Portside

If left-leaning publications value diversity, why don't they have any?

AI tech race; Algorithm for diversity; Dark Google; Bitcoin at MIT; Fake net neutrality; Covering Snowden; New media and David's sling

The author reviews two books: One discusses the state of journalism today; the other examines how the dominant culture brutalizes the poor and lionizes the powerful.

Reviews of The Watchdog That Didn’t Bark: The Financial Crisis and the Disappearance of Investigative Journalism By Dean Starkman and The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap By Matt Taibbi.

Inventing Internet drones; Farm-fresh data; Big Snoopy is listening; Bay of tweets; NSA database from ACLU; Gender inequality in all media

If it looks as if the folks at 538 are making it up as they go along, that’s because they are. 538 badly needs a news editor. More than 1.

Comcast is bad; Comcast is worse; Today Comcast, tomorrow the world; Immigration coverage; US press freedom on the skids; PBS for sale

Newly Published Photographs Share Rich Lives of Former Slaves After Emancipation; Web Series Tells "What Black Folks Don't Do"; Customs Destroys Rare Bamboo Flutes; NYT & NPR Maintain Latino Stereotypes; Native American Studies Association Supports BDS; Chart Illustrates You Vote What You Drink

Edward Snowden's Christmas message - together we can end mass surveillance, otherwise "'a child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all.' Listen to message broadcast on England's Channel 4; and Washington Post story, based on 14 hours of interviews conducted in Moscow. "All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed," Snowden said.

An interview with Sarah Harrison of Wikileaks: Julian Assange's associate and Edward Snowden's guardian angel. She spent the last four months with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and arrived in Germany over the weekend. "When whistleblowers come forward we need to fight for them, so others will be encouraged. When they are gagged, we must be their voice. When they are hunted, we must be their shield. When they are locked away, we must free them."