Yes, your phone listens to you. No, you're not imagining it. Why Lopez v. Apple (2025) was an important (but underreported) legal settlement this year. The latest in the Lint Trap linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/does-your-...

Bari Weiss might be the boss of @60minutes.bsky.social but she didn't realize "60Minutes" is much more valuable to CBS News than Bari Weiss. "8 Things Bari Weiss Unintentionally Accomplished By Interfering with '60 Minutes'" linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/8-things-b...

Super analysis of the 60 Minutes situation from @michaelsocolow.bsky.social linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/8-things-b...

I have several friends looking for jobs. The job market's basically grounded to a halt. Even if you obtain an offer, employers are low-balling salary + benefits. There's zero leverage. It's not just an "affordability" crisis. www.wsj.com/economy/jobs...

"8 Things Bari Weiss Unintentionally Accomplished By Interfering with '60 Minutes'" She detonated a crisis that revealed how unprepared she is to manage a national TV network news organization. The latest in the Lint Trap. linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/8-things-b...

Can you imagine the morale at CBS News this morning? I guess the idea is to tear it down from the inside & rebuild it into something competing with Newsmax, Fox News, Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, Breitbart, etc. while NBC News + ABC News laugh all the way to the bank.

Bari Weiss has just guaranteed: — that the CECOT piece has to air; — that any effort to soften it will hurt her more than it will help Trump; and — that its ratings will be higher than they would otherwise have been. Amateur hour. Again.

This would be like telling the creators of The Simpsons that they've been too unfair to the police, so they need to make Chief Wiggum more heroic. Or a network executive demanding Johnny Carson change his late-night format to be more overtly patriotic (and cut the Nixon jokes).

I don't understand how anybody thinks they can reposition perhaps the most successful program in U.S. television history. "60 Minutes" is probably 2nd to "The Today Show" as the most profitable program in the history of U.S. television. It doesn't make sense and it's never been done before.

"Before Trump, these conflicts mostly occurred backstage and informally, allowing the broadcasters to sidestep the damage to their credibility should any surrender to White House administrations be made public." How the ABC + CBS settlements caused this. theconversation.com/abcs-and-cbs...

The greatest examples of investigative journalism don't adhere to balance. They center ethically upon accuracy and veracity. There's a difference. Ida Tarbell never interviewed John D. Rockefeller for "The History of the Standard Oil Company." www.wsj.com/business/med...

It's both nonsensical and counterproductive to interfere with the most successful and profitable news broadcast in American history. Especially over an accurate story that's been vetted and approved by network attorneys and standards and practices. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/b...

The Tik Tok deal is relatively meaningless in grand scheme of things. But it's a critical juncture in the history of presidential authority. Trump openly & unambiguously defied Congress+the Supreme Court: A very bad precedent. Latest in The Lint Trap linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/what-does-...

I'm quoted in today's @pressherald.com on the huge amounts of money being poured into Maine's 2026 Senate race already. Many factors, including a competitive Democratic primary and an incumbent with a huge funding base in D.C., are playing a role. www.pressherald.com/2025/12/19/m...

The President's live TV address to the American people last night got zero traction. Nobody's talking about it on social media. *I think they know he's not effective at behind-the-desk teleprompter reading, so they switched it up a little with podium + microphone to mimic a rally?

There's far too many @niemanlab.org predictions to wade through. I'd read 10, maybe 15, perhaps 20... but not 127. This point about how journalists must prepare *now* for the possibility of big stories coming in 2026, by Richard Tofel, seems very smart. www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/work...

Regarding Trump's live TV address tonight: As I pointed out in reviewing his March 2020 COVID-19 Oval Office broadcast, it's a format he and his advisors don't understand how to employ effectively. The stock market tanked -7% in response next day. theconversation.com/how-the-fire...

In 1936, sportswriter John R. Tunis wrote a book about his Harvard classmates from the class of 1911. “When the book came out, all the people at Harvard, my so-called friends, told me I was a no-good sonofabitch.” The latest in the Lint Trap linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/was-colleg...

If you're in Maine, I'll be on "Maine Calling" at 11:00 a.m. (8:00 p.m. replay) today @mainepublic.org with several guests on the topic: "How We Get Our News" www.mainepublic.org/show/maine-c...

“Pardon me for laughing,” said Michael J Socolow, professor of communication and journalism at the University of Maine. “I don’t mean to be dismissive..." As a legal case, Trump's lawsuit is laughable. But it effectively corners the BBC in a very sensitive political way. I'm quoted in Telegraph

There's a troubling asymetry popping up whenever the President posts something horrific in response to a tragedy. He obvoiusly feels his license to do this is granted by the knowledge that others wouldn't. Sensitivity, education, & good manners restrain others. I'm not sure how you counter that?

"For a country built on risk takers and rugged individualism, we sure do have a lot of people staying in jobs for their health insurance." Good, thoughtful post on why Americans aren't moving as much as they used to by Ben Sprague. www.thesundaymorningpost.com/p/americans-...

What Did the Earliest Radio Ratings Reveal?: "The basic framework of contemporary algorithmic targetting existed almost 100 years ago." It all started with network radio demographics in the early 1930s. Latest in the Lint Trap linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/what-did-t...

The mind, like the soul, is both intriguing and largely inscrutable. That's what makes the idea of achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) so tantalizing. It's also what helped Oliver Sacks pass off some fictional fabrications as stunning neurological insights.

Today @time.com named the "Architects of AI" as 2025's "Person of the Year." Just hours later, it announced its new Global AI Literacy partnership with OpenAI. Yes: Time's Man of the Year award is now sponcon. I knew it was a ghost brand, but this seems a new low. time.com/7340010/time...

It's remarkable - and I'd argue it should be much bigger news - that the Fed Chair is now publicly claiming the administration is lying about employment data. Has this ever occurred before? Reality is real - Ask anybody looking for a new job. www.wsj.com/economy/jobs...

What a cool undergrad @umaine.bsky.social History course! Hey @volumecontrol10.bsky.social - let me enroll. Will Sam let me lecture on Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" as the Great American Novel (gone horribly wrong)? Or Guns 'n' Roses' geopolitical critique embedded in "Chinese Democracy"?

In today's Lint Trap, I revisit the Scopes Trial (via University of Tennessee Library's digital exhibit) and notice that we've gone backwards. "Inherit the Wind" tried to teach the limits of faith in an age of reason, but now the CDC is run by loonies. linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/some-debat...

I'm looking forward to Michael's next book: "The elevator pitch for the book was the following question: Why did the U.S.A. have only two national networks at the dawn of network broadcasting? Why not 5? Why not 7? Why not 20?"

All the reach in the world: What does owning America’s most valuable media properties actually get you? Michael Socolow on the challenges and limits of billionaire influence. www.thesgnl.com/2025/12/bil... @michaelsocolow.bsky.social

“It’s important for Platner to remember that (X) isn’t real life,” Socolow said. “I think Facebook is the most important platform in Maine politics, and that’s entirely due to the demographics, which... skew older.” www.pressherald.com/2025/12/09/s...

A first for me: I googled a number I needed to call. The AI returned the specific office's number. I dialed it. That number was wrong. It was the correct organization, but the phone number for the IT desk, not the specific office I searched for. AI's worse than classic search.

If you think misinformation and "fake news" only began in the internet age, you didn't tune in to CBS or NBC or Mutual on December 7, 1941, and hear the military experts tell you the Nazis bombed Pearl Harbor. www.cjr.org/the_feature/...

How the 1920s "radio boom" might provide an historical precedent for today's AI bubble. After radio stocks collapsed in mid-1920s, there was a big shake-out, leaving just the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) in 1926. Latest in The Lint Trap. linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/is-consoli...

With FIFA World Cup draw today in D.C., there's much discussion of Presidents + Sports. Please note: The greatest athlete in the Oval Office, was unquestionably, Gerald Ford. Captain of University of Michigan Football team, drafted by NFL (chose Yale Law instead).

Note: Netflix isn't buying CNN. It made a (so-far) successful bid for Warner Brothers assets. CNN is part of Discovery Global, to be spun off + sold separately in 2026. The headlines are confusing. It's explained here in @brianstelter.bsky.social CNN report on the deal www.cnn.com/2025/12/05/m...

These new AI citations are wild. I recently caught a citation to an article of mine in a peer-reviewed STEM article that was interesting because the text/verbiage before the citation in no way related to my cited article. But the citation was "accurate" in the references. AI was obviously employed.

Sponsor: “How did you vote in the last election? And how are you going to vote in the next election?” Broadcast journalist, recalling later: "I refused to answer that... of course that ended any prospects of mine getting the program." linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/the-one-wh...

Much comment today on disability services in academia. Yet I've seen almost nothing written about the new Department of Education Title II requirements for public universities. They require the following compliance for all course materials no later than April 26, 2026.

The +40 "Giving Tuesday" new emails in my Inbox basically cancel each other out.

"We are on the threshold of everyday international telecommunications...[yet]...we have not learned to keep up with technology and do not seem to be able to put ourselves ahead of the machines." A CBS News producer's 1967 letter, in The Lint Trap linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/we-do-not-...

"Surveillance software (which always existed) and AI (which is new) are now taking the fun out of bargain hunting by making my searches more 'efficient' and supposedly more closely tailored to what I want, and what I’m willing to pay." linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/the-end-of...

On Nov. 25, 1783, the British evacuated New York City. Gov. Clinton hosted a dinner at Fraunces Tavern for Gen. Washington & his staff. They drank 13 toasts to commemorate the occasion. The 11th toast: "May America be an Asylum to the persecuted of the Earth." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuat...

For the "entirely predictable yet still ironic" file: A "Research Integrity" conference call for papers focusing on "the risks and benefits of artificial intelligence for research integrity" is flooded with "off-topic abstracts" likely composed by generative AI. retractionwatch.com/2025/11/18/r...

A 59-year-old African man named Adolf Hitler is predicted to win re-election in Namibia. "The politician said his father likely didn't understand who Hitler was when he named him after the infamous German dictator." www.jpost.com/omg/article-...

That BlueSky (4%) and Truth Social (3%) are used by about the same perentage of Americans is a depressing fact in the new @pewresearch.org report. Will BlueSky's userbase reflect on why it failed to attract new users (like Reddit has) recently? Probably not. www.pewresearch.org/internet/202...

CBS News "Sunday Morning" visits the Villager Cafe - the coffee shop/restaurant that's subsidizing a local Maine newspaper. A replicable model for other areas in USA? I'm not sure. But it's a model that's almost 400 years old - newspapers began in coffee shops. www.cbsnews.com/news/village...

Where can you read Dominick Dunne's notes on the OJ Simpson trial, and an 1851 letter of consent for two enslaved people to marry? I wrote about the The Briscoe Center's digitized U.S. history treasures in The Lint Trap. linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/the-brisco...

Anybody professing surprise at Trump's behavior with Mamdani doesn't understand Trump. Nothing Trump said yesterday, nor anything he'll say tomorrow, carries any meaning for him. He exists entirely in the present (as I explained in @bostonglobe.com in 2016). web.archive.org/web/20160409...

Yet another rock musician from my youth is gone - RIP Mani, the bassist of the Stone Roses. "Second Coming" was an astonishing, indulgent, messy, over-the-top piece of brilliant musical artistry that landed perfectly in 1994. Then the band broke up. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct-q...