The Prince We Never Knew by Sasha Weiss

Writing for The New York Times Magazine, Sasha Weiss reports on the legal blockades being thrown up against director Ezra Edelman’s follow-up to his exemplary O.J.: Made in America. The documentarian multi-episode exploration of the life and career of Prince is in limbo because the late musician’s estate effectively has veto power of depictions of the artist. In a way, Weiss smuggles a version of the documentary to the masses, freely describing what is within its evidently densely complication storytelling. The result is a compelling portrait of one of the most charismatic, complicated music artists of the past fifty years.

‘Haitians are not eating pets’: Springfield faith leaders stand with embattled migrants by Kathryn Post

I’m going to be very clear. In an effort to appeal to the perceived bigotry of their key voting base, both members of the GOP presidential ticket have been knowingly spreading lies that have resulted in a U.S. city being terrorized. This should be causing outrage instead of the media’s generally ho-hum “Well, these candidates have different views on the issues of the day” response. Reporting for Religion News Service, Kathryn Post takes the situation of the abstract and focuses on the people who actually live in the community and support one another, including the Haitian refugees who are being cruelly targeted by national figures.

The New York Times is washed by Drew Magary

Our household gets a print copy of The New York Times plopped onto our driveway every morning. Much as I value a significant amount of their journalism, the newspaper has taken a maddening approach to covering modern national politics seemingly based on the delusional notion that a compulsive liar and lifelong grifter ascending to a prime place in one party’s hierarchy is no big deal. Drew Magary rightly, ruthlessly tears into the nation’s most important new outlet for their dereliction of duty. This piece is published by SFGATE.