This conversation shows that it's *very, very good* that journalists take ownership of the whole business of journalism.
This way, the renegotiation of our business models happens without hurting journalistic integrity and silly consultants.
Hungry for better food journalism? New worker-owned outlets like @weareravenous.com are dishing it up. objectivejournalism.org/2026/04/rave...
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Is “seeks to overthrow the Constitution due to deep philosophical objection to the idea of ‘We the People’” a good trait in a defense contractor? The sort the government should pay billions of dollars to and integrate into sensitive systems?
Because that doesn’t seem like the most reliable partner.
Healthy accountability is triggered by evidence, points upward at power, and happens in public. Disordered accountability protects insiders and aims its punishment outward. What the document does is argue for the second while calling it the first.
9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret. 18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within. 19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.
Points 9, 18 and 19 go after accountability directly. Scrutiny of public figures gets reframed as a kind of cultural sickness driving talent away from public life. The problem becomes the people doing the scrutinising, not the people being scrutinised.
A diagram showing the VDA framework and the Arc of Democracy. At the top, three icons label the essential elements of democracy: Verification (tick), Deliberation (speech bubble), and Accountability (magnifying glass). Arrows descend from each through three horizontal bands representing the arc: Substantial (truth tested, voices included, power constrained), Performative (forms remain but substance is weak, rituals without consequence), and Simulated (appearance maintained but functions inverted: propaganda as verification, polarisation as deliberation, scapegoating as accountability). A vertical arrow on the left marks the arc's direction: improvements, decline, collapse. A column on the right maps counterpublics onto the same three states: functional counterpublics act in a substantial way, hollow counterpublics in a performative way, disordered counterpublics in a simulated way. The bands shift from grey through pink to red as democracy moves toward simulation.
I've set out the framework I'm using here in an earlier thread, on VDA, the Arc of Democracy, and the moral-epistemic stacks idea, what follows applies that framework to the Palantir document directly. skywriter.blue/@eliothiggin...
Bluesky is looking for a design research contractor
big plus if you know Bluesky well
who's the best design researcher you know? nominate them (or yourself)
Yeah - time and again people have merely asked the court to maintain the status quo while the court decides the merits of an issue. And the court has decided time and again that the greater damage would not be to allow Trump to dismantle your government before they rule on its illegality. It’s nuts
Oh the many realignments that have happened in my life, the truism that “people’s beliefs don’t shape their politics, their politics shape their beliefs” is maybe the most salient
Pretty frustrating that the New York Times is crediting AP with uncovering the existence of Aadam’s archive when I reported on it 15 months prior. chicagoreader.com/music/gossip...
it is, among other things, incredibly striking to see that roberts was so solicitous of the burden the clean power plan might put on fossil fuel executives, when, a decade later, he is indifferent to the way trump’s moves have thrown hundreds of thousands of lives into turmoil.
a remarkable inside look
Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/u...
NEW: “We see, just, use of excessive force after use of excess force,” said Christy Lopez, who spent years investigating law enforcement misconduct at the DOJ. “In no scenario is it OK to be pepper-spraying people as you're leaving the scene.”
w/ @frontlinepbs.bsky.social
Newsrooms should not block the Internet Archive. Any public service publisher should not block the Internet Archive. If anything, we should all be directly supporting the Internet Archive.
I think it is preferable to have politicians who have, at some point in their lives, lived like a normal person
Clarence Thomas ruled in favor of Citizens United.
Harlan Crow's political contributions then went up 862%.
Then we later find out Thomas let Crow take him on lavish trips, buy his mom's house, and help fund his wife's conservative nonprofit.
But go on about how "progressivism" is a problem...
A nationwide warrant has been issued in the first criminal charges against an ICE agent for on-duty actions during the enforcement surge in Minnesota.
It does suck, and I’m sorry you have to deal with it
It's hard to articulate the level of anger & rage I have about watching this happen. I first saw weev doxx people I love *TWENTY* years ago. I spoke to founders of multiple social networks about the risk of these people over 15 years ago. I wrote about it all a dozen+ years ago. They let it happen.
Proud.
worked just now -- maybe related to Bluesky's instability today? Still, more explicit feedback would be cool if possible
@grain.social I’m trying to follow @aka.dad and the button switches to “following” and then immediately reverts to “follow” with no other feedback
Screenshot from the Puzzmo "social news" feed with the text "S____ played Loop Set for the first time"
fo[puzz]mo
Loop Set?
Wearing a penis costume to a No Kings rally is a 1st Amendment right. Alabama’s efforts to prosecute were firmly rejected today. www.al.com/news/2026/04...
Yeah, I was thinking about something maybe similar after this other post from @tylerjfisher.com bsky.app/profile/tyle...
Hashtags have never particularly spoken to me but something bounded, like an edition of a newspaper. Preferably with sections. Maybe even some that I almost but not always skip
How is that different from opening the app at those times? Not being snarky.
Custom BlueSky feeds are cool but it would also be cool to be able to filter/sort/prioritize replies to popular posts.
France passed a law requiring solar panels on every parking lot with more than 80 spaces.
Equals 10 nuclear reactors
Reduces heat island, shades cars
The US -- 800 million parking spaces. Most of them are uncovered asphalt sitting in direct sunlight.
Why aren't we doing this?
I wrote a piece explaining why open protocols are even more important in a world where everyone can build their own software - and what that might mean for social. werd.io/one-size-fit...