Events

Current Activites of FCM and in the past

Lies Win Over Actual Facts

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Article in the Washington Post by Dan Diamond, 1/13/25

Headline:  ” ‘I can’t go toe to toe with social media.’ Top U.S. health official reflects, regrets.”

Subhead:  “Xavier Becerra, who has led the Department of Health and Human Services, says federal agencies are outmatched in a world of “instantaneous information and disinformation.”

“. . .Sitting in his office at HHS headquarters, America’s top health official identified a culprit: a media climate that he says drowns out reliable information. False claims about vaccines run rampant online; government health experts at news conferences barely make a dent compared with influencers who have huge followings.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/01/12/xavier-becerra-hhs-secretary/

 

Tracking the Right-Wing Press

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Howard Polskin, 1/9/25

Headline:  “Will Progressive and Mainstream Audiences Keep Switching off the News?”

Subhead:  “Post-election, my newsletter saw a big dip. It is not alone.”

“For the past seven years, I’ve been publishing TheRighting, a free newsletter for mainstreamers and progressives that informs them about thinking from the right. A daily collection of headlines from right-wing sources forms the beating heart of my enterprise. My modest subscription list has grown over the years from a handful of friends and family in year one to thousands of faithful readers scattered around the country. The growth trajectory has almost always pointed north.

“Readers subscribe because they want to know what the right is saying by scanning the seventeen headlines I aggregate every morning. For them, it’s like a polar-bear swim in the chilly waters of right-wing media. A quick dip—two minutes to scan the headlines and absorb a sentence or two, and then it’s back to the warm welcome of MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, or wherever they get the news that affirms their political beliefs.”

https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/progressive-mainstream-righting-news-deserters-avoidance-trump-bump.php

 

Freedom of Press or Freedom to Surveil?

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Article in TechXplore by Jared Wadley, 1/7/25

Headline:  “Q&A: TikTok’s case could set a precedent for social media app bans”

“The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments this week about a pending ban on social media app TikTok, an outcome of a law signed by President Biden last April that would take effect Jan. 19.

“Oliver Haimson, assistant professor of information at the University of Michigan, said the stakes are high not only for China-based owner ByteDance to sell the app—which the company says violates First Amendment rights—but also for the reported 170 million TikTok users in the United States. The federal government has said the app threatens national security.”

https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-qa-tiktok-case-social-media.html

Social Media Facts Aren’t Real

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Article in The Guardian by Blake Montgomery, 1/7/25

Headline:  “Why did Mark Zuckerberg end Facebook and Instagram’s factchecking program?”

Subhead:  “The social media giant enters a more partisan political era as its CEO pursues Donald Trump’s approval”

Meta is shifting to the right, following the prevailing political winds blowing through the United States. A more partisan era now looms for the social media giant and its corporate leaders, though Mark Zuckerberg himself has few personal politics other than ambition.

“On Tuesday morning, Meta disbanded Facebook and Instagram’s third-party factchecking program. The company will also recommend more political content across its social networks.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/07/why-did-mark-zuckerberg-end-facebook-instagram-fact-checking

No Media-Boss Criticism Allowed

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Censored cartoon by Ann Telnaes

 

On this coming anniversary of the Charlie Hedbo cartoonist assassination, another cartoonist is censored.

Article in The Guardian by Ramon Antonio Vargas, 1/4/25

Headline:  “Washington Post cartoonist resigns over paper’s refusal to publish cartoon critical of Jeff Bezos”

Subhead:  “Pulitzer prize winner Ann Telnaes had drawn a cartoon of the paper’s owner kneeling before Donald Trump”

“The Washington Post’s Pulitzer prize-winning editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes has resigned from her position at the newspaper after its refusal to publish a satirical cartoon depicting the outlet’s owner, Jeff Bezos – along with other media and technology barons – kneeling before Donald Trump as he gears up for his second US presidency.

“ ‘I have had editorial feedback and productive conversations – and some differences – about cartoons I have submitted for publication, but in all that time I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at,’ Telnaes wrote on Friday in an online post on the Substack platform detailing her decision to quit. ‘Until now.’ ”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/jan/04/washington-post-cartoonist-resigns-jeff-bezos

 

Another Jailed Journalist

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Article in the New York Times by Emma Bubola, 12/27/24

Headline:  “Italian Journalist Is Detained While Reporting in Iran”

Cecilia Sala, 29, was arrested on Dec. 19, but news of her detention only became public on Friday. The reason for the arrest of Ms. Sala, a well-known reporter, has not been made public.

“A prominent Italian journalist was arrested in Iran and jailed in the country’s infamous Evin prison after spending days reporting in Tehran, Italian officials said.

Italy’s foreign ministry said Cecilia Sala, 29, was arrested on Dec. 19, but news of her arrest and detention only became public on Friday. The reason for the arrest of Ms. Sala, one of Italy’s most renowned foreign correspondents, has not yet been made public.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/27/world/middleeast/cecilia-sala-italian-journalist-arrested-iran.html

Media Hiding Under Desks?

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Article in The Washington Post by Jennifer Rubin, 12/20/24

Headline:  “Courage is in short supply among Democrats and the media”

“. . . Most problematic to me are the troubling decisions of legacy media owners. We saw the pattern starting with The Post’s and the Los Angeles Times’s refusal to endorse a presidential candidate, followed by MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski’s trek to Mar-a-Lago and then the spectacle of legacy and new media owners (including Post owner Jeff Bezos) kicking in $1 million each for the Trump inauguration. The widely panned ABC News defamation settlement might have been the worst instance of capitulation in the history of major defamation litigation. (In a whole other category of awful: the new, patently absurd L.A. Times “bias meter,” a sort of trigger warning for readers who cannot figure out which way a Times opinion columnist leans, and the constant owner-meddling.”

“Decisions like these don’t mollify Trump; they invite further abuse. . .”

“. . . The sort of behavior we have witnessed from many legacy outlets will not help win back audiences who have lost faith in them. (Progressives are horrified; right-wingers will never patronize them.)”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/12/20/trump-democrats-media-courage/