Margaret Sullivan — the former Washington Post media reporter and Buffalo News editor, as well as New York Times public editor — has a new column out in the US Guardian about Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich: “A year ago Russia jailed Evan Gershkovich for doing journalism. He’s still there.”
Russian authorities arrested Gershkovich on March 29, 2023, on charges of espionage. The Wall Street Journal has denied allegations that he is a spy and the U.S. government considers Gershkovich as being “wrongfully detained.”
Gershkovich was Sullivan’s editorial assistant during part of her time as the Times’ public editor.
Sullivan wrote, “As Evan’s reporter friends from the Guardian and the New York Times told me this week, it’s crucial not to let him be forgotten as his second year of imprisonment begins. Please keep him in mind, they ask; and I do, too. Speak his name, wear his image on a pin or button, post about him with a #FreeEvan or #IStandWithEvan hashtag, mention him to your elected officials. For the sake of a fine young man’s life, and for press freedom writ large, the travesty of Evan’s imprisonment must end.”
Manny García takes the helm at Houston Landing
For this item, I turn it over to Poynter media business analyst Rick Edmonds.
Veteran editor Manny García was named editor-in-chief of the nonprofit Houston Landing website Friday. The ambitious online site, a major startup associated with the American Journalism Project, fired García’s predecessor at the start of the year.
García, most recently executive editor of the Austin American-Statesman, comes with gold-plated credentials. He led the Statesman’s bilingual coverage of the Uvalde school shooting, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service last year. The same coverage earned him an Editor of the Year Award from the National Press Association.
Earlier, García was senior editor of a ProPublica/Texas Tribune investigative initiative, editor of the Naples Daily News, a Gannett corporate editor, and a news executive for the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald.
The firing of Mizanur Rahman, founding editor of the site, shocked the staff of Houston Landing in January. They appealed the decision of CEO Peter Bhatia to the site’s board of directors, who backed Bhatia. In the intervening months, the staff has unionized with the NewsGuild.
Neither Bhatia nor García has a Houston connection, but Angel Rodriguez, named managing editor, grew up there. He has held a variety of editing positions, most recently directing the startup of De Los, a publication covering Latino culture for the Los Angeles Times.
In a press release announcing the appointments, Bhatia said, “Manny and Angel … bring decades of experience, leadership and success in our field, an appreciation of the digital world, and a commitment to Houston. … They will build partnerships within our Houston Landing team, and the community, and will help us find new ways to make our journalism of more value to a wider swath of readers.”
Finally, justice
In October 2022, CNN’s Jake Tapper wrote a story for The Atlantic:
“This is not justice.” It told the story of a Philadelphia man convicted of a crime that he insisted he did not commit. C.J. Rice was 17 years old in 2011 when he was arrested for attempted homicide in a shooting that injured four people. In 2013, he was convicted and sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison.
Tapper reported in great detail about how Rice might have been wrongly convicted. In November 2023, Rice’s conviction was overturned. The Atlantic’s Andrew Aoyama wrote, “No physical evidence tied him to the crime, and the single eyewitness who ultimately identified him as its perpetrator had told police on three previous occasions that she didn’t know who had shot her. She later changed her story.”
There was also evidence that Rice was shot himself three weeks before the incident in which he was arrested. Rice’s pediatrician examined him after he was shot and told Tapper he didn’t think Rice shot anyone. The doctor said, “I don’t think it would have been physically possible. He could not have run away.”
Who was Rice’s pediatrician? Theodore Tapper — Jake Tapper’s father.
On Monday, charges against Rice were formally dismissed. He is a free man. Tapper now has a new story in The Atlantic: “Finally, Justice.”
Tapper wrote, “For Rice, now 30, it’s a chance to finally live an adult life, set his own schedule, choose his own clothes, turn lights on and off at his leisure. When he first visited 1301 Filbert for his arraignment, Blockbuster was still renting DVDs and America was still at war in Iraq. This morning, when the announcement came, Rice wasn’t even in the building. He’d spent enough time there. ‘That’s behind me now,’ Rice said.”
In a text to Tapper on Monday morning, Rice said, “I’m glad to see this wrong righted. Can’t call it a mistake. Because the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s judicial system had at least five separate times to correct this specific situation, and chose not to act in the interest of justice.”
A voice of dissent at Fox News
Washington Post media writer Jeremy Barr has a new piece about “Fox & Friends” co-host Steve Doocy: “On Fox News, Steve Doocy has become the unexpected voice of dissent.”
Barr writes about a recent time when Doocy pushed back against his fellow co-hosts about a particular right-wing talking point. Barr wrote, “Doocy’s swerve was the latest illustration of his surprise emergence as the resident dissenter on ‘Fox & Friends’ — a rare member of the Fox News opinion wing who is challenging conventional Republican wisdom on a regular basis. In particular, Doocy has stood out as a skeptic of congressional investigations into Joe and Hunter Biden, bucking the party line while Fox hosts like Sean Hannity regularly decry what they call ‘the Biden crime family.’ He has also emphasized the significance — and veracity — of the legal challenges facing Trump, talked up Trump challengers like Nikki Haley, and dinged the MAGA wing of the Republican Party.”
Let’s not get it twisted. Doocy is not going to replace Jessica Tarlov as a liberal voice on Fox News’ “The Five.” As veteran media reporter Brian Stelter told Barr, “Doocy’s trying to drag Fox one percent closer back to the center of reality.” Stelter added that Doocy’s pushbacks are “love taps, not punches.”
But because hardly anyone raises a dissenting voice on Fox News, Doocy’s occasional raised eyebrows are noticed.
Check out Barr’s story, although you might be surprised to learn Doocy turned down Barr’s interview request.
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