Dark clouds gather over press freedom in Europe

A week ago, Peter R. de Vries, a star journalist in the Netherlands, was leaving a studio where he’d just appeared as a guest on a TV program, RTL Boulevard, when a gunman shot him five times, including in the head. De Vries has covered the criminal underworld dating back to the eighties and nineties, when he tracked down a man who helped kidnap Freddy Heineken, the beer tycoon; recently, de Vries had been acting as a confidant and spokesperson for a gang informant in a high-profile case against an alleged high-level crime boss. On Saturday, RTL Boulevard canceled a planned broadcast and evacuated its studio, citing what it characterized as a serious threat from organized crime; police wouldn’t go into specifics, but a Dutch newspaper reported that they had learned of a possible attack by rocket launcher. (This would not have been unprecedented—in 2018, an anti-tank rocket was fired at the offices of a newspaper publisher.) De Vries is still fighting for his life. On its latest World Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders ranked the Netherlands sixth out of one hundred and eighty countries globally—making it, theoretically at least, one of the safest places in the world to practice journalism. The day after de Vries was shot in Amsterdam, three men attacked Erk Acarer, a Turkish journalist, at his home in Berlin, where he has lived in exile since 2017. Acarer, who writes for the independent Turkish newspaper BirGün and works for a broadcaster established by other... Continue reading at 'Columbia Journalism Review'

[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2021-07-13 12:34:55 UTC ]

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Microsoft is running an Xbox partner showcase on March 6

Microsoft has announced its second games showcase of 2024 and this one is all about projects from its third-party partners. The second Partner Preview stream is set for March 6 at 1PM ET. It will run for around 30 minutes and feature more than a dozen new trailers from publishers including... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2024-03-04 17:30:08 UTC ]
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Read an 1890 review of The Picture of Dorian Gray.

These days, if you use your book review to call an author a pervert and instruct him to abandon writing for the sake of public morality, most reputable editors will palm you a paltry kill fee and mothball your screed. Not so, it would seem, in 1890. Here’s how an outraged book critic for The […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2023-07-24 18:10:37 UTC ]
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Motherhood, ambition and undiagnosed depression collide in a brutally honest memoir

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[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-05-16 13:00:23 UTC ]
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The NYT’s Conservative Columnist Wrote a Fantasy Novel. Slate’s Book Critic Has Some Notes.

Ross Douthat posted the first chapter, asking “What should I do with it?” We have ideas. Continue reading at Slate

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Questioning the Borders of Nonfiction to Tell the Story of an Exceptional Life

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[ Literrary Hub | 2022-06-06 08:51:52 UTC ]
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Dark clouds gather over press freedom in Europe

A week ago, Peter R. de Vries, a star journalist in the Netherlands, was leaving a studio where he’d just appeared as a guest on a TV program, RTL Boulevard, when a gunman shot him five times, including in the head. De Vries has covered the criminal underworld dating back to the eighties and... Continue reading at Columbia Journalism Review

[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2021-07-13 12:34:55 UTC ]
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Finding Refuge, and a Snowy Owl, in Central Park

When pandemic New York seemed at its most surreal, the park, with its abundant wildlife and familiar progression of the seasons, offered a vision of normal life to a book critic who wandered it daily. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2021-03-04 10:00:21 UTC ]
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Here are the finalists for the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award.

Yesterday, writer and book critic Michael Schaub announced all the finalists for the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award, which honors the “finest books” published in English during the last year. The thirty finalists were selected across six categories—Autobiography, Biography, Criticism,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2021-01-25 16:52:22 UTC ]
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Lauren Oyler on America’s Alienating Literary Culture

The book critic and Fake Accounts author says that smart readers are not being served by the publishing industry. The post Lauren Oyler on America’s Alienating Literary Culture appeared first on The Millions. Continue reading at The Millions

[ The Millions | 2020-11-18 21:30:25 UTC ]
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Destination: New Zealand, by Madeleine Dorst

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[ World Literature Today | 2020-11-03 17:25:10 UTC ]
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Did Inner-Circle Trumpers Write Worthwhile Books?

An interview with a book critic who's read more than 150 titles about the Trump era. Continue reading at Slate

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Mueller revisionism, and the culpability of the press

Under a presidency that, perhaps more than any in recent memory, tends to be rendered in starkly moralistic terms, there is perhaps no better case study of the rise-and-fall character arc than Robert Mueller. Where the right always hated Mueller’s probe into Trump, Russia, and the 2016 campaign,... Continue reading at Columbia Journalism Review

[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2020-09-23 12:32:09 UTC ]
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IPA, PEN America Blast Vietnam’s ‘Crackdown on Independent Media’

With the 2020 Prix Voltaire winner losing a key author under safety concerns, the International Publishers Association appeals to Hanoi for restraint. The post IPA, PEN America Blast Vietnam’s ‘Crackdown on Independent Media’ appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2020-07-16 13:45:34 UTC ]
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In “All My Mother’s Lovers,” a Mother’s Secret Letters Reveal Her Secret Life

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[ Electric Literature | 2020-06-22 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Mourning the Letters That Will No Longer Be Written, and Remembering the Great Ones That Were

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[ The New York Times | 2020-06-17 09:00:00 UTC ]
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Danticat, Levin, Miller Among NBCC Award Winners

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-03-12 04:00:00 UTC ]
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NBCC Awards Finalists Announced

The National Book Critics Circle has announced 30 finalists in six categories––autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry––for the annual National Book Critic Circle Awards, which will be presented March 12 in New York. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-01-13 05:00:00 UTC ]
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WI15: Writing About Love—and Dogs: PW Talks with Jennifer Finney Boylan

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Carlos Lozada of The Washington Post and David Remnick of The New Yorker Join Pulitzer Board

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[ Editor & Publisher | 2019-11-07 22:53:39 UTC ]
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Elaine Kendall, author and former L.A. Times book critic, dies at 91

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[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-08-12 22:46:20 UTC ]
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