At Electric Lit, Eva Rosen offers a reading list of books on housing inequality. Rosen, author of The Voucher Promise, notes that this form of discrimination is pervasive in America and has many consequences: “Housing drives all sorts of disparities in the U.S.: health, wealth, education, employment, exposure to the criminal justice system, even happiness. Yet, where we live is no accident: It is the result of decades of laws, policies, practices that inscribed the blueprint for racial and social inequality across the nation.”
Novelist and editor Rakesh Satyal has been named executive editor at the HarperOne group.
Lorrie Moore’s review of the TV adaptation of Normal People is making people feel things. For more on Sally Rooney, see Lauren Oyler’s review in our Spring 2019 issue.
Veronica Penney reports on what Facebook counts as an opinion and how its stance protecting “free speech” can be a loophole for disinformation. Under its company guidelines, “climate content can be classified as opinion and therefore exempted from fact-checking procedures. The policy means that peer-reviewed science can be lumped into the same category as industry statements and even blatant disinformation.” According to Andy Stone, the company’s policy communications director, “Facebook is most concerned with flagging or removing content that poses an immediate threat to human health and safety, including disinformation about the coronavirus or hate speech that incites violence. Climate change content, he said, does not fall within that category.”
At Vox, Fabiola Cineas looks at how mainstream news coverage of Black Lives Matter protests has dwindled since the first demonstrations began almost two months ago. “A quick scan of the front pages of newspapers and digital media outlets would likely have one believe that the protests have altogether stopped,” Cineas notes, even as protests continue nationwide. Activists attest that coverage can both help and hurt the movement, by turns influencing public opinion and possibly inviting violence on protesters.
Literary Hub has posted part two of their list of 2020’s most anticipated books.
Next week, Stephen Shore and LACMA curator Britt Salvesen will discuss the photographer’s work, hosted by Arcana, Strand Book Store, Typebooks, and The Camera Store.