Media Bits and Bytes – Heroes & zeroes edition

Blowtorch for a blowhard; Nerd cavalry; Google vs ISIS; Instant news; Palestine TV; Brisk editorial exchange

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How Latino Organizations Took On A Blowhard And Won

By Adolfo Flores
July 1, 2015
Buzzfeed

On Friday, Alex Nogales sat inside a giant boardroom in Universal City, California, alongside NBC executives and a multiethnic coalition of media executives. As the discussion about the network’s diversity representation unfolded, Donald Trump’s comments about Mexican immigrants weighed on Nogales.
Nogales, the president and CEO of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, waited until the end to bring up the blonde-coiffed elephant in the room. By then a petition asking NBC Universal to end its relationship with the businessman and Republican presidential candidate had reached more than 200,000 signatures and Univision had refused to air two beauty pageants associated with Trump after he said he said Mexican immigrants were “rapists” who are “bringing drugs” and “crime” to the U.S.
He spoke up, urging the network’s executives in the room, which included NBC’s entertainment chair Bob Greenblatt and entertainment president Jennifer Salke, to cut ties with Trump.

How do we get Internet policy right? Bring in the nerds.

By Dave Steer and Jenny Toomey
June 19, 2015
Washington Post

Attracting new, talented leaders willing to fight and defend the Internet is critical. Today’s computer science students can’t imagine a career path that leads them to Washington. This lack of technical expertise has real consequences. It’s the reason we saw tens of thousands of Americans unable to sign into the Healthcare.gov portal in 2013.
But the implications extend beyond dysfunctional Web portals. Unless we address the tech talent crisis, our ability to craft effective public policy will be at risk. As one member of Congress said during the Stop Online Piracy Act debate in 2011, it’s time to “bring in the nerds” who can explain the potential risks of ill-informed Internet policies.

Google calls for anti-Isis push and makes YouTube propaganda pledge

By Mark Sweney
June 24, 2015
The Guardian

Two of Google’s top executives – legal chief David Drummond and policy director Victoria Grand – used the Cannes Lions advertising festival to launch an attack, and appeal, against terrorist propaganda on Google-owned YouTube.
“Isis is having a viral moment on social media and the countervailing viewpoints are nowhere near strong enough to oppose them,” said Grand. “Isis, in particular, has been putting up footage that is inhuman and atrocious. We are still seeing about two or three of these beheadings each week. They are heeding advice from a decade before from Osama bin Laden and they are taking it to another level using social media.”


Newsonomics: On end games and end times

By Ken Doctor
July 2, 2015,
NiemanLab

We’ve read so many obits for news media over the past 10 years that you’d think we’d be inured to yet another. But the onslaught of off-site distribution initiatives — from Facebook’s soon-to-expand Instant Articles to Apple News to Snapchat Discover, and most recently Twitter Lightning and whatever may next emerge as an offspring of Google News — now offers yet another existential moment. Will anyone go directly to a news or media site or app in 2020? Or are the platforms, now becoming quasi-publishers, all that will matter? (And will anyone come up with something better than “platisher”? And don’t try to make “pubform” happen.)

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With eye on Israeli Arabs, new Palestinian TV channel goes on air
By Jack Khoury
July 3, 2015
Haaretz

The new Palestinian channel F48 (short for Palestine ‘48), operated by the Palestinian TV and Radio Authority, focuses on Israeli Arabs and its programs are part of a package offered by the Egyptian satellite company Nilesat, aimed at Palestinians and the Arab world.
The Palestinian Authority and especially President Mahmoud Abbas pushed to launch the project, citing the vital need to bring the story of Israeli Palestinians to those in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as to the entire Arab world.
Prime Minister and Communications Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered to check whether the channel was legal and threatened to close it down. An Israeli Arab activist suggested that the government fears losing control over the Arab public in Israel.

Slack CEO explodes over editorial about the South Carolina shooting, says 'f--- you' to Wall Street Journal

By Madeline Stone
June 22, 2015
Business Insider

Stewart Butterfield, cofounder of Flickr and CEO of the office-communication software Slack, lashed out against a Wall Street Journal editorial in a tweetstorm Sunday night.
President Obama had compared the shooting to the September 1963 bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed four young black girls.
But the Journal editorial says the comparison is inadequate: "Today the system and philosophy of institutionalized racism identified by Dr. King no longer exists."
Butterfield spoke out against the column's logic and ended by directly insulting The Journal's editorial board, writing "So, WSJ editorial board: f--- you!"