One of the things we’re the most proud of at The Nation are our interns. Not just because they’re storming 10 Downing Street (Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband, a candidate in the race to lead Labour, are both ex-Nation interns) but because ex-Nation interns have gone on to careers in journalism and public service at some of the finest publications and institutions in the world. This week was the last for our Spring 2010 intern class, and I wanted to thank them for all their hard work: Our web interns, Clarissa Leon and Morgan Ashenfelter. Our print interns: Allison Deger, Frederick Deknatel, Chantal Flores, Nicholas Kusnetz, Timothy MacBain, Kate Murphy, Lauren North and Erin Schumaker.

 

On their way out the door, three of our interns have done a great piece of video, "Mad As Hell: Confronting Wall Street’s Class War." While the tea party protests earned much of the mainstream media’s attention, Allison Deger, Clarissa Leon and Timothy MacBain took cameras to a recent march on Wall Street. With some context from Senior Editor Richard Kim, "Confronting Wall Street’s Class War" looks at the politics of protest, and the voices who are "mad as hell" for real financial reform and accountability on Wall Street:

 

 

 

 

 Also this week at TheNation.com:

 The Breakdown with Chris Hayes

Can the US Government assassinate you!? The question used to seem preposterous, and we hoped with the exit of President Bush that there would be a simpler answer to executive authority questions. But as our D.C. Editor Chris Hayes explains in this podcast (with some help from Vanderbilt law professor Mike Newton) the answer to this question is nowhere near as clear as it should be. You can listen here.

All Rand, All The Time (A Spring Books Teaser …)

There would have been a nice synergy this week if, as many believe, Rand Paul was named after Ayn Rand, controversial author of books like The Fountainhead and a hero to the libertarian movement. We have covered the Rand Paul controversy, John Nichols in particular. (If you know a registered voter in Kentucky, please forward.) But this week is also our annual Spring Books issue. The Nation, through Fall Books and Spring Books, publishes one of the few remaining free-standing book reviews in the country, giving over our full articles section to what is usually the "back of the book" twice a year.

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1. Eric Adams Is the Lying Face of the Campus Crackdown Eric Adams Is the Lying Face of the Campus Crackdown

   Jeet Heer

2. The Week That Student Journalists Put the Mainstream Media to Shame The Week That Student Journalists Put the Mainstream Media to Shame

   Zito Madu

3. The Student Encampments Aren’t a Danger to Jews. But the Crackdown Is. The Student Encampments Aren’t a Danger to Jews. But the Crackdown Is.

   Hadas Thier

4. During a Heated Covid Origins Hearing, a Scientist Comes in for Questioning During a Heated Covid Origins Hearing, a Scientist Comes in for Questioning

   Jimmy Tobias

 

Our Books & The Arts team, Editor John Palattella and Associate Editor Miriam Markowitz, have put together a thoughtful and engaging Spring Books this year. There is Corey Robin’s funny and fascinating essay on that other Rand, Ayn, and the sway she holds in our current political landscape. There is also a piece on Nigeria’s "Nollywood" underground film industry; essays from Scott Sherman, Ange Mlinko and Lorna Scott Fox, and an excerpt from Professor Thomas Sugrue’s forthcoming book about President Obama’s relationship to the civil rights movement.

 

You can read the whole issue here. As you may have noticed, in our redesigned website you can now comment on all articles – not just blog posts.

 

Two Web-Exclusives

The Nation has been posting more content of late from our friends at The Media Consortium, a collaborative membership organization of progressively-minded independent media. Sarah Laskow is one of their best young writers and she is doing outstanding coverage of the ongoing tragedy unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. Here is her latest update.

 

Also Dave Zirin is posting more frequently at TheNation.com. If you follow my tweets, you know that the one thing I love more than financial reform is basketball. Dave edits our sports coverage, and has an interesting look at the new billionaire Russian owner of the New Jersey (soon, Brooklyn?) Nets here.

– – –

 

Finally this week, the right-wing blogosphere and the Drudge Report had some fun with our most recent fund appeal, written by Chris Hayes. The appeal mentioned the high costs of doing good journalism, and our expanding deficit. I’ve heard from a lot of people about the appeal, so we wanted to make two things clear. The first is that The Nation isn’t going anywhere. We’ve been around for 144 years, and I’m already engaged in conversations about our 150th Anniversary. Drudge and Newsmax wouldn’t be the first to write our epitaph, though they are as wrong as all the others. The second point, however, is that the need is real. It costs money to send reporters to Afghanistan and Iran or to the Gulf Coast, or to do a yearlong investigation like A.C. Thompson’s expose on post-Hurricane vigilantism in New Orleans. And The Nation is competing online with sites that are aggregating investigative reporting, but not investing to produce it.

 

We’re thankful to our Nation Associates, who filled our fundraising gap with a record year in 2009 in spite of the recession. But we should be clear: we will find a way, as we always have. And we will likely find it because of you, our community of readers. We may even outlast Drudge.

 

As always thank you for reading. Comments are welcome below, and you can follow me on Twitter – @KatrinaNation.