C2 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, AUGUST 19 , 2019
annually.
In the newspaper world, there
aren’t many ways to save that
kind of money, though one hears
promises about “cost synergies”
and “digital transformation” and
“economies of scale.”
Well, maybe.
But the cost-slashing measure
that seems to spring most readily
to mind is reducing head count:
cutting employees, including
journalists.
Like that popular Worcester
columnist. Or government
reporters. Or an entire copy desk.
Or any of the people who make a
local paper worth reading and
worth subscribing to.
The decline of local news is
getting serious attention these
days. Nonprofits are springing
up or offering help. Foundations
are providing research and
funding.
Extreme solutions — even a
“Marshall Plan for journalism” as
NYU’s Michael Posner put it —
are being proposed.
Facebook and Google, which
together suck up the vast
majority of digital advertising
dollars, are pitching in with
money and resources.
But the crisis continues apace.
Papers close, merge, shrink.
Many have become shells of their
once robust selves, inspiring the
coinage “ghost newspapers.”
Ten years ago, the visionary
tech writer and teacher Clay
Shirky wrote a seminal article
that forecast this demise:
“Newspapers and Thinking the
Unthinkable.”
What was once unthinkable is
becoming reality.
The Gannett and GateHouse
merger looks like one more step
along that dire path.
[email protected]For more by Margaret Sullivan visit
wapo.st/sullivan.in a more politically polarized
way. Political corruption has
more opportunity to flourish,
unnoticed by the local watchdog.
And municipal costs may rise.
More than 2,000 newspapers
have gone out of business in the
past 15 years, according to the
University of North Carolina’s
Penny Muse Abernathy, the
leading expert on news deserts
that result.
Most are weeklies, but many
metro dailies are in real trouble,
too. The Vindicator, in
Youngstown, Ohio, will shut
down this month, leaving a
substantial city without a daily
paper.
Assuming that Gannett and
New York-based GateHouse
achieve their merger, the new
company will control one of
every six remaining newspapers
in the United States, with dailies
and weeklies across almost every
state.
“This current deal is far from
ideal for either company, or its
shareholders, or its employees,
or its readers,” wrote Ken Doctor,
who has been tracking the
machinations closely, in Nieman
Lab. (He noted recently that
there is a renewed chance the
deal, which has had its ups and
downs, won’t go through as had
been announced this month.)
For those last two groups —
employees and readers — one of
the most troubling aspects is an
ambitious-sounding number
associated with the merger: $300
million. That’s the amount of
cost-savings that top executives
want to achieve.
Not just one time, but
SULLIVAN FROM C1
ter the killing.
“For me, I already knew about
Arab terror, but the murder of Mu-
hammad Abu Khdeir created more
questions than answers. I just
couldn’t believe that Jews could do
this, and I wanted to know why they
did,” said Hagai Levi, who with Jo-
seph Cedar and Tawfik Abu Wael
wrote, directed and produced the
show.
“Our Boys,” the first show entire-
ly in Hebrew and Arabic to air on
the U.S. cable channel, is a co-pro-
duction of HBO, Keshet Interna-
tional and produced by Movie Plus.
In its dramatized recounting of Abu
Khdeir’s death, the show weaves
together original reporting with in-
side information from Israeli police
and the Shin Bet internal intelli-
gence agency as well as the reenact-
ed stories of those involved in the
episode.
For journalists like me who cov-
ered the violent developments of
that summer, the most fraught of
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in
recent years, “Our Boys” is a diffi-
cult flashback.
Watching the show, it is easy to
smell again the molotov cocktails
and tear gas that burned the air as
the Palestinian residents of Shua-
fat, the neighborhood where Abu
Khdeir lived, clashed with Israeli
police and soldiers.
The days following his death
were hard for many in the city,
including those of us who spent
many hours reporting about his
family’s loss and the pain of his
entire community. Among many Is-
raelis also, there was a heaviness, a
distressing recognition that ex-
treme nationalism had crossed
from words to actions.
The summer’s events had been
sparked by the June kidnapping
and murder of three Israeli teen-
agers by members of a Hamas ter-
rorist cell in the occupied West
Bank and culminated in a 51-day
war between Israel and Hamas
in Gaza.
Like the journalists who report-
ed the news at the time, the series
creators say they are aware they willJERUSALEM FROM C1probably draw fire from all sides
here because of the way the events
in “Our Boys” are depicted.
“We’ve prepared ourselves for
the backlash,” said Levi, anticipat-
ing criticism from the right wing in
Israel that an Arab victim from that
summer was spotlighted and not a
Jewish one; outrage from the left
wing that Abu Khdeir’s murderers
are given human personas; and
possible unhappiness by Palestin-
ians that the show largely glosses
over the wider story of Israel’s on-
going occupation.
“We know showing this side of
the conflict will be hard for the
Israeli public to accept,” said Cedar,
whose previous film “Footnote,”about the strained relationship be-
tween an Israeli father and his son,
won best screenplay at the 2011
Cannes Film Festival. “But I think
any backlash will have some value
by sparking discussion of a very
difficult subject.”
For Abu Wael, who oversaw the
Palestinian aspects of the show, the
backlash came even before the trio
— two Israeli Jews and an Israeli
Arab — started filming.
“I nearly pulled out a month be-
fore we started shooting because of
all the pressure,” he said.
Abu Wael, who comes from the
Israeli Arab town of Umm al-Fahm,
said he received “tens of phone calls
from Palestinian activists tellingme not to give legitimization to the
Israeli perspective” of this brutal
crime. He said he sought advice
from Abu Khdeir’s father, Hussein,
portrayed in the series as an impos-
sibly tragic character trying to do
the right thing after the murder of
his son.
“Hussein is so strong and was so
calm,” said Abu Wael, who worked
closely with the family to portray
their son’s murder accurately. “He
told me, ‘If your conscience is clear,
then do it; if not, don’t do it.’ My
conscience is clear. I know this
show comes from an Israeli view-
point, but it also goes deeper into
the Israeli society and tells a signifi-
cant Palestinian story, too.”
Abu Khdeir’s murder, which Is-
rael officially recognized as a terror-
ist attack, came two days after the
bodies of the three Israeli teenagers
— Naftali Fraenkel, 16, Gilad Shaar,
16, and Eyal Yifrach, 19 — were
found in a field near the Palestinian
city of Hebron. They had been miss-
ing for 2^1 / 2 weeks, with a nation
hoping and praying they would be
found alive. Their deaths whipped
up a furious anger.
As summer 2014 wore on, the
four murders became eclipsed by
the war in Gaza. Israeli military jets
destroyed large areas of the Gaza
Strip while a steady barrage of rock-
ets were fired from the Palestinian
enclave into Israel. More than 2,000
Palestinians were killed in Gaza,
with 65 killed on the Israeli side.
While the HBO show offers a
unique insight into this particular-
ly sensitive period in the Israeli-Pal-
estinian conflict, it explores as well
the wider themes of racism and
hatred stoked by nationalism and
misguided religious beliefs, also
touching on mental illness, the de-
sire for revenge and the bravery of
individuals willing to stand up to
pressure from their own communi-
ties.
“It is an inquiry,” Levi said. “It is
the anatomy of a hate crime, a way
for us to understand how such a
crime comes to life. What perfect
storm is needed? In this story, you
see what happens when all the
layers — psychological, sociologi-
cal, elements on the fringes of
society, incitement — come to-
gether. It is something that hap-
pens every day and everywhere.”
[email protected]Our Boys (one hour) airs Mondays at
9 p.m. on HBO.twist of your being upset with
each other, not some safe third
party. Don’t rationalize volatility
as passion.
Be patient, too, as you’re
choosing someone, so you can
look for the various qualities in
yourself and someone else that
will carry you through time and
other trials. Two people who
listen to each other, share values
and interests, are mature enough
to admit fault and have a flexible
approach to life are most likely
going to be okay — whether they
last or not.Write to Carolyn Hax at
[email protected]. Get her
column delivered to your inbox each
morning at wapo.st/haxpost. Join the discussion live at noon
Fridays at live.washingtonpost.com.accept it and admit it. If you
need something, and it feels silly
to need it, then own your silly
need. Resist the urge to
rationalize it away. Resist the
urge to rationalize, period, if
something doesn’t feel right. If
someone you meet is great, “but”
— make sure you get well-
acquainted with those negatives
instead of weaving around them
as we’re always inclined to do.
And, this might be the biggest
indicator of them all: Ask
yourself what a breakup with
this person would be like. It
tends to show, early. It’s always
important to see how you
weather tough times, separately
and together. Anyone can be in
love while having fun. The
breakup hypothetical covers
behavior under duress, involves
a realistic situation and adds theAdapted from a
recent online
discussion.Dear Carolyn: I
am 26 and in love.
I have been in
love before, but it
is now clear to me
that I would have
been miserable if I had made a
long-term commitment to a
person I thought was perfect for
me 10, five or even two years ago.
I was just too young; I lacked
perspective.
But how do I know that I’m
old enough now to be able to
judge whether my partner and I
could be a good long-term fit? I
FEEL as if I have a better sense of
what sorts of things might come
up and how we would handle
them together vs. in college
when I was mainly concerned
with what felt good in the
moment. But what if my 30-year-
old self would someday think it
was laughable that at this age I
felt ready to settle down?
— Too Young?Too Young?: This is such a great
question. Possibly even the
question come mate-picking
time.
Short answer is, I don’t think
you can know. You can be a
mature and self-aware person
who fits happily and comfortably
with another mature and self-
aware person and be of an age
where you can both reasonably
conclude that you know what
you’re getting into — let’s pick
low-30s just for argument’s sake
— and then, bam, something
happens in one or both of your
lives 15 years later that changes
everything. A brush with death, a
tragic loss, a more positive but
still transformative experience,
an epiphany about something
profound. So you and your lovely
and mature partner suddenly see
life so differently that you can’t
find a way to travel through life
on the same path anymore. Or,
more mundanely, you weather
nicely into good old friends and
one of you decides that a
friendship isn’t what you want.
Whatever.
There’s just no seeing around
corners here.
What you can do, though, is
know yourself well, which both
hinges on and encourages
complete honesty with yourself.
If you don’t do something well,ACROSS
1 Paris eateries
6 Abyss
11 Birthday count
14 Rack flavoring
15 Hang in midair
16 Easter
beginning?
17 Data-intensive
branch of
engineering
19 “Positively
Entertaining” TV
network
20 After-tax amount
21 Unveiling word
22 Iraq War worries,
for short
23 God, in Judaism
25 Red-handed
28 Burning crime
30 “__ luego”
31 “Oh dear!”
34 Choir voice
36 Judge on “The
People v. O.J.
Simpson”
38 Camaraderie
41 Avant-garde
music genre
43 Annoying kid
44 Greetings from
Fido
46 Aired with
sharper
resolution
47 De-creases?
49 Lariat
52 Winter hike
footwear item
54 Insect-sized
superhero
58 Surfer’s ride
59 Makeover result
61 Self-image
62 Approx. landing
time
63 “Best thing”
bakery metaphor
... and a hint
to each row of
circles
66 Fish in Japanese
unadon
67 Aspect
68 Montana Tech
city
69 NFL scoring stat
70 Slanted columns
71 Thumbs-ups
DOWN
1 CBS forensic
spinoff starring
Gary Sinise
2 Sleep concern
3 Elegant Manhat-
tan avenue
4 Environmental
prefix
5 Diner employee
6 Spiced tea
7 Emergency
phone link
8 Birdlike
9 Jiff
10 Doubtfire’s title
11 Pixar specialty
12 “Glad you spot-
ted that error”
13 Surrealist Max
18 Mineral hardness
scale
22 Director
Anderson
24 Stinging
flier
26 Norse god
with a hammer
27 Kevin of “Central
Intelligence”
29 “The Simpsons”
bus driver
31 MLB’s Diamond-
backs, on
scoreboards
32 Covered
with plastic,
as an ID card33 Yeses from
bosses
35 Space-research
org.
37 Gave the
green light,
briefly
39 Dominates
totally
40 __ Hashanah:
Jewish
New Year42 Tear gas
situation
45 Bilked
48 Be in debt
50 DUI-fighting
org.
51 Stuck-up
52 1974 hit
“__ Home
Alabama”
53 Chilling in
a cooler55 Track
competitions
56 Playing
marble
57 Connection
points
60 Moistens
63 “City by the Bay”
airport code
64 Once around
the track
65 LamentLA TIMES CROSSWORD By Julian KwanSATURDAY’S LA TIMES SOLUTION© 2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC. 8/19/19KidsPost is on vacation this week.
It returns next Monday with more photos
kidspost of how our readers spent summer break.OThe answer is tethered to the unknown
Carolyn
HaxNICK GALIFIANAKIS FOR THE WASHINGTON POST‘Our Boys’ creators expect criticism from all sides
MARGARET SULLIVAN
Gannett’s
deal spells
trouble for
local news
SEBASTIAN SCHEINER/ASSOCIATED PRESSMAHMOUD ILLEAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
TOP: From left, Joseph Cedar, Hagai Levi and Tawfiq Abu Wael,
creators of the HBO miniseries “Our Boys,” speak in Tel Aviv.
ABOVE: Palestinians hold pictures in 2015 of Muhammad Abu
Khdeir, who was kidnapped and murdered in the summer of 2014.The
Reliable
SourceHelena Andrews-Dyer and Emily Heil
are away. Their column will resume
when they return.