Tag: Journalism
Ambient Irony on Amodei vs Altman
I look forward to reading Pixy Misa's Daily News Stuff posts (seven days a week), which feature links to tech and political news with irreverent commentary. Pixy Misa is a pseudonymous Australian server admin (I think) who, in addition to posting on tech and politics, also sometimes posts about anime (sadly not as much of...
Manufacturing Consent
A Powerful Assessment of How the U.S. Mass Media Fail to Provide the Kind of Information That We Need to Understand the World In this pathbreaking work, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order Based on a series of case studies—including the media’s dichotomous treatment of "worthy" versus "unworthy" victims, "legitimizing" and "meaningless" Third World elections, and devastating critiques of media coverage of the U.S. wars against Indochina—Herman and Chomsky draw on decades of criticism and research to propose a Propaganda Model to explain the media’s behavior and performance. Their new introduction updates the Propaganda Model and the earlier case studies, and it discusses several other applications. These include the manner in which the media covered the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement and subsequent Mexican financial meltdown of 1994-1995, the media’s handling of the protests against the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund in 1999 and 2000, and the media’s treatment of the chemical industry and its regulation. What emerges from this work is a powerful assessment of how propagandistic the U.S. mass media are, how they systematically fail to live up to their self-image as providers of the kind of information that people need to make sense of the world, and how we can understand their function in a radically new way.
Murder the Truth
"Authoritarian governments abroad have long used legal threats and lawsuits against journalists to cover up their disinformation, corruption, and violence. Now, as master investigative journalist David Enrich reveals, those tactics have arrived in America." — Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of Strongmen David Enrich, the New York Times Business Investigations Editor and the #1 bestselling author of Dark Towers, produces his most consequential and far-reaching investigation an in-depth exposé of the broad campaign—orchestrated by elite Americans—to silence dissent and protect the powerful. It was a quiet way to announce a In an obscure 2019 case that the Supreme Court refused to even hear, Justice Clarence Thomas raised the prospect of overturning the legendary New York Times v. Sullivan decision. Though hardly a household name, Sullivan is one of the most consequential free speech decisions, ever. Fundamental to the creation of the modern media as we know it, it has enabled journalists and writers all over the country—from top national publications to revered local newspapers to independent bloggers—to pursue the truth aggressively and hold the wealthy, powerful, and corrupt to account. Thomas’s words were a warning—the public awakening of an idea that had been fomenting on the conservative fringe for years. Now it is going mainstream. From the Florida statehouse to small town New Hampshire to Donald Trump's White House, this movement today consists of some of the world’s richest and most powerful people and companies, who believe they should be above scrutiny and want to silence or delegitimize voices that challenge their supremacy. Indeed, many of the same businessmen, politicians, lawyers, and activists are already weaponizing the legal system to intimidate and punish journalists and others who dare criticize them. In this masterwork of investigative reporting, David Enrich, New York Times Business Investigations Editor, traces the roots and reach of this growing threat to our modern democracy. With Trump’s emboldened right-wing coalition committed to demonizing and punishing those who attempt to hold them accountable, Murder the Truth sounds the alarm about the looming war over facts, laying bare the stakes of losing our most sacrosanct rights. The result is a story about power in the age of Trump—the way it’s used by those who have it and the lengths to which they will go to avoid it being questioned.
El Paso
From New York Times reporter Jazmine Ulloa, a sweeping human history of El Paso, revealing violence, power, and privilege at play in America's most famous border town. El Paso has been called the "Ellis Island" of America's southern border, a mountain pass cum border town cum bifurcated metropolis where past meets future, and disadvantage meets opportunity, or so the promise goes. El Paso is an extraordinary, can't-look-away reported history; it uses deep research and dozens of new interviews to blow away the myth of this place, where Mexico's Juarez and America's El Paso intertwine. It charts the history of El Paso through five families. From the Mexican Revolution and the Mexican Repatriation, to the shifting immigration laws under Reagan and Trump and the violence and bloodshed brought on by the drug war, El Paso captures a place often misunderstood or forgotten by the rest of the country, and the world. El Paso is a brave new work of narrative nonfiction that gives new voice and perspective to history that has long been checked at the border, or told through the lens of white men alone. Ulloa draws upon meticulous research and reporting and stunning historical detail to craft the intimate narratives of an unforgettable cast of characters.
Postscript
Mass layoffs are a fact of life in journalism. Your favorite writers and editors have dealt with them. But they weren’t supposed to happen at The Post.
How to Stand Up to a Dictator
What will you sacrifice for the truth? Maria Ressa has spent decades speaking truth to power. But her work tracking disinformation networks seeded by her own government, spreading lies to its own citizens laced with anger and hate, has landed her in trouble with the most powerful man in the country: President Duterte. Now, hounded by the state, she has multiple arrest warrants against her name, and a potential 100+ years behind bars to prepare for—while she stands trial for speaking the truth. How to Stand Up to a Dictator is the story of how democracy dies by a thousand cuts, and how an invisible atom bomb has exploded online that is killing our freedoms. It maps a network of disinformation—a heinous web of cause and effect—that has netted the globe: from Duterte's drug wars, to America's Capitol Hill, to Britain's Brexit, to Russian and Chinese cyber-warfare, to Facebook and Silicon Valley, to our own clicks and our own votes. Told from the frontline of the digital war, this is Maria Ressa's urgent cry for us to wake up and hold the line, before it is too late.
Big Opinion, Big Budget
The New York Times’ choice to publish a video op-ed by the CEO of Patreon points at why exec-produced video op-eds might be a bad idea.
Owned
A “devastating” (Nation) examination of how a cabal of tech-billionaires is colluding with once-idealistic journalists to create an entirely new media landscape. Owned is the story of the underreported and growing collusion between new wealth and new journalism. In recent years, right-wing billionaires like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and David Sacks have turned to media as their next investment and source of influence. Their cronies are Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi—once known as idealistic and left-leaning voices, now beneficiaries of Silicon Valley largesse. Together, this new alliance aims to exploit the failings of traditional journalism and undermine the very idea of an independent and fact-based fourth estate. Owned examines how this shift has allowed spectacularly wealthy reactionaries to pursue their ultimate goal of censoring critics so to further their own business interests—and personal vendettas—entirely unimpeded while also advancing a toxic and antidemocratic ideology. A rich history of the decades-long rise of this new right-wing alternative media takeover, Owned follows the money, names names, and offers a chilling portrait of a future social media and news landscape. It is a biting exposé of journalistic greed, tech-billionaire ambition, and a lament for a disappearing free press.
A Moment For Independent Media
At a time when large companies are capitulating their content presence at the drop of a hat, a quick note on why a more-flexible independent media still matters.
Copaganda
From the prizewinning rising legal star, the deeply researched and definitive book on the way the media and police distract us from what matters "Copaganda," as defined by Alec Karakatsanis, describes a special kind of propaganda that affects who and what we fear and what kinds of social investments we support to address our fears. At a time when the United States incarcerates five times more people per capita than its own historical average and five to ten times more people per capita than other countries, its vast punishment bureaucracy spends huge amounts of time and money manipulating the rest of us to see the world from its point of view.
Spanfelled
G/O Media, the company that tried to get Deadspin to stick to sports, bows out. They leave behind a scrappier media ecosystem with more business-savvy writers.
On Air
An epic, decade-long reported history of National Public Radio that reveals the unlikely story of one of America’s most celebrated but least understood media empires. Founded in 1970, NPR is America’s most powerful broadcast news network. Despite being overshadowed by the larger and more glamorous PBS, public radio has long been home to shows such as All Things Considered , Morning Edition , and This American Life that captivate millions of listeners in homes, cars, and workplaces across the nation. NPR and its hosts are a cultural force and a trusted voice, and they have created a mode of journalism and storytelling that helps Americans understand the world in which we live. In On Air , a book fourteen years in the making, journalist Steve Oney tells the dramatic history of this institution, tracing the comings and goings of legendary on-air talents (Bob Edwards, Susan Stamberg, Ira Glass, Cokie Roberts, and many others) and the rise and fall and occasional rise again of brilliant and sometimes venal executives. It depicts how NPR created a medium for extraordinary journalism — in which reporters and producers use microphones as paintbrushes and the voices of people around the world as the soundtrack of stories both global and local. Featuring details on the controversial firing of Juan Williams, the sloppy dismissal of Bob Edwards, and a $230 million bequest by Joan B. Kroc, widow of the founder of McDonalds, On Air also chronicles NPR’S daring shift into the digital world and its early embrace of podcasting formats, establishing the network as a formidable media empire. Fascinating, revelatory, and irresistibly dishy, this is a riveting account of NPR’s unlikely launch, chaotic ascent, and ultimate triumph—a must-read for anyone interested in the history of public radio and its impact on American culture.
Mastodon: Giving Journalists Options Away From Big Tech
At the International Journalism Festival, Mastodon joined forces with Save Social to make a case for journalists and publications to join the network.
Where The Lede Gets Buried
At Tedium, we sometimes bury the lede intentionally, and it may seem strange, but sometimes it works.
Processing Telegram Leaks for Fast Web Visualization
In which I describe my workflow for transforming a Telegram database dump into a web-friendly format for analysis and visualization
Caught In The Middle
The mess with Bezos and The Washington Post is reflective of a trend that keeps popping up this year: The powerful entity stepping in it without considering the collateral damage.
Gatekept
Thoughts on a bruise to the ol’ ego that hurt a little more than I thought it would. But hey, it gives me a chance to talk about gatekeeping.
The Paywall’s Final Frontier
Word that CNN is getting a paywall feels like a sign that good information is more expensive than ever.
Tech Talk: From Feeds to Labelers with Ændra Rininsland
A Tech Talk with Ændra Rininsland, from her work on the News Feed, the XBlock Screenshot Labeler, and more
When Robots Aggregate
The mess between Forbes and Perplexity AI highlights how soulless and extractive aggregation can be in the wrong hands. It’s the wrong direction for LLMs.
We’ve Joined Nos Social’s Journalism Accelerator!
Our publication is joining a Journalism Accelerator to help grow our presence in the Nostr community! Here's what that means.
Partnering with an AI company means I can no longer trust your output
Look, I get that publications are hurting for revenue and AI companies are handing out cash but you're not just providing access to written and human-generated output — you're giving up goodwill.
Berliner Goes Tabloid
Considering the tale of the longtime NPR editor who decided to pull a Bulworth at the tail end of his long career.
The Post-SEO Era
What happens when a news site launches that basically ignores the SEO orthodoxy? Easy: They do fascinating stuff. Hence, Robinhood’s Sherwood.
Recapturing Real Time
A decade ago, real-time social news coverage was a machine that simply worked. With our recent social media disarray, it feels broken. Can it be fixed?
Spinning The Dead
I am so obsessed with trying to figure out who Deadspin’s new owners are that it led me to some late night spam-blog sleuthing.
Create For Yourself
With disruption hitting the media industry acutely in 2024, now is the time to lean into owning your creative work. Have a say in your creative destiny.
An Incomplete Picture
A recent scandal around a popular YouTuber’s nonprofit foundation has created a lot of drama, but what it’s missing are voices that understand the nonprofit sector.
Give ’Em Less Data
What if the problems with the news ecosystem could be solved by shutting off the data pipeline to the advertisers? After all, they’ve spent the last 30 years aggressively exploiting it—and us.
In The Age Of Culling
Discussing the dumb thing CNET did in an effort to please the Google Gods: Don’t cull old news content to improve your SEO ranking. That’s your history!
Old Archives, New Controversy
The New York Times has the most robust online archives of any newspaper, but it’s proving difficult to square their handling of a recent controversy with the quality of those archives.
When Newsletters Were Printed
What can modern newsletter authors learn about newslettering from an era when people actually mailed these things? A lot, it turns out, according to this book I bought.
Longform Brevity
Alt-form storytelling, a key magazine-and-newspaper design trend, hasn’t truly flourished on the modern internet. Axios could go way further than it does.
❝The Quote Issue❞
“We use a lot of quotes at Tedium, but we’ve never done an issue of Tedium ABOUT quotations,” Ernie said when writing this piece. “Let’s fix that.”
Dead on Archival
Considering the challenges that face shuttered newspapers with decades or even centuries of material to preserve.
Pushing Photos Through Wires
The technology used to distribute photos through news wire services inspired a whole bunch of innovations with use cases beyond newspapers. Like television.
Source Tags & Codes
The saga of the Missouri governor reflects a failure by the powerful to embrace curiosity—curiosity encouraged by the HTML language he fails to understand.
How I Research Stuff
If you’re a longtime reader of Tedium, you might wonder how I manage to uncover so many strange stories. Well, let me tell you. Hopefully it’s inspiring.