@knight-ridder
Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Until it was sold in 2006, it was the second largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspapers.
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 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.
#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," by Steve Coll @cfr.org & @economist.com
www.cfr.org/event/2025-a...
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.
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]
"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?
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Fact check: National data found no gender-affirming surgeries for ages ≤12 (2019) and very low teen rates—hardly “experimentation.” Harvard on JAMA study: hsph.harvard.edu/news/gender-...
Fact check: In the U.S., there’s no law making “wrong pronouns” a crime; the viral CA ‘jail for pronouns’ claim was misleading, per PolitiFact. www.politifact.com/article/2017...
Fact check: In U.S. schools, the book-ban wave largely targets LGBTQ+ stories—PEN America found 25% of banned titles in 2023–24 included LGBTQ+ people/characters. That’s anti-LGBTQ banning, not LGBTQ-led banning. pen.org/report/cover...