Ryan Thomas
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ryanjthomas.bsky.social
Ryan Thomas
@ryanjthomas.bsky.social

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Welsh | Assoc. Prof. & Director of Graduate Studies, Murrow College of Communication @ Washington State University | Journalism studies, ethics, sociology of news etc | Would like to be on a beach, but probably on a committee .. more

Communication & Media Studies 59%
Political science 12%
!! Here’s a link to full video of the 60 Minutes segment that Bari Weiss killed last minute, via @jasonparis.bsky.social:

is.gd/paU8Ko

(It was uploaded to the Global TV app in Canada, seemingly by accident, and has now been taken down)
really cannot be emphasized enough that bari weiss has literally never done journalism. i don’t mean that in the pejorative sense. i mean that in the “has never performed the job she was hired to do” sense
One explanation for Bari killing the story is that she did so as a public act of fealty to the administration. But another is that, as an inexperienced journalist, she doesn’t understand that a refusal to go on the record is a kind of comment in and of itself
NEW: Bari Weiss addresses her decision to hold last night's CECOT story on the CBS News morning editorial call: "Our viewers come first, not a listing schedule or anything else..."
the thing about commentators who self-brand as fearless truth-tellers is that their ideals of "free debate" always take the dullest, most predictable tacks possible www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/bus...

This man has never encountered a tech corp whose priorities he didn’t think journalism should immediately internalize
@jeffjarvis.bsky.social: “Journalists must address their civic, professional, even moral obligation to provide news, reporting, and information via AI.” www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/apis...
if tumblr dies I need this video to make it's seasonal rotation here instead just in case, Happy holidays 🎄

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20 years ago tonight, Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell enjoyed a Lazy Sunday:
Lazy Sunday - SNL Digital Short
YouTube video by Saturday Night Live
www.youtube.com

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@pullman.wsu.edu got hit this morning by a severe wind storm. Facilities Services crews have been working hard to clean up campus! 📸: Dean Hare, #WSU Photo Services 🐾 #GoCougs

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@jeffjarvis.bsky.social: “Journalists must address their civic, professional, even moral obligation to provide news, reporting, and information via AI.” www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/apis...

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This is absolutely fucking deranged
What if we razed every Data Center to the ground and salted the earth where they stood
Imagine if they just subsidized newspapers and magazines the way they’re subsidizing this slop
"All of this falls apart if humans don't adopt the tech. This is why you've seen Meta cram its lame chatbots into WhatsApp and Instagram. This is why Notepad and Paint now have useless Copilot buttons on Windows. This is why Google Gemini wants to "help you" read and reply to your emails."
Analysis: OpenAI is a loss-making machine, how can it survive?
Don't call it a bubble! Loss-making monster OpenAI is on the hook for $1.4 trillion (with a T) in compute commitments. How can this go on?
www.windowscentral.com

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Taylor Lorenz said WHAT about 9/11???

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The gerontocracy has consequences, episode one million and three.

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Final passage by one vote, though likely the present and 2 NV were all available to them if they had been needed. It's with the Senate now
This is bleak reading

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the democratic party got a single gen z representative with david hogg and he started actually representing the resentment young generations have to old and weak democratic leadership and canned him. pathetic. this party will genuinely never change and keep losing to republicans. bleak

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If Chotiner asks for an interview remember the two rules:

- Ask if you are being detained. If not, leave.
- Say you want to speak to your lawyer and nothing else.

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Congratulations to Dr. Ryan Thomas, Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies at the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication, on his recent publication in Poynter! @ryanjthomas.bsky.social

Read it here: www.poynter.org/ethics-trust...

An incredible achievement by my brilliant colleague!

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📢 Exciting news! Jennifer Henrichsen is WSU's first Andrew Carnegie Fellow! 🎉

She'll receive $200,000 to study how journalists can reduce political polarization and boost civic engagement.

Read more: murrow.wsu.edu/news/2025/04...

#MurrowCollege #CarnegieFellows
Murrow professor named WSU’s first Carnegie Fellow
Jennifer Henrichsen is among 26 fellows receiving $200,000 to support research that enhances understanding of political polarization in the United States.
murrow.wsu.edu

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Today is the big day - #CougsGive is finally here! 🎉 Can't wait to see the new heights the #WSU community will reach today. Visit cougsgive.wsu.edu to make your donations, and remember, no matter how big or small, your contribution makes a difference! ❤️
#CougsGive - April 16, 2025
Washington State University celebrates its 10th annual #CougsGive day of giving on April 16, 2025.
cougsgive.wsu.edu

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Congrats to our own Jennifer Henrichsen, a member of @carnegiecorp.bsky.social's 2025 class of #CarnegieFellows! This esteemed group of scholars is researching the causes of political polarization & seeking ways to strengthen social cohesion & fortify our democracy. www.carnegie.org/news/article...
Carnegie Corporation of New York Awards Fellowships to 26 Scholars Researching Political Polarization | Carnegie Corporation of New York
The philanthropic foundation’s three-year, $18 million initiative supports interdisciplinary research into the causes of polarization and ways to mitigate it
www.carnegie.org
💡 Need some inspiration? Check out some of our most-downloaded articles in #DigitalJournalism over the past 12 months.

🔗 Check out the full top-10 list here: linktr.ee/digitaljourn...

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I think of this as 'everything is comms' disease. This interview looked awful because the policy is, in fact, awful. You can't do an interview about it and come across well unless your interlocutor is under-prepared!

The way this commonly shakes out is you see a sentence that describes a finding unique to a particular study followed by (Author) or (Citation withheld for blind review). And this is somehow de-identifying?!?!?!? Make it make sense

I don’t know what journal editors are out there telling authors to remove references to their own work by replacing the in-text citation with (Author) but they need to be launched into the sun, it’s bad practice and makes the author more likely to be identified

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at this point amy schumer would be a better minority leader

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The hypocrisy is so glaringly obvious and yet it's still worth calling it out:
Elon Musk’s business empire is built on $38 billion in government funding
Government infusions at key moments helped Tesla and SpaceX flourish, boosting Musk’s wealth.
www.washingtonpost.com