David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

i could write a tome about how fucking embarrassing it is for journalism that someone as morally bankrupt as bari weiss has ascended to the highest levels of money and power by tickling trump's balls but instead i'm going to keep covering the people hurt most by his terror and giving them a voice.

perhaps the biggest story TFPever ran was a catastrophically shoddy argument that George Floyd ackshully died of an overdose. When confronted with irrefutable evidence that the piece was simply wrong, Weiss didn’t take it down, she asked her critic, @radleybalko.bsky.social, to come on a podcast.

Yes, and reward good people. To paraphrase @mekka.mekka-tech.com, a culture = which behaviors are rewarded + what behaviors recieve punishment (& shame)

I'm starting to think we need to bring back a constructive form of shame, which @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social makes a great case for in this excellent piece:

www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...

I continue to think that one of the reasons this country is falling apart is the wholesale abandonment of public virtue as a broadly shared aspiration. Or even something people should be embarrassed about if they don’t have it.

"We may live in a formal democracy, but in practice we’ve been disempowered for a long time—denied real control over the decisions that shape our lives...That’s why we must commit to a fuller vision of democracy," writes @lfelizleon.bsky.social labornotes.org/blogs/2025/0...

This is what Blair’s team created together with BCG

Meta is constructing its largest data center yet: a $10 billion facility in Louisiana, as big as 70 football fields, requiring more than twice as much electricity as the City of New Orleans.

Louisiana has had to greenlight $3 billion in new energy infrastructure to service Meta's facility.

💌THIS IS A BIG FUCKING WIN
California is really standing on business by telling states to mind their own BUSINESS! This new law means more safety for providers and lawyers, less ammo for anti-abobo trolls, and smoother access for patients. This is a huge fucking game changer for people EVERYWHERE.

🌴✨California To The Rescue, BABY!
As of last Friday, doctors in the Golden State can now prescribe and mail abortion pills without their names and information being put on blast – they can go full on anon! THAT’S NOT ALL!
buff.ly/0ZPsfY7

I listened and it was one of the most chilling conversations I’ve ever heard.

More for your consideration:

Welcome to Hell World @lukeoneil47.bsky.social
The Handbasket @marisakabas.bsky.social
How Things Work @hamiltonnolan.bsky.social
@garbageday.email @ryanhatesthis.bsky.social
Expedite @kristenhawley.bsky.social
The Food Section @hannaraskin.bsky.social

If you have an extra $10 a month to spare, here's a list of worker-owned cooperative news sites you might want to support:

• 404 Media
• Defector
• The Flytrap
• Flaming Hydra
• The Appeal
• Aftermath
• Racket
• Hell Gate
• The 51st
• The Colorado Sun
• Range Media
• Discourse Blog
• Pop Heist

Stephen Colbert: “Tonight we’re all Jimmy Kimmel…. With an autocrat, you can’t give an inch. If ABC thinks that this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive, and clearly they've never read The Children's Book If You Give a Mouse A Kimmel.”

Stephen Colbert: "Nexstar has a major merger coming up before the Trump administration. A company apparently capitulating to the whims of the president in order to ensure their merger goes through? Has that ever happened before? I'm being told not to answer that question."

OK, not even getting into the ethics or the existential issues around AI: Have some goddamn self-respect. If you're a writer and you do this I don't know how you look at yourself, but I know exactly how I look at you.

coates is genuinely a generational writer

you know the drill. relevant starter pack:

go.bsky.app/2Fq4P6e

If you feel like there’s nothing you can do to stop all of this, start by refusing to participate in fascist demands. And don’t ever justify the behaviors of people who capitulate.

They can’t do any of this without cooperation. The main thing most people need to do is just refuse that cooperation.

He is free to argue that because he is not a stakeholder in ANY of it. If the GOP has its way, what will be taken from Ezra Klein personally is nothing more serious than a good night's sleep. I sincerely await the essay in which he acknowledges that, and the limitation of vision it causes him. x

The right wing billionaires are soon going to control almost every single major media outlet.

Alan is one of my closest friends (not just in the work-friends way), and a great critic, and a person practically everybody in TV knows, and an incredibly prolific hard worker who produces a mind-boggling quantity of good stuff. Find him continuing in those capacities at alansepinwall.ghost.io.

Rolling Stone fired Alan Sepinwall, Status’ Oliver Darcy reports. That’s probably the end of my subscription.