Writers and Editors

• FOSTA/SESTA. A new law intended to curb sex trafficking threatens the future of the internet as we know it (Aja Romano, Vox, 7-2-18) Trump signed into law a set of controversial bills intended to make it easier to cut down on illegal sex trafficking online. Both bills — the House bill known as FOSTA, the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, and the Senate bill, SESTA, the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act — have been hailed by advocates as a victory for sex trafficking victims, but the law doesn’t appear to do anything concrete to target illegal sex trafficking directly, and instead threatens to “increase violence against the most marginalized.” And makes it a lot easier to censor free speech on small websites — as evidenced by the immediate ramifications the law has had across the internet, affecting such sites as Reddit, Craigslist, and Google.
• Public Law 115–164—APR. 11, 2018, 115th Congress An Act To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to clarify that section 230 of such Act does not prohibit the enforcement against providers and users of interactive computer services of Federal and State criminal and civil law relating to sexual exploitation of children or sex trafficking, and for other purposes.
• The Woodhull Freedom Foundation's constitutional challenge to FOSTA/SESTA Woodhull has filed a lawsuit against the legislation.
"Two highly controversial, harmful, and misleading bills, the House bill known as FOSTA, the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, and the Senate bill, SESTA, the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (collectively known as SESTA/FOSTA) represent the most broadly-based censorship of Internet speech in the last 20 years. The law did not succeed at its disingenuously stated purpose – to end human trafficking for sex. That goal was a complete failure.
     "What SESTA/FOSTA did do was drive large swaths of constitutionally-protected speech off the Internet. Even the Department of Justice warned Congress about the overreaching provisions of the law before it was passed. But Congress went ahead and voted this massive travesty into law." You can read about Woodhull's lawsuit against the legislation here.

Specifically, FOSTA:
1. creates new criminal and civil liability for website operators who host third-party content that “promotes or facilitates the prostitution of another person,”
2. expands criminal and civil liability such that any speaker online who allegedly “promotes” or “facilitates” sex trafficking can be treated as though they are participating in “a venture” with those who are directly engaged in trafficking,
3. removes protections for websites whose users’ speech might be seen as in violation of the law,
4. applies to speech that occurred even before FOSTA was enacted. That means anyone who operates an online platform is now liable for online speech that occurred well before Congress passed the law – so it violates the Constitution’s prohibition on ex post facto laws.

• Know Your Rights (Survivors Against Sesta site, archived) "Even though we have formally sunset as an organizing formation, we are still maintaining the instagram account @survivorsagainstsesta to amplify and promote SWer led actions and initiatives around the country/globe. Feel free to continue to send those requests for signal boosting to us via DM on that platform."
• What Is Sesta/Fosta (sourced with permission by Hacking/Hustling). "Section 5 of the law states: ENSURING FEDERAL LIABILITY FOR PUBLISHING INFORMATION DESIGNED TO FACILITATE SEX TRAFFICKING OR OTHERWISE FACILITATING SEX TRAFFICKING. This Act also makes allowances for States Attorneys to specially prosecute these cases. It is a very vaguely worded law, but its specified targets are online platforms, websites, companies/corporations behind site hosting.
What has FOSTA/SESTA criminalized?
      "This bill has expanded liability for internet platforms which host content generated by third parties around holding that information. While the bill creates liability for those websites for “knowingly facilitating sex trafficking,” there is not clarity for what that means. It also allows more people to file civil suits against websites.
      "People who own/operate/maintain websites which host third party content, listservs, (and maybe apps? Jury’s still out… or hasn’t been bought in yet), which promote and facilitate prostitution are subject to a federal crime. What’s facilitating prostitution? Also unclear. The bill being vague is a part of the problem."

       "Individual workers are not directly in the line of fire because of SESTA/FOSTA."
• More Evidence that FOSTA Benefited No One (Eric Goldman, Technology & Marketing Law Blog, 10-15-22) "FOSTA did not permanently reduce the volume of ads for commercial sex. The quantity bounced back after FOSTA, but distributed across more sites. ...as predicted for Congress, FOSTA scattered the ads worldwide rather than changing any of the underlying supply or demand factors.

    "FOSTA did not suppress commercial sex ads and it did not increase sex trafficking enforcement. The paper suggests that maybe FOSTA didn’t make things worse for women based solely on homicide and rape metrics, but (1) this ignores the impacts on male sex workers entirely, and (2) sex workers experienced many other physical, psychological, emotional, and financial harms due to FOSTA. The paper also does not model FOSTA’s detrimental impacts on speech, which continue to reverberate today.

• Decriminalize Sex Work FAQs about the decriminalization of sex work.The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) and the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), signed into law, effectively suspend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which stipulates that “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

       In simpler terms, it allows user-generated speech, such as comment sections and discussion boards, to remain uncensored.
      SESTA/FOSTA amends Section 230 by suspending its protection in cases where online platforms are perceived to be promoting prostitution.
      Online providers can now be held liable for posts perceived to be advertising sex on their sites. State law enforcement can prosecute these cases at their discretion.
• SESTA Bill Will Not Prevent Sex Trafficking But Will Silence Online Speech (National Coalition Against Censorship) "While the sponsors of these bills contend that they are aimed at stopping sex trafficking, neither bill actually helps sex trafficking victims confront their abusers and instead both focus on curtailing online speech. Even sex workers oppose the bills, which are likely to make consensual sex work more dangerous. The National Coalition Against Censorship joins with our allies in the free speech community to oppose this bill." See From Section 230 to The EARN IT Act and still controversial (blog post with links to more on this issue)

• Sex trafficking law looms large over latest bid to weaken Section 230 (Cristiano Lima, Washington Posst, 2-10-22) "In 2018, Congress passed FOSTA-SESTA, a contentious measure that opened digital services up to lawsuits if they knowingly facilitated sex trafficking on their sites. Despite its aims, critics warned that the measure could have an unintended chilling effect on free speech and harm sex workers trying to safely communicate online.
     "Now, civil liberties advocates, human rights groups and tech industry leaders are again sounding the alarm that the new bill could endanger the people it’s seeking to protect.
     "The legislation, called the EARN IT Act, would create a commission tasked with issuing recommendations to platforms on how to best curtail child abuse on their products. It would open platforms up to liability under any federal and state civil laws, as well as state criminal laws, related to hosting child abuse material. (Section 230 allows for liability under federal criminal law.)

• "SESTA/FOSTA Explained (Decriminalize Sex Work) This group explains how FOSTA/SESTA endangers sex workers, keeps victims of human trafficking in danger, and censors free speech on the Internet.

[Back to Top]

Subtopics: Row v. Wade, Obergefell v. Hodges, abortion, same-sex marriage, race and the 1619 Project, George Floyd, gun politics, separation of church and state, privacy, recreational drug use, homosexuality, censorship and banned books, climate change (in the wake of the 1997 Kyoto Treaty), pedophilia, gender identity, gay people, Trump and January 6th, academic freedom, teacher tenure, student rights, campus free speech, educational gag orders, whether the study of American history should be a "celebratory" or "critical" undertaking, separation of church and state, and orthodox Christian positions on premarital sex, contraception, out-of-wedlock childbearing, and divorce. Anything else?

• Heather Cox Richardson (Letters from an American, 5-2-21) on Republican attitudes toward multiculturalism. 'On Friday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and 36 Republicans sent a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona accusing him of trying to advance a “politicized and divisive agenda” in the teaching of American history. This is a full embrace of the latest Republican attempt to turn teaching history into a culture war....

     "The prime object of Republican anger is the 1619 Project, called out in McConnell’s letter by name. The project launched in the New York Times Magazine in August 2019 to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the first landing of 20 to 30 enslaved Africans at the English colony of Virginia....

     'The 1619 Project argued that the landing of the Black slaves marked “the country’s very origin” since it “inaugurated a barbaric system of chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years.” ...The Pulitzer Center, which supports journalism but is not associated with Columbia University’s Pulitzer Prizes, produced a school curriculum based on the 1619 Project; Republican legislators in five states—Arkansas, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, and South Dakota—filed virtually identical bills to cut funding to any school or college that used the material.'
• Why Republicans are obsessed with pedophilia, gender identity, gay people, and abortion (Robert Reich, 5-7-22) "Voters, don't be deflected by “culture war” messages intended to deflect the public’s attention from how badly big corporations and the super wealthy are shafting them. Americans won’t understand how these economic abuses all relate to record amounts of income and wealth at the top, and what must be done to reverse this imbalance (break up monopolies, enact a windfall profits tax, raise taxes on large corporations and the super wealthy, strengthen labor unions, reform campaign finance, stop corporate welfare, and so on).
      "Oh, and by focusing on pedophilia, gender identity, gay people, and abortion, Republicans don’t have to talk about Trump and January 6."
• With Rising Book Bans, Librarians Have Come Under Attack (Elizabeth A. Harris and Alexandra Alter, NY Times, 6-7-22) Caustic fights over which books belong on the shelves have put librarians at the center of a bitter and widening culture war. The reporters spoke to two dozen librarians and library associations across the country for this article. For more on the topic, see Banned and challenged books with links to articles on

---Lists of banned and challenged books

---What you can do to fight book bans and challenges

---Academic freedom, teacher tenure, student rights, campus free speech, and educational gag orders.
• The Next Culture War (David Brooks, NYTimes, 6-30-15) "Christianity's gravest setbacks are in the realm of values. American culture is shifting away from orthodox Christian positions on homosexuality, premarital sex, contraception, out-of-wedlock childbearing, divorce and a range of other social issues... [Many] conservatives are enmeshed in a decades-long culture war that has been fought over issues arising from the sexual revolution....Consider putting aside, in the current climate, the culture war oriented around the sexual revolution....Put aside an effort that has been a communications disaster, reducing a rich, complex and beautiful faith into a public obsession with sex. Put aside a culture war that, at least over the near term, you are destined to lose."
---Okay, David Brooks, Which Culture War Should We Fight? (Joe Rigney, The Federalist, 7-2-15) "Isn't the sexual revolution one of the main culprits (aided and abetted by presumptuous Supreme Court decisions that insist on removing these debates from the democratic process, with Roe and Obergefell at the top of the list)?... But we social conservatives, and especially those of us who are Christians, recognize deep connections among these issues, many of them having to do with what sex is for, what marriage is for, indeed what people are for."
---David Brooks on ‘The Next Culture War’ (Rod Dreher,The American Conservative, 6-30-15) Should Christians fight? Retreat? Brooks suggests a third way
• After Obergefell: A First Things Symposium (Various authors, First Things, 6-15) How should we respond to the ruling by the Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges that there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage? What’s next? 
• Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America by James Davison Hunter (published in 1992). An account of how Christian fundamentalists, Orthodox Jews, and conservative Catholics have joined forces in a battle against their progressive counterparts for control of American secular culture.The struggle to make sense of the battles over the family, art, education, law, and politics. On an increasing number of "hot-button" defining issues—abortion, gun politics, separation of church and state, privacy, recreational drug use, homosexuality, censorship—there existed two definable polarities.

     See recap of the discussion on Wikipedia. "The culture wars influenced the debate over state-school history curricula in the United States in the 1990s. In particular, debates over the development of national educational standards in 1994 revolved around whether the study of American history should be a "celebratory" or "critical" undertaking and involved such prominent public figures as Lynne Cheney, the late Rush Limbaugh, and historian Gary Nash." This Wikipedia entry is one of the most useful I've seen, including a wide range of references and useful discussions and explanations.
• Deep Water: An Encounter with Whiteness (Deepa Iyer, Medium, 10-30-18) See also her Solidarity Is This about different aspects of the effects of white supremacist culture and From Silos to Solidarity: Learning from 2017’s Resistance Movements. We "must also sharpen our solidarity work: we must move beyond race as the single and sole organizing force to bring communities together; we must work within our own communities to lovingly challenge biases as we proclaim unity with other movements; and we must ensure that we are not caught in a cycle of rapid response and emergency postures that end up harming our own people and organizations."
• Climate Science as Culture War (Andrew J. Hoffman, Stanford Social Innovation Review, SSIR, Fall 2012) "Today, there is no doubt that a scientific consensus exists on the issue of climate change....And yet a social consensus on climate change does not exist. Surveys show that the American public’s belief in the science of climate change has mostly declined over the past five years, with large percentages of the population remaining skeptical of the science."

     "The public debate around climate change is no longer about science—it’s about values, culture, and ideology. 'Climate change has become enmeshed in the so-called culture wars. Acceptance of the scientific consensus is now seen as an alignment with liberal views consistent with other “cultural” issues that divide the country (abortion, gun control, health care, and evolution). This partisan divide on climate change was not the case in the 1990s. It is a recent phenomenon, following in the wake of the 1997 Kyoto Treaty that threatened the material interests of powerful economic and political interests, particularly members of the fossil fuel industry."
• Everything you wanted to know about the culture wars – but were afraid to ask (Andrew Anthony, The Guardian, 6-13-21) Politicians like to provoke them, academics like to analyse them. Yet most people don’t even know what they’re all about.The historian Dominic Sandbrook agrees that a culture war is under way but cautions against overstating its dimensions. He thinks that more often than not it’s a dispute between two sides of an educated elite. Scroll down for key flashpoints, mainly from UK viewpoint, but they include the murder of George Floyd and the European Union referendum (the issues surrounding Brexit were as often as not cultural at root).

 'Everything that gets labeled "far-left" in the US is common sense policy in the rest of the industrialized world. Guaranteed health care. Paid family leave. Government drug price negotiation. Gun control. It isn't radical. We're talking about the basics of a functioning society."
~ Public Citizen @Public_Citizen 

Guest post by novelist Luanne Oleas

 

I've been in the same critique group for seven years and I've been managing it for five years. I inherited it from our local writers group (my area branch of the California Writers Club).We've had only minor changes in membership over the years. We went virtual during the pandemic, and I doubt we'll ever go back.

 

I'm lucky that most of the members are in my time zone because our meeting runs about six hours, once a month. There's a fair bit of administrative work involved to keep it going, but it's well worth the effort to have people consistently reading and commenting on your work. There are  six of us, all fiction writers. I doubt we would have time for more members.

 

How it works: We each submit a chapter a month, anywhere from 3 to 15 pages. That submission should arrive a few days before the meeting so the members have time to read through it once before the meeting starts.

 

During the meeting, each writer reads his submission aloud and other members comment on what struck them, good and bad.

 

What I find particularly helpful is that we have members from ages 30 to  90. Expressions that work for the older members don't fly with the younger ones. It's good to know that. We are also at all different skill levels: two with multiple books published, several with books written but unpublished, and one on his first book. Being at different levels in our careers hasn't been a hindrance. We all bring something to the table. Our group has two fantasy writers, a fictional podcaster, one adventure writer, and two women's fiction, so yes, we span multiple fiction genres. I had to get up to speed on fantasy and podcasting, somewhat, but it wasn't difficult.

 

To start a virtual critique group, you need:

      Zoom

      A shared folder like Google drive

      A few reminder emails

      Members who are slightly (but not overly) tech savvy.

 

The process: We find it best if the author being critiqued doesn't talk unless asked a direct question. No defending your work. Also, those giving critiques must mention what works as well as what doesn't. A good way to start is to use the following questions:

 

       What specific passages stand out or stay in your mind? Why?

       What do you think is the main idea of the work? (Express this in your own words.)

       What does the work almost say?

       What do you want to hear more about?

       What, if anything, is too obvious or too explicit?

       What is the best feature of this work? Why?

 

[Luanne agrees with the idea of the feedbook sandwich widely recommended by others--also known as the "praise-criticism-praise" method. First, the critique provider starts with positive feedback (the first slice of bread); then, they offer constructive criticism or corrective feedback (the filling); and, finally, they conclude with more positive feedback (the second slice of bread). On a deeper level, this approach is designed to soften the impact of the negative feedback and to end the conversation on a positive note. By beginning and ending with positive feedback, the goal is to create a more receptive environment for the person receiving the feedback.]

 

We start the meeting at 6 pm, allow 30 minutes to socialize, then at 6:30 we start reading. No socializing is allowed after reading starts. Also, at the end of the meeting, we set the date and time of the next meeting. The reminder emails give the links to a shared folder and to the Zoom meeting. Usually they go out a week before the meeting.

 

Our members use Word docs, Google docs, or PDFs when submitting chapters. Within a day or two after the meeting, each member emails specific comments directly back to the author. In the meeting, we cover only the high points of our critiques; we get into the weeds with the edited files we return. We return files directly to the author by email, not posted in the shared folder, to cut down on maintenance for the group Admin.

 

A lot goes into the care and feeding of a critique group, but the benefits make it worth the effort. Different members have different strengths when it comes to critiques. We have a lawyer who is great at grammar edits, an ex-teacher who is better at suggesting word choices, a mathematician who catches all the conflicting details, a marketing maven who is better at story lines, and a techie who helps with the youthful viewpoints and offers suggestions to update the work and make it more current.

 

If you write about other settings, it's amazing what group knowledge contributes. I happened to have a main character who uses an online dating services. Since I've been married for over 40 years, I had no clue how they worked. I got lots of advice to make it more realistic. Basically, it's like have a panel of experts help improve your work.

 

You also learn how to deal with the comments others make on your work. If one person says "this doesn't work," you can usually ignore that comment. If everyone, or even the majority, say something doesn't work, you probably need to change it. But also, in the end, you as the author have the final say. Maybe because you know the whole story, you may know why you have to keep a passage despite suggestions to the contrary. This has helped me when I had to deal with editors as well. 

 

To have a successful critique group you have to be willing to put some effort into it, accept each other's strengths and weaknesses, and be willing to ask members to conform to the rules or find another group. The last is probably the toughest part. We must all agree to a new member joining and there's a trial period of two months before they become a permanent member.  ''

 

Having random writers comment on your work might be one way to improve it, but you really never know how seriously to take their comments. Many authors need consistent (not sporadic) comments on their work. Establishing an on-going critique group might be a better option. I hope my suggestion can help some folks get started.

 

Best of luck,

Luanne Oleas

 

Luanne is author of the novels Flying Blind: A cropduster's story and A Primrose in November. Learn more about her upcoming work on her website and check out her blog. This letter first appeared in an Authors Guild discussion group and is reprinted here with Luanne's permission.

 

Letters to the Editor are written by members of the public (not newspaper or magazine staff), generally expressing a reader's opinion about a current issue.

• Seven Tips for Crafting a Compelling Letter to the Editor from Media Matters: The Complete Guide to Getting Positive Media Attention (PDF Advocacy & Communication Solutions) Free download here.

• This "Dear IRS" letter Ed Barnett wrote to the Wichita Falls Times Record News in 2009 went viral.

• Letter to the Editor Template (NAEYC)

• Letters to the Editor (The New York Times)

• Letters to the Editor (Washington Post)

     For example: Opinion: Only one party’s policies are increasing U.S. mortality (Guess which one.)

• In the age of social media blasts, what’s the point of letters to the editor? (Marina Bolotnikova, Poynter, 3-18-22) Publishing readers’ letters sends a message that they are equal participants and that reader criticism is a necessary part of how the news is made. “Our older readers will write letters, but younger folks need to be invited and told that the thing that they just published on the internet is also a letter, and can be integrated into the conversation that the magazine is having.”

      If editors want letters to remain a live tradition, they can’t just wait for letters to come to them. Like Arielle Angel of Jewish Currents, Thornton solicits letters from readers who post strong reactions to the Los Angeles Times’ work on Twitter. “Half the time I don’t get any replies. But the times that I do, it elevates me, because seeing this occasionally vicious criticism on Twitter turn into a well-thought-out, well-argued letter to the editor is quite wonderful.”

• Letters to the Editor (The Guardian, UK) An intelligent letter-writing readership.
• The Top Letters to the Editor of 2021 (Dallas Morning News)
• The Best Letters to the Editor in New Republic History (Woolf, Updike, and Nabokov)

• Flintstones to Lance Armstrong: 8 of the Best Letters to the Editor (posted on Time, 11-28-14) Some of the best letters to the editor make us laugh.

• From the editor: Statesman Journal stops publishing traditional opinion content (Cherrill Crosby, Salem Statesman Journal, 5-8-22) "We've learned via focus groups and feedback that this content does not resonate as it once did with audiences. It is among the least-read content that we produce, both online and in print. We know Statesman Journal readers want to be educated about the facts so they can make up their own minds as opposed to being told what to do....And because it is some of the least publicly understood as far as the difference between news and opinion content, opinion content also is tied to perceived problems of journalistic credibility, trust, objectivity and fairness."

• Disgraced British Columbia politician seeks redemption. Former legislator Paul Reitsma who resigned in disgrace for writing letters to newspapers under fake names hopes to revive his political career on Vancouver Island.

 

What other great letters to the editor are out there? What good tips for writing effective letters to the editor?

Maggie Lynch's helpful response to this question on an Authors Guild discussion forum (published here with her permission):

 

Do agents prefer manuscripts that have been reviewed by a professional editor?

      Before I start sending out query letters to agents, I'd like advice on whether it's worth the expense of hiring a development editor to evaluate my manuscript. I've received positive feedback from two beta readers, and I feel like the book is ready to go after 5 years work on it. 

 

Maggie's response:

 Read More 

Espionage and whistleblowing are two very different things.

• The Part of the Espionage Act That Matters (Jan Lodal, a longtime defense and intelligence official, in a guest post on James Fallows blog, Breaking the News) "Trump’s violation of this Subparagraph (d) of the Espionage Act could not be clearer. Unlike all other crimes being considered for prosecution, Subsection (d) requires no probing of intent or consequence. It defines as criminal a clear process violation -- “failing to return” classified documents when properly asked to do so."  Read More 

Inside the SCOTUS Case on School Library Censorship

(podcast, Brooke Gladstone, On the Media, NYC Studios, 2-4-22)

 

I apologize for going beyond 'fair use' in providing a digest of this program. It's the only Supreme Court decision about removing "banned books" from school libraries, and it is a good discussion of issues in the case. I strongly recommend listening to the recording.

 

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Island Trees School District vs Pico, the first and only time the Supreme Court considered the question of book removal in school libraries.

 Read More 

 

After this first excellent section for scientists are links to advice for other disciplines.

 

For scientists speaking to reporters:

These four sets of savvy tips from SciLine are excellent and, along with the realistic subtips, are easily transferable to non-science interviews. Click on the sources to get all the points and sub-points. Read More 

Discussing differences, conversing even when you disagree, listening to each other, bridging communities, saving local news

• Let’s build a world where we can talk — and listen — to each other, Part 1 (Lisa Rossi, JSK Class of 2018, 6-5-18) "In an era when local news is declining, who is left to ask a public official a question about a confusing new policy? To get to the bottom of a school rumor about a teen in trouble? We are. Regular folks. Why building better conversations is an important building block to a healthy local news eco-system.

      "We need higher quality conversations. By re-learning how to talk to each after a decade of living our lives virtually, moment upon moment smeared by misinformation, posturing, trolls, vaguebooking, virality, online bullying, influencers and manipulators, we are reclaiming our very humanity, and along with that, our ability to discern fact from fiction, argue with a stranger (or family member) without yelling or hurling ugly insults, and learn from someone distinctly differently from ourselves." Read More 

(Updated from a shorter 2016 list)  I assembled this alphabetized list of "best TV and cable shows of all time") for friends but got so many requests for it that I posted it here and update it periodically. Not all of the shows are current. I've added stars to shows that in my view are "must try" and I've provided links for many shows, but venues change. You can always google the name of a show and scroll down past the Google ads to see if and where the shows are streaming now. If you haven't seen it, start with Friday Night Lights (2006-2011, watch streaming on Hulu and maybe one other channel now). Read More