For the Record

Capital Gazette Survivors, Family Members Settle Lawsuits:

Survivors and family members of the five journalists murdered in the 2018 Capital Gazette mass shooting "have reached a confidential settlement in lawsuits that claimed that the newspaper's parent companies were negligent and failed to take reasonable steps to protect employees," Dylan Segelbaum of The Baltimore Banner reported Thursday. According to Segelbaum, attorneys "filed a two-page stipulation of dismissal on Tuesday in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court for the claims against The Baltimore Sun [...] and Tribune Publishing," while "court documents indicate that family members and survivors have also reached a settlement with the companies that owned and managed 888 Bestgate Drive in Annapolis, Bestgate Corporate Center LLC and St. John Properties Inc., which used to contain the newsroom." The shooting was perpetrated by Jarrod Ramos, a longtime adversary of the publication who was convicted on criminal harrassment charges in 2011 and subsequently sued the newspaper over a related article. Ramos' lawsuit was dismissed in 2015. Although expert witnesses determined that Ramos suffers from myriad mental health conditions, he was sentenced to five life terms and 345 years in prison in September 2021 after a jury found him criminally responsible for the massacre. "Nothing can bring back our loved ones," said Andrea Chamblee, the widow of slain journalist John McNamara. "I would live in a box down by a river if I could live with my husband again because he had a way of making everything OK. This is not about money." She added: "I'm pleased that The Baltimore Sun and The Capital and the hedge fund that owns them have recognized that they have a role to play in protecting their employees," she said. "This is a big nationwide problem. And I hope that every employer realizes the role they have to play in reducing gun violence." Segelbaum said the lawsuit against The Baltimore Sun and Tribune alleged that the parent companies "failed to take any reasonable steps to protect employees [...] despite the 'very specific, menacing and violent threats' that the gunman made toward the newspaper and its employees" following their 2014 acquisition of the publication. He continued: "For instance, the parent companies did not provide the same level of security as they did for journalists in Baltimore and Chicago, the lawsuit claimed. They knowingly allowed the office to be 'the softest possible target for a simple reason — to save costs,' the complaint asserted." The Maryland state government later adopted a resolution "declaring June 28 'Freedom of the Press Day' to honor the memory of those killed in the shooting," while the Capital Gazette received a 2019 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for its "courageous response to the largest killing of journalists in U.S. history in their newsroom [...] and for demonstrating unflagging commitment to covering the news and serving their community at a time of unspeakable grief."

Meta Fined €390M in European Privacy Crackdown:

The Irish Data Protection Commission has "imposed two fines totaling 390 million euros ($414 million) in its decision in two cases that could shake up" Facebook parent company Meta's "business model of targeting users with ads based on what they do online," Kelvin Chan of The Associated Press reported Wednesday. Under the terms of the fines, the regulators have "banned the company from forcing users" throughout the European Union "to agree to personalized ads based on their online activity," Chan added. A decision in a third case centered around the Meta-owned WhatsApp freeware instant messaging/VOIP telephony service WhatsApp is due later this month. Meta "and other Big Tech companies have come under pressure from the European Union's privacy rules, which are some of the world’s strictest," Chan continued. "Irish regulators have already slapped Meta with four other fines for data privacy infringements since 2021 that total more than 900 million euros and have a slew of other open cases against a number of Silicon Valley companies." Additionally, the company may be subject to "regulatory headaches from EU antitrust officials in Brussels," who recently "accused the company [...] of distorting competition in classified ads." (The purview of the Irish regulators stems from Meta's Dublin-based regional headquarters; over the past several decades, many technology companies have employed Ireland as a tax haven due to its historically low rates, which were amended to a minimum of 15% in 2021.) Regulators have "fined the company 210 million euros for violations of EU data privacy rules involving Facebook and an additional 180 million euros for breaches involving Instagram," asserting that the company "is 'not entitled to rely on the contract legal basis' to deliver behavioral ads on Facebook and Instagram." Meta, which will appeal the decision, said in a statement that "we're [...] disappointed by these decisions and intend to appeal both the substance of the rulings and the fines." Austrian lawyer Max Schrems, a privacy activist who submitted the complaints, "said the ruling could deal a big blow to the company's profits in the EU, because 'people now need to be asked if they want their data to be used for ads or not' and can change their mind at any time [...] The decision also ensures a level playing field with other advertisers that also need to get opt-in consent." Meta has "reported two straight quarters of declining revenue as advertising sales dropped because of competition from TikTok," contributing to 11,000 layoffs "amid broader tech industry woes."

Oppenheimer Clearance Revocation Nullified With Pulitzer-Winning Biographer's Support:

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm on Friday "nullified a 1954 decision to revoke the security clearance of J. Robert Oppenheimer, a top government scientist who led the making of the atomic bomb in World War II but fell under suspicion of being a Soviet spy at the height of the McCarthy era," according to William Broad of The New York Times. In a statement, Granholm "said the decision of her predecessor agency, the Atomic Energy Commission, to bar Oppenheimer's clearance was the result of a 'flawed process' that violated its own regulations." She continued: "[M]ore evidence has come to light of the bias and unfairness of the process that Dr. Oppenheimer was subjected to while the evidence of his loyalty and love of country have only been further affirmed." Journalist and biographer Kai Bird, who received the 2006 Biography Prize for "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer" (co-written with the late historian Martin J. Sherwin), said he was "overwhelmed with emotion [...] History matters and what was done to Oppenheimer in 1954 was a travesty, a black mark on the honor of the nation. Students of American history will now be able to read the last chapter and see that what was done to Oppenheimer in that kangaroo court proceeding was not the last word." Raised in affluence on New York's Upper West Side, Oppenheimer was seldom conscious of politics until the Great Depression, when he began to identify with the era's leftist culture, joining "groups led or infiltrated" by Communists; during this period, "his brother, his wife and his former fiancée were party members." Although Army engineer and then-Brigadier General Leslie Groves selected the physicist to run the Manhattan Project's secret laboratory (ultimately situated in Los Alamos, N.M.) on the basis of his polymathic erudition and unusual ambition, Oppenheimer remained entrenched in a panopticon of surveillance throughout the war due to his alleged political ties. While he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1949, implicating quantum theorist David Bohm (who was forced to relocate to Brazil and then Great Britain) and other notable former students as party members, former United States Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy Executive Director William L. Borden sent a letter to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover in late 1953 which alleged that "more probably than not J. Robert Oppenheimer is an agent of the Soviet Union," prompting the hearings that led to his clearance revocation. Broad added: "A key element in the case against Oppenheimer was derived from his resistance to early work on the hydrogen bomb, which could explode with 1,000 times the force of an atomic bomb. The physicist Edward Teller had long advocated a crash program to devise such a weapon, and told the 1954 hearing that he mistrusted Oppenheimer’s judgment. 'I would feel personally more secure,' he testified, 'if public matters would rest in other hands.' No evidence came to light that supported the spy charge. But the security board found that Oppenheimer’s early views on the hydrogen bomb 'had an adverse effect on recruitment of scientists and the progress of the scientific effort.'" Material declassified in 2014 "suggested that Oppenheimer's opposition to the hydrogen bomb project rested on technical and military grounds, not Soviet sympathies," while earlier analyses of journalist Alexander Vassiliev's papers (containing typewritten transcriptions and English translations of hitherto unseen KGB notebooks and materials related to the Venona project) by historians of American Communism Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes concluded that Oppenheimer forestalled several Soviet recruitment attempts. Declassified testimony from colleague Walter G. Whitman also characterized Oppenheimer as "completely loyal." Even though he retained the directorship of the Institute for Advanced Study and received the Enrico Fermi Award in a gesture of partial political rehabilitation from the Kennedy and Johnson administrations in 1963-1964, "he lived out his life a broken man and died in 1967 at the age of 62."

Canada's House of Commons Passes Digital News Bill:

The Canadian House of Commons has passed a bill "designed to require web giants to compensate journalism outfits for reposting their content," prompting Facebook parent company Meta to once again consider the removal of news content from the platform in the North American country, Marie-Danielle Smith of The Canadian Press reported Wednesday. Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez "has argued the bill will 'enhance fairness' in the digital news marketplace by creating a framework and bargaining process for behemoths such as Google and Meta, which owns social media sites Facebook and Instagram, to pay media outlets," Smith added. "On the surface, the bill we are debating now is simply about ensuring fair compensation for Canadian media, but the issue is actually much bigger than that,” said Rodriguez during a final speech in support of the measure on Tuesday. "It is about protecting the future of a free and independent press. It is about ensuring that Canadians have access to fact-based information. It is about protecting the strength of our democracy." The law will "create a system overseen by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission" with the power to "impose administrative monetary penalties on companies that are not compliant with its provisions," Smith continued. Media companies may be exempt from the negotiation process if they have preexisting agreements that satisfy relevant criteria. According to Peter Julian (a MP and member of the minority social-democratic New Democratic Party), the bill includes 16 amendments drafted by his party. "There was much that was missing in the bill regarding transparency, supporting local community press and journalism, supporting non-profit journalism, and allowing Indigenous news outlets to have a role," he said. "There was radio silence regarding Indigenous news outlets." Several of these amendments "created protections for Indigenous-led news outlets into the bill, including one that requires tech companies to have agreements in place with 'a significant portion of Indigenous news outlets.'" Under these provisions, the platforms also must "have agreements with a 'range of news outlets in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors,' and that reflect 'all markets and diverse populations, including local and regional markets in every province and territory, anglophone and francophone communities, including official language minority communities, and Black and other racialized communities.'" In a statement following the House's vote, Meta "once again threatened to 'consider removing news from Facebook in Canada rather than being compelled to submit to government-mandated negotiations that do not properly account for the value we provide publishers,'" while Google "previously warned that a provision requiring it to show no 'undue' preference to certain outlets could lead to poorer-quality information being presented in search results." Passed by a final vote tally of 213 to 114, the bill will now go to the Canadian Senate.

In Memoriam: Michael Lindenberger:

2022 Editorial Writing winner Michael Lindenberger has died, Andrew Wolfson of the Louisville Courier Journal reported Monday. He was 51. The death "comes just a few months after he was hired by The Kansas City Star as editorial page editor and a vice president," Wolfson added. "So many things were going right for him," said Chris Poynter, a fellow journalist who was Lindenberger's roommate during their undergraduate studies at Western Kentucky University. "He had gotten to the pinnacle of where he wanted to be in his life," said Hudson Lindenberger, an elder brother who confirmed the death. According to Poynter, Lindenberger had been seriously ill in the weeks before his death, although "his doctor had been unable to identify the cause of his illness and he was scheduled to see specialists." He is "is thought to have died Sunday, his brother said, exactly one year to the day after his partner, Phil Clore, died of cancer," according to Wolfson. Lindenberger (who was adopted at the age of four) first worked in journalism at Trinity High School in Louisville and eschewed a legal career after earning his J.D. from the University of Louisville, instead working as a contract employee for Time magazine before segueing into staff roles at a variety of newspapers, including The Courier Journal and The Dallas Morning News. In 2018, he moved to the Houston Chronicle (where he wrote his Pulitzer-winning work) as deputy opinion editor. Although he ultimately enjoyed a peripatetic career, he remained a proud Kentuckian, founding BourbonStory.com (a blog about the whiskey's 21st century renaissance) and working on a biography of Guthrie native and fellow Pulitzer winner Robert Penn Warren in his spare time. "We really do believe […] that the work we do changes lives,” he said after receiving his Pulitzer, conferred for a campaign "that, with original reporting, revealed voter suppression tactics, rejected the myth of widespread voter fraud and argued for sensible voting reforms" in the state of Texas. "We change opinions and that changes lives because it changes conditions in the state."

Washington Post Explores Arc XP Sale:

Following internal deliberations among executives and the "blessing" of owner Jeff Bezos, The Washington Post will consider the sale or spinoff of its Arc XP in-house publishing tool, Alexandra Bruell of The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. Arc, which "services the likes of pro basketball’s Golden State Warriors and energy company BP," was developed prior to Bezos' acquisition of the newspaper but has emerged as the news organization's "most ambitious" digital experiment under the billionaire's ownership, employing 250 staffers around the world. However, the publication "expects Arc to generate [more than] $200 million in annual recurring revenue by 2027, a roughly fourfold increase" over its currently unprofitable contributions. Bruell continued: "Incubating a tech startup inside a larger company—and drawing in the investment and talent needed to build it into a larger enterprise—can be challenging. Executives at the Post debated whether it was better to spin off Arc, which had drawn some interest from potential acquirers, or continue to build it in house." Senior technology executives associated with the system (including Chief Information Officer Shailesh Prakash and Chief Product Officer/Managing Editor Kat Downs Mulder) also have stepped down from their roles in recent months, resulting in a leadership void for Arc and other "major tech initiatives" at the newspaper. Following his acquisition of The Post, Bezos "greenlighted a plan to begin licensing the technology to other organizations," Bruell added. "He saw the value of building a SaaS, or software-as-a-service business, but he warned the technology team that customer support could be a drain on resources, people familiar with the matter said. He was proved right, as some customers have pushed for custom features and required a degree of hand-holding." Although the system attracted such notable clients as The Boston Globe and Cox Media Group, Bezos rejected Project Donut, a "content-sharing initiative" that would have proffered Post stories to local newsrooms, instead favoring a "Reverse Donut" plan (where The Post would "[feature] content from other news outlets") that failed to come to fruition. Additionally, according to Bruell, Prakash (who has accepted a new role with Google) "wasn't always on the same page as The Post's publisher, Fred Ryan, when it came to Arc’s needs and the potential appeal of a spinoff." Nevertheless, The Post "has committed to investing more than $50 million in Arc next year" (a figure that exceeds prior investments) while scaling back its prospects for its Zeus advertising technology business.

'Fat Ham' Moves to Broadway:

James Ijames' 2022 Drama Prize-winning "Fat Ham" will transfer to Broadway's American Airlines Theater on March 21, Michael Paulson of The New York Times reported Monday. The "Hamlet"-inspired work "is about a family that, like the royal family in Shakespeare’s story, centers on a lonely young college student unsettled by his mother’s decision to marry her dead husband’s brother," Paulson added. "But in this version, Ijames seeks to use comedy and his own plot twists to challenge the cycle of violence. (Also, in this version, the family is Black, and the young man is gay.)" Following a digital production staged by Philadelphia's Wilma Theater (where Ijames is an artistic director) "at the height of the pandemic," it moved to Off-Broadway in the spring of 2022 at a Public Theater production co-produced by the National Black Theater. Scheduled to officially open on April 12, the Broadway production "will feature the same cast as at the Public, directed by Saheem Ali, who is an associate artistic director at the Public, and starring Marcel Spears as the Hamlet figure, Juicy." Additionally, it will be "the first National Black Theater production to transfer to Broadway, and only the third play to transfer to Broadway from any Black theater," Paulson continued. Producers include Public Theater Productions (a "a for-profit subsidiary of the nonprofit Public Theater" that "could make money if 'Fat Ham' turns a profit, but the nonprofit has no liability if the show loses money, and no donor funds are involved"); talent manager Rashad V. Chambers; and No Guarantees, a production company led by intellectual-property lawyer and frequent Broadway investor Christine Schwarzman. Ijames "said he has made some minor changes to the script for Broadway, but the more significant changes will be to the staging, as it shifts from an amphitheater-like setup at the Public to the more traditional proscenium theater at the American Airlines." He added: "I feel really proud, and excited that it’s going to reach a larger audience. This play is for people who are looking for a new path, people who are trying to figure out how to talk to their family about difficult things, queer people who want to see their reflection, Black people who want to see their reflection, people who love Shakespeare and folks who have never seen a Shakespeare play. It's for everyone." According to Paulson, the production coincides with a notable renaissance of Pulitzer-winning Broadway productions this season, encompassing two other premieres (Stephen Adly Guirgis' "Between Riverside and Crazy" and Martyna Majok's "Cost of Living"), three revival openings (Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman," August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson" and Suzan-Lori Parks' "Topdog/Underdog") and two continuing productions (Lin-Manuel Miranda's "Hamilton" and Michael R. Jackson's "A Strange Loop").

Meta Considers Facebook News Block:

Facebook parent company Meta "threatened to remove news from its platform" Monday "if the U.S. Congress passes a proposal aimed at making it easier for news organizations to negotiate collectively with companies like [...] Google and Facebook," according to David Shepardson of Reuters. The potential action dovetails with reports that lawmakers are considering adding the long-gestating Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (co-sponsored by a bipartisan array of legislators, including Senators Amy Klobuchar [D-MN] and John Kennedy [R-LA]) to the annual National Defense Authorization Act, which furnishes funding for the U.S. military and other defense endeavors. In August, Klobuchar's office said that the most recent iteration of the bill would "empower eligible digital journalism providers—that is, news publishers with fewer than 1,500 exclusive full-time employees and non-network news broadcasters that engage in standard newsgathering practices—to form joint negotiation entities to collectively negotiate with a covered platform over the terms and conditions of the covered platform’s access to digital news content," while said entities (which are "online platforms that have at least 50 million U.S.-based users or subscribers and are owned or controlled by a person that has either net annual sales or market capitalization greater than $550 billion or at least 1 billion worldwide monthly active users—to negotiate in good faith with the eligible news organizations") would be required to "negotiate in good faith" with eligible news organizations. The legislation also would "enable non-broadcaster news publishers to demand final-offer arbitration if their joint negotiation with a covered platform fails to result in an agreement after six months" while "[creating] a limited safe harbor from federal and state antitrust laws for eligible digital journalism providers that allows them to participate in joint negotiations and arbitration and, as part of those negotiations, to jointly withhold their content from a covered platform." If enacted, the bill would sunset after eight years. In a tweet, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said the company "would be forced to consider removing news if the law was passed 'rather than submit to government-mandated negotiations that unfairly disregard any value we provide to news outlets through increased traffic and subscriptions.'" The News Media Alliance (a trade organization representing publishers) has urged Congress to add the act to the defense bill, asserting that "local papers cannot afford to endure several more years of Big Tech’s use and abuse, and time to take action is dwindling. [...] If Congress does not act soon, we risk allowing social media to become America’s de facto local newspaper." However, two dozen advocacy organizations (ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to the Computer & Communications Industry Association) have urged Congress to vote against the bill, "saying it would 'create an ill-advised antitrust exemption for publishers and broadcasters' and argued the bill does not require 'funds gained through negotiation or arbitration will even be paid to journalists.'" 

Members of New York Times Union Announce December 8 Walkout Deadline:

Following nearly two years of negotiations, more than 1,000 members of The New York Times Guild pledged in a Friday letter to stop working for 24 hours on December 8 if a "complete and fair contract" isn't finalized, according to Shawn McCreesh of New York magazine. Although the letter from Bill Baker (the union's unit chair) "demands a weeklong marathon bargaining session" centered around such issues as "health-care funds, [...] return-to-office policies and their pension plan," McCreesh said the unit's main grievance is centered around a "permanent [increase] in base pay." He continued: "A walkout is technically a strike, though one with an end date. There was a one-hour walkout over a lapsed contract in 2011, and another quick afternoon walkout in 2017 over copy editors being eliminated. But those were mostly shows of solidarity. What the employees are preparing to do next week would be something not seen at the paper of record since 1978. [...] From midnight to midnight, no reporting, no filing stories, no podcasting, no comment moderating, and definitely no responding to editors' queries. There would be no live briefings. [...] Even logging into Oak (that's their CMS) will be seen as scabby. Reporters tell me they’re ready to picket outside the building, too." Reporter Michael Powell told McCreesh: "Obviously the next step, if we can't get anywhere at the negotiating table, is to consider things like a strike authorization vote. [...] None of us want to step into the terra incognita if this isn't seen as a significant warning shot." The release of the letter, which cites the perceived juxtaposition between "[lectures] about the dire economic future the company faces" and reports of a "successful corporation that can afford to pay millions in salaries and benefits to its top executives," dovetails with a "frosty" winter of media layoffs amid a possible recession, as evinced by massive cuts at AMC Networks, as many as 200 layoffs at Gannett and several layoffs at The Washington Post. In a statement, a Times spokesperson said that the news organization is "disappointed that the NewsGuild is threatening to strike" but remains "prepared to ensure The Times continues to serve our readers without disruption. [...] We remain committed to working with the NYT NewsGuild to reach a contract that we can all be proud of." Five-time Criticism finalist and Times Co-Chief Film Critic Manohla Dargis also reflected on the possible walkout. "The paper represents and advocates on behalf of so many good and noble values, but I think the paper sometimes forgets that we are not here as priests and nuns having committed ourselves to Christ for no money," she said. "We are laborers and we need to get paid for the work, and I think if you're going to advocate for good, you have to actually be good as well." 

NPR Anticipates Budget Shortfall:

National Public Radio "will need to cut at least $10 million from the current fiscal year ending next September 30, the network's chief executive, John Lansing, announced Wednesday, due to a sharp drop in revenue from sponsors," according to a report by NPR News Media Correspondent David Folkenflik. In an internal memo, Lansing " told staffers [...] that he intended to avoid layoffs, but would be forced to severely curtail hiring, amounting to what he described as 'close to a total hiring freeze.'" Additionally, the radio network "will sharply cut back discretionary spending and non-essential travel." Lansing added: "It means we won't have the skills and support of the people who would have been in the roles that must remain vacant. For those working long and stressful hours, that is not good news. But it is a reality we can't avoid if we are to save jobs." The network's "[need] to cut $10 million stems from a sharp decline in projected revenue in sponsorship - at least $20 million," Folkenflik continued. "Some of those losses were offset by new revenues from business agreements to license NPR content on outside platforms and from fund-raising efforts." Pat O'Donnell, the executive director of the Washington mid-Atlantic local of SAG-AFTRA (which represents 570 NPR employees), said she is "pleased they are making determinations now as how to deal with it" and praised the network's leadership for being "communicative" throughout pandemic-era tumult. Lansing also confirmed that the shortfall will slow down the search for a chief content officer who will be tasked with overseeing the network's news and programming divisions. (Pulitzer Prize Board member Nancy Barnes is NPR's outgoing senior vice president of news and editorial director.)