Media Bits and Bytes – June 11, 2024
- The Media Moment We’re Living Through
- Anti-Trust and Big Tech
- TikTok’s Microfeminism
- NY Daily News Staff is Angry
- Climate Crisis Journalists
- Lobbyists Lining Up to Influence AI Deregulation
- Right Wing Media Reckoning
- Banning “Addictive” Algorithms
- Surveillance Defense for Campus Protests
- Remembering Greg Philo
The Media Moment We’re Living Through
By Jon Allsop
Columbia Journalism Review
Vigorous, well-proportioned accountability journalism is essential to society, whatever it looks like and whether or not people feel minded to pay for it (not that these are small questions). If the market isn’t funding it at requisite levels—and it’s not—the most pressing question for the news business is So how do we pay for it?, not So what do we do instead?
By Jody Godoy
Reuters
The U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission have reached a deal that clears the way for potential antitrust investigations into the dominant roles that Microsoft, OpenAI and Nvidia play in the artificial intelligence industry. Regulatory scrutiny is gathering steam amid concerns over concentration in the industries that make up AI.
Watched by 2.8 million, a TikTok video touched off a viral conversation about microfeminism, inspiring women – and men – to respond with their own small but mighty clapbacks at sexism that are spreading online and off.
By Natalie Korach
The Wrap
Unionized staffers at New York Daily News approved a vote of no confidence against the newspaper’s executive editor. The union has been engaged in a bitter dispute with management as the newspaper’s owner Alden Global Capital has directed staffing cuts while circulation and revenue dwindle. The vote was signed by 46 members, or nearly 87% of the union.
By Nina Lakhani
The Guardian
Almost four out of every 10 journalists covering the climate crisis and environment issues have been threatened as a result of their work, with 11% subjected to physical violence, according to groundbreaking new research. The volume of coverage of the climate crisis is still not commensurate with the gravity of the problem.
Lobbyists Lining Up to Influence AI Deregulation
By Luyi Cheng and Mike Tanglis
Public Citizen
AI is not just an issue of concern for AI and software corporations: While the tech industry was responsible for the most AI-related lobbyists in 2023 – close to 700 – the total amounts to only 20 percent of all the AI-related lobbyists deployed. Lobbyists from a broad distribution of industries outside of tech engaged in AI-related issues.
By Erik Ortiz
NBC News
Right-wing media that became purveyors of misinformation and amplified false claims as Donald Trump undermined the results of the 2020 election are finding themselves on the losing end of legal challenges — or facing new ones. In just a few months, a handful of high-profile fringe media operations have been hit with courtroom losses.
Banning “Addictive” Algorithms
By David Robinson
Democrat and Chronicle
New York lawmakers passed bills banning internet companies from exploiting personal data and using "addictive" algorithms designed to keep kids hooked on social media. Gov. Kathy Hohul is also pushing a ban of smartphones in schools that will be debated in coming months.
Surveillance Defense for Campus Protests
By Rory Mir, Thorin Klosowski, and Christian Romero
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The recent wave of protests calling for peace in Palestine have been met with unwarranted and aggressive suppression from law enforcement, universities, and other bad actors. It’s clear that the changing role of surveillance on college campuses exacerbates the dangers faced by all of the communities colleges are meant to support, and only serves to suppress lawful speech.
By Tom Mills
Jacobin
Greg Philo, who died last month, was a giant in the field of critical media studies. Philo and his colleagues exposed the conservative bias of TV news across a whole range of issues, from workers’ strikes to Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.