Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Illustration: Jim Cooke This is the story of how corporate raiding, complacency, excess, and incompetence are gutting a media company that matters to tens of millions of people. It’s not a novel story, and perhaps not even scandalous by the standards of corporate opulence: A shark-obsessed boss, millions wasted on consultants, and an executive who…
Our nation’s present uproar over the deleterious effects of social media on society and fretting about the decline of trusted news outlets is nothing new. What’s new is the fact that the straightforward ways to prop up the Real Journalism industry have never been more obvious. For two decades, professional thinkers—most of them employed in…
Illustration: Jim Cooke (GMG) In the four months since a mysterious group of rich people took over the L.A. Weekly, news outlets across the country have continued to experience brutal cuts to newsroom staffs and other harsh austerity measures. More than 50 journalists from the East Bay Times and the San Jose Mercury News were…
Add another name to the list of publishers that is shutting down and blaming FacebookFB 0.53% : Render Media. The digital media company behind recipe video publisher Cooking Panda and news and politics site Opposing Views says it is planning to close shop, pointing to a combination of factors, including recent changes by Facebook to improve the quality…
A yoga-pants refusenik, a climate-science skeptic, and a tech writer with a neo-Nazi pal, among other offenders, have put James Bennet in the crosshairs. Exterior of the New York Times building, photographed on June 29, 2017. By Volkan Furuncu/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images. “I’ve lost the capacity to gauge the opprobrium—what’s irrational versus what’s a reasonable amount…
On Tuesday you may notice new Facebook and Twitter avatars on Washington Post employees’ profiles. They’re a sign of a day of “social media action” organized by the Post‘s Guild, or union, which is eight months into negotiations with Post management over a new contract. The next negotiation session is planned for Wednesday, and the…
Getty The narrative casting Jeff Bezos as a transformative media baron reached new heights in 2017. His Washington Post consistently set the political narrative while claiming two straight years of profitability. Bezos himself glowed on the red carpet as an improbable journalism hero when Steven Spielberg’s The Post, a fictionalized account of the newspaper’s publication…
Image: Jim Cooke/GMG Slate editorial employees voted to unionize on Tuesday after a 10-month battle that saw staffers at the magazine run up against stiff resistance from management. Voters from the proposed 54-person bargaining unit voted to organize by a margin of 45-7. Their union, Writers Guild of America-East, also represents Gizmodo Media Group, which…
Screengrab from Fox News’ The Five Laurie Rubel typically publishes her research on mathematics education in relatively obscure journals. The Brooklyn College professor’s most recent paper explored the challenges white teachers face while trying to connect with students in large urban school districts. It also contained all the right buzzwords to be swept up in…
Facebook Inc. FB 0.83% plans to start ranking news sources in its feed based on user evaluations of credibility, a major step in its effort to fight false and sensationalist information that will also push the company further into a role it has long sought to avoid—content referee. The social-media giant will begin testing the effort next week by…