Ryan Pitts
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ryanpitts.bsky.social
Ryan Pitts
@ryanpitts.bsky.social
880 followers 550 following 240 posts
Journalist, coder, community developer. Managing director, Big Local News at Stanford.

“I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
… who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.”
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ryanpitts.bsky.social
love you Chicago
A table with whistles and Spanish-language zines being made with information about what to do when you see ICE officers raiding a neighborhood
October 26, 2025 at 7:12 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
Prisonculture post that says “Knowing who to be mad at truly is praxis.”
October 11, 2025 at 5:27 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
Chicago ❤️💪
A receipt showing a $25 donation to Injustice Watch
October 5, 2025 at 7:58 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
Geddy Lee sings Xaaaaanaaaaaduuuuuu
August 12, 2025 at 4:51 AM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
The great thing about Iceland, though, is that if you feel like that hike isn’t the right one, you’ll drive past 800 other waterfalls, too. This one very near Nauthusagil was very accessible, and you can walk back behind it if you want.
A line of people waits to hike behind a large waterfall in the south of Iceland
August 9, 2025 at 3:15 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
There is a secret ~30- to 40-foot waterfall if you go all the way along the stream, but that part does take a very precarious crossing and using some chains attached to the far wall before you climb up and over the first waterfall. My son and I and his fiancée made it.
One hiker reaches out to help another hiker climb up the side of a small waterfall.
August 9, 2025 at 3:08 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
Now that I’m looking back at photos, it may depend on what type of mobility issues. The path to the canyon is easy, but there are sections along the stream where you need to step carefully, often on the rocks sticking up out of the water.
The well-manicured path to Nauthusagil Hikers pick their way around a rock at the edge of a stream Hikers cross part of a stream, walking on rocks sticking up out of the water, to reach a small wooden bridge
August 9, 2025 at 2:52 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
You are just 2 hours from one of my favorite places in the world maps.app.goo.gl/1fhM7gdegMtF...
Sunlight peeks through the top of a very narrow canyon and falls on a small waterfall and stream at Nauthusagil in Iceland
August 9, 2025 at 2:06 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
proud to be a board member for @rangemedia.co because (among so many other reasons) I know they'll never ever publish something that looks like this

Support local news, everyone.
a New York Times roundtable article that asks "Is There a Smart Way to Cede Power to Donald Trump?"
August 5, 2025 at 8:59 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
😔
There were 150 slots, but the pre-order is already closed
June 25, 2025 at 3:32 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
Never forget
In 2010, Rees worked as a civil servant for the United States Census Bureau, a position that revitalized his interest in pencils.
June 19, 2025 at 4:04 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
When the target is a building where civilians live
An entry in a Signal thread where JD Vance says “I will say a prayer for victory.”
March 26, 2025 at 5:49 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
@pelicansong.bsky.social happy to say you’re no longer my favorite band I’ve never seen live. Only took 20 years for the calendar to finally work out.

You all kicked ass at The Fillmore last night, and the new stuff sounds amazing! Love it when my head still feels like this in the morning.
Guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec headbangs faster than my camera can keep up during the Pelican show at The Fillmore in San Francisco on March 12, 2025.
March 13, 2025 at 4:58 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
when AI hype folks talk about productivity
A chart from the Economic Policy Institute showing that, starting in the late 1970s, increases in worker pay have not come close to keeping up with increases in worker productivity. (Productivity has grown about four times as fast as income.)
March 7, 2025 at 3:18 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
in the years since they have discovered stomp
An image from a Wikihow article about removing scorpions, showing a person stomping on a scorpion and then putting a bag (presumably with the scorpion inside) into the trash. The caption says “Kill the scorpions you find.”
March 5, 2025 at 4:19 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
Made a little tool handle
My hand holding a tool handle made of cherry wood, which was turned on the lathe and then sanded and finished.
February 23, 2025 at 11:42 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
A screenshot of part of the Pitchfork review for Anthony Joseph’s album, including the text: “‘The rich are only defeated when running for their lives’ is a line taken from the Trinadian theorist C.L.R. James’ The Black Jacobins, a book that analyzed the Haitian Revolution. It’s the type of statement that one can read either as a provocation or a prompt to envision a future that is very different from the one we inhabit.”
February 23, 2025 at 8:20 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
Yay for lumpy little vases that feel weirdly right in your hand!
A lumpy little vase with a natural finish that really does feel weirdly right in your hands.
February 20, 2025 at 7:51 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
Did some hand-building with clay, which I was really intimidated by, and recently got back a few things I never expected to see again after a traditional wood firing. This one from a VERY naive attempt at deforming a cylinder. I love how it feels and how the fire gives it a finish you can’t predict.
February 20, 2025 at 7:44 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
“America Needs a Working-Class Media.” God yes, amen to this piece by @alissaquart.bsky.social. The Economic Hardship Reporting Project gets stories about inequality into places that wouldn’t cover it well (if at all) on their own. It’s such important work.

www.cjr.org/analysis/ame...
A screenshot from the article, which calls for journalism with “source networks built around people with direct experience instead of outside analysts. Centering inflation coverage around wage stagnation rather than the stock market and written for people who live paycheck to paycheck. Healthcare reporting would be conducted by those who have experienced medical debt. Labor reporting that represents workers not as mute sufferers but as true experts. Housing that is considered from the perspective of the renter, not the landlord or developer.”
February 19, 2025 at 4:07 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
Places like the Cato Institute are writing blueprints for killing federal data on race and ethnicity. They identify data collection as a "weak point" they can use to destroy equity policies.

This writer testifies to Congress and gets published by mainstream news orgs. www.cato.org/blog/how-tru...
Article text: "Yet what is issued by executive order can be undone by executive order, and a future administration could reestablish many of these programs with the stroke of a pen. The costs of doing so will be high—to say nothing of the political opposition—but a future president could do it. However, there is a weak point in federal race-or-ethnicity-based policies that is so far largely unscathed by the Trump administration’s actions: data collection and classification." Article text: "Second, the OMB should issue a revised SPD-15 that forbids collecting data by race or ethnicity unless explicitly required by statute. All such collection must end no later than 180 days after the revised SPD-15 is issued, and each agency should advise OMB within 45 days of any race or ethnicity data that it is required by statute to collect. This would also result in the Census Bureau immediately starting the process of removing race from the 2030 Decennial Census. They should begin that as soon as possible because the Census Bureau must advise Congress three years in advance of any change planned in the Decennial Census, which would be by April 1, 2027."
February 5, 2025 at 7:00 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
Stenography journalism is activism in favor of the powerful.
A screenshot of CNN with a chyron that says President Trump blames DEI for the DC plane crash
January 30, 2025 at 6:40 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
Proud to be a supporter, and even small gifts really do make a difference.
A post from TJA: “Y'all just covered 25 hours for our admin assistant for next month. O That frees up time for our team to focus on coverage guidance and programs to support trans journalists.”
January 30, 2025 at 5:24 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
Dealing with this news in my own way
A man sniffs a sharpie
January 24, 2025 at 4:00 PM
ryanpitts.bsky.social
@erikahall.bsky.social pretty majestic chicken overlooking Los Gallos in Redwood City
A gigantic painting of a regal-looking chicken on the wall at Los Gallos restaurant in Redwood City, CA
January 15, 2025 at 4:35 AM