USPTO announces new Artificial Intelligence Strategy to empower responsible implementation of innovation; United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), January 14, 2025

United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) ; USPTO announces new Artificial Intelligence Strategy to empower responsible implementation of innovation

"AI Strategy outlines how the USPTO will address AI's impact across IP policy, agency operations, and the broader innovation ecosystem  

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy to guide the agency’s efforts toward fulfilling the potential of AI within USPTO operations and across the intellectual property (IP) ecosystem. The Strategy offers a vision for how the USPTO can foster responsible and inclusive AI innovation, harness AI to support the agency’s mission, and advance a positive future for AI to ensure that the country maintains its leadership in innovation. 

“We have a responsibility to promote, empower, and protect innovation,” said Derrick Brent, Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Acting Director of the USPTO. “Developing a strategy to unleash the power of AI while mitigating risks provides a framework to advance innovation and intellectual property.”  

The strategy aims to achieve the USPTO’s AI vision and mission through five focus areas which include: 

1. Advance the development of IP policies that promote inclusive AI innovation and creativity. 
2. Build best-in-class AI capabilities by investing in computational infrastructure, data resources, and business-driven product development. 
3. Promote the responsible use of AI within the USPTO and across the broader innovation ecosystem.
4. Develop AI expertise within the USPTO’s workforce.
5. Collaborate with other U.S. government agencies, international partners, and the public on shared AI priorities.

The USPTO and our sister agencies within the Department of Commerce, as well as the U.S. Copyright Office, are providing critical guidance and recommendations to advance AI-driven innovation and creativity. In 2022, the USPTO created the AI and Emerging Technology (ET) Partnership, which has worked closely with the AI/ET community to gather public feedback through a series of sessions on topics related to AI and innovation, biotech, and intellectual property (IP) policy. Since its 2022 launch, more than 6,000 stakeholders have engaged with us on these critical issues. In addition, the USPTO collaborates across government to advance American leadership in AI by promoting innovation and competition as set forth in the Biden-Harris Administration’s landmark October 2023 AI Executive Order. 

The full text of the AI Strategy can be found on the AI Strategy webpage. Additionalinformation on AI, including USPTO guidance and more on USPTO’s AI/ET Partnership, can be found on our AI webpage. "

The ethical implications of President-elect Trump's call with Justice Alito; NPR, January 9, 2025

Michel Martin, NPR; The ethical implications of President-elect Trump's call with Justice Alito

"Alito and Trump spoke Tuesday, a day before the president-elect urged the Supreme Court to halt his Jan. 10 sentencing in the New York hush-money case, the justice said in a statement from the court. They did not discuss the case, however, Alito said.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: 

Donald Trump spoke with Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Tuesday, just hours before the president-elect asked the top court to block his sentencing over his New York hush money case. Alito said in a statement that the two of them did not discuss the case or any others involving Mr. Trump or potentially involving him. Gabe Roth joined me earlier to talk about this development, which was first reported by ABC News. Mr. Roth founded Fix the Court. His group advocates for ways to make the federal courts more open and accountable to the public. Good morning. Thanks for joining us.

GABE ROTH: Good morning.

MARTIN: So let me give a picture of the call, as we understand it. Justice Alito said in a statement that one of his former law clerks asked him to take a call from Mr. Trump regarding his qualifications to serve in a government position, in essence, to give him a job reference. What do you make of it?

ROTH: I mean, well, it's obviously an unmistakable breach of protocol. You have an individual and the president-elect, who is petitioning the Supreme Court related to his sentencing in the hush money case, a Supreme Court justice, who, frankly, should know better. This conversation should not have taken place. And someone like Will Levi, the man in question who's looking for a credential, he has plenty of other credentials. He worked for Mike Lee. He could have Mike Lee call. He could - he's worked - he's been a partner in the law. His dad's a former federal judge. His grandfather was the attorney general. So, you know, it doesn't make sense from his perspective, and it's just - this episode shows the justices don't really care about the ethics because they know that no one's going to stop them from doing whatever it is that they want to do.

MARTIN: Have any ethical rules or laws been broken here, to your knowledge?

ROTH: Laws - I don't see any laws having been broken, but, you know, there are certain protocols that if you are a Supreme Court justice, you really don't intermingle with the executive branch or the incoming executive branch. I mean, maybe you attend the State of the Union speech that happens every year, though Justice Alito famously stopped attending that. But generally, the two branches don't intermingle - and especially at a time when President Trump, we know, is going to have all these executive orders coming down the pike whose fate will be decided by the justices. This, to me, just seems like an opportunity for him to have an audience before one of the nine people determining his and his administration's fate in so many of these issues...

It's all self-enforcing and self-policing. So that is really, you know, sort of what the challenge is for people like me and other people who care about the ethics of our highest court is - how do you get the justices to act in a way that is sort of consistent with what most people would believe are their ethical responsibilities?"

Supreme Court Denies Trump’s Last-Ditch Effort to Avoid Sentencing; The New York Times, January 9, 2025

Ben ProtessKate Christobek and Adam Liptak , The New York Times; Supreme Court Denies Trump’s Last-Ditch Effort to Avoid Sentencing

"Four of the court’s conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh — noted dissents without providing reasons."

Biden eulogizes Carter with an emphasis on character; The Washington Post, January 9, 2025

Cleve R. Wootson Jr., The Washington Post; Biden eulogizes Carter with an emphasis on character

"“Character, I believe, is destiny. Destiny in our lives and, quite frankly, destiny in the life of our nation,” Biden said in remarks that began just before noon, using the word “character” nearly a dozen times in 10 minutes. “We have an obligation to give hate no safe harbor and to stand up to what my dad said is the greatest sin of all: the abuse of power.”

Carter had personally asked Biden to deliver his eulogy, but Biden’s words seemed aimed at least in part at the current moment and President-elect Donald Trump’s style of politics, which he has derided as focused on self-absorption and fueling division for political gain.

Biden said anyone seeking to lead a good life would be wise to model themselves on Carter, who he said was motivated by “faith, hope and love.” He hailed the former president as a man who spent his life serving everyone from his neighbors in his small hometown of Plains, Georgia, to residents of poor countries around the world."

Biden says Jimmy Carter’s ‘enduring attribute’ was character.; The New York Times, January 9, 2025

Michael D. Shear, The New York Times; Biden says Jimmy Carter’s ‘enduring attribute’ was character.

 "Mr. Biden spent little time recounting Mr. Carter’s accomplishments, as had already been done by other speakers at the funeral. Instead, he focused on “Jimmy Carter’s enduring attribute: character, character, character.”

He said that character was the reason he endorsed Mr. Carter’s presidential campaign in the 1970s, well before many other Democratic politicians. He said it was Mr. Carter’s character that allowed him to survive in a world of powerful pressures.

“It is the story of a man who never let the ties of politics divert him from his mission to serve and shape the world,” he said. “The man had character.”"

Alito Spoke With Trump Shortly Before Supreme Court Filing; The New York Times, January 8, 2025

Adam Liptak, The New York Times ; Alito Spoke With Trump Shortly Before Supreme Court Filing

"Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. spoke with President-elect Donald J. Trump on Tuesday, not long before Mr. Trump’s lawyers asked the Supreme Court to delay his sentencing following his conviction in New York in a case arising from hush money payments.

Justice Alito said the call was a routine job reference for a former law clerk whom Mr. Trump was considering for a government position.

It was not clear, however, why Mr. Trump would make a call to check references, a task generally left to lower-level aides.

Gabe Roth, the executive director of Fix the Court, an advocacy group that seeks more openness at the Supreme Court, said the call was deeply problematic given the ethics controversies swirling around the court in general and Justice Alito in particular."

Burned Out? Start Here.; The New York Times, January 7, 2025

Ezra Klein , The New York Times; Burned Out? Start Here.

"I like to begin the show each year with an episode about something I’m thinking through personally. Call it resolutions-adjacent podcasting. And what was present for me as we neared the end of last year was a pretty real case of burnout. I took some of December off, and I’m feeling more grounded now. But that was my frame of mind when I picked up Oliver Burkeman’s “Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts.”

The book connected for me. Burkeman’s big idea, which he described in “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals,” his 2021 best seller, is that no productivity system will ever deliver what it is promising: a sense of control, a feeling that you’ve mastered your task list in some enduring way, that you’ve built levees strong enough to withstand life’s chaos.

So Burkeman’s question is really the reverse: What if rather than starting from the presumption that it can all be brought under control, you began with the presumption that it can’t be? What if you began with a deeper appreciation of your own limits? How then would you live?

Do I think Burkeman — or anyone, really — has the answer to that question? No. But I do think he asks good questions, and he curates good insights. And questions are often more useful than answers."

Julian Lennon: ‘I’m not part of the Beatles inner circle – I never have been’; The Guardian, January 5, 2025

Hephzibah Anderson , The Guardian; Julian Lennon: ‘I’m not part of the Beatles inner circle – I never have been’;

"Any tips on staying optimistic in 2025?

God help us! Well, you’ve got to think, what would it be like if you didn’t do anything, if you weren’t positive? What if you don’t write that book, what if you don’t take those photographs telling the truth from the other side of the world, what if you don’t make those documentaries that give people options or understanding – what would happen if that was the case? There’s only one choice in my book. Stay the course, believe that things can be better."

“BadAss Grandmas” Pushed for an Ethics Commission. Then the North Dakota Legislature Limited Its Power.; North Dakota Monitor, ProPublica, January 6, 2025

Jacob Orledge, North Dakota Monitor, ProPublica ; “BadAss Grandmas” Pushed for an Ethics Commission. Then the North Dakota Legislature Limited Its Power.

"Fed-up North Dakotans, led by a group of women calling themselves the BadAss Grandmas, voted to amend the constitution and establish a state Ethics Commission six years ago. Their goal was to investigate and stop unethical conduct by public officials.

But the watchdog agency has achieved less than the advocates had hoped, undermined in large part by the legislature the commission is charged with overseeing, an investigation by the North Dakota Monitor and ProPublica has found."

The Internet Archive is in danger; WBUR, January 7, 2025

 

Claire Donnelly 

Meghna Chakrabarti, WBUR; 

The Internet Archive is in danger

"More than 900 billion webpages are preserved on The Wayback Machine, a history of humanity online. Now, copyright lawsuits could wipe it out.

Guests

Brewster Kahle, founder and director of the Internet Archive. Digital librarian and computer engineer.

James Grimmelmann, professor of digital and information law at Cornell Tech and Cornell Law School. Studies how laws regulating software affect freedom, wealth, and power."

New SUNY requirements to focus on civic skills and AI ethics; WHEC News10NBC, January 7, 2025

WHEC News10NBC; New SUNY requirements to focus on civic skills and AI ethics 

[Kip Currier: This is an intriguing development by the SUNY higher education system. It will be interesting to see how these efforts are assessed in future years (or even sooner, as I can imagine these general education requirements will likely catalyze spirited discussion about how to define -- and who gets to define -- "civic discourse", "healthy dialogues", and even "AI ethics").

Also, the end of the story notes that "AI assisted with the formatting of the story" and provides a link to learn more about how the news station uses AI. 

This is their policy, at present:

"News 10 NBC’S guidelines for using Artificial Intelligence

News10NBC uses artificial intelligence (A.I.) tools to help format some of our news stories from broadcast style to our digital print style. We do not use A.I. for research, content, reporting, or imaging. All news content that uses News10NBC’s A.I. resources is reviewed and approved in the News10NBC editorial process before publishing."

It's good practice, in terms of transparency and user awareness, that they do specify the current parameters of their use of AI.

A question to keep our eyes on:

• How might this policy potentially change as AI evolves? Or if/when economic circumstances change, which we know occurs. For example, if news organizations like this one decide to potentially downsize, at some point, and have to do more reporting with fewer human reporters and news staff.]

News story:

"The State University of New York (SUNY) system is set to introduce new general education requirements for its students.

These updates will add a civic discourse component to the core competencies of the general education curriculum. 

According to SUNY, this new requirement aims to ensure that “students gain the skills necessary to participate in civic life and engage in healthy dialogues in order to secure the future of our democracy.”

“SUNY is committed to academic excellence, which includes a robust general education curriculum,” said SUNY Chancellor King. “We are proud that every SUNY student will be expected to demonstrate the knowledge and skills that advance respectful and reasoned discourse, and that we will help our students recognize and ethically use AI as they consider various information sources.”

Additionally, students will be required to learn how to recognize and ethically use artificial intelligence. The new requirements are expected to start in fall 2026."

Opinion | Trump’s Nominees Falsely Say I’m Censoring Conservatives — So They Want to Censor Me; Politico, January 5, 2025

 STEVEN BRILL , Politico; Opinion | Trump’s Nominees Falsely Say I’m Censoring Conservatives — So They Want to Censor Me

"Last week, The Washington Post published an article detailing how NewsGuard, whose journalists rate the reliability of news sources, has become the target of incoming Trump administration regulators and far-right Republicans in Congress. They are accusing me and my NewsGuard colleagues of being part of some left-wing conspiracy — or “cartel” in the words of the incoming chairs of both the FCC and the FTC. Our cartel is supposedly aimed at censoring conservative websites and their associated social media and video platforms.

What we actually do is provide consumers and businesses with our journalists’ assessments of the professional standards of thousands of news websites, assigning them reliability scores based on apolitical, journalistic factors — like accuracy, transparent correction policies and honest headlines. Advertisers, for example, can use these reliability scores to make sure their computerized placements of online ads avoid running alongside Russian disinformation, health care hoaxes or other content that could embarrass their brands. Consumers who subscribe to our browser extension can also see those ratings when they pull up an article or scroll through a Facebook or X feed.

If you click the link to the Post article, you’ll see that the reporters compiled a chart of our 0-100 point ratings for a sample of 20 news sites. It plainly demonstrates that we give high and low ratings to liberal and conservative sites alike, because the nine criteria we use to tally the point score have nothing to do with politics. After all, is there a liberal or conservative way to have a transparent policy for admitting and correcting errors or having headlines that accurately reflect what’s delivered in the story?"

CSotD: Telnaes is only unemployed, not gone; The Daily Cartoonist, January 4, 2025

MIKE PETERSON, The Daily Cartoonist; CSotD: Telnaes is only unemployed, not gone

"We try to avoid duplication and stepping on each other’s toes around here, and by now you’ve likely seen DD Degg’s coverage of Ann Telnaes’ resignation from the Washington Post. And if you haven’t seen his coverage here, you’ve almost certainly seen some coverage because it is all over the Internet, with regret and praise coming from around the globe. As of seven this morning, her Substack announcement had 5,307 likes and had been shared 910 times...

Seeing these pieces on the importance of political cartooning and press freedom, it’s easy to recognize how inconsistent it would have been for her to accept the squelching of her voice by the Post’s current management.

Telnaes will no longer be on the pages of the Washington Post, but perhaps going out into the wider world will make her voice heard by a more diverse audience, particularly if the Post continues to cater to the new administration while hemorrhaging both talent and readership.

She’ll need support on her Substack, by which I mean subscriptions, not just applause, and if you haven’t been supporting small and local media outlets, this is an excellent place to start. 

The cartoon her editor refused to run, which was the final straw that induced her to walk away from a prestigious and well-paying job, offers the very reasonable suggestion that the billionaires who control major media are selling out to the administration, not just with obedience but in several cases with substantial financial contributions.

And here’s something else they’d just as soon not hear anyone say: It seems that major media may be working to gain influence with the wrong people, that they’re making friends with oligarchs but losing touch with their actual customers...

Samizdat is a term that defined underground writings — mimeographed or photocopied — that circulated in the Soviet Union as it began to totter and crash. In our country, in these times, we’re seeing the growth of Substacks and other small-scale publishing by people who, like Ann Telnaes, want to say what they think needs to be said, without being filtered and both-sidesed and required to be “fair and balanced” by management that is more interested in marketing than in journalism.

Supporting small publishers and individual writers matters. The big boys will get along with or without you, but the voices we need to hear need backing."

At the Intersection of A.I. and Spirituality; The New York Times, January 3, 2025

Eli Tan, The New York Times; At the Intersection of A.I. and Spirituality

"For centuries, new technologies have changed the ways people worship, from the radio in the 1920s to television sets in the 1950s and the internet in the 1990s. Some proponents of A.I. in religious spaces have gone back even further, comparing A.I.’s potential — and fears of it — to the invention of the printing press in the 15th century.

Religious leaders have used A.I. to translate their livestreamed sermons into different languages in real time, blasting them out to international audiences. Others have compared chatbots trained on tens of thousands of pages of Scripture to a fleet of newly trained seminary students, able to pull excerpts about certain topics nearly instantaneously.

But the ethical questions around using generative A.I. for religious tasks have become more complicated as the technology has improved, religious leaders say. While most agree that using A.I. for tasks like research or marketing is acceptable, other uses for the technology, like sermon writing, are seen by some as a step too far."

We're using AI for stupid and unnecessary reasons. What if we just stopped? | Opinion; Detroit Free Press, January 6, 2025

 Nancy Kaffer, Detroit Free Press; We're using AI for stupid and unnecessary reasons. What if we just stopped? | Opinion

"We're jumping feet first into unreliable, unproven tech with devastating environmental costs and a dense thicket of ethical problems.

It's a bad idea. And — because I enjoy shouting into the void — we really ought to stop."

Exclusive: New US ethics czar starts vetting incoming Trump officials; Reuters, January 5, 2025

Heather Timmons and Gabriella Borter , Reuters; Exclusive: New US ethics czar starts vetting incoming Trump officials

"The top U.S. ethics official charged with preventing government workers' conflicts of interest is about to take the hotseat in Washington, as President-elect Donald Trump's new Cabinet and other appointees declare their financial assets and prepare for their new jobs.

"We are in touch with the transition team and working with them," said David Huitema recently when he sat down with Reuters for his first official interview since being sworn in for the job on Dec. 16. The inauguration will be Jan. 20."

Judiciary won’t refer Clarence Thomas, Ketanji Brown Jackson to DOJ over ethics; The Hill, January 3, 2025

ZACH SCHONFELD , The Hill ; Judiciary won’t refer Clarence Thomas, Ketanji Brown Jackson to DOJ over ethics 

"The federal judiciary’s policymaking body will not refer allegations that Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Ketanji Brown Jackson violated federal ethics laws to the Justice Department.

In identical letters sent Thursday to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), who requested investigations into Thomas over ProPublica reports about free trips he accepted, the Judicial Conference raised questions about whether it even had the legal authority to make the referrals."

OpenAI holds off on promise to creators, fails to protect intellectual property; The American Bazaar, January 3, 2025

  Vishnu Kamal, The American Bazaar; OpenAI holds off on promise to creators, fails to protect intellectual property

"OpenAI may yet again be in hot water as it seems that the tech giant may be reneging on its earlier assurances. Reportedly, in May, OpenAI said it was developing a tool to let creators specify how they want their works to be included in—or excluded from—its AI training data. But seven months later, this feature has yet to see the light of day.

Called Media Manager, the tool would “identify copyrighted text, images, audio, and video,” OpenAI said at the time, to reflect creators’ preferences “across multiple sources.” It was intended to stave off some of the company’s fiercest critics, and potentially shield OpenAI from IP-related legal challenges...

OpenAI has faced various legal challenges related to its AI technologies and operations. One major issue involves the privacy and data usage of its language models, which are trained on large datasets that may include publicly available or copyrighted material. This raises concerns over privacy violations and intellectual property rights, especially regarding whether the data used for training was obtained with proper consent.

Additionally, there are questions about the ownership of content generated by OpenAI’s models. If an AI produces a work based on copyrighted data, it is tricky to determine who owns the rights—whether it’s OpenAI, the user who prompted the AI, or the creators of the original data.

Another concern is the liability for harmful content produced by AI. If an AI generates misleading or defamatory information, legal responsibility could fall on OpenAI."

US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a ‘clean slate’; The Guardian, January 4, 2025

Sam Levin, The Guardian; US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a ‘clean slate’

"Civil rights advocates across the US have long fought to free people from their criminal records, with campaigns to expunge old cases and keep people’s past arrests private when they apply for jobs and housing.

The efforts are critical, as more than 70 million Americans have prior convictions or arrests – roughly one in three adults. But the policies haven’t addressed one of the most damaging ways past run-ins with police can derail people’s lives: old media coverage.

Some newsrooms are working to fill that gap. 

A handful of local newspapers across the US have in recent years launched programs to review their archives and consider requests to remove names or delete old stories to protect the privacy of subjects involved in minor crimes.

“In the old days, you put a story in the newspaper and it quickly, if not immediately, receded into memory,” said Chris Quinn, editor of Cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer newspaper. “But because of our [search engine] power, anything we write now about somebody is always front and center.”

Quinn pioneered a “right-to-be-forgotten” experiment in 2018, motivated by the many inquiries he would receive from subjects describing the harms of past crime coverage and pleading for deletion. “People would say: ‘Your story is wrecking my life. I made a mistake, but … I’ve changed my life.’”

It was long considered taboo in media to retract or alter old stories, particularly when there are no concerns about accuracy. But Quinn said he felt an ethical obligation to rethink those norms. “I couldn’t take it any more … I just got tired of telling people no and standing on tradition instead of being thoughtful.”"

Washington Post cartoonist quits after paper rejects sketch of Bezos bowing to Trump; Associated Press (AP) via Washington Post, January 4, 2025

Todd Richmond | AP via Washington Post; Washington Post cartoonist quits after paper rejects sketch of Bezos bowing to Trump

[Kip Currier: Note that this story posted at 8:08 PM EST January 4, 2025 on the Washington Post website is written by an Associated Press (AP) reporter, not a Washington Post reporter. I have not yet located an article or OpEd piece written by a Washington Post staff person that addresses the Ann Telnaes editorial cartoon controversy, other than the Substack article by Ann Telnaes explaining her resignation.

• When and how will the Washington Post cover this story, and even more importantly, the implications for free presses, access to information, free expression, and democracy?
• Where are the Washington Post OpEd pieces about these issues by internal commentators like Eugene Robinson, Jennifer Rubin, Eric Wemple, etc.?
• Will there be no coverage by the newspaper itself that killed Ann Telnaes' draft cartoon?

The Washington Post's tagline "Democracy Dies in Darkness" is fast becoming an ironic commentary on its own ethical lapses in timely and fulsome reporting, transparency, accountability, and journalistic integrity.]

[Excerpt]

"A cartoonist has decided to quit her job at the Washington Post after an editor rejected her sketch of the newspaper’s owner and other media executives bowing before President-elect Donald Trump.

Ann Telnaes posted a message Friday on the online platform Substack saying that she drew a cartoon showing a group of media executives bowing before Trump while offering him bags of money, including Post owner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Telnaes wrote that the cartoon was intended to criticize “billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump.” Several executives, Bezos among them, have been spotted at Trump’s Florida club Mar-a-Lago. She accused them of having lucrative government contracts and working to eliminate regulations."

Washington Post cartoonist quits after cartoon satirizing Jeff Bezos is rejected; Politico, January 4, 2025

GISELLE RUHIYYIH EWING , Politico; Washington Post cartoonist quits after cartoon satirizing Jeff Bezos is rejected

"Telnaes’ resignation is the latest sign of pushback against the growing influence of billionaire CEOs trying to get into the incoming president’s good graces. Both the Post and the LA Times experienced surges of outrage from employees and readers alike when they separately announced that they would not endorse a presidential candidate — less than two weeks before the Nov. 5 election.

Many at the time pointed the finger at Bezos and Soon-Shiong, the two papers’ billionaire owners, for interfering in the editorial decision.

Bezos, who once openly criticized Trump, has cozied up to the president-elect recently, even dining with him and close adviser Elon Musk, another billionaire CEO, at Mar-a-Lago last month.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has been a vocal critic of Musk and Trump’s relationship, shared Telnaes’ cartoon on X, writing: “Big Tech executives are bending the knee to Donald Trump and it’s no surprise why: Billionaires like Jeff Bezos like paying a lower tax rate than a public school teacher.”"

Washington Post Cartoonist Quits After Jeff Bezos Cartoon Is Killed; The New York Times, January 3, 2025

 Benjamin Mullin, The New York Times; Washington Post Cartoonist Quits After Jeff Bezos Cartoon Is Killed

"David Shipley, The Post’s opinions editor, said in a statement that he respected Ms. Telnaes and all she had given to The Post “but must disagree with her interpretation of events."

“Not every editorial judgment is a reflection of a malign force,” Mr. Shipley said in the statement. “My decision was guided by the fact that we had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon and had already scheduled another column — this one a satire — for publication. The only bias was against repetition.”

Mr. Shipley added that he had spoken with Ms. Telnaes by phone on Friday and had asked her to reconsider resigning. During the call, Mr. Shipley said he wanted to speak with Ms. Telnaes on Monday, after they had taken the weekend to think things over. He later encouraged her to hold off on quitting to see if they could work out the situation in accordance with her principles.

Ms. Telnaes did not respond to requests for comment.

Matt Wuerker, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for Politico, called the decision to kill Ms. Telnaes’s cartoon “spineless,” adding that the storied Post cartoonist Herbert Block, known as Herblock, and Ben Bradlee, a former editor of The Post, were “spinning, kicking and screaming in their graves.”"

Why I'm quitting the Washington Post; Open Windows, January 3, 2025

ANN TELNAES, Open Windows; Why I'm quitting the Washington Post

"I’ve worked for the Washington Post since 2008 as an editorial cartoonist. I have had editorial feedback and productive conversations—and some differences—about cartoons I have submitted for publication, but in all that time I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at. Until now.

The cartoon that was killed criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump. There have been multiple articles recently about these men with lucrative government contracts and an interest in eliminating regulations making their way to Mar-a-lago. The group in the cartoon included Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook & Meta founder and CEO, Sam Altman/AI CEO, Patrick Soon-Shiong/LA Times publisher, the Walt Disney Company/ABC News, and Jeff Bezos/Washington Post owner. 

While it isn’t uncommon for editorial page editors to object to visual metaphors within a cartoon if it strikes that editor as unclear or isn’t correctly conveying the message intended by the cartoonist, such editorial criticism was not the case regarding this cartoon. To be clear, there have been instances where sketches have been rejected or revisions requested, but never because of the point of view inherent in the cartoon’s commentary. That’s a game changer…and dangerous for a free press...

Over the years I have watched my overseas colleagues risk their livelihoods and sometimes even their lives to expose injustices and hold their countries’ leaders accountable. As a member of the Advisory board for the Geneva based Freedom Cartoonists Foundation and a former board member of Cartoonists Rights, I believe that editorial cartoonists are vital for civic debate and have an essential role in journalism. 

There will be people who say, “Hey, you work for a company and that company has the right to expect employees to adhere to what’s good for the company”. That’s true except we’re talking about news organizations that have public obligations and who are obliged to nurture a free press in a democracy. Owners of such press organizations are responsible for safeguarding that free press— and trying to get in the good graces of an autocrat-in-waiting will only result in undermining that free press.

As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable. For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job. So I have decided to leave the Post. I doubt my decision will cause much of a stir and that it will be dismissed because I’m just a cartoonist. But I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning, because as they say, “Democracy dies in darkness”.

Thank you for reading this."

‘I became an optimist the night my wife died’: a science writer on loss and letting go of rationalism; The Guardian, January 4, 2025

Sumit Paul-Choudhury , The Guardian; ‘I became an optimist the night my wife died’: a science writer on loss and letting go of rationalism

"Everything that Shackleton achieved, he achieved with and because of those he had taken with him – 27 men chosen from more than 5,000 applicants. What did he look for? “The quality I look for most is optimism,” he said, “especially optimism in the face of reverses and apparent defeat. Optimism is true moral courage.”

Not many of us will have our mettle tested as Shackleton and his team did. But we all have our reckonings with life and death sooner or later, or other adversities that make us reappraise the world and question the future. It’s at such times that optimism can be hardest to secure, but also most valuable. Optimism, far from leading us to passively await our fates, can help us to actively explore our limitations – and transcend them."