I’m not sure how this managed to stay under the radar for almost a month, but someone brought to my attention today that Poynter.org reported back on July 31 that Snopes has fired managing editor Brooke Binkowski.
I know Brooke well; she and I were pretty good friends during the first year of the current administration. (No, politics has nothing to do with why we aren’t friends now. She and I are practically 100% aligned on our dismay over the Orange Menace’s running roughshod over practically everything we intelligent and rational people care about.) She has journalistic credentials many would sell their soul to have, including NPR, public television, CNN, Los Angeles and San Diego news radio, and much more.
Brooke is well-versed in immigration issues, geopolitics, international relations, space and science. Most important: She honest-to-god-cares about the truth.
She says in the article:
“I honestly have no idea … I was given no hints. I was never written up for anything.”
I don’t know what Snopes founder David Mikkelson is thinking, either. She has been the extremely public face of Snopes in panel discussions, news articles, her Twitter account (@BrooklynMarie), and was interviewed on the PBS NewsHour this past May. I’d venture to say that no one in the fact-debunking business was as visible as her, and I know damned well how good she is at it. Why would he give up the kind of free publicity he had with her as their managing editor? It mystifies me.
But what I do know is that whoever Mikkelson hires as her replacement, they’re not likely to have the credentials, the experience, and the passion Brooke does. In the article, she says she may start her own site. I hope she does, and I’d happily help her if she’d let me.
She’s a survivor. I wonder now if Snopes will be.