Steve (Works at public land grant university UC Berkeley) Katz
Twenty five years or so raising money for indy and nonprofit journalism and now at UC Berkeley doing the same for the Journalism School. Picked up a PhD in sociology along the way. Pals with a fish named Bob.
- Trump is getting played everywhere he turns, yet somehow much of the media coverage of his trip sanewashes his babble and pretends that he's being some kind of jet-setting deal maestro
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- Resharing my first 🧵in months for the night folks. Below I explain why I've been mostly off socials, a bit about my lifelong work and how Covid+moral injury have impacted not only my mental health but also my media critic/media literacy ed/media activism...and why I want to come back but need grace.
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- This is huge. Congratulations @legaldefensefund.bsky.social and Black Alabama voters.
- BREAKING: In a victory for voters, a three-judge panel with two Trump appointees rules that Alabama’s 2023 congressional map is unconstitutional and violates the VRA, calling it “an intentional effort to dilute Black Alabamians’ voting strength.” From: @jenrice.bsky.social
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- Well, I had an interesting Sunday night, how 'bout you?
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- [every night at 2:00am] BRAIN: big-time zoomies BODY: stay in my roomies STOMACH: all-out consumies ANXIETY: impending doomies
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- Support young journalists!
- Can somebody (or somebodies) help a fella out here: we are $57 short of hitting the $5,000 fundraising goal for @berkeleyjournalism.bsky.social's Investigative Reporting Program. That will release an amazing $25,000 matching gift. 57 dollars. Who’s in? crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/4617...
- Zuck: The average American has three friends.
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- One of the happiest updates I’ve written since I started following this story. 12 students back in status and maybe more to come. Across the country, students are saying their SEVIS is back. www.dailycal.org/news/campus/...
- From @joshtpm.bsky.social. "The whole game here is that the White House needs to mutilate a handful of universities but do so one by one, each isolated and on its own as it happens ... the White House cannot manage this if universities are banding together. It has to be one at a time."
- The AACU letter from 200+ university presidents is the most encouraging sign that higher ed is finally realizing this is a collective action problem, and that trying to negotiate alone is just going to going to backfire on them by letting the administration move the goalposts (i.e. Columbia).
- For American higher ed, an "I am Spartacus" moment. fallows.substack.com/p/from-acade... By me.
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- cool we have 4 options now 1) the next FDR is a class traitor governor (Pritzker) 2) the next FDR is an outspoken politician known by their initials (AOC) 3) the next FDR is the VP of a failed presidential ticket (Walz) 4) the next FDR is an outspoken politician with a dutch last name (Van Hollen)
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- My story breaking this news exclusively was 7K+ words and had almost all of this in it, and more: www.npr.org/2025/04/15/n...
- It also included 30+ interviews with experts who provided context and additional information about the picture of DOGE’s access to data across the federal government and the implications. This story was a lot of work.
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- Notably, in his media availability in El Salvador, @vanhollen.senate.gov truthfully keeps saying that Abrego Garcia was "illegally abducted" and "disappeared" instead of the more antiseptic, and factually incorrect, "deported."
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- In "How Democracies Die," Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt wrote that democratic backsliding "begins at the ballot box." Strongmen get democratically elected, then turn institutions into "political weapons, wielded forcefully by those who control them against those who do not."
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- republicans are disappearing people under the guise of fighting antisemitism and can’t even pretend to give a fuck when a jewish governor’s house gets firebombed on passover
- trump’s reaction (or lack thereof) to the attempt on the lives of gov. shapiro and his family ON PASSOVER is why it’s journalism malpractice to credulously report ANYTHING he does as being in service of fighting antisemitism. jews are pawns in his nazi game and don’t ever get it twisted.
- Not Antisemitism (according to MAGA): - Firebombing a Jewish governor‘s house during Passover - Doing a Sieg Hitler salute - Eating dinner with neo-Nazis Antisemitism (according to MAGA): - Saying Israelis and Palestinians deserve rights and dignity - Using freedom of speech on campus
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- A “progress” update presented to Heard Island Gov by the 3 people left working in the US Dept of Education. On the left: The old, extremist @altsmithsonian.bsky.social/Heard Island infographic (archived by us). On the right: The new “DEI deleted” exhibit that is now available for kids to enjoy.
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- BREAKING: We filed a new lawsuit to stop President Trump from abusing the Alien Enemies Act to send our clients to a notorious prison in El Salvador. The Supreme Court last night lifted a block on Trump’s use of the act, but made clear that people targeted for removal are entitled to due process.
- “We had 5 million people around the country, around the world, who are now not just tacitly against DOGE and Musk and Trump, but actively engaged.” ✊ www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...
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- NEW: ALA is going to court to stop the President’s attempts to illegally dismantle the Institute of Museum & Library Services. The President does not have the authority to destroy a federal agency. That's why we're taking action with our co-plaintiff @afscme.bsky.social. #ForOurLibraries (1/3)
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