literally, woof

How Trump Took the U.S. to War With Iran

This story by Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman meanwhile came out of reporting for a book and also represents a lightning turnaround for this kind of deep resource-intensive story: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/u...

To be sure there are exceptions to any rule. My banal point is that most reporters aren't Bob Woodward. Good rundown of the questions he won't answer about his reporting process:

objectivejournalism.org/2020/10/ques...

This is a good example of a book that made liberals mad and I'd just note that John Bolton is not a reporter

I think you are not getting what I'm saying

Sometimes sources are willing to talk to a reporter for a book but not for an article. Sometimes those are just the ground rules for a conversation. I would put this at 95% of the reason for major scoops appearing in books.

Books don't make writers money. There is not a financial incentive to hold back on reportable scoops to put in a book 18 months later, especially if you are worried (as all reporters are) that somebody else is looking for the same info.

Reporters can only confirm so much for a given story. You track down a ton of info, you try to make sense of it, you double- and triple-check the parts that point to a coherent story, also you are on deadline, you owe copy, and the person you're dying to talk to won't call you back.

For one thing, nobody wants to get scooped. Reporters know that a big story like this will shake the tree and other reporters will pick up what falls. Sometimes when your story gets held up for whatever reason, you wind up seeing details you had under a competitor's byline (😭).

Maybe Sarah Fitzpatrick and editors at the Atlantic could not confirm certain details to their standards. Or maybe that part got cut for length or flow. There are any number of reasons — but it's never the case that a reporter is holding back on juicy details for a book.

For whatever reasons, certain details were cut from the story, namely that Kash Patel made FBI security shut down the FBI store so he could shop alone.

Lawyers for Kash Patel responded to fact-checking questions from the Atlantic with this letter. In an unusual threatening move, lawyers published the letter. You can see that there are claims that Patel's lawyers denied that never made it into the story.

There's a tiny detail in the Atlantic story that reveals how books on pressing news really come together. Reporters don't hold their most important stories for personal gain, the way everyone on Bluesky thinks.

this sounds like something out of a bulgakov novel

Court Leaks and Attorney-Journalists The professional-ethics implications of making court confidences public.

You have got to be kidding me with this. What?? C’mon.

blog.dividedargument.com/p/court-leak...

Pointless to ask now I suppose but how are you supposed to access the livestream with the tickets? I have tickets with QR code that doesn't work

Next month, The Shakespeare Theater in DC will have a big production of Othello with Wendell Pierce in the title role.

Buried in the cast listing is another intriguing detail: Lucas Iverson, better known as Ogilvie on The Pitt, will play Othello's most trusted lieutenant.

Hot honey gochujang pork belly burnt ends, back in the smoker with the ribs

Messing around with a rack of ribs and pork belly for burnt ends

lovely

Madonna's "Vogue" is a single from "I'm Breathless: Music From and Inspired by the Film 'Dick Tracy'" — that has to set the pace for best song/worst record

Like a concrete aircraft carrier: was LA’s giant new $724m gallery really worth all the carbon emissions? Built on tar swamps and two tortuous decades in the making, Lacma’s latest addition used twice as much metal as the Eiffel Tower. How did America supersize revered architect Peter Zumthor?

"Was it worth the carbon?" seems like the wrong question for truly singular buildings. You can make the case for concrete for the single most important museum building in a metro or 13 million people. It's every other building where you need to find carbon savings www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

‘Keep digging’: What happened in the days leading up to the Chronicle’s Eric Swalwell story The woman who answered a reporter’s call last month was hesitant, at first. She withheld the painful account she would later reveal. The next morning, she asked to keep talking.

🎁 The @sfchronicle.com details how it got the Swalwel story, how it worked to get the accuser to come forward, how it raced CNN... Really interesting account of how journalism actually works. Gift link: 🎁

www.sfchronicle.com/politics/art...

No no, we don't need to go to an anti-colonizer script, we're on solid ground saying Confederates suck

Damn right we did.

The Quincunx by Charles Palliser: 9780804152402 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books An extraordinary modern novel in the Victorian tradition, Charles Palliser has created something extraordinary—a plot within a plot within a plot of family secrets, mysterious clues, low-born birth,.....

while we are talking quincunces this is a wonderful novel www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/126237...

during a federal design hearing a presenter spoke the word "quincunx" which is like my own personal scorigami

All of the NCAS guys have serious Confederate sympathies.