Citizen Cartwright

Good news on global life expectancy, China emissions, Africa education

Among the items in this week’s edition of Fix the News:

 

— The latest findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study, published in The Lancet, forecast that global life expectancy will increase by 4.9 years in males and 4.2 years in females between 2022 and 2050.

 

"While health inequalities between the highest- and lowest-income regions will remain, the gaps are shrinking, with the biggest increases anticipated in sub-Saharan Africa," says Dr. Chris Murray, chair of Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington and director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

 

— A new analysis for Carbon Brief, based on official figures and commercial data, reinforces the assessment that China’s carbon dioxide emissions may have peaked in 2023. 

 

— When my daughter and I volunteered with an educational nonprofit in Tanzania during her gap year between high school and college, we were surprised that, because education was so expensive, students snuck into school rather than sneaking out. Now an education financing program has increased primary education enrollment in the East African country by more than 2.5 million children since 2013, according to the World Bank.

Also in the news

Officials: Biden gives Ukraine go-ahead to use U.S. weapons to strike inside Russia for limited purpose of defending Kharkiv

 

Departing House members on what it’s like serving in a Congress that’s enacted just 64 bills since January 2023

 

IRS makes its free electronic tax return filing system permanent, asks all states to join in 2025

 

Supreme Court unanimously rules NRA can pursue claim its free speech rights were violated by state official

 

AP: Key takeaways from Trump’s conviction in hush money trial

 

ProPublica: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton increasingly using consumer protection laws to pursue political targets

Editorial decisions are now business decisions

By John Dineen
Columnist, One dog barking

The editor of the New York Times recently set off a storm of criticism in the journalism teacup by downplaying the importance of democracy as a campaign issue and the organization’s responsibility in defending it. 

But the admission by Joe Kahn, galling as it might have seemed, has an underlying — and uncomfortable — truth. The Times is a profit-making company, a player in the attention economy. Its mission is to get you to look, and keep looking, whether at its news stories, its recipes, or its games. Everything else, democracy included, is secondary.

Kahn didn’t use those words; he spoke in editorial terms, the language of the newsroom. It was the same vocabulary we employed in my first newsrooms — but the context is utterly different. That difference speaks to the changes in journalism.

In 1979, we made coverage decisions based on traditional criteria: community significance and reader interest. Our only test of the success or wisdom of those decisions, beyond our own assessment, was reader reaction, both written, in the form of letters to the editor, and word of mouth — which occasionally involved someone walking into the newsroom and telling you exactly what they thought.

Unscientific as that feedback on our performance might have been, it was sufficient: Our business model — subscription revenue, display and classified advertising — was stable and lucrative, and 90 percent of the households in our town subscribed to the paper. Our decisions were editorial, and they were made in the newsroom.

That business model has collapsed. Journalists in 2024 use the same vocabulary to describe their work as we did back in 1979. But now each story, each editorial decision, is measured by its success in the attention economy — a business, not an editorial, metric. Will this story succeed by that measure? Can it compete with the Kardashians, Instagram, Netflix, and all the other options available on the same screen?

When every story must be framed for maximum appeal, journalists are left with the tools of the carnival barker, and the threat to the nation’s democracy can become just another sideshow. 

Which is why subscribers and others need to join watchdogs like Margaret Sullivan in urging journalists to do more.

Also in the news

Israel extends its control to all of Gaza's land border

 

Hong Kong finds 14 pro-democracy activists guilty in largest use yet of China-imposed National Security Law

 

International police operation takes down ransomware networks

 

Alito rejects calls to recuse himself from Supreme Court cases, says wife is responsible for controversial flags

 

Rep. Jamie Raskin opinion essay: 'If Justices Alito and Thomas won’t recuse themselves, there is a solution'

 

WPost: Most House Republicans who backed Trump challengers in presidential primary won their own primaries

 

Researchers: A bacterium has the power to reduce nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, in farm fields

Tools for stressful times

People at every point in history probably felt they lived in stressful times. The good news right now is that we have so many tools to calm ourselves.

As you know, in this blog, I’m trying to provide a balanced view of what’s going on.

Recently I asked John Dineen — who’s spent his career as an insider in government and media — to help separate the news we informed citizens need from the news that media need to run to get clicks for their own financial survival.

Now I’d like to do more to share tools I’ve come across that help me and the people I work with as a coach/tutor to handle difficult situations and difficult feelings.

I’m creating a new category in this blog called "Tools for stressful times," where I’ve put items I’ve run in the past and will put items in the future. I’m also going to run a Tools for stressful times item that will stay at the top of this blog every day to remind us of key tools.

For today:

The 12-step programs say we can be serene no matter what. This, of course, takes practice. 

While I’m not religious, when I first heard, as a teenager or young adult, the Serenity Prayer used by the 12-step programs, I thought it was so wise.

So here’s a tool that's being used right now by millions of people, in and outside 12-step programs, around the world.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., said in the run up to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s recent effort to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson:

“The Serenity Prayer is insightful here. There is nothing that realistically can be done to guarantee that that weapon is disarmed. Frankly, how freeing, because now every single one of us whose taken the oath of office to serve in the House understands that we just have to do our job in the best possible way, and let the chips fall where they will.” 

In the news since we last chatted

BBC: What does the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel's Rafah offensive mean?

 

U.N. development specialist Garry Conille named new prime minister of Haiti

 

Supreme Court rules in favor of South Carolina Republicans in voting map case

 

Louisiana becomes first state to make abortion pills a controlled substance

 

D.C.’s liberal bent doesn't amount to inherent bias against Jan. 6 defendants, appeals court rules

 

Gonzales and state legislator who impeached AG Paxton win Tuesday’s Texas primary runoffs

 

Gretchen Morgenson in NBC News: 'How private equity rolled Red Lobster'

 

NYTimes: Students, nonprofit groups fundraising to cap highly polluting oil and gas wells abandoned by industry

 

Bilingual AI brain implant helps stroke survivor communicate in Spanish, English

Note to readers

Thank you to the veterans, in all our families and everywhere, who’ve sacrificed to protect freedom. Here is the Memorial Day 2024 message from the Marines. 

 

I’m going to take two additional days off this holiday weekend and will be back on Wednesday, May 29.

Good news on maternal survival, U.S. crime, India environment

Among the items in this week’s edition of Fix the News:

 

— The global community has made significant progress in reducing the number of women who lose their lives to pregnancy-related causes, according to Our World in Data, citing World Health Organization statistics. Maternal mortality has dropped by half since 1985.

 

— "Americans tend to believe crime is up, even when official data shows it is down,” says the Pew Research Center. “In 23 of 27 Gallup surveys conducted since 1993, at least 60 percent of U.S. adults have said there is more crime nationally than there was the year before, despite the downward trend in crime rates during most of that period.”

 

Between 1993 and 2022, the U.S. property crime rate dropped 59 percent, burglary dropped 75 percent, larceny/theft dropped 54 percent and motor vehicle theft dropped 53 percent, according to the FBI. U.S. violent and property crime rates each dropped 70 percent between 1993 and 2022, according to Bureau of Justice statistics.

 

— Over the past 15 years, India has made "significant advancements in forest conservation" and ranks third globally in net gain of average annual forest area, The Times of India reports. 

 

The country also has celebrated 50 years of Project Tiger and 30 years of Project Elephant to protect habitats.

Also in the news

EU to use profits from frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine military

 

Senate confirms 200th federal judge under Biden as Democrats pass Trump’s pace

 

Buy now, pay later companies must adhere to credit card standards, says Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

 

Tennessee, Delaware first states to offer free diapers to Medicaid families

 

WSJ: How subtle shifts in turnout, candidate choice in 7 battleground states could sway outcome of 2024 election

Nikki Haley says she'll vote for Trump, hopes he'll reach out to her voters

 

Federally funded MIT spinoff says its electrically conductive bricks can replace fossil fuels

 

For first time, number of Americans who use marijuana daily exceeds number of daily drinkers

Election deniers in Congress

"About a third of the sitting members of Congress — 170 of them — are Election Deniers,” says a report by States United Action, a nonpartisan nonprofit that says its mission is to protect our elections and our democracy. It’s affiliated with the States United Democracy Center, whose advisory board includes a bipartisan group of former governors, former attorneys general and others.

 

The report defines election deniers as people who falsely claimed that Donald Trump won in 2020, spread misinformation about that election or took steps to overturn it, or refused to concede a separate race, says The Associated Press.

 

The issue is important given Congress’ constitutional role as the final arbiter of the validity of a presidential election, notes AP.