Professor Amanda Sturgill

Four-panel cartoon of frog by @jess-a-creates. Embedded text reads: Before we begin today | I slept badly | I'm running on nothing | And I will not be on my best behavior.

Sunday Sillies: Spring Forward edition. Add a little silly to your doomscroll when you find the cartoonist here: @jess-a-creates.bsky.social

Americans Are Now a Target in Trump’s Immigration Crackdown A WSJ investigation tracked the U.S. citizens caught in the crosshairs of an aggressive federal campaign to detain and demonize dissenters.

New subscription = new gift links. Here's one. Interactive multimedia on a serious topic.

www.wsj.com/us-news/immi...

Column | How to war-proof your budget before regular gas hits $4 a gallon As the Iran conflict leads to rising gas prices, these tips can help you save money and maintain some budget predictability.

So this is at once:

a) A useful service piece

b) Dystopian, and not in a fun read kind of way

It's a gift link if you need the advice.

wapo.st/3OU6jY6

4/ I teach writing for a living, and I know stories have so much power. They make us know and can make us feel and can help us hold a mirror up to ourselves - if we are willing to look.

Anyway, a good read. So are Larson's other books.

3/ It's non-fiction, and Larson does such an amazing job of turning mostly archival research into a narrative as good as The Diplomat or Star Wars or [insert your favorite].

We know the true story ended with a country deciding it could use force in other countries at will, all to placate a madman.

2/ Larson tells the story of the U. S. Ambassador to Germany during Hitler's rise to power. It's about him, but it's also about all the people and how they didn't acknowledge what was happening to them as Berlin changed into to a place where goons grabbed people and state power punished dissidents.

Saturday reading recommendation: When I was trying to figure out how to write narrative non-fiction in order to do the We are #AltGov book, my agent suggested looking at Erik Larson's work. I started with In the Garden of Beasts.

It's not new, so it would not be $$ and a lot of libraries have it.

Proof by assertion is um... not proof.

Certain social media accounts are posting content that looks like it was conceived and edited by teenagers. And not the nice teenagers. The ones from prominent families who have never dealt with consequences before.

a little girl in a blue shirt is standing in front of a shelf full of trophies . ALT: a little girl in a blue shirt is standing in front of a shelf full of trophies .

I do love dissecting things...

If you read the bill, it attaches liability to the chatbot answer ONLY IF the same answer would attach liability to the person making the same statement.

Complicated new issue but seems AI companies want Section 230 type immunity. I don’t think that’s where the public (and juries) are, at all.

7/ And, in any case, I think social media serves its purpose in some ways here by letting us discuss possible explanations.

Also @thebandcake.bsky.social: big fan 😀

6/ So we can try the social media route. @nytimes.com, was it the timing of the headlines, or something else?

(**nb Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. If there's no answer, I won't be surprised since they'll allocate more resources to new journalism than to re-litigating old stories)

The New York Times is eliminating the position of public editor; here’s the Sulzberger memo "Liz will leave The Times on Friday as our last public editor."

5/ When they first eliminated the position, the publisher said the need would be served through a combination of Reader Center and monitoring social media.

I looked at Reader Center this morning, and my mid-first-coffee scan didn't tell me how to talk back.

www.niemanlab.org/2017/05/the-...

Bring back the public editor! (No, I don't want the job.) Plus: Readers come through with examples of bad headlines; and a bit of welcome inspiration.

4/ Part of the SPJ Code of Ethics is to dialogue with your readers. The Times used to have a public editor position, which you can read more about here. margaretsullivan.substack.com/p/bring-back...

They don't any more.

3/ It's also the case several complicated geopolitical, financial and cultural reasons, it's a lot more likely that US news organizations have people on the ground who can verify in Israel than would in Iran. HOWEVER

2/ As for the actor not being named, if it was early, given that two entities were sending munitions (U.S. and Israel), it may not have been clear who the actor was.

Again, I don't know the timing of the headline, so I don't know. Just a possible explanation. AND

A few thoughts 🧵

With online headlines, they can change, so it's hard from the reader end to know definitively what happened. So it's possible that the first headline was early, before a news org could independently verify, which would lead to that attribution.

He was old, then!

I've sung backup for Andy Williams.

a thinking smiley face has a hand on its chin ALT: a thinking smiley face has a hand on its chin

Today in Detection Deception: Equivocation

It's expected you get a war declaration before you start dropping bombs.

Argument I'm seeing:

We're not at war because we haven't declared war. Therefore we don't need to declare war.

Come on.

Spent Monday looking at applicants for a research seminar to look at AI & teaching/learning. I'm glad my university is investing in this. At the same time, I feel like the questions are numerous and weighty, but we're looking for a gun while the target is shrinking & zipping around at light speed.

💯

I voted. It was cool. Will do it again.

As an NC resident, it truly was horrendous the extent to which FEMA left the people in the western part of the state to fend for themselves.

I'm not at all a fan of congressional hearings being used for grandstanding, but it needed to be said and wasn't getting heard elsewhere.

Screenshot for Epstein files with information on how to contact Howard Lutnick.

Why did the Access Hollywood tape fade out while the Epstein files have staying power? The media, politics and the audience interact to keep some scandals around. I get into the how and why on this week's UnSpun

Here, or where you pod.

bit.ly/4a6GJWg

4/

Community:

Supply chain/rising prices due to fuel issues overall

Gas prices and effects on

*Local business

*Individuals

*Public transit

*Schools

Do local Muslims/Jews feel unsafe

Iranian doctors/other health workers

What do congress critters from area think/plan to do?

3/

Campus:

Alumni reporting on this

Students in ROTC or reserves

Campus experts on
*Supply chain and fuel price economic issues
*Geopolitics and history
*Religion issues
*Cultural/artistic heritage lost in wars

2/

Campus:

Students who are abroad - are they safe

Spring break will become complicated/$$ for some

Students thoughts on the draft

People on campus from Iran and other immediately affected countries
*Worry about family members
*Feelings about regime in Iran
*Is campus supporting?

I have beat reporting today, and it will be a chance to talk about how you find stories on your beat from current events. My students are a covering campus team and a covering community team. Here are ideas I came up with on the way to work.

Throw yours in the comments, if you've got them.