Just received good news from crack investigative journalist David Sirota:
July 14, 2014
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Friends:
I just wanted to share some exciting news in my world – as of July 21st, I will be starting a new job at the International Business Times (www.ibtimes.com). I will be a senior writer focusing on the intersection of politics, business and finance. This will be in addition to continuing my nationally syndicated newspaper column.
As you may have read in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/03/business/media/tiny-digital-publisher-to-put-newsweek-back-in-print.html?_r=1) , IBT Media is the company that recently purchased Newsweek. I will be doing investigative reporting for IBT Media’s flagship publication, International Business Times, which is right now building out its newsroom under its new editor, Peter Goodman (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/business/media/huffington-post-editor-leaving-for-international-business-times.html) . An award-winning journalist, Peter came to IBT after stints as a top economic correspondent for the New York Times and Washington Post and then as executive business editor of the Huffington Post. Getting a chance to work with him and the team he is putting together as they build out IBT’s newsroom is an amazing opportunity.
After an incredible winter and spring breaking stories with PandoDaily about pension politics (http://davidsirota.com/sirotas-pandodaily-investigation-of-the-new-jersey-pension-system/), campaign donors in Chicago (http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/south-loop-hotel-benefits-rahm-donor-griffin/Content?oid=13056486) , stealth programming arrangements at PBS (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/15/business/media/wnet-to-return-3-5-million-grant-for-pension-series.html) and secret deals on Wall Street (http://pando.com/2014/05/05/leaked-docs-obtained-by-pando-show-how-a-wall-street-giant-is-guaranteed-huge-fees-from-taxpayers-on-risky-pension-investments/) , I’m really looking forward to expanding that investigative work for IBT. The IBT folks have made clear to me that they are supportive of that kind of hard-hitting, non-partisan journalism – and they have built an esteemed editorial team in support of that commitment.
So many of you have reached out to me in the last few weeks with support and encouragement. I’ve really been blown away by all the kind words about my work, and I want to thank you for that – it has meant a lot to me. As always, if you have story leads, sources or ideas you’d like to discuss, I’m available by email (mailto:david@davidsirota.com) , Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/davidsirota) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/rocktheboat) .
Onward!
Rock the boat,
David
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Great news David, looking forrward to your first story at IBT.
You rock! Congrats to you.
Great news for our Democratic Society and American Values. Our freedom to express our opinions openly and honestly is vital to a healthy future for our Democracy and when one side of an issue is able to buy a monopoly interest in controlling our option to voice a descenting view, then we no longer have a Democracy. Thank you again and best wishes on your new journey.
Can’t wait to read his next newsbreak!
Awesome news.
BTW, the following from Milton applies alike to the stifling of journalism by owners to please business interests and to the mandating of what can and cannot be taught and learned by some national Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth:
“We must not think to make a staple commodity of all the knowledge in the Land, to mark and licence it like our broad cloath, and our wooll packs. What is it but a servitude like that impos’d by the Philistims, not to be allow’d the sharpning of our own axes and coulters, but we must repair from all quarters to twenty licencing forges.”
John Milton, Aereopagitica (1644)
licence: license
cloath: cloth
Philistims (Philistines)
coulter: cutting blade of a plow
Thank God for genuine investigative journalists, like David Sirota, a true leader for a dying breed, especially now that 6 corporations own 90% of the media in the US:
http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6
This is huge not just because Sirota is going to IBT, but because he’ll be part of a management constructed and approved dream team while there. Sirota was formidable alone, being part of this team is a big force multiplier for them all.
You guys have to read this.
I read most of the publicly-released reports on the Atlanta teaching scandal and they gave a very good picture of what went on there – the series of events- but this piece is just wonderful because it tells you how some very good people were completely eaten alive by standardized test scores.
It’s a freaking tragedy, what happened to these people.
This makes me furious:
“John Ewing, who served as the executive director of the American Mathematical Society for fifteen years, told me that he is perplexed by educators’ “infatuation with data,” their faith that it is more authoritative than using their own judgment.
In a 2011 paper in Notices of the American Mathematical Society, he warned that policymakers were using mathematics “to intimidate—to preëmpt debate about the goals of education and measures of success.”
Intimidate and preempt debate. Is that what the authors of NCLB and RttT had in mind, and if not, how did this happen?
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/07/21/140721fa_fact_aviv?currentPage=10
It’s education “reformers” who have an “infatuation with data,” not educators, many of whom would MUCH rather be permitted to use their professional judgments to evaluate student progress than the convoluted garbage that has been foisted upon them by non-educator politicians and their corporate sponsors.
Also, that page doesn’t go to the complete article. Try this one instead:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/07/21/140721fa_fact_aviv?currentPage=all
I think his mistake is understandable, though. This is presented as “educators”, always. He doesn’t know it’s not “educators”.
Such a sad story. They so wanted to save that school.
What a great justice system, huh? We’re happy to conduct a “perp walk” for 40 public school teachers yet bankers are meeting in conference rooms making deals with federal prosecutors where they pay a fine and go on about their business.
Ludicrous. And sad.
There is no justice for educators in America today. While politicians want to stop paying teachers for their advanced degrees and claim that a $48K pension per year in old age for decades of public service is over the top, when their Wall Street bankster buddies crashed the economy and used federal bailout money to pay $1.6 billion in bonuses to executives. they just issued a benign “tsk tsk” and the perps laughed all the way back to the bank.
We know who really matters to the owners of this country and it is themselves, their cronies and their families, not teachers, students or any other peon who belongs to the masses.
“$1.6B of Bank Bailout Went To Execs”
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/16b-of-bank-bailout-went-to-execs/
Congratulations, David! Keep on rocking the news. we need you.
I needed some good news.
Sent from my iPhone
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Congrats to David. Can’t wait to read your next investigative report. Turn the rock over and expose their hiding place. And, definitely rock that boat!
Dave Sirota has enormous ability and courage. This is, indeed, great news for all who love liberty. More like him!
I admire David Sirota and I’m glad he has a new job, but if Mother Jones magazine is correct, IBT is owned by a creepy cult figure akin to Reverend Moon.
http://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/03/newsweek-ibt-olivet-david-jang
“Being honest won’t get you a lot of friends, but it will get you the right ones.”
–John Lennon
Here’s a former Dept of Ed employee who now works for Eli Broad promoting Eli Broad and KIPP schools on…. the Department of Ed website!
It’s an exclusive club, and you’re not in it. 🙂
A closed circle of connections and influence and people who know one another.
http://www.ed.gov/edblogs/oii/2014/07/kipp-schools-is-2014-broad-prize-winner/
Wonderful news about David Sirota.
I hope there’s karma for his boss at Pando Daily and for the site’s arrogant oligarch investors.
Happy to see this good news about David. Thanks for keeping us posted.
Yes, but although I admire Sirota’s previous work and realize he has been a critic of ed “reform”, I see he just now wrote an adulatory article about the Working Families Party? http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/if-the-left-had-a-tea-party-107501.html,
But Working Families Party has recently, against the expressed wishes of its constituency, of whom I am one, endorsed Andrew Cuomo who is a big proponent of privatized schools and the Common Core? Am waiting to see what Sirota does next before trusting him. Nor will I ever vote for Cuomo.
Why was “A Principle is a Terrible Thing to Waste” page taken down?
David Sirota: “the Truth will out!” Congratulations, and looking forward to reading more from you soon.