‘Media malpractice.’ Journalism watchdog Mark Jacob calls out Chicago’s NBC affiliate—among others—for unquestioningly amplifying the Illinois Republican Party’s lie attributing anti-Trump protests in Chicago, Illinois, across the nation and around the world to “paid far-left actors.”
■ Columnist and former Chicago TV executive—ex-news director at WGN-TV—Jennifer Schulze tells Chicago Public Square: “NBC5 made a big mistake here letting this false comment stand without any fact-checking. … I would have also demanded proof of the allegation.”
■ Mother Jones: If protesters were puppets, they hid it well.
■ If they were paid, someone had verrrrry deep pockets.
■ American Crisis columnist Margaret Sullivan: Mainstream media coverage of the protests was “not close to what it deserved.”
Recurring theme. Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein found one among protesters in Madison: “People are pissed at … not just Trump or Elon, not just Republicans or Democrats, not just the appistocracy or corporate America, but all of them.”
■ Law professor and former U.S. prosecutor Joyce Vance was in Birmingham, Alabama: “Courage is contagious. Marching provides encouragement for people who aren’t in the thick of things in Washington or New York. … We made it clear: We have no intention of sitting down and accepting the end of democracy.”
‘They’re retaliating against people who speak up.’ In Charlottesville, Virginia, one of the weekend’s demonstrators told veteran Chicago reporter Jeff Kamen why he refused to reveal his name.
■ Nieman Lab offers tips for leaking information to a journalist in safer, smarter ways.
Whoa. Updating coverage: The Dow dropped another 1,200 points in early trading today as the impact of Trump’s trade war continued to, um, sink in.
■ Trump himself remained resolute: “Be Strong, Courageous, and Patient, and GREATNESS will be the result!”
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “The Republican Party is scrambling.”
■ So is corporate America: Popular Information asked the 100 largest American companies, “Do you support or oppose the tariffs Trump announced?”—and not one responded.
■ Noah Berlatsky at Public Notice: “Trump’s tariffs insanity begins to fracture the MAGA cult.”
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich has little sympathy for Trump’s supporters suffering under his tariffs: “Dear Leader promised that tariffs would make me rich! Why are prices going up? … Why did I just lose my job?”
■ Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings: “This is really unfair to everyone who just voted for him for the racism.”
■ A Biden administration Treasury official writes for The New York Times (gift link, courtesy of Square supporters): “The Trump White House cited my research to justify tariffs. They got it all wrong.”
■ As John Oliver put it last night: “It’d be like trying to figure out the square footage of your home by dividing your phone number by your dog’s age.”’
■ If you’re ready for a real deep dive into the math, PolitiFact takes you there.
■ CNN’s Brian Stelter: Journalists are struggling with the challenge of reporting on stock market panic without further fueling the panic.
■ The Onion: “Parents Gently Explain To Child That Their Money In Heaven Now.”
Historic blackout. The Washington Post: Under Trump’s retreat from diversity, equity and inclusion fairness, the National Park Service is rewriting the history of the Underground Railroad.
■ A University of Chicago law professor condemns “The Trump administration’s unconstitutional hate mail to Harvard.”
‘This is not normal.’ Your Local Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina sounds an alarm after an 8-year-old girl’s death in Texas of measles: “It’s younger, healthier kids. And it’s happening more often.”
■ Oh, but longtime anti-vax Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, in Texas to meet grieving families, says he’s working to “control the outbreak”—and now says vaccines are “the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles.”
‘AI isn’t what we should be worried about—it’s the humans controlling it.’ The Conversation revisits the wisdom of William Gibson’s 1984 pioneering science fiction novel, Neuromancer …
■ … slated to become an Apple TV+ series.
■ In a 1993 interview with your Square columnist, Gibson—the guy who first published the word cyberspace—revealed he didn’t have an email address, and (back then) suffered from another of his coinages: Cyberagoraphobia.
Thank you, one and all. As many (many!) of you noted, Friday’s Chicago Public Square got Sen. Cory Booker’s first name wrong.
■ To find out whether an error’s already been corrected, you can always check the Square website …
■ … but if that’s not convenient, corrections are always welcome here; better to hear from 100 readers noting a mistake than not to hear from anyone at all.
■ Did we make it through today’s news without a goof?
‘Thanks for a great service—I rely very heavily on it to keep up with the news.’ Those kind words from a Square reader accompanied one of those corrections Friday.
■ If you’d like to help cover the cost of producing this newsletter—even just $1, once—here’s where you can.
■ Beth Kujawski made this edition better.
