation, an exchange of ideas and implementation of real solutions
The alliterative “Pancakes & Politics” is so much more than a forum for Detroit to talk about pressing issues. And Hiram Jackson is so much more than a newspaper publisher. Pancakes & Politics was his vision nearly 20 years ago. He shared with me the origin story of the event, which is held several times each year, bringing together Detroit’s business community, public officials and change-makers not just to discuss problems but to find solutions.
This is a story about journalism, pragmatism, communities of color, local news collaboration, leadership, and one man who’s made a measurable, remarkable difference in the city and beyond. Read on at the link.
https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/the-collaborative-pancakes-politics,252449
Nuzzi is not all of us
I cringed when I saw Jeremy Fassler’s headline for his Medium column this week, “The Olivia Nuzzi Scandal Is an Indictment of Journalism.”
Nuzzi was placed on leave this week — and should lose her job — at “New York” magazine for an undisclosed personal relationship with presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a controversial public figure she was assigned to report on. People have speculated about the degree of ethical breach, which Nuzzi contends did not veer into a physical relationship. She has been castigated and slut-shamed online, while Kennedy’s behavior has largely been brushed aside as de rigueur for the serial-philandering, vaccine-denying, dog-eating, dead-bear staging, whale head-sawing, brain worm-addled oddball he is.
Make no mistake, Nuzzi’s behavior is a gross — and I mean that in every sense of the word — ethical breach. It reflects poorly on her, certainly, but it also stains the “New York” magazine brand. Nuzzi is just 31 years old and entitled to make journalistic mistakes that we all made in our young careers, but this one is beyond the pale. She should be fired, and she should have to rebuild her career and earn the trust of the public before given another megaphone — print, broadcast or otherwise.
But this is hardly a condemnation of journalism, as Fassler claims in his headline. The public and especially the news media itself needs to get away from these broad, sweeping condemnations. Look at the sins of David Pecker’s tabloid empire and its “catch and kill” practices. Imagine if every reporter at local papers and nonprofit news outlets around the country had to carry the weight of that on their shoulders. It’s patently out of context and unfair.
If you read past the headline, what Fassler is getting at is Nuzzi’s case is — and should be — an indictment of access journalism. Access journalism is when journalists favorably report on their subjects and sources in order to be granted access to them, to gain insider insight, and to get scoops that elude other news outlets.
I wrote about access journalism in a 2021 “Editor & Publisher” magazine.
Nuzzi is certainly a glaring example of a journalist who’s traded on access — and, I dare say, on her beauty. Across news media, we’ve had some of the most popular, visible and broadly followed journalists who can be accused of the same, even at the nation’s most prolific legacy institutions. It is a bane, no question, yet not a reflection of the whole.
Nuzzi’s recent work has been “sus,” as the kids say, and Fassler gives a number of examples of that. Yet, controversy attracts eyeballs and audience — still the most coveted currency in today’s news business. And she (and others) have been rewarded for it.
Still, to lump all journalists and media companies in with Nuzzi and those who enabled her along the way — even in a headline — does disservice to all the earnest, dedicated and toe-the-line reporters around the country.
And it emboldens the “dishonest press” and “enemies of the people” rhetoric. Let’s stop that.
In the fields: a non-scandalous exclusion from my résumé
In yet another installment of how the political press is silly, one right-leaning outlet leveraged FOIA to discover that the vice president—now candidate for the presidency—hadn’t included a teenage summer job at McDonald’s on job applications. The scandal! Stipulating that this is common practice in résumé tailoring, it nonetheless got me thinking about my first official summer job, for which I needed to get a work permit because I was just 15.
I wanted independence from my parents, to make my own money. I “applied” at a family-owned farm just down the road from our house. The owner, Denise, didn’t ask for any printed résumé. The interview went something like this:
Denise: Can you get up early in the morning?
Me: Yes. (But actually thinking, maybe.)
Denise: You don’t mind long hours? You’re not a complainer, are ya?
Me: I’m used to picking vegetables and being in the fields. (It was true. We’d lived in a rented brick ranch back then, which sat on farmland that was slowly being developed for housing. The landlord discounted the rent if we tended to the fields and he got his take of the harvest. We grew tomatoes, squash, corn, green beans, you name it. Here I am with one of my prize zucchinis.)
Denise: No back problems?
Me: No.
Denise: You’re hired. Can you start today?
My parents liked the idea of manual labor and how it kept me busy and out of trouble. And that it did. At dawn, I’d walk the half-mile to work, carrying a brown bag lunch. To beat the heat, Farmer Denise had us in the fields early. By us, I mean me and about a dozen or so farm hands who drove the flatbed trucks, and Spanish-speaking migrant workers who picked, like me.
Most of the season, we were tasked with picking tomatoes. You’d have to grab them off the vine at just the right time, when they were newly ripe and hadn’t yet split nor spoiled. We’d fill half-bushel baskets with tomatoes and then walk them back to the flatbed trucks parked at the end of our rows. We were paid a penny per tomato. Denise would inspect every single one at the end of the day, and toss aside any unsuited for market.
We picked rain or shine and in temperatures that soared into the 90s most days that summer. My skin browned; my muscles ached. The migrant workers laughed at me when I’d stand and stretch and moan from all the squatting and bending over. They were so much faster at picking those tomatoes. I always had the need to excel, but in this, I felt like an underachiever.
At lunchtime, we’d pile onto one of the trucks, to be carted back to the main barn, where we could eat our sack lunches in the shade. I sat alone and ate my white-bread sandwiches, coveting the homemade delicacies the others shared over spirited conversations.
At the end of the day, I’d walk back home, filthy and exhausted—and if it was a good-pickin’ day, $15 cash my pocket. I thought about my fellow workers and how for me, that money was to be spent on frivolity—a new pair of jeans, some lip gloss, the latest LP I had to have. For them, it was livelihood. I couldn’t help but wonder how they paid for housing, food, clothing and other necessities on those wages. And yet, they never seemed to complain.
Just when I thought I’d mastered the job, tomato season gave way to pumpkin season, and I got a dose of true backbreaking labor. Pumpkins don’t seem heavy individually, but when you pick about 150 of them and walk each of them down the long row to the truck, in crippling heat, you come to hate the sight of those orange gourds and relish smashing them.
Naturally, the job taught me a lot—the value of money, the feeling of hard labor, the determination and hardships of migrant workers, the relentless demands of a discerning boss, and so much more. Even still, when I went to apply for jobs post-college, farm worker wasn’t on my résumé.
A Tale of Two Presidential Campaigns
Way, way back in grad school, I studied rhetoric—the art of using words to persuade. Ever since I’ve been fascinated by politics and oration, which brings me to our Presidential race: Trump/Vance v. Harris/Walz.
There are clear policy differences between the two parties. We can vote on those according to our values and priorities. But what’s notably distinctive is the tone of the campaigns.
One paints a picture of a dystopian America, a nation alone on the world stage, alliances be damned. Not just America First, but America Only. It’s a campaign based on grievances—personal grievances of the man at the top of the ticket, who spends his rallies disparaging people who don’t bend the knee in fealty or espouse his loosely held principles. It is a campaign that not only doesn’t extend a handshake to all Americans, it disparages them in cruel, incredible terms. It is a campaign that portrays too many Americans as “others,” to be feared, hated, prosecuted, persecuted, or worse. A campaign that describes the nation’s cities—our multicultural centers of commerce, technology and art—as hellscapes, and a campaign that reimagines the future of America in the regressive Project 2025. It’s a campaign replete with speeches pining for a dialing back to 2016, a dialing back on policy, on “settled” law, on rights, on innovation, on societal progress and intellectualism. It looks at humanity and showcases the worst of it. It is a campaign about retribution (Trump’s words). It is relentlessly angry.
By comparison, the other campaign strikes a tone that’s hopeful, aspirational, empathetic. You’ll find no “losers and suckers” admonishments in the deep cuts. It’s a campaign with a Presidential hopeful who is attacked—like so many women—for being accomplished and yet unapologetically happy. They call her “giggles” and “crazy” and “cackling” when she expresses joy.
Now, she has a running mate, who seems happy, too—not pollyannish about what ails our nation, but excited for the prospect of their proposed solutions to heal them.
And unlike the falsely masculine rhetoric coming from the other campaign, this VP doesn’t hide his softness, his compassion. He laughs, and not at others’ expense. Hours old, this campaign already feels lighter, forward-focused.
So many Americans are politically exhausted and parched. They’re looking for the water source in that dystopian desert. And if you think a message of hope, aspiration and joy doesn’t sell in the nasty news cycle-obsessed world of modern-day politics, I give you eight years of President Barack Obama as evidence people find it refreshing, resounding and winning.
Watch “Print It Black” on Hulu
In the week that followed the horrific mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, I was one of thousands of calls into the local newspaper, the Uvalde Leader-News. I was working on a story for E&P—part of the magazine’s “Reporting On” series—about journalists who have the daunting task of reporting mass shootings.
On a few occasions that week, a member of the newsroom there would answer—audibly exhausted and grief-stricken, yet polite and professional—and take down my message for the owner-publisher Craig Garnett. I, of course, wanted to speak with him about my assignment, to learn in those still-raw moments what it takes for a newsroom to cover a story of this magnitude and tragedy. But so much more importantly, I wanted to express my sorrow, to let him and his entire newsroom know that we shared in their grief. After all, a member of our news community had been personally and profoundly impacted by this crime. ULN’s Crime Reporter Kimberly Mata-Rubio’s 10-year-old daughter, Lexi, was among the victims.
Despite an enormous weight on his shoulders, Garnett called me back a few days later, and generously, thoughtfully spoke about what his newsroom was going through. Through tears that seemed never-ending, I wrote the story.
I’ve thought about that local paper—Garnett and the small, tight-knit staff—the Rubio family, and the community of Uvalde every day since.
I had the great honor to reconnect with Garnett last week, to talk about the ABC News documentary, “Print It Black,” now streaming on Hulu. It’s a difficult-to-watch yet important film that I implore everyone to see—a complex, nuanced and honest look at mass shootings in America, about life in a small town, about racism, poverty and classicism, and about a local newsroom rising to an occasion for which it never could prepare.
#Uvalde #LocalNews #RobbElementary #UvaldeLeaderNews #ABCNews #documentary
The New York Times assembles a trust team
Among our news community, we frequently talk about “trust in news” and how it has eroded to dangerous levels. I’d suggest there are myriad reasons for that, including some that date back centuries. The press has always been a convenient punching bag. When people don’t like what they read, they naturally want to discount the information.
Some of the phenomenon is patently new, as we’ve seen with the increase in “lawfare” suits designed to chill journalists and shutter news organizations outright. There’s also the toxic political rhetoric, even shouted from the highest offices in the land, expressly to make people doubt watchdog and accountability reporting.
Now, we’re contending with Artificial Intelligence (AI), too, which is training people to doubt what they read and view.
Some of it is well-deserved. The press doesn’t always get the story right, especially in the rush to report first. Quality journalists among the American media are contrite when it happens, acknowledging their mistakes and offering corrections or retractions. Far too many outlets masquerading as trusted sources of news peddle misinformation and never acknowledge their failures to report accurately. That’s harmful, industry-wide.
I’d suggest the public also has a cynical view of how news is gathered and produced when they hear about strategic misdeeds, such as tabloid-style “catch and kill” stories — for example, when an adult film actress’ story about an affair with a politician never sees the light of day because the publisher and the porn star are paid to suppress it. It’s easy for the public to conflate that kind of “news” with what earnest, professional journalists produce day-in, day-out.
Indeed, there are many reasons — deserved and not — for the lack of trust in news today, but the important thing is that we’re thinking about it as an existential threat and doing our best to counter it. That’s why I’m bullish on The New York Times decision to convene a “trust team” that’s keenly focused on this issue.
At the link, read about my conversation with Edmund Lee, editor of The Times’ trust team and one of the ways they’ve built more transparency and familiarity into the display of news.
#newsmedia #journalism #TheNewYorkTimes
Gretchen A. Peck 