(1/5) Thank you to everyone who has reached out to me and offered their kind words and support over the last 2 months. Many have asked me to let them know if there's anything they can do to help and if there's anything I need. Well, actually, there is...
Head high @VICENews. More than a thousand shows. More Emmy noms than any other newscast for five straight years. More grit and grind than any other newsroom. What a run.
"Deception, I now believe, may uphold a different conception of the patient’s dignity — respecting the integrity of his worldview, however askew it may be."
On non-voluntary treatment for people w/ drug addictions: "There’s a common view that people with addiction can’t be helped unless they choose to go into treatment. But the data on voluntary versus coerced and court-mandated treatment is not so clear-cut."
"Lawyers can use brain injury as evidence of abuse but the diagnosis can become a double-edged sword if it is used by an alleged abuser to argue that their partner has a diminished capacity to parent, potentially leading to the abuse victim losing custody"
Oncology in America: "64 percent of nursing home residents — received aggressive treatment in their final 30 days. A quarter underwent cancer treatment: surgery, radiation, chemotherapy."
Most older people envision a serene death at home with loved ones, without pain or panic. Instead, most with metastatic cancer get aggressive care even in their last 30 days. https://nytimes.com/2023/03/14/health/end-of-life-care-hospice.html…
How child labor investigations go wrong: A 13-year-old girl was one of dozens of kids cleaning slaughterhouses owned by JBS, the world's biggest meatpacker.
Prosecutors didn't charge JBS or its contractor, but put the girl's dad in jail and may deport him.
Writers! I was going to teach another advanced magazine writing workshop when the pandemic hit. FINALLY rescheduling for April 15-16 in SF. Last group of students started publishing in NY’er, became NYTM contributor, published first book. 8 students max. Lmk if you want details.
The US is seeing an unprecedented wave of migrant child labor right now.
Thousands of kids are working overnight in dangerous factories for brands like Cheerios, Fruit of the Loom and Ford. They're here alone and they're being failed in the most basic way.https://nytimes.com/2023/02/25/us/unaccompanied-migrant-child-workers-exploitation.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur…
will offer a fellowship to develop journalists with an expertise in coverage of disability issues. Here are the details. The deadline to apply is March 24.
NEW: I wrote about going to interview the man who hid/saved my grandfather from the nazis, a decade of war reporting, why some people risk their lives to save strangers while others kill their neighbors, and being the grandchild of 4 Holocaust survivors:
Pressure Mounts for Hospice Reform — “The New Yorker-ProPublica investigation shook the industry to its foundation.” Impact by @AvaKofman @propublica https://propublica.org/article/pressure-mounts-for-hospice-reform…
NEW: Two House committees just released results from their 18-month investigation into the FDA's approval of Biogen's controversial Alzheimer's drug, Aduhelm. The
LOVE to see The Inevitable recommended in a piece about favourite cookbooks! "It’s a complex and fascinating subject and Engelhart writes with intelligence and compassion." Thank you
frat party. Admins have known about this… forever & always, but have responded with little more than temporary halts on frat parties - lest they lose $$ from grown-up frat boy alumni.
's The Gray Area podcast. About dignity and indignity and autonomy and Right to Life politics and what makes a life 'sacred' (if anything). I hope you listen:
The Inevitable! “I picked up this book as a duty, not expecting a pleasure. But it is so well written and thoroughly researched.. that it is, extraordinarily, a delight to read: interesting & moving, thought-provoking & important.” Thank you
I haven't tweeted in 8 years but I'm so excited to work with the next generation of investigative reporters. Apply for the new Local Investigations Fellowship, which I'm leading for
1 week left to apply! This is a great way for early-career journalists to gain large-newsroom experience, 1:1 mentorship, union representation and pay ($1,117.85/week). The program runs from early June through Labour Day 2023. #jobs#journojobs
reporting -- both because it was so opinion-driven & because of factual inaccuracies / omissions of fact. With such an under-reported subject, a single reporter can have a hugely outsized effect on the discourse.
Another example from this reporter: "...more than 65% of people are being euthanized due to cancer." They aren't "being euthanatized" against their will. They are are sick with cancer and are *choosing* to have their doctors speed things along, likely to avoid suffering.
article on the Right to Die: "...tells physicians and nurses to inform patients if they might qualify to be killed." Qualify to be killed? Huh? This is not language that I have ever seen used by patients, doctors or legislators
allowed a reporter who was obviously/openly opposed to abortion to cover abortion. Imagine if that reporter borrowed the terminology & values of 'Right to Life' advocates when writing allegedly disinterested wire articles. I don't think that would happen.
has had a reporter who very obviously & deeply & emotionally opposes the Right to Die cover the subject for the wire service. I wonder how this single journalist, whose stories are published/adapted/translated by global outlets, has shaped the cultural debate.
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It takes a lot to pretend to conduct an intrepid investigation when another journalist has literally already published over 10,000 words on the same company.
doc that uses a huge amount of reporting - without citing or crediting me - won an Emmy. It wasn't even subtle; the doc is about the exact same nursing home company I wrote about. I spent months, dawn to dusk, on my reporting. I won a George Polk Award for it.
This piece by Zoe Heller, on the essence of Charles, is so good: “Oddly, and perhaps rather tragically, the severest damage to his reputation has come not from his modest history of vice but from his strenuous aspirations to virtue.”
Did you know: Many of the same so-called 'Right to Life' groups that worked to overturn #RoevWade are involved in (quieter) campaigns against Right to Die legislation. Assisted dying is also about the politics of body autonomy - but it gets very little media attention. Why?
and you can read it here. It's about a spectacularly intelligent woman named Professor Avril Henry who ended her life because she was old and had no interest in growing any older: