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Christoph Mergerson

@mergerson.bsky.social

1.9K followers 760 following 640 posts

📍 Journalism professor, University of Maryland 📕 PhD in media studies from Rutgers 🌪️ I study weather media 🌪️ Former NWS intern 🏛️ Also study media history, trust in news, and the well-being of media professionals 🏛️ Formerly at Brookings

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Christoph Mergerson @mergerson.bsky.social · 2d

Pepperidge Farm remembers when this president and his congressional supporters blocked putting Harriet Tubman on the 20 because it was too “divisive.” msmagazine.com/2025/04/22/t...

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Christoph Mergerson @mergerson.bsky.social · 2d

It is, in itself, a form of institutional corruption.

Christoph Mergerson @mergerson.bsky.social · 2d

This. News organizations that do this send a clear signal that they don’t care about building a long-term relationship with you. They just want to extract cash from you and toss you aside like an empty husk after they’ve extracted everything they can in the short-term. #journalism

A.Jay Wagner @ajaywagner.bsky.social · 2d

Amen. Such a short-sighted money grab.

It discourages subscriptions for those less 100% certain of their commitment. At this point, everybody know it's comes with Internet-provider level bs

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Reposted by Christoph Mergerson

Steve Bowen @stevebowen.bsky.social · 2d

Update: The Grand Forks, North Dakota NWS office has confirmed that an EF5 tornado touched down on June 20, 2025.

This means that a modern record streak without an EF5 tornado ended after 4,413 days.

Even more miraculously? This occurred in the midst of a derecho, which is very unexpected.

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Christoph Mergerson @mergerson.bsky.social · 2d

Local newspapers bleed trust when they insult their customers by making it an adventure to cancel a subscription. "Trust local journalism" is incompatible with "you have to win a game of three-card monte if you want to cancel." Should be a law that you can cancel subs in seconds online.

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Christoph Mergerson @mergerson.bsky.social · 3d

So, what’s the score of the New York Yank—oh my gosh

Christoph Mergerson @mergerson.bsky.social · 4d

Penn State and Texas aren’t even impersonating Top 25 teams.

Reposted by Christoph Mergerson

Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 7d

It’s not just that this is puerile and lawless. It’s that it is completely out of touch with the issues relevant to contemporary warfare. Russia fights like this. It makes Russians criminals. But it doesn’t make them winners.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 8d

Hegseth: "We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement."

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Christoph Mergerson @mergerson.bsky.social · 8d

#Dodgers games are like a wrestling match with false finishes. Ohtani hit the #Reds with two spears and they still kicked out.

Christoph Mergerson @mergerson.bsky.social · 8d

#Dodgers be scoring 10 runs and still leaving their fans with the reasonable impression that they could lose.

Christoph Mergerson @mergerson.bsky.social · 8d

Ohtani doesn't hit pitches. He yeets them into the atmosphere. #Dodgers

Christoph Mergerson @mergerson.bsky.social · 8d

When Ohtani hits a pitch flush, it looks like it launches at an 80-degree angle and hits the bottom of the space station. #Dodgers

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Christoph Mergerson @mergerson.bsky.social · 8d

Sweet Caroline > Sinatra ⚾️ #RedSox

Christoph Mergerson @mergerson.bsky.social · 8d

Pitch 117 was a hundy wow. #RedSox

Reposted by Christoph Mergerson

John Morales @johnmoralestv.bsky.social · 8d

Three weeks in and trends towards a back-loaded hurricane season are materializing. Since September 10:

Named storms = 3 (normal 2)
Hurricanes = 3 (normal 2)
Major hurricanes = 2 (normal 1)

October is busiest for the western Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. Stay aware.

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Christoph Mergerson @mergerson.bsky.social · 8d

Is your city or community a place for the military to practice or is it your home?

Excerpt from a September 30, 2025, New York Times article in which President Trump said he told Pete Hegseth “to use American cities where he has deployed troops as ‘training grounds’ for the military.”

Christoph Mergerson @mergerson.bsky.social · 8d

The President of the United States:

President Trump as quoted in The Washington Post on September 30, 2025: “I moved a submarine or two, I won’t say about the two, over to the coast of Russia just to be careful, because we can’t let people throw around that word,” Trump said. “I call it the n-word. There are two n-words, and you can’t use either of them.”

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Christoph Mergerson @mergerson.bsky.social · 10d

That was … interesting clock management by the Packers.

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Reposted by Christoph Mergerson

Peter Sagal @petersagal.bsky.social · 10d

I have lived and worked in and around Chicago for 27 years and I have been assaulted less often than Sen Paul has been in his own back yard.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 10d

Rand Paul: "Chicago is a nightmare. It is literally a war zone."

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Reposted by Christoph Mergerson

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 10d

Think of this as equivalent to removing the merit system from government employment.

Your tax dollars deployed to serve the goals of a personalist authoritarian system. All the talk about banning DEI because of merit shown to be nonsense when they also remove merit-based processes.

Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 10d

Awarding scientific grants based on scientific merit? That pales in comparison to my strategy, giving grants based on political loyalty

www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

Wp EXCLUSIVE
White House considers funding advantage for colleges that align with Trump policies The proposal could potentially transform the government's vast research funding operation, which has long awarded university grants based on scientific merit.
Today at 6:00 a.m. EDT

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Reposted by Christoph Mergerson

Marshall Shepherd @drshepherd2013.bsky.social · 13d

As we assess the potential hurricane threat for the Carolinas, please resist the urge of sharing 1 model outcome maps with scary scenarios that you see from some click-bait sources. Context and evaluation of broader ensembles/scenarios are important.

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Christoph Mergerson @mergerson.bsky.social · 13d

And readers should ask themselves, what quality of journalism can I expect from a news organization that pays its journalists $18,000 a year to produce 25 stories a month?

Jason Bittel @bittelmethis.bsky.social · 13d

Science journos 🧪:

Earth dot com asked me about writing for them. They offer $50-60 PER STORY. And expect 15 to 25 stories EACH MONTH.

For reference, that rate is worse than what I got for a blogging role in 2012.

Steer clear af.

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Reposted by Christoph Mergerson

Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · 14d

BREAKING: A federal judge has ordered the University of South Dakota to reinstate a professor who posted criticism of Charlie Kirk on his Facebook page the day of the shooting, finding the action likely violated the First Amendment. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

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Christoph Mergerson @mergerson.bsky.social · 15d

Watching Jimmy Kimmel’s return on WABC. History will remember that WJLA, the ABC affiliate in the nation’s capital, didn’t air this. (Kimmel just called them out.) I know this is a corporate decision, so I don’t blame the local news team. This puts them in an unfair position. It is cowardly.

Christoph Mergerson @mergerson.bsky.social · 15d

Going to go about my day as if the president of my country, the world’s largest economy and a nuclear superpower, did not just rant incoherently in front of a meeting of basically the entire world.

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