Media Bits and Bytes – Closed Sesame edition

Sesame Street gentrified; Busting journos in Ferguson; Technocapitalism sucks (blood); Trump stomps puny Fox; Cops take to the net

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Copyright 2015 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Courtesy Cincinnati Police Department's Facebook page.

Mitt Romney Won: In a Blow to the 47 Percent, Sesame Street Moves to HBO

By Josef Adalian
August 13, 2015
Vulture

Bert and Ernie are moving to a ritzy new neighborhood: HBO. The unambiguously awesome duo, along with the rest of the gang from Sesame Street, are headed to the pay-cable giant later this year as part of a potentially landmark five-year deal designed to help HBO counter the growing threat from premium competitors Netflix and Amazon. Under the agreement, HBO will become the exclusive home for first-run episodes ofSesame Street, airing the show — in English and Spanish — on its linear channel as well as via HBO Go, HBO Now, and HBO on Demand. Kids whose parents can’t afford HBO won’t be cut off entirely, however. HBO will let PBS and its stations air reruns of the most recent Sesame Streetseasons nine months after they debut on HBO. But the agreement also clearly establishes a new, Downton Abbey–style class system for Sesame Street: Middle- and upper-class kids get the benefit of the latest Sesame Street lessons first, while poorer children will now be nine months behind their financially better-off peers.
 

Freedom of Speech Under Fire in Ferguson

By Katy Glenn Bass
August 14, 2015
Newsweek

Journalists Wesley Lowery and Ryan Reilly were working at a McDonald’s near the site of the Ferguson, Missouri, protests when police entered the restaurant and asked for their press credentials. The officers returned shortly thereafter and ordered them to leave.
Lowery and Reilly attempted to do so, but apparently didn’t move fast enough to satisfy the police, who arrested them and, for good measure, allegedly knocked them both around on the way out the door—slamming Lowery into a soda machine and Reilly into the door, according to the reporters’ accounts. Lowery was also recording the police officers involved on his mobile phone, and they illegally ordered him to stop.
That was a year ago this week. The story of Lowery and Reilly’s arrests was one of the catalysts that pushed the Ferguson protests in the wake of Michael Brown's shooting into the national news and generated widespread criticism of police in the St. Louis area for their aggressive tactics toward protester and reporters attempting to document law enforcement's actions. So when charges were brought this week by St. Louis County against Lowery (The Washington Post) and Reilly (The Huffington Post)—dated August 6, just days short of the statute of limitations expired—nearly everyone involved was caught off guard.
 

Silicon Valley Made a Bunch of Dudes Billionaires, But It’s Making You Poorer

By Becca Andrews
July 23, 2015
Mother Jones

First the tech industry made your life easier with iPhones, tablets, and smart-everything. But is it also making it harder for you to get ahead?
A recent study on global income inequality by the International Monetary Fund identifies technological change as a top factor driving the split between rich and poor worldwide. Specifically, the study's authors found that the growth of technology accounts for nearly one-third of the widening gap between the top 10 percent and bottom 90 percent over the past quarter century. Other factors include the globalization of trade and finance.


How Roger Ailes Picked Trump, and Fox News’ Audience, Over Megyn Kelly

By Gabriel Sherman
August 11, 2015
New York

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First the tech industry made your life easier with iPhones, tablets, and smart-everything. But is it also making it harder for you to get ahead?
A recent study on global income inequality by the International Monetary Fund identifies technological change as a top factor driving the split between rich and poor worldwide. Specifically, the study's authors found that the growth of technology accounts for nearly one-third of the widening gap between the top 10 percent and bottom 90 percent over the past quarter century. Other factors include the globalization of trade and finance.
 

Photo of Cincinnati Police Officers Plays into Growing but Contentious 'Lives Matter' Trend
By Pat LaFleur
August 11, 2015
WCPO

A photo shared Tuesday by the Cincinnati Police Department on its Facebook page seems to play into a growing but contentious debate over the “lives matter” trend.
The photograph depicts one Caucasian officer and one African-American officer, each with the phrase “His life matters” written in pen on the palm of their hands, with an arrow pointing to the other.
The "lives matter" trend has since swirled into a national discussion about what role, if any, race has played in recent displays of police brutality. As the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum in the years to follow, the response “all lives matter” also began to trend across social media.