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It’s been a dozen years since the publication of my friend and former colleague Seth Mnookin’s book Hard News: The Scandals at The New York Times and Their Meaning for American Media. But one quote from that book’s discussion of the Ochs-Sulzberger family that controls that newspaper has stayed with me:
“At some point you have to wonder if the bloodline thins,” James Goodale, a former …

After millions of years of gloriously successful life on Earth, a dangerous new organism arose and spread rapidly across the planet. With unprecedented efficiency this revolutionary life-form pumped noxious fumes into the air, destroyed ecosystems, and exterminated a substantial fraction of its fellow species. And the gases it added to the atmosphere drastically altered global temperatures so that, between habitat destruction and climate change, the …

Facebook may not be quite ready to stand up and say the words, “My name is Facebook and I’m a media company.” But it has begun to accept that its feed embodies editorial choices and that these choices shape information flows. In the wake of the controversy over fake news, Facebook has implemented new efforts to penalize the purveyors of news hoaxes. It’s also going …

Since at least the time of Aristotle’s Politics, families have been considered the building block of society. Strong families produce the stability—and reproduce the future citizens—needed for society to flourish.
But the inverse can also be true. When members of insular nuclear families lose understanding and empathy for those unlike them, the family can threaten liberal democracy itself.
This threat intensifies when citizens feel left behind, …

Here’s a quick quiz for anyone who has ever had kids or grandkids or nieces and nephews in school: Can you name all of the fundraising items you’ve purchased from the PTA (or whatever acronym represents your committee of ruling parents)?
I can. Over the years, for the sake of my children’s enrichment, I have ordered gold-standard wrapping paper, reusable polyurethane bags, various types of overpriced …

I press against my stream of calculations, I am not this. I am not this. I have weight on my
feet. I have breath. I pour a cup of coffee I will place in front of anyone and say, Here you
go.   But I am anxious for the day   when I will sum up how I’ve done.   I didn’t …

 
Sara Catania is the editorial director at Zócalo Public Square. She was previously West Coast editor in charge at Reuters and vice president of digital news for NBC4 Southern California. Before moderating the Zócalo/The California Wellness Foundation event, “How Do You Fix a ‘Bad’ Neighborhood?”, she revealed in the Zócalo green room her longtime fear of The Wizard of Oz monkeys, her love of all …

Imagine this heart-breaking scene in the Greek city-state of Sparta in the 6th century BC: a 7-year-old boy from the best of homes, loving and intelligent, was torn from his mother by authorities and transferred to an inhuman government-run institution. He was made to sleep on a thin mat, scarcely protected from the cold, and was forced to steal food to survive. His days were …

More than 60 years ago, an American family arrived in a seemingly idyllic town in Southern Italy. Stone buildings resembled “a white beehive against the top of a mountain.” Donkeys and pigs idled in the ancient, winding streets. A town crier tooting a brass horn announced “fish for sale in the piazza at 100 lire per kilo.” There were two churches, two bars, and a …

Just before my youngest son Alex turned 2, we discovered that he had significant hearing loss that was likely to get worse. A few weeks later, I found myself in the gym at the school my two older boys attended. I was there for the regular Friday morning assembly. I’d been in that gym dozens of times for such events—dutifully clapping and cheering, chatting with …