Alberto Cairo

@albertocairo.com

Designer, journalist, and professor. Author of 'The Art of Insight' (2023) 'How Charts Lie' (2019), 'The Truthful Art' (2016), and 'The Functional Art' (2012). NEW PROJECT: https://openvisualizationacademy.org/

"Writing is an intellectual activity, not a bundle of skills. Writing proceeds from thinking. To achieve good prose styles, writers must work through intellectual issues, not merely acquire mechanical techniques" —F.N. Thomas & M. Turner, 'Clear and Simple as the Truth' 1/2

The suspense over Trump's speech Thursday night doesn't involve whether he will lie. Of course he will. The question is whether major media will be prepared with sharp headlines and detailed fact checks on the election of 2020. It's whether the New York Times' Euphemism Desk will be fully staffed.

NY Tmes exec editor Joe Kahn said in 2024 that the issue of democracy's survival was not a top priority in his newsroom's coverage. Now Trump is sending federal agents to NYT reporters' homes to deliver subpoenas over coverage he doesn't like. I wonder if democracy is a priority for Joe now.

Mark Jacob@markjacob.bsky.social · 4w ago

The Trump regime issued subpoenas to NY Times journalists over their reporting on Trump’s new Qatari-donated Air Force One. NYT called the subpoenas “an extraordinary escalation in Trump’s efforts to threaten and intimidate independent news organizations.” The dictator Trump hates the free press.

Scientists have correctly projected the global average temperature rise for decades. The last 15 years have brought an acceleration (still within the projection range). Here's how temperatures have stacked up against model runs published in 2007.

A line graph titled "Global Warming Has Sped Up in Recent Years," comparing Earth’s temperature from 1970 to 2026 against the 1850–1900 baseline. An orange jagged line tracks observed temperatures, which generally rise over time, sitting within a shaded light-orange band representing projected temperature ranges from 2007 CMIP3 climate models.

Two distinct black trend lines are overlaid on the data: a "1970–2010 trend" line showing a steady upward slope, and a separate "2010–2026" line showing a noticeably steeper trajectory. Text on the chart notes: "The recent warming trend is on a steeper trajectory, but still within the range of decades-old projections." The y-axis measures temperature anomalies up to 1.5°C, and the source is credited to Berkeley Earth, with observed data through May 2026. [alt-text from Gemini AI]

Every outlet in our news tracker covered the recent trans sports ban decision at SCOTUS, but when I looked at the coverage I found one clear outlier - the New York Times had the most stories (5 in all) but not one included a quote from a trans person or representative of a trans rights organization.

Assigned Media@assignedmedia.org · last mo.

Why should you support independent trans media? Perhaps because we take on the bias of major news organizations with facts and data. Here's the latest from @evanurquhart.bsky.social, who found NYT wrote 5 stories on the trans sports ban decision without quoting a single trans person. 🤯🤯🤯