Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
When theologian Martin Luther debuted his Ninety-five Theses in 16th-century Germany, he triggered a religious Reformation — and also a media revolution. 1630 map of the Maluku Archipelago (Moluccas, or Spice Islands) The printing press, invented approximately 50 years before the 95 Theses, extended Luther’s reach from the door of the cathedral to the entirety…
data-module-name=”article.app/lib/module/wsj/breadcrumbs” The sports website Deadspin lost all of its editorial staff this week in an exodus that complicates its new owner’s effort to turn around the former Gawker Media properties acquired a little over six months ago. The new parent company, G/O Media Inc., which comprises about a dozen sites including Gizmodo and the Onion,…
Camilla Hodgson in San Francisco September 17, 2019 Print this page On a foggy September lunchtime in San Francisco, a group of researchers and data scientists sat around foldable plastic tables in what was once a Christian Science church, evangelising about open-source information and the democratisation of knowledge. The 50-strong party, which had been assembled…
A search had been underway for a new publisher. But none was found. Updated 09.06.19 4:53PM ET / Published 09.06.19 1:15PM ET Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast ThinkProgress, the influential news site that rose to prominence in the shadow of the Bush administration and helped define progressivism during the Obama years, is shutting down….
This is an archived copy of an article from Deadspin that no longer exists. I have removed forwarding for that reason. There is a version of the story of this company in which idealistic journalists, unconcerned with profit, are posed against ruthless business-doers, concerned about profit above all else. That would be a convenient story,…
In a memo he sent before leaving the company, a former Google employee criticized the internet giant and its employees, noting that he regularly encountered racism during his experience as a Black worker at the company. The memo, obtained by Motherboard, is titled “The Weight of Silence,” and argues that Google is lacking in diversity,…
ABC News was among the news outlets that received a pitch from Facebook to license their content. Photo: Kena Betancur/Getty Images Updated Aug. 8, 2019 4:31 pm ET Facebook Inc. FB 2.71% is offering news outlets millions of dollars for the rights to put their content in a news section that the company hopes to…
Laura Poitras, a co-founder of the Intercept, signed a letter protesting recent company decisions. Photo: Andrew Toth/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Fe Employees are worried that one of the nation’s largest and most prominent left-of-center media companies, First Look Media, has lost its way. After the company shuttered two marquee outlets, dozens of employees signed…
A harrowing scenario analysis of how human civilization might collapse in coming decades due to climate change has been endorsed by a former Australian defense chief and senior royal navy commander. The analysis, published by the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration, a think-tank in Melbourne, Australia, describes climate change as “a near- to mid-term…
AirPods are a product of the past. They’re plastic, made of some combination of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, chlorine, and sulfur. They’re tungsten, tin, tantalum, lithium, and cobalt. The particles that make up these elements were created 13.8 billion years ago, during the Big Bang. Humans extract these elements from the earth, heat them, refine…