Helen Schwab

Journalism needs so much improving right now …

"...amid cries of Trump overreach" www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

The New York Times describes Trump demanding his own Justice Department pay him $230 million as a "potential" ethical conflict.

Chicago cyclists are buying out tamale carts to keep vendors home and safe from ICE. blockclubchi.co/42KQ57O

CBS News: Some NYPD officers worry about Mandani becoming NYC mayor the Free Press reports.

Promoting the editor-in-chief's personal side project. Zero named sources in a story that promotes the editor-in-chief's personal political position. Misspelling the subject's name. It took one day for CBS News to become a conservative blog.

www.cbsnews.com/video/some-n...

ALWAYS

If I Ran the Media™
Fewer stories on:
—How Dems Need to Change Their Messaging
—How [event xx] Will Play w [voter bloc YY]
—How 2028 Field Is Shaping Up

More of:
—Which points of resistance are actually working
—What specifically GOP Reps/Sens are so afraid of
—Real-world tariff/immig effects
—ETC

Courage is always an option.

Scholars of the 50s and 60s, now’s your time to remind people of how the FBI infiltrates left-wing groups and foments violent action.

Disney/ABC have a responsibility to refuse to participate in corruption.

Kimmel must be reinstated. If Disney/ABC agree to this extortion then perhaps creatives + workers should consider collective action to push back. Same w/buying park + cruise tickets if they bow.

People have power. Ask Target

www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

so many dead canaries and we just keep on mining

The word is, and it's a strong word at that, Jimmy Kimmel is NEXT to go in the untalented Late Night Sweepstakes and, shortly thereafter, Fallon will be gone. These are people with absolutely NO TALENT, who were paid Millions of Dollars for, in all cases, destroying what used to be GREAT Television. It's really good to see them go, and I hope I played a major part in it! Trump Truth Social post, July 22, 2025.

Don't buy the canard that this is about Charlie Kirk. Abusing state power to lean on corporate leaders and get Jimmy Kimmel off the air because he told jokes about the president and made him feel bad was always the plan.

Becoming increasingly clear we’re gonna have to build a parallel infrastructure for all the media we really love. The reason all of this is happening under the color of law is hyperconsolidation, dissent being traded straight up for merger approval, or fear of harassment.

This story feels like it’s going to have huge repercussions

📌

The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city.

This is not a joke. This is not normal.

Donald Trump isn't a strongman, he's a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.

Trump: "Chicago about to find out why it's called the Department of WAR"

This is frankly one of the worst things Donald Trump has ever posted, which is really saying something

Dear journalists:

The President has not fired Lisa Cook. The President is *trying* to illegally fire her.

Your words shape people’s reality. Please be accurate in your reporting.

Pentagon plans military deployment in Chicago as Trump eyes crackdown President Donald Trump said Chicago is his next likely target to crack down on urban crime. Military planning has been ongoing for weeks, officials say.

We’re 7 months in, and “Pentagon plans military deployment in Chicago” is a headline in the Washington Post. And because it’s city number three, we’re already numbing to it.

If you read this about any other democracy in the world, you’d conclude that it was well on the road to a dictatorship.

Let them know you're filming them and keep asking the key questions:

"Do you have a warrant signed by a judge? Show me."

"Do you have a badge? Show me."

"Do you know how pathetic you are? You showed me."

Taking photos and video of law enforcement officers performing their duties in public is our constitutional right.

This includes police, FBI, National Guard troops, ICE agents, and other government officials.

Huh.

this work saved millions of lives in 2021, won the Nobel Prize in 2023, and is cancelled in 2025

No.

… a blend: collective sense of “truth” b/c most Americans read/watched same few somewhat regulated sources; financial support (incl. legal protection) of reporters/outlets seeking that; market of (as mentioned) relatively few and notably un-silo’d sources.

… you’re right in saying there have been periods of credible journalism holding sway in the mainstream. If your question is Why didn’t everyone lie all the time, when they could have? I’d say answer is …

Retired newsroom journalist here, now freelancing and getting intimately acquainted with larger picture. I think you mean to address the dif over time between falsehood degree and audience size, rather than “nuance.” Examining their whole history, newspapers have been reliably monstrous. But …

This is the guy who knows what the real BLS numbers are.

And the Republican Party wonders why so many academics lean left