Clear It with Sidney | Hillman Foundation

Clear It With Sidney

The best of the week’s news by Lindsay Beyerstein

Clear It with Sidney

Friends Remember Hastings as Mentor to Young Journalists

Thirty-three-year-old reporter Michael Hastings died Tuesday in a car crash in Los Angeles. Hastings is best known for his devastating Rolling Stone profile of Gen. Stanley McCrystal, which led to the general’s resignation.

Hastings wasn’t afraid to make enemies to expose the truth, but he also cultivated many friendships. National security reporter Ali Ghirab was one of those friends. He recalls Hastings as a generous mentor to younger journalists, a sentiment echoed by many who knew him:

Michael the reporter was a thing to behold, and no less Michael the friend. He disdained low-level aides and flacks—”his target was always the principal,” Smith wrote. That parsing of the pecking order, though, didn’t extend to his personal life or interactions with colleagues. It can be tough to get a word with star reporters, but not Michael. Young journalists flocked to him, and he talked freely with them. He cared about what even his most junior colleagues thought. He gave and gave and gave to young reporters, who wanted to know his secret (“devote your life to journalism”—and he did); he employed his well-honed bullshit detector and, if everything was copacetic, deferred to them.

[…]

Watching Michael with younger reporters, or doling out advice to aspirants, it was easy to see him years down the road, still baby-faced and energetic, but with some gray hair and a couple extra pounds on his slender waistline. He’d still be coaching, still be helping colleagues achieve their ambitions, and still making time for his friends, to discuss grave matters or just laugh for a while (or both at the same time). Then there’re the expectations for the important work he would have produced. The journalism industry, the country and the world are worse off for losing him. He was a model journalist just as he was a model friend—it’s impossible to know which he was better at. He will be sorely missed.

Dave Weigel of Slate remembers Hastings fondly from the 2012 campaign trail, where Hastings’ utter disinterest in currying favor with powerful sources set him apart from most of his colleagues. 

Journalists Remember Michael Hastings

Michael Hastings, the reporter who brought down America’s top general in Afghanistan with a magazine profile, died in a fiery single-vehicle car crash on Tuesday at the age of 33. Ben Smith, Hastings’ boss at Buzzfeed, remembers him as a fearless reporter who leveraged his outsize personality to call the powerful to account:

Michael Hastings was really only interested in writing stories someone didn’t want him to write — often his subjects; occasionally his editor. While there is no template for a great reporter, he was one for reasons that were intrinsic to who he was: ambitious, skeptical of power and conventional wisdom, and incredibly brave. And he was warm and honest in a way that left him many unlikely friends among people you’d expect to hate him.

Rolling Stone contributor Jeff Sharlet reflects on Hastings’ journalistic legacy:

 And I’m writing as just an ordinary citizen – there’s not much hope in the news, but what Hastings did was inspiring. What he did was actually pretty ordinary, too – he reported what the general said. What he actually said. And that was enough to damn the general. It didn’t end the war, it was barely a bump in the path of empire, but Jesus, even that – it was beautiful. As was the outcry of a thousand hacks crying foul because Hastings did what they couldn’t do: he reported the facts. Hastings drew them out into the open. So, really, it was a double expose – of the general and the press corps that made him.

Hastings didn’t hesitate to make enemies, but he also made many friends. Journalists across the country are reeling from the news of his untimely passing. He will be missed. 

Did a Child Slave Process Your Walmart Shrimp?

It’s been a hard spring for socially conscious foodies. Last month, we learned that our unctuous Greek yogurt is polluting the enviornment. Today, we find out that our plump, juicy shrimp might be processed by child slaves in Asia. Tom Philpott delivers the bad news in Mother Jones:

Over the past 20 years, the rapid rise of South Asian shrimp farms has transformed our relationship to the tasty crustaceans, shifting it from an occasional luxury to an all-you-can-eat commodity. Twenty years ago, most of our shrimp came from domestic wild fisheries. Today, we import 90 percent of it, almost all of it farmed. But who works on these foreign farms and processing facilities—and under what conditions? A new briefing paper by the well-respected International Labor Rights Forum and the Warehouse Workers United (WWU) alleges serious labor abuses, including illegal use of underage workers, at the Thai shrimp producer Narong Seafood, at least until recently a major supplier of Walmart and a leading shrimp processor for the US market, according to a recent analysis by the consultancy Accenture for Humanity United. [MoJo]

WalMart claims it stopped buying from Narong, but Philpott’s reporting suggests otherwise. 

If you’re looking for a more ethical and environmentally sustainable alternative to farmed Asian shrimp, the Marine Stewardship Council recommends wild-caught pink shrimp from Oregon.

[Photo credit: Phú Thịnh Co, Creative Commons.]

 

Mortgage-Servicing Corps Pocket Tornado Insurance Checks

If you have disaster insurance on a mortgaged home, chances are, any payout for storm damage will go through your mortgage-servicing company, rather than to you. As David Dayen reports, many tornado survivors in Oklahoma who were counting on insurance to cover repairs are being told they must use the money to pay down their mortgages instead. 

 

[Photo credit: Tornado damage in Louisiana, by _Wick, Creative Commons.]

#Sidney's Picks: Coercive Sterilization, Courtroom Assault, and More

News highlights from the week that was:

  • Poor Americans are set to lose at least 4.1 billion in food stamp benefits.
  • A Nevada woman was arrested in family court after she complained to the judge that a marshall had sexually assaulted her during a routine drug search.
  • Bloomberg LP is facing a class action lawsuit by employees who say the company cheated them out of overtime.

 

[Photo credit: Wander Mule, Creative Commons.]

Tires and Tribulations: Tire Rentals Gouge the Working Poor

Investigative journalist Ken Bensinger of the LA Times exposes yet another abuse of poor people in a car-dependent society. Well aware that their customers need tires to get to work, tire rental companies like Rent-a-Wheel and Rimco are setting up usurious rent-to-own plans for customers who are too poor to buy upfront: 

When the tires on their Dodge Caravan had worn so thin that the steel belts were showing through, Don and Florence Cherry couldn’t afford to buy a new set.

So they decided to rent instead.

The Rich Square, N.C., couple last September agreed to pay Rent-N-Roll $54.60 a month for 18 months in exchange for four basic Hankook tires. Over the life of the deal, that works out to $982, almost triple what the radials would have cost at Wal-Mart.

“I know you have to pay a lot more this way,” said Florence Cherry, a 57-year-old nurse who drives the 15-year-old van when her husband, a Vietnam veteran, isn’t using it to get to his job as a prison guard. “But we didn’t really have a choice.” [LAT]

The price of tires rose by more than half between 2006 and 2012, as the median household income declined. Companies that used to sell custom rims to auto enthusiasts realized they could make more money gouging ordinary people who needed to get to work.

Tires account for just a tiny slice of the $8.5-billion rent-to-own market. But they stand out from the industry’s traditional fare because — unlike with a dinette set — giving back tires means not being able to drive to work. 

“Tires are a necessity,” said Jim Hawkins, a University of Houston law professor who studies the alternative finance industry. “These customers are vulnerable because they have no choice.” [LAT]

Tire financing combines the worst aspects of borrowing and renting. The real interest rate on a rent-to-own tire plan can be up to 120% per annum, or three times the interest rate of the highest-interest credit cards. However, since you are renting the tires rather than borrowing the money to buy tires, you may get a visit from the police if you miss even one payment. Since the tire company owns the tires until the final payment, some police departments treat non-payment as a species of theft. To make matters worse, tire contracts can’t be discharged in bankruptcy because they are rentals rather than loans.

Bensinger has provided yet another example of how greedy companies make poverty ruinously expensive. 

 

[Photo credit: pecooper98362, Creative Commons.]

 

 

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John Carlos Frey and PBS Need To Know team Win June Sidney Award for Exposing Epidemic of Migrant Deaths Along the Border

John Carlos Frey and the team at PBS’ “Need to Know” (producer Brian Epstein, correspondent John Larson, editor Judith Starr Wolff) won the June Sidney Award for “Crossing the Line: Dying to Get Back,” a documentary about how U.S. immigration policies are killing increasing numbers of undocumented migrants attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. The documentary aired on PBS’ “Need to Know” and was produced with the support of the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute; it is the third in a three-part series on the Border Patrol.

The bleached bones of unnamed migrants are piling up in small town morgues along the border, even though unauthorized crossings are at a historic low. Over two thousand migrant deaths were reported between 1999 and 2012, and the true death toll may be even higher.

Crossings have become more dangerous because the U.S. Border Patrol has deliberately pushed cross-border traffic into inhospitable terrain where migrants risk death from heat stroke and exploitation by human traffickers. The Obama administration’s aggressive policy of deportation has created a new class of desperate migrants: people who have built lives and started families in the United States who find themselves deported to a country they left years earlier. Many of these migrants are willing to risk everything to get back, and some pay the ultimate price. 

Read my Backstory interview with Frey.

Target: Target

Janitors who clean multiple Target stores in the Twin Cities area began a 48-hour strike, Monday. The work stoppage is the latest in a spate of walkouts by low-wage workers in the discount retail and fast food industries. The janitors are demanding parity in pay and benefits with the cleaners who look after Target’s local corporate headquarters. The cleaners at corporate HQ are Target employees represented by SEIU; and they earn over $13 an hour, plus benefits. Whereas their subcontractor counterparts earn just $8.50 with no benefits.

As past Sidney Award-winner Dave Jamieson explains, the workers are also striking over unfair labor practices, namely, management’s alleged interference with their right to organize and bargain collectively. The janitors say that two of their co-workers were fired for attempting to organize. It is all too common for large retailers like Target and Walmart to subcontract the cleaning of their stores to smaller companies that keep their prices low by scrimping on pay, benefits, and job security for their employees. 

[Photo credit: Mr. T. in DC, Creative Commons.]

How Phony Psychics Bilk Their Clients

South Florida is a veritable rat’s nest of phony psychics, Kyle Swenson reports in a remarkable long-form piece for the Miami New Times. Psychic phone scams have become a way of life in some communities. A good fake psychic can make $200,000 to $300,000 a year, investigators say. A psychic will convince the client that he or she has been cursed and demand large sums of money for rituals to lift the curse. One lonely divorcee in England lost $140,000 to a South Florida psychic who called herself “Sienna Miller” and promised the client would be worshipped as a god if she ponied up for amulets, oils, and other high-priced paraphernalia. 

 

[Photo credit: Inspire Kelly, Creative Commons.]

Why Have 900 Guatemalan Bus Drivers Been Murdered?

Past Sidney winner Dave Jamieson tweeted this heartbreaking story about how driving a bus in Guatemala became one of the world’s most dangerous occupations:

There, in the crowded office, the phone lit up. A man’s voice came on the line. It was calm, almost pleasant. You’re going to pay us taxes now, the voice said: 8,000 quetzales a week—about $1,000. If you don’t, we’re going to start killing your bus drivers.

Palo and the rest of the owners looked at the phone, then at each other. Anyone could get a cell phone, drop it off, and make demands. “We thought someone was just trying to take advantage of us,” Palo said. [TNR]

Saul Elbein, the author, explains how the seemingly bizarre killing spree is one of the far-reaching consequences of a U.S.-backed coup in 1954, the ensuing 40-year civil war in Guatemala, the U.S.’s chilly immigration policy towards refugees displaced by the U.S.-fuelled conflict, gang warfare in Los Angeles, and the deportation of gang-affiliated Guatemalan teenagers from the U.S. to a “home” they had scarcely known. All of these factors, plus extreme inequality, created a fertile breeding ground for organized crime. Post-war reconstruction has been all but overshadowed by crime and corruption, and the U.S. bears much of the blame.

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