The need to share credit and show our work — After The New York Times published its extensive report on the history of Haiti’s impoverishment at the hands of its overthrown colonial overlords, a robust debate broke out between academic and journalistic Twitter about inadequate citation and sourcing. Journalism must do better. The gist of it: The Times did include…

Let us turn attention at last and again to good speech — What if we concede that the battle against “bad speech” is lost? Disinformation and lies will exist no matter what we do. Those who want such speech will always be able to say it and find it. Murdoch and Musk win. That is just realism. Then what? Then we turn…

Is a no-fly zone an ethical imperative or a risk too far? — A thread I posted on Twitter, asking questions: It is likely a mistake to think aloud here on Twitter but I will confess I am unsure what to think about US/NATO involvement in a no-fly zone over Ukraine. I am gun-shy, literally, after my errors regarding Iraq. But… How can…

My statement to a Judiciary Subcommittee hearing — This will not make some people happy. Here is a statement I submitted to my senator, Cory Booker, as a member of a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, which is holding a hearing called “Breaking the News—Journalism, Competition, and the Effects of Market Power on…

Beside journalism’s addiction to prediction lies another comorbidity: its presumption to set expectations. Of course, we are well familiar with this co-occuring condition in coverage of politics, where journalists think they bring value to public discourse — which they do not — when they predict who will win an election…

Lessons about culture and memory from two new books: ‘The Library: A Fragile History’ and ‘Bitstreams’ — All culture is conversation. — Neil Postman Culture is made up of what remains after everything else has been forgotten. — Jean-Philippe de Tonnac I’ve spent the last few years working on a book about the end of the Gutenberg Age and the lessons we can learn from our entry…

It is *a* problem that can distract us from others — Yes, disinformation is a problem. But by treating it as the problem, we can cause more: We give malign actors the attention that feeds them as we spread their messages. We defer facing society’s real ills. We ignore voices too long not heard. We present a distorted and dystopian view…

A course in designing the future of the net — This spring at CUNY, my colleague Douglas Rushkoff and I will teach a course in Designing the Internet. Students will propose and design a feature of the net they want to see. Some might start from the entrepreneurial perspective: a product, service, feature, or company. But I hope students will…