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March 14, 2014 media notes: Russia cracks down on media and complains to U.S., and the ethics of embedding Tweets

3/14/2014

For Friday, March 14, 2014, here are some media stories of note:

The crackdown on media in Russia is growing. Late Thursday the country's general prosecutor announced three sites --- Kasparov.ru, EJ,ru and Grani.ru --- were being closed for inciting "illegal activity" and sanctioning protests. BuzzFeed reports a popular dissident site, navalny.livejournal.com, was also banned. Blogger Alexey Navalny was under house arrest and not permitted to use the Internet, but his wife was running the site in his stead).
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Meantime, Russia has accused the United States of discrimination against its journalists. They were barred from a news conference this week with U.S. President Barack Obama and Ukraine's prime minister. Reuters says Russia says the measure was unacceptable and discriminatory.
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The Daily Dot explores the ethics of embedding Tweets following a BuzzFeed story that used Tweets from sexual assault victims. The story gained permission to carry the Tweets from those who wrote them, but it did not gain the permission of the person who sought the Tweets. The move prompted a debate about the public nature of Tweets, the ethics of sharing sensitive content, and even whether it is ethical to take someone's Twitter following into a potentially viral story. It raised questions about whether visibility on the Web means that content can be shared journalistically.

March 12, 2014 media notes: the need for a web Magna Carta, Europe's new privacy law, Obama's Funny or Die gamble

3/12/2014

For Wednesday, March 12, 2014, here are some media stories of note:

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, has called for the creation of an online Magna Carta to protect and enshrine the independence of the medium. His call for a "bill of rights" comes 25 years to the day after the launch of the web. Under his proposal each country would create its own digital bill supported by governments and institutions. He told The Guardian that the web needs to remain free of intrusive governments.
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The European Parliament has passed long-anticipated privacy measures that will make it easier for citizens to have data about them erased and much more challenging for web companies to share data. GigaOm reports that non-European firms will find it more difficult to share personal information about Europeans.
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It takes all sorts of routes to make for effective policy, so it was no grand surprise to see U.S. President Barack Obama hitch on to the wildly viral and edgy Between Two Ferns online "interview" show with actor Zack Galifianakis on the Funny or Die site. What also shouldn't be surprising is that the ObamaCare website traffic grew when the president used the mock interview to tout the importance for young people to sign on to the government health care initiative. The healthcare.gov site had three million visits within an hour of the posting of the segment, Hollywood Reporter says.
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January 30, 2014 media notes: Facebook Paper released, China expels NYT reporter, FOX most and least trusted media

1/30/2014

Here are some media notes for Thursday, January 30, 2014:

Facebook's new story curation application for the iPhone is called Paper. It pulls in stories, photos and other content and delivers it in a photo-emphasized format, somewhat like the popular Flipboard app. The company has created partnerships with several journalism firms for content and will soon hire editors to curate particular categories. Lance Ulanoff of Mashable notes that, even though Paper is a content application, Facebook does not want to be known as a media company. Josh Constine from TechCrunch says the app permits Facebook to act a little more like a startup than a legacy firm. The Daily Mail thinks paper will cannabalize Facebook itself, while The Verge says at the very least the Facebook app has been bested by the company.

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The United States has expressed deep concern about press freedom in China after the country forced a New York Times reporter to leave. Reporter Austin Ramzay indicated he has been asked to leave the country. White House spokesman Jay Carney said the move is inconsistent with principles of press freedom and incongruent with American treatment of Chinese journalists.

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The results are in, and FOX News is the most trusted media source in America. And the least trusted. The Public Policy Polling firm found that 35% of Americans trusted FOX News more than any other source and 33% said it was the least trusted source. Among Republicans, FOX polled a 69-per-cent approval. Among Democrats, PBS had a slight edge (21%) over CNN and ABC (18% each). Overall, though, of the eight sources studied, only one was consistently trusted among Republicans and Democrats: PBS, with a 57-per-cent trust level.

January 17, 2014 media notes: Obama's speech and press freedom, legacy media needs, Patch's future.

1/17/2014

Here are some media stories of note for Friday, January 17, 2014:

President Barack Obama spoke extensively Friday on security and surveillance issues, seven months after Edward Snowden began leaking secrets about the National Security Agency's activities. Obama has promised mild reforms to the agency's work. The Freedom of the Press Foundation, though, believes the measures are not nearly enough to help journalists protect vital sources of information. And Glenn Greenwald, who reported most of Snowden's early leaks, believes the moves are mere public relations to mollify Americans. Surveillance that provoked outrage will not change, he says.

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The prominent research and marketing firm, Borell Associates, reports that three-quarters of advertising will continue to flow to legacy media this year. But by 2018, any legacy growth will be done. In an interview with StreetFight, firm leader Gordon Borrell says legacy firms should treat digital as innovation, not extension.

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Earlier this week AOL offloaded its hyperlocal Patch online news service to a hedge fund in a form of a partnership. FOX Business News is reporting that Patch will be dismantled, with elements sold to others and decisions made shortly on personnel and operations to be dismissed.

January 2, 2014 media notes: transparency, surrender, leniency

1/2/2014

Here, in a new year, are some media notes for Thursday, January 2, 2014:

It has long been a truism that media do not hold themselves to the same account as they do the institutions they cover. Their need for transparency and public accountability is the subject of Erik Wemple's latest media column for the Washington Post. He surmises that, for all their criticism of the U.S. government's information-control approach, media might be even less open and would benefit from practicing what they preach.

Andrew Sullivan summons outrage and intemperate language to note the "surrender" by media to advertisers, specifically in the decision by Time Inc. to reorganize its operation and have its editors report to the business executives. The New York Times noted the move earlier this week as part of a story on Time's plan to spin off its publishing company. Sullivan concludes: "This is the way the press ends. Not with a bang, but a 'revenue opportunity.'"

The New York Times, in an editorial that describes Edward Snowden as a worthy whistleblower, urges the Obama Administration to end his vilification and find a way to encourage him to come home. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who has been the source of several major stories in the last year on surveillance at home and abroad, has been living in Russia after he fled the U.S. A criminal count has been placed against him, but the Times suggests none of his disclosures has harmed U.S. intelligence. "When someone reveals that government officials have routinely and deliberately broken the law, that person should not face life in prison at the hands of the same government," the Times editorial board wrote. The Guardian, whose former columnist Glenn Greenwald worked with Snowden to divulge the surveillance secrets, has also written about the need for leniency. It said the government can exercise "moral courage" in providing clemency.

media notes 11.27.13

11/27/2013

For Wednesday, November 27, here are some media stories of note:

When CBS News placed Lara Logan and her producer on a leave of absence, it followed the completion of an internal report on their discredited 60 Minutes segment on the attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya.

That report by CBS' Al Ortiz, the executive producer for standards and practices at CBS News, found several disconcerting issues in the reporting and an inherent conflict for Logan that should have been avoided. Among other things, Ortiz concluded the program had the means to verify that the principal source of the segment, British security contractor Dylan Davies, was not telling the truth about what he witnessed the night of the attack. There were enough signs of trouble in the research to stop the report, but it sailed through the vetting process and aired.

Eric Wemple of the Washington Post examines the report and the CBS response to it. Among his five points: CBS and 60 Minutes don't work together, a leave of absence is meaningless, the CBS chairman/60 Minutes produce should also be penalized, it's problematic to investigate the boss, and CBS would have been wise to release the report on the holiday weekend. Brendan Nyhan, writing for Columbia Journalism Review, also criticizes how CBS News handled the controversy, including the scrubbing of the content from the Internet.

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A photographer has been awarded $1.2 million after a court ordered two news agencies to pay for images he took and they used without attribution from Twitter. The court concluded there were violations of the Copyright Act when images he took of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti were redistributed without appropriate compensation. Even though Twitter appears to be a public forum, the court indicated there remain in place requirements should anyone reuse content without permission. Guardian media columnist Roy Greenslade says the case has the potential to set an important precedent, but notes it is subject to appeals.

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In recent days USA Today and the McClatchy group of newspapers in the U.S. have clarified that they are not going to use handout photos from the White House (unless they are of significant news value). Andrew Beaujon, writing for Poynter, notes their moves follow a dispute in which the White House restricted access for press photographers. News organizations protested the move.

media notes 10.15.13

10/15/2013

For Tuesday, October 15, 2013, here are some media stories of note:

Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian columnist who has been the principal journalist on Edward Snowden's surveillance leaks, writes on the "predominant mindset" of journalists in deferring to power when secrets are threatened. He argues that the craft has lost its way and that the claimed functions and actual practices of journalism are often widely different.

Margaret Sullivan, the public editor of The New York Times, writes on the frequently stealthy ways of the Times in correcting the online record. She notes that the organization isn't consistently alerting readers to changes in later version of articles. She believes there are practical arguments not to mention every change to a story, but when a correction is made, readers should be told.

Political scientist John Sides, writing for The Monkey Cage blog, previews his co-authored book on media coverage of the 2012 presidential campaign and concludes that it was fair and balanced. The book's research derived data from 11,000 news outlets and found the trends in primary season and the campaign proved fair to both parties in tone and substance.

media notes 10.12-13.13

10/12/2013

Some media notes for the weekend of October 12-13, 2013:

Jonathan Freedland, writing for Comment is Free on The Guardian site, warns that the wrong kind of press regulation will give rise to an even harsher crackdown on sources of secret information than we now know. The secret state is just itching to gag the press, he argues.

The White House is defending its record on transparency and press relations in the wake of a highly critical report by the Committee to Protect Journalists on the surveillance, threats and intimidation by the Obama Administration. It called the "war on leaks" the most serious since the Nixon years, but a spokesman for Obama said the administration has made a more serious commitment to openness.

Amy Gahran, writing for the Knight Digital Media Center, looks at the trend in entrepreneurial journalism education, what works and what doesn't. She advises providing ample time, cultivating a culture of acceptable failure in students, and nurturing and supporting faculty as they experiment.

media notes 10.11.13

10/11/2013

For Friday, October 11, 2013, here are some media stories of note:

Two major journalism organizations have released reports that chronicle the surveillance of and difficult relationships with the press under the Obama Administration. A special report from the Committee to Protect Journalists cites a culture of restrained disclosure, aggressive surveillance and intimidating legal threats and actions against journalists. And a group of scholars, journalists and researchers from Columbia University and the MIT Center for Civic Media have written a lengthy letter to the government, arguing that the effects of surveillance have been to chill important journalistic sources of information.

A group of news organization leaders has rebutted a Daily Mail article this week that argued The Guardian had aided Britain's enemies by reporting on surveillance by the National Security Agency. They argue that the reporting has been of assistance to democracy.

British publishers are threatening to seek action in the European Union courts to overturn what they fear will be onerous penalties if they do not sign up for the proposed press regulation backed by the royal charter. The Guardian notes the government is finishing its efforts today on the regulatory measures and publishers fear they will be facing significantly difficult provisions involving libel and court costs.

media notes 09.19.13

9/19/2013

For Thursday, September 19, 2013, here are some media stories of note:

A new British study suggests girls are more tech-savvy than boys. They have greater tech access, more gadgets like smartphones and tablets, are more active in social media and are more likely to skip advertising. The study of about 1,000 British schoolchildren aged 8 to 16 indicates a child's bedroom is essentially a tech hub.

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, says he has no interest in entering the news business. In a way, he says, Facebook is already in it, with technology that delivers the most relevant content based on user preferences, and opportunities for forums with each post. USA Today reports he believes there is already a lot of "awesome" content out there.

Critics say the proposed Free Flow of Information Act will not prevent the Obama Administration from its most aggressive legal efforts against reporters. US News reports that even supporters of the law concede the courts might restrict journalistic rights under the law. The Online News Association, meanwhile, is notifying members it is going to bat for many digital journalists who might not be clearly shielded and to strengthen the proposed law.

It is becoming clearer that a major parliamentary review is coming for the BBC. The chair of the Commons culture committee is indicating great concern about recent revelations of large payoffs to departing BBC executives. The Guardian says that issue and others appear to be propelling the committee to a major review in advance of government talks on the renewal of the BBC Trust.

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