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Category: Journalism/Media

Dear journalists: Stop being loudspeakers for liars

Dear journalists: Stop being loudspeakers for liars

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Dan Gillmor writes: An open letter to my friends and colleagues in journalism: Please, just stop. Please stop giving live airtime to liars. Stop publishing their lies. Please examine what you’re doing. You are letting liars use your traditional norms — which made sense in different times and situations — to turn you into amplifiers of deceit. You know you are doing this, and sometimes you even defend it. Please stop. But but but but, you say, he’s the president and we have to…

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The press needs to sandwich Trump’s lies between thick slices of reality

The press needs to sandwich Trump’s lies between thick slices of reality

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Margaret Sullivan writes: Last week was a particularly rough one for journalists and truth-seeking citizens. President Trump declared the news media the nation’s worst enemy. And time after shocking time, his acolytes demeaned or threatened reporters for doing one of their most basic jobs: asking questions of those in power. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told a reporter in North Korea that it was “insulting and ridiculous and ludicrous” for him to be asked about details of the verification process…

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Puerto Rico’s devastation takes a backseat to Roseanne coverage

Puerto Rico’s devastation takes a backseat to Roseanne coverage

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Pete Vernon writes: For those who argue that the media has misplaced priorities when it comes to coverage choices, this week has provided a case study to support their position. While media outlets from cable news to digital publishers obsessed over the cancellation of ABC’s Roseanne, a report on the staggering death toll in Puerto Rico has, in comparison, been met with relative silence. Researchers from Harvard University estimate that at least 4,645 deaths can be linked to Hurricane Maria…

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The Onion’s brutal Israel commentary goes beyond satire

The Onion’s brutal Israel commentary goes beyond satire

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Vice News reports: On Monday, as the United States celebrated moving its Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, thousands of Palestinian protesters were shot by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at the border fence separating Israel and Gaza. At least 60 Palestinians died as a result, and the seemingly never-ending conflict between Israel and Palestine was once again at the top of the international news. On May 16, the front page of the New York Times displayed a poignant…

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The fake news Russians hear at home

The fake news Russians hear at home

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Anne Applebaum writes: Because it touches us, because it involves the U.S. president, and because it has produced a lot of headlines, the strategy and tactics of Russian government disinformation in the West have lately been big news. Because it’s far away, and because it happens in a different language, we’ve thought a lot less about Russian government propaganda in Russia. But it will eventually matter to us — maybe sooner than we think. The transformation of Russian media hasn’t…

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The deep roots of Trump’s war on the press

The deep roots of Trump’s war on the press

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Tim Alberta writes: You couldn’t miss it. Arriving in Cleveland for the 2016 Republican National Convention, visitors found themselves staring at an enormous white billboard, slapped across the top of a tall concrete building in the city’s bustling downtown, screaming a simple directive: “DON’T BELIEVE THE LIBERAL MEDIA!” The signage—black letters against a white backdrop, save for “LIBERAL MEDIA” in bloody red—was ample around town the week of Donald Trump’s coronation in Cleveland. It was carried on top of taxicabs;…

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U.S. falls to 45th on press freedom index, Trump labeled ‘media-bashing enthusiast’

U.S. falls to 45th on press freedom index, Trump labeled ‘media-bashing enthusiast’

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The Hill reports: Reporters Without Borders has dropped the United States to No. 45 in its annual ranking of press freedom for 180 countries around the world. In the report released Wednesday, the United States received a “fairly good” rating, which falls below the category of “good,” in which only 9 percent of countries rated were placed. The ranking continues a downward trend for the U.S. in recent years. The country finished No. 43 in 2017 and No. 41 in…

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She tried to report on climate change but Sinclair told her to be more ‘balanced’

She tried to report on climate change but Sinclair told her to be more ‘balanced’

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BuzzFeed reports: Sinclair Broadcast Group executives reprimanded and ultimately ousted a local news reporter who refused to seed doubt about man-made climate change and “balance” her stories in a more conservative direction. Her account, detailed in company documents she provided to BuzzFeed News, offers a glimpse at the inner workings of a media giant that has sought to both ingratiate itself to President Donald Trump and cast itself as an apolitical local news provider — a position the documents undermine….

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Journalist who exposed Russia’s secret mercenaries in Syria mysteriously fell to his death

Journalist who exposed Russia’s secret mercenaries in Syria mysteriously fell to his death

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Vice News reports: In February, Russian investigative journalist Maxim Borodin published a series of bombshell reports about the secret, substantial presence of Russian mercenary forces in Syria. On Sunday, he died, following a mysterious fall from his fifth-floor balcony. Now, a journalists’ advocacy group is calling for an investigation into his “suspicious” death — even though his own editor-in-chief has said there’s not yet any hard evidence of foul play. Local police said they’re investigating “several versions” of the death…

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Keeping stories alive when journalists are under threat

Keeping stories alive when journalists are under threat

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Laurent Richard writes: You killed the messenger. But you won’t kill the message. Over the past six months 45 journalists from 15 different countries have been working in secret to complete and publish investigations by the Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was killed on 16 October 2017. Cooperation is without a doubt the best protection. What is the point of killing a journalist if 10, 20 or 30 others are waiting to carry on their work? Whether you’re a…

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Department of Homeland Security to create massive database to classify and track journalists and bloggers

Department of Homeland Security to create massive database to classify and track journalists and bloggers

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Bloomberg reports: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security wants to monitor hundreds of thousands of news sources around the world and compile a database of journalists, editors, foreign correspondents, and bloggers to identify top “media influencers.” It’s seeking a contractor that can help it monitor traditional news sources as well as social media and identify “any and all” coverage related to the agency or a particular event, according to a request for information released April 3. The data to be…

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As Malaysia moves to ban ‘fake news,’ worries about who decides the truth

As Malaysia moves to ban ‘fake news,’ worries about who decides the truth

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The New York Times reports: In highway billboards and radio announcements, the government of Malaysia is warning of a new enemy: “fake news.” On Monday, the lower house of Parliament passed a bill outlawing fake news, the first measure of its kind in the world. The proposal, which allows for up to six years in prison for publishing or circulating misleading information, is expected to pass the Senate this week and to come into effect soon after. The legislation would…

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How to learn more about the news by spending less time following the news

How to learn more about the news by spending less time following the news

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Farhad Manjoo writes: I first got news of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., via an alert on my watch. Even though I had turned off news notifications months ago, the biggest news still somehow finds a way to slip through. But for much of the next 24 hours after that alert, I heard almost nothing about the shooting. There was a lot I was glad to miss. For instance, I didn’t see the false claims — possibly amplified by…

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Jarrod Dicker on what the blockchain can do for news

Jarrod Dicker on what the blockchain can do for news

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Mathew Ingram writes: For journalists who are also into new technology, Jarrod Dicker has a pretty compelling CV: He was the head of product management at Huffington Post, director of digital products at Time Inc., helped run operations at online-publishing startup RebelMouse, and ran a digital-research lab at The Washington Post. With a career like that, lots of people in media pay attention when Dicker calls something interesting, and so many heads turned when he said he was leaving the…

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Facebook poses an increasing threat to journalism

Facebook poses an increasing threat to journalism

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Mathew Ingram writes: Author and journalism professor Dan Gillmor recently described a future in which “we will be living in the ecosystem of a company that has repeatedly demonstrated its untrustworthiness, an enterprise that would become the primary newsstand for journalism and would be free to pick the winners via special deals with media people and tweaks of its opaque algorithms. If this is the future, we are truly screwed.” In addition to the economic threat it represents to media…

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