Skip to main content

Media Bits and Bytes – Time is not on your side edition

Another mega merger; Games people play; NYXBT; Civic hacking; Body cams; Hi, Esther!

Alan Pogue

Is Charter Communications' Bid for Time Warner Cable a Bad Deal for Consumers?
By James K. Willcox
May 27, 2015
Consumer Reports

With all the news about Charter Communications buying Time Warner Cable—as well as the smaller Bright House Networks—a lot of the focus has been on whether the acquisition makes business sense. But what we want to know is, Will the deal be good for consumers?
We'd like to think so, but there's not a lot of evidence to support the idea that bigger companies do better for their customers. In fact, the opposite is often true, with the biggest companies often notable for high prices, poor service, and disappointing customer satisfaction scores.
If approved, a combined Charter/Time Warner Cable/Bright House—with nearly 24 million customers in 41 states—would become the nation's second-largest cable operator, behind only Comcast, which has 27.2 million customers.

We Are Not Colonists
By Gita Jackson
March 20, 2015
Boing Boing

When Anna Anthropy released Dys4ia in 2013, the conversation centered around whether or not it was really "a game" at all. Maddy Myers, the assistant games editor for Paste, had a colleague refer to her work as "gender stuff". Less than a month ago, the Hearthstone community was wrapped up in an "investigation" of whether or not the player MagicAmy has a man play for her.
For many of the people policing the imagined community of games, the influx of new voices is misperceived as sort of "digital colonialism," where some people are "natives" of the internet and gaming culture, while others are invaders, unwelcome interlopers and newbies. Now that marginalized people are more present and visible in spaces like eSports, journalism or online discussion, many of the Michaels of gaming culture believe that they're witnessing a seizure of resources, or an attempt by outsiders to co-opt their culture or hold it captive.

NYSE to Launch NYSE Bitcoin Index, NYXBT
May 19, 2015
Business Wire

The New York Stock Exchange, part of the Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE) global network of exchanges and clearing houses, today announced the NYSE Bitcoin Index (NYXBT), the first exchange-calculated and disseminated bitcoin index. Launching today, the NYXBT Index will represent the U.S. dollar value of one bitcoin unit based upon actual transactions occurring on select bitcoin exchanges which have been evaluated and meet NYSE’s quality standards.
NYXBT utilizes a unique methodology that relies on rules-based logic to analyze a dataset of matched transactions and verify the integrity of the data to ultimately produce an objective and fair daily value for one bitcoin in U.S. Dollars as of 16:00 London time. The index will be published within a short period of that time via the widely-distributed NYSE Global Index Feed (GIF) as well as made publicly available for an initial period on the NYSE index page.

At One Virginia Paper, Coders and Reporters Unite to Make Sense of Government Data
By Corey Hutchins
May 26, 2015
Columbia Journalism Review

The Daily Press in Newport News, VA has been opening its office up for monthly meetings of the local chapter of Code for America, a national nonprofit that builds open-source technology designed to make government more transparent and responsive.
Code for America is perhaps best known for its work with city officials. But in Newport News, where the group’s volunteers decided last fall that they could fulfill their mission by working with the local newspaper, a project to circumvent an open-records obstacle has turned into what may become a lasting partnership—one that arrived at a good time for the Daily Press.

Coalition Says Law Enforcement Must Protect Civil Rights When Wearing Body Cameras
By Joseph Torres
May 20, 2015
Free Press

Over the past year, in the wake of multiple police killings of unarmed Black and Latino men, women and children, support for body-worn cameras has gained momentum, with both the White House and police officers advocating for their use.
But there’s also a great deal of concern that body cameras will be used to violate the civil rights of communities of color.  This is why a coalition of more than 30 civil rights, privacy and public interest groups released a set of principles on law enforcement’s use of these devices.
Among the signers are the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Media Justice, Free Press, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the NAACP and the National Council of La Raza.
The principles call for police to develop body-camera policies with the public’s input, to limit the use of facial-recognition technologies, and to prohibit officers from viewing any footage before filing their reports.

Esther Kaplan Wins MOLLY National Journalism Prize
By Emily Williams
May 28, 2015
Texas Observer
The 2015 MOLLY National Journalism Prize has been presented to Esther Kaplan for “Losing Sparta” in the Virginia Quarterly Review. One judge praised Kaplan for her reporting “on the economics that many feel have damaged the fabric of America,” saying “[t]he depth of reporting is impressive, the breadth of vision remarkable.”
The competition recognizes great American journalism and honors the memory of Molly Ivins, the legendary reporter, columnist and former editor of The Texas Observer.
 

If you like this article, please sign up for Snapshot, Portside's daily summary.

(One summary e-mail a day, you can change anytime, and Portside is always free.)