Articles of interest about journalism, fakes, the virus, writing, and more - December 10

***THE VIRUS 

More than a third of Americans live in areas where hospitals are running critically short of intensive care beds ($)

First signs of Thanksgiving COVID-19 wave emerge 

Your Old Radiator Is a Pandemic-Fighting Weapon 

Should I wipe down groceries during the pandemic? 

Nearly all coronavirus transmission happens in these 5 places

British Study: Low infection rates in schools

***THE VACCINES

The vaccines will be much less effective if introduced where the coronavirus is raging

Here’s Why Vaccinated People Still Need to Wear a Mask ($)

C.D.C. Call for Data on Vaccine Recipients Raises Alarm Over Privacy ($)

***VENTILATORS 

Who Decides Which COVID-19 Patients Get Ventilators? 

The U.S. Has Passed the Hospital Breaking Point

***JOURNALISM 

Neo-Nazi group member who threatened journalist gets prison time

A massive cross-border collaboration to finish the investigations of a murdered Mexican journalist

Appeals Court hands journalists big Freedom of Information Act win for gun data access

Half of U.S. adults don't know that Facebook does not do original news reporting

ICE Is Trying To Force BuzzFeed News To Divulge Its Sources

What can we learn from the local news anchor who has helped thousands of Americans get unemployment benefits?

A scientific search engine that generates one-sentence summaries of research papers

A Deputy Prosecutor Was Fired for telling Journalists about his state giving Jail Time to People Who Fall Behind on Rent

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

Substack isn’t a new model for journalism — it’s a very old one

Inside Patch's new local newsletter platform

***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA

Radio Disney Shutting Down Amid Restructuring

Did Google and Facebook kill the media revenue model? The Platforms vs legacy media

***WRITING & READING

When sound science meets imperfect grammar

The 25 Best Children’s Books of 2020

Sri Lankan man and his mobile library bring books to kids in remote areas

How to Gather the Oral Histories of COVID-19

Independent Bookstores Are Fighting Back Against Amazon Via a New Online Platform

The Future of Online Marketing: Automated Copywriting

***FAKES & FRAUDS

GOP State Commissioner Won't Impose COVID Workplace Measures, Says Virus 'Not Proven Likely to Cause Serious Physical Harm'

Anti-Vaccine Doctor Has Been Invited to Testify Before Senate Committee 

Homeowners in the Seattle suburbs have been getting disturbing visits from members of the Moorish sovereign citizen movement

Former Harvard cancer researcher faked a dozen images, say Feds

I Published a Fake Paper in a ‘Peer-Reviewed’ Journal

The internet is not ready for the flood of AI-generated text

***QANON   

Former Trump lawyer finds an ally in operator of QAnon’s Internet home

The making of the QAnon conspiracy cult

The QAnon conspiracy is fake. The harm it's doing to child welfare groups is real

QAnon's Rise in Japan Shows Its Global Spread ($) 

***SOCIAL MEDIA

Twitch Cracks Down on Hate Speech and Harassment ($)

Facebook hit with massive antitrust lawsuit from 46 states

Facebook reportedly tweaked its algorithm but it failed to decrease engagement on ideologically aligned pages

Reddit reveals daily active user count for the first time: 52 million

***LANGUAGE

The words that actually persuade people on the pandemic 

Merriam-Webster's top word of 2020 not a shocker: pandemic

Research Finds Brains Work Harder While Processing Descriptions Of Motion In Other Languages

***LITERATURE

"The Great Gatsby" and other 1925 Works Will Soon Enter the Public Domain

Dispute Erupts Over Translation Rights to New Nobel Laureate ($)

Questions raised over charity seeking to buy JRR Tolkien's Oxford house

Louise Glück, forgoing fanfare, accepts Nobel Prize in Literature at home

John Steinbeck, Bard of the American Worker

***CS LEWIS

Ten Things You (Probably) Don’t Know About C. S. Lewis

CS Lewis Expert Walter Hooper dies 

***POETRY

We went looking for poetry

Poet uses runaway slave ads to tell a story of resistance