Whitney Bauck
@whitneybauck.bsky.social
Award-winning freelance journalist reporting @ the Guardian, Grist, WaPo, Bloomberg, etc
Particularly interested in climate, ag, transit, grassroots movements and fungi
https://whitneybauck.substack.com/
Particularly interested in climate, ag, transit, grassroots movements and fungi
https://whitneybauck.substack.com/
Pinned
Whitney Bauck
@whitneybauck.bsky.social
· Sep 18
Such an honor to have my story on the Palestinian Heirloom Seed Library for @theguardian.com win a 2025 @coveringclimatenow.org award.
Such heartbreak that the horrors that prompted me to write the story are still ongoing.
I'm proud of many of my stories, but this one in particular means a lot.
Such heartbreak that the horrors that prompted me to write the story are still ongoing.
I'm proud of many of my stories, but this one in particular means a lot.
Reposted by Whitney Bauck
Bookselling is like the most "people go to the store and buy what looks cool to them without a particular agenda" type business left, and your purchases have a huge influence on what is ordered, what is displayed, and what is recommended.
November 24, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Bookselling is like the most "people go to the store and buy what looks cool to them without a particular agenda" type business left, and your purchases have a huge influence on what is ordered, what is displayed, and what is recommended.
Reposted by Whitney Bauck
Literally buying one copy of a book at your local indie bookstore can mean the difference in whether they buy future books from that author.
November 24, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Literally buying one copy of a book at your local indie bookstore can mean the difference in whether they buy future books from that author.
Reposted by Whitney Bauck
I see some book piracy discourse, and, to make a positive argument in favor of buying books, your marginal ability to influence what books get published and support the careers of writers you like is massive compared to most other forms of media.
November 24, 2025 at 5:54 PM
I see some book piracy discourse, and, to make a positive argument in favor of buying books, your marginal ability to influence what books get published and support the careers of writers you like is massive compared to most other forms of media.
Reposted by Whitney Bauck
I'm going to do a little thread on how the money from books works for traditionally published authors because people have questions, and this is always useful info to share IMO. First, a big disclaimer that every contract is different, and there are a million factors that can change things. 1/
November 26, 2025 at 2:12 PM
I'm going to do a little thread on how the money from books works for traditionally published authors because people have questions, and this is always useful info to share IMO. First, a big disclaimer that every contract is different, and there are a million factors that can change things. 1/
Reposted by Whitney Bauck
Scientists: have you been the target of an online harassment campaign, doxxing, or weaponized FOIA requests? I'd like to talk to you about steps you had to take to protect your digital security for an upcoming Nature story. (You can be anonymous if necessary.)
RTs appreciated.
RTs appreciated.
November 26, 2025 at 12:18 AM
Scientists: have you been the target of an online harassment campaign, doxxing, or weaponized FOIA requests? I'd like to talk to you about steps you had to take to protect your digital security for an upcoming Nature story. (You can be anonymous if necessary.)
RTs appreciated.
RTs appreciated.
Reposted by Whitney Bauck
This seems like a play to cut NPS profitability to make it easier to open these lands up to extraction. 35% of NPS visitors are from overseas
US triples national park fee for non-residents, amid ‘new’ fee for Americans
Interior department, which has defunded conservation organizations, claims fee hike is for conservation
www.theguardian.com
November 26, 2025 at 2:27 PM
This seems like a play to cut NPS profitability to make it easier to open these lands up to extraction. 35% of NPS visitors are from overseas
Reposted by Whitney Bauck
95% of authors are not making a living through book publishing. The public needs to understand this.
November 25, 2025 at 2:24 AM
95% of authors are not making a living through book publishing. The public needs to understand this.
Reposted by Whitney Bauck
Australia returns 17 rare Pharaonic artifacts to Egypt, the result of a case before Australian courts since 2019 ordering the seizure of the 17 artifacts, previously held by a private company, and their return to their rightful homeland.
www.egypttoday.com/Article/4/14...
www.egypttoday.com/Article/4/14...
Egypt Recovers 17 Rare Ancient Egyptian Artifacts from Australia
Egypt Recovers 17 Rare Ancient Egyptian Artifacts from Australia.
www.egypttoday.com
November 26, 2025 at 7:49 PM
Australia returns 17 rare Pharaonic artifacts to Egypt, the result of a case before Australian courts since 2019 ordering the seizure of the 17 artifacts, previously held by a private company, and their return to their rightful homeland.
www.egypttoday.com/Article/4/14...
www.egypttoday.com/Article/4/14...
Reposted by Whitney Bauck
Also! There are these things called "book publishers" that determine whether or not they're going to publish a book based on this thing called "sales," and if your books don't sell (perhaps because people can simply download them off some sketchy site?) they will not continue to publish you
November 25, 2025 at 7:53 PM
Also! There are these things called "book publishers" that determine whether or not they're going to publish a book based on this thing called "sales," and if your books don't sell (perhaps because people can simply download them off some sketchy site?) they will not continue to publish you
Reposted by Whitney Bauck
There are a lot of people who seem to believe that any Social Capital you get for being an author is the same as Financial Capital and nobody is sorrier than me to report that it is not.
November 25, 2025 at 7:50 PM
There are a lot of people who seem to believe that any Social Capital you get for being an author is the same as Financial Capital and nobody is sorrier than me to report that it is not.
Reposted by Whitney Bauck
I don't know that these people would care, necessarily, but I think many of them either genuinely do not know (or perhaps refuse to know) how little most authors actually make
We’re not small business owners, ffs - we’re independent contractors, and we are routinely robbed by the world’s dumbest dingbats.
![A quote-tweet with the profile blocked out because I won’t be accused of sending flying monkeys at this digital turd.
counterpoint: pirate everything all the time. pirate a sandwich. download a car. abscond from from small business owner mindset with your brain
[High Priestess, Low Patie... • @cherie... • 14h
Re: previous post - People who steal art of any kind are assholes, full stop. If *you* deserve to be paid for your labor, so do I - and so does everybody else; this means writers, visual artists, musicians, and every other category of People Who Make Things.]
• • •
every time vulgar leftism pipes in from the sidelines of petit bourgeoisdom i am forced to become 8.75% more marxist](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:x2ssvkga34xug334b66hvrje/bafkreigp2f33rtfu62kqjygnsxhg3jxxs6udwuyisipmyqrh5ew4c6kbyi@jpeg)
November 25, 2025 at 7:38 PM
I don't know that these people would care, necessarily, but I think many of them either genuinely do not know (or perhaps refuse to know) how little most authors actually make
“Freelance journalism in 2025 is an incredibly difficult place to build a career. But, it turns out, it’s a decent enough arena for a scam.”
This whole story. Holy cow. thelocal.to/investigatin...
This whole story. Holy cow. thelocal.to/investigatin...
Investigating a Possible Scammer in Journalism’s AI Era | The Local
A suspicious pitch from a freelancer led editor Nicholas Hune-Brown to dig into their past work. By the end, four publications, including The Guardian and Dwell, had removed articles from their sites.
thelocal.to
November 25, 2025 at 4:47 PM
“Freelance journalism in 2025 is an incredibly difficult place to build a career. But, it turns out, it’s a decent enough arena for a scam.”
This whole story. Holy cow. thelocal.to/investigatin...
This whole story. Holy cow. thelocal.to/investigatin...
Races to watch! www.thecity.nyc/2025/11/24/a...
Union Members Take On Congressional Incumbents in Manhattan and The Bronx
The UAW is known locally for its left-leaning politics and justice-oriented members in academia and legal services. Now two of its rank-and-file members, Dalourny Nemorin and Darializa Avila Chevalier...
www.thecity.nyc
November 25, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Races to watch! www.thecity.nyc/2025/11/24/a...
"Not everyone is rising to the occasion because the times you live in do not immediately shape who you are and what you do... you rise to the level of your training and practice, not to the level of your imagined self." @prisonculture.bsky.social
prisonculture.substack.com/p/we-dont-kn...
prisonculture.substack.com/p/we-dont-kn...
We Don’t Know Where We Will End Up…
A Year Since the 2024 Election
prisonculture.substack.com
November 24, 2025 at 7:31 PM
"Not everyone is rising to the occasion because the times you live in do not immediately shape who you are and what you do... you rise to the level of your training and practice, not to the level of your imagined self." @prisonculture.bsky.social
prisonculture.substack.com/p/we-dont-kn...
prisonculture.substack.com/p/we-dont-kn...
Reposted by Whitney Bauck
Lumping them together as “AI” gives readers the impression that a single class of tool is discerning novel protein structures, teasing subtle patterns out of mountains of LHC data, writing a student’s History 101 paper, and arguing a ketamine-addled billionaire could post up Shaq in his prime. No.
November 22, 2025 at 5:10 PM
Lumping them together as “AI” gives readers the impression that a single class of tool is discerning novel protein structures, teasing subtle patterns out of mountains of LHC data, writing a student’s History 101 paper, and arguing a ketamine-addled billionaire could post up Shaq in his prime. No.
Reposted by Whitney Bauck
Machine learning (umbrella term, I know) is a useful, sometimes transformative tool in the hands of trained researchers who understand how to deploy it and critically assess the results.
A chatbot is not useful in the same ways (though underlying technologies may be, in other contexts).
A chatbot is not useful in the same ways (though underlying technologies may be, in other contexts).
November 22, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Machine learning (umbrella term, I know) is a useful, sometimes transformative tool in the hands of trained researchers who understand how to deploy it and critically assess the results.
A chatbot is not useful in the same ways (though underlying technologies may be, in other contexts).
A chatbot is not useful in the same ways (though underlying technologies may be, in other contexts).
Reposted by Whitney Bauck
Relying on ChatGPT to teach you about a topic leaves you with shallower knowledge than Googling and reading about it, according to new research that compared what more than 10,000 people knew after using one method or the other.
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
November 21, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Relying on ChatGPT to teach you about a topic leaves you with shallower knowledge than Googling and reading about it, according to new research that compared what more than 10,000 people knew after using one method or the other.
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
Reposted by Whitney Bauck
The people who make Shein's clothes labor for ten to twelve hours per day (in violation of China's labor laws), some up to seven days a week, and earn as little as 15 to 30 cents per t-shirt.
![Excerpt from a BBC article: ""We usually work, 10, 11 or 12 hours a day," says a 49-year-old woman from Jiangxi unwilling to give her name. "On Sundays we work around three hours less."
She is in an alleyway, where a dozen people are huddled around a row of bulletin boards.
They are reading the job ads on the board, while examining the stitching on a pair of chinos draped over it.
This is Shein's supply chain. The factories are contracted to make clothes on order - some small, some big. If the chinos are a hit, orders will ramp up and so must production. Factories then hire temporary workers to meet the demand their permanent staff cannot fulfil.
The migrant worker from Jiangxi is looking for a short-term contract - and the chinos are an option.
"We earn so little. The cost of living is now so high," she says, adding that she hopes to make enough to send back to her two children who are living with their grandparents.
"We get paid per piece," she explains. "It depends how difficult the item is. Something simple like a t-shirt is one-two yuan [less than a dollar] per piece and I can make around a dozen in an hour.""](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ks3gpa6ftoyaq7hmf6c4qx4c/bafkreiber7g4o5pujmzmjjzsp5dkz7blfexburuwjispfpv6dki7akjb7a@jpeg)
November 20, 2025 at 12:07 AM
The people who make Shein's clothes labor for ten to twelve hours per day (in violation of China's labor laws), some up to seven days a week, and earn as little as 15 to 30 cents per t-shirt.
Reposted by Whitney Bauck
Hey authors! Check to see if Anthropic stole your book to train their slop generator on. You’re entitled to $1500 per stolen Work.
Look up your work, and if you’re in the database, file a claim
secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup/
Look up your work, and if you’re in the database, file a claim
secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup/
Submit a Claim
secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com
November 18, 2025 at 7:39 AM
Hey authors! Check to see if Anthropic stole your book to train their slop generator on. You’re entitled to $1500 per stolen Work.
Look up your work, and if you’re in the database, file a claim
secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup/
Look up your work, and if you’re in the database, file a claim
secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup/
Reposted by Whitney Bauck
Hey folks. I have spent *days* reading and meticulously drafting comments on a very lengthy manuscript. Which I have just found includes an AI-faked quote. Attributed to ME.
Here is a thread of my feelings
Here is a thread of my feelings
a man in a blue shirt says " i am untethered and my rage knows no bounds ! "
ALT: a man in a blue shirt says " i am untethered and my rage knows no bounds ! "
media.tenor.com
November 16, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Hey folks. I have spent *days* reading and meticulously drafting comments on a very lengthy manuscript. Which I have just found includes an AI-faked quote. Attributed to ME.
Here is a thread of my feelings
Here is a thread of my feelings
Reposted by Whitney Bauck
NEW: In his first interview since his arrest for protesting outside the Chicago-area ICE facility, @revdrmichaelwoolf.bsky.social tells me he has "bruises all over my body."
Even so, he said, “the cruelty that goes on that facility … must be 100 times worse." religionnews.com/2025/11/15/a...
Even so, he said, “the cruelty that goes on that facility … must be 100 times worse." religionnews.com/2025/11/15/a...
November 15, 2025 at 7:52 PM
NEW: In his first interview since his arrest for protesting outside the Chicago-area ICE facility, @revdrmichaelwoolf.bsky.social tells me he has "bruises all over my body."
Even so, he said, “the cruelty that goes on that facility … must be 100 times worse." religionnews.com/2025/11/15/a...
Even so, he said, “the cruelty that goes on that facility … must be 100 times worse." religionnews.com/2025/11/15/a...
Reposted by Whitney Bauck
BREAKING: Colorado voters approved a ballot measure that would raise state income taxes on higher-earning households to fund free meals for all public school students.
Follow AP for live updates.
Follow AP for live updates.
Live updates: US voters head to the polls in first general election since Trump's return to power
One year after Donald Trump retook the presidency, 2025 Election Day includes closely watched races for New York City mayor, New Jersey governor and California's Proposition 50.
bit.ly
November 5, 2025 at 3:33 AM
BREAKING: Colorado voters approved a ballot measure that would raise state income taxes on higher-earning households to fund free meals for all public school students.
Follow AP for live updates.
Follow AP for live updates.
Reposted by Whitney Bauck
Mamdani cracks 1M votes, the first NYC mayor to do so since John Lindsay in 1969
November 5, 2025 at 3:21 AM
Mamdani cracks 1M votes, the first NYC mayor to do so since John Lindsay in 1969
Reposted by Whitney Bauck
Harold's Auto Center, Spring Hill, Florida, 1965
Unknown photographer, but I love it so much.
Unknown photographer, but I love it so much.
November 1, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Harold's Auto Center, Spring Hill, Florida, 1965
Unknown photographer, but I love it so much.
Unknown photographer, but I love it so much.
Reposted by Whitney Bauck
A good news story from the Lake Tahoe area, where Hope and her cub Bounce were going to be euthanized as nuisance bears, hemmed in by development and necessity. But the community wouldn't let it happen, keeping watch, & working hard to retrain the bears. Now they seem to be out of danger for awhile.
October 31, 2025 at 7:04 PM
A good news story from the Lake Tahoe area, where Hope and her cub Bounce were going to be euthanized as nuisance bears, hemmed in by development and necessity. But the community wouldn't let it happen, keeping watch, & working hard to retrain the bears. Now they seem to be out of danger for awhile.