Rusk Reads 3/16/25 - Measles, Zyns, & Murdochs
Welcome to Rusk Reads. Every Sunday I will highlight three long-form article recommendations. These pieces will be meaningful, relevant, and thought-provoking.
Welcome back to Rusk Reads. No project built on protecting and supporting a Free Press would be complete without highlighting journalistic content itself! Every week I will post three long article recommendations. These pieces will be meaningful, relevant, and thought-provoking.
His Daughter Was America’s First Measles Death in a Decade
By Tom Bartlett |The Atlantic
In the United States this month there were no mass vigils, government ceremonial events, or even the banging of pots. Unless you were looking many folks may have missed the 5 year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic that took over 7 million lives across the globe. This piece is a deeply human and frightening reminder that the strength and length of collective memory is dwindling as it fights misinformation and institutional cowardice. Bartlett beautifully centers this tragedy around a single little girl.
Zyn and the New Nicotine Gold Rush
By Carrie Battan | The New Yorker
I would never have imagined that Zyns were partially the by-product of presumptuous gender-based marketing. Their ubiquity is tugging at the threads of an existing debate: are non-cigarette based nicotine products helping more than they are hurting?
Inside the Murdoch’s Succession Drama
By Jonathan Mahler & Jim Rutenberg | The New York Times
The low hanging fruit is obvious…The reality is stranger than fiction. The NYT has an extraordinary and extensive view in the private lives of the Murdochs via courtroom transcripts and thousands of documents. I would never imagine reading the awkward emoji texts of a Murdoch daughter getting anxious about her father’s imminent arrival or her brother’s pestering. I am still gobsmacked that one of the key pieces of evidence in an arbitration battle over control of the Murdoch media empire is a memo and meeting that came about after a few Murdoch siblings watched an episode of Succession where the main patriarch dies suddenly (Murdoch literally had a heart event after a heated succession argument with his own children). This is just not palace intrigue. The battle for Fox News will have wide-sweeping implications in the years to come as we wait to see who succeeds.