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Media Bits and Bytes – Zero Hour Edition

Net Neut fight grows more dire; SNAFU USA; The Seder caper; Internet amidst the Big Melt; Bitcoin bamboozle; The Booker story

Simeon Booker, shown in 1982, spent decades leading the Washington bureau for Jet and Ebony magazines.,Fred Sweets/The Washington Post

The FCC’s Net Neutrality Plan May Have Even Bigger Ramifications In Light of an Obscure Court Case

By Brian Fung
December 6, 2017
Washington Post


A federal court is expected to weigh in on a case that could leave the government less prepared to field net-neutrality grievances in the future.

The U.S. Media Yesterday Suffered its Most Humiliating Debacle in Ages: Now Refuses All Transparency Over What Happened

By Glenn Greenwald
December 9, 2017
The Intercept

Several of the nation’s largest and most influential news outlets spread an explosive but completely false news story to millions of people, while refusing to provide any explanation of how it happened.

MSNBC, Cernovich, and Journalism’s Struggle with New-Media Antagonists

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By Pete Vernon
December 8, 2017
Columbia Journalism Review

News organizations may finally be adapting to a world in which adversaries, particularly on the right, use an array of tactics for which traditional newsrooms have proven woefully unprepared.


Melting Arctic Ice Makes High-Speed Internet a Reality in a Remote Town

By Cecilia Kang
December 2, 2017
New York Times

The receding ice has opened new passageways for high-speed internet cables. Point Hope, a gravel spit in northwest Alaska, is along one of the new routes.

I Bought $250 in Bitcoin. Here's What I Learned

By Seth Fiegerman  
December 8, 2017
CNN

Where's the skepticism as bitcoin keeps soaring?
 

Simeon Booker, Intrepid Chronicler of Civil Rights Struggle for Jet and Ebony, Dies at 99

By Emily Langer
December 10, 2017
Washington Post

Few reporters risked more to chronicle the civil rights movement than Mr. Booker. From home bases in Chicago and later in Washington, Mr. Booker ventured into the South and sent back dispatches that reached black readers across the United States.