Good morning – have you been in a reading rut? If so, you’re not alone. “The world is increasingly distracting,” the president of the American Library Association told one of our reporters this week. “It can be really difficult to get into a reading habit.”
One – quite intuitive – tip from the experts is simply to read things you find interesting. They don’t have to be too long: the “intentional focus” will still help you rest and slow down.
Here are five interesting pieces from the week that’s been. (For anyone watching the Ashes, you can get through most of these in a drinks break.)
1. How Epstein’s powerful friends normalised him
“From British royalty to White House alumni, from a Silicon Valley investor to a leftwing academic, connections and influence were the ultimate currency for Jeffrey Epstein.”
As Washington bureau chief David Smith writes, emails released this week show Epstein’s role in his vast network went far beyond social pleasantries. “He was treated as a trusted consigliere, a fixer whose judgment on matters of politics, scandal and personal life was actively sought by the powerful. He even sought to shape foreign policy.”
How long will it take to read: under four minutes
Further reading: Moira Donegan writes that the emails “reveal a disdain for morality among the elite”. And as the furore around the release of more Epstein documents continues, you can find the latest here.
2. Is GenAI creating a global ‘knowledge collapse’?
Deepak Varuvel Dennison studies what it takes to design responsible AI systems, as more and more people turn to them to learn about the world.
“These systems may appear neutral, but they are far from it,” he writes, explaining how the processes behind GenAI models encode existing biases, exclude marginalised knowledge – like that of oral traditions – and are creating “a feedback loop that narrows the scope of accessible human knowledge”.
Not just an AI issue: Indigenous knowledge has long been driven out by entrenched power structures, Dennison points out – GenAI just puts the process “on steroids”.
How long will it take to read: about nine minutes
3. A moment to shame all Australians
This week, a two-year Guardian Australia investigation revealed alleged failures by the police and coroner’s court in family violence deaths in Queensland. One was that of 31-year-old Kardell Lomas, who was killed, with her unborn child, by her partner. Bodycam footage of a police callout just months before her death shows her apologising to police: “I’m sorry for the fuck-around.”
Her words, Darumbal and South Sea Islander academic Dr Amy McQuire writes, should shame every person who hears them.
“This is a message that is sent to every single black woman: be thankful, be gracious, cower into yourself, apologise for fucking them around … She speaks as if she is the problem, when it is those around her who have made her more vulnerable to death.”
How long will it take to read: three minutes
Broken trust: read, watch and listen to the full investigation here.
• Indigenous Australians can call 13YARN on 13 92 76 for information and crisis support. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org
4. Did Spain’s ‘pact of forgetting’ after Franco leave a new generation open to the far right?
Fifty years after Francisco Franco’s death, his legacy continues to “haunt divide and confuse” 21st-century Spain. After his four-decade dictatorship, the country wanted to move on as quickly as possible, and leave the past in the past.
But as Madrid correspondent Sam Jones reports, the far right is once more on the march, appealing to younger voters with no memory – and scant knowledge – of Franco’s violent, authoritarian regime.
***
“All these youths who now raise their arms in fascist salutes were never really taught their history.” – Spanish film-maker Almudena Carracedo
How long will it take to read: four minutes
Further reading: Indifferent, nostalgic or plain pragmatic … Tess McClure explores the reactions of Indonesian gen Zs to strongman Suharto’s national hero status.
5. ‘It’s like they’ve opened all their trench coats’
The rollout of American reporter Olivia Nuzzi’s memoir – in which she details what she describes as an emotional affair with Robert F Kennedy Jr – has led to her ex-fiance and former Politico correspondent Ryan Lizza airing out her alleged affairs.
“The mudslinging between two of the more polarising personalities in a profession filled with egos delighted a media class that revels in navel-gazing, schadenfreude and generally messy behaviour,” writes Alaina Demopoulos. “Over the course of four days it had a lot of material to work with.”
Why should I care about this? Fair question. But while Nuzzi and Lizza are not, Demopoulos acknowledges, “household names outside the Beltway and New York media circles”, all the gossip and drama is fuelling dangerous stereotypes about journalists.
How long will it take to read: three minutes
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