It Mattered

Without delving into the specifics, I recently was reminded of my own frailties — which, I should explain for my younger readers, is one of the less pleasant aspects of aging. These moments tend to happen more frequently than one would like.

But just as I was trying to cope with the specifics, a request came for me to meet a film crew interested in documenting the origin of the Center for Investigative Reporting, which I co-founded with Lowell Bergman and Dan Noyes in 1977.

This proved to be a welcome distraction.

As far as I can recall, no one has sought before to get down on film the origin story of CIR, which after 48 years remains one of our unique journalistic treasures in the Bay Area and beyond. (CIR merged with another Bay Area journalistic treasure, Mother Jones, last year.)

Many, many people over the decades have worked to help the center succeed.

Anyway, returning to my tale, the crew, which is based in Europe, filmed Lowell and me in a conversation that went on for several hours. We recalled the factors that led to founding CIR and the many hurdles we overcame in the process.

We talked about the early years, the breakthroughs, the big stories, the threats, the successes and failures, the people, the awards and what we hope will ultimately be the legacy of all those efforts.

As we talked, I felt the gloom of focusing on my own health issues begin to lift. It was replaced by the desire to help the record of some of our accomplishments to live on well beyond us. I’d like people at least to know the story of what we tried to do and why.

Maybe it will serve as proof that trying to make a difference in ways both large and small once mattered — and that it still does.

(This one is from last summer. Since I wrote it, there is an exciting new project, the Global Investigative Journalism Oral History, that will document CIR’s origin.)

HEADLINES:

• American Democracy Might Not Survive a War With Iran — The United States is well down the road to dictatorship. Imagine what Trump would do with a state of war. (Atlantic)

• Israel strikes Iran’s Isfahan nuclear site, buildings on fire in Tel Aviv (Al Jazeera)

• Hundreds of U.S. citizens have fled Iran amid Israeli strikes (WP)

• Europeans make ‘comprehensive’ offer to Tehran (Financial Times)

• Trump Buys Himself Time, and Opens Up Some New Options (NYT)

• Has Trump put off joining the Israel-Iran conflict for two weeks? (Al Jazeera)

• Fordow: What we know about Iran's secretive 'nuclear mountain' - and how Israel might try to destroy it (Sky News)

• Trump weighs Iran strike as Pentagon officials privately divided over ‘bunker buster’ bombs (Guardian)

• Iran's fragmented opposition groups think their moment may be close at hand, but activists involved in previous bouts of protest say they are unwilling to unleash mass unrest, even against a system they hate, with their nation under attack. (Reuters)

• Federal Judge Orders Columbia protester Mahmoud Khalil freed from immigration detention (ABC)

• Abortion clinics are closing, even in states where abortion is legal (AP)

• Tuition increases and layoffs are coming to a broad set of universities. (NYT)

• What is CREC? The Christian nationalist group has a vision for America − and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s support (The Conversation)

• The Myth of the Gen Z Red Wave (Atlantic)

• Trump calls for special prosecutor to investigate 2020 election, reviving longstanding grievance (AP)

• As Trump shuts out migrants, Spain opens its doors and fuels economic growth (WP)

• Climate Change Will Bankrupt the Country (American Prospect)

• You sound like ChatGPT (Verge)

• What’s Happening to Reading? (New Yorker)

• Man Returning From Near-Death Experience Recalls Angels Making Him Sign NDA (The Onion)

MUSIC VIDEO:

ROY ORBISON "Crying" w/ K.D. LANG - 1988 Top of the Pops 

Small Town News

Many people now realize that the closure of small-town newspapers has created a vast news desert covering virtually all of rural America. And that this has had dire consequences, in the form of conspiracy theories, lies and misinformation.

While it may be a stretch to claim this has led directly to the rise of MAGA, the lack of vibrant small-town journalism certainly has been a contributing factor.

Among the various efforts to do something about this problem, many take a national, non-profit, top-down approach, whereas the Local NEWS Network, based in Durango, CO, takes a local, for-profit, bottom-up approach. Through its digital network, LNN delivers local news and local advertising to communities that otherwise would be part of the news desert.

This week, LNN’s Laurie Sigillito published an article on LinkedIn titled “Advertising in Small Towns: It’s About Trust, Not Clicks.”

In it, she says: “Attempts to introduce advertising-supported digital media in small towns and rural areas hit up against the reality that the metrics used to measure effectiveness nationally—impressions, CTRs and programmatic segmentation—are all optimized for dense urban markets.”

Meanwhile, she continues, “What actually works in small towns is visibility. You need to be seen by everyone, not just target segments. Neighbors talk to neighbors and word gets around town organically.”

Her article pinpoints the main business reason national efforts to succeed in small towns fail more often than succeed. “Our conclusion is that national ad tools don’t work in small towns. The goal here is not more data, it’s more connection. Rural advertising should feel more like a handshake than a sales funnel—personal, human, and built to last.”

I’ve thought about the news desert problem a lot and have concluded that to re-establish media in localized settings, we need to address the business plan first, then get to the question of content,

LNN does that.

Read the entire article here.

HEADLINES:

• A ‘terrible spiral of escalation’: World braces for intensifying Iran-Israel conflict (CNBC)

• The Trojan Horse Will Come for Us Too — The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East offer Americans a glimpse into the battles of the future—and a warning. (Atlantic)

• Trump to decide on US action in Israel-Iran conflict within two weeks (BBC)

• Iranian missile with cluster warhead scatters bombs in central Israel, IDF says (Times of Israel)

• White House says Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in 'a couple of weeks' (ABC)

• The MAGA base is in uproar as Trump mulls Iran action (Reuters)

• U.S. bases around Iran could facilitate an attack — and become targets (WP)

• Were the No Kings protests the largest single-day demonstration in American history? (Guardian)

• Social Security’s Finances Erode Further, Risking Benefit Cuts (NYT)

• US resumes visas for foreign students but demands social media access (AP)

• Judge Rules NIH Grant Terminations Illegal, Orders Immediate Reinstatement (Harvard Crimson)

• What did Sen. Alex Padilla get handcuffed for? (WP)

• Senator Padilla: This Is How an Administration Acts When It’s Afraid (NYT)

• Climate misinformation turning crisis into catastrophe, report says (Guardian)

• The Entire Internet Is Reverting to Beta (Atlantic)

• Google’s Gemini panicked when playing Pokémon (TechCrunch)

• The Little-Known Startup That Has Surged Past Scale AI—Without Any Investors (The Information)

• Popular services keep adding AI. Some customers want them to stop. (WP)

 

Kicker

Some advice for Trump, the reality TV star, as he ponders whether to start a war with Iran, by way of a writing lesson:

When writing a screenplay, you use a three-act format. One description of this type of narrative structure is as follows.

Act One: You introduce the characters and set the scene. Let’s say there’s a monkey and a tiger in a meadow near a forest. The tiger chases the monkey through the meadow, almost catching him at the end of act one.

Act Two: Lots of action. The monkey barely escapes the tiger through various maneuvers until he is cornered near a very tall tree. By the end of the act, the monkey has climbed up the tree with no visible means of escape as the tiger circles below.

Act Three: Using his wiles, the monkey tricks the tiger into looking away while he scampers down the tree and into the forest. A wild chase ensues with the monkey barely eluding capture again and again. Finally, at the far edge of the forest, the tiger forces the monkey up an impossibly tall tree, one we can’t imagine the monkey ever getting down from. 

Now we’ve reached to the conclusion. You have to resolve this story somehow.

I sometimes use this example with students to make a simple point — you better know how the story will wrap up before you begin to write it.

Cut to Trump. If he is going to bomb Iran, he damn well better know how he will end that war before he starts it.

Otherwise it will turn into another tragic Middle East story that never ends.

***

(Thanks to Bill Berkowitz for quoting me in his article in Daily Kos about the L.A. police crackdown on journalists.)

HEADLINES:

• Israel threatens to kill Iran’s supreme leader after missile strikes (Al Jazeera)

• U.S.-Iran rhetoric escalates as Trump weighs strikes (WP)

• Fear grips Tehran as Israeli bombs fall and communicating grows harder (AP)

• Thousands of people were fleeing Tehran and other major cities, Iranian media reported, as Iran and Israel launched new missile strikes at each other despite President Donald Trump calling for Tehran's unconditional surrender. (Reuters)

• Iran warns U.S. military intervention would bring ‘irreparable damage’ (WP)

• A US strike on Iran could open a ‘Pandora’s box’ in the Middle East, experts warn (CNN)

• A Grudge Against Intelligence (Atlantic)

• The Trump Crackdown on Elected Officials (New Yorker)

• LAPD to Reporters and Photojournalists: Shut Up and Bleed (Daily Kos)

• Supreme Court Upholds Tennessee Ban on Transgender Care for Minors (NYT)

• Fed holds interest rates steady, brushing off Trump’s calls for big cuts (WP)

• House Policy Bill Would Add $3.4 Trillion to Debt, Swamping Economic Gains (NYT)

• The MAGA Coalition Has Turned on Itself (Atlantic)

• Trump says supporters ‘more in love’ with him than ever, as MAGA world splits over Iran (AP)

• Tucker Carlson clashed with GOP senator Ted Cruz after the lawmaker couldn't answer basic facts about Iran, a major issue dividing the MAGA base, with the two eventually shouting over each other in a teaser segment posted on social media. [HuffPost]

• Amazon CEO tells employees that AI will shrink its workforce (WP)

• No One Sure Why Kristi Noem Wearing Firefighter Helmet, Night-Vision Goggles, High Heels, Wet Suit (The Onion)

Nobody Really Knows

NOTE: On the eve of an unthinkable war…

The older I get, the whole puzzle of life on earth seems like it should be simple. We need to find the right balance that allows us all to exist together. That's about it, but whether we will ever be able to do that is another question.

There's a synchronicity to your life and my life and all of our lives — what each of us does affects everyone else. Everybody wants and needs the same basic things.

My Canadian-born grandmother was in a nursing home in her 90s when we went to visit one winter's day to take her out on a day trip. We went to a nearby hilly area where we parked and watched people with sleds go up and down a gentle incline.

There was fresh snow and my tiny grandmother sat in the front seat watching for a while before pronouncing, "Round and round everyone goes, and where they stop nobody knows."

That was it. She had nothing else to say.

My grandmother has been gone for more than half a century now and the world has changed in dramatic ways and yet her truth remains. Everyone is still riding the merry-go-round and where they will stop nobody knows.

HEADLINES: 

• Iran's Khamenei rejects Trump's call for surrender as thousands flee Tehran (Reuters)

• Trump threatens Iran’s leader, demands ‘unconditional surrender’ (CNBC)

• Israel says it killed a top Iranian general as Trump warns people to flee Iranian capital (ABC)

• War on Iran is splitting Trump’s Maga movement (Financial Times)

• How Trump Shifted on Iran Under Pressure From Israel (NYT)

• Trump officials reverse guidance exempting farms, hotels from immigration raids (WP)

• Immigration raids in Los Angeles hit small business owners: 'It's worse than COVID' (Reuters)

• Gardeners on ICE raids: ‘People are afraid, but they still have to work’ (LAT)

• NYC mayoral candidate Brad Lander handcuffed by ICE (CNBC)

• More than 140,000 protesters attended No Kings protests across Bay Area (Mercury News)

• School shootings have become routine – political assassinations are next (Telegraph)

• Suspect Planned to ‘Inflict Fear’ With Wider Killing Spree, Prosecutors Say (NYT)

• Trump tariffs risk damage to sectors that employ more than 80 percent of U.S. workers (WP)

• Judge rules some NIH grant cuts illegal, saying he’s never seen such discrimination in 40 years (AP)

• Trump escalated his feud with his one-time ally, Tucker Carlson, claiming that no one cares about him or his concerns regarding this major crisis. [HuffPost]

• Poll: GOP budget bill faces nearly 2-to-1 opposition, with many Americans unaware of details (WP)

• A federal jury in Colorado found that MyPillow founder Mike Lindell defamed a former employee of a leading voting equipment company after the 2020 election. [AP]

• Where humidity will soon surge to extreme levels (WP)

• Kraft Heinz to remove artificial dyes from food products over next 2 years (ABC)

• Why a professor of fascism left the US: ‘The lesson of 1933 is – you get out’ (Guardian)

• AI Is Poised to Rewrite History. Literally. (NYT)

• China’s MiniMax Says Its New AI Reasoning Model Beats DeepSeek (Bloomberg)

• Teacher Required To Provide Own Salary (The Onion)

 

Genius Loves Company

By legend, Albert Einstein was a lone genius, coming up with ideas and concepts nobody else thought of. But according to a revealing article called “Not a Lone Genius” by CalTech professor Diana Kormos-Buchwald, the truth is more complicated. She based her article on The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, a 16-volume series of books co-edited by numerous scholars.

"He was not the genius working in an attic with a pen and paper," she says. "Einstein may not have been working with large teams, but he was deeply embedded in the science community. Colleagues gave him advice and encouragement, but also criticized his work. And he, in turn, was instrumental in guiding and challenging others."

(All of the volumes are now available in English and free in electronic formats.)

The article notes that Einstein developed his special theory of relativity in 1905 with help from his college friend Michele Besso and his first wife, Mileva Marić.

He later perfected his general theory of relativity in 1915 with help from both Besso and another college friend, mathematician Marcel Grossmann.

Perhaps most illustrative of all was his involvement in experiments with younger physicists to test the structure of radiation and matter, and ultimately the development of the ground-breaking field of quantum mechanics. When approached by one of his young colleagues about being listed as a co-author on an important paper on that topic, Einstein demurred:

"I just don't know whether I should count as a co-author since after all you did all the work..."

Einstein was a tinkerer and inventor of gadgets, including a patented refrigerating system. And he was an original thinker, who indeed came up with brilliant ideas. But perhaps his true genius was as a synthesizer, a collaborator, and a mentor of younger people.

And there might be a lesson in that for the rest of us.

(I published an earlier version of this one in 2021.)

HEADLINES:

• How a Hate Crime in a Southern City Foretold the Rise of the Far Right (NYT)

• The energy at the ‘No Kings’ protest felt different. The tide is turning. (WP)

• Trump Has Reawakened the Resistance (NYT)

• Americans want Medicaid and food stamps funding maintained or increased, AP-NORC poll shows (AP)

• Trump Leaves G7 Summit Early After Signing Call for Peace He Had Resisted (NYT)

• Trump wanted a military spectacle. Instead, he got a history lesson. (WP)

• Trump doubles down on expanding deportations in America's biggest cities (ABC)

• Trump directed ICE officials to prioritize deportations from Democratic-run cities after large protests have erupted in Los Angeles and other major cities against his immigration crackdown, prompting outrage. [AP]

• California Today: Immigration Raids Add to Absence Crisis for Schools (NYT)

• Putin Isn’t Actually Enjoying This (Atlantic)

• Israel, Iran trade deadly strikes for fourth day with no signs of restraint (Al Jazeera)

• Iran sought US pressure on Israel for ceasefire via Gulf states, sources say (Reuters)

• The suspect in the shooting of 2 Minnesota lawmakers had a 'hit list' of 45 officials (NPR)

• Chilling details emerge in Minnesota shootings as Vance Boelter faces federal charges: 'Stuff of nightmares' (ABC)

• Warning over 'dirty secret' of toxic chemicals on farmers' fields (BBC)

• Some Meta AI users are unwittingly sharing their mortifying conversations. (WP)

• GOP Lawmakers Clarify Their Hate-Filled Rhetoric Only Meant To Stoke Fundraising (The Onion)

Fatherhood

On a windy Sunday evening, I stood alone at the kitchen window and watched the sun go down over the coastal range at the northern edge of San Francisco Bay.

At times like this that stretch of water gleams like liquified silver. 

It was Father’s Day. Earlier, my two youngest came by and took me out for brunch at a nearby cafe in Richmond. My daughter, who’s 26, had been at yesterday’s “No Kings” demonstration in the city. She’s pursuing a Master’s Degree in industrial design.

My son, who’s 29, and just recovered from Covid, holds a Master’s Degree in history and works as a researcher for a Japanese media company.

They talked to me about their reservations about having children of their own, given the state of the world. “At least for now, I’m not planning on having any,” my son said. “That might change.”

My daughter nodded. “Same for me.”

I indicated I understood why they felt this way. These are scary times. Not only does human-induced climate change loom as an existential threat over their futures, AI now presents a human-made existential threat as well.

Wars rage in the Middle East and Ukraine in conflicts that may worsen and spread. Authoritarian regimes are on the rise all over the world, notably here in the U.S. where migrant families are being ripped apart by the cruelest president in our nation’s history. 

Each day brings more disturbing headlines on many fronts.

It is hard to plan a career at their ages with so much instability and technological disruption in all economic sectors. Finances are a constant concern, as in the prohibitive cost of housing here in the Bay Area.

Long after they had left and returned to the city, I stood at that window and shuddered. It was not cold in the house but I felt my tremors returning. In some ways, there’s no lonelier time than a Sunday night.

The wind picked up, rustling the purple leaves of a plum tree. The bamboo swayed and Mount Tam drifted above the haze to the west. It was a strangely beautiful moment.

I watched a flock of birds fly westward toward the setting sun. A line from one of those Jurassic Park movies popped into my head.

“Life, uh, finds a way.”

(Art by Julia)

HEADLINES:

• Close Trump Allies Sponsored the Military Parade, Raising Ethical Concerns (NYT)

• Should Political Violence Be Addressed Like a Threat to Public Health? (New Yorker)

• Suspect in Minnesota Attacks Is Detained, Ending Manhunt (NYT)

• Who Is Vance Boelter? The Minnesota Lawmaker Shooting Suspect (WSJ)

• Roommate details Minnesota shooting suspect’s life as authorities search near abandoned car (WP)

• Netanyahu says ‘we’ll do what we need to do’ with Iran’s leader (Financial Times)

• Trump says 'it's possible' US gets involved in Israel-Iran conflict (ABC)

• Investors unnerved as Israel-Iran conflict fuels turmoil in oil markets (Reuters)

• Israel’s attack on Iran marks moment of truth for Netanyahu (AP)

• Takeaways From Trump’s Military Parade in Washington (NYT)

• It wasn’t just the parade: This week, Trump politicized the military (WP)

• Gunman Opens Fire on ‘No Kings’ Protest in Salt Lake City (Daily Beast)

• Americans don't see Supreme Court as politically neutral, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds (Reuters)

• L.A. neighborhoods clear out as immigration raids send people underground (LAT)

• Trump Shifts Deportation Focus, Pausing Most Raids on Farms, Hotels and Eateries (NYT)

• Padilla says FBI agent, Guard member escorted him to Noem's briefing before removal (Axios)

• Washington Post in talks with Substack about using its writers (Guardian)

• The Ad Industry’s A.I. Reckoning (NYT)

• Protesters Urged Not To Give Trump Administration Pretext For What It Already Doing (The Onion)

MUSIC:

Blake Shelton & Shakira singing-"Need You Now" 

Getting Wired.5

(This is the final in a five-part series)

Sometime later in 1997, along with the arrival of cooler weather and light rain in San Francisco came the final plans for a house-cleaning at Wired Inc. The in-house coup d'é·tat would result in the removal of scores of people, including the founders Louis Rossetto and Jane Metcalfe.

In their stead, the company was going to be dismantled and sold off in pieces. The founders would be rewarded with a fair amount of compensation for their efforts, so they would be “fine.“ Not so much everyone else.

Near the top of the corporate hit list was my name. The very fact that made me irreplaceable in the old order — my relationship with Louis — made me all too disposable in the new one.

I was to be replaced, naturally, by one of the worst sycophants always clamoring for my time in one-on-ones. 

So, on a late afternoon when the sun was going down to the west, suddenly and strangely there were no further meetings on my calendar. It was wide open. Then I was summoned to Louis’s office. 

I walked in to see three people waiting, none of smiling. Just three senior execs stiff and grim in manner. I was thanked for my service, given a small severance check, and summarily dismissed. 

Louis was one of the three and he looked immensely sad. But he had nothing to say. This was not of his doing. And that, I suppose, is the end of my story at Wired.

Unlike most of the other difficult transitions in my life, I had prepared myself emotionally as much as possible for this one. I’d packed up my family pictures and prepared my goodbye message. As I drove away from 660 Third Street, however, with tears in my eyes, I realized that you never can fully prepare for losing someone or something you love. 

EPILOGUE

Perhaps the most significant accomplishment during my tenure on Third Street was Wired News, which survived the purge in 1997 and exists to this day.

And in one of life’s strange ironic twists, my oldest daughter, who would soon become an award-winning journalist herself, worked as as an intern at Wired News during the first decade of the new millennium.

Apparently none of her colleagues knew that her father had been one of the executives involved in creating their company or what that experience had been like. 

Many years later, now that our society has become divided by conspiracy theories, fake news and social media demagogues, I remember how hard in the 1990s a few of us tried to prevent that outcome.

I’d be less than truthful if I said we fully anticipated how bad the media collapse would turn out to be. We saw the danger signs, but we could not imagine the world as it’s turned out to be.

The problem is once the old media world — like Humpty Dumpty — teetered and fell off of the great digital wall of the Internet and burst into a thousand pieces, how could we ever put it together again?

The answer is, sadly, I don’t think we can.

(Dedicated to all the Wiredlings, especially John, Mary and Susanna.)

HEADLINES:

• 'No Kings' protests against Trump take place across US ahead of military parade (BBC)

• A weekend of protests in the U.S. (Reuters)

• Anti-Trump demonstrators crowd streets, parks and plazas across the US. Organizers say millions came (AP)

• No Kings protests Bay Area: What the massive crowd in San Francisco looked like (SFC)

• Photos: "No Kings" protests take over downtown Chicago (Axios)

• The Shame of Trump’s Parade (Atlantic)

• At-large suspect identified in targeted shooting of Minnesota lawmakers (WP)

• After Sitting Out the Iran Attack, U.S. Steps In to Help Israel Intercept Missiles (WSJ)

• Iran and Israel continue strikes; imminent nuclear talks called off, official says (WP)

• Much of Iran’s Nuclear Program Remains After Israel’s Strikes. At Least for Now. (NYT)

• A painful wait in Ukraine (Reuters)

• 2024 Broke the Democrats. Can They Put Themselves Back Together? (Reveal)

• Suspect in Hortman’s assassination visited international hotspots, has ties to private security firms (MPR)

• ChatGPT Tells Users to Alert the Media That It Is Trying to ‘Break’ People: Report (Gizmodo)

• Google reportedly plans to cut ties with Scale AI (TechCrunch)

• Meta AI users confide on sex, God and Trump. Some don’t know it’s public. (WP)

• Trump Mouths Lyrics To ‘Happy Birthday’ While National Anthem Plays (The Onion)

MUSIC:

Kacey Musgraves - Follow Your Arrow (Live at the Grand Ole Opry)