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Jade McDowell

@jademc07.bsky.social
287 followers 383 following 255 posts

Former Oregon journalist now a copywriter in Salt Lake City. Subscribe to your local newspaper.

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Reposted by Jade McDowell
Better Things Are Possible @internethippo.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
Sorry to be Radical Left but I don't think we should put people who haven't committed a crime, and aren't even accused of committing a crime, into any sort of "Detention"
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Philip Bump @pbump.com · 05/02/2026
Jeff Bezos’s wealth has increased an average of $70 million every day of 2026, meaning that he could have offset The Post’s losses with what he’s made since Monday.
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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
Floored by this story. A man wrote a pollite email to a federal prosecutor objecting to the deportation of an Afghan seeking asylum. DHS responded with an administrative warrant to get the man's info from Google, then visited his home to intimidate him.
newrepublic.com
DHS Hunts Down 67-Year-Old U.S. Citizen Who Criticized Them in Email
The Department of Homeland Security is using a little-known tool to go after its critics.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 30/01/2026
the arrest of journalists in minneapolis, including don lemon, is more evidence that the only move the administration knows how to make is to use force, and does not know how to respond when that force is met with defiance and indifference.
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
every epstein file drop underscores how elite power operates through shared socio-economic networks, regardless of people's ideological differences, populist posturing, or public feuds
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Leah Sottile @leahsottile.bsky.social · 15/12/2025
If you can believe it, January 1, 2026 marks ten years since the armed takeover of Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. For Portland Monthly, I wrote about how the ensuing decade was dominated by anxious men and a culture of lawlessness. www.pdxmonthly.com/news-and-cit...
pdxmonthly.com
The Takeover of Malheur Kicked Off a Decade of Lawlessness
The wildlife refuge occupation set the stage for Trump, January 6, and so much more.
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Jenn Chávez @jennchavez.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
I've said this before, but Leah is one of my professional heroes. She is a national treasure. It's been such an insane privilege to work with her & learn from her & play even a miniscule role in her work. This is a huge loss for OPB and for Oregonians. I do not understand it at all.
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Alyssa Harad @alyssaharad.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
I once asked a bookseller at a large indie store how many people would have to buy a book for it to get the attention of the store buyer and cause an additional order and they said: Three.
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Better Things Are Possible @internethippo.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
One of my beliefs is that during a holiday week email shouldn't work at all for anyone
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Pat Bagley @bagleycartoons.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Early next year The Salt Lake Tribune will take down its paywall, in part because of subscribers and donors who care about local journalism. Local independent news sources protect the public Please share and check out @sltrib.com
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Leah Greenberg ❌👑 @leahgreenberg.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
serious note: they're gonna try 5x harder to sabotage the midterms after tonight and we're gonna have to organize on a literally historic scale to stop them
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 31/10/2025
Tip-or-treat 🎃 This Halloween, a reminder that a great way to scare those abusing their power is to reach out to us on Signal: 917-512-0201. *You, too, can shine a light on injustice by making your own ProPublica pumpkin: propub.li/43AXneD
Two glowing jack-o-lanterns inside a dark room. One is carved with the words "Signal Tips" and the ProPublica logo, while the other is carved with ProPublica's Signal tipline: 917-512-0201.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 30/10/2025
If you lose power this winter and use a portable generator to power your home: Be careful. Preventable carbon monoxide deaths follow every major power outage. (Published 2021 with @texastribune.org @nbcnews.com)
propublica.org
Carbon Monoxide From Generators Poisons Thousands of People a Year. The U.S. Has Failed to Force Safety Changes.
Portable generators are among the deadliest consumer products. Two decades after the government identified the danger, and as climate change leads to more power outages, people are left vulnerable by ...
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Caitlin Gilbert @caitlingilbert.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
I’m crying www.semafor.com/article/10/2...
He is, instead, a 59-year-old Long Island wine importer named Bill DeBlasio, who merely responded to an email from a journalist seeking his views on Democrat Zohran Mamdani’s policies.

“I’m Bill DeBlasio. I’ve always been Bill DeBlasio,” DeBlasio said in an interview conducted Wednesday evening through his Ring doorbell in Huntington Station, Long Island, from his current location in Florida.

“I never once said I was the mayor. He never addressed me as the mayor,” DeBlasio told Semafor Wednesday evening. “So I just gave him my opinion.”
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Ryan Teague Beckwith @ryanbeckwith.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
If you have an extra $10 a month to spare, here's a list of worker-owned cooperative news sites you might want to support: • 404 Media • Defector • The Flytrap • Flaming Hydra • The Appeal • Aftermath • Racket • Hell Gate • The 51st • The Colorado Sun • Range Media • Discourse Blog • Pop Heist
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Jade McDowell @jademc07.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
As a copywriter who does a lot of long form writing for clients' websites it's so depressing knowing that I'm mostly writing to give AI bots something to summarize instead of people actually clicking on the site and reading the article.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
The adamant elite refusal to call bullshit is a big part of How We Got Here. The prevailing cultural attitude for years is you must not, under any circumstances, treat anything as bad faith. You are obligated to find some reasonable idea and engage with that, even if you distort to get there.
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Dr. SkySkull @drskyskull.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
This is again a reminder that college isn’t supposed to just teach you a job but is supposed to teach you how to think, because that job you’re training for might not exist when you graduate
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Jade McDowell @jademc07.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
Wow. Stuart was upset his 18-year-old relative was facing years in prison for sex with a 13-year-old and now the 18 yo is just getting house arrest and community service (no sex offender registry) thanks to a law the legislature "just happened" to pass on his watch. share.google/2wyEC005XXtF...
share.google
Utah’s Senate president prompted law change that helped a teen charged with child rape
An 18-year-old high schooler was facing potential prison time and having to register as a sex offender until help came from a powerful ally — Senate President J. Stuart Adams.
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George Pearkes @peark.es · 06/08/2025
We’ve discovered a literal miracle with almost unlimited potential and it’s being scrapped for *no reason whatsoever*. This isn’t even nihilism, it’s outright worship of death and human suffering.
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Anna Merlan @annamerlan.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
We could have had cancer vaccines, and instead the United States will contribute nothing whatsoever to mRNA research, condemning millions of people worldwide to unnecessary illness and death
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Jade McDowell @jademc07.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
I am so stressed out over waiting for my 4-month-old niece to be old enough to finish all her vaccinations so she doesn't catch anything from all the dummies in Utah who don't vaccinate.
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Werner Herzog's Bear @jasontebbe.bsky.social · 02/08/2025
Hey fellow male high school teachers: let’s really go out of our way to model positive behavior for our male students this year, and also correct them quickly when they say demeaning things about their female peers and teachers. This has been my contribution to the manosphere discourse.
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Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
i think the correct way to think about the lonely boy question is not "how do we reach out to incels?" but "how do we make sure that a teenage boy looking for romantic advice isn't flooded with right-wing propaganda?"
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David Kroman @kromandavid.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
Extremely cool opportunity: The Seattle Times is hiring a DC correspondent. Rare these days for a local paper. seattletimes.applytojob.com/apply/oVo010...
seattletimes.applytojob.com
D.C. Correspondent - The Seattle Times - Career Page
We’re seeking a a D.C.-based correspondent to uncover how federal power touches lives in the Pacific Northwest!
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dtf1947 @dtf1947.bsky.social · 25/07/2025
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Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
I can’t stop thinking about how the Access Hollywood tape came out before the election even happened, yet suddenly we have people concerned that the President might have lied about being a sexual predator who were totally fine with it when he told the truth about being a sexual predator very grim
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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
We just translated a wave of our ICE coverage into Spanish. No paywall, no email signup necessary. From leaks about Palantir's work with ICE to ICE's new facial recognition app, we think there is a massive public interest in this info. Read why and support us here: www.404media.co/were-publish...
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John Breen @breen.tech · 22/07/2025
“I debated Mehdi Hasan and got fired for it” is going to turn into a viable grift for several of these fascist douchebags. This is why you don’t platform fascists.
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G Elliott Morris @gelliottmorris.com · 21/07/2025
what the fuck is this shit
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Molly Jong-Fast @mollyjongfast.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
Constitutional crisis is here
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NY Times Pitchbot @nytpitchbot.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
Donald Trump, who I do not support, had no more of a friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, who I do not support, than he does with Vladimir Putin, who I also do not support. by Glenn Greenwald
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I Scare You Like Sound Dog @chadstanton.blacksky.app · 19/07/2025
Getting rid of PBS is also meant to clear the field for Prager U to be the place for children programming.
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Jade McDowell @jademc07.bsky.social · 19/07/2025
The skills and priorities that make for a good journalist and a good business-runner are very different and I think a lot of outlets have been hurt by a business-first mindset running the newsroom or a journalism-first mindset running the business.
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Jade McDowell @jademc07.bsky.social · 18/07/2025
I hope the FCC blocks the Paramount merger anyway because maybe at some point people will learn that when you bow down to a fascist once it's never enough.
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Jade McDowell @jademc07.bsky.social · 18/07/2025
New books in a series need the literary equivalent of when a TV show that's been off the air for two years starts the new season with "Previously on..."
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Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · 18/07/2025
Funding cuts to PBS and NPR, attempts to stop the Wall Street Journal from publishing, Colbert canceled. Do not take a free press for granted. We need to fight for it.
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National Security Counselors 🕵 @nationalsecuritylaw.org · 18/07/2025
A picture of Stephen Colbert pointing at the viewer with the words If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine
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Rainesford Stauffer @rainesford.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Stop what you're doing and read this extraordinary essay by Rümeysa Öztürk: "I am free, but my true freedom is interlinked with the freedom of many women I lived alongside in ICE prison."
vanityfair.com
“Even God Cannot Hear Us Here”: What I Witnessed Inside an ICE Women’s Prison
Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk opens up about her 45 days in a South Louisiana processing facility—and the generous and compassionate women she met.
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Jade McDowell @jademc07.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
Make it totally fine and not stigmatized at all to end a sentence with a preposition.
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Jade McDowell @jademc07.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
Every time someone uses the words "toxic empathy" we need to push back by telling them that toxic empathy is something grifters who make their money peddling hate made up to sell more hate.
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Molly Jong-Fast @mollyjongfast.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
I can’t believe how stupid everything is. Like just when I worry things can’t get stupider, life finds a way.
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Ryan Marino, MD @ryanmarino.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
There’s a nonzero chance you will die from a cancer that could have been curable because people who couldn’t pass 7th grade biology and are scared of things like “mRNA” and “riboflavin” and “walkable cities” decided to make their ignorance everybody else’s problem
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Laura Bassett @lebassett.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
My “these emails are too intimate and embarrassing to release” tshirt has people asking questions already answered by my shirt
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Sam Youngman @samyoungman.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Well this seems like a pretty huge fucking admission of racial profiling that will be ignored by the mainstream media
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
Also talked about The Onion being inefficient on purpose. www.status.news/p/the-onion-...
What has it been like shifting from reporter to media executive, managing a staff instead of filing stories yourself? And do you write any of the jokes at The Onion? Or are you strictly managing the business?

The Onion’s process is deeply, beautifully inefficient. Every day, our writers take 150 headlines into a physical writers room in Chicago and whittle them down to maybe one or two. These people throw away the funniest sentence I will ever write in my life six times by noon every weekday.

The point of taking over this place was to preserve this process, which I learned this week is almost assuredly more rigorous than The New York Times.

That’s why I don’t touch any of it. I just try to get more people to pay attention to the output, and get our work into different mediums and new places. We brought back the paper, reinvested in the Onion News Network, bought a full page ad in The Times for something they were going to write anyway. The role is to make the world-class work they’re already doing seep into everyday American life more frequently, and that’s working.

You actually can do this, you know. You can just try to highlight the beauty of things you like and not try to vampirically extract value at every step.

If people get one thing out of this whole Q&A, I hope it’s that. You do not have to make an A.I. version of your own employees that operate at 1.5x speed but produce purely iterative garbage, especially in media and journalism. People don’t actually want that shit. Make a good, human thing and people will bend over backwards to support you. This is a valid way to run a company.
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