JE Smyth
@jesmyth.co.uk
Writer, critic, historian |📕Mary C. McCall Jr.|📘Nobody’s Girl Friday | ed.📗I Lost My Girlish Laughter | 📚Fred Zinnemann | Mum to Z & Z, 7 🐕, + Mortimer🐰 | Ban AI
Pinned
JE Smyth
@jesmyth.co.uk
· Oct 2
Graham Greene and Paul Scofield with Phyllis Calvert, 1959.
‘Perhaps when you’re my age you’ll know the heart is an untrustworthy beast. The mind too, but it doesn’t talk about love.’
‘Perhaps when you’re my age you’ll know the heart is an untrustworthy beast. The mind too, but it doesn’t talk about love.’
Reposted by JE Smyth
Please sign and share this petition to help save US-focused teaching and research at Nottingham University: www.change.org/p/save-ameri...
Sign the Petition
SAVE AMERICAN STUDIES TEACHING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM
www.change.org
November 17, 2025 at 1:25 PM
Please sign and share this petition to help save US-focused teaching and research at Nottingham University: www.change.org/p/save-ameri...
Reposted by JE Smyth
“Freelance journalism in 2025 is an incredibly difficult place to build a career. But, it turns out, it’s a decent enough arena for a scam”
holy crap... @nickhunebrown.bsky.social with some great, important work
Investigating a Possible Scammer in Journalism’s AI Era | The Local
A suspicious pitch from a freelancer led editor Nicholas Hune-Brown to dig into their past work. By the end, four publications, including The Guardian and Dwell, had removed articles from their sites.
thelocal.to
November 19, 2025 at 7:18 PM
“Freelance journalism in 2025 is an incredibly difficult place to build a career. But, it turns out, it’s a decent enough arena for a scam”
Reposted by JE Smyth
'After the Covid shutdown, the number of BBC archivists was reduced to a skeleton crew. Expert staff who took early retirement were not replaced.'
J. E. Smyth: The BBC is restricting access to its archives
J. E. Smyth: The BBC is restricting access to its archives
Who controls the past
www.the-tls.com
November 14, 2025 at 10:48 AM
'After the Covid shutdown, the number of BBC archivists was reduced to a skeleton crew. Expert staff who took early retirement were not replaced.'
J. E. Smyth: The BBC is restricting access to its archives
J. E. Smyth: The BBC is restricting access to its archives
Reposted by JE Smyth
You'll miss the BBC when it's gone...
November 12, 2025 at 5:53 PM
You'll miss the BBC when it's gone...
Reposted by JE Smyth
Watching Labour MPs take a wrecking ball to nature makes me so angry & so sad. Their action tonight voting down amendments to the #PlanningBill intended to protect wildlife & habitats from destruction is so reckless & so counterproductive. People didn’t vote Labour for this 👇
Housing secretary tells Labour MPs to vote down planning bill amendment
Amendment restricts protection for animals to allow faster house building
www.theguardian.com
November 13, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Watching Labour MPs take a wrecking ball to nature makes me so angry & so sad. Their action tonight voting down amendments to the #PlanningBill intended to protect wildlife & habitats from destruction is so reckless & so counterproductive. People didn’t vote Labour for this 👇
Reposted by JE Smyth
A welcome intervention by J.E. Smyth in the latest @thetls.bsky.social "The BBC is restricting access to its archives." www.the-tls.com/politics-soc...
Who controls the past
The most accessible archives are usually those managed by universities and public libraries. Corporations are arguably less welcoming: mindful of brand reputation and profitability, they have been kno...
www.the-tls.com
November 13, 2025 at 5:42 PM
A welcome intervention by J.E. Smyth in the latest @thetls.bsky.social "The BBC is restricting access to its archives." www.the-tls.com/politics-soc...
November 10, 2025 at 9:46 AM
Reposted by JE Smyth
Congratulations to Maggie Hennefeld, author of DEATH BY LAUGHTER, and J. E. Smyth, author of MARY C. MCCALL JR, whose books are finalists for the Wall Award! tinyurl.com/2cx75s5f @hennefem.bsky.social @jesmyth.co.uk @columbiaup.bsky.social
October 16, 2025 at 12:17 AM
Congratulations to Maggie Hennefeld, author of DEATH BY LAUGHTER, and J. E. Smyth, author of MARY C. MCCALL JR, whose books are finalists for the Wall Award! tinyurl.com/2cx75s5f @hennefem.bsky.social @jesmyth.co.uk @columbiaup.bsky.social
Take a look, Sir Gary Oldman: Here’s an example of an actor who didn’t bend the knee to a sleazy establishment honour system.
October 3, 2025 at 10:59 AM
Take a look, Sir Gary Oldman: Here’s an example of an actor who didn’t bend the knee to a sleazy establishment honour system.
Graham Greene and Paul Scofield with Phyllis Calvert, 1959.
‘Perhaps when you’re my age you’ll know the heart is an untrustworthy beast. The mind too, but it doesn’t talk about love.’
‘Perhaps when you’re my age you’ll know the heart is an untrustworthy beast. The mind too, but it doesn’t talk about love.’
October 2, 2025 at 10:13 PM
Graham Greene and Paul Scofield with Phyllis Calvert, 1959.
‘Perhaps when you’re my age you’ll know the heart is an untrustworthy beast. The mind too, but it doesn’t talk about love.’
‘Perhaps when you’re my age you’ll know the heart is an untrustworthy beast. The mind too, but it doesn’t talk about love.’
Reposted by JE Smyth
I realize many people don’t quite get that not every single professor in every single university teaches computer science and might actually be trained in and invested in teaching other things, like let’s say, history? Or poetry.
Or sociology.
It is not our job to teach students how to use AI.
Or sociology.
It is not our job to teach students how to use AI.
If you don’t teach your students how to use AI, you’re doing them a huge disservice because they won’t have jobs in the future.
September 28, 2025 at 11:25 AM
I realize many people don’t quite get that not every single professor in every single university teaches computer science and might actually be trained in and invested in teaching other things, like let’s say, history? Or poetry.
Or sociology.
It is not our job to teach students how to use AI.
Or sociology.
It is not our job to teach students how to use AI.
Reposted by JE Smyth
Mine too 🤣🤣🤣
September 28, 2025 at 7:55 PM
Mine too 🤣🤣🤣
Reposted by JE Smyth
The St. John Cathedral Oak, Lafayette, Louisiana
A Southern Live Oak of epic proportions
Photo: The St. John Cathedral
A Southern Live Oak of epic proportions
Photo: The St. John Cathedral
September 28, 2025 at 7:51 AM
The St. John Cathedral Oak, Lafayette, Louisiana
A Southern Live Oak of epic proportions
Photo: The St. John Cathedral
A Southern Live Oak of epic proportions
Photo: The St. John Cathedral
Reposted by JE Smyth
What do you do when your media org is captured? You start your own.
Introducing....The Nerve!!! @thenerve-news.bsky.social
We're all-female, journalist-owned & launching next week.
Please help us build a truly independent, progressive new media!👊👊👊
Introducing....The Nerve!!! @thenerve-news.bsky.social
We're all-female, journalist-owned & launching next week.
Please help us build a truly independent, progressive new media!👊👊👊
Former Observer big-hitters inc @carolecadwalla.bsky.social launch new title The Nerve with redundancy payouts
After Observer sale: "We decided to launch a title that the journalists themselves would own, that would be truly independent"
pressgazette.co.uk/news/former-...
After Observer sale: "We decided to launch a title that the journalists themselves would own, that would be truly independent"
pressgazette.co.uk/news/former-...
Former Observer big-hitters launch new title with redundancy payouts
Five former Observer journalists including Carole Cadwalladr have launched their own culture publication using their redundancy money.
pressgazette.co.uk
September 26, 2025 at 11:03 AM
What do you do when your media org is captured? You start your own.
Introducing....The Nerve!!! @thenerve-news.bsky.social
We're all-female, journalist-owned & launching next week.
Please help us build a truly independent, progressive new media!👊👊👊
Introducing....The Nerve!!! @thenerve-news.bsky.social
We're all-female, journalist-owned & launching next week.
Please help us build a truly independent, progressive new media!👊👊👊
Reposted by JE Smyth
This petition gained a million signatures yesterday. If we can keep up that growth it will terrify people at the Labour conference.
#PapersPlease
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/73...
#PapersPlease
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/73...
Petition: Do not introduce Digital ID cards
We demand that the UK Government immediately commits to not introducing a digital ID cards. There are reports that this is being looked at.
petition.parliament.uk
September 27, 2025 at 7:37 AM
This petition gained a million signatures yesterday. If we can keep up that growth it will terrify people at the Labour conference.
#PapersPlease
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/73...
#PapersPlease
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/73...
Reposted by JE Smyth
The thing regular people don’t often grasp about ‘academic freedom’ is that if you don’t allow experts to research & teach in their fields of expertise, guided by their professional judgment & decades of training, you have effectively given up on the concept of knowledge & shut down your university
Universities are moving rapidly to comply with laws that don't exist.
“I’m emotionally shellshocked right now,” said one professor in the Texas Tech system. “What does it say about academic freedom? It says we don’t have it.” The professor spoke by phone from the inside of a car to avoid being overheard by colleagues.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/u...
September 27, 2025 at 11:41 AM
The thing regular people don’t often grasp about ‘academic freedom’ is that if you don’t allow experts to research & teach in their fields of expertise, guided by their professional judgment & decades of training, you have effectively given up on the concept of knowledge & shut down your university
Reposted by JE Smyth
"All empty souls tend toward extreme opinions."
-- W.B. Yeats
-- W.B. Yeats
September 27, 2025 at 10:38 AM
"All empty souls tend toward extreme opinions."
-- W.B. Yeats
-- W.B. Yeats
Reposted by JE Smyth
Albert Finney by Cecil Beaton (1961).
September 25, 2025 at 12:23 PM
Albert Finney by Cecil Beaton (1961).
Reposted by JE Smyth
We celebrate the late Barbara Walters, who was #BOTD in 1929. The trailblazing TV journalist will be remembered for her firsts: first female co-host of TODAY & first female co-host of an evening news program. She paved the way & shaped the future for women broadcasters.
September 25, 2025 at 4:03 PM
We celebrate the late Barbara Walters, who was #BOTD in 1929. The trailblazing TV journalist will be remembered for her firsts: first female co-host of TODAY & first female co-host of an evening news program. She paved the way & shaped the future for women broadcasters.
Reposted by JE Smyth
Andrew Wyeth, Trodden Weed
September 24, 2025 at 5:04 PM
Andrew Wyeth, Trodden Weed
Reposted by JE Smyth
Just published: my new book "Forgotten Times" (Amberley Publishing). 180 photographs taken by me in the 1950s and 1960s on the streets of the UK, Ireland and the outer islands and depicting a world largely unknown to the present day. #up2509
September 25, 2025 at 8:32 AM
Just published: my new book "Forgotten Times" (Amberley Publishing). 180 photographs taken by me in the 1950s and 1960s on the streets of the UK, Ireland and the outer islands and depicting a world largely unknown to the present day. #up2509
Reposted by JE Smyth
More news on current administration's plans to dismantle radically alter our national forests.
The dismantling of the US Forest Service is imminent
The public has less than a week remaining to comment on the administration's plans.
www.motherjones.com
September 25, 2025 at 2:54 PM
More news on current administration's plans to dismantle radically alter our national forests.
Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon in Sicily, 1963. 💔
September 24, 2025 at 5:55 AM
Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon in Sicily, 1963. 💔
Reposted by JE Smyth
Just what a burning planet needs: 100,000 more flights on a new runway. Yet again, so very glad I left the Labour Party.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
Gatwick given green light for £2.2bn second runway plan
Heidi Alexander approves expansion to allow 100,000 more flights a year
www.theguardian.com
September 22, 2025 at 6:56 AM
Just what a burning planet needs: 100,000 more flights on a new runway. Yet again, so very glad I left the Labour Party.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...