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Toxic Media Wants to Avoid Paying Price

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Article in AP by Jim Vertuno, 10/25/25

Headline:  “Alex Jones fighting attempt to sell his social media account rights in Infowars auction”

“Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is seeking to protect his personal social media accounts from being sold in the upcoming auction of his Infowars media platform to pay more than $1 billion he owes relatives of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, claiming selling those accounts would violate his privacy and deny him a chance to make a fresh start after bankruptcy.”

https://apnews.com/article/alex-jones-infowars-bankrupcty-sandy-hook-shooting-e62620a74409e4e4a57e331f1adf61f2

Can Missouri Decide What’s on Internet Media?

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Article in Ars Technica by Jon Brodkin 10/25/24

Headline:  “Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said he is investigating Google, claiming that the tech giant censors conservative speech and manipulated search results about Donald Trump.”

“BREAKING: ‘I am launching an investigation into Google—the biggest search engine in America—for censoring conservative speech during the most consequential election in our nation’s history. Google is waging war on the democratic process. It’s time to fight back,’ Bailey wrote on X, the social network owned by notable Trump supporter Elon Musk.”

“. . . Many Republican government officials want more authority to regulate how social media firms moderate user-submitted content. Republican officials from 20 states, including 19 state attorneys general, argued in a January 2024 Supreme Court brief that they ‘have authority to prohibit mass communication platforms from censoring speech.’ ”

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/10/missouri-ag-claims-google-censors-trump-demands-info-on-search-algorithm/

Is Newspaper Not Endorsing, Endorsing?

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Update

Article in The Guardian by Lois Beckett, 10/25/24

Subhead:  “Biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, who bought the newspaper in 2018, wouldn’t let board endorse Harris”

“Nearly 2,000 Los Angeles Times subscribers cancelled their subscriptions to the paper, citing ‘editorial content’ reasons, after Patrick Soon-Shiong, the paper’s billionaire owner, refused to let its editorial board endorse Kamala Harris for president. And that was just on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“After the paper’s editorials editor, Mariel Garza, resigned in protest on Wednesday, two more members of the  Los Angeles Times editorial board resigned on Thursday.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/25/los-angeles-times-owner-blocks-harris-endorsement

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Article in The Guardian by Lois Beckett, 10/23/24 Wed 23 Oct 2024 21.05 EDT

Headline:  “LA Times editor resigns after owner blocks presidential endorsement”

Subhead:  “Mariel Garza says she is ‘standing up’ after billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong quashes support for Kamala Harris”

“Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, refused to allow the newspaper’s editorial board to endorse Kamala Harris for president, the former editor of the paper’s opinion section told a media news outlet on Wednesday.

Mariel Garza, a veteran California journalist who has worked for the Times’ editorial board for nearly a decade, resigned from the paper in protest of Soon-Shiong’s decision, she told the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR).

“ ‘In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up,’ ” Garza told CJR.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/oct/23/la-times-editor-resigns-presidential-endorsement

Vance Media About Cats – Clarified or Catified?

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Article by Julia Manchester in The Hill, 10/24/24

Headline: “Vance addresses unfounded claims of migrants eating pets during NewsNation town hall”

“Republican vice presidential candidate and Sen. JD Vance (Ohio) addressed unfounded claims he made in September that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating dogs and cats during Thursday night’s NewsNation town hall.”

“. . .’Now, do I think that the media certainly got distracted on the housing crisis and the health crisis and the crisis in the public schools by focusing on the eating the dogs and the cats things? Yeah, I do. Do I wish that I had been better in that moment? Maybe,” he said.’

“ ‘But it’s also people in my community, people that I represent are coming to me and saying this thing is happening. What am I supposed to do? Hang up the phone and tell them they’re a liar because the media doesn’t want me to talk about it?’ ”

https://thehill.com/homenews/4952384-vance-addresses-unfounded-claims-of-migrants-eating-pets-during-nn-town-hall/

The false rumor (which hurt innocent people) about eating dogs & cats even generated a song by The Kiffness and may be found on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BrCvZmSnKA

Sputnik Radio – We’re Not In Kansas City Anymore!

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Article in FAIR by Ari Paul, 10/22/24

Headline:  “US Sanctions Shoot Down Sputnik Radio”

“Russian state radio network Radio Sputnik is off the air in the two markets on which it aired in the United States, and the cause of the closure is reportedly US government sanctions.

“The Desk (10/15/24), quoting “one source familiar with the decision to wind down the network,” said “it was directly influenced by the US State Department’s imposition of new sanctions on Russia-backed broadcast outlets last month.”

“While Sputnik was not specifically named by the State Department,” the Desk reported, the sanctions did hit Sputnik‘s parent company, a Russian government media agency called Rossiya Segodnya. This “made it difficult to continue leasing time on Washington and Kansas City radio stations where its programming was heard.”

“. . . US government broadcaster Voice of America (10/16/24) said Sputnik‘s departure comes “after years of criticism that its local [Washington] radio station, WZHF, carries antisemitic content and false information about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

https://fair.org/home/us-sanctions-shoot-down-sputnik-radio/

Traditional Media Diminished

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Article in AP by David Bauder 10/24/24

Headline:  “By moving to podcasts, Harris and Trump are turning away from legacy media to spread their messages”

“During this truncated campaign, some of the traditional giants of journalism are being pushed aside. The growing popularity of podcasts and their ability to help candidates in a tight race target a specific sliver of the electorate is a big reason why.”

“. . . In general, television networks don’t have the audience they once did. CNN, for example, reached 1.24 million viewers per evening during the third quarter of 2016, when Trump first ran, and 924,000 this year, according to the Nielsen company. Broadcast networks are so named for their ability to reach a broad audience; sometimes candidates need that, often they don’t.

“The picture is more dire at newspapers, which collectively boasted 37.8 million in Sunday circulation in 2016 and dropped to 20.9 million by 2022, the Pew Research Center said. Candidates once submitted to tough interviews with newspaper editorial boards in the hope of winning an endorsement; now many newspapers don’t even bother making that choice.”

https://apnews.com/article/trump-harris-media-podcasts-a5a0870943177ea9320389748fe2fa5c

Cambodia Reporter Exposed Scams, Jailed

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Article in The Guardian by Rebecca Ratcliffe, 10/24/24

Headline: “Journalist who exposed Cambodia’s scam industry released by authorities”

Subhead:  “Mech Dara, charged with incitement, freed on bail after video of him apologising to country’s leaders appears”

“Mech Dara, one of Cambodia’s most prominent journalists, known for exposing the country’s billion-dollar scam industry, has been released on bail after a video of him apologizing to the country’s leaders appeared in pro-government media.

“Dara was arrested last month while traveling with his family, and charged with incitement over social media posts.”

“. . . Dara investigated scam compounds doggedly for the outlet Voice of Democracy (VOD) until it was shuttered last year by authorities in a move widely seen as an attack on independent media. He continued reporting for other outlets, doing so at far greater risk and with fewer rewards than many international reporters, Southern said.”

His reports documented the Telegram channels where trafficked workers are bought and sold, and the desperate pleas of those trapped inside compounds; he wrote about workers who jumped from balconies in attempts to escape, and the role and response of Cambodian officials.”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/oct/24/cambodian-journalist-mech-dara-exposing-scam-industry-released

 

Media Coming to Take Him Away Ha Ha?

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Article in The Nation by John Walsh, 10/21/24

Headline: “Finally, Trump’s Derangement Is Breaking Through in the Media”

Subhead: “It took a reference to Arnold Palmer’s penis to get more mainstream reporters to tell it like it is. That’s progress.”

“Mainstream news organizations suddenly became more blunt about Trump’s decline—and derangement. Trump’s age finally catches up with him,” The Washington Post wrote Saturday. “Trump kicks off Pennsylvania rally by talking about Arnold Palmer’s genitalia,” AP headlined its coverage of the Latrobe debacle. “Donald Trump’s vulgar rally ramble fuels questions about his state of mind,” the Financial Times wrote.”

“. . . As always, The New York Times immediately “sane-washed” the story. On its breaking-news politics page, a short report said Trump told “golf stories” about Palmer without mentioning his lewd remark. But shockingly, after wide social-media outcry, reporter Michael Gold told a critic to direct his questions to senioreditor@nytimes.com, because “I filed something that included the thing you mention as omitted, but I’m not given the power to publish what I say.”

“. . . But overall, the major media seems more ready to tell the truth about Trump. All of the Sunday shows covered his Palmer remarks and the other evidence of not just vulgarity but potential mental decline.”

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-cognitive-decline-media/

Future of Journalism – Who to Ask?

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Article in The Nation by Chris Lehmann, 10/24/24

Headline:  “Media Elites Are the Last People to Ask About the Future of Journalism”

Subhead:  “And New York magazine’s latest cover package does just that.”

“It’s an admittedly minor wrinkle in the mass derangement building up to the 2024 election, but future historians will be at a loss to explain why New York magazine chose this moment to roll out a cover package that ballyhoos the deep thoughts of media industry executives. The quote-extravaganza  . . .is a bit like canvassing the designer of the Hindenburg on the future of air travel.”

Then there’s the question of timing: the lords of the press are holding forth on how their prestige outlets will survive t the precise moment they’re fucking up coverage of the 2024 election on an epic scale. Any intelligible understanding of the press’s role has to start with the mandate the country’s founders formalized in the First Amendment—the pivotal need to cultivate and sustain an informed citizenry.”

“. . .  battery of 57 pop-up news managers have [not] word one to say about this function of the press. That’s likely because a significant number of them are deeply enmeshed in normalizing the demented, fascistic candidacy of Donald Trump, and generally treating a critical election cycle as a glorified reality TV spectacle. Indeed, in an awkward karmic coincidence, New York unleashed its future-of-the-media package just as it officially severed ties with its star politics reporter, Olivia Nuzzi, for carrying out digital intimacies with Robert F. Kennedy. . . ”

“. . . Reporters and commentators should seek a higher calling, or our ailing democracy is at risk of going the way of the pivot to video. If the bosses won’t stand for it, it’s the bosses who need to go.”

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/new-york-media-elites/

Fighting Unfavorable Press – Just Like Fighting Nazis!

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Article in Media Matters by Eric Hananoki, 10/22/24

Headline: “At Team Trump-backed event, Mark Robinson compares himself fighting the news media to Allied soldiers fighting Nazis”

“North Carolina Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson recently spoke on the Trump-backed “ReAwaken America” tour, where he compared fighting the news media to battling Nazis at Normandy Beach. His speech was well-received by Trump ally and ReAwaken America co-organizer Mike Flynn, who asked the audience to donate to Robinson’s campaign.

“Robinson’s rhetoric echoes that of former President Donald Trump, who has referred to the news media as the “enemy of the American people.” Trump has also explicitly threatened to use government resources to target news organizations.”

https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/team-trump-backed-event-mark-robinson-compares-himself-fighting-news-media-allied