This week’s issue is focused on a media round-up, as we’ve been busy prepping for our upcoming magazine and conferences later this month (come find me at AAJA!). Our set of links includes a deep dive into the Indigenous Journalist Association’s work ahead of the affinity group’s Portland conference next month, an update on the Seattle Times Union’s labor fight, and a letter urging newsrooms to continue covering devastation and genocide in Gaza.
An abbreviated version of these media links is on our Instagram each week, focusing on what a handful of those stories say about how power and identity impact journalism. (Previous week’s here.)
—James Salanga
WHAT’S HAPPENING
A media round-up
🛣 ”The only space in the world” focused on Indigenous press freedom: Editor & Publisher wrote about how the Indigenous Journalists Association has built community for Native journalists covering tribal issues and offered perspective for non-Indigenous reporters seeking to thoughtfully do the same.
✍ Palestine staff writer Qassam Muaddi lamented the lack of ongoing coverage about the erasure of Palestinian loss of life and livelihood, and how the pattern doesn’t always rate in mainstream media, or becomes a tool for “gotcha” narratives.
⛰ The Seattle Times Union filed an unfair labor practice charge against the paper this week after management has failed to address its fair wage request for months. “Bargaining in good faith means meeting together, engaging in the topics at hand and sincerely trying to get to a deal. Refusing to respond to our wage proposal is unacceptable.”
📊 “For readers and viewers to trust news reporting, they need to understand what a news organization stands for.” The Center for Integrity in News Reporting published a report on Wednesday about public trust in legacy media, and what kind of reporting earns readers’ trust.
📩 Maxwell Tani scooped the story of Politico folding E&E, which it acquired in 2020, and growing Politico’s energy reporting into a number of different newsletter verticals aimed at better covering the rising energy beat.
⏱ FOLLOW-UP: Scott Pelley sat down with Lulu Garcia-Navarro for an interview about his firing from storied 60 Minutes. In the interview, Pelley talks about the new political strictures CBS News faces, and about an incident in which new “editor-in-chief” Bari Weiss asked reporters (four hours after deadline, according to Pelley) to portray the protestors in Operation Metro Surge as more violent.
🍔 FOLLOW-UP: A few months ago we covered the indie food media scene and all it offers. Now, Condé Nast is suing one of those publications (Gourmet) for what it argues is trademark infringement.
Have a story you think we should include in this section of next week’s newsletter? Let us know here or by responding to this email.
JOURNALISM IN A GRAF
Quote of the week
“This story is not big; it is huge. It is about the future of the Palestinian people in what remains of Palestine, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, and it is accelerating at an alarming rate, unopposed by anyone. But it is not a “big event.” Media-wise, the process that Israel is carrying out in the West Bank has the face of a series of repetitive, “normal” events, which now include every new escalation. But it isn’t newsworthy, because it doesn’t fit the mold.”
This issue is by James Salanga and Marlee Baldridge. Thanks for reading. We’ll have more for you next week.
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