Rahul Bhargava

‘Reject the Compact’ petition urges USC not to sign Trump’s contract Faculty show support for USC to reject the federal government’s Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.

“‘Universities & university presidents need to be the ones to stand up to Trump and say no, because we are not seeing industry leaders in specifically media & technology taking that kind of stance,’ said Mike Ananny.”

cc @annenbergmedia.bsky.social

www.uscannenbergmedia.com/2025/10/06/r...

For sure. I see so much more of this type of screen work now, compared to 15 years ago. That’s exciting (and validating).

The Washington Post and CBS News are dying. The Bulwark is the future. We drink their milkshake.

"In an authoritarian context, all journalism will tend toward propaganda unless it is explicitly formulated as anti-authoritarian." @jvl.bsky.social www.thebulwark.com/p/the-washin...

BREAKING: Lawsuit challenges violent Illinois ICE enforcement. Press, clergy, and protesters sue DHS for violating First Amendment

BREAKING: Today, we're suing. Federal forces in the Chicago area are brutally suppressing free speech with tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash grenades. Journalists, clergy, and demonstrators have been attacked for peacefully protesting against the government. This is an unconstitutional assault.

Northeastern professors weigh in on what Jimmy Kimmel’s temporary suspension means for free speech, future of journalism Since Sept. 17, news of the suspension and subsequent rehiring of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel has dominated media coverage, sparking worldwide debate about free speech.    Following his Sept. 17…

Some of my Northeastern Journalism colleagues weighed in on the free-speech implications to the Kimmel suspension huntnewsnu.com/88448/campus...

Nancy Reagan standing at a podium with a green and white “Just say no” campaign logo attached to the front of the podium.

Message to university leaders considering signing—or negotiating—the extortion letter.

AAUP President Todd Wolfson and AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump’s Loyalty Pledge for Colleges and Universities.

Now is the time to unite in defense of democracy and higher education!

Read full statement below 👇

@aft.org
@proftwolf.bsky.social
@rweingarten.bsky.social

Corrected headline. a1 NYTimes. Constitution And Reality Under Siege. Trump Declares War On Cities. Trump and Hegseth Recount Familiar Partisan Complaints to lop Military Leaders The U.S. generals and admirals summoned from around the world had been given little information about the planned event.

News organizations are failing to communicate that POTUS is detached from reality & democracy.
Democracywashing his declared war on US cities by zero context for how *unconstitutional* & dangerous this is.

“We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”

1/n

BREAKING: Our client Mario Guevara, an Emmy-winning journalist detained by ICE in retaliation for livestreaming law enforcement activity, will be deported tomorrow to El Salvador.

Mario and his family are being punished for his reporting. This cruelty is meant to stifle our free press.

Within the industry, the only narrative that many hear are the loud voices of the hard-right CEOs who have taken over all the media channels, but the actual individual workers are still having huge impact and are still the ones who actually make things happen. Be sure to amplify that reality.

Information+ Conference 2025 Interdisciplinary practices in information design and visualization 14–16 November 2025Boston, MA USA

Workshops for @infoplusconf.bsky.social live! Street viz, period data, decarbonization, community data, sonification, data quilting, infographics for movement. Nov 14th in Boston. Sign up now: informationplusconference.com/2025/worksho...

The Mainstream Media Is Catastrophically Failing To Meet The Moment

Earlier today we wrote about Trump's extraordinary admission that he was basing military deployment decisions on old Fox News footage and lies from his advisors. But there's an even more damning story here: how that revelation…

If any other president in all of history said the military should use American cities as a training ground he would be removed from office that same day. The hardest thing to tolerate in all this is how relatively silent elected democrats are. It’s ridiculous.

As someone currently on probation at Princeton, what also stands out here is the sham faculty governance on display:

Faculty panel reviews all the evidence n decides there is no grounds for suspension.

Admin overrules their decision n Provost Kavita Bala calls for significant disciplinary action.

New AAUP Report Analyzes Weaponization of Title VI in DOE Investigations A new Committee A report addresses the issue of discrimination in higher education and the recent surge in US Department of Education investigations utilizing Title VI in programs that receive federal...

As the national @aaup.org stated in its recent report, “On Title VI, Discrimination, and Academic Freedom,” "This conflation of political critique with antisemitism lays the foundation for enforcement of Title VI against speech that is protected by the First Amendment and academic freedom."

Flyer in orange and purple color scheme listing with link, date, and list of panelists

Tomorrow @ 3pm ET our partner @pregnancyjust.bsky.social is hosting a webinar about their data on pregnancy criminalization in the two years after the Dobbs decision, and discussing local impacts with Southern state partners. See their upcoming events: linktr.ee/pregnancyjust

Abigail Jackson saying: Democrats, calling your political opponents Nazis has consequences. Study: Left-wing terrorism climbs to 30-year high And posting a graph from Axios that shows WAY WAY WAY more right wing terrorism, and showing a very slight increase in left wing terrorism this year that would still have it lower than basically every other year of right wing terrorism.

White House Deputy Press Secretary seen here posting data showing how much more prevalent right wing domestic terrorism is than left wing domestic terrorism... while thinking she's showing the reverse.

Apparently she can only read headlines, but not the actual graph with the data.

Friendly reminder that immigrants commit fewer crimes than native born Americans. And that undocumented immigrants partake in very few social services (education mainly for their children) despite paying taxes.

Some big implications for journalism, too, where reporters often mistake trending posts as a reasonable reflection of public opinion.

beyond the plateau: the next decade with physical data experiences, a hopeful reimagining - Shirley Wu After reflecting on what might have caused a creative plateau in data visualization in "what killed innovation", I turn my attention to where we could go from here. I share why I’m especially excited…

Weekend read: @shirleywu.studio stirred up rich discussion with her series on the state of data storytelling. I'm in the "data experiences" camp -- we can use data to bring people together IRL and tell impactful data stories that drive understanding and change. www.shirleywu.studio/notebook/202...

How our What Works project tracks solutions to the local news crisis Nearly four years ago, Ellen Clegg and Dan Kennedy began tracking solutions to the local news crisis with our podcast, “What Works: The Future of Local News.” Our first guest was Lori E…

Four years ago, @ellenclegg.bsky.social and @dankennedy.net started What Works to track solutions to the local news crisis. We're part of @northeasternu.bsky.social's School of Journalism and @nu-ctm.bsky.social. Please follow our website, podcast and Bluesky feed to keep up with the latest.

A headline that poses a question —usually in stories that pretend that there is a legitimate "debate"— when the author unequivocally *knows* the answer, is journalistic malpractice.

Charlie Kirk put Massachusetts professors on a watchlist. Now, some teach in fear. - The Boston Globe The watchlist is dedicated to finding professors who Turning Point USA claims “discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda,” according to its website.

Good to see @bostonglobe.com covering impacts of the Kirk / Turning Point Professor Watchlist: creating an environment of fear by facilitating threats and doxxing www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/25/m...

from cyberselfish by paulina borsook: It's an inability to reconcile the demands of being individual with the demands of participating in society, which coincides beautifully with a preference for, and glorification of, being the solo comman- der of one's computer in lieu of any other economically viable be- havior. Computers are so much more rule-based, controllable, fixable, and comprehensible than any human will ever be. As many political schools of thought do, these technolibertarians make a philosophy out of a personality defect.

2/ In 2001, Borsook said tech "libertarianism" reflected an adolescent mindset, with a craving for unchecked independence & resistance to constraint.

She warned that tech libertarians wanted an anti-human world that worked more like a computer. From "Cyberselfish," a book based on her 90s writing:

At CIR–WFMU show, comedians mine environmental reporting for laughs The show highlighted New Jersey’s legacy of pollution.

A lot of my work right now involves getting data off the screen in community settings. Ran into @cocteau.bsky.social and he pointed me to this older work on data journalism reinterpreted as stand up comedy! Lovely example to get inspired by for our data theatre work. current.org/2016/09/at-c...

YouTube video by The Daily Show Maria Ressa - Fighting Back Against Trump’s Authoritarian Algorithm With Truth | The Daily Show

Please watch @mariaressa.bsky.social warning America AGAIN with Jon Stewart.

See why we are going through Aramageddon and why it's better than an apocalypse:

youtu.be/Tsb1I7hqaJ4?...

Tylenol is safe for pregnant women.

RFK Jr, on the other hand, is not.

Tech notes: Turns out 100,000+ still use the site, but it is built on legacy tech. Latest problem stemmed from python 3.8 reaching end-of-life(!) Upgraded to 3.10 took some work with dependencies, but stable for now. Need to transition to a static Docker deploy until we can rewrite it.

DataBasic.io WordCounter analyzes your text and tells you the most common words and phrases.

DataBasic.io is 10 years old! Our self-service activities and tools for data literacy helped launch me down the road to my "Community Data" book, and was one of my first projects with @kanarinka.bsky.social. Happy to report the site is working again, and the two of us still collaborate.

Opinion | A Tale of Two NICUs My son was born at 28 weeks. I know the pain and triumph of neonatal intensive care.

Weekend read: my friend @mushon.bsky.social's NYT Op-Ed left me crying. Crises that might feel abstract and far away from the US have real people and human suffering at their core. "What we need now is for humanity to overcome the cruelties of its own imagination". Well worth your time.