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Media Tag

Posted by Mary Chastain on August 19, 2016 7 Comments
Univision has decided to end production at Gawker after they bought the company for $135 million at an auction. Reporter J.K. Trotter wrote:
After nearly fourteen years of operation, Gawker.com will be shutting down next week. The decision to close Gawker comes days after Univision successfully bid $135 million for Gawker Media’s six other websites, and four months after the Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel revealed his clandestine legal campaign against the company.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on August 17, 2016 20 Comments
Every now and then, I like to check on the state of reporting as it relates to the Tea Party...for entertainment purposes. I have decided that if any actual fact is offered in the elite media stories, it is purely coincidental. Today's review shows that after over 7 years of independent conservative activism, our elite media is still making rather ludicrous claims. For example, this chestnut from Bloomberg:
The Tea Party was always tragically miscast. The angry oldsters who formed its white-hot core fancied themselves tax protesters. Their self-image was informed, inflamed and more than occasionally exploited by conservative operations ranging from Fox News to FreedomWorks and a phalanx of right-wing grifters who dealt themselves into the action.

Posted by Mary Chastain on August 11, 2016 20 Comments
Newspapers continue to drop paywalls as more people aren't willing to pay for a digital subscription, especially since so many others other free content. The AFP reports:
Newspapers in the English-speaking world ended paywalls some 69 times through May 2015, including 41 temporary and 28 permanent drops, according to a study by University of Southern California researchers.

Posted by Mary Chastain on July 29, 2016 2 Comments
Turkish journalist Mahir Zeynalov spent this morning tweeting pictures and bios of some of the journalists detained by the Turkish government. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan seems to think they have connections to Fehtullah Gülen, who he blames for the coup, or at least that is the excuse for the round up. https://twitter.com/MahirZeynalov/status/759021471045980160

Posted by Mary Chastain on July 06, 2016 20 Comments
Former Fox New host Gretchen Carlson has filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Roger Ailes, the company's chairman and CEO. She claims he fired her after "she complained about a hostile working environment" and refused to sleep with Ailes. https://twitter.com/mlcalderone/status/750711599598632960

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 10, 2016 9 Comments
Gawker Media filed for bankruptcy protection due to the $140 million verdict to Hulk Hogan after they published a video of him having sex with his best friend's wife. I saw people celebrating the bankruptcy news, but this action allows Gawker to delay any payment to Hogan. The bankruptcy also allows the company "to continue operating and paying its staff" with a $22 million loan. The Chapter 11 bankruptcy claim actually puts Gawker under federal protection so they can reorganize and pay their debts:
Under Chapter 11, a debtor can restructure its finances through a plan of reorganization approved by the bankruptcy court. By reducing obligations and modifying payment terms, a Chapter 11 plan can help a debtor balance its income and expenses, regain profitability, and continue in operation. Under Chapter 11, a debtor also can sell some or all of its assets so it can downsize its business if necessary or pay down claims that it owes.
The company "listed estimated assets of $50 million to $100 million and liabilities of $100 million to $500 million." Gawker includes Deadspin and Jezebel.

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 07, 2016 3 Comments
Today host Savannah Guthrie announced her pregnancy this morning, but also said she won't travel to Rio due to Zika concerns. She said:
“I’m not going to be able to go to Rio ... The doctors say that we shouldn’t because of the CDC, because of the Zika virus, so I’ll miss it,” she said. “You’re going to have to go to female beach volleyball without me, Matt (Lauer). Try to carry on,” she joked. “You guys will have a great time, and I’ll hold down the fort.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended pregnant women not travel to Zika hot spots. Experts have linked the virus to microcephaly, a birth defect that occurs when the brain does not form properly during pregnancy snd results in a small head.

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 03, 2016 9 Comments
President Obama press advisor Jen Psaki attacked Fox News after reporter James Rosen asked for clarification over her statement about deleted footage from a 2013 press briefing about secret Iran and U.S. talks. Rosen asked then-State spokeswoman Psaki about the meeting in 2013, a year after the department denied such talks existed. Psaki admitted they took place, but Rosen found someone deleted his questions from the old video:
The department acknowledged Wednesday that several minutes of video from the 2013 briefing – at which then-State Department spokeswoman Psaki appeared to acknowledge misleading the press over the Iran nuclear deal – had been intentionally cut. The order apparently came from an official in the public affairs office, but that individual has not been identified.
Fox News published their complete email exchange, where Psaki berates Rosen for politely asking for an explanation after Psaki referred to the transcript and not the video.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 29, 2016 30 Comments
Newspapers face a range of problems from loss of public trust to loss of print readership to bankruptcy and collapse to transitioning to digital journalism.  The newspaper industry has lumbered, sometimes grudgingly, into the digital age and is still experimenting with ways to remain financially viable: web subscriptions (i.e. pay walls) and advertising are among the primary sources of online revenue. Online advertising, however, is not as viable as it might be for the newspaper industry due, they argue, to ad-blockers, and the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) has taken note.  The NAA, according to its website, is "a nonprofit organization representing nearly 2,000 newspapers and their multiplatform businesses in the United States and Canada. NAA members include daily newspapers, as well as nondailies, other print publications and online products." The Washington Post reports that the NAA has filed a federal suit against the ad blocking industry, "alleging that software companies which enable users to block ads are misleading the public."
The complaint asks the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the government agency that oversees trade practices, to investigate ad blockers that offer “paid whitelisting,” – a service which charges advertisers to bypass ad-blocking software – along with services that substitute ad blockers’ own advertising for blocked ads or get around publishers’ subscription pages.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on April 07, 2016 16 Comments
Trump Acolyte Roger Stone was booted off CNN for good after sending a few less than appropriate tweets about network employees in February. Politico reported:
"He will no longer appear as a guest on CNN," a spokesperson told POLITICO. Stone had made disparaging remarks on Twitter about CNN political analyst Ana Navarro that were recently highlighted by Media Matters, a media watchdog group founded by Hillary Clinton ally David Brock.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on April 07, 2016 12 Comments
The gravely-voiced Fox Business anchor has always been one of my favorites (as far as news anchors go) for one reason -- he's consistently gracious, even-tempered, and fact-oriented, even with the most ridiculous of guests. Yesterday, Cavuto published on article on LinkedIn, talking about his life with Multiple Sclerosis. He was diagnosed with MS after surviving cancer, and has gone on to have a successful career, though not without obstacles. More than once he's gone blind on air, and suddenly been unable to walk. His solution? Adapt. "Focus on what I can do, not what I can't do. And if I can do a lot, so can lots of folks dragging far heavier anchors than this particular anchor. I wish I could be more profound, but I've got a show to do, and all of us have lives to lead," he concludes.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on April 05, 2016 9 Comments
The so-called Panama Papers story has been simmering since Sunday. Supposedly a massive document leak, the Panama Papers appear to implicate some of the most powerful people in the world. 300 journalists pored through more than 11 million pages of documents to get to the bottom of the story.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on January 15, 2016 2 Comments
I'm not sure who thought "al Jazeera America" would be a good idea in the first place, but as many of us predicted, the network which began in 2013 just didn't catch on. In a sense it was doomed from the start because it began when its media group—al Jazeera Media Group owned by the Qatari government—bought Al Gore's embarrassingly unsuccessful Current TV.  Al Jazeera America also suffered a decided lack of enthusiasm in the American market. The ratings problem was so marked that when al Jazeera America managed to twice beat out MSNBC for two daytime hours, it was noteworthy and quite remarkable given how abysmal MSNBC's own numbers are.  As late as November of last year, al Jazeera was reorganizing and desirous of changing the network's image. Variety reported at the time:
The new chief of Al Jazeera America says the early-stage cable-news network is moving forward after a rocky launch that left the staff demoralized and prompted speculation that the Qatar-backed outlet might abandon its efforts to plant a flag in the United States. “There is a clear picture of where we are going to go,” said Al Anstey, who was named chief executive of the cable network in May. After supervising the operations of Al Jazeera English, Anstey replaced Ehab Al Shihabi, whose tenure overseeing the network was marked by the departures of some senior executives and a $15 million lawsuit from a former employee alleging that a senior executive was hostile to women and made remarks that could be construed as anti-Semitic.

Posted by Mike LaChance on December 05, 2015 80 Comments
In a front page editorial, something that hasn't been done in 95 years, the New York Times is calling for the confiscation of certain kinds of guns and ammunition. The piece makes no distinction for the motives behind recent shootings. It also ignores the fact that gun violence is declining. Many Americans are beginning to realize that our country is under attack and that we're at war whether we like it or not. The fact that the New York Times is calling for disarming citizens makes them look as out of touch as the president they helped elect. Here are some excerpts:
End the Gun Epidemic in America All decent people feel sorrow and righteous fury about the latest slaughter of innocents, in California. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are searching for motivations, including the vital question of how the murderers might have been connected to international terrorism. That is right and proper.

Posted by Amy Miller on November 22, 2015 15 Comments
This month's attacks in Paris, France killed 130 innocent people and left hundreds more battered, bruised, and reawakened to the danger of radical Islamic terrorism in the west. Political leaders and presidential candidates are speaking out, and everyone's megaphone is pointed straight at Syria and the heart of ISIS. BBC anchor and host of This Week Andrew Neil took his network's coverage to the next level this week when he totally let loose against the terrorists' ideals: “Welcome to This Week, the week in which a bunch of loser jihadists slaughtered 132 innocents in Paris to prove the future belongs to them, rather than a civilization like France. Well, I can’t say I fancy their chances.”

Posted by Mike LaChance on October 14, 2015 13 Comments
Playboy Magazine has announced a rather drastic change to its business model. Starting next March, the classic pinup mag will no longer feature women in the nude. Ravi Somaiya reports at the New York Times:
Playboy to Drop Nudity as Internet Fills Demand Last month, Cory Jones, a top editor at Playboy, went to see its founder Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion. In a wood-paneled dining room, with Picasso and de Kooning prints on the walls, Mr. Jones nervously presented a radical suggestion: the magazine, a leader of the revolution that helped take sex in America from furtive to ubiquitous, should stop publishing images of naked women. Mr. Hefner, now 89, but still listed as editor in chief, agreed. As part of a redesign that will be unveiled next March, the print edition of Playboy will still feature women in provocative poses. But they will no longer be fully nude. Its executives admit that Playboy has been overtaken by the changes it pioneered. “That battle has been fought and won,” said Scott Flanders, the company’s chief executive. “You’re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passé at this juncture.”

Posted by Amy Miller on October 08, 2015 18 Comments
When CNN hosted the Republican primary candidates, the candidates got 3 hours in which to make (or sink) their case for the White House. It was a long affair, but some good came from it---Marco Rubio distinguished himself on foreign policy (whether you agree with his approach is a different story entirely,) Carly Fiorina shifted from "dark horse" to budding household name, and Ted Cruz was afforded more of an opportunity to get in on the conversation. The Democrats won't be afforded that same luxury. Next week's CNN debate---this time, hosting the Democratic primary contenders---will afford the Dems' 5* candidates just two hours to make their initial splash in the primetime media pond. *Will Joe Biden debate? We're still not sure:
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