Rosebud Winner: If You Care About The Health of The Chesapeake Bay, You Should Know About The Bay Journal

MAY 2026 - Many may not know of The Bay Journal, a non-profit, donor-supported news organization that focuses on the Chesapeake Bay and its many long-term health and environmental issues. The Maryland-based outfit does a remarkable job of practically covering the ongoing status of the Bay, with a minimum of ideology or bias, which of course makes it more credible and influential. Recently two reporters, Timothy B. Wheeler and Jeremy Cox, posted an update on the sagging blue crab population in the Bay. The tone of the May 7 report is not alarmist - and it's restrained. It shows that even crustacean specialists, and the journalists covering them, know what they don't know. This report is typical of Bay Journal coverage - responsible, never shrill, and with a healthy dim view of the ongoing (read endless) litigation that sucks up so many of the Chesapeake Bay's potential resources. This is not the first time the Bay’s crabs have been in trouble. Watermen struggled through subpar harvests for about a decade beginning in the late 1990s before scientists convinced managers to clamp down on harvests of female crabs so more of them...

Rosebud Winner: A NYT Columnist Reports on a Racist Democrat Candidate in Texas

MAY 2026 - Michelle Goldberg of the NYT earlier this month did some original reporting on Maureen Galindo, a Texas congressional candidate with a history of antisemitism. Goldberg expressed alarm that the Texas Democrat was getting support from shadowy PACs, including those seeking to weaken the chances of the Democratic candidate. After Goldberg's piece was published on May 11 some public officials began taking back their endorsement of Galindo. And two weeks later she lost in a runoff to a more moderate candidate, Johnny Garcia. Garcia won by nearly a 2-1 margin. Goldberg's column has been cited as a factor in the race. The problem of a party funding an opposing party's extremist candidate in a primary has become not uncommon - and it is more proof, along with forced re-districting, that the two-party system is no longer interested in bi-partisan governing. https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/26/politics/maureen-galindo-texas-israel-democrats https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/opinion/maureen-galindo-antisemitic-conspiracies.html

Rosebud Winner: WSJ Tallies Trump’s Crazy Social Media Posts

MAY 2026 - WSJ reporters Anthony DeBarros and Annie Linskey performed a public service on May 12 by tallying a list of Trump's social media nuttiest posts. The headline:The Late-Night Truth Social Storms that Offer a Window Into The President's Mind." It's as much entertaining as it is informative, but it's no less important for readers, especially those who still believe this president is sane. Not a hit piece or a hatchet job. The most popular reader comments: The president is unwell. He’s racist, and quite obviously, enabled by his sycophants. If anyone else, in any leadership position, in any job engaged in this kind of behavior, they would be dismissed immediately. His entire life has been in service of himself. He has zero concept of working for someone or something else. He and his chosen people will NEVER understand that they work for us. NEVER. https://www.wsj.com/politics/trump-truth-social-late-night-posts-167cb47a

Rosebud Winner: Michelle Singletary Reveals the Roots of Her Financial Responsibility

MAY 2026 - Michelle Singletary has been cranking out personal finance columns for The Washington Post for more than two decades now, and her work is directed at everyday people - not exactly the private-equity crowd. Her advice is often simple and straightforward - not unlike those talks by Suze Orman. Her readers are people who, nowadays, would be least likely to subscribe to today's Washington Post, which dedicates so much space to national politics, and less and less to local news and sports. Moreover, there is a tinge of ethnicity to her columns - they are titled of course "The Color of Money" - another reminder that we remain, all good intentions aside, a culturally tribal and deeply stratified society. So it's notable that Matt Murray and other leaders of the Post's newsroom kept Singletary around when it laid off so many in its staff - from 800 reporters and editors, to 500 - earlier this year. Those decision makers clearly recognized both the value and virtue of Singletary's columns, which are mostly reminders not to run up credit card debt and to avoid overconsumption. Her May 6 column is more personal than usual - she...