Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Donald Trump is both addicted to media attention and prone to lying to suit his own needs. There is no reason—none—for journalists to allow him to harangue them off-the-record. So stop. What, exactly, is accomplished by “off the record” meetings between journalists and political figures? A simple breakdown: Politicians gain: A chance to convince journalists…
What if, a recent piece of speculative fiction in Vanity Fair wonders aloud, Megyn Kelly isn’t a poisonous bigot and shameless cable news demagogue, but a complex, flawed icon of modern feminism? Like most science fiction, this is a pack of lies meant for babies. Megyn Kelly is just as racist—or cynically willing to play…
A bout two years ago, while Vine was healthy — before the internet celebrities it germinated outgrew it and ultimately turned against it — three of the bigger names on the platform teamed up with some better-known YouTube personalities for a rap battle to determine which crew’s content reigned superior. Meant as a tongue-in-cheek, real-recognize-real…
SAN FRANCISCO — Last month, Federico Viticci, who runs MacStories, a news site devoted to Apple and its products, made a change in how the site publishes articles for mobile gadgets. MacStories, he declared, would no longer support a Google-backed method for faster loading of mobile web pages, called AMP. Mr. Viticci said MacStories’s pages…
Laredo International Airport in Texas, July 23, 2015. Credit Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times The last year has not been the news media’s finest. Despite some outstanding coverage, over all we misled many people into thinking that Donald Trump would never win the Republican nomination, let alone the White House. Too often we…
Don Lemon had an interesting New Year’s Eve. The CNN personality did shots of tequila at The Spotted Cat in New Orleans, where he and Brooke Baldwin were broadcasting the network’s festivities. Lemon got the party started early, knocking back drinks on TV more than three hours before midnight. It seems @donlemon, @BrookeBCNN got the #CNNNYE party…
Banner Image What the conservative media machine does is much more dangerous. Rush Limbaugh (top, L), Sean Hannity (top, R), Ann Coulter (bottom, L), and Bill O’Reilly (bottom, R). (AP Photo / J. Scott Applewhite; AP Photo / Rick Scuteri, File; AP Photo / J. Scott Applewhite, file; Paul Morigi / AP) From all the…
Julian Assange is a deeply polarizing figure. Many admire him and many despise him (into which category one falls in any given year typically depends on one’s feelings about the subject of his most recent publication of leaked documents). But one’s views of Assange are completely irrelevant to this article, which is not about Assange. This article,…
Don’t stop your dog from barking at them. Don’t take their money. If you’re making coffee for them, make it wrong. Last week, Donald Trump was elected president by the United States. But he wasn’t elected by New Yorkers. In his hometown, Trump has for years been regarded as a clown—a tabloid regular, a Howard…
In a humongous publication fail, Blackhair magazine mistakenly featured a white model on its December/January cover. Fam. The model in question, Emily Bador, who’s white, pointed the error out in an Instagram post, in which she apologized for the shoot and said she had no idea the photo—which she believes was taken three or four…