Portside

Media past, present and future

Record temperatures in much of the U.S. threatening more people in prisons.

Alabama tries to ban the NAACP in 1956. Freedom Summer under the gun in 1964. Cigarette health warning in 1965. Protesters killed in DC in 1932. "Fight for 15" in 2013. Federal health insurance for some in 1965. Black Power in 1966.

Hundreds of proven, decades-old vital drugs that can be produced inexpensively are difficult or impossible to find due to the profit incentives that govern drug production. These shortages have serious medical consequences, but there are solutions.

Good journalism demands one-on-one encounters with candidates, questions that speak to people’s actual concerns, real-time factchecking. If candidates can’t agree to a platform that holds them accountable, they don’t deserve a media platform at all.

The Socialist may remain prime minister if he can cobble together enough support from wildly different political groups.

The U-pick business model, which relies on farm visitors to do the harvesting, has the potential to produce big profits. But its success depends on an array of uncontrollable variables.

Nuclear experts demanded limits on the atomic bomb. AI developers should follow that example.

One recent media report is emblematic of the kinds of errors the press makes when it sees a chance to put pressure on a Black progressive mayor.

The GOP’s off-the-wall positions should make it easy for the Dems to defeat the out-of-touch Republicans. But not when the party is dialing for the same corporate campaign cash as the GOP.