Jacob Kushner

Thank you for reading, and for paying attention to far-right terror today

Under the Cowboy Hat — The Dial How agribusiness took over Brazilian country music.

Congrats to Carolina Abbott Galvão for publishing this fascinating story in The Dial magazine, thanks to a connection she made with editor Mara Wilson at the Columbia Journalism School Freelance Fair: www.thedial.world/articles/new...
@columbiajournalism.bsky.social @thedialmag.bsky.social

Looking at America From Gaza — The Dial “At times I see it as a site of exclusion and segregation, and at other times as the specter of another possible life.”

"Gaza resembles one huge cemetery where time is obliterated and there is no longer any distinction between past, present, and future. All I can think of is how to escape." @thedialmag.bsky.social www.thedial.world/articles/new...

Looking at America From Gaza — The Dial “At times I see it as a site of exclusion and segregation, and at other times as the specter of another possible life.”

"We were so accustomed to watching the news and seeing images of buildings being destroyed, of dead bodies, of blood, but they were always in the Arab world. Now, the same thing was happening in the heart of the United States." www.thedial.world/articles/new... @thedialmag.bsky.social

Looking at America From Gaza — The Dial “At times I see it as a site of exclusion and segregation, and at other times as the specter of another possible life.”

"Why was America doing all this?" Looking at America from Gaza. By Muhammad al-Zaqzouq for @thedialmag.bsky.social www.thedial.world/articles/new...

Has the media reached the end of its DEI era? Layoffs at CBS, NBC, and Teen Vogue show a shift in newsroom priorities away from the promises of 2020.

Layoffs at CBS, NBC, and Teen Vogue show a shift in newsroom priorities away from the promises of 2020:
@riddhisetty.bsky.social for @columjournreview.bsky.social
www.cjr.org/the_media_to...

Guantánamo's Secret History — The Dial Trump isn't the first president to use the military base for the U.S.'s dirty secrets

Guantánamo's Secret History — Trump isn’t the first U.S. president to use the military base to incarcerate migrants. www.thedial.world/articles/new... @thedialmag.bsky.social

Kenya’s Growing Carbon Market Is a Setback for Indigenous Land Rights Indigenous Ogiek say they are being evicted from their ancestral land to facilitate trading schemes.

Kenya’s Growing Carbon Market Is a Setback for Indigenous Land Rights - Anthony Langat for @earthislandjournal.bsky.social www.earthisland.org/journal/inde...

Fleeing Bukele — The Dial Journalists in El Salvador are under heightened scrutiny. Many have been forced to leave.

“Am I Now in Exile?” Fleeing Bukele, by El Faro journalists for @thedialmag.bsky.social www.thedial.world/articles/new...

Canaan rose from an earthquake. Can it survive Haiti’s fall? Questions come with building a city: How do we electrify homes? Who will form a government? Can police protect us from gangs?

The feature focuses on how Canaan, Haiti's residents built their city brick by brick following the nation's 2010 apocalyptic earthquake, only to experience the fall of their nation.

Read AN UNNATURAL DISASTER, by @jacobkushner.bsky.social, today: haiti.longlead.com/

Kenya: Police Harass Human Rights Watch Staff Member The Kenyan police should end its apparent harassment of Otsieno Namwaya, associate Africa director at Human Rights Watch, over his work documenting serious rights abuses in Kenya.

Kenya Police Harass Human Rights Watch Staff Member:
www.hrw.org/news/2025/08... @hrw.org

Urgent Ideas for Defending Press Freedom in Gaza Letters, condemnations, and Israeli court cases have failed to change the world’s deadliest place for journalists. We’ve cast out for a new approach.

Israel has now killed at least 184 journalists in Palestine--at least 26 deliberately. For @columjournreview.bsky.social, here's what nearly two dozen journalists and human rights experts say we must do: www.cjr.org/feature/urge... @columbiajournalism.bsky.social @azmatzahra.bsky.social

In Kenya, Gen Z Battles Corruption and Police Violence What keeps the Ruto administration running from crisis to crisis remains a complete unwillingness to listen to people and an unswerving commitment to responding to any form of dissent with violence.

In Kenya, Gen Z Battles Corruption and Police Violence - For @hammerandhope.bsky.social Nanjala Nyabola chronicles Kenyan President @williamruto.bsky.social murderous regime: hammerandhope.org/article/keny...

Thanks Molly Donnellan for nominating me and to all those who wrote letters including Kem Sawyer, Jon Sawyer, Dee Hall, Andy Hall, Sarah Ripp and @pablomuirhead.bsky.social

I'm honored to be awarded the University of Wisconsin-Madison 2025 Forward Award! Check out the other recipients uwalumni.com/about/alumni... and read my write-up here: uwalumni.com/news/jacob-k... @wisalumni.bsky.social @uwsjmc.bsky.social @uwmadison.bsky.social

Rescuers in Norway resume search for journalist missing in wilderness Bad weather hampers search for Alec Luhn after he set out for solo hike in remote Folgefonna national park

URGENT: My good friend of 20 years, the journalist @alecluhn.bsky.social , is missing. Friends in Norway: please reach out to anyone you know who was hiking Ullensvang on the northern edge of Folgefonna since last week. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

As Kenya’s protests intensified, two friends bled on opposite sides. By @khoureld.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0... "Young Kenyans continue to risk their lives in protests over corruption and police brutality. Others are being recruited as “goons” to menace the protesters."

Thanks to @clarissaleon.bsky.social and the many other editors who attended our 2025 Freelance Fair documentedny.com/2025/07/25/m... @columbiajournalism.bsky.social

Misplaced Bodies and Mishandled Funds: recent Columbia Journalism graduate @tanyaraghu.bsky.social on the Repatriation of Deceased Immigrants, for @documentedny.bsky.social

For The Dial, I blurbed The Lucky Ones, by Zara Chowdhary. Check out all of The Dial's Best Books of Summer 2025: www.thedial.world/summer-readi... @thedialmag.bsky.social @awarazara.bsky.social ‬

"Understanding the costs of a war should be an obligation of every citizen of every state that wages one.” -Azmat Khan, This Alabaster Grave, a new photobook by Cengiz Yar on life, death, and humanity in Mosul, Iraq. @azmatzahra.bsky.social @cengizyar.com www.cengizyar.com/book/this-al...

China’s Quiet Win: Outmaneuvering U.S. for Africa’s Future Leaders

"It’s not uncommon now to find African students in China sharing Nigerian jollof or Ethiopian injera while discussing Beijing’s censorship of the internet." China’s Quiet Win: Outmaneuvering U.S. for Africa’s Future Leaders @lattif.bsky.social for @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/w...

'You Leave with Nothing': Haitians Face Impossible Choice After Supreme Court Decision - Documented As humanitarian protections vanish overnight, thousands of Haitians in the U.S. weigh the dangers of detention against the risks of returning to a country in crisis.

‘You Leave with Nothing’: Haitians Face Impossible Choice After Supreme Court Decision. Read this urgent piece by my @columbiajournalism.bsky.social student (now alumna 👩‍🎓) Béatrice Vallières: documentedny.com/2025/06/05/h...

1 Writing Class, 35 Years, 113 Deals, 95 Books

1 Writing Class, 35 Years, 113 Deals, 95 Books. Congrats to my mentor, and colleague, Sam Freedman on an incredible career. Great writeup by @emmagoldberg.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/b... @columbiajournalism.bsky.social

The Human Zoo — The Dial In the 1990s, a French theme park exhibited musicians from Côte d’Ivoire alongside exotic animals.

The Human Zoo — In the 1990s, a French theme park exhibited musicians from Côte d’Ivoire alongside exotic animals. www.thedial.world/articles/new... “Indeed, one might be shocked to see this African safari on French soil." @thedialmag.bsky.social

Weekly Review, by Harper’s Magazine It was reported that ravioli had been banned from being served to the College of Cardinals for fear that the stuffed pasta might contain secret messages, an MIT professor calculated a 90 percent proba...

"In Pinellas County, Florida, a man on trial for killing an attorney told a judge he needed more time to find legal representation." @harpers.bsky.social harpers.org/2025/05/week...

Canaan rose from an earthquake. Can it survive Haiti’s fall? Questions come with building a city: How do we electrify homes? Who will form a government? Can police protect us from gangs?

Even better: Check out the competition! I'm in good company, with incredible reporting by Ryan Brown for @thedialmag.bsky.social Dana Hourany on Lebanon's lost villages, & Forbidden Stories for investigating Israel's killing of journalists in Gaza. @oneworldmedia.bsky.social haiti.longlead.com

Honored to be shortlisted for the One World Media Print Award for my 8-year Haiti investigation, An Unnatural Disaster, along with photographer Allison Shelley & editor Pooja Bhatia! Haiti.longlead.com @longlead.com with support from the @pulitzercenter.bsky.social @oneworldmedia.bsky.social

Look Away A thrilling narrative investigation into the National Socialist Underground (NSU)—a German terror organization that targeted immigrants—and how a govern...

You asked me about it and challenged my assumptions. You edited chapters yourselves. You sent me photos every time you saw saw it in a bookstore.

Please, if you haven't--consider ordering the book, audiobook, or eBook wherever books are sold. bit.ly/LookAwayBook

Some of you reviewed it, in The New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy, and more.
@nybooks.com @foreignpolicy.com @thebaffler.com

Thank you--all of you--for all your help with the most ambitious project of my career. bit.ly/LookAwayBook