Media Bits and Bytes — August 4, 2026
- Will Bari Weiss Get to Run CNN?
- Floridians Fight Flock
- Why and How Social Media Stigmatized Argentina
- Students Stand Up for Human Intelligence
- FCC vs ABC
- Douthat Brings His Shtick to 60 Minutes
- Guide to Recording Law Enforcement
- Defending Online Repro Speech
- The Need for Community Based Journalism
Will Bari Weiss Get to Run CNN?
By Brian Steinberg, Variety
There are 600 million reasons why Paramount Skydance should not tinker too much with the inner workings of CNN after the company completes the acquisition of its parent, Warner Bros. Discovery. Staffers at the news giant fear the company soon expected to be their new owner will ignore all of them.
By Thomas Kennedy, Truthout
Floridians are starting to fight against the deployment of surveillance technologies in their communities. Massive backlash led to officials in Leon County rejecting and delaying grant funding for Flock license plate readers. Commissioners pulled a massive $440,000 agenda item and denied federal funds meant to expand the use of the intrusive cameras.
Why and How Social Media Stigmatized Argentina
By Martín Mosquera and Gabriel Vera Lopes, Links
During the recent World Cup, the clash between national teams quickly escalated into an international campaign against Argentina. This was amplified by social media and much of the Western press, both conservative and progressive. Support for the opponents was presented as an anti-racist cause, with Argentine society reduced to a caricature of a white, xenophobic society.
Students Stand Up for Human Intelligence
Setting Rules for AI By Cory Turner, Maine Public
The Humanoid By Maya Yang, The Guardian
By John Hendel, Politico
ABC accused Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr of “attempted censorship”, saying the agency is creating a potential chilling effect across the media by helping President Donald Trump attack his perceived adversaries. The Disney-owned television network faces the potential loss of its eight TV broadcasting licenses.
Douthat Brings His Shtick to 60 Minutes
By Jim Naureckas, FAIR
60 Minutes announced a batch of new hires to replace a number of staffers fired by CBS network commissar Bari Weiss, with the most prominent addition being longtime conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat. FAIR has been chronicling Douthat for a while now. Here’s some of the outstanding examples we’ve catalogued of his “empathy” and “rigor.”
Guide to Recording Law Enforcement
By Sophia Cope and Bill Budington, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Recordings of law enforcement, whether by bystanders or by those directly encountering officers, can be powerful tools of government accountability and can support movements for social change. But recording officers can come with risks. There are important legal and practical considerations related to recording the police and other law enforcement officers.
By Kylie Cheung, Abortion, Every Day
We’re in the midst of an all-out war on pro-choice speech, and this war on speech, Martha Dimitratou says, is also a war on democracy. Dimitratou is the founder and executive director of Repro Uncensored, a nonprofit dedicated to tracking the censorship of pro-choice, queer, and feminist accounts on digital platforms.
The Need for Community Based Journalism
By Irene Romulo and Nina Weingrill, Columbia Journalism Review
A Media Impact Funders report argues that journalism needs to build infrastructure that is “shared, long-term, coordinated, and system-oriented,” rather than episodic or project-bound. That includes adding coordination roles, offering community training, building trusted networks, and maintaining relationships with community organizations between crises.
By Joe Wilkins, Futurism
OverpAId, a distinctly tongue-in-cheek project, facetiously claims to offer an AI-powered replacement for your company’s CEO — or as the site’s landing page puts it, the “world’s first Chief Executive Replacement Engine”.