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MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
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By Zach Schonfeld @ TheHill.com, Dec. 18
Chris Licht, who became CEO of CNN earlier this year, said he has been surprised by the “uninformed vitriol” directed at him from liberals as he attempts to shift the network’s editorial direction, in a series of interviews with the New York Times.Licht took over the network in May, making a series of staffing and programmatic changes that have sparked buzz about Licht aiming for a more centrist slant. [....]
“The uninformed vitriol, especially from the left, has been stunning,” Licht told the Times. “Which proves my point: so much of what passes for news is name-calling, half-truths and desperation.” [....]
Many inside and outside the organization see Licht steering the network toward a more centrist direction, a characterization Licht has pushed back on. Instead, Licht told the Times that he wanted the network to offer a “rational conversation about polarizing issues,” adding that he hoped viewers would “take what they’ve heard to the dinner table and have a discussion.” “That’s a dream of mine,” Licht said.
But Licht has also faced the strains of a slowing economy and dwindling digital advertising, causing him to lay off some rank-and-file employees and make other major cuts [....]
Guest op-ed by Betsy Levy Paluck @ WashingtonPost.com, Dec. 12. (She is a professor of psychology and public and international affairs, and the deputy director of the Kahneman-Treisman Center for Behavioral Science & Public Policy, at Princeton University.)
In early June 2020, as Black Lives Matter protests flowered across the United States following the murder of George Floyd, businesses and other institutions rushed to enhance their diversity efforts. Chief diversity officer hires tripled among the largest publicly traded companies, enhancing diversity, equity and inclusion offerings for which U.S. companies paid an estimated $3.4 billion to outside firms that year.
What have we achieved with all this effort? In 2022, this question has special significance, as measures to increase diversity and racial equity have come under political attack, often by people who believe those shouldn’t be goals in the first place. But even among people who believe in the basic mission, common questions about diversity training have shifted from “Which training is best?” to “Is the training even a good idea?” and “Does the training have negative effects?”
The problem is that the real answer to all three of these questions is: We don’t know. As a behavioral scientist who studies prejudice and behavior change, I can tell you that the situation really is that bad [....]
By Kevin Sieff from St. George, UT for WashingtonPost.com, Dec. 13
In Utah, fentanyl overdoses increased 300 percent over a three-year period. Synthetics had reshaped the geography of drug demand. The Sinaloa cartel had the supply.