Jeff Proctor

Nov 17, 2023 | newmexicopbs.org | Jeff Proctor

There’s no down-the-middle, dispassionate way to characterize the story that appeared Oct. 26 on the Albuquerque Journal’s front page under the headline, “Former BernCo sheriff, undersheriff named in cross-country machine gun scheme”. It is, to borrow a term repopularized in the 1960s by beloved New Journalist Tom Wolfe, bananas.

Nov 11, 2023 | newmexicopbs.org | Jeff Proctor

I’ve approached this space recently with a clear idea of what I wanted to say: context on the importance of citizen police oversight in Albuquerque, which we tackled in last week’s episode of New Mexico in Focus, and some reflections on why I’m still a journalist the week before that. Today, such clarity abandoned me, replaced by a socking in of the low-drifting clouds I’ve known too often in my decades at the keyboard.

Nov 4, 2023 | newmexicopbs.org | Jeff Proctor

By all official accounts, nearly a decade of federal oversight for the Albuquerque Police Department is lumbering to an end. Whether the court-enforced consent decree between the U.S. Justice Department and the City of Albuquerque has been successful is a question with which I spend considerable time — thinking, talking with friends and sources, thinking some more. But it’s not a question to consider for what I’m writing today.

Oct 27, 2023 | newmexicopbs.org | Jeff Proctor

…from the beginning of time,in childhood, I thoughtthat pain meantI was not loved. It meant I loved. -Louise Glück, “First Memory”Perhaps I’ve been straining to mention Louise Glück, whose poems have so shaped the way I think about the world, so driven the writing side of my journalism career — and who died two weeks ago. I’d been rereading Ararat, her 1990 masterpiece collection, and found myself revisiting “First Memory” over and over again, but couldn’t sort out why. Last night, it made sense.

Oct 18, 2023 | sfreporter.com | Jeff Proctor

Bad Press, the new documentary from directors Rebecca Landsberry-Baker (Muscogee-Creek) and Joe Peeler, isn’t yet 10 minutes along when a grim statistic flashes up on the screen: Just five of the 574 federally recognized tribes in the US have laws protecting freedom of the press. Five. The Muscogee-Creek tribe is among them, but that designation came at a chilling, bitter price whose high-stakes bargain is the province of Press.