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    James Ledbetter, Media Critic and Business Journalist, Dies at 60

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    He wrote the Press Clips column for The Village Voice, held top jobs at Inc. magazine and Slate, and wrote a book about how the startup magazine The Industry Standard fizzled.James Ledbetter, a former media critic who wrote the Press Clips column for The Village Voice in the 1990s, led Inc. magazine as its editor in chief and started an online financial technology newsletter, died on Monday at his home in Manhattan. He was 60.His sister Kathleen Ledbetter Rishel confirmed the death but declined to specify the cause.At The Village Voice, where Alexander Cockburn had originated Press Clips, Mr. Ledbetter was a keen observer of local and national news media.“Week after week, perhaps no one tops James Ledbetter’s razor-sharp dissection of the nation’s print media,” Seth Rogovoy of The Berkshire Eagle in Massachusetts wrote in 1995.Michael Tomasky, the editor The New Republic and a friend, said Mr. Ledbetter “was a voracious reader of the tabloids, all four of them at the same time,” adding, “He wrote Press Clips at a time when media criticism exploded into an industry.”In a column about The New York Post in 1998, Mr. Ledbetter castigated New York State for approving a $12.9-million economic development grant to the newspaper to keep it from moving to New Jersey.“Why, taxpayers want to know, should part of our hard-earned paychecks pamper the pockets of the paper that’s always complaining about everyone else’s welfare check?” he wrote. “Especially since that paper is owned by billionaire Rupert Murdoch?”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      News Leaders Around the World Pledge Support for Journalists in Gaza

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      Nearly 60 leaders from international and regional news outlets signed a letter on Thursday and Friday committing their support for journalists covering the war in Gaza and calling for their safety and the freedom to do their work amid intense personal risk.The letter, coordinated by the Committee to Protect Journalists with the support of the World Association of News Publishers, also called on Israeli authorities to protect journalists as noncombatants, as required by international law, adding that those responsible for violations of that protection should be held accountable.“These journalists — on whom the international news media and the international community rely for information about the situation inside Gaza — continue to report despite grave personal risk,” the letter says of the Palestinian media workers doing the on-the-ground reporting. “They continue despite the loss of family, friends and colleagues, the destruction of homes and offices, constant displacement, communications blackouts and shortages of food and fuel.”The signatories include leaders of The Associated Press, Reuters, The New York Times and regional outlets across Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Asia.Palestinian journalists have faced grave risks or personal loss while trying to report on the war: Some have been injured while reporting; others have lost family members and colleagues. Several have quit amid the challenges. Since Oct. 7, at least 94 journalists have been killed in the war, making it the deadliest period for journalists since the Committee to Protect Journalists started collecting data in 1992, according to the organization. Israeli and Egyptian authorities have prohibited international media from entering Gaza, and journalists from other major news outlets have evacuated, making the true scale of the war impossible to grasp.According to data from the Committee to Protect Journalists, most of the media workers killed in the war were Palestinian, and many of them were killed along with their families in airstrikes. Some human rights groups have said that Israel has targeted journalists, though Israel has repeatedly denied that accusation.The letter prompted backlash from some journalists who said they or their colleagues were punished by their news organizations for affirming their support for Palestinian journalists and civilians in letters highly critical of Israel’s war tactics in Gaza.When journalists have resigned or been fired for protesting the Israel-Hamas war, news organizations have said that voicing opinions that take sides violates their newsroom policies. More

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      Reuters Report of Trump Charges Adds Drama Ahead of Georgia Grand Jury Decision

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      At first, Reuters appeared to have the scoop: Charges had been filed against former President Donald J. Trump by the state of Georgia.But no indictment had actually been handed up by the grand jury, and a document that the news organization cited as its source seemed to have disappeared. Reuters soon walked back its reporting.Still, the report sent competing news organizations scrambling, with Mr. Trump’s lawyers crying foul and the county’s clerk referring to the document as “fictitious.” The matter only added to the drama surrounding an investigation that appeared to be reaching its culmination after months of anticipation.The source of confusion was a two-page document that Reuters said was available on the court’s website. The document appeared to list multiple charges against Mr. Trump.Reuters then reported that the document was taken down from the court’s website, and said in an updated article that the news organization “was not immediately able to determine why the item was posted or removed.”Hours later, the court clerk’s office issued a news release referring to a “fictitious document that has been circulated online and reported by various media outlets.”“While there have been no documents filed today regarding such, all members of the media should be reminded that documents that do not bear an official case number, filing date, and the name of The Clerk of Courts, in concert, are not considered official filings and should not be treated as such,” the office said in the statement.A Reuters spokeswoman said: “We stand by our reporting.”Lawyers for Mr. Trump criticized the county, saying the document showed that prosecutors “have no respect for the integrity of the grand jury process.” They added, “This is emblematic of the pervasive and glaring constitutional violations which have plagued this case from its very inception.” More