Leah Sottile
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leahsottile.bsky.social
Leah Sottile
@leahsottile.bsky.social
Independent journalist. Books: Blazing Eye Sees All, When The Moon Turns To Blood. Podcasts: Hush, Burn Wild, Two Minutes Past Nine, Bundyville. High Country News correspondent. Subscribe to Substack. www.leahsottile.com
Pinned
Out today: Blazing Eye Sees All, my investigation into the wide spiritual world of the New Age. It is an unintentional story of extremism, feminism, climate change, deception, power, myth and the very nature of believing. I hope you read it.

bookshop.org/p/books/blaz...
Blazing Eye Sees All: Love Has Won, False Prophets, and the Fever Dream of the American New Age
Love Has Won, False Prophets, and the Fever Dream of the American New Age
bookshop.org
Final episode this Wednesday!
Some folks like pump-up jams on their long runs. I've been jamming to Hush S2 and loving it (I mean, discussions of Truman Capote, forensics AND journalism ethics?!?!). Kudos to @leahsottile.bsky.social + @ryanjhaas.bsky.social and all OPB crew for an outstanding series.
www.opb.org/show/hush/
OPB: Hush
Hush
www.opb.org
November 24, 2025 at 4:53 PM
Reposted by Leah Sottile
Nice column highlighting the latest "mistresses of patriarchy" nonsense, by the excellent @leahsottile.bsky.social

I am currently reading bell hook's 2004 The Will To Change, showing how we all, especially men, suffer from patriarchy. What could our world look like without it?
65. Mistresses
A good girl helps toxic masculinity along.
leahsottile.substack.com
November 24, 2025 at 2:01 AM
Reposted by Leah Sottile
It fills me with so much joy that @leahsottile.bsky.social still reads and cites Exponent II in her newsletters. This week's piece is also very very good and well worth the read.
65. Mistresses
A good girl helps toxic masculinity along.
leahsottile.substack.com
November 24, 2025 at 2:58 AM
Reposted by Leah Sottile
Powerful, thoughtful and insightul essay by investigative journalist and writer Leah Sottile @leahsottile.bsky.social. Highly recommend.

open.substack.com/pub/leahsott...
65. Mistresses
A good girl helps toxic masculinity along.
open.substack.com
November 24, 2025 at 1:51 AM
You, too, can mainline Hush before the final episode drops this week!
I've been mainlining @leahsottile.bsky.social's Hush podcast lately, and it's such good reporting and a completely gripping story: www.opb.org/show/hush/

It also unexpectedly really makes me miss being a journalist.
OPB: Hush
Hush
www.opb.org
November 23, 2025 at 4:18 PM
I think we should be talking just as much about who Olivia Nuzzi’s book editor is, right?
November 22, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Reposted by Leah Sottile
I wrote a student editorial for @amjpublichealth.bsky.social
three years ago. I wish I could say it lost its relevance but on this Transgender Day of Remembrance, it feels more true than ever.

love to the fam, always 🏳️‍⚧️

ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10....
November 20, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Reposted by Leah Sottile
When we first interviewed Jennifer Massey, she said anytime something is redacted in a public record, someone is hiding something.

In the second to last episode of Hush, we ask why, then, is her name redacted in a public record about police in Columbia County? podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...
Episode 7: Cornered
Podcast Episode · Hush · S2 E7 · 51m
podcasts.apple.com
November 19, 2025 at 3:31 PM
Reposted by Leah Sottile
@leahsottile.bsky.social is another talented member of our unit. She's an investigative journalist, author, and the co-creator of OPB's new series, "Hush."

Listen now at OPB.org/hush
Why was 18-year-old Sarah Zuber found dead 400 feet from her front door? And how is it possible, six years later, that no one knows what happened to her?

Hush, Season 2, "Love Thy Neighbor" — my investigation with @ryanjhaas.bsky.social — starts today.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...
November 20, 2025 at 5:10 AM
Reposted by Leah Sottile
"American Colonists and founders thought Native American societies were simple and primitive... [but they] were elaborate consensus democracies, many of which had survived for generations because of careful attention to checking and balancing power."

theconversation.com/before-the-a...
Before the American Revolution, Native nations guarded their societies against tyranny
Native American communities were elaborate consensus democracies, many of which had survived for generations because of careful attention to checking and balancing power.
theconversation.com
November 19, 2025 at 11:44 PM
When we first interviewed Jennifer Massey, she said anytime something is redacted in a public record, someone is hiding something.

In the second to last episode of Hush, we ask why, then, is her name redacted in a public record about police in Columbia County? podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...
Episode 7: Cornered
Podcast Episode · Hush · S2 E7 · 51m
podcasts.apple.com
November 19, 2025 at 3:31 PM
Reposted by Leah Sottile
This week's episode of Hush answers a question we heard throughout our reporting on this series: What were Jennifer Massey's motivations when she took up the Sarah Zuber case on behalf of the community?
Episode 7: Cornered
open.spotify.com
November 19, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Reposted by Leah Sottile
A lot of people didn’t like the Washington Post journalist who was tortured and dismembered with a bone saw for writing critically about the man sitting next to me
Trump suggests Khashoggi had it coming: "You're mentioning someone that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about. Whether you like him or didn't like him, things happen. But he knew nothing about it. You don't have to embarrass our guest."
November 18, 2025 at 5:51 PM
A live look at @ryanjhaas.bsky.social and I trying to figure out this season of Hush.
Twin Peaks: Sheriff Truman and Agent Cooper sitting at of a table of donuts.
November 18, 2025 at 4:42 PM
After hundreds of citizens and dentists said Pasco, Washington should keep fluoride, and a survey showing most residents want to keep it, the city council voted last night to remove it anyway: www.tri-cityherald.com/news/politic...
What Pasco decided after months-long debate on keeping fluoride in its water
Fluoride was first added in Pasco 25+ years ago when the county was one of the worst in WA for tooth decay.
www.tri-cityherald.com
November 18, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Reposted by Leah Sottile
"We tried to pin down what it was about Fire in the Mountains that still had us sobbing intermittently a week out. Von Till nailed it: 'It made me dare to hope.'” @btoastie.bsky.social @highcountrynews.org

www.hcn.org/issues/57-11...
Heavy metal is healing teens on the Blackfeet Nation - High Country News
In response to youth suicides, teachers show students the power of headbanging at Fire in the Mountains festival.
www.hcn.org
November 17, 2025 at 9:23 PM
Bro.
Trump: "They had restrictions on water. It comes down from heaven. You want to wash your hands, or like me, you wash your hair. I lather up. There's no water. I won't mention the 3rd item in the bc I always get criticized. If you don't know what I'm talking about you shouldn't be owning a McDonalds"
November 18, 2025 at 1:17 AM
I missed this amazing presentation of the manosphere at the end of October, but wow this is really worth your time: www.theguardian.com/technology/n...
Money, muscles and anxiety: why the manosphere clicked with young men – a visual deep dive
The manosphere is known for misogyny, but that’s not the only thing that influencers in this space offer. Young men explain the allure and the problems of the manosphere in their own words
www.theguardian.com
November 16, 2025 at 7:12 PM
Reposted by Leah Sottile
Nuzzi's fawning coverage of the sociopathic conspiracy crank she was having an affair with aided his rise to political power, which he is using to perpetrate the worst intentional public health catastrophe of our unnecessarily shortened lifetimes, and THAT is the STORY.
November 15, 2025 at 12:18 PM
I really did intend to respond to your email but, you see, I was trying to both be a journalist and also read about the lady writing the book on her phone, and hold all of this in my mind at once. I will try again on Monday.
November 15, 2025 at 3:35 AM
The problem with this industry is that it attracts fools like me who think you'll get somewhere if you work hard, punch up at power and try to put out excellent work. Really what you need is to be is a vapid piece of shit.
November 14, 2025 at 6:18 PM
Reposted by Leah Sottile
I will no doubt read and enjoy all your very good Nuzzi jokes, but I also want to say earnestly, so many of us (myself included) are on the verge of being pushed out of this industry and it's genuinely so dispiriting to see the worst among us, ethics-wise, get such preferential treatment.
November 14, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Reposted by Leah Sottile
The NY/DC press corps is parody.
Olivia Nuzzi Did It All for Love
www.nytimes.com
November 14, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Reposted by Leah Sottile
I think we need a Son of Sam law but for journalistic malfeasance.
November 14, 2025 at 5:33 PM
One of the stranger responses from a state agency I've ever received.
They also said, essentially, that @leahsottile.bsky.social and I were the only ones who cared about the Sarah Zuber case, and therefore there wasn't much public interest.

Having spent a year in Columbia County, I can say that's definitively not true.
November 14, 2025 at 4:30 PM