Amanda B-S

I do immigration, adult ed & workforce policy @SkillsCoalition. Librarian by background; Philadelphian to my core. Tweets are my own.

[Amanda B-S @AmandaWorking]

I've mostly retired from Twitter so as not to provide free material for this platform to run alongside Nazis and Nazi-friendly content.

Look for me via email or (uh) LinkedIn.

[Amanda B-S @AmandaWorking]

@AmtrakNECAlerts Just got a very confusing announcement about a “truck strike” halting all train traffic in and out of DC. Entire train car of passengers is confused. Please clarify.

[Radnor Township @RadnorTownship]

November 7, 2023: Incident at Radnor High School

Earlier this evening, after school hours, Radnor High School received a threat, which prompted an immediate and organized evacuation of all students and staff members who were in the building and on campus.

[Delaware County @DelcoCouncil]

🚨 #ElectionUpdate: Radnor High School evacuation affects Radnor Ward 2, Precincts 1 & 3. 🏫 New location: Radnor Elementary, 20 Matsonford, Wayne PA. 🗳️ Court has approved voting extension UNTIL 9pm for these 2 precincts ONLY. 🕘 Relocated precincts are now open through 9pm! 📢

[Meena Bewtra @DrsMeena]

There are likely people in PA who are in your feed; so please-spread the news: if you were moved to Radnor Elementary from its high school, you have until *9pm* to vote--PLEASE VOTE!
(it's gonna be a long night....)

[Alec Karakatsanis @equalityAlec]

I turned 40 today. It's 10 years since I left my job as a public defender and became a civil rights lawyer. I'm grateful to all the people with the courage to fight the many forms of oppression in our world, especially those who have shown me how to do it with laughter and joy.

[Dylan Johnson @bydylanjohnson]

Main Line! If you haven’t voted and were headed to your polling place at Radnor High School, it has been relocated due to bomb threat.

[Coby @Cobylefko]

Lancaster, CA transformed its downtown in just 8 months by redesigning it's main street from a mini-highway to a tree-lined boulevard.

For the cost of just $11.5M, the project has generated $273M in economic output since 2010, creating 800 jobs, and nearly doubling tax revenue!

[Ben Casselman @bencasselman]

By the way, I'm sure I'm not immune to this myself. This is one reason I track the race and gender of my sources -- so that I can identify unconscious bias and look for ways to address it.
https://t.co/Hkb1Ft9bml

[Ben Casselman @bencasselman]

This is all, of course, particularly relevant on a day when #econtwitter is (yet again) discussing sexism and racism in the field. I don't know if this is worse in my corner of journalism than elsewhere, but I know it happens much too much here.

[Ben Casselman @bencasselman]

Maybe it's about age/experience, not gender? Well, it's also happened when I write with @PatcohenNYT, who is older. Maybe people just recognize my incomparable brilliance (lol)? Well it *doesn't* tend to happen when I write with @jimtankersley or with other men.

[Ben Casselman @bencasselman]

Credentialism is dumb, especially in journalism (where many of the best people have no formal credentials). But by any objective measure, @jeannasmialek is *more* credentialed than I am. She has an MBA! She wrote a (very good, very well-received) book!

[Ben Casselman @bencasselman]

More, recently, this has happened *repeatedly* when writing with @jeannasmialek. I get my share of criticism, fair and unfair, like anyone, but responses to my stories tend to start from a presumption that I know what I'm talking about. The opposite is often true for her.

[Ben Casselman @bencasselman]

Natalie and I used to muse about running a proper experiment, where we randomized bylines. We even kicked the idea around with @BetseyStevenson & @JustinWolfers. But then Natalie abandoned me for Mexico :(

[Ben Casselman @bencasselman]

Here's the thing, though: He had no way of knowing who'd written which part of the story. And, as it happens, he was *exactly wrong.* The parts he thought were smart were by @Nataliekitro (not a surprise to anyone who knows her!). The parts he didn't like were by me.

[Ben Casselman @bencasselman]

The starkest example of this came when someone wrote in to criticize one of our stories. In an email sent only to me, he said that the parts I'd written were smart, but that I'd been let down by my coauthor, who clearly knew nothing about economics.

[Ben Casselman @bencasselman]

The first time I really noticed this was when I first joined the Times and @Nataliekitro and I began writing together. We noticed that when we co-wrote a story, my tweets would get a very different reaction than hers (again, of the SAME STORY).

[Ben Casselman @bencasselman]

I'm really glad @jeannasmialek decided to share this. I've seen this kind of thing happen WAY too often for me to believe it's a coincidence.

[Jeanna Smialek @jeannasmialek]

@bencasselman But I think it's a good reminder not to let that apply unevenly to women, people of color, people from non-elite unis, or people who present in any given way (young, bubbly, etc).

Because you might unfairly doubt someone great — and miss something insightful in the process.

[Jeanna Smialek @jeannasmialek]

@bencasselman The guy didn't mean to discount someone unfairly (and I'm sure this emailer didn't, either). Nor is being skeptical of journalists, researchers, economists, etc. necessarily a bad thing: It's good to know who and what you're consuming.

[Jeanna Smialek @jeannasmialek]

@bencasselman For instance, a really smart economist once told me that they didn't take a prominent female researcher very seriously bc everyone knew her co-author did the tough analysis in their studies. But I knew both authors really well, and I knew that the opposite was true.