Thank you @alexsammon.bsky.social, @slate.com's features writer, for joining the podcast to discuss longform gonzo reporting, recruiter scams, and neighborhood controversies. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/r...

On the brutal, unrelenting decline of a signature business: "Who Killed the Florida Orange?" @alexsammon.bsky.social @slate.com (Plus- National Raisin Day) Contemplate the consequences of climate change and contagion: roughlydaily.com/2026/04/30/d...

A very nice Sunday read from @slate.com's @alexsammon.bsky.social, who traveled up and down "the Ridge" to report on the near death of Florida's iconic citrus industry. Alex, by the way, is a former @motherjones.com fellow. (via @climatedesk.org)

This article is exhaustive and fascinating. It ties together the FL citrus biz and its many challenges with regional history and a healthy splash of anecdotal narrative. Stories like this are why writers want to be writers.

Also, it should be said: @alexsammon.bsky.social is on an incredible heater of late.

Blown away by this (devastating) piece. Come for a careful investigation on the collapse of the Florida orange, stay for details like a data center being built on the site of old groves "on the corner of Orange Avenue and Minute Maid Road."

A microcosm of America in 2026: “Who killed the Florida orange?” Masterful journalism & a must read by @alexsammon.bsky.social “…private equity, Wall Street, the Great Recession, suburban sprawl, climate change, an addiction to Monsanto's glyphosate. All swallowed the mighty Florida Orange alive.”

For Earth Day: The might Florida Orange industry has collapsed 95 percent in 20 years. 100 percent of the trees are infected with a disease deemed incurable. Was it Chinese pestilence that killed the FL orange? Or real estate, wall street, globalization, and pesticides... slate.com/business/202...

damn slate.com/business/202...

The Florida orange crop has collapsed 95 percent in 20 years, headed for a century-low 12 million boxes. 100 percent of the trees are infected with a disease transmitted by an invasive Chinese bug, and deemed "incurable." Who killed the Florida Orange? slate.com/business/202...

This is amazing.

This is some read.

The article keeps hinting at a big secret from Gil’s past that points to a sinister motivation, but he just seems like a genuinely idealistic guy, who’s only (admittedly major) mistake was thinking he could do this all by himself.

This story is a wild ride and I recommend taking it. For what it’s worth, the reaction that tells me the most about whose side I’m on is Janet’s (late in the piece, when it’s all over). But there’s a lot to experience here that doesn’t boil down to whose side you pick, whoever it is.

"For a long time, the housed neighbors had felt like the city had abandoned homeless people. Now they felt like the city was abandoning them." @alexsammon.bsky.social for @slate.com #longreads slate.com/business/202...

My goodness, this piece is messy, complex, bleak, deeply human. Absolutely Incredible piece of journalism from @alexsammon.bsky.social

In 2022, Gil Kerley opened a used bookstore in Albuquerque. His neighbors were elated—gentrification! Higher property values! Then they watched in dismay as he moved a steadily growing homeless camp into the parking lot. Was it all a revenge plot? slate.com/business/202...

[email protected] profiled a day laborer at a Los Angeles Home Depot. a tragic story, expertly told: slate.com/business/202...

slate.com/business/202... @slate.com Story by @alexsammon.bsky.social

Great @alexsammon.bsky.social article, and also, I wasn't imagining it after all slate.com/business/202...

(Story by the great @alexsammon.bsky.social) slate.com/life/2025/09...

I'd be curious how US trends compare to global/ROW trends. Is this really an American only phenomena? @alexsammon.bsky.social @slate.com

participated in my first People Magazine exclusive, in which I am "man." people.com/what-happene...

Today in “One-liners That Absolutely Destroyed Me”: “Someone should invent a currency that’s just the amount that it is.” - @alexsammon.bsky.social

This shameful episode👇 set the stage for what Trump is doing today. Cynical Democrats and pundits claimed that D.C. couldn't be trusted to write our own criminal laws, legitimizing Republicans' insistence that we don't deserve home rule. A straight line from there to here. slate.com/news-and-pol...

Congratulations to @alexsammon.bsky.social! He won this week's audience award for "My Scammer" at @slate.com slate.com/technology/2...

widespread adoption of crypto + proliferation of AI + softening of the labor market + enforcement “replaced by crypto industry toadies” = “It is a great time to be a scammer.”

This is incredible.

'This whole march of human cultural production—incalculable progress—and the one constant that has survived and adapted and thrived? The scam. ... In the end, I arrived at a simple truth. Over the course of two months, “Cathy” had run me for $96.'

Crypto is the scam enabler. It's where crooks hide money. It also does important cultural work by lubricating transactions with a magical get-rich-quick aura. It says you don't fully understand what's happening with your "earnings" because the rules are different in the cryptosphere. Duh.

Scam job offers requiring you to initially pay fees in crypto, "pay" you in crypto that you can't withdraw or access so you get nothing in the end, and use your labor to generate bogus click traffic and "clicks ... captured to beat captchas or overcome security measures that target bots."

You know those spam text messages you get, saying it's a recruiter with a job for you? what ... how does the scam work? @alexsammon.bsky.social took one of the jobs, and the story is *fascinating* Go check it out: slate.com/technology/2...

i got one of those low effort spam texts from "Indeed," offering a low effort, well-paid remote job. I spent the last two months working in a Filipino clickfarm, for a very disappointed woman named Cathy. slate.com/technology/2...

In just over two years, 155,000 migrants passed through the aging Roosevelt Hotel. Eric Adams conspired to kick them out; Dr. Phil choreographed an aborted ICE raid of the facility, conservative media claimed it was Tren de Aragua HQ.

"The front end, which was also a trunk, came up right to my rib cage, a contact point that would have chagrined any high school football coach as bad tackling form: too high."

This by @alexsammon.bsky.social is a very good and funny piece on that tank: slate.com/business/202...

great piece

I wrote about the return of the war on terror, and its favorite mascot, recently rebooted just in time for us to lose another great conflict, our war with climate change. slate.com/business/202...

Disappearance has become a feature of the Trump’s ICE raids, a process that often finds people in a prison network in central Louisiana. I got a behind-the-curtain look at the operations of American Siberia—the newfangled ICE detention towns where people are sent to disappear. 1/

Hey *YOU*, Bluesky user! Would it shock you to know that the big money, corporate-backed centrist organs have decided that YOU are the greatest threat to the Democratic Party, and the reason it loses elections? They convened a gathering to make sure of it. slate.com/news-and-pol...

Read @alexsammon.bsky.social on a visit to Mahmoud Khalil, America's most famous political prisoner slate.com/news-and-pol...

My colleague @alexsammon.bsky.social from inside Louisiana's immigrant detention: slate.com/news-and-pol...

exclusive reporting by @alexsammon.bsky.social in @slate.com on what life is like for Mahmoud Khalil inside the remote ICE detention center he's being held, including the moment he saw his newborn son for the first time (via pictures that a friend snuck into the center) slate.com/news-and-pol...

How Mahmoud Khalil first saw photos of his son. by @alexsammon.bsky.social slate.com/news-and-pol...

Terrific feature by my first hire at the Prospect way back when, @alexsammon.bsky.social, who went down to Jena, Louisiana, home of a notorious ICE detention center, to see Mahmoud Khalil get a first glimpse at pictures of his child. slate.com/news-and-pol...

Gut-wrenching reporting from @alexsammon.bsky.social inside the ICE facility where Mahmoud Khalil is locked up, on the day Khalil was first allowed a glimpse of a photo of his newborn child: slate.com/news-and-pol...

Heartbreaking piece by @alexsammon.bsky.social from inside the ICE facility where Mahmoud Khalil remains illegally imprisoned for his free speech—on the day when Khalil first saw a photo his newborn son. slate.com/news-and-pol...

Really grateful for (and devastated by) @alexsammon.bsky.social's latest: a report from the remote ICE facility in Louisiana where Mahmoud Khalil is being held (among many others), detailing the first moments Khalil was able to "see" his son. slate.com/news-and-pol...

Amazing reporting and a great, maddening story.