The News
October 24, 2016
It’s Monday. Welcome to the Wonks This Way newsletter. Each weekday morning, I’ll send out a list of five links to top news stories or analyses from around the web worth checking out. Similar to Politico’s Playbook or any of The New York Times’ variety of newsletters, this should be a nice shortcut for staying informed to start your day, although I’m sure many of you also receive something similar to this through your office’s morning clips. If you missed out on the email edition, you can also find the archive of these newsletters under the “Newsletter” tab on the Wonk This Way homepage.
If you stumbled upon this post on Medium and are somehow still reading this, this is the second generation of my newsletter that’s now out to a wider audience via Medium rather than from my personal email.
A quick origin story: I’ve put together these news lists at a couple of press jobs at city agencies and decided to continue the tradition with friends after hearing Bill Simmons discuss the origins of his career at ESPN during one of the final episodes of the old “BS Report.” At about the 13-minute mark of the podcast, Simmons describes how he put together his own list of links to send to his friends during their lunch breaks back during the early AOL days of the internet.
Anyway, thanks for subscribing and good luck on the week ahead.
Cheers,
The Wonks Team
Public Policy
- Brian Fung of The Washington Post analyzes how the unclear policy jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission could shape the proposed merger between AT&T and Time Warner.
Business and Economy
- Oliver Roeder of FiveThirtyEight explores Ikea’s peculiar business model, where the company finds ways to reduce prices of popular furniture through listings on international markets and altering building materials.
Science and Health
- The Atlantic presents pictures from Benjamin Grant’s “Daily Overview” project, a collection of photos of earth’s cities, agriculture, industrial activity, and other surface activity as seen from space.
Sports
- The New York Times recaps the games and highlights from week 7 of the NFL, including the bizarre Seahawks-Cardinals overtime game, the Vikings’ first loss of the season, Rob Gronkowski’s value to the Patriots, and more.
Culture
- Long read: Adam K. Raymond compiles 70 conspiracy theories in pop culture and examines how these theories differ from political ones, their origins, as well as what the theories reveal about the culture.
