RSN: The Coronavirus Is Deadliest Where Democrats Live

26 May 20

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The Coronavirus Is Deadliest Where Democrats Live

Jennifer Medina and Robert Gebeloff, The New York Times
Excerpt: "The devastation [...] has been disproportionately felt in blue America, which helps explain why people on opposing sides of a partisan divide that has intensified in the past two decades are thinking about the virus differently."

Beyond perception and ideology, there are starkly different realities for red and blue America right now.

he staggering American death toll from the coronavirus, now approaching 100,000, has touched every part of the country, but the losses have been especially acute along its coasts, in its major cities, across the industrial Midwest, and in New York City.

 It is not just that Democrats and Republicans disagree on how to reopen businesses, schools and the country as a whole. Beyond perception, beyond ideology, there are starkly different realities for red and blue America right now.

Democrats are far more likely to live in counties where the virus has ravaged the community, while Republicans are more likely to live in counties that have been relatively unscathed by the illness, though they are paying an economic price. Counties won by President Trump in 2016 have reported just 27 percent of the virus infections and 21 percent of the deaths — even though 45 percent of Americans live in these communities, a New York Times analysis has found.

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The FBI has been brought in to investigate after a man died during an arrest in Minneapolis. (photo: FOX 9)

'I Cannot Breathe!': Black Man in Minneapolis Dies With Video Showing Police Officer Kneeling on His Neck
Timothy Bella, The Washington Post


Bella writes: "In a video shared on social media early Tuesday, a Minneapolis police officer pins his knee against the neck of a black man who appears to be struggling to breathe on the ground."


YOU TUBE REPORTS ADDED:  









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A rally in Brunswick, Georgia, to protest the fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery. (photo: Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

FBI Investigating Ahmaud Arbery Shooting as Possible Hate Crime, Lawyer Says
Richard Luscombe, Guardian UK
Luscombe writes: "The FBI is investigating the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, a black jogger, by two white men as a possible hate crime, the Arbery family's attorney said Monday."
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Hands typing on a computer keyboard. (photo: Shutterstock)

Is Email the Future of Journalism?
Alex Shephard, The New Republic
Shephard writes: "Last year was an extinction-level event in journalism. More than 3,000 jobs were lost in an industry that was already in rough shape."

With the industry in free fall, new models are emerging.

ast year was an extinction-level event in journalism. More than 3,000 jobs were lost in an industry that was already in rough shape. There were layoffs in every type of news organization: At BuzzFeed, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sports Illustrated, and countless other newsrooms. And thanks to the coronavirus lockdown, this year is shaping up to be even worse. 

Digital and traditional media outlets have laid off thousands of workers. Last week alone saw drastic cuts at Vice, Quartz, and The Atlantic. Local news has been hit particularly hard; alt-weeklies and small and midsize papers have been decimated. The union representing The Cleveland Plain-Dealer had nearly 350 members two decades ago; today it has 14. 

No one is immune. Old stalwarts and new startups alike are struggling. The Atlantic gained nearly 100,000 subscribers since March, but without its lucrative events business it nevertheless shed nearly a fifth of its workforce. Some properties, like Vox, have furloughed large portions of their staff. Many of the thousands of journalism jobs that have been lost will not be coming back any time soon, if ever. A wave of seed capital offset some of the damage of the 2008 recession, but few investors are keen on journalism now. 

Journalism’s advertising model is all but dead, strangled by Google and Facebook. Many outlets, including The Atlantic, are increasingly relying on subscriptions for revenues, alongside a host of sidelines, including podcasts and events. But these strategies may not be enough, even in rosier economic circumstances. A number of large news organizations have begun lobbying Congress for bailouts of struggling, debt-ridden newspapers. And on Tuesday, the News Guild launched its #SaveTheNews campaign, aimed at immediate relief and long-term stability (and ensuring that private equity giants don’t end up hoovering up any public money). 

But there is growing hunger for new models. Substack, a platform for paid newsletter subscriptions, is one such approach. In two and a half years, it has shown that it can provide a good living to individual journalists. As the media industry rapidly contracts, Substack has grown. Now the company is testing whether its model can work on a larger scale. 

In a blog post published on the company’s website earlier this week, Substack founder Hamish McKenzie made the case that there “are early signs that we are witnessing the emergence of a new media economy.” Some Substack writers, he noted, were bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. The new model, he said, had spawned “a rapidly growing middle class, with writers and podcasters netting incomes that range from pocket money to high five figures.” 

On the phone, McKenzie was a bit more cautious. “Substack provides an avenue for a new generation of publications,” he told me. “It’s not going to be the only path. Hopefully it’s an alternative path. It’s a model that works.” In this newsletter model, a subscription is often higher than a magazine subscription. I just subscribed to Ryan O’Hanlon’s excellent soccer newsletter for the cost of a print subscription to Bloomberg Businessweek. 

The appeal for individual journalists is that a relatively low number of paid subscribers can provide a decent living; and those who enjoy high subscription rates are more than merely comfortable. For corporations, the model is less proven. “There are some publications, even of the stature and historical success of The Atlantic, that will struggle to cross over into a new realm,” McKenzie told me. “If you have to carry around a bunch of the legacy from previous generations of how magazines and newspapers were published, it’s like starting the race with a penalty.” Substack, in other words, is best positioned for new, small, and nimble publications, not bloated ones with sizable overheads. 

Substack works well when individual writers with existing followings—often built up at more traditional outlets—take their audience with them. Emily Atkin, who left The New Republic to start HEATED, a climate newsletter, is in some ways the prototypical Substack newsletter writer and has built a hugely successful following in a manner of months. For writers who are skilled at self-promotion, have large existing followings, and are relatively self-sufficient (i.e., do not need a ton of money to do their reporting), Substack makes a lot of sense. 

There have been recent experiments in building organizations that more closely resemble newsrooms. McKenzie described The Dispatch as a smaller, “center-right Atlantic”; founded by former National Review editor Jonah Goldberg and former Weekly Standard editor in chief Stephen F. Hayes, it raised millions of dollars in venture capital before launching last fall. McKenzie also pointed to The Discourse, a progressive blog founded by former staffers of Splinter. These are publications that are structured like the editorial side of blogs and magazines, with multiple writers and editors working on the project. Substack, meanwhile, provides much of the support one would typically get from the business and product divisions of a newspaper or magazine. 

Whether this model would work for larger newsrooms is an open question. While a number of Substack writers make good money, it’s difficult to imagine how a newsroom could be supported by email alone. However, Ben Thompson’s Stratechery, which Substack’s founders cite as their inspiration, makes millions of dollars a year, suggesting that it is theoretically possible. And in seven months, The Dispatch is bringing in $1.4 million a year. 

Substack’s early successes are based around topics, both general and niche: climate change, money in politics, sports. But there isn’t anything that looks like the area of journalism that is hurting the most: local news.  

Substack represents an “unbundling” of news, the way that Netflix and other streaming services represent an unbundling of cable television’s hundreds of channels. Usually when you subscribe to a paper, you get some stuff you like and some stuff you don’t (you read the comics but maybe not the sports section), by some writers you like and some you don’t (I read Jamelle Bouie but not Thomas Friedman). But what if someone with 1,000 paid subscribers writing about sports in Columbus, Ohio, partners with another person with a decent following writing about the arts? Before you know it, you’ve reinvented the newspaper, sort of. “What can happen ultimately is that these things stop being isolated islands and start federating, hopefully among themselves, to create new bundles that service their communities and can be sliced and diced in different ways,” McKenzie told me. “Perhaps people can have new experiences that more deeply serve their needs, even if they live in communities that are traditionally poorly served.” 

For now, Substack’s greatest asset is that it lies outside of Facebook and Google’s control (even if the latter does have a hold on email). In the meantime, Substack is trying to create an alternative, one that is “doing right by writers—and that means not screwing them.”

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Esperanza Camargo, who works at a grocery store, poses for a portrait in her protective gloves and mask. (photo: William Camargo)

April Grocery Prices Jumped the Most in 46 Years
Jordan Davidson, EcoWatch
Davidson writes: "Not since 1974 have grocery store prices surged 2.6 percent in just one month."

Prices Americans paid for eggs, meat, cereal and milk all went higher in April as people flocked to grocery stores to stock up on food amid government lockdowns designed to slow the spread of Covid-19, according to CNBC.

The largest increases were for meat and eggs. Consumers paid 4.3 percent more in April for meats, poultry, fish and eggs, 1.5 percent more for fruits and vegetables, and 2.9 percent more for cereals and bakery products, as well as nonalcoholic beverages, the Labor Department said, as The Washington Post reported.

The rise in food prices adds to worrying news as more than 20 million people joined the ranks of the unemployed and one in five American households experienced food insecurity, according to The Washington Post.

"It's a tipping point for people who are already really struggling with resources," said Geri Henchy, director of nutrition policy for the Food Research & Action Center, to The Washington Post. "Their budgets are taxed and now add increases in the price of food. There's been a big increase in food insecurity, which is twice as bad for people of color and families with young children. People can't go on with those lowered resources forever."

As Business Insider noted, the surge in prices did not come as a shock. Over the past year, the food at home index went up 4.1 percent. In April, the United States Department of Agriculture posted an outlook on food prices that noted that "grocery stores are experiencing increased demand," due to the coronavirus pandemic. Since people are stocking up on food at grocery stores, the "food at home" category grew quickly.

Henchy noted that the jump in cereal and bakery products was the steepest single-month increase on record, which goes back to 1919. She attributes the increase in prices to where people are buying their food and disruptions in supply chains due to outbreaks in meat processing plants and social distancing guidelines, as The Washington Post reported.

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Bangladeshi people offer water as Rohingya refugees arrive. (photo: Reuters)

Myanmar Submits Report on Rohingya to International Court of Justice
teleSUR
Excerpt: "Myanmar has presented Saturday its first report to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), detailing the steps it has taken to protect the Muslim Rohingya minority from further act of violence and to preserve evidence of the genocidal campaign witnessed in the past years."

EXCERPTS:

Refugee groups in Bangladesh have been documenting dozens of cases of Rohingya being killed or injured in Rakhine since the ICJ order, Nowkhim told DPA agency.

The top United Nations court agreed last year to consider a case brought by The Gambia alleging that Myanmar committed genocide against the Rohingya, an accusation denied by the government.

In August 2017, Myanmar's military launched what it called a "clearance operation" in Rakhine state in response to an attack by a Rohingya armed group. The crackdown forced more than 730,000 Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh and led to widespread accusations of mass murder, gang rape, torture, and arson.

Since the crackdown, nearly 24,000 Rohingya have been killed by Myanmar's security forces, according to a report by the Ontario International Development Agency (OIDA).

More than 34,000 Rohingya were also thrown into fires, while more than 114,000 others were beaten, said the OIDA report.

As many as 18,000 Rohingya women and girls were raped by Myanmar's army and police and more than 115,000 Rohingya homes burned down while 113,000 others were vandalized, it added.

The Rohingya is described by the U.N. as the world's most persecuted people

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'Young people are grappling with the loss of hopes, plans, and certainty about the future in a particularly acute way.' (photo: Attila Husejnow/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images/Grist)

As 'Normal' Crumbles, Young People Are Turning Their Grief Into Action
Margaret Klein Salamon, Grist
Salamon writes: "As a clinical psychologist, I know that when confronted with devastating losses, grief is the only healthy way to respond. As the saying goes, 'The only way out is through.'"

he coronavirus pandemic is transforming our political reality and our lives. Unnerving images of hospitals overflowing with bodies, miles-long car lines for food banks, and police using the emergency situation to harass and intimidate people of color reveal the undeniable failure and fragility of our current political and economic systems and our way of life. It’s no surprise that “a majority of Americans say worry about the coronavirus has harmed their mental health” in some manner, according to a recent poll.

Meanwhile, the looming climate emergency and sixth mass extinction are hanging over our heads and contributing to an overall feeling of fear, dread, and unease about the future. According to a recent study, within 50 years, billions of people will live in a climate so hot that it’s “unsuitable for human life to flourish.”

In the age of pandemic and an emerging climate crisis, many of us are readjusting our expectations for the future. Young people are grappling with the loss of hopes, plans, and certainty about the future in a particularly acute way. A 2019 Zogby poll found that 80 percent of young Americans think that global warming is “a major threat to human life on earth as we know it.”

“I try not to think that far into the future,” Cas Gustaffson, a sophomore and political activist at Johns Hopkins University, told me. “I know what I would like to do, but I don’t really know that’s going to be an option. My friends and I try to make plans, but we accept that they might not work out the way we want them to.”

Last month was the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day. Student activists were planning a three-day strike, which I believe would have drawn millions to the streets and been the largest climate demonstration ever. (Instead, they hosted an excellent three-day livestream). Why would millions of young people protest? Because everything is on the line, and many of them are translating their grief and terror into action.

An American Psychological Association report found that “one of the best ways to characterize the impacts of climate change on perceptions is the sense of loss.” As a clinical psychologist, I know that when confronted with devastating losses, grief is the only healthy way to respond. As the saying goes, “The only way out is through.” You can’t get “over” grief; you also can’t get around it or away from it. The only way out of grief is through it. Grief allows us to process the reality of our losses, and adapt to a new reality. Grief ensures we don’t get stuck in the paralysis of denial, living in the past, or in fantasy versions of the present and future.

Young people are leading the way, showing us how to turn grief into action. They understand that we have two choices at this point: transform or collapse. Many are attempting to speed up the transformation of society, while also preparing for collapse. They are simultaneously adapting to a future they don’t want and fighting to take their future back.

Shiv Soin, a sophomore at New York University who runs a local and state-level grassroots lobbying organization called Treeage, worries that if he pursues his educational ambitions, he won’t be able to fully engage with changing the world until it’s too late. “I have plans, but there is always this thing in the back of my mind — we need to get so much done by 2030, and I will be only out of graduate school,” he said. “It’s really hard when you are going to college, to grad school, trying to expand your knowledge, but this is in the back of my head.”

Anna McClurkan*, a recent graduate of Michigan State University, is pursuing a career in regenerative agriculture and food systems in part so that she will be able to help her community in the food-insecure future. “We are consuming so much and going through so much every day, even in times of stillness like now,” she said. “But having strong local, community agriculture will help make the whole system more resilient.” McClurkan is also organizing with Extinction Rebellion to create a better future, one that isn’t defined by food insecurity and breakdown. She has a sense of optimism that is linked to her sense of agency. “Younger generations, myself included, are absolutely part of shaping the future,” she said.

While quarantined, many of us have time for reflection and emotional expression. Hopefully, we can use this pause to reflect on and grieve the fact that our economic and political system is fundamentally, dangerously broken. We cannot go back to “normal” because normal was killing us. Even though protest in the street is paused, we can still fight for a safe climate by facing and processing our grief and fear about the future and having conversations with our friends and family about those feelings. We need to get busy building the movement for an emergency response to climate change and a transformed future.

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