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On Monday, Noah Shachtman, the former editor in chief of Rolling Stone and the Daily Beast, announced on X that he had a new gig: contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. But his appointment seems at odds with the Times’ stated journalistic standards, at least to some former colleagues, who view his tenure at Rolling Stone in the shadow of editorial interference that they feel raised serious ethical concerns. In 2022, Rolling Stone published a story about an FBI raid on James Gordon Meek, who was then an investigative producer for ABC News, that strongly implied he was being targeted for his national security coverage and framed his arrest as a potential press freedom story, reporting that classified information had been found on his computer. The portrait of Meek was largely sympathetic and at times admiring: “With nine years at ABC under his belt, a buzzy Hulu documentary poised for Emmy attention, and an upcoming book on the military’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the 52-year-old bear of a man seemed to be at the height of his powers and the pinnacle of his profession.”
What the piece notably omitted is a key fact. The same FBI source who confirmed the existence of classified information on Meek’s computer also said that he was under investigation for a matter unrelated to his work as a journalist, and confirmed the focus was child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Tatiana Siegel, the writer whose byline appeared on the Rolling Stone article, shared the full scope of her reporting with Shachtman. (A screenshot of the exchange was provided to me.) He replied, “Wow.”
But then Shachtman—who knew Meek and, according to an investigation done later by David Folkenflik for NPR, told colleagues that they traveled in the same professional circles—took unusual control of the piece. While Siegel was out, caring for her ailing mother, Shachtman changed it meaningfully, removing mention of the CSAM investigation; according to Folkenflik, he also instructed staff to use a generic image of federal agents rather than a photo of Meek. “Serious accusations require serious evidence,” Shachtman told me, when I reached out for comment. “You can’t publish until you’ve got the facts nailed down. That’s why, at every step of the way, we published what we could prove, as soon as we could prove it.” The morning after the piece was posted online, Siegel’s mother passed away.
Shachtman’s interference didn’t end once the story was published: he repeatedly made changes to the copy without adding a note or correction for transparency, and at one point altered the publication date from October 18 to October 24, without explanation. In one instance, he added a comment from the Justice Department, attributed to the Daily Beast—even though Siegel had a similar confirmation from law enforcement that Shachtman had cut during editing. “Noah inexplicably made a series of editorial decisions over the course of a month that resulted in a story that I am horrified to have my byline on,” Siegel told me. I was also told that Siegel asked to have her name removed from the piece after it was published, but lawyers with Penske Media, Rolling Stone’s parent company, declined her request.
Shachtman has been described as a hard-charging, sometimes aggressive editor. Multiple people who have worked with him told me he has an intense, occasionally unwarranted sense of urgency and tends to approach stories with a fixed point of view. One said that once he’s decided what a story is, it’s very difficult to change his mind—even when others push back or the level of certainty is unwarranted: “If Noah has a story that he assigns you, the angle that Noah assigns is for sure going to be the angle that gets published.” (Shachtman declined to comment on that characterization.)
After the NPR exposé, Penske conducted a review of Shachtman’s handling of the Meek story. A source familiar with the findings told me that lawyers concluded he made egregious errors, including failing to recuse himself and editing the story after publication. It’s unclear whether he faced any consequences. The company did not part ways with him until the following year.
Meek was ultimately sentenced to six years in federal prison. Shachtman, who departed Rolling Stone in 2024, is a contributing editor at Wired and has been a guest contributor to the Times; his first piece as a contributing writer was published on Tuesday. “Noah is a skilled and experienced reporter and editor,” a Times spokesperson said when reached for comment. “We look forward to his contributions to our Opinion report.” Wired declined to provide a comment. What’s most troubling to some of his former colleagues is that, in an opinion-writing position, Shachtman’s work will lack the rigorous oversight that typically accompanies reporting. Reflecting on the Meek coverage, one person said: “What is unclear to me is whether or not he learned anything from it.”
St. Helens, Oregon, is best known as the charming backdrop of a 1998 Disney film called Halloweentown but, as is the case in many small towns, there is a lot of very real drama. What started as a dispute over parade security three years ago has since spiraled into a full-blown corruption scandal. Brian Greenway, the police chief, grew so angry about questioning from parade organizers at a city council meeting that he secretly colluded with the officers’ union to manufacture a public safety crisis, oust the mayor, and pressure City Hall for more funding.
We know all of this thanks to a fantastic piece of storytelling from Western Edge, an independent Substack from Leah Sottile and Ryan Haas, two investigative journalists in the Pacific Northwest. (Sottile has contributed to CJR in the past.) The narrative they’ve produced has all the elements of a classic small-town saga: Pushy tourists and frustrated locals. Petty bickering and bitter political rivalries. And at the center of it all, a corrupt police chief and a Facebook group moderator who somehow ends up mayor.
Sottile and Haas started Western Edge less than two months ago, and they are entirely self-funded. Their focus is to bring “deep-dive investigative journalism to parts of the West that are overlooked or maybe misunderstood,” according to Sottile. “A lot of news has become so commodified—especially local news, where it’s like every outlet is kind of chasing the same story, and they’re not taking the time to do deeper reporting,” Haas told me. “We’re just kind of betting on a little bit more of news being a source of pleasure and not just a source of information for people.”
To untangle the corruption in Halloweentown, Sottile and Haas dug through twenty-five hundred pages of public records and conducted extensive interviews. Greenway eventually resigned, but an ally of his was elected mayor in 2024, leaving questions about the corruption unresolved and the town still fractured. The mayor is up for reelection this year.
In May, when Donna White suffered a stroke and had to be hospitalized, she left her nine-year-old grandson, Tristan King, with her sister Denise Day. “She was the only choice,” White told the Baltimore Banner months later. “Not a good choice.” That decision, along with a series of failures by the agencies responsible for his care, led to King living on the streets of Baltimore for nearly six months.
In an excellent, in-depth report for the Baltimore Banner last Wednesday, Jessica Calefati, Lee O. Sanderlin, and Jessica Gallagher traced how King fell through the cracks of Baltimore’s social services system during one of the city’s coldest winters. Two weeks after White’s stroke, King’s school disenrolled him for poor attendance. In July, the house he and Day, who struggles with a serious drug addiction, were living in burned down, forcing them into a tent in an alley behind the charred remains of their home. In September, when Day realized she could no longer care for him, she turned King over to the state. The next day King jumped out of a caseworker’s car and ended up on the run.
King was seen repeatedly in his old neighborhood, but authorities couldn’t track him down—and for a long time, according to the Banner, it appeared they weren’t even trying:
Social workers didn’t acknowledge emails and texts raising concerns about Tristan’s well-being and whereabouts. The Baltimore Police Department has received more than two dozen 911 calls reporting Tristan sightings, but none of them helped bring him in. Detectives took months to interview key figures, including Tristan’s grandmother. At one point, they mistakenly closed his case.
“What we accomplished with this story was gathering all of the information that was available about this case and presenting it together, because when you see that it was not just one agency or one official that failed him, but numerous, it’s powerful and alarming,” Calefati told me when we spoke about the Banner’s coverage of King this week.
After the Banner’s determined reporting drew widespread attention, authorities stepped up the search. By Friday, King was found at a house on Filbert Street, less than two miles from where he first went missing; he is now in a specialized treatment foster home. A tip from the public led to his recovery.
“Tristan is one child, and his circumstances and the danger he faced for such a long time are unique, but he’s certainly not the only vulnerable child in this city or state,” Calefati said. “We want to ensure that these systems and authorities are functioning as required for all of the children that they are responsible for.”
Hat tip to the Local Matters newsletter for the Western Edge story. If you have a suggestion for this column, please send it to laurelsanddarts@cjr.org. We can’t acknowledge all submissions, but we will mention you if we use your idea. For more on Laurels and Darts, please click here. To receive this and other CJR newsletters in your inbox, please click here.
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