For the Record

Post Expands Investigative Unit:

The Washington Post announced that it will supplement its Investigative Unit "with five staffers, including a reporter and additional editor for fast-turnaround work, a reporter to pursue longer-term projects, a researcher and a FOIA specialist who will partner with all newsroom departments to pursue journalistic opportunities in federal, state and local public records."

Twilight of Cartoons:

Politico media columnist Jack Shafer believes that the alleged firing of Canadian editorial cartoonist Michael de Adder signals "the end times of the editorial cartoon." Since 2007, the number of salaried cartoonists at news organizations has declined from 84 to "about 30," while "the [cartoonists] who still go for the wicked satire that wounds are often eclipsed by the memes of the day." According to Shafer, "Editorial cartooning has become a niche art form."

Post Publishes Press Freedom List:

The Washington Post published a full-page advertisement from the Press Freedom Partnership detailing the One Free Press Coalition's 10 most pressing cases of journalists under attack. The list includes such notable figures as Jamal Khashoggi (whose murderers were identified as agents of Saudi Arabia in a new U.N. report) and Eritrean journalist Seyoum Tsehaye, who has been imprisoned since 2001.

First Look Cuts Two Sites:

End of The Vindy:

The Vindicator of Youngstown, Ohio announced Friday that it will shut down in August after 150 years of operation, leaving the Rust Belt city of 65,000 (which anchors a metropolitan statistical area of over 540,000) without a daily newspaper. "The energy in the newspaper business for the past half-decade-plus has all been toward consolidation," said NiemanLab's Joshua Benton. "But in at least in this one case, the consolidators have decided that financially there’s nothing of value left to consolidate."

Hard Times:

According to outplacement and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, about 3,000 journalists have been laid off or accepted buyouts in the first half of 2019. This level of attrition is second only to 2009, when nearly 8,000 jobs were lost in the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis. "In most industries, employers can’t find enough people to fill the jobs they have open," said Andrew Challenger, a vice president at the company. "In news, it has been the opposite story. And it seems to have been accelerating."

Real Stories:

Writer-director Ava DuVernay tweeted that "When They See Us" has been viewed by more than 23 million Netflix accounts worldwide. DuVernay's series chronicles the lives of five juvenile African-American males who were falsely convicted in the 1989 Central Park jogger case.

Disdain:

During a joint appearance at the G-20 summit in Osaka Friday, President Trump reinforced his contempt for the media to Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Get rid of them," he said. "Fake news is a great term, isn’t it? You don’t have this problem in Russia, but we do." Putin alleged that "it's the same" in his country. 

Joining Forces:

The editorial boards of the Charlotte Observer and Raleigh News & Observer are "teaming up to provide fuller and more diverse opinion content to our readers," McClatchy North Carolina Opinion Editor Peter St. Onge announced Friday. Members from each city will continue to write on local issues affecting their communities. 

Holmes Blames Pulitzer-Winning Journalist:

According to Bloomberg, Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes will contend that Wall Street Journal reporter and 2003 Explanatory Reporting contributor John Carreyrou "prodded sources to lodge complaints about the company with regulators" in her upcoming criminal fraud trial. "We are confident Mr. Carreyrou acted responsibly, and his reporting throughout has been fair and accurate," said Steve Severinghaus, a spokesperson for the newspaper.