Media News

News about the media.

Adapting to New-Media Environment

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Image from hannahcute0779.blogspot.com

 

Article in Axios by Eleanor Hawking, 10/10/24

Headline: “TikTok, podcasts, Substack: How Harris, Trump and CEOs adapt to new media”

While legacy media shrivel, online media-bubbles take over.

“Newsrooms are shrinking and audiences are becoming more dispersed as independent journalists successfully launch Substacks, content creators pivot into podcasting and TikTokers report on the news.”

” . . . While the role of traditional media shouldn’t be ignored, communication teams must be cognizant of what (Josh Rosenberg, CEO of Day One Agency) refers to as “data dissonance” or the idea that volume doesn’t always equal depth.

” ‘When everything has a billion views or a billion impressions, who’s actually, listening? How is that actually moving the needle?’ he said.”

https://www.axios.com/2024/10/10/media-strategy-tiktok-podcasts-creators

The evolution of media from slideshare:

https://www.slideshare.net/rubenjezarryborja/the-evolution-of-traditional-media-to-new-media

Journalist Media-Rumor Hurt Presidential Campaign?

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The absurd story believed by many about eating cats and dogs isn’t new. Long ago, some media in a frenzy, picked up a fake story during a presidential campaign up and ran with it.

Article by M. Tomoski in The Plaid Zebra May 10, 2016

Headline:   “Hunter S. Thompson once spread a rumor of a presidential candidate’s drug addiction and it was taken seriously”

” ‘Not much has been written about the Ibogaine Effect as a serious factor in the presidential campaign,’ Thompson wrote in an article he later claimed was never meant to be taken at face value. In it, he declares, ‘word leaked out that some of Muskie’s top advisers called in a Brazilian doctor who was said to be treating the candidate with some kind of strange drug.’

“. . . To his credit as an upstanding journalist, Thompson claims he tried his best to question Muskie and even searched the hotel for a Brazilian doctor but was met with obstacles beyond his control.

” ‘I was not able to press the candidate himself for an answer because I was permanently barred from the Muskie campaign after that incident on the Sunshine Special in Florida,’ he wrote, referring to Muskie’s train and a story Rolling Stone had published a few weeks earlier.

“ ‘That crazy son of a bitch got on the train wearing your press badge,’ Thompson recalls another reporter saying. ‘He drank about ten martinis before the train even got moving, then he started abusing people. He cornered some poor bastard from one of the Washington papers . . . ‘

“. . . Hunter had told the man that he could use his press credentials to get a free trip to Miami, but never expected to miss the train himself.

“ ‘About half way through the campaign, I suddenly realized that all these poor bastards out there reading the Rolling Stone believed this madness,’ he said.”

https://theplaidzebra.com/hunter-s-thompson-spread-rumor-presidential-candidates-drug-addiction-taken-seriously/

Sanewashing – the New Journalism?

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Article in AP by David Bauder, 10/9/24

Headline: “Sanewashing? The banality of crazy? A decade into the Trump era, media hasn’t figured him out”

“Nearly a decade into the Trump Era of politics, less than a month from his third Election Day as the Republican candidate for president and there is still remarkably little consensus within the media about how best to cover Donald Trump.

“Are reporters ‘sanewashing’ Trump, or are they succumbing to the ‘banality of crazy?’ Should his rallies be aired at length, or not at all? To fact-check or not fact-check?

“ ‘If it wasn’t so serious, I would just be fascinated by all of it,’ said Parker Molloy, media critic and author of The Present Age column on Substack. ‘If it didn’t have to do with who is going to be president, I would watch this and marvel at how difficult it is to cover one person who seems to challenge all of the rules of journalism.’

https://apnews.com/article/trump-media-election-rallies-facts-kamala-harris-e906e990b5dcfe44b5e672336fe82b32

Foreign Manipulators, Social Media and Elections

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Article By Filippo Menczer, Indiana University in UPI 10/8/24

Headline: “Foreign operations manipulate social media to influence your views”

“. . . we found accounts that flood the network with tens or hundreds of thousands of posts in a single day. The same campaign can post a message with one account and then have other accounts that its organizers also control “like” and “unlike” it hundreds of times in a short time span. Once the campaign achieves its objective, all these messages can be deleted to evade detection. Using these tricks, foreign governments and their agents can manipulate social media algorithms that determine what is trending and what is engaging to decide what users see in their feeds.

“. . . The consequences of such operations are difficult to evaluate due to the challenges posed by collecting data and carrying out ethical experiments that would influence online communities. Therefore it is unclear, for example, whether online influence campaigns can sway election outcomes. Yet, it is vital to understand society’s vulnerability to different manipulation tactics.”

https://www.upi.com/Voices/2024/10/08/foreign-operations-manipulate-social-media-influence-views/7961728392145/

Pink Slime Newspaper Fights Solar

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Article in ProPublica by Miranda Green, 10/8/24

Headline: “Fossil Fuel Interests Are Working to Kill Solar in One Ohio County. The Hometown Newspaper Is Helping.”

“The first article in the Mount Vernon News last fall about a planned solar farm simply noted that residents were “expressing their concern.” But soon the county’s only newspaper was packed with stories about solar energy that almost uniformly criticized the project and quoted its opponents.

“Then a new ‘grassroots’ organization materialized and invited locals to an elaborate event billed as a town hall, with a keynote speaker who denied that humans cause climate change.”

The Paper was bought by Metric .  “. . . Both conservative and liberal pink slime sites exist. But Metric is run by Brian Timpone, an Illinois-based former broadcast reporter who has contributed tens of thousands of dollars to conservative campaigns and causes. Timpone’s ventures have been criticized for using foreign-based writers to produce material.”

https://www.propublica.org/article/ohio-mount-vernon-frasier-solar-fossil-fuel-metric-media

Where People Get News Right!

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Article in The Guardian by Rachel Leingang, 10/7/24

Headline: ” ‘Every day is a new conspiracy’: behind Trump’s ironclad grip on rightwing media”

Subhead: “What rightwing outlets cover increasingly differs from the mainstream, furthering the bubbles a divided US lives in”

“Trump’s grip on rightwing media is ironclad, said Julie Millican, the vice-president of Media Matters, a progressive center that tracks conservative media. In the past, the Republican party and its candidates would follow what rightwing media did and align its policies that way – but now, the media follows Trump, she said.”

“. . . As rightwing outlets rise, the stories they cover differ more from what’s on mainstream news, furthering the bubbles a divided United States lives within. While in years past, you’d find different takes on the day’s news in left- and right-leaning outlets, you’ll now find stories that exist solely on rightwing media, Millican said.

“It’s like every day is a new conspiracy or a new attack, and it’s just hard to even keep up on it anymore,” she said. “Half the time, when you listen to somebody who consumes nothing but rightwing media, you have no idea what they’re talking about.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/07/trump-rightwing-media-tv-podcasts-sites

All the News That’s Fit to Control!

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Article in AP By Justin Spike, 10/25’24

Headline: “Hungarians protest state media ‘propaganda factory’ and demand unbiased press”

“Thousands of protesters gathered outside the headquarters of Hungary’s public media corporation on Saturday to demonstrate against what they say is an entrenched propaganda network operated by the nationalist government at taxpayer expense.”

” . . . Both Hungarian and international observers have long warned that press freedom in the Central European country was under threat, and that Orbán’s party has used media buyouts by government-connected business tycoons to build a pro-government media empire.”

https://apnews.com/article/hungarians-protest-media-propaganda-ef0f419ea38ea8d2beb4f0dd56d82d57

Time to Abandon Media-Ship?

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World of Cruising photo

Article in ProPublica by Robert Faturechi, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski, 10/3/24

Headline: “Top Execs Exit Trump Media Amid Allegations of CEO’s Mismanagement and Retaliation”

Subhead: “Several people involved with the former president’s company, operator of Truth Social, believe the departures were retaliation following internal complaints about CEO Devin Nunes to the company board. “

“Former President Donald Trump’s media company has forced out executives in recent days after internal allegations that its CEO, former Rep. Devin Nunes, is mismanaging the company, according to interviews and records of communications among former employees.”

“The chief operating officer and chief product officer have left the company, along with at least two lower-level staffers, according to interviews, social media posts and communications between former staffers reviewed by ProPublica. The company, which runs the social media platform Truth Social, disclosed the departure of the chief operating officer in a securities filing Thursday afternoon.”

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-media-truth-social-executives-ousted-devin-nunes

 

Do Media Prop-up Corrupt Politicians?

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Article in Huffington Post by By Michael Arceneaux, 10/4/24

Headline: “Like Foreign Governments, The Media Helps Prop Up NYC Mayor Eric Adams”

Subhead: “One writer claimed Adams would “save New York,” another said he was in their top 5 for the next democratic nominee for president — both ignoring the trail of corruption investigations that followed the New York mayor.”

“. . . According to Shachtman’s reporting, “The coverage was so slanted that the City Hall bureau chief left in part over disagreements with management over the fawning coverage of Adams.”

“It can’t be overstated how much-alleged straw donations from a foreign government used to gain eight figures in matching public funds undoubtedly played a role in Adams’ win in that hotly contested NYC mayoral race.

“Similarly, ridiculous headlines and conservative political tones aside, the New York Post remains an important paper in the city, so it also can’t be overlooked how much the paper’s endorsement and slanted coverage influenced the results of an election determined by less than 7,000 votes. ”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/opinion-media-new-york-eric-adams_n_66ff08dee4b03185708eb118

 

Blowing up the Press in Mexico

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Article in Reuters by Angerlica Medina, 10/4/24

Headline: “Chivas player firework joke backfires, outrages Mexican media”

“Chivas winger Roberto Alvarado’s firecracker prank at the club’s press conference backfired, with Mexican media deeming the action inappropriate and walking out in protest.

” . . . Alvarado threw [a firecracker] into the press room as part of an alleged prank ahead of Thursday’s conference in Verde Valle, Guadalajara, leading to claims of aggression from reporters.

“Unbelievable what happened at Chivas today … In almost 15 years of covering the team, this has NEVER happened. It was NOT a joke as they claim. They smashed an ‘explosive’ into the door of the press room with everyone inside,” journalist Karina Herrera wrote on social media platform X.”

https://www.reuters.com/sports/soccer/chivas-player-firework-joke-backfires-outrages-mexican-media-2024-10-04/