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johnmcquaid.bsky.social
Journalist, author (Tasty, on science of flavor; Path of Destruction, on Katrina); currently PhD candidate at UMD Philip Merrill College of Journalism studying media coverage/public debates over AI risk.
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News organizations have still not figured out how to report Trump actions that may be – or likely are – illegal or illegitimate. As a result you get paradoxical / confusing / Schrödinger's cat-like formulations that nevertheless create a sheen of legitimacy/deference to authoritarian power grabs

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

So, as you might know, I have been in the process of tracking the activities of DOGE staff across the federal government. And now I've built an auto-updating website to browse the data It's not done (lots more content to write), but news is moving fast, so here it is dogetrack.info Enjoy!

submitted 1 day ago • 66 comments

On the rise of the shallow state: danieldrezner.substack.com/p/the-rise-o...

submitted 2 days ago • 8 comments

I’ve been thinking a lot about RFK Jr’s proposal to ban government scientists from publishing in major medical journals. It’s not just anti-science, it’s a direct attack on what I call the VDA ideals of democracy: Verification, Deliberation, and Accountabilit

submitted 3 days ago • 21 comments

A good argument against (spoiler alert) boycotts of news organizations facing destructive meddling from their owners, as billionaire owners may not be moved and journalists still doing good work end up facing the losses of audience/revenue

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

Praeses corpus habet

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Apart from the predictable/concern trolling topic here, has Megan McArdle ever experienced a single moment of soul-searching or self-reflection? Because her unique combination of certitude and obliviousness would suggest she doesn't know what those things are www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Pro Tip: If you are a news organization, best not to write headlines that mirror the designated state media channel. Blasting out Trump talking points with no fact or context is not journalism, it's propaganda. 1/

submitted 13 days ago • 24 comments

This is an important question: "At what point will there be a general acknowledgment and some serious self-scrutiny about the way big media failed to adequately convey what would happen if Trump were elected again?" Maybe @axios & @cnn writers can write a book about it

submitted 15 days ago • 15 comments

Important point by TPM's @davidkurtz.bsky.social: the institutional voice of a lot of Trump coverage (looking at you, NYT, but not only you) assumes actions/statements are straightforward/made in good faith. Precisely the opposite of what's actually happening talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

submitted 15 days ago • 1 comment

what the fuck is a "one-sided political view."

submitted 17 days ago • 23 comments

This piece, an excerpt from from Molly Jong-Fast's new book about her mother, Erica Jong, is SUCH a good story about losing an already distant parent to dementia. READ: www.vanityfair.com/news/story/m...

submitted 20 days ago • 7 comments

Excellent piece. But reflects the problem that the company was able to trigger multiple news cycles of dire wolf de-extinction hype, starting with Time magazine, that overwhelmed contemporaneous debunking www.nytimes.com/2025/05/07/m...

submitted 22 days ago • 0 comments

For me, personally, expressions of concern or support based on my transness aren't as welcome as cis people simply keeping up with the news and having a reasonably current understanding of what's going on.

submitted 23 days ago • 5 comments

So, I had an interesting conversation last week. For @fastcompany.com, I spoke with Sahil Lavingia, the founder of Gumroad, on his decision to work at the VA, a role he has thanks to DOGE. He was remarkably transparent. www.fastcompany.com/91330297/dog... (Gift link)

submitted 24 days ago • 21 comments

The "why" here – why throw away cures for cancer and other diseases, a policy both objectively terrible and wildly unpopular – is a hugely important question that major journalism outlets haven't answered, or even tried to amid various burn-it-all-down rampages going on

submitted 24 days ago • 1 comment

Google Trends post-election shows search activity on "Elon Musk" gradually declining after an inauguration surge and February DOGE rampage peak. Maybe his pullback from DOGE is working, though the damage he's done himself/Tesla (as well as the govt.) may be lasting trends.google.com/trends/explo...

submitted 25 days ago • 0 comments

I’ve just updated my graphic showing newspaper industry jobs over the last 35 years, based on the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of course, there isn't much change to speak of.

submitted 27 days ago • 2 comments

NYT Opinion editors were questioning Paul Krugman so much that was one reason he resigned, but they can't be bothered to touch a "just asking questions!" line defending Holocaust denial in this Douthat interview

submitted 29 days ago • 0 comments

At some point, as the public wearies of all this and legal challenges mount, maybe news orgs will stop treating Trump EOs as diktats with the force of law

submitted 30 days ago • 0 comments

When trolling is a public service

submitted 30 days ago • 0 comments

NYT editorial board's idea of a protest movement is something specifically designed to neither upset nor inspire anyone

submitted 31 days ago • 0 comments

One noteworthy thing. The White House has never attempted to justify or explain the attacks on NIH. Because they are part of a reactionary campaign to destroy civil society that not even Trump is willing to try to sell

submitted 34 days ago • 0 comments

Thread: these people have been treating faculty, government employees and journalists as some sort of coordinated cabal (“the cathedral”) while they seek to control society via a fucking group chat

submitted 34 days ago • 7 comments

Generative AI companies are already running a huge social experiment on us all; researchers shouldn't double down on it with outright deception

submitted 35 days ago • 0 comments

"When in doubt, draw a distinction." 🧵 In grad school one of my professors told me that. Some of the best advice I have ever received. This is a thread about the key distinctions I use in my work. I had a version of it posted at the other joint, which I revised a bit to make this one. Ready? 1/

submitted 35 days ago • 26 comments

There was, around the time of the "vibe shift" discussion and with Dems despairing, a sense that so-called normal politics was suspended and maybe entirely over, and that Trump had a free hand to dismantle democracy unopposed. But normal politics never went away and is now making a comeback

submitted 36 days ago • 5 comments

the horror

submitted 37 days ago • 9 comments

These AI researchers studying AI consciousness seem to know nothing about the phenomenon of consciousness (nor seemingly does Kevin Roose). Before you even get to self-awareness, you might need a body, and senses, and entire systems that underly subjective sensation www.nytimes.com/2025/04/24/t...

submitted 37 days ago • 1 comment

The premise here, that the U.S. political landscape today is analogous to post-1988 and Ds should model themselves on Bill Clinton vs. George HW Bush, is a kind of centrism-as-insanity www.nytimes.com/2025/04/24/o...

submitted 38 days ago • 0 comments

Maybe the main obstacle is that elite media are less interested in majority opinion than on positioning themselves as skeptics of liberals (seen as losers who don't understand politics, and thus radioactive even when winning) and searching rust belt diners for the real America

submitted 38 days ago • 0 comments