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Joshua Benton
@jbenton
Senior writer + founder of at . I write about (a) digital journalism, (b) southern history, mostly. Cajun. Takes mine, not Harvard's.
Joshua Benton’s Tweets
I thought this was an onion article because of that photo. Those kids look super happy with their daddy, loool.
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“I am not a co-parent with the government; I am daddy,” Mississippi Sen. Chris McDaniel said at a press conference announcing his run for lieutenant governor at the Mississippi Republican Party headquarters in Jackson on Monday, Jan. 30, 2023.
mississippifreepress.org/30688/governor
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Automated
Customer: FAMILY INITIALS
DMV: AC AD LLOKS LIKE AIR CONDITIONING AFTER DEATH.. WITH ALL THE PEOPLE DIEING IN HOT CARS JUST SEEMS A LITTLE MORBID.
Verdict: ACCEPTED
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If you’re seeing DEI-related roles be eliminated in your newsroom during the recent waves of layoffs, I would love to talk to you for . My DMs are open.
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Governor Tate Reeves said in a private conversation that Medicaid expansion would be in Mississippi's best interest — but that he refuses to support the policy for political reasons, reports:
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stolen valor, marmot edition
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Today’s your annual reminder that Georgia has a groundhog named General Beauregard Lee who comes out of a plantation house that should’ve been burned to the ground by Punxsutawney Phil on his March to the Sea… but here we are. He’s not to be trusted.
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Today’s your annual reminder that Georgia has a groundhog named General Beauregard Lee who comes out of a plantation house that should’ve been burned to the ground by Punxsutawney Phil on his March to the Sea… but here we are. He’s not to be trusted.
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This is a travesty. and her team are doing important, critical work, and the should be embarrassed about how it's turning its back on controversy. It's a terrible message for future leaders it's supposed to train.
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If Harvard is “committed” to scholarship about misinformation they shouldn’t be pushing out Donovan or ending the project — it’s work NO ONE else was doing. Disappointing leadership from yet again:
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Claire Wardle's First Draft misinformation/verification project previously left Shorenstein
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"Donovan was told her prominence at the school led Elmendorf to end her time at the Shorenstein Center, two HKS staff members said."
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!!?!?!?!!?!?!?!??!?!?
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Harvard @Kennedy_School Dean Doug Elmendorf is forcing out misinformation expert Joan Donovan from her role at the Shorenstein Center and ending her research project, according to three HKS staffers with knowledge of the situation
Read more in @thecrimson
thecrimson.com/article/2023/2
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Watch for "cops save baby ducks" stories in the next few months. Media collaborates with police to produce these puff pieces after every police brutality incident.
Literally every dept does these after police killings, it's amazing. Thread
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This is a really interesting piece by at . I imagine that the point made here in the first image could apply more broadly (second image) on a variety of other issues, as well.
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Interesting take from Nieman lab involving media language use, particularly considering current discussions around the debt ceiling niemanlab.org/2023/01/this-r
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They're criminalizing teachers who let students access to books the state doesn't like (such as books by Black people), and the NYT is like "wow, about time someone took on those bullies in the education establishment"
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Years of concern trolling about leftist "cancel culture" and "political correctness" and the NYT simply lacks the tools or desire to describe what is happening
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Yesterday we logged almost 200 challenges- about 150 of those resulted in immediate removals.
This is a picture of all the books removed from one HS library, in one day, in one District, due to the objections of one man.
This is not freedom. #FreeTheBooks
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I am in Florida right now, and seeing how legacy publications are framing fascism in my home state this week is causing me to lose my mind. I’m not surprised; I’m furious.
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could the NYT come up with a more DeSantis-friendly headline and framing?
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New: Santos' 2022 campaign reported receiving more than $45,000 from relatives in Queens.
One of those relatives, who was recorded as giving $5,800, told me at their apartment yesterday that they did not make any donation to Santos. w/
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At The Seattle Times, 70 percent of revenue now comes from readers: wan-ifra.org/2023/01/at-the
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. 's provost said today he was surprised by the resolution of the Board of Trustees creating a new school w/in the university on "civic life & leadership" - which the Board chair calls a "remedy" for the left-of-centerness of the faculty.
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NEW: Rep. Alyce G. Clarke, who became the first Black woman elected to the Mississippi Legislature in 1984, announced she's retiring at 83.
“Hopefully I’ve made a difference in the community, in the county, and even in the state of Mississippi,” she said.
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It’s not only happening in Florida…
A librarian was ordered to remove posters with Elie Wiesel quotes because they violated a “new policy banning educators from ‘advocacy activities’ in the Central Bucks School District.”
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I salute our 18-year-old comrades who are giving their union-busting parents hell at home. levernews.com/fear-and-loath
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The power to tell another group what they can and can't learn about themselves; which of their authors and scholars can and can't be used in an elective study of themselves.
A one-way power: black folk have very little input on AP European History.
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Simple: Biden has consented to the searches, Trump hasn’t. So to search Trump’s other properties the FBI needs probable cause that they will find classified documents there (beyond a hunch or guess) to get a search warrant
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So the FBI has now searched multiple Biden properties. Fine. But can someone explain why other Trump properties weren't searched, despite media reports he had classified docs in places other than Mar-a-Lago? washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12
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"Americans don't know x" polls are among the more underrepresented in the discourse.
Lots of people don't know about the things they're supposed to be politically activated about!
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Half of women are unsure if medication abortion is legal in their state, and a third don’t know if they are allowed to access emergency contraceptive pills, per a new @KFF poll 19thnews.org/2023/02/where-
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I'm so very excited and fortunate to be a Shorenstein Center Fellow this semester at the Harvard Kennedy School while I work on a book. Pinch me. And/or send book writing tips.
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We're thrilled to welcome our new and returning Spring 2023 Shorenstein Fellows to the center: @itscaitlinhd @adamlashinsky @okapifilm, and @brianstelter & @jonathan_c_ong shorensteincenter.org/spring-2023-sh
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Ending, as a Beyoncé tour should, in south Louisiana
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Beyoncé announced the Renaissance World Tour, her first solo tour since 2016. It will start May 10 in Stockholm and run for at least 47 dates.
nyti.ms/3HsOo38
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As one should be!
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Some Mississippi journalism news.
Pumped to work with @JMitchellNews!
mississippitoday.org/2023/02/01/mci
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Jerry Mitchell and MCIR to join Mississippi Today newsroom
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Hard to debate the central premise here: Trump-led Republicans have underperformed in three consecutive elections in part because they're still deluded by a 2016 black swan event into overestimating the public's taste for loud obnoxious jerks.
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Who’s afraid of Black Studies?
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Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks) is among the Black scholars recently dropped from an AP African American studies course that has faced opposition from FL Gov. #RonDeSantis. Read her work and that of other purged scholars here: bostonreview.net/reading-list/b
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In fact, the company's director of SEO argued that the company shouldn't disclose AI-generated content at all. Here's how he put it:
"Disclosing AI content is like telling the IRS you have a cash-only business"
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Continuing Jeff German's work resulted in this wild story of an alleged $500 million Ponzi scheme that preyed on Mormons from . Please read it -- to honor his legacy and also because it's an amazing, fascinating tale. (2/2)
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When reporter Jeff German was killed in September, he had a file folder of documents on his desk. The Washington Post partnered with his paper, the Las Vegas Review Journal, to complete his work because no one should be able to ever kill the story. (1/2)
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If you're a finger, your job is safe (for now)
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AI: 26% Accuracy Is Our Brand Promise
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OpenAI is responding to widespread concern about the technology it's put out into the world by releasing an AI text detector that is accurate 26% of the time and yields false positives 9% of the time openai.com/blog/new-ai-cl
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