Turkey has now surpassed China in the number of jailed journalists, according to a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists. Since the failed coup last July, 120 journalists have been locked up in the country. Offenses include criticism of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, “subliminal messaging” in past articles, and failure “to mention how many people were killed in the attempted coup, in any article about it.”
Thomas Mann’s Los Angeles home has been bought by the German government for $13 million. The home listing, which suggested remodeling or demolishing the home and made no mention of Mann’s decade of residence, caused outrage in Germany. The space will now become a cultural center and provide residencies to artists. “In stormy times like these we need more than ever cultural anchor points with our most important partner outside of Europe,” German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said.
The New York Times profiles Van Jones, the CNN commentator who called Trump’s election a “whitelash” during returns coverage.
City University of London students have voted to ban some newspapers, including The Sun, the Daily Mail, and Express, from campus. The motion stated that “freedom of speech should not be used as an excuse to attack the weakest and poorest members of society,” and cited negative articles about refugees, people of color, and muslims. A former head of the school’s journalism department, George Brock, called the vote “foolish, illiberal and meaningless,” and said “the answer to journalism that you may not like is to do the journalism better.”
The Washington Post offers a list of books for understanding the Trump presidency, noting that “the raw populism, nativism and conspiracism of Trump’s campaign—and of key members of the team he is assembling—have deep roots, both in the United States and abroad.” Titles include D. J. Mulloy’s The World of the John Birch Society: Conspiracy, Conservatism, and the Cold War, and Steven Lee Myers’s The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin.
Tonight at BKLYN Commons, Garnette Cadogan talks to Joshua Jelly-Schapiro about his new book, Island People.