Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Erin Clare Brown

New Lines Magazine @newlinesmag.bsky.social · Jul 24

NEW: Seven months after Assad’s fall, an analysis of the violence in Sweida shows how international interference and internal paralysis are pushing the country back toward chaos, writes @hhassan.bsky.social in @newlinesmag.bsky.social

newlinesmag.com/argument/how...

How Foreign Agendas Hijacked a Local Crisis in Syria

Seven months after Assad’s fall, an analysis of the violence in Sweida shows how international interference and internal paralysis are pushing the country back toward chaos

newlinesmag.com

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Reposted by Erin Clare Brown

Diane de Vignemont @diane2v.bsky.social · Jul 25

My latest, for @newlinesmag.bsky.social
The Lebanese militant Georges Abdallah, who has been incarcerated in France for 40 years, was released today. His freedom and the question of what his incarceration meant have deeply divided the nation. newlinesmag.com/spotlight/fo...

Four Decades After His Imprisonment, France Can’t Stop Fighting Over Georges Abdallah

The Lebanese militant’s release is dividing the country — and not for the first time

newlinesmag.com

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Reposted by Erin Clare Brown

Danny Postel @dannypostel.bsky.social · Jul 23

Hard to find a unique angle on a saturated topic like Epstein but @benlorber8.bsky.social has done just that — he examines the antisemitic underbelly of the MAGA obsession with the billionaire pedophile and warns against progressive amplification of these narratives.

newlinesmag.com/argument/pro...

Progressives Have No Business Celebrating MAGA’s Epstein Revolt

Antisemitic conspiracy theories are central to the far right’s obsession with the sex-trafficking billionaire and his links to the global elite

newlinesmag.com

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Erin Clare Brown @erinclarebrown.bsky.social · Jun 9

Geography nerds, this one is for you... can you point to Annobon on the map? The tiny islet is trying to win its independence from the country is says is its third colonial overlord in as many centuries. newlinesmag.com/spotlight/an...

Annobon Was Free a Century Before Haiti. Can It Find Independence Again?

The tiny islet in the Atlantic governed itself for almost 200 years and is now trying to separate itself from Equatorial Guinea’s dictatorship

newlinesmag.com

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Erin Clare Brown @erinclarebrown.bsky.social · Apr 21

This is such a good one: It's got dueling paleontologists blowing up fossils, Congolese fishermen's close encounters with the supernatural, and Young Earth Creationists bushwhacking through the heart of the rainforest looking for a dinosaur to disprove Darwin.
newlinesmag.com/reportage/th...

The Congo’s Dinosaur of Discord

Once a subject of Victorian fascination, the mokele-mbembe myth is now fodder for creationists on a quest to disprove Darwinism

newlinesmag.com

Erin Clare Brown @erinclarebrown.bsky.social · Apr 21

Meeting JD Vance was enough to kill Pope Francis

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Erin Clare Brown @erinclarebrown.bsky.social · Apr 10

As a decades-old treaty begins to unravel and world powers eye new opportunities in Antarctica, a group of environmental lawyers is trying to save the southern continent with a curious new strategy...
newlinesmag.com/reportage/sh...

Should Antarctica’s Ice Have Legal Rights?

As a decades-old treaty begins to unravel and world powers eye new opportunities, a group of environmental lawyers is trying to save the southern continent

newlinesmag.com

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Erin Clare Brown @erinclarebrown.bsky.social · Mar 19

Get dressed up or be left out! I loved this story on Aso-Ebi — truly gets to the heart of a tradition that has infiltrated all sorts of corners of the social fabric in Nigeria.

newlinesmag.com/reportage/ki...

‘Kin Cloth’ Brings People Together — and Sets Them Apart

‘Aso ebi,’ a tradition that started as a symbol of kinship, has evolved into a statement of social standing, a tool for shifting wealth and a canvas for all kinds of domestic drama

newlinesmag.com

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Reposted by Erin Clare Brown

New Lines Magazine @newlinesmag.bsky.social · Mar 13

I sat on the floor with my mom as we flipped through the pile of old black-and-white photos.

What we found spread over more than six pages was a visual account of my grandfather’s days as a soldier in Libya.

My Grandpa, the Fascist?

An old family album sent me on a journey through Italy’s dark past in Libya

newlinesmag.com

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Erin Clare Brown @erinclarebrown.bsky.social · Mar 13

Finally: Folks, don't send me a pitch that you used AI to write. These are glaringly obvious and really sad. I work in the news media; there's already enough to be sad about. Please don't make it worse.

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Erin Clare Brown @erinclarebrown.bsky.social · Mar 13

Also, if you submit a pitch, please be patient. These calls yield a lot of responses and it takes time to separate the wheat from the chaff (yours is wheat, I'm sure of it). I usually wait until the end of the pitch call to make final decisions about which stories to pursue.

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Erin Clare Brown @erinclarebrown.bsky.social · Mar 13

Rates: $600 for a spotlight $800 for regular essays, with some flexibility for extraordinary access, multimedia or other factors.

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Erin Clare Brown @erinclarebrown.bsky.social · Mar 13

TO SUBMIT A PITCH, email me with "PITCH" + a suggested headline in the subject of the email. Put the pitch IN THE BODY OF THE EMAIL, and please send a few clips of your past work, particularly pieces over 1500 words. My email is in my bio.

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Erin Clare Brown @erinclarebrown.bsky.social · Mar 13

All our spotlights are here: newlinesmag.com/spotlight/

Spotlight Archives

newlinesmag.com

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Erin Clare Brown @erinclarebrown.bsky.social · Mar 13

I’m also looking for pitches for Spotlight, a newsletter about underreported news and cultural trends from around the world. These short (~1500-1800 words) pieces tackle the upswell of ideas/events before they go mainstream, or they untangle a hot topic in a new and fascinating way.

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Erin Clare Brown @erinclarebrown.bsky.social · Mar 13

Or this unexpected confluence of cultures about Taiwan's literature and its appeal in Eastern Europe newlinesmag.com/reportage/ta...

Taiwan’s Literature Is Having a Moment in Central and Eastern Europe

Publication of contemporary fiction in Slavic languages is a sign of growing political support for Taipei

newlinesmag.com

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Erin Clare Brown @erinclarebrown.bsky.social · Mar 13

Stefania d’Ignoti writes about discovering her grandfather’s past as a soldier for Italy during its fascist expansion into Italy. It weaves together the personal elements with lots of history and uses all of that as a lens through which to view the present day newlinesmag.com/first-person...

My Grandpa, the Fascist?

An old family album sent me on a journey through Italy’s dark past in Libya

newlinesmag.com

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Erin Clare Brown @erinclarebrown.bsky.social · Mar 13

We are currently flush with stories about conflict, migration and climate change, so I’m looking for stories that touch on different, fresh topics and do it in a New Lines way.

Here are a couple that do that really well:

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Erin Clare Brown @erinclarebrown.bsky.social · Mar 13

As ever, I'm looking for hard-hitting & enlightening reportage that touches on topics & places traditional outlets ignore. My primary beat is NORTH & WEST AFRICA & the diasporas of those places. I’m especially interested in stories from Algeria, Morocco, Burkina Faso, Mali & Mauritania

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Erin Clare Brown @erinclarebrown.bsky.social · Mar 13

📢📢📢PITCH CALL. I’m looking for pitches for two verticals at New Lines Magazine to run in April, May and June. Deadline for pitches is March 31. Read on for details.

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Reposted by Erin Clare Brown

Andy Rowell @andy-rowell.bsky.social · Feb 26

The final nail in the coffin for anyone who ever believed that Big Oil was going to solve the climate crisis. It was always a lie. It was always greenwashing nonsense. It was never going to. And it never will. It was always profit over people and planet. To the death.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

BP to slash renewables investment and ramp up gas and oil production.

The energy giant will announce its strategy later after rivals also rowed back on green energy plans.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Reposted by Erin Clare Brown

Danny Postel @dannypostel.bsky.social · Feb 7

A sizzling, truly marvelous piece of cultural history by @simongandrew.bsky.social about the making and mourning of the Egyptian musical legend Ahmad Adawiya

You'll love this essay even if you've never heard Adawiya's music — which you will want to do after (no, *while*) reading it!

New Lines Magazine @newlinesmag.bsky.social · Feb 7

NEW: Although a musical icon when he died, Ahmad Adawiya had a rocky road to stardom. newlinesmag.com/essays/the-m...

The Making and Mourning of Ahmad Adawiya, a Musical Legend

The singer was banned from the airwaves, but the humble cassette allowed him to circumvent the rules and sell directly to his audience

newlinesmag.com

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Reposted by Erin Clare Brown

Lydia Wilson @lsmwilson.bsky.social · Feb 5

This Friday in London! Please come to the Frontline Club for a discussion of what 2025 is shaping up to be around the globe - from Russia to the Congo to Syria, many countries are facing major change. Reserve your free place here: www.eventbrite.com/e/the-world-...

The World Beyond Washington: Africa, Europe and the Middle East in 2025

A panel of journalists at the Frontline Club discuss the major global stories of 2025 that have been overshadowed by U.S headlines

www.eventbrite.com

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Erin Clare Brown @erinclarebrown.bsky.social · Feb 5

The Aga Khan died yesterday. A great time to revisit this @newlinesmag.bsky.social piece about the Pamiris, a community of Ismaili muslims, who fled Tajikistan and found an unlikely home in Poland, bolstered by the broader Tajik opposition movement: newlinesmag.com/reportage/po...

Poland’s Allure for Tajikistan’s Exiles

Despite recent right-wing populist rule, Warsaw has become a base for the Central Asian country’s refugees and political opposition

newlinesmag.com

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Erin Clare Brown @erinclarebrown.bsky.social · Jan 30

If you've spent any time on TikTok (or Instagram reels) you've heard "Water" the breakout sensation by South African artist Tyla. More and more African artists are making it big on social media — can they break into the mainstream?
newlinesmag.com/reportage/fr...

From Lagos to Los Angeles, the Global Rise of African Music

The Grammys are set to showcase some of the continent’s biggest artists, but as audiences grow, questions remain about who is profiting

newlinesmag.com