Media Bits and Bytes – Reddit and Weep Edition

Marlene Sanders; BBC in the Red; Avengers Assemble; Reddit Blues; Cybercrime Pays

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Marlene Sanders in the central highlands of Vietnam in 1966,Jeffrey Toobin

Pioneering TV Journalist Marlene Sanders Dies at 84

By David Colker
July 15, 2015
Los Angeles Times

In 1964, broadcast journalist Marlene Sanders became the first woman to anchor an evening network newscast.
It was a breakthrough, but more or less accidental. At a time when opportunities were scarce for women in network news, Sanders got the chance to anchor the ABC broadcast because the regular anchor got sick and lost his voice.
“She had to fight a lot of stereotypes and a lot of ridicule,” said Bill Moyers, who worked with Sanders on a documentary series at CBS. “But she hung in there and did really good work. She caused the first tinkling of the glass ceiling.”
Sanders, who also broke through stereotypes when she covered the Vietnam War and became the first female vice president of news at a network, died Tuesday in a hospice facility in New York City.

The Government’s Witch-Hunters are Ready to Reform the BBC to Death

By Stewart Lee
July 19, 2015
Guardian

Due to its legendary nose for news, last week’s Sunday Times was first to reveal the “eight experts” chosen by culture secretary John Whittingdale to “help decide the BBC’s future”, the Murdoch empire barely able to wait to share its horror at the venerable institution’s latest humiliation.
But no one so far seems to know what kind of BBC they want. Our metrosexual prime minister believes it should concentrate on the kind of HBO box set programming he and Sam enjoy when chillaxing at home, and which he imagines emerges fully formed from a salami-making machine in Los Angeles.
Others complain the BBC makes shows that are “too commercial”, and clearly it would be better if the job of making popular shows, and indeed all television, was left up to Sky, since they are so good at it. But who could ever have dreamed that a show about an old man travelling through time in a phone box, a laugh track-free sitcom set in a paper company office, complete with cutaways to photocopier in-trays, and a motoring review show in which vehicle analysis is interspersed with actionably inappropriate banter, would become commercial hits?


Race and the Media: How a New Generation of Activists Is Challenging the Narrative

By Joseph Torres
July 9, 2015
Free Press

A new generation of racial justice leaders — from Black Lives Matter organizers to immigration-rights activists — is using the Internet and social media to challenge traditional media’s stereotypical coverage of their communities. At the same time, they’re urging the media to pay greater attention to Black women, Latinos and Native Americans, who have also been victims of police brutality but whose stories often go untold.
And perhaps unexpectedly they’ve played a key role in policy debates over the future of the open Internet, safeguarding the structures that will be critical to any effort to challenge and change the media narrative on race — so we’re not repeating the same stories 50 years from now in the ongoing fight for racial justice.
 

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Reddit’s Future Is the Future of the Internet

By Davey Alba
July.17, 2015
Wired

Reddit’s been through a hell of a ride lately. It started with an update to the site’s offensive content policy in May which led several weeks later to the banning of five hate-themed forums, a.k.a. subreddits. Over the Fourth of July holiday, the site largely went dark in a coordinated action by many of Reddit’s volunteer moderators to protest the firing of a popular company employee. Interim CEO Ellen Pao stepped down days later following withering criticism from some quarters of the site—what she would later call “one of the largest trolling attacks in history.”
Reddit’s conundrum is worth following not just because the site is one of the major anchors of the social web or because it attracts massive amounts of traffic—a whopping 164 million visitors each month. It’s important because the site is founded on principles that mirror the founding principles of the web itself. Reddit was conceived as an open forum, a place where conversation is self-regulated and community-driven, freedom of expression is prized above all, and authorities don’t meddle with—much less censor—content.
 

Hackers for Hire: How Online Forums Make Cybercrime Easier Than Ever

By Andrea Peterson
July 16, 2015
Washington Post

A major cybercrime forum was just taken down by coordinated action between law enforcement agencies in nearly 20 countries. But that site, called Darkode, is just one of many forums that have become the primary hub for criminal hackers.
"These sites are the default place where cybercrime is going on," said Raj Samani, chief technology officer for the Europe, Middle East and Africa regions at Intel Security. But the marketplace is "incredibly fluid," he said, with sites appearing and disappearing constantly.