Changes in the News

We subscribed to The Washington Post growing up. I remember discovering that there were columnists who appeared in metro, style, and sports, some of them twice a week. Determining their rhythms. Learning which movie critic aligned with my tastes. When I got old enough to plan my weekend around the going out guide. Their incredibly knowledgeable books section that covered stuff that wasn't just literary or a bestseller. 

I had a friend working at the Post when it got bought by a billionaire. She was laid off a few years later with almost her whole team. As they slowly shrank the metro section down, as their popular sports columnists left for the sports channel, and they made minimal efforts to grow their replacements to the same stature. 

The Post has slowly changed. And certainly the rise of the internet and the changing ad scape mean all news sites are grappling with change. But to me it seemed the higher ups assumed that having Washington in the name was locality enough. Of course this meant to find out what was actually happening in the city where I lived I had to turn to other news sources, like WTOP, the 51st, Washington City Paper, and City Cast. And so I had less time for the Post because the Post stopped serving what I wanted. 

It's hard not to wonder if like Twitter this wasn't an intentional death blow to a thing that had provided clear eyed reporting of many goings on.

Or perhaps, the signs were already there when an award winning journalist saved a key revelation for his book rather than his newspaper column. 

I am sorry for all the incredible people who lost their jobs this week.

The State of Things

I've been staying away from current events of late because the firehose of news is sometimes a lot and I don't like dwelling on it.  But I received a newsletter from a local business speaking out about the state violence in Minnesota and found myself a little peeved that this particular business had sort of never mentioned the National Guard being activated in DC.  I find I talk to several people who don't realize that I commute most days with or past the National Guard.  That the National Guard and the Park Police patrolled streets along with the local police and knocked on doors and proudly arrested literal hundreds of our neighbors.  And yes, some of the most obvious and egregious stuff has seemed to slow.  The unhoused gentleman who hangs out near where I board the metro is back in place (though much of his stuff was trashed by the police and various federal forces who placed him under a psychiatric hold for choosing to live outside.  

Now, certainly, I understand many eyes are turned towards Minnesota as they rightly should be. Goodness knows I have been tracking the news in Minnesota, checking in with Minnesota friends, donating where I can.  But I also know that the things happening here, even if they seem less bad or more benign are equally deserving of attention and pushback.  Local people, even some in the suburbs sometimes fall into the trap that DC folks deserve the mistreatment we get because we aren't a state, as if she forgot to mail in our statehood application.  As if we haven't asked multiple times to be a state, through the appropriate channels and been ignored.  They left us a federal enclave intentionally.  Because they enjoy holding power over a mostly brown, mostly liberal city.

Anyway, some days I seek joy where I can find it.  But it doesn't mean I've forgotten about all the figurative and literal ice we are digging out from under.