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Friday, July 10, 2020
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One group that’s really benefitted from Covid-19: Anti-vaxxersPlus: How a fake news headline came to be (there are no “Obama-Soros Antifa Supersoldiers”) and trends in Covid-19 misinformation. By Laura Hazard Owen. |
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Margaret Sullivan has written a brisk and useful guide to the horrifying decline of local newsGhosting the News is a useful introduction to the decline of local, and Sullivan is an ideal guide. By Dan Kennedy. |
What We’re Reading
Bloomberg Businessweek / Mark Bergen and Maya Tribbitt
Fox News got a big boost on YouTube from an algorithm change →
“Fox News ‘traffics in conspiracy theories frequently, which as we know is candy for the internet,’ says Kahn. Of course, that criticism existed before the coronavirus. But the pandemic's frenetic news cycle has drawn more people online, deepening worries about the network's influence.”
The New York Times / Sandra E. Garcia
Ziwe Fumudoh asks: ‘How many Black people do you know?’ →
"Ultimately I'm not trying to make any of my guests look bad," Fumudoh said. "I'm just trying to start a really productive and healthy conversation that promotes healing with the trauma that is our racist history of this country."
NPR / David Folkenflik
Foreign journalists working for U.S. government broadcasters may lose their visas →
“The foreign journalists affected by the visa decision are particularly valued for their language skills, which are crucial to the agency’s mission as an international broadcaster covering news in many countries that do not have a free or robust press.”
The New York Times / Mike Isaac and Karen Weise
Amazon is making its employees delete TikTok from their phones, calling it a security risk →
“Amazon officials said that employees must delete the app from any devices that ‘access Amazon email’…TikTok, which has been popular with young audiences in the United States, is owned by the Chinese tech company ByteDance. It has been under scrutiny in Washington for security reasons because of its ownership.”
The Daily Beast / Maxwell Tani and Lachlan Cartwright
Authentic Brands, the owner of Sports Illustrated’s IP, is re-examining The Maven’s license to operate SI’s media business →
“On Wednesday, Sports Illustrated staff received a note from The Maven's general counsel Robert Scott informing them that they are legally required to retain and preserve all documents related to Maven, SI, and ABG. The note alarmed many employees, some of whom were unaware of the dispute between the parent company and the magazine's operator, which now appears to be an all-out battle.”
Talking Biz News / Chris Roush
Brent Jones joins The Wall Street Journal masthead as the editor of culture, training and outreach →
“Brent Jones, a leader who has had a transformative effect on training and culture at The Wall Street Journal in the last two years, is taking on a new and expanded newsroom role as Editor of Culture, Training and Outreach. He will join the masthead of The Wall Street Journal and report to [editor Matt Murray] starting Monday.”
Discourse Blog / Jack Crosbie
Journalism’s slush fund parasites →
“The Knight Foundation has an endowment of $2.4 billion dollars. Given the margins facing journalism these days, that's an absolutely absurd amount of money. The Knight Foundation could have bought the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union-Tribune (sold in 2018 for $500 million) five times over. It could have bought Gawker (sold in 2018 for $1.35 million) almost 2,000 times. Instead, as Gara pointed out, it chose to stay the course, and continue giving money to ‘useless thinkfluency future of journalism nonsense.'”
The Information / Wayne Ma and Yunan Zhang
Apple is still betting on AR as its next big platform →
“The lenses are at least one to two years away from mass production, and the same is likely true of the AR product they ultimately end up in, the person said. The product must still go through a lengthy process of ramping up production to the point where Apple can reliably manufacture millions of them.”
Medium/OneZero / Chris Gilliard
Facebook cannot separate itself from the hate it spreads →
“The weird thing here is that what civil rights organizations are primarily asking Zuckerberg to do is get the white supremacy off of his platform, but he's treating it like a hostage negotiation.”
Medium / Nandini Jammi
I’m leaving Sleeping Giants, but not because I want to →
“I want to show you how a woman of color almost disappeared from the movement she built, and what you can achieve when you refuse to follow the rules your white male ‘leader’ sets for you.”
The New Yorker / Gideon Lewis-Kraus
Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s war against the media →
How a controversial rationalist blogger became a mascot and martyr in a struggle against The New York Times.
Refinery29 / Kathleen Newman-Bremang
For Black women in media, a “dream job” is a myth →
“The question has become, where can we go where racism will not be a distraction? Where can we tell Black stories fully and be able to cover Black Canadian life honestly and fairly? To quote my friend Kayla Grey, ‘Where can we be Black?’ I wish there was an answer that didn't include, Well, this place is only a little racist!”
Twitter / Ej Dickson
Vanity Fair / Marisa Meltzer
Are true-crime podcasts ready for the #DefundthePolice era? →
“Protests and the movement to defund the police have made it increasingly difficult to ignore the paternalistic and trusting relationship between many of my favorite podcasts and the criminal justice system, a relationship that betrays my understanding of the world: that justice isn't actually blind, that there's an inherent fallacy in the idea of bad guys, and that punishments often don't fit the crimes.”