Aparna Mukherjee

As Brazil's largest journalism conference takes off in São Paulo, SEJ celebrates our partnership with the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism @abraji.bsky.social, advancing investigative environmental reporting throughout Latin America (1/2)
congresso.abraji.org.br

The student paper at the college at which I teach reports a "tsunami of takedown requests" from international students terrified of being targeted for innocuous, legitimate op-eds & opinions.. Many ask in person--leave no trace in writing. Reminds me of my father's account of studying in the USSR.

I don’t know why it felt jarring to see Zuckerberg’s post announcing it on FB, given it was bookended by crazily propagandistic dreck: AI-generated posts of Elon Musk as philanthropist, father, etc., now flooding so many of our feeds. I look at FB every few weeks, feels too frequent at this point…

Exclusive: Meta adds Dina Powell, Patrick Collison to board It's part of a broader effort by Meta to expand its board to include more global business experts.

Decent and certainly qualified picks for board seats — also politically astute when it come to Powell — and a sharp contrast to the fetid Dana White www.axios.com/2025/04/11/e...

Am I Still Allowed to Tell the Truth in My Class? Recent orders from the Trump administration run a real risk of muzzling professors like me who teach about the racism of the country’s past.

“Scholars of racism face a peculiar accusation: that studying racism causes racism. As facile as this criticism is—no one thinks that agriculture professors cause world hunger, or that cardiology professors cause heart attacks…this sort of ignorant bullying comes with the territory.”

New Mexico made childcare free. It lifted 120,000 people above the poverty line The state, which has long ranked worst in the US for child wellbeing, became the first and only in the country to offer free childcare to a majority of families

New Mexico made child care free for most families. Believe it or not, the good thing is good.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Three Robinson projection maps showing 2-m air temperature anomalies in March 2025, January 2025 to March 2025, and April 2024 to March 2025 across the globe. Red shading is shown for warmer anomalies, and blue shading is shown for colder anomalies. Most areas are warmer than average. The mean global near-surface air temperature anomaly for each map is also displayed in the upper-left corner. Anomalies are calculated relative to a 1981-2010 baseline. Data is from ERA5 reanalysis using the 2-m air temperature variable.

Temperature anomalies over the last month (left), 3 months (center), and 12 months (right) around our planet...

Data from doi.org/10.24381/cds...

Trump's obsession with bilateral makes no sense, and it's the responsibility of his economic team to explain that to him. (I don't know if they're failing, or not even trying.)

DOGE takes over federal grants website, wresting control of billions A DOGE engineer removed users’ access to grants.gov, threatening to further slow the process of awarding thousands of federal grants per year.

Scoop: DOGE now controls how grant opportunities get posted across government.

DOGE engineer removed users’ permissions to post to Grants-dot-gov without telling them. Now requests flow thru DOGE-controlled mailbox.

with @carolynyjohnson.bsky.social + @hannahnatanson.bsky.social

‘One million.’ The private goal driving Trump’s push for mass deportations. Immigration officers and analysts are increasingly skeptical the Trump administration can deport that many immigrants in a single year.

Exclusive: Trump officials have the private goal of deporting at least 1 million immigrants this year. Analysts say that's unrealistic.

Why Trump's executive order targeting state climate laws is probably illegal President Donald Trump continues dismantling climate policy with a move of questionable legality that benefits fossil fuels. States are sure to sue.

“This executive order parrots some of the arguments that we’ve seen from companies like Exxon Mobil, as they’ve sought to have climate cases removed from federal court and then dismissed in the state courts,” @ucsusa.bsky.social's Mulvey says.

grist.org/politics/why...

I know this will surprise folks who bought cars based on promises they'll be self-driving "next year," but he's now admitting that DOGE will only deliver on 7.5% of the promised $2,000b, and even that is only coming "next year."
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/u...

11 SERVICE JOURNALISM Honors magazine journalism that addresses readers’ needs and aspirations while providing instruction and advice Heatmap News Nico Lauricella, Editor in Chief Edited by Jillian Goodman “Decarbonize Your Life,” September 23

I’m thrilled to share that Heatmap News — just in time for its second birthday — has won a NATIONAL MAGAZINE AWARD!

Our project “Decarbonize Your Life” has been received the 2025 award for service journalism!

You can find it here: heatmap.news/decarbonize-...

asme.memberclicks.net/american-soc...

Exclusive: US NIH scientists barred from attending conferences on their own time and dime Researchers at the U.S. National Institutes of Health have been told they cannot attend scientific conferences and meetings without official permission, even if they pay their own way and go during time off, three current and former NIH scientists told Reuters.

Exclusive: Researchers at the US National Institutes of Health were told they can't attend scientific conferences and meetings without official permission, even if they pay their way and go during time off, current and former NIH scientists told Reuters reut.rs/4j7rFLT

‘People Are Going Silent’: Fearing Retribution, Trump Critics Muzzle Themselves (Gift Article) People say they are intimidated by online attacks from the president, concerned about harm to their businesses or worried about the safety of their families.

My NYT colleague Elisabeth Bumiller has already written an outstanding piece on this exact point. I am just noting that I am encoutering this again and again, almost every day. Here is Elisabeth's piece from last month.

nyti.ms/3R9xkon

NEW | Fossil fuels fall below 50% of US electricity for the first month on record 🇺🇸

Among all the turmoil, some positive news from the latest @ember-energy.org data for March 2025:

🏆↘️ The share of fossil fuels fell to a record low of 49.2%

🏆↗️ Wind and solar power hit a new record high of 24.4%

NIH freezes all research grants to Columbia University Amid negotiations with Trump, the university could risk losing nearly $700 million

Exclusive: Weeks after President Donald Trump’s administration ordered NIH to pull $250 million in biomedical research grants to Columbia University, the agency is freezing all remaining grant money owed to the university until further notice. scim.ag/4if5Rg1

Still need to register for #SEJ2025? Online registration is open through April 16 and will reopen on-site. Secure your spot today before workshops and tours sell out! Conference.sej.org

5. Recession risks are still with us. According to prediction markets the chances of a 2025 recession fell from 68% this morning to 53% this afternoon.

That's a big risk.

Decarbonization can improve energy security - Nature Climate Change Moving towards net-zero carbon emissions reduces reliance on fossil fuels but requires geographically concentrated materials for clean energy technologies. Now research finds countries can reduce emer...

New piece from me published in Nature Climate Change: Decarbonization can improve energy security, robust trade and a circular economy increases energy security, and critical minerals are not like oil. 🔌💡

Journal link: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Open access link: rdcu.be/eg3lR

The Pool Filter Some White House pool reports are no longer making it to the official distribution list, Status has learned—an unsettling development in the Trump administration's escalating war on the press.

Big story from @oliverdarcy.bsky.social — the White House has been suppressing and censoring pool reports. www.status.news/p/white-hous...

A bright spot, spotted on @cnn todayre the Trump WH’s retaliation against the AP over “Gulf of America” from @brianstelter.bsky.social: The ban of @apnews.com is unconstitutional

NOAA is a $6.7B agency.

From NICAR25, Four Free Cutting Edge and Time-Saving Investigative Data Tools GIJN shares some of the no-cost, easy-to-use data tools that NICAR25 conference panelists described as surprisingly useful but unknown by investigative reporters.

Here, GIJN shares some of the no-cost, easy-to-use data tools that #NICAR25 conference panelists described as surprisingly useful but unknown by investigative reporters.

🔗 Full story: https://twp.ai/9PQGIQ

The CDC Buried a Measles Forecast That Stressed the Need for Vaccinations The move — along with the CDC’s explanation — is a sign that the nation’s top public health agency may be falling in line under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of vaccines.

Utterly enraging.

News: Journalists at Voice of America were just informed that they’ve been put on administrative leave. Two people there told me this went to all fulltime employees.

“From what we can tell, VOA is effectively shut down from this moment.”

Full text of Jelani Cobb's 2025 Reuters Memorial Lecture: Trust issues. Credibility, credulity and journalism in a time of crisis On 10 March the Columbia Journalism Dean delivered the 2025 Reuters Memorial Lecture. Here's the transcript of his talk.

This Reuters Memorial Lecture was delivered by Jelani Cobb last Monday in Oxford. It's impossible to overstate how timely it was. On capitulation, McCarthyism and a crisis of credulity. Must read
reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/full-te...

An infographic prepared by NOAA showing that large tornado outbreaks are becoming more common, but the number of tornadoes isn't changing.

The second part of the infographic explaining why climate attribution science is so challenging to apply to tornadoes: relatively small and very-short lived events compared to, say, a wildfire, hurricane, or heatwave.

* Tornado "season" is now all year round
* Tornado Alley is shifting to the northeast
* While the total number of tornadoes hasn't changed, multi-tornado outbreaks are more common.

See below for more info + citations.

Live Updates: At least 19 dead as severe storms rip through South and Midwest At least 13 dead as severe storms rip through South and Midwest

Extreme storms continue to sweep across the US South today, as damages and deaths from last night's severe weather is just now being assessed.

How is climate change affecting tornadoes? It's hard to detect a robust signal in such small, short events, but there's evidence that ... [see next post]

Absolutely, this +1! 💯