Having worked in the mixed worlds of journalism, movies, academia, non-profit and private sector, legacy media and digital media, it’s probably natural that from time to time I get questions about my strange long career.
I usually try to comply with these requests, because I was a reporter for a long time and I know that many people refuse to talk about what they know or remember.
Usually I’m willing to discuss pretty much anything except the identities of certain confidential sources that have to be protected.
That leaves a pretty wide latitude for conversation. Probably the most sought-after information is about Rolling Stone and specifically the Patty Hearst stories.
In 1975-6, Howard Kohn and I wrote three cover stories on the newspaper heiress’s kidnapping and apparent conversion to the cause of her kidnappers, the domestic terror organization calling itself the SLA.
There were a lot of dramatic ups and downs in those stories and for the people whose lives they affected.
Including ours. Even the mundane details of our involvement seem to be of some interest and as one recent caller asked me, “Do you ever think about how amazing it is that you did all that? That you lived through it?”
The question took me aback for a moment, but I answered, “Sometimes it feels like it was in fact someone else, not me.”
After we hung up, I stayed with that thought for a moment. I suspect a lot of people feel that way about the past and the things that happened both professionally and personally — things that may sound strange or unlikely, given who we seem to be now.
And one of the issues about bringing it all back up is we may no longer feel ownership of our own past. Maybe it still feels like it belongs to us or maybe not. And maybe that’s okay. I suppose it can be somebody’s else’s story now.
HEADLINES:
America vs. the World (Atlantic)
Trump ties Greenland demands to Nobel Prize in message to Norway leader (BBC)
Merz seeks to dial down Trump trade tensions — while Macron talks tough (Politico)
Trump Is Pushing the U.S.-Europe Alliance Onto a Precipice (NYT)
America’s ‘Achilles Heel’ of national debt is exposed by Trump’s Greenland tariff threat, warns Deutsche Bank (Fortune)
The Minneapolis Siege Is Even Worse Than the Videos Show (New York)
Minnesota Had Its Birmingham Moment (Atlantic)
Before Urban Raids, Border Patrol Tested Tactics in California Farm Country (NYT)
The Congresswoman Criminalized for Visiting ICE Detainees (New Yorker)
Civil rights leaders discuss the lessons of the ’60s for the Trump era (WP)
China’s Birthrate Plunges to Lowest Level Since 1949 (NYT)
Well, there goes the metaverse! (TechCrunch)
Elon Musk accused of making up math to squeeze $134B from OpenAI, Microsoft (ArsTechnica)
This humanoid robot learned realistic lip movements by watching YouTube (TechSpot)
Hollywood’s AI Moment (NYT)
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