June 9, 2022

■ 'The Washington Post on Thursday fired Felicia Sonmez, the reporter who has been extraordinarily critical of the newspaper's leadership over the last several days, two people familiar with the matter told CNN on Thursday.' (CNN) / ‘News: The Washington Post has terminated reporter Felicia Sonmez, according to a source close to the situation. It happened this afternoon. Post PR is declining to comment, citing privacy issues.’ (Jeremy Barr) / The Washington Post's Twitter fragility (Puck) / Earlier: ‘Clusterf--k' - Inside The Washington Post’s social media meltdown (Vanity Fair) 

■ 'It really felt like history.': Photographer reflects on covering Jan. 6 riot, as hearings begin (WBUR) / Newsmax declares it'll cover Jan. 6 hearing after anchor says network isn't (Daily Beast) 

■ 'Today is going to be maddening. Journalists will be tempted to cover the Jan 6 hearings like they cover everything else: as a strategic game between two political sides, downplaying anything “we already knew” and framing it in terms of “how it will play for Dems in the midterms” ... I beg of my friends in journalism: Please do not do this. Instead, think … “What would you say if you saw this in another country?” How would you cover this story, its HISTORY & POLITICAL CONTEXT to *explain* it to people.' (Dr. Danna Young) 

■ Biden says 'everything gets sensationalized' by media, with 'notable exceptions' (The Hill) / Biden to media: Be better (POLITICO)

■ 'Obama has been privately meeting with prominent tech journalists in recent months to discuss democracy and disinformation.' (POLITICO) / Group aiming to defund disinformation tries to drain Fox News of online advertising (NPR) / Misdirection, fake news and lies: The best books to read on disinformation (New York Times) 

■ 'An out gay woman': Karine Jean-Pierre hopes to empower LGBTQ youth as White House press secretary (USA Today)

■ Bob Garfield says goodbye, with details of his firing from ‘On the Media’: 'I’m sick and tired of being told how woke I’m not.' (Bob Garfield)

■ Sexual assault suit against former ABC News executive Michael Corn is dismissed (Los Angeles Times)

■ ’An email was sent this morning to 6 million Americans from the New York Times The Morning entitled COVID and Race. TL;DR: The email reported that death rate for White Americans has recently exceeded the rates for Black, Latino and Asian Americans. The disparities seem to have flipped. This is misinformation. Here’s me trying to push the truth to get its pants on faster.’ (Katelyn Jetelina) / ‘I like to highlight the work of people disagreeing with my analysis, and here is Dr. Katelyn Jetelina doing so. She argues that the higher recent white death rate is irrelevant because it depends on the white population being older.’ (David Leonhardt) 

■ How ‘All the President’s Men’ went from buddy flick to masterpiece (Washington Post) 

Press freedom

■ Exploiting tragedy: Police in Uvalde and Buffalo clamp down on free press (Freedom of the Press Foundation) 

■ Students challenge US Secretary of State on press freedom support (VOA)

■ Letter from global editors about missing journalist Dom Phillips (Washington Post)

New York Times writer and author Elizabeth Williamson is among journalists confronting the rampant rise and spread of conspiracy theories through her reporting and research. Her current work has focused around unraveling the targeted misinformation and lies spread after the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Conn., the surviving families’ lawsuits against Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and the election disinformation fueling the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack. 

In this instructional program with the National Press Club Journalism Institute, Williamson will share her reporting and research process, along with insights she gained as she connected the dots on how conspiracy theories grow. Williamson, whose critically-acclaimed book “Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth” published this spring, will describe how she threaded together more than 400 interviews, 10,000 pages of court testimony and other records, and on-the-ground reporting to trace a line from conspiracy theories around Sandy Hook to Jan. 6, 2021. 

Registration is open for this program, which will take place on Friday, June 10 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. ET.