Article from United Pres International by Joe Fisher, 4/30/23
Headline: “Biden shows support for free press at White House Correspondents’ dinner”
“The president’s speech was tailored to supporting journalism in light of attacks against a free press, particularly by Russia. He called on Russia to release Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been in a Russian prison for a month.”
Media News
News about the media.
Printing Plant Fire Cheats Last Local Paper Out of its Last Edition
Article in the New York Times by Cory Kilgannon, 4/26/23
Headline: “A Newspaper Was Planning Its Last Edition. Then the Press Caught Fire.”
“. . . but on Monday morning, Ms. Baranauckas received an email with some troubling news: There had been a fire at the printing plant in Rockaway, N.J.
“Gannett would not comment on the Local’s situation but did release a statement saying that there were no injuries in the fire. ‘Two printing presses sustained damage and some production schedules were impacted,’ it said.
“For the Local, alternatives were scarce; it’s not so easy to find someone to print a newspaper these days. But Ms. Baranauckas was resolute.
“We will figure out a way to do it,” she said. “If I have to print it out on my home printer and walk it door to door, that’s what I’ll do.”
FCM Website Attacked by Bots.
The Friends of Community Media website (ourfcm.org) was recently under an attack seemingly by DoS bots (dedicated denial of service), designed to overload the system. This was done with fake bot email addresses.
Many of these were fake email addresses with an address that had the domain name appended to the email address as .ru – an extension representing Russia. The FCM website required registration before viewing. Each of these fake emails became registered and started to fill up the FCM WordPress database.
This was a mistake and made the site vulnerable.
With this attack up to10 new registrations a day started occurring starting in January, 2023. These eventually mounted up to over 5,000 fake addresses which had to be manually deleted.
To respond, the admin of ourfcm.com stopped people requiring to be registered on the site. Also, a message was sent back to some of the phony emails that said, “Mumakhala ngati nyani akuphanguka” – an appropriate phrase in another language. Responses to the FCM message were kicked back as not being real email addresses.
Unfortunately many sites like this one, are subject to attack by the deniers of free information-flow that can challenge authoritarians and dictators.
Journalism Under Attack by Zealots in Some U.S. Towns
Article in The Guardian by Marlena Sloss, 4/22/23
Headline: A California journalist documents the far-right takeover of her town: ‘We’re a test case’
“Doni Chamberlain (reporter at http://anewscafe.com) has made a point of not interacting with those who attack her directly, and continuing her reporting. But the exchanges, along with the menacing, graphic threats to her and her staff and others in the community, and the lack of action from law enforcement have fundamentally changed how she approaches her job.
“But the threats make doing journalism in Shasta county particularly challenging, she added. Finding sources is difficult. Many people are afraid of speaking out, even anonymously.”
Reporters Threatened With Death in Oklahoma.
Article from Washington Post by Jonathan Edwards, 4/18/23
Headline: “Olka governor calls for officials to resign after horrid audio emerges”
“. . . according to McCurtain Gazette-News, which later published a recording online. The sheriff allegedly mocked a woman who’d recently burned to death in a house fire, comparing her to “barbecue.” And together they hinted at assassinating a journalist who’d reported on their alleged misconduct, according to the Gazette-News.
“Over the weekend, the newspaper published an article recounting a portion of that alleged conversation, promising to follow up with more reporting in coming weeks. The paper also posted snippets of the audio online. Gazette-News reporter Bruce Willingham told KWTV he left his recorder hoping to get evidence that officials were holding secret meetings.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/04/18/mccurtain-county-sheriff-recording/
Be careful about reporting on corruption in parts of Oklahoma – and in other places!
Is Twitter a News Medium or Just a Propaganda Outlet as Public Media Leave it in Droves?
Artice from The Guardian by Guardian Staff, 4/14/23
Headline: “PBS quits Twitter after being labeled ‘government-funded media’”
Sub-head: “Broadcaster leaves platform a day after NPR’s exit over concerns labels undermine credibility as independent news outlets”
“The US’s Public Broadcasting Service, better known as PBS, has quit its use of Twitter after the platform labeled the organization as “government-funded media”.
“PBS’s announced its Twitter exit on Thursday, one day after National Public Radio also left the platform amid comments by the Twitter owner, Elon Musk, that NPR was “state-affiliated media” which should be defunded.
“The labels are shared by Russia Today and China’s Xinhua, whose editorial decisions are heavily influenced by their respective state regimes .. .”
In Our Brave New World, Will News Be Delivered by Pre-programmed AI Journalist Robots?
From the Guardian, 4/11/23:
Headline: “AI generated news presenter debuts in Kuwait media”
Sub-head: “Kuwait News introduced Fedha, promising that it could read online news in the future”
“A Kuwaiti media outlet has unveiled a virtual news presenter generated using artificial intelligence, with plans for it to read online bulletins.
‘Fedha’ appeared on the Twitter account of the Kuwait News website on Saturday as an image of a woman, hair uncovered, wearing a black jacket and white T-shirt.
“’I’m Fedha, the first presenter in Kuwait who works with artificial intelligence at Kuwait News. What kind of news do you prefer? Let’s hear your opinions,’ she said in Arabic.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/11/ai-generated-news-presenter-debuts-in-kuwait-media
Local News Disappearing? Here’s a Solution From Early Days.
Article from Politico by Steven Waldman, 4/2/23
Headline: “There’s Already a Solution to the Crisis of Local News. Just Ask This Founding Father”
Sub-Head: “As modern lawmakers consider various means of public assistance for besieged local news sites, they can learn from the founders’ approach to supporting journals and gazettes”
Solution: Subsidize the news (without censoring the news)
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/04/02/james-madison-subsidize-the-news-00090023
Photo from Politico
Local Newspapers Matter, Their Demise Portends Trouble
Headline: “Local journalism made me what I am today. Without it, we’ll all be the poorer”
Sub-head: “For budding journalists and citizens alike, the demise of local newspapers will leave a void that’s impossible to fill”Article in The Guardian by John Humphrys, 3/30/23
“. . . Then there’s the old controversy: how much has the ubiquity of BBC local news been to blame for so many local papers going out of business? As Hall acknowledges, in broadcasting the genuinely local commercial stations have for the most part been merged into larger entities. This has “important ramifications” for reporting on local councils, courts and so on.
“A few years ago, the BBC set up the Local Democracy Reporting Service to head off charges that it was killing off local newspapers. The scheme pays for journalists who can work for any local news outlet. There are 165 of them and about 1,000 individual news outlets are signed up.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/30/local-journalism-journalists-newspapers
