My first boss was one of the world’s greatest lunchers. Editor of a magazine about the film, television, advertising and music video industries in the 1990s, a decade when you could have a perfectly respectable career in the audiovisual world without ever troubling to produce anything, she was a legend in Soho. She would take me to lunch at the boozy hidey-hole Andrew Edmunds, the vast and chrome-sparkly Terence Conran megalopolis Mezzo or the perfect institution Vasco & Piero’s Pavilion. Everywhere we went, she would be warmly welcomed, air kissed and visited by industry luminaries from the surrounding tables. As we staggered back to the office, I’d feel inducted into a way of life.

She taught me many things about journalism, but the most important thing she taught me about working life was that relationships endure and relationships created over lunch endure for decades. Work in television halted between 1pm and 3pm, and being able to secure a table at Sheekey’s or The Ivy between these hours was something to boast of unironically. Name-dropping the proposed restaurant was a way to secure a meeting. An opening glass of champagne and a half bottle of Chablis was standard. With hindsight it’s less of a mystery why so many working relationships were, er, problematic.

Thus, starting out, I most often found myself the junior partner in meals with the most celebrated and self-mythologised lunchers — men in media. These were invariably booked through assistants who hinted at the unimaginable glamour of their fixed reservation at a top-flight restaurant (“He lunches on Wednesdays, will Nobu in four weeks suit?”). I had no complaints. I was paid £13,500 in my first job in 1995, but no one would blink if I filed an expense claim for an £80 lunch. My answer to the conspiratorial question, “Shall we have a look at the pudding menu?” was always “Yes”, because then I could skip the expense of dinner. The media men of the 1990s stole my cigarettes and taught me how to drink at lunch (I did once have to go and lie down in the sick bay after a three-hour spectacular). I learnt it was important I fight to pick up the tab (flattering to one’s senior), occasionally give in graciously (“my turn next time”), pass on as much gossip as I pick up, fair trade being no robbery, and always ask about the wife and kids. Of course, it was a ridiculously inefficient way to do business. In a sense, that was part of it. My skin still prickles with mortification remembering the time I kept the controller of BBC1 waiting because I was stuck in traffic and he had to eat soup alone. The shame!

When men talk nostalgically about the golden days of lunching, the well-brought up now remember to caveat it with a reminder that they were, of course, a terrible boy’s club. But they only remember the lunches they were present at. At the turn of the millennium, all over the media, women breaking through glass ceilings were eyeing how the men were doing it, and it’s fair to say we rose to the challenge.

I was lucky enough to be part of girl gangs who had boxes at the races and the dogs, went gambling at the Ritz casino, took private rooms at Nobu and the River Cafe and special tables at The Wolseley or The Ivy. Events at which eight or 10 of us, from cabinet ministers to newspaper editors to TV channel bosses and mega TV producers, would prove women bond just as successfully over vast amounts of booze and jollity, and absolutely behave just as badly. I can recall public singing, an incident where two fierce egos challenged each other to an arm wrestle, someone demonstrating how you’d add sign language to porn to comply with new regulation and the destruction of a rather beautiful hat.

We were loud, but we were few. It was not until I moved to New York in the 2010s that I realised women networking over lunch was a global game. A PR as kind as she was mighty organised a welcome lunch at Michael’s, a media powerhouse restaurant in Manhattan of such stature that network presidents had regular tables and the front desk would tweet daily lists of the execs and celebs who had crossed the threshold. She invited only women. I was the editor of a yet-to-launch website, and I couldn’t understand why anyone would come, but we all ended up in Page Six, New York’s reigning gossip column, so someone knew what they were doing. The guests brought gifts of Diane Von Furstenberg scarves and recommendations of eyebrow groomers. This was a serious step up from our “feminine” traditions in London of lovely, handwritten thank-you notes on arty postcards, and the fact we’d actually remembered the names of each other’s children.

In New York, I recognised that I was being admitted to a set where the rules were subtly different. Contact building was about rapid intimacy accelerated by expenditure but not necessarily on dining. A journalist once invited me for lunch but led with “I know you live near me and have a daughter about the same age as mine, why don’t we take you both for mani-pedis?” Now that’s a fresh take on a life-work balance.

Do we blame the internet or the budgets for the slowing down of the lunch invitations? In a sense, the internet separated the advertising from the media and as the revenues went programmatic, so did the contacts. Those who inducted me are now very sadly starting to leave for the great never-ending lunch. Let’s be honest, it’s not a lifestyle associated with longevity.

All that was left were the sorts of lunches I wouldn’t have been seen dead at back in the day: the ones that sold tickets, beginning with the words “Women in”, often run by a brave senior woman in an organisation full of men, trying to facsimile the clubs to which they weren’t invited. The problem with these lunches wasn’t their intentions, but the lack of spontaneity in execution. There’s little opportunity to bond in a speed networking event. And, in truth, the few actual powerful women in any given industry had no availability between work events and family.

This is not to deny the benefits of more formal networking. The rules of entry to the informal kind are opaque and excluding, and I can’t pretend that my girl gang was any more thoughtful about our various privileges than our male counterparts. I remember taking some younger colleagues out for lunch at a fancy Edinburgh restaurant to hear their hopes and dreams, hoping to show them that I thought them important, but realised immediately it was way too formal and I risked doing the opposite. It’s undeniably healthier that young women can now express ambition through application for mentorships and paid trainee schemes. I will never, though, get over my fundamental disapproval of a po-faced event where, after one glass of warm white wine, everyone exchanges a business card.

When I invite people to lunch now, they are pleased but baffled. I feel slightly as if I’ve sent a coachman round with a calling card. These brutal days of computerised booking schedules and automated emails are of course more efficient and more democratic, but the clout, ladies! The sheer clout of wandering into a “famed eatery in London’s West End” to be greeted by a glass of champagne and “Congratulations on your promotion.” You would never feel you were in the wrong club and neither would your lunch guest.

Except, except! Perhaps there is still another way. On a recent trip to Manhattan, where everything happens first, a former colleague and expert networker announced that lunch and Midtown and power restaurants are back, along with everything ’90s. The personal connection, the intimate confessional bonding, the sense of order in a chaotic world established by a maître d’ knowing your name and which table you like, an antidote to anonymity and social media socialising. How thrilling and relieving.

My advice for women who would like to participate in this throwback trend is as it was handed down to me by my foresisters. Consolidate your expense account spending. Blow your budget in one or two restaurants and those restaurants will repay your loyalty. Invite people out. These days you can split the bill, but nothing says “I enjoyed this and we’re doing it again” like “You can do next time.” Make your own gang. Invite someone from your world and get a pal to do likewise. Do not underestimate the power of a small sin, be it pudding or booze or being slightly late back to work, and always, always, order chips for the table.

It’s unlikely that I’ll be a leading light in this hopeful new wave. True networking should be for your twenties when all lies ahead and you can still tolerate alcohol before 6pm. But if you’re lucky, not only will you learn so much more about your job, you’ll gain a bit of life too.

My best ever lunch started perfectly straightforwardly with a senior TV executive I barely knew. Somehow, at 5pm, it was still going on, as the staff around us began relaying the tables for dinner service, pausing only to reassure us that though life must go on around us, they didn’t want us to feel we should take a hint. “We love that you’re still here,” they egged us on. It finished at 7.30pm when she revealed she had to go to a dinner with Rupert Murdoch. She remains my closest friend and godmother to my child, but we lunch on our own time these days.

Janine Gibson is FT Weekend editor

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In the heart of Xinjiang, the Chinese region where more than one million Uyghurs are believed to be detained in re-education camps, two carefree British travel vloggers cheerfully introduce their viewers to “one of the most controversial areas” of the country.

Journalists are harassed and heavily monitored in the rugged western province, where Western governments and rights groups have accused the authorities of suppressing Muslim minorities through mass surveillance, abuse and political indoctrination.

But foreign YouTube influencers are warmly welcomed by the normally censor-happy Chinese government, which seizes on their happy-go-lucky content to legitimise its own narrative that no human rights abuses are taking place.

“Nice, fancy Mustangs,” says one of the British vloggers, admiring sports cars on the streets of Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi. “It’s like a normal city, so what’s all the hype about? Negative hype as well. I don’t understand that,” he says.

It’s a message that chimes well with China’s own state propaganda machine.

As the country reopens for travel after years of pandemic isolation, foreign influencers, including many Brits, are heading East armed with cameras and tripods, eyeing an increasingly lucrative YouTube market with an eager audience ready to increase their ratings.

The Chinese government has given them a helping hand with a raft of new visa-free policies, and the country received over 17 million foreign travellers in the first seven months of this year, up by almost 130% year-on-year, according to foreign ministry figures.

“I myself have watched a good number of videos by foreign vloggers sharing their trips in China. I’m happy to see more and more foreign friends come to China and fall in love with China,” said Lin Jian, a foreign ministry spokesperson in August.

Many marvel at the bright lights of Shanghai’s skyline, Beijing’s imperial palaces and the impressive high speed rail network.

But a growing number are entering lesser-known regions including Xinjiang, which for years has been beset by allegations of severe human rights abuses and repression that Beijing justifies as necessary to fight terrorism.

Some YouTubers setting foot in the rugged region attempt to draw viewers with sensational titles about exposing Western media “lies” about Xinjiang or by alluding to the risks of travelling there.

But they often stress they are not pushing any narrative other than to see Xinjiang with their own eyes and to offer their viewers authentic firsthand accounts.

In a video titled “This is the XINJIANG the Western Media DON’T want you to see”, young Scottish couple Alan and Shannon explore Kashgar’s tourist district and dress in Uyghur traditional outfits for a photoshoot.

Another Briton, Mike Okay, 28, offers a grittier, and at times humourous experience as he hitchhikes through the province in search of a toilet or a carpark or campsite to sleep in. He documents multiple identity checks by police officers, surprised by his travel methods, but not unfriendly.

Some videos have more political undertones, explicitly contrasting their content with media reports.

In Urumqi, Tauseef Ahmed, with partner Libby Collins, comments that “if you relied on the Western media..then you wouldn’t normally hear anything positive,” and cites the oppression of Muslims as an example of typical accusations.

As the couple walk through Urumqi, they point out mosques. They also comment on the higher number of surveillance cameras, but add: “if you haven’t done anything wrong then there is nothing to be worried about.”

There is no suggestion any of the vloggers are acting at the behest of the Chinese government or receiving its money, but titles about media deception echo official state messaging about the West’s perceived anti-China narrative, particularly on fundamental rights.

For China, the influx of influencers offers the opportunity to rebut overseas criticisms and reinforce its stance through highlighting the unimpeded visits of awestruck foreigners.

The footage, amplified by Chinese social media platforms and state-run outlets, receive hundreds of thousands of views and screeds of favourable comments.

An increasing number of international vloggers were visiting Xinjiang “with great curiosity,” noted a recent article in the Global Times.

“A somewhat remote and mysterious region in China, Xinjiang is nonetheless a name constantly spotlighted in many Western media stories, which are usually filled with misinformation.”

It namechecks Mike Okay among several vloggers, highlighting a conversation with a campsite owner who says police checks are for his own safety.

It then rams home the government line that enhanced security in Xinjiang “is not an overreaction” due to the threat of terrorism from religious extremists and ethnic separatists.

Mike Okay, who described his trip as a “wild adventure” with “incredible people” said he had tried hard to avoid politics and focus on simply showing a “relatively unexplored” part of the world.

“As a content creator when you sign up..you are putting your content out into the world. People are going to read it however they like. So of course it concerns me,” he said.

“My intention was not to go there and disprove anything. My intention was ‘what does it look like if a clueless relatively uneducated foreigner walks around Xinjiang with a camera’?”

Daria Impiombato, a cyber analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, has co-written several reports on China’s multilayered ways of folding local and foreign influencers into its propaganda strategy.

She said vloggers with large platforms had a responsibility to inform themselves and to be sceptical.

“There needs to be a reckoning with that type of platform,” she said. “It’s like influencers who are going to Syria, just doing travel vlogs from Syria without talking about years and years of war and devastation. You can’t do that, and you can’t do that in Xinjiang either.”

But she stopped short of saying influencers should not go to Xinjiang, adding that some videos offered nuggets of valuable information.

Australian couple Michael and Josie, the creators of “josieliftsthings”, a YouTube channel with nearly 1m followers, raise questions in their Xinjiang video about the destruction of historical buildings in Kashgar and observe that the town centre appears to be set up for tourists.

They said their frankness had generated “heat” from viewers and made the video less popular as it wasn’t purely positive.

YouTubers had realised that “pro-China” content attracted more views, making it more profitable, they said.

“It’s a business decision and it comes down to whether you are honest about what you see or you are doing it for the cash,” said Michael.

“The reality of it is that it is a bit of a gold rush at the moment,” he said, adding that the couple were unlikely to return soon as the influencer scene had turned “a little bit ugly”.

“I do get very disappointed when I see a lot of YouTubers who use human rights as bait for their content and then say something in their video like ‘I’m here and..it looks completely normal,” he said.

“We never say everything is fine because we don’t know that,” added Josie. Scottish YouTubers Alan and Shannon did not respond to requests for comment.

Tauseef Ahmed and Libby Collins declined an interview and permission to feature their content. In a previous interview with the New York Times, Mr Ahmed said he did not worry about how their content was used by Chinese propaganda or others.

“At the end of the day, people can give it any narrative they want. It’s just two people going around and recording their travel adventures,” he said.

Maya Wang, the associate China director at Human Rights Watch, urged travellers to be more aware in societies suffering human right abuses and “not be complicit in the censorship and disinformation that the Chinese government hopes to achieve.”

But Prof Steve Tsang, the director of the SOAS China Institute, said vlogger videos were unlikely to sway already entrenched opinions about the Uyghurs.

The top priority for Chinese officials was how everything was seen in Beijing, he said.

“The propaganda machinery will be able to report back up the chain of command all the way through .. to Xi Jinping that we are doing it and doing it well, we are seizing and controlling the narrative.”

Five years since its last rescue and only months before the start of work on a Royal Navy contract that was supposed to secure its future, Harland & Wolff, the builder of the Titanic, is on the rocks again.

An ill-focused strategy and galloping costs pushed the insolvent parent company into administration this week, putting 1,200 jobs at four yards and one of the most illustrious names in British shipbuilding on the line.

The clock is now ticking in the race to find a buyer — or buyers — for the 163-year-old Belfast operation and yards in England and Scotland in an effort to keep vital defence contracting in the UK.

Trevor Taylor, director of the defence, industries and society programme at the think-tank Royal United Services Institute, said the choice of H&W for the Royal Navy contract “was always a giant risk given the minimal labour force and limited manufacturing infrastructure that they had in place”.

An “effective rescue” of the four yards, he added, was needed to “maintain any credibility for the National Shipbuilding Strategy”.

Despite the cash flow problems at the parent company, H&W had been expanding the historic Belfast shipyard and its apprentice scheme in readiness for a traditional steel-cutting ceremony early next year to mark the start of work on three Royal Navy ships — the first vessels to roll down its slipway in over two decades.

The £1.6bn Fleet Solid Support (FSS) contract, secured in 2022 by a consortium led by Spain’s Navantia — and involving final construction and assembly at H&W’s Belfast yard — had appeared a lifeline for the ailing shipbuilder.

Belfast, dominated by H&W’s famous yellow cranes, is receiving most of the £77mn of FSS investment and is expanding its main fabrication hall.

A global giant in its early-20th century heyday and once Northern Ireland’s largest employer, the flagship Belfast yard finally looked set to emerge from decades of decline that had been exacerbated by stiff competition from cheaper Asian competitors and other, better-capitalised UK defence contractors.

But analysts say the firm, which was rescued from administration in 2019 by energy infrastructure group InfraStrata, lost its way and ran out of cash.

“The costs built up at a much quicker rate than the revenue came in,” said interim executive chair Russell Downs, an experienced restructuring expert.

Unaudited results, published in July, showed revenues more than tripled to £87mn in 2023 from the year before, while operating losses more than halved to £24.7mn. But interest costs rose 50 per cent to £18.4mn. 

H&W bought three more yards after its rescue by the then CEO John Wood — Appledore in Devon in south-west England plus Scottish facilities at Methil in Fife and Arnish in the Hebrides — and pivoted to a range of energy, renewables and cruise liner refurbishment operations, as well as non-core activities such as a Scilly Isles ferry.

A probe is now under way into allegations of “misallocation” of £25mn and other spending for “little or no corporate benefit”, underlining H&W’s weak financial oversight. No one has been named or wrongdoing established.

Harland & Wolf is one more headache for the UK’s new Labour government as it battles industrial crises ranging from British Steel in Scunthorpe and Tata Steel in Wales to the Grangemouth refinery in Scotland and Thames Water in south-east England.

Its refusal to grant a key £200mn loan guarantee in July, which could have enabled H&W to unlock cheaper funding, left the London-based parent company scrambling for finance. US lender, Riverstone, which had already lent H&W $115mn, granted an emergency $25mn loan in August. Most of this has already been spent, according to people briefed on the situation.

The shipbuilder was by then “insolvent — and not a little bit insolvent, but a lot insolvent”, Downs said. H&W’s failure to clinch the government facility sealed its fate. “It went wrong because [H&W] got turned down and they had no fallback,” he said.

Freddy Khalastchi, business recovery partner at consultancy Menzies, said H&W had been hobbled by cash flow problems since 2019 — possibly in part because of the Covid pandemic — and never turned a profit.

Downs announced this week he was appointing Teneo as administrator and hoped to sell the four yards together within weeks.

Only the Belfast yard, which employs some 600 and has two of the biggest dry docks in Europe, and Appledore are involved in the FSS contract.

“Clearly the purchaser’s main target will be the jewels in the crown [Belfast and Appledore] because of the income the FSS contract generates and also because of the future opportunities this could bring,” said Khalastchi.

Buying H&W might make the most sense for Navantia, analysts say — fuelling union fears that shipbuilding and jobs could be lost to Spain, leading to job losses in Northern Ireland, one of the poorest parts of the UK.

The consortium led by the Spanish state firm clinched the FSS contract two years ago after beating an all-UK bid that included defence contractors BAE Systems and Babcock International​​. All three declined to comment on their interest in buying all of H&W or just the Belfast yard.

Kate Forbes, Scotland’s deputy first minister, has noted the “economic opportunities” for the Methil and Arnish yards and a global defence contractor has expressed interest in acquiring the Scottish business, according to one person briefed on the situation, declining to identify the company.

H&W’s collapse is a blow to attempts by successive governments, most recently in 2022, to forge a national shipbuilding strategy that would deliver a steady pipeline of work to yards across the country. 

But the Labour government has defended its decision on the loan guarantee, blaming its Conservative predecessors for dragging its feet.

“In some ways, we were lucky that the first big decision we were handed was such an obvious basket case,” said one Labour figure. “There were plenty of red flags around it and it was a clear-cut decision not to go ahead with the loan guarantee.”

Francis Tusa, analyst and editor of the Defence Analysis newsletter, said the shipbuilding strategy had several “disjoints” from the start. Aside from a lack of money, it proved difficult to foster competition while at the same time promising a viable domestic warship industry with work for all yards.

Despite the uncertainty, some workers in Belfast said the mood was “nothing like 2019” when the company previously filed for insolvency.

Apprentice Ethan Baxter, 18, who joined H&W in Belfast three weeks ago was also hopeful. “I have heard there will be new buyers. I’m not worried.”

But unions who occupied the Belfast site for nine weeks in 2019 before its £6mn rescue were concerned their hard-fought victory will have been in vain.

“I was involved in 2019 when we literally just refused to give up — and you know, we would do the same again,” said Susan Fitzgerald, Irish secretary of union Unite, which represents most of the workers in Belfast and Appledore.

“We want to hear that our members’ jobs and skills are safe for the next generation. We don’t want someone coming in squandering that opportunity.”

Navigating choppy waters

1861

Harland and Wolff is founded by Edward Harland and Gustav Wolff in Belfast

1912

The company’s most famous ship, Titanic, sinks on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York

1975

H&W nationalised after decades of decline amid rising competition from Asia

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1989

H&W returns to private ownership in a management buyout backed by Norwegian industrialist Fred Olsen

2003

Anvil Point, the last ship built in Belfast, is launched

2018

Norway’s Dolphin Drilling, formerly known as Fred Olsen Energy, puts H&W up for sale

aug 2019

H&W files for insolvency after Dolphin Drilling files for bankruptcy

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Oct 2019

UK energy infrastructure group InfraStrata, led by John Wood, agrees to buy H&W for £6mn.

2023

H&W is part of consortium led by Spain’s Navantia that is awarded £1.6bn Royal Navy contract to build 3 support ships

Jul 2024

Government rejects £200mn loan backing

Aug 2024

US lender Riverstone agrees emergency £25mn loan. As a condition, Wood departs to be replaced by Russell Downs who disposes of non-core assets

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sep 2024

Company is declared insolvent and administrators appointed

1.8K

Latest Validated Independent News Stories

As we prepare the April newsletter, Project Censored faculty, students, and judges are reviewing the Validated Independent News stories the Project received in 2023-2024. Students participating in the Project’s Campus Affiliates Program identify, vet, and summarize important but under-reported independent news stories as part of their hands-on training in critical media literacy.

This year no fewer than 195 students from nine college and university campuses across the United States contributed to this collective effort to raise public awareness of important but under-reported social issues. In turn, these stories become candidates for inclusion in the Project’s acclaimed top “Censored” story list.

Candidate stories for the 2023-24 list include independent reporting on saltwater intrusion threatening drinking water along US coastlines, a drastic increase in workplace deaths in the US during the 2021-2022 census period, and ChatGPT security issues raising significant ethical questions, to name just a few. The story list also highlights the best “solutions” journalism, including, for example, reporting on how in-hospital schools at the University of North Carolina’s Neurosciences Hospital have opened “a road to recovery to address the student mental health crisis and foster school connectedness.”

The 2023-2024 story list will be published in Project Censored’s State of the Free Press 2025, due out this December from The Censored Press and Seven Stories Press. Meanwhile, you can review the full slate of candidates for this year’s Top 25 story list on the Project’s Validated Independent News page.

Project Staff Partnering with the Society of Professional Journalists for Regional Events

Mischa Geracoulis, Allison Butler, and Robin Andersen presented at the Society of Professional Journalists’ Region 1 conference at Emerson College in Boston, April 19-20. Mischa reported, “At a time when public trust in media and the profession of journalism have both taken hard hits, it was a genuine honor to be in the company of longtime professionals unwilling to give up on the Fourth Estate and journalism students eager to dive into a field that does not necessarily come with financial enticements. When keynote speaker at the Mark of Excellence Awards luncheon, Leslie Visser, articulated, ‘If you’re into journalism, truth-seeking is in your DNA,’ she reaffirmed our collective mission.” Special thanks to Adam Sennott of the SPJ New England chapter for organizing the event.

In March, Steve Macek participated in the Chicago Headline Club’s 2024 FOIA Fest, the Club’s annual event, hosted at Loyola University. The event celebrated Freedom of Information Day and public records reporting. Steve also contributed to the Club’s 2024 FOIA Fest Tip Sheet, highlighting best practices for journalists making Freedom of Information Act requests.

Censored Press Happenings

On April 21, 2024, C-SPAN’s Book TV broadcast the Avid Reader event in Sacramento, featuring Mickey Huff, recorded this past February. He discussed major themes and stories from Project Censored’s latest book, State of the Free Press 2024.

Mickey Huff was invited to speak about the state of the free press with Marianne Barisonek on The Progressive Page Turner, out of Sarasota, Florida, on April 10th.

Allison Butler, coauthor of The Media and Me, was interviewed by Arun Rath for a segment on “How Far-Right Activists Co-opt Strategies of the Civil Rights Movement,” broadcast by GBH’s All Things Considered on April 2nd.

The DailyKos’s Good News Roundup for April 12, 2024, written by chloris creator, highlighted The Media and Me as a book “designed to help youth learn how to use the media” while noting that the tools in it “could be used by anyone of any age.” Under the heading, “Let’s Honor Truth,” chloris highlighted the book’s pointers for evaluating news validity.

Mischa Geracoulis and Heidi Boghosian wrote an article for Savage Minds titled Whitewashing Genocide, focused on politician George Latimer and AIPAC campaign financing that aims to mislead voters in New York about the history of genocide and events in Gaza.

Andy Lee Roth read from and discussed The Media and Me at the grand opening of the Methow Valley Authors Library, hosted by Casia Lodge in Twisp, Washington, on April 14th. Special thanks to Methow Arts for sponsoring the event and Greg Wright of the Methow Press for organizing it.

Dispatches on Media and Politics and Other Publications

In Op-Ed Abuse, Mischa Geracoulis and Heidi Boghosian discuss findings from recent studies by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting and The Intercept, which document bias in opinion articles on the US economy and Israel’s assault on Gaza, respectively. Geracoulis and Boghosian consider these findings in light of the historical development of the op-ed as a standard newspaper feature, and they call for revitalizing the standards news outlets use to determine the content of their opinion pages.

Truthout featured the latest article by Project Censored Show co-host Eleanor Goldfield, titled Israeli Firms Are Working Overtime to Sell Stolen Palestinian Land to US Jews. As she reports, real estate events held in the United States “peddling land in Israeli settlements in the West Bank appear to flout US and international law.”

Allison Butler and Nolan Higdon explored how educational technologies undermine Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts in their latest article, Ed-Tech’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Deficit: The Galactic Gulf Between Rhetoric and Action. Programs like Turnitin, G Suite for Education, and other surveillance tools compromise the “autonomy of students, teachers, and families and reduce them to data repositories to be mined by Big Tech corporations” rather than improving students’ classroom experience.

The Project Censored Show

• March 27: Silver Screen War Machine: Decoding the Military-Entertainment Complex, excerpts from a panel discussion about the “Military-Entertainment Complex,” hosted by Mickey Huff, featuring Roger Stahl, Mnar Adley, Robin Andersen, and Fatooma Saad, inspired by Stahl’s documentary Theaters of War: How the Pentagon and CIA Took Hollywood.
• April 1: The Business of War & The Cost of American Delusions, with Christian Sorensen and Richard Wolff, interviewed by Eleanor Goldfield.
• April 9: Press Freedom and the Assange Appeal, Green Colonialism, Tribal Consent, and the Climate Crisis: Mickey Huff spoke with author Kevin Gosztola, and Eleanor Goldfield engaged with investigative journalist Hilary Beaumont.
• April 15: From East Palestine to Palestine, People Need Help: Eleanor Goldfield spoke with Zsuzsa Gyenes, Chris Albright, and Ann Wright.

Follow the links for each episode to learn more about the Show’s featured guests and content. Find the comprehensive archive of Project Censored Show episodes here.

Imagine cleaning out your basement, finding what appears to be a charming but unremarkable painting, then scratching its surface to discover a Frida Kahlo self-portrait beneath. In 2012, Taylor Swift was a prominent country music artist with crossover appeal, but not a major force in entertainment. Then came the Red album and the genius began to appear. Comparisons with Mozart are now more commonplace and understood, and universities teach courses on her. She occupies the same kind of status as Madonna and Michael Jackson in the 1980s and 1990s and, earlier, Elvis Presley and the Beatles. The Kahlo is now visible. Is there yet another layer?

Swift’s recent endorsement of United States presidential candidate Kamala Harris may conceal more than it reveals. After all, everyone knew her political allegiances lay with Democrats; none of her 284 million Instagram followers or anyone else would have been surprised that she wants Harris to win the forthcoming election. Maybe the endorsement is something more: advance notice that Swift intends to become a political presence in the future. If so, she could run for president in 2028. By then, she’ll be 39 years old. John F. Kennedy was 43 when he was elected in 1960, making him the youngest elected president in US history.

A new day?

Preposterous as it sounds, remember: In May 2015, Donald Trump was known principally for the NBC television show, The Apprentice, which he had fronted since 2004. He’d made his political views well-known, taking out full page ads in The New York Times and The Washington Post criticizing US foreign policy in 1987. In 1999, Trump briefly explored running for the Reform Party’s nomination for president in the 2000 election, though he withdrew.

So when Trump announced his candidacy as a Republican in June 2015, it came as an outrageous surprise. He’d never held political office of any kind. Only one other president had been elected without political experience: Dwight Eisenhower’s background as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe during World War II provided him skills that translated well to the presidency. He served two terms as president, from 1953 to 1961.

Eisenhower was a product of a different age in US politics. Trump is very much part of an age when the US struggles with a political bipolarity: Policy vs passion, logic vs emotion, wisdom vs relatability. Politicians are elected as much for celebrity appeal as leadership capability. Voters seem ready to believe they are much the same thing. How otherwise can we explain Trump’s success in 2016?

Two years after Trump’s election, Oprah Winfrey seemed poised to turn the 2020 election into a showbusiness extravaganza when she said she was “actively thinking” about running for president. At least, that was the inference from her speech at the Golden Globes. “A new day is on the horizon,” she prophesied. In 2018, Oprah was at her persuasive peak. She was arguably the single most influential person in the world and would have made a formidable contender, despite her political inexperience. Oprah was a rare celebrity, praised for her moral authority, venerated for her inspiration and respected for her support to countless women. She seemed kissed with purpose — her destiny was surely the White House.

Trump actually named Oprah as a possible running mate when he was considering putting himself forward with the Reform Party in 1999; it’s doubtful she would have been interested.  She settled into a kind of trusted advisor role, dispensing wisdom and assistance without showing any ambition for power. Today, Oprah has lost her momentum, though her coruscating endorsement of Harris was a reminder of her presence. She remains an interested party.

Celebrity times and celebrity politicians

Traditional politicians like senators and governors have, in recent years, lost immediacy. They project personae and exude authority in a carefully stylized and practiced manner, using the media in almost the same way Bill Clinton (president 1993–2001) or George W. Bush (president 2001–2009) did. By contrast, figures from entertainment know how to make themselves believable. They engage audiences by sharing ostensibly private insights and exchange the experiences that shape or scar them.

Swift, like other celebs, makes no attempt to separate her public face from her private life. She surpasses arguably every artist in history in her ability to share personal experiences through her music. Her fans wax about how her music speaks to them personally with insight and vision. Many of her fans are too young to vote now, but not in four years.

Some readers will think I’ve stumbled Lewis Carrol-like down a rabbit hole leading to a land of magic and strange logic. I remind them that in 2016, Trump secured 304 electoral votes compared to opponent Hillary Clinton’s 227, winning the presidency. He may yet be re-elected. Swift will not feel intimidated by her lack of political worldliness, sophistication or practical knowledge. After all, Trump had none of these benefits.

In 2018, Swift publicly supported Democrats in her home state of Tennessee, causing a surge in voting registrations, especially from young people. It was the first sign of political engagement among her fans. The following year, she spoke out in favor of the Equality Act. In her 2019 music video for “You Need to Calm Down,” she promoted the petition for the act. She was an active supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement as well.

So perhaps it makes sense for her to maintain her positions on the sidelines and encourage advocates, but without risking what could be a damaging misstep. A-listers like Barbra Streisand and George Clooney have stayed in their own dominion while earnestly making their political preferences heard. This would be Swift’s safest choice. After all, you can have too much of a good thing and no one in history has ever been as ubiquitous, audibly as well as visibly. Could audiences just get sick of her?

One of the verities of celebrity culture is that it values change, freshness and novelty. Swift has been on top longer than most. Maybe she recognizes this herself and is already plotting a segue into politics. A more logical move, however, would be to take action. Not that this is without perils: Madonna crashed as spectacularly as she succeeded in cinema. Celebrity times demand celebrity politicians — or politicians who are prepared to greet Oprah’s “new day” and entertain as much as govern.

The sanest thing to happen to the US

In showbusiness, Swift has reached Parnassian heights: astral record sales, unsurpassable box office and unbelievable social media followings. Artistically and commercially, she is at her zenith, cleverly integrating critiques of patriarchy into her songs when she conveys how even unmistakably successful women are still liable to run into misogyny.

But is it all just too trivial? The state of the world is grim and nothing Swift does will change that  right now. But the winds are blowing in her direction: The post-Harvey Weinstein tremors have destabilized patriarchy and the #MeTo movement remains a force. Would Sean Combs have met with instant condemnation and been reassigned as persona non grata were his transgressions known ten years ago? Censured, castigated, deplored, perhaps; but probably not canceled, as he surely will be. The historical privileges of manhood are disappearing.

Will Swift feel like culture-hopping from music to politics? It may be a leap too far, but no one can ignore her unstoppable influence. Much, I believe, depends on the outcome of the November election. If Harris wins, Swift will devote more time to championing her, perhaps closing the distance between herself and the Democrats, but not maneuvering into the political mainstream. If Trump wins instead, Swift may take the leap of faith and embrace the impossible, as giddily disturbing as this sounds today. Given modern America’s history, Swift’s leap could be the sanest thing to happen to the US.

[Ellis Cashmore is the author of The Destruction and Creation of Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and Celebrity Culture.]

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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An innovative new funding mechanism championed by former UK prime minister Gordon Brown is to provide $1.5bn in low-cost loans to improve education in poorer countries around the world.

The International Finance Facility for Education (Iffed) is set to launch what it described as the largest one-off investment in decades to improve inadequate schooling in response to global education budget cuts.

The initial $1.5bn has been raised through support from governments including the UK, Sweden and Canada, and from philanthropic and corporate backers, who will offer guarantees to underwrite a programme to disburse new loans and grants through leading multilateral financial institutions.

Iffed has signed a first agreement with the Asian Development Bank, and is set to authorise an initial disbursement in 2024 of over $100mn. It has approved 10 Asian countries as being eligible for financing, including Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

Discussions are advancing with other backers and intermediaries including the African Development Bank and the World Bank.

Many lower- and middle-income countries have cut their education budgets in recent years, and the World Bank has warned of low levels of basic numeracy and literacy — notably in Africa — compounded by further “learning loss” driven by pandemic-era school closures.

An estimated 250mn school-age children are currently not in class, with 800mn of the world’s 2bn children set to leave education without any secondary qualifications. 

International aid is dominated by health projects, while education represents just a small fraction and countries often struggle to demonstrate short-term returns to donors.

Brown, the UN’s global education envoy, told the Financial Times that the “groundbreaking innovation” in international development finance had been years in the making. He spoke after Iffed received an AAA rating from credit agency Moody’s and was graded AA+ by S&P.

Under the programme, multilateral banks lend money to governments of lower- and middle-income countries at a very low interest rate. This is in exchange for commitments to invest the money alongside existing domestic spending on credible national education programmes. 

“People traditionally think of international development in terms of grants or loans,” Brown said. “I think the transformative innovation here is to think not just of guarantees, but how you can leverage guarantees to create the kinds of resources that will never be created in the near future through loans and grants alone.”

He added: “It is shocking that nearly half of all the children on our planet still have no formal schooling. But that can begin to be consigned to history.”

Brown said the model had the capacity to become the “third arm for the development agenda” and was a “vehicle that should be more widely used” across other areas of public policy, such as health.

Donor backing will help to ensure that the new bonds issued by the multilaterals have a high credit rating. So far Canada, Sweden and the UK have committed $342mn in guarantees and paid-in capital and $100mn in grants.