Schools have reopened, as overcrowded as ever, with insufficient Covid screening

UPDATE:  On Monday, Sept. 20, the DOE announced their plans would shift again.  Now 10% of unvaccinated students whose parents give consent would be tested weekly, instead once every week.  

But to minimize quarantining, NO students in the same classes as positive cases would  quarantine, as long as they were masked and maintained three feet of social distancing -- which we know does not exist in many if not most schools.  It's like the Emperor's New Clothes.  Who will call out the Mayor and the Dept. of Health on this new fantasy?

Instead, if the Mayor and the Chancellor want to minimize disruptive quarantines, they should be administering rapid Covid tests to students in the same classes as those found to be infected, as they are doing elsewhere in the country, including Maryland, Massachusetts, Quebec and elsewhere. They should also be administering weekly testing to ALL students and staff, and mandate vaccination for all students over 12, as LA schools have done.

---

The school year has begun and predictably there are reports of lots of Covid cases, and many  overcrowded schools and classrooms. 

Already, one D75 school in East Harlem has closed because of suspected in-school Covid spread, and as many as 663 classrooms partly or totally closed. 

Here are photos of two other schools: the first, to the left, shows classroom overcrowding in an unidentified Brooklyn high school, the other below, a hallway at Midwood HS in Brooklyn.

Below this post is a video taken in the hallway at Fort Hamilton HS, also in Brooklyn.  Today's NY Post has photos of similar levels overcrowding at Forest Hills High School in Queens.   According to Adam Bergstein, the UFT chapter chairman and an English teacher at Forest Hills HS:

“People are wearing masks, otherwise it’s like nothing has changed from February of 2020 until today,” Bergstein said.

Fort Hamilton HS had 4,657 students, as of the latest DOE data, and was at 193% capacity.  Forest Hills HS with 3,705 students was at 184% capacity. and Midwood with 4054 students was at 165%.  

All three were all on the list of the 73 "Tier one" schools  that DOE had originally admitted to principals would be impossible to provide any kind of social distancing without provided with extra space, (though they refused to reporters to confirm the veracity of the list after I posted it.).  Yet fully 727 NYC schools are more than 100% overcapacity, according to the DOE's won data.

Back in June, when principals asked DOE  what could be done in so many schools where students pack "the hallways like sardines",  officials claimed they would provide solutions, including finding more space for the most overcrowded schools:

DOE spokeswoman Katie O’Hanlon said Wednesday that “there will be enough space to safely accommodate all of our school communities in the fall.” “We have three months until the start of next school year – part of our work to get ready is actively supporting a small number of schools that may face spacing challenges so that we can accommodate all students,” O’Hanlon said.

Clearly, that didn't happen. This level of overcrowding is inhumane - even in "normal" times. During a pandemic, it is simply unacceptable -- especially given the lax Covid testing regime of only one-tenth of unvaccinated students every two weeks. 

In the NY Post article, one Forest Hills parent suggested that the "school should offer a remote learning option to free up space, stagger classes or perhaps reduce the course load for juniors and seniors so they take only classes necessary for graduation."   

One epidemiologist warned against letting students eat in crowded cafeterias, where they have to be unmasked; another strongly urged the city to stagger classes and test for Covid more frequently.

Today, the UFT called for more testing : "Weekly testing of students under age 12, along with those in District 75, must be reinstated if we are to meet that goal."  Presumably this means the same 20% random weekly sample as last year, and only for children under 12 and D75 students.

But as Dr. Kitaw Demissie, the dean of SUNY Downstate’s School of Public Health told the NY Post, "Every student, every week needs to be tested,” Demissie said. “Ten percent is very small.”

 

On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, NYC teacher Roe Wrubel and her poem, "I Got my Wish the Wrong Way"

Ronit (Roe) Wrubel was my daughter's 1st and 2nd grade teacher at PS 3 in Greenwich Village more than twenty years ago.  Roe was the first person to talk to me about the importance of class size when she had 29 students in her class, and she talked to me about how much easier it was when one or two children were absent because it made all the difference in the world in being able to teach the rest of them effectively.  Roe was the best teacher at PS 3, and later moved to teach at PS 89 in Tribeca.

Today is the 20th anniversary of 9/11, and there's a must read article in Good Housekeeping about how on that fateful day, Roe protected her 3rd grade students at PS 89 when the World Trade Center towers were hit and collapsed.  It describes how she lowered the blinds in the classroom after the first tower was hit, took her students to the gym and distracted them while waiting for their parents to pick them up.  She and another parent then walked the remaining students uptown to PS 3.  So many teachers were heroes that day and during the following weeks, and continued to do their jobs in the face of immense trauma, just as they have continued to do their jobs during the ongoing pandemic.

After 9/11, the PS 89 building became the Command Center for  rescue efforts, and its teachers and students moved to PS 3 for a few months.  The following  year, so many families had moved away from the neighborhood that Roe only had 11 children in her class. The piece below, "Getting My Wish the Wrong Way", was written in Jan. 2002.  

Last year, some teachers commented that the only good thing about their classes was how small they were, with 60% of students staying home engaged in remote learning and six feet of social distancing enforced in classrooms.  

This year, if there are smaller classes , it will not be because of any efforts the administration has made to lower class size, but because many parents may have moved out of the city or are too afraid to send their kids back into overcrowded schools.  

It is heartbreaking that the only time most NYC students are able to experience the profound benefits of smaller classes and teachers who have time to spend with each of them individually is when tragedies like 9/11 or the Covid pandemic hit our city.

Getting My Wish The Wrong Way

by Ronit Wrubel 

In the center of my backpack sits a rather worn button, emblazoned with the words: CLASS SIZE MATTERS. A long ago gift from a group of dedicated parents working diligently to fight the good fight.

Every teacher knows, unequivocally, that the number of students in a classroom directly affects the breadth and depth of support and guidance that can be provided to those students. No matter what their academic or social/emotional needs, class size does matter.

I realized this early on, back in my student teaching days. I lived this, year in and year out, teaching classes full of at least 28 amazing children, with myriad strengths, and myriad needs. I could only spread myself so thin, I could only give so much. Though I tried. Every second hoping I could do more for them, be more for them, share more with them, learn more from them. 

Class size became my mantra. The soap box I stood on and preached from, for anyone who would listen. The scope of things I wanted to do for my students; to help them develop their independence, express their individuality, become full members of our class community, and achieve the heights of their potential; was tamped down because of sheer numbers. Too many subjects, not enough time. Too many necessities, not enough time. Too many possibilities, not enough time. Too many students, not enough time. 

If only there were less of them, I knew I could make more of a difference. I knew it with my mind. I knew it with my heart. I knew it with my soul.

And then it happened. I got my wish.

11 children remaining in my class. 

11 wonderful children. 11 energetic children. 11 bright children. 11 dedicated children. 

11 traumatized children.

“Please meet me on the rug, RIGHT NOW. Leave your books where they are. Come close. COME CLOSER.”

“There was an accident at the World Trade Center. I don’t know exactly what happened. There’s a fire. You’re going to hear a lot of sirens. The fire department and police department and ambulance workers are on their way to help out. It’s going to be noisy. We’re almost three blocks away. We’re safe.” 

I got my wish the wrong way.

The World Trade Center blew up. The towers collapsed in front of our eyes. They FELL. We ran for our lives. We got away.

My students going through it all, way too young, on September 11th. Clinging, Crying, Screaming, Frozen. Each child eventually got picked up by a family member. Safely out of our building; or later safely out of our evacuation site. But they couldn’t go home. Not for days, not for weeks, not for months. Battery Park City was GROUND ZERO; the FROZEN ZONE. Our school was the COMMAND CENTER. Our lives were CHANGED FOREVER.

Every family made their own decisions. “Where will we be safe? Where will we live? Where should my child go to school?” As time went by, my class grew smaller, and my heart grew wearier. 

With excitement and anticipation in late August I set up my room, and we started a class. With apprehension and bewilderment in mid-September at another school building, I set up a sparse room, we started over. With exhaustion and intensity in late October at an uncrowded school building, I set up a new classroom, we started over yet again. Then an additional move loomed on the horizon, back home- with questions of safety- with questions of change- with questions of the past and the future. So, with determination and expectation in February, I packed up, I set up my original classroom again, and we started over one more time. 

Through it all the children left.

Slowly dispersing. 

Around the city.

Around the state.

Around the country.

Around the world.

Now, there are 11 children in my class. I can spend more time with them. I can meet with small groups. I can listen to more ideas. I can have more conferences. I can review their work more carefully. I got my wish.

I can watch for signs of trauma. I can listen to more tales of that day, and the days that have followed. I can see their fear. Can they see mine?

Now, there are 11 children in my class. I got my wish.

I got my wish the wrong way.

Ronit M. Wrubel, Teacher - P.S. 89 

New York City, January 2002

 

Problems with NYC's school reopening plan - what can they be thinking?

Schools reopen next Monday, Sept. 13, only five days away.  Meanwhile, I have an oped in Gotham Gazette about the many problems with NYC’s school reopening plan.  Please check it out. Here it is in Spanish. 

Please also read this terrific oped in the NY Daily News from NYC principal Gabriel Feldberg about the need for more Covid testing in schools. He writes:

Children aged 5 to 12 have the highest COVID rates in New York City. Since the start of July, this age group has grown 10 times more likely to test positive. Now, across the city, the average positivity rate for children under 18 is roughly 5%. Do this math.

Five percent is one kid in 20. Public schools routinely have more than 20 students in a class. So how many classes will have a COVID case on the first day of school? Then, even with masks, ventilation, and other safety measures, how many cases will that give us by the second week? We won’t find out, because the New York City Department of Education plans to cut COVID testing in schools.

On Saturday, I interviewed City Council Chair of the Health Committee Mark Levine on WBAI-FM and the Talk out of School podcast about his concerns with the Department of Education’s  health and safety protocols.  You can listen to it above.  

Among other points, he said there should be an independent evaluation of the Intellipure air purifiers that DOE purchased for $43 million which has received scathing reviews from independent experts.

Since then, I noted that Governor Hochul and NY State Health Dept put out an order last week, which appears to require all schools to offer weekly testing to every unvaccinated student.

Yet DOE intends to testing only one tenth of unvaccinated students once every two weeks, despite the fact that NYC is in a “high transmission” zone.

Yesterday, the Daily News reporter tweeted that NYC claimed it had permission from the state to ignore this directive. 

Later that day:

None of this makes sense.  Why would New York state immediately backtrack on their own directive, which clearly said that schools were required to offer testing to all unvaccinated students weekly?

As I pointed out in my oped, the refusal of DOE and the Mayor to carry out sufficient Covid testing is particularly inexplicable, given the fact that FEMA  promised to pay for the full costs of school Covid testing.  In addition, as the Regulatory Impact Statement put out by New York State explains, 

The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has received an award for [Covid testing] of approximately 251 million dollars.  These amounts are believed to be sufficient to offset any costs associated with any school-related testing such that the fiscal impact on Local Health Departments and schools is minimized.  Costs for testing can also be offset by testing that is offered under Operation  Expanded Testing which is free testing in K-12 schools and other congregate settings which is funded by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Department of Defense (DoD). 

So DOE has at least $251 million and perhaps unlimited federal funds to do weekly testing, but is choosing to actually cut BACK on testing this year, despite Delta and despite the lack of social distancing in schools. 

At the same time, they just released $350 million in federal funds to schools that can be used for almost anything except for hiring full-time staff to lower class size. Instead, these funds can be spent on more standardized testing, software, PD, and most any other far less effective way to improve learning. And they made this funding available just a few days before school starts, which ensures that most of it will be wasted.  Here's the list of schools, with the amounts.  

If you're a school administrator or teacher, outraged about the lack of Covid testing, please sign  this petition.  If you're a parent, sign this one, demanding a safe return to school.

Yesterday's hearings and our critique of DOE's reopening plan: too little Covid testing; too much standardized testing

Update:  Here is the just-posted transcript of the hearings.

 Joint hearings of the City Council Education and Health Committees were held yesterday on DOE's school reopening plan. The assorted officials who testified, including Chancellor Meisha Porter and Dr. Dave Chokshi, NYC Health Department Commissioner, did not appear to reassure many of the Council Members that their plan was well-thought out or strong enough to ensure student safety.

What was also depressing is that the public testimony was dominated by anti-vaxxer teachers, who also called out and disrupted the hearings several times.  News reports about the proceedings are here  and here

Above is the video of Michael Horwitz, providing abbreviated remarks on behalf of Class Size Matters.  The video of the entire session is here.   

Here and embedded below is our full testimony with our detailed critique of DOE's school reopening plan. 

NY Times columnists still financially benefitting from Bill Gates largesse -without acknowledgement from the Times

8/27/21: I've updated this with more recommendation for what Solutions Journalism should do to avoid these conflicts of interest in the future.

Timothy Schwab has written a series of must-read pieces about the overriding influence of the Gates Foundation on public policy, and how the Foundation influences the reporting of the issues they are involved in, in part by helping to bankroll the media .

His latest analysis, published in Columbia Journalism Review, recounts how in 2016, I emailed the NY Times twice to ask why several “Fixes” columns written by their reporters Tina Rosenberg and David Bornstein hyping various Gates Foundation education projects and investments had no acknowledgements that they themselves received salaries from the non-profit they co-founded called Solutions Journalism Network, which is heavily subsidized by the Foundation.  

My second email to the Times, quoted by Schwab, pointed out how “Having a NYT columnist who is funded by Gates who regularly hypes controversial Gates-funded projects without any disclosure of conflict of interest could be compared to running columns on the environment by someone who runs an organization funded by Exxon/Mobil.”

Yet I received no response of any kind. The 2016 blog post that I linked to in my emails pointed out how the columns by Rosenberg and Bornstein on Gates grantees were biased, with few if any quotes from critics, nor any mention of readily available studies showing that the Gates-funded programs they were promoting had been shown to be ineffective or had a negative impact on educational quality.  

The Gates Foundation provides millions of dollars to many journalistic enterprises, which Schwab argued in an earlier 2020 piece helps to explain the kid glove treatment the Foundation has received over the last twenty years. The media outlets that get funding from Gates and regularly cover his education projects and investments include Chalkbeat, Hechinger Report, The 74, and Education Post, as well as K12 school reporting by NPR, Seattle Times, and others.  The Foundation also helps to fund the Education Writers Association, which frequently features speakers friendly to various policies favored by Gates.

Gates' support of Solutions Journalism Network started in 2011, when Bornstein and Rosenberg  won a $100,000 Gates Foundation “challenge” competition  “to build the first Wiki-style platform that packages solutions-journalism (specifically NYTimes Fixes columns) into mini-case-studies for educators around the world to embed in, and across, the curriculum,” in collaboration with Marquette University. 

In 2012, Tom Paulson, a former Seattle Times reporter with called Humanosphere questioned this arrangement.  As explained by a colleague, “Paulson’s fear was that Solutions Journalism was just a fancy way to disguise the desire (by donors, NGOs and others) for success stories, for promoting particular products or agendas.”

In response, Bornstein insisted to Paulson that neither he nor Rosenberg had received any financial benefit from this grant, as “NY Times prohibits them from accepting grant money (for work done at NYTimes) and they are unpaid collaborators with Marquette, allowing them to repurpose their columns and to help them think through the process."

Yet whatever reservations the NY Times may have had about allowing them to receive money from Gates seems to have quickly disappeared. In 2013, Bornstein and Rosenberg incorporated Solutions Journalism Network (SJN), and the next year, the organization received $600,000 from the Gates Foundation, from which they paid themselves  salaries of $75,000 each.  At the same time, they continued their regular "Fixes" columns for the NY Times/

The SJN 990 for that year reports that Bornstein worked 55 hours per week for the organization as its Chair, Treasurer and CEO, and Rosenberg 40 hours a week as its Vice President, which one would think left them little time to work as  NY Times reporters, though together they published at least twelve NY Times “Fixes” columns that year.

Since that time, the organization has raised $7.3 million in total from Gates Foundation.  Their most recent Gates grant was $1.7 million in August 2020, and Bornstein and Rosenberg now receive six-figure salaries from the organization, according to its latest 990.  

In an  August 2020 piece, Tim Schwab noted that he found at least 15  NY Times columns where  Bornstein or Rosenberg had written about  Bill and Melinda Gates, the Gates Foundation, or Gates-funded organizations, without any mention they were being paid on the side by the Foundation through SJN.  He recounted how he contacted Bornstein, Rosenberg, and their NYT editors, to inquire why there were no conflict-of- interest disclosures attached to these pieces.  

Tina Rosenberg responded that “We do disclose our relationship with SJN in every column, and SJN’s funders are listed on our website. But you are correct that when we write about projects that get Gates funding, we should specifically say that SJN receives Gates funding as well…Our policy going forward with the NY Times will be clearer and will ensure disclosures.”

Though Bornstein and Rosenberg told Schwab they had asked their editors at the Times to add disclosures to their columns, their editors apparently felt less reason to do so.

Months went by without any such acknowledgements, and when Schwab asked the Times why nothing had happened,   “Marc Charney, a senior editor at the Times, said he wasn’t sure if or when the paper would add the disclosures, citing technical difficulties and other newsroom priorities.”

Technical difficulties to update the Times website?  Really?

Tina Rosenberg also told Schwab that there were six columns that related to Gates-connected projects that in her mind did not need any disclosure, including her 2016 profile of Bridge International Academies, as “Bill Gates personally helps fund the project”  and “ SJN’s ties are to the Gates Foundation, not to Bill Gates himself, so no disclosure is needed.”

Bridge International is a for-profit chain of private schools in India and Africa, run by two Harvard graduates. Rosenberg praised the chain in a column in May 2013 and again in June 2016.  I have previously written how their schools feature shoddy facilities, a scripted curriculum, large classes, uncertified teachers, and tuition that is relatively expensive, especially considering the income levels in the developing countries in which they are located. 

Rosenberg’s second column, published in June 14, 2016,  came at an opportune time for the company – when the Liberian government was considering whether to hire BIA to run many of its public schools.  It also closely followed news that BIA had asked the Uganda government to arrest an independent journalist on trumped up charges who was investigating the quality of their schools .  This incident was covered extensively in the media including in the Washington Post just eight days before Rosenberg published her piece in the NY Times, though she left it out of her laudatory column. 

Absent from Rosenberg’s second piece was also any mention of the January 2016 letter by Kishore Singh, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education  to the Liberian president, stating that if the government  outsourced its educational system to a for-profit company, the country would be committing a “gross violation” of its education obligations under the Sustainable Development Goal number four, which holds that by 2030, the nation would “ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes.”

However, Rosenberg did make sure to add that among several reasons that the Liberian government should go ahead with their plans to hire BIA, she argued, was that the company had garnered substantial  financial resources from investors who included “Bill Gates (personally), Khosla Ventures, the Omidyar Network, the Zuckerberg Education Venture and Learn Capital, which counts Pearson as a limited partner.” 

Her subsequent claim to Schwab that her favorable reporting on BIA did not involve a conflict of interest because she was receiving funding from the Gates Foundation rather than Bill Gates himself is bizarre, in my view.

As  Bill Gates’ personal investments in companies are largely secret it would be difficult to assess what other columns these two may have written that might have benefitted his business interests.  The Gates Foundation also uses several pass through organizations such as New Profit, the New Schools Venture Fund, the Silicon Valley Education Foundation,  and the New Venture Fund to support their favored educational enterprises, without disclosing where the funding is actually going. Together these organizations have received an astonishing $553 million from Gates since 2007.

Contrary to the editors' apparent laissez faire attitude to Rosenberg, Bornstein, and SJN, Schwab relates how this past July, the NY Times had suspended a sports reporter when it was revealed that she was co-authoring a book with former Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps while covering Phelps for the paper. And after BuzzFeed News reported in March that NY Times columnist David Brooks had received a salary from the Aspen Institute, the Times added disclosures to six of his columns  about the work of the Institute, and made him resign his paid position with the Institute.  

After that occurred, Tim once more went back to the NY Times, to ask them why they hadn’t at the very least added any disclosures to the columns by Bornstein and Rosenberg that hyped Gates grantees:

I contacted Kathleen Kingsbury, the editor of the opinion section. I had previously contacted Kingsbury in 2019 and got no response. Kingsbury told me that the Times was finally adding belated financial disclosures to Bornstein and Rosenberg’s previously published columns. She noted in March that new disclosures had been appended to four columns, and the Times was working through a technical hurdle to correct two additional columns.

Again, the notion that “technical hurdles” prevented them to adding disclosures to their website is literally incredible.  

In March 2021, the NY Times did add a disclosure to a 2018 Bornstein column that praised the online program, PowerMyLearning, which has received $11.3M from the Gates Foundation.  The column now ends with the following note:

Editors’ Notes: March 18, 2021

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funds some of the work profiled in this article. The foundation is also one of the funders of the Solutions Journalism Network, which employs Mr. Bornstein. The story selection process for Fixes is independent and is not influenced by S.J.N. funding. 

But strangely, there is no such disclosure on  another column Bornstein wrote about PowerMyLearning in 2012, even though the company had received $5M from the Gates Foundation the year before. 

Nor are there any disclosures on two different columns by Tina Rosenberg in 2013, both in support of “flipped classrooms,” in which students are assigned to watch instructional videos at home and then spend class time doing problem solving.

Rosenberg’s second column focused specifically on the videos of the Khan Academy, which received $5.5 million from the Gates Foundation in 2010 & 2011. “Flipped classrooms” at the time was Bill Gates’ favorite education reform; in the same year, he gave a speech calling it the “biggest untold story of education technology”.  

Moreover, there is still no acknowledgement of any kind in a 2015 Rosenberg column praising the online/hybrid math program called School of One, now run by a company called New Classrooms and first developed in New York City schools,  even though the company had raised $11 million from the Gates Foundation by that point.  Nor is there any mention in her column of several published research studies showing that its program had yielded null or negative results.

Yet even so, mere disclosures should not be enough.  No journalist who has a regular column in the NY Times should be allowed to report on the investments of either Bill Gates or his Foundation, while continuing to benefit financially from his wealth. This should be true for the other billionaire venture philanthropists who help finance Solutions Journalism as well, including Chan Zuckerberg, Laurene Powell Jobs, and others. 

Another red flag is how even as the organization has expanded, its reliance on a very few donors has appeared to worsen over time.  According to Solutions Journalism’ audited financial statements, in 2017, 55% of their grant revenue was provided by three donors.  By 2019, one donor was responsible for  53% of their grants. Who this donor is remains a secret.

If Solutions Journalism reporters are going to continue hyping the projects of their funders, to avoid the appearance and reality of conflicts of interest in the future as much as possible, they should do the following: 

1- Disclose how much funding they receive from each of their donors on their website.

2- When writing about the investments or favorite policies of their donors, disclose this within the text of their columns, and explain why this does not represent an insuperable conflict of interest.  

3- Make sure that they include in their reporting any of the contradictory pieces of evidence that exist which suggest that these policies or companies do not work as well as their promoters/investors claim.

4-Write up a guide to other journalists, including those they train, on how to avoid such conflicts of interest in the future, or at the least, maintain maximum transparency by disclosing them in the text of their articles and ensure that their reporting is as clear-headed and bias-free as possible.

In any case, it is quite astonishing that the NY Times has continued to refuse to address the conflicted issues of Bornstein’s and Rosenberg’s columns, given how they so quickly made David Brooks resign his position at the Aspen Institute.  Indeed, their  own published  ethical standards  say the following:  

"… it is essential that we preserve a professional detachment, free of any whiff of bias. …Staff members may not accept gifts, tickets, discounts, reimbursements or other inducements from any individuals or organizations covered by The Times or likely to be covered by The Times. …staff members may not accept employment or compensation of any sort from individuals or organizations who figure or are likely to figure in coverage they provide, edit, package or supervise….”

Solutions Journalism also needs to adhere to its own principles –especially as it is engaged in “training”  reporters throughout the country in how to write about social and educational policies in a credible and objective fashion.  As I pointed out in 2016, the following claim is posted on their website:

The Solutions Journalism Network is a nonpartisan organization committed to transparency and editorial independence. We do not support or advocate for any particular idea, model, organization, or agenda….

We believe that it would be a disservice to society to exclude critical reporting on social innovations funded by these sources. On the other hand, it is critically important that such relationships not conflict with the principles of independent journalism. ..We require that our grant recipients remain completely transparent about any potential conflicts of interest that could arise in the context of reporting on an issue of interest to a Solutions Journalism Network funder. 

A separate page on their website, called Ethics code,  proclaims:  Journalists should… Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived. Disclose unavoidable conflicts. 

Independent, transparent, unbiased reporting is especially important in this time of growing skepticism towards the mainstream media and attacks on reporters as purveying “fake news.” As Lita Tirak, “Knowledge Curator” of Solutions Journalism proclaimed in a recent blog post, “Trust between the public and the news media is an indispensable part of a healthy democracy”.