Mike Ananny

NEWS: The Library of Congress has launched a significant upgrade to the Chronicling America website, the nation’s leading free resource for historical U.S. newspapers. newsroom.loc.gov/news/library...

California lawmakers face new challenges as social media becomes part of the job Communicating with constituents through social media brings legislators face to face with algorithms and online harassment.

“If those platforms continue to encourage & allow really toxic, harmful, hateful speech...You’re just going to get politicians who are either wanting to be part of that or who have the power or privilege to endure it.”

Thanks Molly Gibbs / @sacbee.com for interview.

www.sacbee.com/news/politic...

Life during the Russian offensive, illustrated by art and AI Witness: Sergei Sotnychenko was trapped in his home town of Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv during the early days of the Russian offensive on Ukraine. His first-hand account of his experiences as figh...

A different example, but consider Acosta’s use of GenAI vs Semafor’s use of it to synthetically witness the Ukraine invasion: www.semafor.com/article/10/2... .

Yet another reason why journalists need media studies scholars — to help them think about what it means to witness in the public interest.

Many folks (rightly IMO) dunking on @jimacosta.bsky.social for this (esp w/o reflecting on why do it), but/and

There’s a long history of journalism using new tech to push definitions of “witness” (or “interview”).

Eg, Silverstone called it “proper distance” — see drive.google.com/file/d/1nwmF...

The good, the bad, and the completely made-up: Newsrooms on wrestling accurate answers out of AI "If we sit on the sideline and observe, I think the risk is too high that we are gonna be left behind."

Great @niemanlab.org piece from @joshaxelrod.bsky.social reviewing nuances & tradeoffs of using GenAI in news work, quoting from & describing the work of several different publishers.

www.niemanlab.org/2025/08/the-...

Mean world syndrome - Wikipedia

The Mean World Syndrome persists. ( en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_wo... )

What the Columbia Settlement Really Means

The Columbia settlement is an “astonishing transfer of autonomy and authority to . . . an administration whose disdain for the values of the academy is demonstrated anew every day.” New @knightcolumbia.org analysis of the Columbia settlement, just published. knightcolumbia.org/blog/what-th...

The number of STS dissertation topics that these thugs generate on a daily basis—eg, the material politics of measurement as a means for the authoritarian control of scale—is astounding.

A chillingly comprehensive account of how “the administration is setting the stage for election subversion.”

It’s delusional to assume the current chaos & evil is going to fix itself with a free & fair 2026 election giving the Dems Congress.

MAGA is poised to steal it, Jan 6 shows that they will.

Headline from Harvard Crimson: "Harvard President Garber Tells Faculty He Is Not Considering a $500 Million Deal With Trump."

Text of story: Harvard prez Garber says report of a deal "was apparently leaked to the press by White House officials." NYT ran with it as a story.

Important details from this story:

1) Yet another news-break by student journalists (this time @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social) www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

2) Harvard saying "see you in court," not "let's make a deal."

3) Per Garber, WH/MAGA leaked news of a "deal." NYT then ran with it.

Applebaum on Autocracy Anne Applebaum warns that Sudan’s descent into chaos shows what happens when institutions fail—and why a free press is essential to prevent America from following the same path.

Anne Applebaum: "If American media can’t convey how dangerous this behavior is—for our prosperity, for our health, for our democracy—then American media will eventually cease to exist."

More from our convo in @status.news: www.status.news/p/anne-apple...

A chillingly comprehensive account of how “the administration is setting the stage for election subversion.”

It’s delusional to assume the current chaos & evil is going to fix itself with a free & fair 2026 election giving the Dems Congress.

MAGA is poised to steal it, Jan 6 shows that they will.

Experts Raise Concerns Over Trump’s White House Ballroom Renovation Plans

Maybe an unpopular thought but, sure, let the White House become a tacky & hideous eyesore.

It can then be a persistent, physical reminder of how the country imagined & built itself into an ugly home of celebrity-fueled, evil hubris.

Look at it for years.

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/u...

Bloodied Faces, Sobbing Children: Immigration Officers Smash Car Windows to Speed Up Arrests We’ve documented nearly 50 incidents of immigration officers shattering car windows to make arrests — a tactic experts say was rarely used before Trump took office. ICE claims its officers use a “mini...

"He can either give us a license... or we’ll smash the fucking window out and drag him out.”

That's not just any ICE officer saying that. His name is Matthew Elliston and he now oversees ICE field operations on the East Coast.

We're only 6 months in

Seeing Kamala Harris openly say that the system is broken was so powerful.

Just having someone in her position say it so candidly without qualification was beyond powerful.

The “deal” that Brown made with the Trump admin is much more extreme than is being reported. It includes government oversight of course evaluations and no barrier to government interference in faculty hiring.

Read it for yourself here:

www.brown.edu/sites/defaul...

Opinion | This Is the Moment Democrats Have Been Talking About for Years

“The money is there, but the political will is missing.”

“so many in the Democratic establishment confuse triangulation with leadership and treat stability as a virtue in and of itself. There’s a chasm between what we say and what we deliver.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/o...

+1

With zero shade to my students (they’re not billionaires w/ staff), Z’s essay reads like a mediocre 1st draft of a hastily written paper for an intro class (usually rife with phrases like “in today’s ever changing digital media ecosystem landscape”).

I comment “evidence?” & “who’s ‘we’?” a lot.

These bros are exhaustingly boring.

Opinion | They Saw Their Neighbors Taken Away by ICE. Then They Made a Plan.

“Yet if Los Angeles is a testing ground for mass deportation, it’s also a place to see how the resistance is evolving…part of a growing shift from symbolic protest to direct action.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/o...

Here are 6 reasons why newspapers have dropped their paywalls Sometimes it's a response to a public emergency; sometimes it's just to build audience.

Totally agree.

Maybe of interest, Leila Bighash & I studied paywall drops & found that the “public emergency” rationale is often idiosyncratic. Few news organizations have a clear process/rationale for when & why to drop a paywall.

www.niemanlab.org/2016/07/here...

Trump Administration Freezes $108 Million in Funds to Duke University

So depressingly predictable — as universities like Columbia & Harvard cave, the Trump regime learns that its ransoms will be paid & its thuggery works.

Higher education continues its pattern of failing to collectively organize & make its power.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/29/u...

If your reaction is “let’s focus group some messaging,” please understand that you aren’t reacting as a savvy political operative.

That’s a trauma response. You’re retreating from the horrors by pretending we still inhabit the same familiar institutions.

We do not. Those times have passed.

The damage that is being done will not be reverted through the pendulum swing of simple party politics.

They have destroyed the administrative state.

They have created a secret police. With camps.

They have placed apparatchiks in lifetime positions.

There’s a brand of political thinker (call them “normie optimists”) that reflexively treats this all as ephemeral.

“Just wait for the midterms. Focus on the right messaging and win those swing districts.”

I just want to stare at them and say “Emil Bove has been confirmed to a lifetime judgeship.”

Thanks, much appreciated!

With big thanks for @criticalai-journal.bsky.social (so smart & valuable), are articles offered as formatted PDFs anywhere? I feel like I'm missing something. (My browser prints ugly PDFs.)

Eg, I'd like a nice PDF of Fredrikzon's "Rethinking Error", am flummoxed:
read.dukeupress.edu/critical-ai/...

Faculty Support of George Mason’s President Draws Federal Investigation

Faculty who wrote to defend their president and object to a DOJ investigation of their university...are now being investigated by the DOJ.
The most banal defense of free speech and academic freedom will trigger the full wrath of the US government now.
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/u...

It’s always amusing / depressing to me when journalists write something like “divert the news cycle,” as if the news cycle is a naturally occurring thing that they have nothing to do with.