Why Knight Foundation Invested in Bluesky - Knight Foundation John Sands explains our bet on a social web that protects speech, creates opportunity for publishers and creators, and enables research on the information ecosystem.

Some actual facts about one of the investors in Bluesky.

Viewtron - Wikipedia

I remember when Knight Ridder invented Viewtron before the internet. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viewtron

No one in Washington, in recent decades, has acted to protect legacy media or fairness in reporting.

Knight Ridder was the CBS News of newspaper chains, and it was torn to shreds by vulture investors in 2005. No one in Washington misses it; KR was alone in telling the truth about WMD in Iraq.

War coverage highlights the tragedy of the demise of Knight Ridder. Their ability to do end runs around official sources due to their roots in military towns made their papers the cutting edge of reporting on the Iraq war.

Broadly speaking: reality tv is bad for democracy, influencers are bad for democracy, streamers are bad for democracy, YouTubers are bad for democracy.

Exceptions to all categories exist, but it’s astonishing how absolutely clogged our political and media ecosystems are with low-info narcissists

Disagree. MSM has been an utter failure to report the truth. Without folks doing journalism work outside the purview of the US gov we would get strictly propafanda. The NY times and practically all mainstream western media are mouthpieces for the government. There are few exceptions (Knight Ridder).

Some of us bloggers used to hold the MSM accountable for all their deliberate and careless oversights. Even Knight Ridder fell short. But nobody held the bloggers accountable, and now we are drowning in disinformation.

Some of us bloggers used to hold the MSM accountable for all their deliberate and careless oversights. Even Knight Ridder fell short. But nobody held the bloggers accountable, and now we are drowning in disinformation.

The US news media is failing the public in its coverage of a possible war against Iran | Press Watch Reporters should be asking Trump officials some essential questions, and calling attention to the lack of answers.

The US news media is failing the public in its coverage of a possible war against Iran presswatchers.org/2026/02/the-... NEW from me.

Let’s remember that this is not the FIRST time that Corporate Media have acted as Stenographers for a GOP Admin.

All the big guns just took the word of the Bush Admin. Iraq WMD.

So, as a Vet of 6+ Combat Tours-allow me to give respect to the Reporters at Knight Ridder who at least did their jobs.✌️

Used to be a lot of great foreign reporting in regional outlets like the Chicago Tribune and Knight Ridder chain papers such as the Miami Herald and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Their writing was vivid, unencumbered with the weighty tone that sometimes afflicted dispatches from the New York Times.

Review Edited by Mike Hoyt, John Palatella, and the staff of the Columbia Journalism Review, Reporting Iraq, An Oral History Of The War By The Journalists Who Covered It, Melville Publishing House, 20... In 2006 the Columbia Journalism Review got three reporters to interview journalists who’d been in Iraq about their experie...

#Iraq Yasser Salihi worked for Knight Ridder Went out for gas and drove near checkpoint where he was shot & killed by sniper Americans said he was driving too fast musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2026/01/revi...

This is true.

But also, there once was a class of newspaper owners (eg the Knights at Knight Ridder) who were quite wealthy (not Bezos or Ellison level) but who had deep roots in the news business and were absolutely committed to rigorous, independent reporting.

(Also, profits were fatten then)

2025 Arthur Ross Book Award Ceremony and Meeting: "The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq” Join Gideon Rose for the 2025 Arthur Ross Book Award ceremony honoring this year’s medalists: Steve Coll, Jonathan Blitzer, and Sergey Radchenko.The program will feature the award presentation and a …

2025 Arthur Ross Book Award Ceremony and Meeting: "The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq," by Steve Coll @cfr.org & @economist.com

www.cfr.org/event/2025-a...

The CIA's 30-Year Mistake: Understanding Saddam Hussein | Steve Coll YouTube video by The Next Best with Marcel Dirsus

Anyway, I have a podcast now. If you're interested in dictators and geopolitics and history, you might enjoy it! My first guest was Pulitzer Prize-winning author Steve Coll. We spoke about Saddam Hussein, the limits of the CIA and the danger of miscalculation:

youtu.be/l5gnmitRUl0

#Iraq Jan 21 2005 Knight Ridder analysis Violence in Iraq increased after every US benchmark such as capture of Saddam handing over sovereignty etc musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/p/iraqi-inte...

My last 4 watched posters for Shock and Awe, The Ballad of Wallis Island, New Year’s Evil, and Jonah Hex.

My last 4 watched.

Shock and Awe I missed when released due to War on Terror fatigue, but it’s a great Rob Reiner movie about the Knight Ridder reporters who did right, as fake reporters like Judy Miller had their evil way with the world.

boxd.it/b3JeX

#LetterboxdFriday #LastFourWatched #FilmSky🎞

In February 2003 more than a million people protested in London against going to war with Saddam Hussein, the largest demonstration in city history.
Such a seminal movement that Ian McEwan used the protest for the backdrop of his novel Saturday. Only 23 years ago but feels older than Stonehenge

The UK did join the Americans in that war, of course. And when it all turned catastrophic, and the flimsy gauze of the “dodgy dossier” was exposed, at least a lot of people could say they’d done something. When I moved to London the following year, everyone was still talking about those protests

Yes. like Katharine Gun, who leaked to the press about U.S. and U.K. skullduggery to get U.N. approval. The film, Official Secrets, tells that tale. Knight Ridder didn't buy the 'weapons of mass destruction' B.S., either, a tale told clumsily by the film, Shock and Awe. Lessons unlearned, seemingly.

McClatchy has since closed its Washington Bureau, which under Knight Ridder did this reporting.

Quality journalism is too expensive for corporate investors, and too politically incorrect for billionaire owners such as Bezos and the Ellisons.

Matt Taibbi: To Protect Free Speech, I’m Suing the Man Who Defamed Me There’s a difference between censorship, which prevents speech, and seeking restitution for a harmful lie already in print. That's why I'm suing the man who defamed me, writes Matt Taibbi.

Bari Weiss's Free Press website ran this screed by Matt Taibbi defending his lawsuit against a book author.

But the Free Press apparently never reached out to the author. Even though Weiss spiked that 60 Minutes piece for not reaching out to enough Trump officials www.thefp.com/p/matt-taibb...

Major Undeclared Wars and Conflicts of the United States: Quasi-War with France (1798-1800) Barbary Wars in North Africa (Early 1800s) Panama-Colombia (1899-1903) Nicaragua (1909-1933) Korea (1950-1953) Lebanon (1958, 1975-1990) Vietnam (1964-1973) Nicaragua (1979-1990) El Salvador (1979-1992) Grenada (1983) Panama (1989) Persian Gulf War (1991) Bosnia & Kosovo (1990s) Somalia (1992-1994, ongoing) Afghanistan (2001-2021) Iraq (2003-2011) Libya (2011) Yemen (2014, ongoing)

People love a president who starts wars without legal permission from the Congress that voters elected to, you know, pass laws and declare wars.

1/3

We have a long history of cheering presidents, Democratic and Republican, who recklessly started wars for oil, with no plan to win those wars.

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Then we blame those presidents, not ourselves, when the war becomes a quagmire, the locals violently revolt against our abuses of power, and our economy falls into a recession.

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A poster for the movie Shock and Awe, with the tag line: The Conspiracy is Real, The Theory was Right, The Story is True.

A #movie about the run up to the Iraq invasion in 2003 with a cast of likeable actors, this story focuses on the Knight Ridder news team uncovering the propaganda machine influencing Congress and public support to topple Saddam.

The script is a bit naive at […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]

House Republicans Buried the Jack Smith Transcript on New Year’s Eve. I Read It So You Don’t Have To. 12 takeaways from Smith's closed-door testimony

"Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power."

Do you also oppose boycotts by Black and Jewish civil rights groups?

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR the ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE, et al., Petitioners v. CLAIBORNE HARDWARE COMPANY et al.

Fact check: Calling boycotts ‘mob canceling’ ignores U.S. law: the Supreme Court held nonviolent boycotts are protected First Amendment expression (NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware). www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt...