Iserotope Extras #59: Looking for the Truth

Last Saturday, after Donald Trump lied about birtherism, the New York Times wrote a watershed article that called the lie a lie—not a falsehood, but a lie. Instead of prioritizing objectivity, the newspaper prioritized the truth. It’s a big deal. This concise article analyzes the Times’ decision. Also, check out the Run-Up podcast, which discusses the article as a turning point in journalism. 

Following the police shooting of Terence Crutcher in Tulsa this week, Vox included this article, another example of the media looking for the truth rather than emphasizing objectivity. “[T]he topic of unarmed black people being killed by law enforcement officers at wildly disproportionate rates is often dubbed ‘controversial,’ and is framed as an issue about which reasonable people can disagree. It’s not.”

Over the past 10+ years, we have closed low-performing schools in urban areas, which has displaced 26,000 African American teachers nationwide. Now only 6.8 percent of teachers are Black. This hurts kids of color, Kristina Rizga argues, and the villain is the charter school movement. (Ms. Rizga’s Mission High develops her case that neighborhood public schools can fix themselves.) (I have strong feelings about this article, but I will contain myself.)

In this brilliant essay, Andrew Sullivan confronts his addiction to technology, pursuing meditation to “live in reality.” Along the way, he reminds us that we’re dying by distraction. We’ve read these kinds of articles before — how we’re overstimulated by the Internet and our devices, how we need to get back to our roots before the information overload takes all of our humanity away. But this piece is particularly well written and entirely worth your time (despite all your various demands).