BOISEweekly STAFF Publisher: Sally Freeman sally@boiseweekly.com Associate Publisher: Amy Atkins amy@boiseweekly.com Office Manager: Meg Andersen meg@boiseweekly.com Editorial Editor: Zach Hagadone zach@boiseweekly.com News Editor: George Prentice george@boiseweekly.com Staff Writer: Harrison Berry harrison@boiseweekly.com Listings Editor: Jay Vail Listings: calendar@boiseweekly.com Contributing Writers: Sami Edge, Minerva Jayne, Terelle Jerricks, David Kirkpatrick, Paul Rosenberg Interns: Annelise Eagleton, Alexandra Nelson Advertising Account Executives: Jim Klepacki, jim@boiseweekly.com Jared Stewart, jared@boiseweekly.com Digital Media Account Executive: Lisa Clark, lisa@boiseweekly.com Classified Sales/Legal Notices classifieds@boiseweekly.com Creative Art Director: Kelsey Hawes kelsey@boiseweekly.com Graphic Designers: Bingo Barnes, bingo@boiseweekly.com Jason Jacobsen, jason@boiseweekly.com Contributing Artists: Elijah Jensen-Lindsey, E.J. Pettinger, Ted Rall, Jen Sorensen, Tom Tomorrow Circulation Man About Town: Stan Jackson stan@boiseweekly.com Distribution: Tim Anders, Char Anders, Becky Baker, Bill Hagler, Stan Jackson, Barbara Kemp, Jim Mowbray, Warren O’Dell, Steve Pallsen, Kara Vitley, Jill Weigel Boise Weekly prints 32,000 copies every Wednesday and is available free of charge at more than 1,000 locations, limited to one copy per reader. Additional copies of the current issue of Boise Weekly may be purchased for $1, payable in advance. Subscriptions: 4 months-$40, 6 months-$50, 12 months-$95, Life-$1,000. ISSN 1944-6314 (print) ISSN 1944-6322 (online) Boise Weekly is owned and operated by Bar Bar Inc., an Idaho corporation. To contact us: Boise Weekly’s office is located at 523 Broad St., Boise, ID 83702 Phone: 208-344-2055 Fax: 208-342-4733 E-mail: info@boiseweekly.com www.boiseweekly.com The entire contents and design of Boise Weekly are ©2016 by Bar Bar, Inc. Calendar Deadline: Wednesday at noon before publication date. Sales Deadline: Thursday at 3 p.m. before publication date. Deadlines may shift at the discretion of the publisher. Boise Weekly was founded in 1992 by Andy and Debi Hedden-Nicely. Larry Ragan had a lot to do with it, too. Boise Weekly is an independently owned and operated newspaper.
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EDITOR’S NOTE TRUST AND CONSEQUENCES In a widely reported Gallup poll released in September, respondents delivered a clear message to practitioners of mass media: “We don’t trust you.” According to the survey, only 32 percent of Americans said they have “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of confidence in the media’s ability to “report the news fully, accurately and fairly.” As Gallup noted, it was the lowest such accounting of mass media’s trustworthiness in the company’s 81-year polling history and represented an 8 percent decline from 2015. How much further that level of trust has fallen since September—or even since the Nov. 8 election—remains to be seen, as we now have the specter of so-called “fake news” to contend with. In an essay for The New York Times published Nov. 18, John Herrman, who tackled Facebook’s “political-media machine” in a NYT Magazine feature in August, wrote the reckoning is still to come with “fake news,” which has the power to pass off any notion as true by sheer force of sharing on social media. According to Herrman, traditional media “does not yet understand how threatened its ability is to declare things true, even when they are.” For anyone with a passing belief in the importance of the Fourth Estate, this is a chilling diagnosis; and, lest we write off these concerns as “media elite” hand-wringing, “post-fact” was declared word of the year by the Oxford English Dictionary. The extent to which the ever growing chorus of criticisms against “the media” are valid will likely inform every discussion happening in journalism schools for the next four years (at least), as President-elect Donald Trump has already set himself up as the nation’s Media Critic-in-Chief. Meanwhile, despite the general sense of pessimism about the news business, there are still thousands of talented journalists turning out important work— much of it drowned out in our current media landscape. Project Censored and its annual top 10 list of under- or unreported news stories shines a light on a handful of important pieces of journalism that deserved better and more attention in the past year. Find the 2016 Project Censored reprinted on Page 9, and, maybe, take some heart that there are reporters out there who should garner more than 32 percent of your trust. —Zach Hagadone
COVER ARTIST Cover art scanned courtesy of Evermore Prints... supporting artists since 1999.
ARTIST: Marianne Konvalinka TITLE: “vixen” MEDIUM: Mixed media on board ARTIST STATEMENT: I enjoy playing with a variety of media. Taking inspiration from the great wide open and my travels, my art is constantly evolving. My camera is a favorite companion. Find me at greatwideopenart.com; Instagram @greatwideopenart; and facebook. com/great.wide.open.art.
SUBMIT Boise Weekly publishes original local artwork on its cover each week. One stipulation of publication is that the piece must be donated to BW’s annual charity art auction in November. A portion of the proceeds from the auction are reinvested in the local arts community through a series of private grants for which all artists are eligible to apply. Cover artists will also receive 30 percent of the final auction bid on their piece. To submit your artwork for BW’s cover, bring it to BWHQ at 523 Broad St. All original mediums are accepted. Thirty days from your submission date, your work will be ready for pick up if it’s not chosen to be featured on the cover. Work not picked up within six weeks of submission will be discarded.
BOISEweekly c NOVEMBER 30 – DECEMBER 6, 2016 c 3