I’m trying something new with Media Nation: I’ve embedded my Bluesky feed in the right-hand rail (scroll down), and I’m using it to post shorter items of news and commentary that aren’t worth a full blog post. I should say that this is what I used to do with Twitter before Elon Musk (1) turned the place into a toxic cesspool and (2) changed the API so that embedded feeds no longer worked.
Admittedly this will work best for readers who are using a computer. If you’re reading Media Nation on your phone, you’ll need to scroll to somewhere near the bottom. Of course, you can also follow me on Bluesky.
This might mean that I’ll write fewer multi-item posts, since the short items I was including often were the sorts of things I used to post to Twitter. I also realize it’s not of much help to folks who get new Media Nation posts delivered by email. But as I said, the solution to that is to join Bluesky and follow me there. I promise to try to be substantive.
The Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, Colo. Photo (cc) 2009 by Lee Coursey.
The FBI got ahead of the story on Sunday, claiming that an outburst of antisemitic violence in Boulder, Colorado, was a “targeted terror attack,” even as local police were saying it was too soon to tell.
As it turned out, the suspect, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, really did appear to be motivated by his hatred of Jews. But it wasn’t a good sign that Trump’s shoot-from-the-hip FBI was claiming to know what was behind the attack even as Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn was holding a news conference in which he said it was too soon to ascribe any motives.
Boulder Police: “we are not calling it a terror attack yet.” They say they are still identifying motive and would be irresponsible to say motive at this point FBI already claimed it’s a “targeted terror attack.”
Soliman is accused of using what Chief Redfearn called “a makeshift flamethrower” to burn people who were walking in support of the Israeli hostages still being held by the terrorist group Hamas. The walks, a regular event in Boulder, are sponsored by an organization called Run for Their Lives.
Soliman reportedly yelled “Free Palestine!” as he carried out his assault at the Pearl Street Mall. Eight people were injured, ranging in age from 52 to 88. I haven’t seen much in the way of details yet, but The Colorado Sun reports that one of those injured is in critical condition.
When local news goes national, it’s always worthwhile to check in on what is being reported on the ground by journalists who really know the area. Here’s a quick roundup, starting with two news outlets in the city of 106,000 as well as a few statewide media organizations.
• The Daily Camera of Boulder is the city’s paper of record. It is also owned by Alden Global Capital, a cost-slashing hedge fund that has consolidated much of its operations at The Denver Post, the state’s major metro; Denver and Boulder are separated by about 30 miles. The Camera and the Post covered the story with a team of four reporters, three from the Post and one from the Camera. Their story was updated at 6:52 a.m. Colorado time. Notable:
Videos showed people rushing to pour water on one victim while others lay collapsed nearby.
“It’s almost like it was a gun of fire,” said Lynn Segal, who witnessed the attack. “It’s like a line of fire.”
• The Boulder Reporting Lab, a nonprofit newsroom, also reported on the attack. The story says it was updated today, but there is no time stamp on it. Notable:
Henry Bonn-Elchoness, 18, was inside Into the Wind, a toy store at 14th and Pearl, when the attack occurred.
“We walked by the crime scene right when it happened,” he said. “We saw smoke…. I didn’t see any fire, but I know that there was fire. They were clearing out people really fast and no one knew what happened for a while.”
He and his friends left and returned about 30 minutes later.
“We saw three older women being put in ambulances,” Bonn-Elchoness said. “It looked pretty bad. They were all awake and coherent, but it seemed worrisome. It was very scary. It was a shock.”
• The Colorado Sun, a large statewide nonprofit based in Denver, posted an updated story today at 6:47 a.m. local time. Notable:
Aaron Brooks, a Jewish Boulder resident, arrived at the Run for their Lives demonstration late Sunday — just moments after the attack. He found a grisly scene.
“I saw smoke on the ground. I saw blood on the ground. I saw smoke coming from a person — literally a human being burning,” he said.
• Colorado Public Radio, a network of stations that reaches about 80% of the state, posted the most recent version of its coverage at 11:06 p.m. Notable:
Boulder City Councilwoman Tara Winer has participated in past Run For Their Lives events and said several of the victims were friends of hers.
“The Boulder Jewish community is close,” she said Sunday. “We’re not monolithic, but we support each other and we’re close.”
Winer said she’s been cursed at and called a ‘Jewish supremacist’ during city council public comment sessions and that the level of vitriol has increased over the past six months.
On Sunday she planned to go ahead with a preplanned event that night marking the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, on the topic of “How our lives have changed since Oct. 7.”
• Axios started a Boulder newsletter late last year, and its story has a good roundup of what people are saying on social media — including a claim by President Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, that Soliman had “illegally overstayed” a tourist visa.
We are in the midst of a frightening outburst of high-profile terrorist attacks in the U.S. As The New York Times notes, the Colorado incident follows arson on the residence of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and the murder of two Israeli embassy aides in Washington.
Regardless of your position on the war between Israel and Hamas, it is textbook antisemitism to use it as a pretext to assault people who are Jewish. We will see whether FBI Director Kash Patel has any intention of fighting this wave effectively — or if he is content to preen about it on social media.
More: This post has been updated to add Axios Boulder.
WNET, the New York public broadcasting giant, doesn’t want you to see this cartoon — at least not on public television.
The New York Times reports (gift link) that 90 seconds have been butchered out of a documentary about the artist Art Spiegelman that is scheduled to be shown as part of the “American Masters” series on PBS. It is, as you can see, wildly unflattering to President Trump, and it comes at a moment when Trump is trying to eliminate all funding for public media.
WNET vice president Stephen Segaller told Times reporter Marc Tracy that the 9-year-old drawing of Trump, with feces and flies on his head and a swastika superimposed over the image, was a “breach of protocol,” adding, “I don’t think we’d have made a different decision if it had been a year earlier.” Yeah, probably not. Last year at this time, Trump was leading President Joe Biden in the polls, so the incentive not to antagonize him was just as strong then as it is now.
Spiegelman was quoted as saying, “It’s tragic and appalling that PBS and WNET are willing to become collaborators with the sinister forces trying to muzzle free speech.”
But at least you can see Spiegelman’s cartoon in the Times. And here.
I’ve been deluged by comment spam the past few days, so I’ve turned on a toggle that requires users to be registered and logged in before they can comment. In case you are prompted to take an extra step to post a comment, that’s the reason.
Moon over the Zakim Bridge. Photo (cc) 2025 by Dan Kennedy.
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I’m getting multiple messages that The Boston Globe is shutting down its TV/digital newscast, “Boston Globe Today.” There’s also a bit of an uproar from the newsroom that a message from a staff member who’s been laid off was removed from the Globe’s Slack channel. More later, I’m sure.
Here is the somewhat skeptical post I wrote when the newscast made its debut a little more than two years ago. As I said at the time, the producers needed to find ways of breaking the newscast down into stories that could be consumed by younger viewers on their phones.
And here’s what I wrote last fall when newscast host Segun Oduolowu popped up on a Kamala Harris fundraising call and explicitly endorsed her presidential campaign, creating an ethical dilemma for Globe management.
My evening began at church with a Shrove Tuesday pancake supper. From there, it was all downhill.
The early moments of Donald Trump’s endless address to Congress (is he still talking?) made me think about Joe Biden’s final State of the Union address last March. It was, perhaps, Biden’s last really good public moment. Seated behind him, Kamala Harris was thoroughly enjoying herself while Mike Johnson looked glum.
Now we are in the midst of chaos, all of it self-inflicted by Trump and his prime minister, Elon Musk. Authoritarianism, Three Stooges-style (who is the third Stooge?), is on the rise.
I don’t really have a coherent take on Tuesday night’s ugly proceedings, but here are a few thoughts. I’m curious to know what you thought, too.
Media Nation was down for about eight hours Friday, and my apologies if you were trying to access the site but couldn’t. The explanation is a cliché: I was messing around in places where I shouldn’t have been and our son, Tim, bailed me out.
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A great bookstore is one that introduces you to books that you didn’t know you wanted to read. Amazon doesn’t do that. Most physical bookstores succeed only partially.
Over the summer, though, our travels took us through Manchester, Vermont, where we visited the Northshire Bookstore, an independent outlet that has the advantage of being both enormous and lovingly curated and thus well-stocked with books I might not have heard of. That’s where I discovered Caleb Carr’s “My Beloved Monster,” a memoir about his life with a Siberian cat named Masha.
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A great bookstore is one that introduces you to books that you didn’t know you wanted to read. Amazon doesn’t do that. Most physical bookstores succeed only partially.