Erica Weintraub Austin
ericawaustin.bsky.social
Erica Weintraub Austin
@ericawaustin.bsky.social

Originator of the Media Literacy Theory of Chge, baker of award-winning Cougar Gold Cheese Coins, and fortunate family partner of talented musicians, a statistician, theoretical physicist and ball-chasing pup. My views may not reflect those of my employer. .. more

Communication & Media Studies 25%
Education 16%

Amazing photography

"Three celestial spectacles at different distances"

Closest are the snowcapped Meili Mountains, part of the Himalayas in China. In the middle is Comet Lemmon, and far in the distance on the left is the central plane of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Comet Lemmon and the Milky Way apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap25112...
What did Comet Lemmon look like when it was at its best? One example is pictured here, featuring three celestial spectacles all at different distances. The closest spectacle is the snowcapped Meili Mountains of the Himalayas in China.
Comet Lemmon and the Milky Way apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap25112...
What did Comet Lemmon look like when it was at its best? One example is pictured here, featuring three celestial spectacles all at different distances. The closest spectacle is the snowcapped Meili Mountains of the Himalayas in China.

🚲 roll 🚲 models ❤️
“Once, after the group bought out a tamale vendor’s cart, that man found them days later to say immigration agents were spotted on his block just hours after. ‘You saved my life,’ Rosales said the man told them.” apnews.com/article/chic...
Chicagoans buy out street vendors amid a federal immigration crackdown
Across Chicago’s Latino neighborhoods, fear of a federal immigration crackdown has emptied the streets.
apnews.com

Yes! Encourage critical thinking and self discovery!

Far better than demonizing and trying to forbid tools that people like and will/must use. More great ideas in the comments.

#medialiteracy
“Once, after the group bought out a tamale vendor’s cart, that man found them days later to say immigration agents were spotted on his block just hours after. ‘You saved my life,’ Rosales said the man told them.” apnews.com/article/chic...
Chicagoans buy out street vendors amid a federal immigration crackdown
Across Chicago’s Latino neighborhoods, fear of a federal immigration crackdown has emptied the streets.
apnews.com

Surprise, sources aren't always who they pretend to be.

And it's tough to keep up with the strategies they can use to mislead.

Check their sponsors, expertise, relevance. Verify "facts" with other trusted sources before acting or sharing.

#medialiteracy

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Unfortunately we've now lost a human life to complications of bird flu, in WA state.

Public risk remains low, but it is useful to take relevant precautions.

The person had backyard birds.

An authoritative source of info and guidance about this situation is the WA State Dept of Health:
Grays Harbor County resident dies from complications of avian influenza
For immediate release: Nov. 21, 2025 (25-140) Contact: DOH Communications The person was infected with the H5N5 virus; the risk to the public remains low OLYMPIA – A Grays Harbor County resident who w...
doh.wa.gov

"Fake news" led to real results:

Sen. Brian Schatz (D HI) noted the apparent contradiction in DHS’s framing of events: “So they are not approving the policy change that was in the works because the Washington Post reported about it. Good. But that means the reporting was accurate.”
U.S. Coast Guard Backtracks After ‘Fake’ Report on Hate-Symbols Policy
The Armed Forces branch said it will review an upcoming policy change on swastikas and nooses after a Washington Post exposé that the Department of Homeland Security called “fake crap.”
time.com

This is a thorough explanation showing NO LINK BETWEEN THIMEROSOL AND VACCINES provided by the FDA:
www.fda.gov/vaccines-blo...
Thimerosal and Vaccines
Thimerosal is a compound that has been widely used as a preservative in a number of biological and drug products. All vaccines routinely recommended for children 6 years of age and younger in the U.S...
www.fda.gov

The CDC no longer is a trustworthy information source. People need easy access to other reliable, trustworthy sources.

e.g. www.who.int

More in the thread. Pls add!

But be careful: Some will take advantage of uncertainty to mislead and sell products and ideas that can do harm.

#medialiteracy
World Health Organization (WHO)
The United Nations agency working to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable.
www.who.int

There's always dreams
and they don't cost nothin
and in my dreams
I don't want nothin
but these days
it seems nobody's sleepin sound
until you put that payment down

🎶 released today 🎶

hotdamnscandal.bandcamp.com/track/i-wann...
I Wanna Be Rich, by Hot Damn Scandal
track by Hot Damn Scandal
hotdamnscandal.bandcamp.com

"Nothing against the chains,” said Butch Alford Jr., 87, “but they’re a bunch of financial bastards.”

www.seattletimes.com/opinion/a-st...
A startup incubator to save the newsroom
The family publishing The Lewiston Tribune in Idaho turned its production facility into a startup incubator, creating new businesses to sustain its newsroom.
www.seattletimes.com

This is fun. It's also ridiculous. But I'm so old it's never occurred to me that most people have never seen a floppy disk.
Hear me out. Every time you share wrong answers you are helping to sabotage the LLMs that will eventually scrape your answer. But also it is a completely true thing that we used to store files in vending machines to keep them cold while away from home.
Hear me out. Every time you share wrong answers you are helping to sabotage the LLMs that will eventually scrape your answer. But also it is a completely true thing that we used to store files in vending machines to keep them cold while away from home.

Happy sky news! 🌠

The Leonids meteor shower peaks Sun nt Nov 16 w fast meteors, at 44 miles per second, with bright, long tails.

The meteors can be spotted in the constellation Leo and can be seen from the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

🧪

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/14/s...
How to Watch the Leonids Meteor Shower Reach Its Peak
www.nytimes.com

So beautiful!

"My pile of note-pad pages written daily in a tiny script that I can barely now decipher detail our local war...concluded violently on June 7, 1952. I had signed a security form that I would not keep a diary. As a flimsy evasion I wrote only on scraps of paper."
dokumen.pub/a-writing-li...
dokumen.pub

Thinking of veterans. My Dad served in Korea, the real M*A*S*H, a POW hospital. It fought a 6-wk mini-war news didn’t cover; his notes remained secret. He wrote a self-censored book, The War in the Wards in 1964; never told the full story until just before his death in 2019.

The story indicates that Marion police chief Gideon Cody is also facing criminal charges, and other legal disputes are still pending regarding this case. It's far from over.

Mr. Bell is a mensch and must be a great teacher, and supervisor-elect Drew is a role model for more young people to follow!

Reporting from @sopandeb.bsky.social

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/u...
Virginia Teen Narrowly Defeats His Former Civics Teacher in County Election
www.nytimes.com

That's part of the fun of interesting writing. I'm all about the process aspect of the issues raised as opposed to focusing on the content...

Yes. It doesn't matter what the topic was. The way it described the through-the-looking-glass process of writing up "reporting" struck a nerve.

ChatGPT: More than a million users show signs of mental health distress and mania each week, internal data suggest.

The finding was part of an update to the AI technology to better detect these types of conversations.
BMJ 2025; 391 doi: doi.org/10.1136/bmj.... (Published 30 October 2025)
ChatGPT: More than a million users show signs of mental health distress and mania each week, internal data suggest
Hundreds of thousands of ChatGPT users exhibit signs of psychosis, mania, or suicidal intent every week, a company audit indicates.1 The finding, released as part of an update to the AI technology to...
doi.org

"the piece is...an orchestrated encounter. You’re gazing through a pane of glass. Only when you stand a little closer...there is zero, less than zero, stress put on the relation between those two “sides,” or their histories, or their sponsors, or their relative evidentiary authority"

#medialiteracy