Media Throwing Craps?

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Dice from Getty Images

Article in Daily Kos by Feris Hero, 10/16/24

Headline: “The Legacy Media Is Gambling With Its Future With Its Election Coverage.”

“I’ve heard and seen a number of comments from people lamenting that Trump is going to win. When asked about it, they point to the general old guard media who’re doing their usual horse race coverage.

” . . .I sort of understand what is going on here. Year after year of getting yelled at by angry conservatives for having the audacity to print factual information wears a person down. Add in that newsrooms across the country are shedding staff and moving to alternative methods to covering the news, and its a nightmarishly stressful job, I imagine. They need more paying customers, but the most vocal people reading their coverage are always complaining about it. So why not switch to ‘both sides’ coverage, appease the yelling people and widen your readership base? Such an elegantly simple solution that will ultimately destroy the institutions pushing them.

Yes, the news outlets will make excuses. They’ll hem and haw that its really hard to know what people are thinking. They’ll say this despite the fact that most news sources have turned into places that only report what is happening on social media, the place where people literally tell you what they are thinking.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/10/16/2277199/-The-Legacy-Media-Is-Gambling-With-Its-Future-With-Its-Election-Coverage?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

Shaping Media Through AI – Sinister or Sincere?

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Article in 404media by Emanuel Maiberg, 10/16/24

Headline:  “AI-Powered Social Media Manipulation App Promises to ‘Shape Reality’ “

Subhead:  “A prototype app called Impact describes “A Volunteer Fire Department For The Digital World,” which would summon real people to copy and paste AI-generated talking points on social media.”

“Impact, an app that describes itself as ‘AI-powered infrastructure for shaping and managing narratives in the modern world,’ is testing a way to organize and activate supporters on social media in order to promote certain political messages. The app aims to summon groups of supporters who will flood social media with AI-written talking points designed to game social media algorithms.

“In video demos and an overview document provided to people interested in using a prototype of the app that have been viewed by 404 Media, Impact shows how it can send push notifications to groups of supporters directing them at a specific social media post and provide them with AI-generated text they can copy and paste in order to flood the replies with counter arguments.”

“.  .  . ‘Coordinated groups of people can show up and help, or coordinated groups of people can show up and harass,’ Shapiro said. ‘We don’t think coordination is in any way a bad thing. We think it’s a great thing, because you can get stuff done, and if you’re doing good, truthful things, then I don’t see any problems.’ ”

https://www.404media.co/ai-powered-social-media-manipulation-app-promises-to-shape-reality-4/

Media Hate Speech Isn’t Just for Humans Anymore

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Article in TechXplore by by Kristina Radivojevic – University of Notre Dame, 10/15/24

Headline: “AI bots easily bypass some social media safeguards, study reveals”

Subhead: “Potential risks of unregulated MFM-Powered (digital recording) chatBots on platforms”

“While artificial intelligence (AI) bots can serve a legitimate purpose on social media—such as marketing or customer service—some are designed to manipulate public discussion, incite hate speech, spread misinformation or enact fraud and scams. To combat potentially harmful bot activity, some platforms have published policies on using bots and created technical mechanisms to enforce those policies.

“But are those policies and mechanisms enough to keep social media users safe?”

https://techxplore.com/news/2024-10-ai-bots-easily-bypass-social.html

Right-Wing Media Want to Get Ahead With FEMA

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Article in Media Matters by Eric Hananoki, 10/15/24

Headline: ” ‘Your time is coming when Trump wins’: MAGA media figures claim FEMA committed treason”

Subhead: “One commentator said: ‘Hang them by the necks till they’re dead … I believe it’s way past time for an armed revolution.’ “

Article lists commenters and their opinions about retribution for perceived “treason”

“Numerous Trump-aligned media figures have accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its officials of committing treason over its handling of Hurricane Helene.

“Those right-wing figures have said that ‘whoever is running FEMA is guilty of treason your time is coming when Trump wins’; that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas ‘should be in prison for the treason he has perpetrated against this country’; and that someone should ‘hang’ government officials “by the necks till they’re dead and let their dead bodies rot while people see what is done to treasonous government. … I believe it’s way past time for an armed revolution.’ ”

https://www.mediamatters.org/hurricanes/your-time-coming-maga-media-figures-claim-fema-committed-treason

 

Media on a Learning Curve

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Article in The New Republic by Michael Tomasky 10/14/24

Headline:  “The Media Has Three Weeks to Learn How to Tell the Truth About Trump”

Subhead:  “Is a constant stream of undiluted fascist rhetoric and violent threats as bad as an unsecured email server? The political press can’t seem to puzzle it out.”

“Donald Trump keeps getting worse and worse. Last Friday in Aurora, Colorado, he gave a speech that was both bonkers and fascist, asserting that the city—where crime is down 17 percent—had been “conquered” by Venezuelan gangs and announcing that he’d use a 1798 law to deport them. Sunday morning, he said on Fox that “the enemy within” who might be planning any Election Day chaos—“sick people, radical left lunatics,” but presumably for the most part citizens of the United States—should be handled by the National Guard or even the military.”

“. . . The bottom line is this. Trump simply can’t be covered like most candidates, for two reasons. One, he was president before (something that hasn’t happened since Grover Cleveland), so we have a track record to examine and reexamine. You could call Trump’s four years in office “old news” if you want, but that sample size is still the best guide for what his future presidency will be like.

“Two, the things he’s proposing are radical and dangerous. . .”

https://newrepublic.com/series/56/media-three-weeks-truth-trump

Media Tiptoe Through the Turnout With Candidate

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Article in Daily Kos by Lawrence Lewis, 10/15/24

Headline: “Trump glitches, and of course the legacy media make it seem he improvised a dance party”

“There were a couple medical incidents in an overheated crowd at a Trump rally last night, and Trump started glitching. Steve Benen has a good account, but he’s the exception:

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/lets-just-listen-music-trumps-townhall-event-gets-weird-rcna175449

” . . . We know what the media chorus would have been, had President Biden done something similar.”

“. . . The legacy media are complicit. The only people who can save this republic are us, the voters. So vote! Get every conscious adult you know to vote! This is not a drill!”

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/10/15/2276962/-Trump-glitches-and-of-course-the-legacy-media-make-it-seem-he-improvised-a-dance-party

Traditional Media in Crystal Ball

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Video in MEDIAite Press Club by Aidan McLaughlin, 10/11/24

Examination and outlook on the future of legacy mainstream media like New York Times, TV news.  Mediaite is a site for news and opinion on the intersection of media and politics.

Headline:  “Andrew Ross Sorkin on Elon Musk, the Election, and Why CEOs Fear Trump”

“In this episode of Press Club, Aidan McLaughlin speaks with Andrew Ross Sorkin, co-host of CNBC’s Squawk Box and renowned business reporter for The New York Times. They discuss the 2024 election between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, the state of the economy and the future of the media business, why Elon Musk and other tech titans are turning MAGA, and what happens after November.

“. . .How many news institutions can exist if you will in this environment, how many can exist where people are paying for them . . .”

. . . I do think you know it’s not going to be the old days I don’t think that every unfortunately I don’t think every town and every city necessarily can even necessarily support a full paper . . but I do think that there’s more news than there’s ever been . . .”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VrPUEc2GTc

Helpful Newspaper Bot Answers Questions About Candidates

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Wow! No need to use any humans!?

Article on Slashdot by Editor David, 10/12/24

Headline:  “California Newspaper Creates AI-Powered ‘News Assistant’ for Kamala Harris Info”

” ‘We’re introducing a new way to engage with our decades of coverage: an AI-powered tool designed to answer your questions about Harris’ life, her journey through public service and her presidential campaign,’ they announced this week . . .”

“. . . The tool’s answers are ‘drawn directly from decades of extensive reporting,’ according to a notice toward the bottom of the page. ‘The tool searches through thousands of Chronicle articles, with new stories added every hour as they are published, ensuring readers have access to the most up-to-date information.’ ”

“. . . If it’s ‘trained’ from articles in the Chronicle about Kamala Harris, then presumably it reflects the editorial stance of the publication over the time starting in 1995. Sounds useful, but like all things in the media, you shouldn’t get your info from just one source.”
”

https://politics.slashdot.org/story/24/10/12/1823237/california-newspaper-creates-ai-powered-news-assistant-for-kamala-harris-info

Media Ignore, “If it walks like a . . . “

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Article by in Media Matters by Tyler Monroe, 10/14/24

Headline: “Broadcast news shows and print outlets largely ignored Gen. Milley calling Trump “fascist to the core”

Subhead: “Only one article from The Washington Post and one segment from NBC News covered the comments”

“National broadcast news networks and print outlets buried recent comments from Donald Trump’s former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff retired Gen. Mark Milley calling the former president “fascist to the core.” Almost all broadcast news shows and the major newspapers ignored the comments, with only NBC’s Meet the Press and The Washington Post covering Milley’s “fascist” remarks.

“Reporting surfaced on October 11 that Milley called Trump “fascist to the core” in comments reported in journalist Bob Woodward’s upcoming book War.”

“. . . Broadcast and print news almost completely ignored Milley’s characterization of Trump as ‘fascist’.”

https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/broadcast-news-shows-and-print-outlets-largely-ignored-gen-milley-calling-trump

Media Cleansing

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Article in Dawn by Muna Khan, 10/13/24

Headline: “Disgraced Media “

A view from Pakistan

“LAST week, I wrote a piece on Western media’s coverage of the war in Gaza for Prism on the Dawn website. I re-read part of Edward Said’s 1981 book Covering Islam on how the Western media distorts the portrayal of Islam and depictions of Muslims as “fanatical, violent, lustful and irrational”. I often return to this book as it remains relevant. It’s a sad indictment on the Western media whose reporting on Muslims and Palestinians has resulted in their dehumanisation over the decades.

“Despite knowing all this, I felt foolish when I read how The New York Times told its staff to restrict using words like ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘genocide’ and avoid ‘occupied territories’ in their reporting on Gaza. This was revealed by The Intercept in April which received a copy of the internal memo the paper sent to its staff. They also told staff not to use the word ‘Palestine’ “except in very rare cases”. It is mind-boggling.”

https://www.dawn.com/news/1864892/disgraced-media