KLMNO
Style
saturday, april 4 , 2020. washingtonpost.com/style eZ re K C
D.C. United players adjust to a world without soccer S ports, C8-10
BY PEGGY MCGLONEThe $25 million emergency
funding for the Kennedy Center
was already a controversial piece
of the $2.2 trillion federal stimu-
lus package, but criticism of it
grew after the arts center fur-
loughed hundreds of employees
Tuesday, within days of the bill’s
passage last week. The cuts, char-
acterized as temporary, brought
the center’s coronavirus-related
job losses to more than 1,100.
now, some of the politicians
who approved the grant are
among the loudest critics. Rep.
Bryan steil (R-Wis.) this week
introduced a bill to rescind the
funding, which he described as
“frivolous spending in the midst
of a national emergency” and
House Republican Whip steve
scalise (R-La.) called the job cuts
shameful. “If an organization is
receiving assistance from the
federal government, we expect
them to take care of their work-
ers,” he said in a statement.
Rep. Betty McCollum (D-
Minn.), chair of the House sub-
committee that funds the arts
center, promised to review the
staff reductions.
“It is extremely disappointing
that the Kennedy Center has
decided to furlough employees.
It was our clear understanding
that with this financial relief,
layoffs and cuts to benefits would
be avoided,” McCollum said in an
email to The Washington Post on
Thursday. “ I will b e doing my d ue
see Kennedy center on c4Furloughs
at Kennedy
Center rile
lawmakers
BY ELAHE IZADI
AND SARAH ELLISONFor media trying to
chronicle the health
communities’ struggles,
limited access to hospitals
makes it hard to deliver
a full picture of the crisis
Kathy Willens/associated Pressa medical worker sticks her head outside a covid-1 9 testing tent
s et up outside elmhurst hospital center in new york.“Professional journalism has a role to play, because citizens
a re demanding an answer and unable to provide it on their own.”
Kelly McBride, chair of the craig newmark center for Journalism ethics at the Poynter institutestart. The West Virginia native
got a famously late break, hav-
ing spent his late 20 s doing
repetitive work in California’s
airplane factories, reciting mu-
sical ideas over and over in his
head so as not to forget them
before the end of his shift. When
he officially entered the record
business at age 31, he was wise
enough to be properly repulsed
by it, and he resolved to ap-
proach his songwriting in a
broad-minded way. “You can
make songs about trucks,
ducks,” Withers told a Dutch
television crew in 20 11. “every-
thing you could possibly think
or feel or imagine, whether
you’re happy or homicidal or
see appreciation on c2magic and urged him to keep the
take. With a shrug for the ages,
Withers consented.
Revisit that moment with this
little anecdote in your ears, and
you might hear tiny flickers of
rushing and reticence in With-
ers’s bedrock voice. He’s mess-
ing around, passing time. But as
Withers carried “A in’t no sun-
shine” i n his pocket from stage
to stage in the years that fol-
lowed, he learned to slow down
and sink all the way into those
52 words. In the studio, he was
spinning his wheels. In concert,
he was venturing into his deep-
est self.
For Withers, who died on
Monday at 81, repetition was
central to his songcraft from theBY CHRIS RICHARDS“I know, I know, I know, I
know, I know, I know, I know, I
know, I know, I know, I know, I
know, I know, I know, I know, I
know, I know, I know, I know, I
know, I know, I know, I know, I
know, I know, I know.”
If you’ve never heard how Bill
Withers came to cast that 52-
word spell in the middle of “A in’t
no sunshine,” i t’s a good story. It
was the spring of 197 1 and the
studio tape was rolling — but
Withers hadn’t finished writing
the lyrics, so he improvised to fill
space and e at t he clock. Before h e
could grab a pen to complete the
verse, his producers had been
convinced that they’d heard
APPreCiATiON
The joy of Withers, on repeat
The soulful singer crafted an array of songs you could listen to tirelessly
fin costello/redferns
Bill withers, seen at the rainbow theatre in london in october 197 3, died Monday at age 8 1.The fog of this war
workers to aid their reporting. But
for the most part, the medical
system’s struggle with coronavirus
is a story told with secondhand
observations and amateur cell-
phone footage.
The lack of richly visual depic-
tions of the disease’s impact may
be a key reason some members of
the public doubt its seriousness —
and others have been inspired to
push conspiracy theories denying
the existence of a crisis altogether.
“There is unequivocal news val-
ue in bringing people imagery
from inside hospitals, from the
front lines of this virus,” s aid noah
oppenheim, president of nBC
news. “It’s critical that we get as
many of those pictures out in the
world as possible.”
Getting those pictures out in
front of one particular person cer-
tainly had an impact.
see hospitals on c4The coronavirus pandemic has
been likened to a war. But journal-
ists are largely absent from the
harrowing, heartbreaking front
line of this crisis: hospitals.
In a disaster with an invisible
enemy — no burning buildings or
swamped towns to photograph —
it is emergency rooms and inten-
sive-care units where the day-to-
day human toll of the deadly illness
is most plainly visible. But a combi-
nation of health worries and priva-
cy concerns has made it extremely
difficult for the members of the
media to go into these places and
capture a vivid, firsthand portrait
of this facet of the crisis.
When the new York Times pro-
duced a short Web documentary
on one beleaguered hospital, it was
with video clandestinely shot by a
physician who worked there. oth-
er journalists have been putting
out the call to ask health-careBY HANK STUEVERWith the word “heroic” once
more in widest possible use, it’s
important to remember that des-
perate times don’t always bring
out the best in everybody.
on that note, PBs’s “Master-
piece” v iewers m ight m arch right
into “World on Fire,” a sweeping
miniseries (premiering sunday)
about several people caught up
in the opening salvos of World
War II, with expectations of
seeing broad displays of courage
and resilience. How uplifting at
this particular moment!
What you get, instead, is a
chillier and occasionally provoc-
ative rumination on how hard it
can be to navigate an altered
world. These characters are full
of ambivalence, doubt and occa-
sional resignations to their fates.
Their heroism often feels like too
little, too late.
see tv review on c2I n ‘ World
on Fire,’
sti≠ upper
lips bitten
Tv review