The Morning: Our journalism
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2024-05-12 13:32
Good morning. Today, Joe Kahn, The Times’s executive editor, reflects on some of our most probing recent journalism. We’re also covering the Israel-Hamas war, Elon Musk’s diplomacy and Mother’s Day. —David Leonhardt
Journalism with impact
When Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, it ignited not only one of the worst conflicts in recent Middle East history, but also an ideological firestorm around the world. Some viewed the war through the prism of the Hamas attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and took an estimated 240 hostages. On the other side, Israel’s retaliatory bombing and occupation of Gaza, which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, galvanized a global movement against the actions of the Jewish state. The intensity of the conflict and the emotions it set off has made this an especially challenging war to cover. Our commitment is to provide probing, independent journalism about the biggest stories, however strong the partisan feelings about them may be. This has been the most divisive story I’ve experienced in my more than three decades in journalism.
So it was especially gratifying that our team of reporters, photographers and video journalists on Monday won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for their coverage of the war. We had earlier won similar honors from the George Polk Awards and the Overseas Press Club, which are among the most prestigious prizes in journalism. Our team is living through this conflict as well as covering it. Some of those reporting on it are Muslim, others Jewish. Some speak Arabic, others Hebrew. Some know people killed or captured on Oct. 7. Others were born and raised in Gaza, with relatives killed and scattered by the bombardment. We worked together to use our best visual storytelling tools to capture the horrors Hamas inflicted on Israel and the devastating toll of Israel’s assault on Gaza. We also revealed astounding Israeli intelligence failures and deadly miscalculations that allowed the Oct. 7 attack to happen. This is what we really mean when we talk about independent journalism: Coverage that commands attention, whatever your background, experience or perspective. Prize-winning workI wanted to use today’s Morning newsletter to highlight not only our coverage of this war, but also some other recent Times journalism that has received recognition. The Pulitzer juries awarded The Times with two other prizes, for investigative reporting and feature writing. We had six finalists as well, showcasing the breadth and depth of the journalism we bring to you every day. No series we published last year had more impact than Hannah Dreier’s “Alone and Exploited.” Hannah won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for her unflinching look into how child migrants are being exploited for their labor in all 50 states, often working illegally for big name brands. She spent two years reporting the series and worked with a team to assemble a definitive database of child labor injuries and deaths that we made easily accessible to the public. Our third winner was a story that appeared in our Sunday Magazine called “The Mother Who Changed.” The writer, Katie Engelhart, tells the story of Diane Norelius, a woman with dementia whose daughters worried the man she fell in love with was exploiting her disease and her money. The piece, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing, explores how we respect the desires of people when they experience cognitive decline. Katie navigates the many perspectives with empathy and nuance and skillfully guides readers through the ethical and medical complications.
Our six Pulitzer finalists ranged from the revelatory work on the mysterious symptoms experienced by U.S. soldiers sustained from firing their own weapons to the stories of migrants who journey through the dangerous Darién Gap. Photos of youth in Africa and inside Vladimir Putin’s Russia were finalists in feature photography. An intriguing story on the popularity of the game Dungeons & Dragons among inmates on death row and a deep look at decades of wrongdoing by a Mississippi sheriff’s department were also cited. And in audio, we are thrilled that a series from Serial Productions, “The Retrievals,” won a Peabody Award. “The Retrievals” told the story of the Yale Fertility Center nurse who replaced painkilling solution for saline, and the women who had their procedures without this medication. If you haven’t already, I urge you to take time to experience this journalism. I am deeply proud of this prizewinning work, and of the journalism we produce every day. I also want to say thank you. We are able to do this work because of our subscribers. These prizes are yours to celebrate, too.
Israel-Hamas War
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Politics
Other Big Stories
Does the U.S. decision to pause some weapons shipments betray Israel? Yes. The U.S. claims “ironclad” support of Israel, but it halted certain weapons shipments to the country over concerns about an invasion of Rafah. “Denying it U.S. arms is an invitation to its enemies to take advantage, in hostage talks and on the battlefield,” The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board writes. No. The pause won’t affect the billions of dollars Congress has allocated to military aid for Israel, making it “the equivalent of giving somebody hundreds of dollars on a daily basis and then making a show of withholding 5 cents,” Al Jazeera’s Belén Fernández writes.
“Our closeness was measured in tosses”: Learning how to play catch with her son taught Jessica Shattuck how to let him go as he got older. Here are columns by Ross Douthat on the morality of the war in Gaza and Zeynep Tufekci on protest crackdowns. A subscription to match the variety of your interests. News. Games. Recipes. Product reviews. Sports reporting. A New York Times All Access subscription covers all of it and more. Subscribe today.
For Mother’s Day, Catherine Pearson collected stories from Times readers about the mother figures in their lives — grandmothers and aunts, teachers and neighbors, and, of course, moms.
You can read many more stories in Catherine’s article, “An Ode to Those Who Mother Us.”
A farewell: By the end of this year, only two Chuck E. Cheese locations will have the chain’s hallmark animatronic band. Vows: The Broadway actress Lindsay Mendez got married on her day off. Jonathan Groff officiated, and Daniel Radcliffe was the ring bearer. Lives Lived: Mary Wells Lawrence was the first woman to own and run a major national advertising agency. Her company, Wells Rich Greene, was best known for the “I ♥ NY” campaign. She died at 95.
This week’s subject for The Interview is the author, comedian and influential radio host Charlamagne Tha God. We talked about what he makes of polls showing the Democrats losing Black voter support, his personal politics and why he’s not endorsing anyone in the presidential election. A lot has been made of polls showing Black support for the Democrats cratering. I’m wondering what you’re thinking as more and more of these polls keep showing the same thing. I think you might see a slight uptick in Black people voting for Trump this year, but I think it’s overstated. I think the biggest thing that people are gonna have to fight against this year is the couch. And the couch is voter apathy. This is probably the most — and what I’m about to say is going to sound so cliché — this is probably the most consequential election of my lifetime. I’m not gonna say of all time. But it’s hard to get people to believe that, because we say that about every presidential election, because every Republican candidate has been demonized. So now that you really do have the wolf out there, you look like the party who cried wolf because you put everything on the same scale. The thing that I’m hearing you say is that you believe that Trump is the wolf at the door, that democracy is under threat. And I’ve also heard you say, “I will not endorse President Biden and Kamala Harris.” ’Cause I just feel like I’ve been burned with that before. You put your name on the line, you endorse somebody, you tell your audience, This is who you should go out there and vote for, and your audience goes and does it. And then when they don’t see these things that they thought were going to get pushed through, they don’t understand civics. All they know is Charlamagne told me to vote for this person because this was gonna happen, and this didn’t happen. Read more of the interview here.
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‘Photographic justice’: A new book from Corky Lee captures celebration and struggle over decades of Asian American life. Our editors’ picks: “Reboot,” a satire of modern media and pop culture about a former child star, and five other books. Times best sellers: Erik Larson’s “The Demon of Unrest” depicts the months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the beginning of the Civil War. It is a No. 1 debut on the hardcover nonfiction list this week.
Make your own hot honey. Try these mascaras.
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In this week’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter, Mia Leimkuhler sings the praises of tofu cream — a pourable sauce made from blended tofu, miso and garlic. Use it to make creamy vegan tofu noodles, a dish that takes just 20 minutes and will win over everyone, vegan or not.
Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was adjacency. Can you put eight historical events — including Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the rule of Catherine the Great and the Rubik’s Cube — in chronological order? Take this week’s Flashback quiz. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com.
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