The Political Situation in 2022: A Conversation with journalist, activist and counselor Andy Heintz

One of the most unfortunate developments in the post internet age is the loss of town and local newspapers.  Our guest Andy Heintz is a veteran of that era.  One of the many advantages of localized journalism is what I personally was trained to report as first order of business back when I was a journalist in the 80s and 90s: the "big five" of who, what, where, how and why.  You start from basic facts about a school board, the water table, farm food production, the weather, elections and so on. After that you can interpret as much as you like, but there had to be a consensus concerning facts.  Our guest Andy Heintz learned the art of this type of reporting in the American Midwest. And like other reporters, he is still very much with us, even if this or that newspaper is not - making me hopeful that this necessary function in society can be rejuvenated. Heintz is also a political activist and a drug counselor and I hope the fact that we got into all of these subjects will help the audience feel invigorated as to the function of basic journalism as well as whatever interpretations they will realize once in command of basic facts.  Close regular audiences of our podcast should realize that I don't love politics as a field as much as I do some other things yet it remains an indispensable, even relentless fact itself of all of our daily lives. Andy's Bio Andy Heintz is a freelance writer who covers human rights, democracy, women's rights, environmental issues, labor rights and cultural issues. He is the author of Dissidents of the International Left. His work has been published in progressive media outlets in the United States, South America, England India, Pakistan, Syria, France and Australia. He his work has been featured in The Progressive, NACLA, Foreign Policy in Focus, New Politics, New Internationalist, CounterVortex, News International in Pakistan, Tikkun, The New Arab, Balkan Witness, Secularism is a Women's Issue and Democracy in Africa Links to Andy’s beautiful works: New Internationalist articles and biography Foreign Policy in Focus articles NACLA  Progressive column Tikkun Links to Andy’s Social Media links Twitter