A couple of big moves to catch you up on in the world of newspaper punditry.
First, David Brooks is leaving The New York Times, where he’s been a center-right columnist for the past 22 years. He’ll be taking a job as a staff writer and podcaster for The Atlantic, where he’s already a contributor. He’s also joining Yale University as a Presidential Senior Fellow at the Jackson School of Global Affairs. Presumably he’ll continue as a commentator for the “PBS NewsHour.” Brooks wrote a rather downbeat farewell column today, saying in part:
We have become a sadder, meaner and more pessimistic country. One recent historical study of American newspapers finds that public discourse is more negative now than at any time since the 1850s. Large majorities say our country is in decline, that experts are not to be trusted, that elites don’t care about regular people. Only 13 percent of young adults believe America is heading in the right direction. Sixty-nine percent of Americans say they do not believe in the American dream.
Scot Lehigh
Second, and closer to home, Scot Lehigh is retiring from The Boston Globe, where he’s worked for the past 36 years. Lehigh has been a columnist for the opinion pages for most of that time, and had been on leave while finishing his second novel. Before that, Lehigh was a political reporter for The Boston Phoenix (we did not intersect) and was a finalist for a 1989 Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of Michael Dukakis’ presidential campaign. Lehigh, too, has a farewell column up today, and he says (sub. req.):
[O]nce you reach your mid-60s, you become acutely aware that time isn’t limitless and if you want to try different things, you have to saddle up and sally forth. And so I’m sallying. I had just enough luck with my first novel, “Just East of Nowhere,” a coming-of-age story set in Maine, that I’m attempting a more ambitious novel.
Mid-60s? Scot is a mere child.
Lehigh’s moderate-liberal voice will be missed, and I wish him the best on a long and productive retirement. Brooks isn’t retiring, and, since I’m already an Atlantic subscriber, I’ll continue to be a reader.
Photo (cc) 2026 by Nicole Neri / Minnesota Reformer.
Following the horrific deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of ICE agents, I’ve seen a lot of references to the words “murder” and “execution.” On Tuesday, The New York Times addressed when it’s appropriate for journalists to use those terms. So, this morning, a brief lesson on journalistm ethics.
As standards editor Susan Wessling explains, both of those words have a specific legal definition, which means that the Times doesn’t use them outside of those definitions. She writes:
Readers might see references elsewhere to the “murder” of Mr. Pretti or Ms. Good, but that word has a clear and significant meaning in law enforcement and the legal system. We do not use it unless a formal charge has been made or a court has found that a killing was, indeed, a murder.
We also hear from those who want to see the word “execution” in our news report. But that, too, has a distinct definition — putting someone to death as a legal penalty — and we don’t want to dilute its meaning by using it when that’s not the case.
Now, we all know that those words have generic, everyday meanings as well as precise legal definitions. In the generic sense, to “murder” someone is to kill them deliberately, which is a judgment call that lay people can make, even if it doesn’t hold up in a court of law. In that sense someone might say that ICE agent Jonathan Ross murdered Renee Good, or that Border Patrol officers murdered Alex Pretti, even though the shooters might be found guilty in court of a lesser charge such a manslaughter — or acquitted, or never charged. There’s also an everyday meaning to “execute” other than carrying out the death penalty.
In practice, I try to be careful not to use “murder” unless I’m describing a criminal charge or verdict. For instance, I referred to former police officer Derek Chauvin as having “killed” George Floyd until Chauvin was convicted. After the verdict, it wasn’t just generically true but legally adjudicated that Chauvin had in fact committed murder. I’m less careful with “execute,” and I regard “execution” as a valid description of how Pretti was killed.
The Associated Press Stylebook, which many news organizations use, has an entry for “homicide, murder, manslaughter” that reads:
Do not say that a victim was murdered until someone has been convicted in court. Instead, say that a victim was killed, stabbed to death, etc.
Use caution in the phrasing charged with murdering; not everyone charged with murder is accused of the act of shooting, stabbing, etc. An alternative, in such cases, is charged in the murder of …
That’s an interesting observation about using “charged in the murder of” rather than “charged with murder.” If I were a copy editor, as I was at one time in my career, I would probably be guided by what specific behavior the defendant had been accused of. To go back to my earlier example, “Chauvin was charged with murder” would be both generically and legally accurate.
Here’s what the AP says about “execute, execution”: “To execute a person is to kill that person in compliance with a military order or judicial decision.” The guide also cautions against referring to an “execution-style” killing: “Avoid use of this term to describe how people are killed, since it means different things to different people. Be specific as to how the person was killed, if that information is necessary.”
Now, you might ask whether the Times and the AP Stylebook are too specific to journalism, and if it’s all right for non-journalists to use those terms in everyday speech or on social media. As it happens, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary (which, by the way, is what the AP Stylebook instructs journalists to use for issues that aren’t covered in its own guide) backs up the stylebook on “murder” but is more permissive on “execute.”
“Murder,” according to Merriam-Webster, is “the crime of unlawfully and unjustifiably killing a person.” To “execute” a person is “to put (someone) to death especially in compliance with a legal sentence.” I take that “especially” to mean that we are free to use “execute” and “execution” in the generic sense if the facts fit what happened — at least according to Merriam-Webster if not the AP Stylebook.
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There’s an old saying — no doubt you’ve heard it — that justice delayed is justice denied. And so it is with the news business’ longstanding lament that Google engages in monopolistic practices aimed at driving down the value of digital advertising. Gilad Edelman, writing for The Atlantic, describes it this way:
If the story of journalism’s 21st-century decline were purely a tale of technological disruption — of print dinosaurs failing to adapt to the internet — that would be painful enough for those of us who believe in the importance of a robust free press. The truth hurts even more. Big Tech platforms didn’t just out-compete media organizations for the bulk of the advertising-revenue pie. They also cheated them out of much of what was left over, and got away with it.
The Atlantic is among a number of media organizations that filed suit against Google this month. I’m kind of stunned that they are only suing now, because the issue they’ve identified goes back many years. As Charlotte Tobitt reports for the Press Gazette, the federal lawsuit was brought earlier this month by The Atlantic as well as Penske Media Corp., which owns Rolling Stone and She Media; Condé Nast, whose holdings include Advance Publications; Vox Media, owner of The Verge; and the newspaper chain McClatchy, whose papers include the Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star and The Sacramento Bee.
Apologies for the delay, but the full episode of “Beat the Press with Emily Rooney” is now up. Our host, Scott Van Voorhis of Contrarian Boston, has posted it in four pieces at his YouTube Channel.
Our topics: Tony Dokoupil’s less than inspiring debut as anchor of the “CBS Evening News”; a crisis in media trust; and the return of Brian McGrory as editor of The Boston Globe following Nancy Barnes’ abrupt departure.
Bystander video shared with The New York Times shows Jeffrey Pretti holding his phone as he’s taken down by federal agents.
The New York Times has produced another visual analysis (gift link) of a fatal shooting in Minneapolis by federal agents.
As with Renee Good on Jan. 7, the killing of Alex Jeffrey Pretti appears to be entirely unjustified. Preliminary statements from government officials that Pretti was approaching agents with a gun were false. If they didn’t know what they were saying was untrue at the time, they knew shortly thereafter.
Based on what we’ve learned, Pretti, a registered nurse, was video-recording agents while walking toward them as they went about their business of terrorizing the populace. An agent pepper-sprayed a woman, and Pretti got between her and the agent in an attempt to shield her. He was holding up his phone with one hand; his other hand was empty.
Agents then pepper-sprayed him and took him to the pavement. At that point, an agent took Pretti’s handgun and walked away. In Minnesota it is legal to carry a gun in public, and Pretti had a valid license. Again, he had not touched his gun; rather, an agent saw it and removed it from him.
Then, with Pretti’s gun removed and down on the pavement, agents began shooting him, firing 10 shots. It has all the appearances of the deliberate execution of an unarmed man — an act of state-sponsored terrorism. By the time Stephen Miller took to Twitter/X on Saturday afternoon and posted, “An assassin tried to murder federal agents,” he knew he was lying.
If you’re looking to catch up, Heather Cox Richardson has pulled together all the various strands, including efforts by Minnesota state investigators to preserve the crime scene and a letter from Attorney General Pam Bondi to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz that can only be described as attempted extortion.
Minneapolis is under siege. And if you’re thinking, well, that’s just one city, I’ll close by paraphrasing a quote that is often attributed to the science-fiction writer William Gibson: Fascism has arrived — it’s just not evenly distributed yet.
Update: A little after 2:30 p.m., I changed the headline from “suggests that Alex Pretti was executed” to “shows that Alex Pretti was executed.” As the hours go by, the truth of what happened is becoming clearer. The Times itself is now asserting, “Videos directly contradict descriptions of the encounter by administration officials.”
Correction: Updated to correct Alex Pretti’s name.
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If you scan the top headlines, it might seem like the only stories in the news right now are ICE’s war against Minnesota and Donald Trump’s meltdown over Greenland. Venezuela is disappearing in the rearview mirror, but look out: here comes Snowmaggedon 2026.
But my media ethics students — yes, the same students who brought you their thoughts and suggestions earlier this week about practicing journalism in the AI era — have some different ideas. As I have in previous semesters, I asked them to identify stories that have been undercovered.
These stories have received some media attention or we wouldn’t know about them. But for one reason or another they haven’t broken through to the mainstream. Here is what they chose.
► Electoral unrest in Uganda, Reuters, Jan. 16. Amid accusations of election fraud, Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine was removed by the army from his house and taken to an unknown location, with President Yoweri Museveni claiming victory. The electoral campaign was marred by deadly violence, with the official count showing that Yoweri had been re-elected with nearly 74% of the vote, and Wine far behind at 23%.
► Data tallies ICE arrests in Boston, GBH News, Jan. 14. Reporter Sarah Betancourt found that at least 54 immigration-related arrests took place at Boston courthouses in 2025, with one so far in 2026. “We’re seeing ICE in the courthouses on an incredibly regular basis,” Jennifer Klein, director of the state’s Immigration Impact Unit told GBH News.
► How Florida is helping the feds, Tallahassee Democrat, Jan. 5. Using quickly thrown-together detention centers with names like Deportation Depot and Alligator Alcatraz, the state has detained about 20,000 people and turned them over to federal officials as part of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ policy of assisting the Trump administration in its immigration crackdown.
► ACLU sues on behalf of federal arrestees, ACLU, Jan. 15. The class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of three community members who are challenging “the administration’s policy of racially profiling, unlawfully seizing, and unlawfully arresting,people without a warrant and without probable cause.”
► Climate change’s non-virtuous circle, Environmental Defense Fund, Jan. 20. Global warming caused by humans is speeding the release of greenhouse gas emissions from natural ecosystems. “These greenhouse gasses are a result of manmade climate change — they are indirect human emissions,” said Brian Buma, senior climate scientist at EDF.
► ICE List Wiki. This interactive database “documents incidents, agencies, individuals, facilities, vehicles, and legal authorities involved in enforcement operations.” According to The Daily Beast, the list — created by Crust News — is based on a leak of information about some 4,500 ICE and Border Patrol employees, provided by a Department of Homeland Security whistleblower following the shooting death of Renee Good in Minneapolis at the hands of ICE agent Jonathan Ross.
Now, I listed these stories in the order that I did deliberately. You’ll note that the first three come from mainstream news sources. The next two are press releases issued by respected advocacy organizations, the ACLU and the Environmental Defense Fund. The last isn’t a news story at all; rather, it’s a project put together by activists aimed at exposing the identities of federal agents involved in Trump’s crackdown on immigration.
Critics call this “doxxing,” but the ICE List doesn’t appear to contain any personal information beyond what you could look up about your local police department — whose officers, unlike ICE agents, do their jobs unmasked, with their badge numbers clearly displayed.
Essentially the first three are examples of traditional journalism while the last three are hybrids that combine advocacy with acts of journalism. I trust groups like the ACLU and the Environmental Defense Fund to offer accurate, truthful information, but it’s fair to wonder what relevant information they might have omitted.
As for Crust News and the ICE List Wiki, it’s an interesting idea, but it seems aimed more at news organizations that might make use of the data than it is at the general public. The site says that it “is designed for public use. Journalists, researchers, and advocacy groups use the data to track enforcement patterns, identify repeat agencies or jurisdictions, and contextualise individual incidents. Pages may be cited with attribution.”
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The newly revived “Beat the Press with Emily Rooney” is back with its second story.
This time around, Emily, Scott Van Voorhis and I take on Tony Dokoupil’s embarrassing debut as anchor of the “CBS Evening News.” Dokoupil has, among other things, both-sides-ed the unprovoked killing of Renee Good at the hands of ICE agent Jonathan Ross, sucked up to Marco Rubio, and interviewed White House border czar Tom Homan while failing to ask him about the brown paper bag with $50,000 cash inside.
The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics encompasses four broad principles:
Seek Truth and Report It
Minimize Harm
Act Independently
Be Accountable and Transparent
Each principle is accompanied by multiple bullet points, which in turn link to background information. But those are the starting points, and I think they provide a good rough guide for how to practice ethical journalism.
Whenever I teach one of our ethics classes, I ask my students to come up with a fifth principle as well as some explanatory material. This semester, I’m teaching our graduate ethics seminar. It’s a small class — five grad students and one undergrad. Last week I divided them into three teams of two and put them to work. Here’s what they came up with. (Longtime readers of Media Nation will recognize this exercise.) I’ve done a little editing, mainly for parallel construction.
Practice Digital Diligence
Utilize AI for structural purposes such as transcribing interviews, searching for sources and entering data.
Disclose the use of AI software when publishing artificial creations.
Give credit by providing hyperlinks to other journalistic sources.
Gain verification status on social platforms for credibility purposes.
Do not engage with negative comments on social media posts.
Engage with subscribers who might use social media to ask questions about a story.
Apply AP style to social media posts.
Give credit to any artists whose work you might borrow. Respect copyright law.
Use Modern Resources Responsibly
Use social media and other digital tools, such as comment sections, to crowdsource information, connect with others and distribute news in a more accessible way.
Do not use these tools to engage in ragebait or to get tangled in messy and unproductive discourse online.
Acceptable uses of AI include gathering information, reformatting your reporting, transcribing interviews and similar non-public-facing tasks.
AI should be used more effectively to guide your reporting rather than replacing it.
Be Compassionate
Treat sources and communities with empathy and care.
Avoid misleading sources or providing false hope — for instance, don’t promise someone who is suffering that you’ll be able to give them assistance.
Do not exploit a source’s lack of media training. Provide a detailed explanation of your reporting methods when warranted.
Avoid using jargon both in interacting with sources and in producing a story.
Be a human first. If that clashes with your role as a journalist, that should be secondary.
***
In addition to their work on extending the Code of Ethics, I asked them on the first day of class to name one significant ethical issue that they think faces journalism. What follows is my attempt to summarize a longer conversation that we had in class.
► Stand up for our independence as journalists
► Explore and define the role of AI and truth in journalism
► Make sure we include a range of perspectives
► Push back against fake news, ragebait, etc.
► Avoid passive voice that evades responsibility
► Move beyond our preconceptions in pursuit of the truth
I hope you’ll agree that this is good, thought-provoking stuff. I can’t wait to see how the rest of the semester will go.
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Click on image to review the Times’ video analysis.
I already posted this on social media, but I just want to make sure that Media Nation readers are able to take advantage of the gift link.
The New York Times has undertaken another video analysis of the killing of Renee Good at the hands of ICE agent Jonathan Ross. As you’ll see, it’s absolutely clear — as it was in earlier videos — that Good’s vehicle did not run over Ross (I mean, really?) and did not strike him. The most likely explanation was that she was trying, very slowly, to drive away, cutting her wheels away from Good and another agent.
It’s possible that Good’s vehicle brushed up against him, but that remains unclear. It appears that Ross slipped on the ice and braced himself by placing his hand on the roof of her vehicle. Oh, and there’s this: After the shooting, an ICE agent is heard describing Good as a “fucking bitch” as she, mortally wounded, careens down the street. The Times has determined that it was Ross himself who used those words to describe his victim.
Claims that Ross suffered internal bleeding are obviously a lie. You can see him casually strolling down the street after shooting Good four times. Federal authorities aren’t going to do anything, and they’re impeding an investigation by state and local officials.
Semafor reported on Jan. 3 that The New York Times and The Washington Post learned of the pending U.S. raid on Venezuela shortly before it began but held off reporting on it “to avoid endangering US troops.”
Now Times executive editor Joe Kahn says it’s not true, at least with regard to his paper. He chose an unusually low-key forum in which to push back — in a response to a reader question in The Morning Newsletter. Here’s the relevant part of his answer (sub. req.). The boldface is mine, not his.
We reported on U.S. missions targeting Venezuela, including boat strikes and preparation for land-based military action, in considerable detail for several months. Our Pentagon, national-security and intelligence-agency beat reporters talked repeatedly with their sources about heightened preparations for bolder action against the Venezuelan leadership. Contrary to some claims, however, The Times did not have verified details about the pending operation to capture Maduro or a story prepared, nor did we withhold publication at the request of the Trump administration….
While not relevant in this case, The Times does consult with the military when there are concerns that exposure of specific operational information could risk the lives of American troops. We take those concerns seriously, and have at times delayed publication or withheld details if they might lead to direct threats to members of the military. But in all such cases, we make our editorial decisions independently. And we have often published accountability and investigative stories about military and intelligence operations and national-security decision making that government officials pressed us to withhold.
Last week I wrote about the parallels between Venezuela and the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, noting that the Times was accused of withholding key details. I cited research I did as a Boston University graduate student in the 1980s that showed the Times actually published what it knew and held back only on aspects of the story it couldn’t verify. The parallels between then and now may be even closer than I realized.
I don’t believe that the Post has responded to the Semafor story, which has not been corrected or amended.
