Rebecca J. Ritzel
@rjritzel.bsky.social
790 followers 200 following 740 posts
Fellow @rjionline.bsky.social‬ Views = mine Journalist: Arts, culture, health, etc. Bylines: Globe and Mail, New York Times, Dance Magazine, and many more. Cancer and stroke survivor somehow still here. [email protected] https://what-if-arts.ghost.io/
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"Why do you have so many tabs open?" -- My niece, age 9.
Reposted by Rebecca J. Ritzel
Where we stand, in long arc of history:

-Story on left, adding race as a factor when that favors white people.

-Story on right, banning race as a factor when that favors non-whites.

I often complain about NYT headlines and story-play. But these are strong. Including "If Court Guts 1965 Law."
Two headlines on front page of NYT.

First is "Trump Weighs Transforming Refugee Policy. White People Would be Given Preference."

Second is "Justices May Ban Race as a Factor in District Maps. Nation's Political Balance Could Shift If Court Guts 1964 Law."
Yep! PT this morning but should be to campus in time for the 11:45 a.m. panel. HMU if you want a decent coffee, etc.
Travis Kelce owns a Midwestern car wash chain and I think he might be down for this?
No. Don't punish @marisakabas.bsky.social with J-School-adjacent mediocrity.
Reposted by Rebecca J. Ritzel
If you listen closely to the end of Lincoln's speeches, they run through the terms and conditions really quick, like in a radio ad for a car dealership
Justice Kavanaugh in the Callais oral argument keeps alluding to some longstanding requirement of strict scrutiny that use of race have a time limit. This is invented.
Reposted by Rebecca J. Ritzel
The US flying B-52 bombers over Venezuela at the exact same moment that it is flying commercial planes full of deportees to Caracas and Chevron is sending oil tankers full of Venezuelan crude to the US really encapsulates Trump’s Venezuela policy
They also never fulfilled their promise of replacing Flashpoint with another venue when that space was sold. 😬 The numbers just don't add up, and I wish I were employed by a news outlet that would let me follow the money.
"Emerging visiting artists" is the exact opposite of who Source was serving! The InSeries and Constellation are (were?) established arts groups that serve important roles in DC's performing arts ecosystem.
Un-effing-believable. The rogue nonprofit Cultural DC sold The Source, pretty much the only shared arts venue in the downtown core, and gave $500,000 to Howard University for visiting artists residencies, instead of providing space for DC artists. dctheaterarts.org/2025/10/14/a...
After 27 years, CulturalDC announces sunset and legacy gifts
Legacy gifts include a half-million-dollar endowment to Howard University’s Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts and a $250,000 gift to Theatre Alliance.
dctheaterarts.org
I'll always remember what Sarah Ruhl said when she was asked what she'd spend her MacArthur money on: Babysitters and taxi cab rides.
Reposted by Rebecca J. Ritzel
"The advice that I've gotten from other theatre artists that have gotten this award was, 'Don't spend it on your art unless you absolutely have to. Spend it on your time.'" I talk to composer Heather Christian (who I've always considered a genius) on winning the MacArthur Genius Grant
Composer Heather Christian on What's It Like to Be Told You've Won $800,000
She was in rehearsal for Off-Broadway's Oratorio for Living Things when she got an important call from the MacArthur Foundation.
playbill.com
Reposted by Rebecca J. Ritzel
RJI Fellow @rjritzel.bsky.social meets with @mujschool.bsky.social students Kat Ramkumar and Kayla Sydnor to discuss her Arts Journalism Initiative on Oct. 7 in Columbia, Mo. The students are creating a database of arts agency grants that support journalists. More: rjionline.org/person/rebec....
Sinclair Broadcast chair David Smith teed this up in 2023 when he bought The Baltimore Sun and begun slapping up content from his flagship Fox station.
Imagine being CBS and paying 150M for a blog and then giving the boss of that blog the reins to CBS News and she starts reposting shit from her blog
Update: After Bari Weiss was made Editor-in-Chief, CBS News is now uplifting stories from Weiss’s The Free Press.
Ditto for the literature Nobel going to a Hungarian writer who's a vocal critic of Viktor Orbán. God, I love the Nordics.
The bronze-contrast columns were in Edward Durell Stone's OG design! Trump said it looked like they'd been left unfinished and wanted them repainted. 😬
All-male creative team
In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand

I'll go first: Six page commercial lease.