Paper Trail

Colson Whitehead on space exploration; Director Oliver Stone writing memoir


Colson Whitehead. Photo: Chris Close

Columbia Journalism Review’s Jon Allsop wonders why many mainstream media outlets won’t call Trump’s racist remarks about a group of women senators exactly what they are. “Calling a president’s words ‘racist’ or ‘a lie’ can legitimately be thorny. Should we throw the words around? Probably not. But we should use them when they accurately reflect the truth,” he writes. “When we contort ourselves to dance around that fact, the truth is injured.” Despite recently creating a policy about “controversial content” tweeted by public figures, Twitter has decided that Trump’s recent tweets do not merit a warning, Gizmodo reports.

Paul Auster’s In the Country of Last Things is being adapted into a Spanish-language film by filmmaker Alejandro Chomski.

Director Oliver Stone is writing a memoir. The still-untitled project was acquired by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and is scheduled to be published in 2020.

Colson Whitehead gives a space-themed interview to Literary Hub. “What’s all this talk about going to Mars? The cosmic radiation will kill us,” he said. “That’s why we must devote our energies to exploring the true Final Frontier—Inner Space.”

Just in time for Prime Day, read an excerpt from On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane, Emily Guendelsberger’s new book about working at an Amazon warehouse.

Faiz Shakir, campaign manager for Bernie Sanders, talks to Politico about what he says is biased media coverage of the candidate. “This isn’t intended to be a sweeping generalization of all journalists,” he said, “but there are a healthy number who just find Bernie annoying, discount his seriousness, and wish his supporters and movement would just go away.”