Archives for category: Media

Dan Rather, the fearless reporter for “60 Mibutes,” now retired, writes about Jeff Bezos’ ham-handed interference with the editorial independence of The Washington Post. The moral of the story is that newspapers should not be owned by billionaires with other financial interests, especially those who need a good relationship with the President, like Bezos. Why should Bezos cut staff because the Post is losing money? His net worth is more than $200 billion. Why destroy one of the nation’s greatest newspapers to recoup $77 million in losses? That’s chump change for Bezos.

When a journalistic institution is the one making headlines, it’s rarely good news. Such is the case for a revered American newspaper, The Washington Post. A mothership of American journalism, whose reporters helped topple an American president and inspired generations of young reporters, is listing and taking on water.

As Donald Trump and his army of “alternate” truth-tellers get ready to take the reins of government again, the country desperately needs the best and brightest journalists watching and reporting on their every move. And yet we wake to news that the Post is expected to lay off dozens more staffers the very month Trump returns to power.

The 147-year-old newspaper is apparently bleeding money, a problem of its own making. When billionaire Post owner Jeff Bezos pulled the newspaper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris just days before the election, a reported 250,000 readers cancelled their subscriptions in protest. That accounts for 10% of the paper’s online audience.

“I just cancelled my Washington Post subscription. The web site asked why, and the closest option was ‘concern with the content.’ There was no option about surrendering to fascism, but that’s the real reason,” a former subscriber posted on X.

For Bezos, founder of Amazon, the Post’s financial losses are peanuts considering his $200 billion plus net worth. But his love of the paper and his passion for quality journalism seem to be shrinking.

Back in 2013, when Bezos bought the Post from the family of venerated publisher Katharine Graham, he said he wanted to transform it from a regional newspaper to a global one. He provided money — big money — to expand the newsroom and encouraged reporters to extend their reach by embracing the “gifts of the internet.”

Over the ensuing decade, his interest in the paper ebbed and flowed, but he mostly stayed out of the editorial decision-making. Then he pulled the Harris endorsement causing an exodus of top editors, opinion writers, and reporters.

But Bezos wasn’t done burnishing his rep with the former president. After the election, he pledged $1 million to help pay for Trump’s inauguration and agreed to stream it live on Amazon Prime (an additional $1 million in-kind contribution). Just before Christmas, he was seen at Mar-a-Lago, kissing the ring with fellow super-rich guy Elon Musk. And he has green-lit a documentary about Melania Trump to air on Prime. I’m guessing it will be what’s known in the trade as a “sweetheart profile.”

While it isn’t great that the owner of one of the most important papers in the country is cozying up to an incoming president who says he will be a dictator on “day one,” Bezos’s actions aren’t surprising. He didn’t become a billionaire by being selfless.

But on Friday, things took another turn at the Post. Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes quit in protest after a cartoon of hers was killed.

In a piece she published on Substack, Telnaes explained that “there have been instances where sketches have been rejected or revisions requested, but never because of the point of view inherent in the cartoon’s commentary. That’s a game changer…and dangerous for a free press…”

Since 2005, a third of newspapers in the United States have folded, and two-thirds of newspaper reporters are gone. On an Axios podcast, Victor Pickard, a professor of media policy and political economy at the University of Pennsylvania, explained that “We no longer have a commercial market that can support the levels of journalism that democracy requires.”

Another model needs to be found, and fast. We’ve learned the hard way that benevolent billionaires aren’t going to rescue American journalism. Smarter people than I are working on ways to do just that … an important topic for another Steady down the road.

In the meantime, fingers crossed. As I have said over the years and repeat now for emphasis: A free and independent — fiercely independent when necessary — press is the red beating heart of democracy.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Censorship, Freedom of the Press, Media

Do Oligarch-Owned Media Want a Free and Fearless Press?

By dianeravitch

January 5, 2025 //

Another editorial cartoonist, Darrin Bell, weighed in to compare the difference between the fearless media of the 1970s and the careful media today. And just as important, he compares how social media has changed the expectations of readers.

Bell writes:

Ann Telnaes is a brilliant, Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist ~~for the Washington Post~~, and I’m proud to know her. Yesterday, she posted to her Substack that after The Post rejected this rough sketch, she resigned in protest:

I’ve spoken on a couple panels about editorial cartooning alongside Ann Telnaes. The first one was at a 2017 (or was it 2016?) convention in Columbus Ohio. The second was years later at the University of Virginia.

In 2017, I told that audience how I broke into the industry through perseverance, by making myself stand out, and by proving myself to opinion page editors and to the newspaper syndicates. I felt such pride in recounting that story. But in 2023, it hit differently. As I opened my mouth to speak to students who don’t remember a time before social media, suddenly I felt that this generation was more likely to interpret my “inspirational” tale as one of how I groveled for years before gatekeepers.

The obsolete origin story

Instead, I told the UVA students that my origin story was now obsolete. It’s not a road map they should follow anymore. I advised them to avoid newspapers altogether and reach readers directly through services such as Substack. I surprised myself. I wasn’t sure why I said that.

So I kept talking, and discovered why as I spoke. I’d been harboring frustration that, until then, I’d managed to suppress.

Before I was born, the Washington Post’s reporters (and their cartoonist, Herblock) led the coverage that brought down Richard Nixon. That’s when the right wing began playing a long game, with the goal of neutering the Media. By 2023, they’d convinced most Americans that pretty much any media not owned by right wing ideologues were just cogs in a liberal conspiracy machine.

The press is the only industry the Constitution specifically protects. But when I spoke to those UVA students, I could not tell them that newspapers were fulfilling the function the Founders had intended them to fulfill. The Founders had a lot of lousy ideas, but enshrining the press as the main line of defense against creeping authoritarianism wasn’t one of them.

I’d won a Pulitzer a few years earlier for work attacking police brutality, Trump’s malevolence, and systemic racism. But by 2023, those themes had become a tough sell – even to newspapers that had kept a running tally of Donald Trump’s lies throughout his wretched presidency. Papers seemed to want something less strident. Something less opinionated, on the Opinionpages.

I didn’t know whether to consider that a function of fear, or to chalk it up to editors simply being tired of all the existential dread, who just wanted to lighten things up. I’m not sure the distinction matters, to me. All the President’s Men was my first inkling of what journalism was supposed to be. Paul Conrad’s LA Times editorial cartoons were brutal and brilliant, especially to a kid like me in the 1980s.

David Shipley’s response

David Shipley, the Post’s editorial pages editor, disagreed with Ann’s interpretation of events. He told the New York Times “Not every editorial judgment is a reflection of a malign force…” and “My decision was guided by the fact that we had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon and had already scheduled another column — this one a satire — for publication. The only bias was against repetition.”

I’ve seen my work run alongside columns that dealt with the same issues before. It’s common. And a satirical column is not a replacement for an editorial cartoon. I don’t believe David Shipley considered something I’ve always found to be the case: different readers read different things.Some stick to earnest columns. Some dive straight into satirical columns. But others – especially young people like I was in the 1980s – only open the opinion page for the editorial cartoons. Editorial cartoons are an introduction to journalism, for young people and for those whose eyes gloss over when they see paragraph after paragraph of prose. Covering the same matter with three different types of journalism is not redundant, it’s reach-out.

Open the link to finish reading this provocative essay.

Categories Censorship, Democracy, Ethics, Freedom of the Press, Media

Editorial Cartoonist at Washington Post Quits After Her Cartoon Was Killed

By dianeravitch

January 4, 2025 //

Ann Telnaes, editorial cartoonist for the Washington Post since 2008, quit her job after one of her cartoons was censored by higher-ups. The cartoon at issue depicted tech and media billionaires paying obeisance and money to Donald Trump. The cartoon included portrayals of Mark Zuckerberg (META), Sam Altman (AI), Patrick Soon-Shiong (Los Angeles Times), and Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post. And, of course, Disney, which settled with Trump for $15 million rather than defend George Stephanopoulos in court. Each has given Trump $1 million or more to underwrite his inauguration. If Telnaes had waited a day, she would have added Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, to her list of suck-ups and sycophants.

The motto of the Washington Post is: “Democracy dies in darkness.” Conservative (but anti-Trump) lawyer George Conway wrote on BlueSky:

I guess the new slogan for the Washington Post ought to be:

“Newspapers die in cowardice.”

Ann Telnaes’ resignation is an act of courage that should inspire all of us to stand by our principles.

Telnaes wrote about her decision to resign on her Substack blog:

I’ve worked for the Washington Post since 2008 as an editorial cartoonist. I have had editorial feedback and productive conversations—and some differences—about cartoons I have submitted for publication, but in all that time I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at. Until now.

The cartoon that was killed criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump. There have been multiple articles recently about these men with lucrative government contracts and an interest in eliminating regulations making their way to Mar-a-lago. The group in the cartoon included Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook & Meta founder and CEO, Sam Altman/AI CEO, Patrick Soon-Shiong/LA Times publisher, the Walt Disney Company/ABC News, and Jeff Bezos/Washington Post owner.

While it isn’t uncommon for editorial page editors to object to visual metaphors within a cartoon if it strikes that editor as unclear or isn’t correctly conveying the message intended by the cartoonist, such editorial criticism was not the case regarding this cartoon. To be clear, there have been instances where sketches have been rejected or revisions requested, but never because of the point of view inherent in the cartoon’s commentary. That’s a game changer…and dangerous for a free press.

(rough of cartoon killed)

Over the years I have watched my overseas colleagues risk their livelihoods and sometimes even their lives to expose injustices and hold their countries’ leaders accountable. As a member of the Advisory board for the Geneva based Freedom Cartoonists Foundation and a former board member of Cartoonists Rights, I believe that editorial cartoonists are vital for civic debate and have an essential role in journalism.

There will be people who say, “Hey, you work for a company and that company has the right to expect employees to adhere to what’s good for the company”. That’s true except we’re talking about news organizations that have public obligations and who are obliged to nurture a free press in a democracy. Owners of such press organizations are responsible for safeguarding that free press— and trying to get in the good graces of an autocrat-in-waiting will only result in undermining that free press.

As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable. For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job. So I have decided to leave the Post. I doubt my decision will cause much of a stir and that it will be dismissed because I’m just a cartoonist. But I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning, because as they say, “Democracy dies in darkness”.

Thank you for reading this.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Censorship, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Freedom of the Press, Media

Brian Stelter: The Rush to Judgment, As Usual, Was Wrong

By dianeravitch

January 2, 2025 //

Brian Stelter writes about the media for CNN. When CNN went through a reorganization a year or so ago, attempting to be “centrist” or appeal to the right, Brian was fired. He is actually very even-handed in his comments. After CNN’s shakeup failed, Brian was rehired and CNN again posts his “Reliable Sources” commentary in the media. Subscribe; it’s free.

He wrote this morning:

Within 24 hours of the Bourbon Street terror attack, reporters pieced together a relatively complete picture of the suspect. But a key early bit of misreporting confused the public – and possibly the president-elect. It’s a cautionary tale for everyone in the news industry as the new year begins.

Just after 10 a.m. Wednesday, Fox News reported that the suspect’s truck crossed the U.S. border in Eagle Pass, Texas “two days ago.” Some of Fox’s coverage explicitly said “the suspect” drove across the border, leading Fox viewers to believe that a foreigner might be responsible for the deadly carnage.

Evidently, Fox was misinformed by anonymous sources. The network walked it back within two hours and said the truck was in Eagle Pass nearly two months ago, not two days ago. And more importantly, the truck was being driven by someone else at the time, so the detail about the border was completely irrelevant and misleading.

But the damage was already done. President-elect Donald Trump, seemingly misinformed by Fox, issued a statement about “criminals coming in” from other countries. “Biden’s parting gift to America — migrant terrorists,” Donald Trump Jr.wrote, sharing the Fox claim. “Shut the border down!!!” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene exclaimed.

The president-elect ironically used the New Orleans attack to say that he was right and the “Fake News Media” was wrong about the threat posed by illegal immigration. If he had waited a couple hours to react, he would have learned that the suspect was a U.S. citizen and Army veteran.

“Some Republicans continued to beat the border drum well after Fox News retracted its initial report,” The Daily Beast’s Josh Fiallo wrote last night. This morning I’m still seeing people on social media share the misinfo.

A couple of takeaways: One, it’s incredibly difficult to claw back a bogus claim that people want to believe. And two, in a repeat of 2017-2020, it’s going to be crucial for reporters to scrutinize Trump’s sources of information, since his favorite sources have so often misled him in the past.

Stelter added, later in his post, a caution to the media:

I love what Kaitlan Collins told Semafor about 2024’s political surprises being “the ultimate reminder to never assume what the news is going to be.” As a reporter, “you should always operate with an open mind,” she said. “It’s easy, but risky, to think you know where a story is going.”

Categories Media

Journalist: “Farewell, Twitter! I’m Off to Bluer Skies!”

By dianeravitch

December 21, 2024 //

Ashton Pittman is the news editor of the Mississippi Free Press and a fine writer. I get my news about Mississippi by reading MFT, reported by people who live there. Pittman describes in this article why he debated whether to leave Twitter. When Musk bought Twitter, he knew it was going to be bad. He had spent years building up a following there and didn’t want to give it up. He investigated other social media platforms, but they weren’t right.

Then came the 2024 election, and Twitter turned into a political platform that favored Trump, where nasty trolls and bots created a toxic atmosphere.

Ashton joined BlueSky and very quickly gained a large number of followers close to what he (and the Mississippi Free Press) had had on Twitter.

He writes:

For a long time, it seemed like nothing was going to replace Twitter, even as it further devolved into a hellscape that seemed as if it were overrun by the trolls of 4chan, the neo-Nazis of Stormfront and the dullest AI bots Chat GPT ever powered. Twitter transformed into X, a place where racism, misogyny, homophobia and especially transphobia run rampant under the guise of “free speech,” but where using the word “cisgender” can get your account restrictedbecause Musk (who has described his very-much-alive transgender daughter as “dead”) considers it a slur.

I had really wanted one of the Twitter alternatives to take off, but one of the biggest impediments was the lack of buy-in from major journalists, publications, celebrities and other figures who could draw audiences away. A familiar pattern developed: People would leave X in hopes of joining another platform, then come back.

Then came the election. Twitter turned into a Trump propaganda site. And Ashton was done.

But you know what I really enjoy about BlueSky? It doesn’t pigeonhole me. On other platforms, particularly X, you choose one facet of yourself and that’s the following you get, and the algorithm recommends you based on that. On BlueSky, I get to be a Mississippi journalist whose news stories draw engagement from people who care about news, but I also get to be a film photographer whose posts about my black-and-white film adventures spark conversations, too. None of us is just one thing, no matter what some lousy algorithm thinks, and it’s affirming to be able to build communities around shared interests beyond just news and politics. Social media should be social, not anti-social….

My experience as a journalist on BlueSky has reminded me that my job is to provide good information to those who want it, not to argue with trolls and validate attention-seeking behavior from the worst people on the internet. My desire to reach a diverse audience does not have to entail subjecting myself to constant abuse. I am not obligated to stay on a platform where Nazi trolls with 1488 in their usernames and cartoon frogs as their profile images regularly hurl the word “fagg-t” at me and issue veiled threats. I do not have to entertain the endless stream of incels who think “soy boy” is some sort of profound insult. I do not have to accept being under the thumb of an algorithm that prioritizes crypto scams, AI bots and conspiracy theorists over my voice.

And you know what? You don’t either.

Some of the smarter people among us have said that BlueSky is an echo chamber. Well, right now, it’s a place where I hear the echoes of artists, writers, cinephiles, scientists and neighbors caring about their neighbors. And that’s a hell of a lot better than being trapped in a chamber that’s increasingly filled with the echoes of Adolf Hitler.

So farewell, Twitter. I’m off to bluer skies.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Education Reform, Extremism, Media, Mississippi, Musk, Elon

Maurice Cunningham: Why Does the Boston Globe Favor the Voices of Plutocrats?

By dianeravitch

December 21, 2024 //

Maurice Cunningham, a retired professor of political science, reviewed the Boston Globe’s bad habit of treating billionaire-funded groups as authoritative on education issues.

He wrote recently, as posted on the blog of the Network for Public Education:

Maurice Cunningham finds that looking at the Boston Globe tells us too much about the folks who think education is just to prepare children to become useful tools for business. Reposted with permission.

When I was a kid in the Sixties we’d occasionally hear stories about some poor Japanese soldier, abandoned on a Pacific island after WWII, finally being rescued while believing he was still fighting the war. That’s sort of where the Boston Globe’s post-MCAS coverage is. But as a lesson in the biased media approach to interest group coverage, it is a real education.

The latest is by reporter Mandy McLaren, With no more MCAS requirement, graduation standards vary widely among state’s largest districts. What interests me is the sources used in the story, which include a heavy presence of billionaire funded and tax deductible “non-profits” aka interest groups. That’s because non-profit, while it sounds eleemosynary ( I just wanted to use that word in a sentence) actually represents the policy preferences of the moneyed few; or as the media like to say the Massachusetts business community; or as I like to say: capital.

Let’s meet the Globe’s eleemosynary sources starting with “The risk moving forward, said Andrea Wolfe, president and CEO of MassInsight, a Boston-based education nonprofit.” Mass Insight’s donors include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Boston Foundation (you will remember them from The Globe Puffs Up Another Dubious “Science of Reading” Program) and Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund (also from Puffs Up).

Then there is “Erin Cooley, Massachusetts managing director for Democrats for Education Reform, a group that advocated against Question 2.” Don’t make me go through the Oligarch Party funding of Democrats for Education Reform again, but you can catch the gist at Democrats for Education Reform: Let’s Meet the Funders and How to Understand Democrats for Education Reform Using Two Quotes from Democrats for Education Reform.

Finally,

Erika Giampietro, executive director for the Massachusetts Alliance for Early College, said she hopes whatever path the state takes next focuses on the ‘competencies’ students graduate with, especially those that truly matter in the real world.”

“[Employers] are not saying, ‘I wish kids had taken two years of foreign language, four years of English and four years of math.’ They’re saying, ‘Yeah, kids aren’t coming with strong enough executive functioning and clear enough communication skills and showing up to work every day and realizing how important that is to be on time,‘” Giampietro said.

Funders include Gates, Boston Foundation, Fidelity Charitable Gift (also in Puffs Up).

Employers=business=capital. Ms. Giampietro offers the interest group frame: employers would like taxpayer paid employee training (while not increasing taxes). The focus is employers and not children. If you read enough of these stories, that comes through. Not that kids should be introduced to foreign cultures, discover a love of literature or art, or heaven forbid, question the prevailing structures of society. Such concerns are not the “the real world” issues of business.

The article did quote Max Page, president of Massachusetts Teachers Association. But when you also quote two superintendents who miss MCAS and three eleemosynary business group interests, well . . . does three from capital equal one from labor?

Money never sleeps. Follow the money.

“Imagine movie critics who either did not know, or did not care to know, that movies have producers, script writers, directors, financiers, or casting directors, and so based their reviews on the premise that it was the actors alone who created the storyline, dialogue and mise en scene, and that the most successful actors were those who best understood the audience. That is essentially how all politics is covered in 21st century America.”—Michael Podhorzer.

Network for Public Education

P.O. Box 227
New York, New York 10156
(646) 678-4477

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Education Industry, Ethics, Media, Propaganda

Margaret Sullivan: ABC News Should Not Have Settled with Trump for $15 Million

By dianeravitch

December 17, 2024 //

Margaret Sullivan, the last public ombudsman for The New York Times, wrote on her blog that ABC News was wrong to settle with Trump for $15 million for “defaming” him. On television, ABC’s George Stefanopolous said that Trump had been found liable for raping E. Jean Carroll. Trump said that was wrong and malicious because he had been found guilty of “sexual assault,” not rape.

She points out that when she was chief editor of The Buffalo News, the paper had a longstanding policy of fighting every claim of defamation or libel. They did so to discourage future lawsuits and send a message: we will vigorously oppose lawsuits. If you sue, prepare for a long battle.

Trump’s lawyers claimed that Stephanopoulos was wrong to say that Trump was found guilty of rape and that he had defamed Trump. ABC settled before trial and agreed to pay $15 million for the future Trump Presidential Library and $1 million for Trump’s legal fees.

Media experts were stunned. Not only did ABC abandon its First Amendment defense, but it abandoned a viable claim that Stephanopooulos was right to use the language he did.

Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the Carroll defamation case, said:

“The finding Ms. Carroll failed to prove she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the N.Y. Penal Law does not mean she failed to prove Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape’. Indeed, as the evidence at trial… makes clear, the jury found Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

By settling–and at such a hefty price–ABC has encouraged Trump and other politicians to continue to sue journalists and their employers.

Sullivan believes ABC might well have won if they continued to fight:

ABC News should never have caved. They might well have prevailed if they had hung in there. The legal bar is very high for libeling a public figure, and Trump is the ultimate public figure. Instead, this outcome encourages Trump in his attacks on the press — and he needs no encouragement.

As one law professor told the Times, what ABC News did was very unusual. News organizations generally don’t settle “because they fear the dangerous pattern of doing so and because they have the full weight of the First Amendment on their side.”

Why did ABC News throw in the towel? It‘s hard to know for sure, but gets easier if you are aware that the news organizations is owned by Disney, a huge corporation with a lot of turf to protect. As the Times reported, the Disney executive who oversees ABC News had dinner with Trump’s top aide, Susan Wiles, just days before the settlement, as “part of a visit by several ABC News executives to Florida to meet with Mr. Trump’s transition team.”

Was this settlement, which includes ABC’s public expressions of regret, a simple case of kissing the ring? It sure looks that way. Trump has sworn to get revenge on his enemies and he values, above all, loyalty and kowtowing.

But loyalty and kowtowing isn’t the job of the press, which is supposed to represent the public in holding powerful people and institutions accountable.

After his victory, Trump threatened to sue the Des Moines Register for posting a poll before the election that showed Biden beating him in Iowa. He also threatened to sue Bob Woodward, “60 minutes,” and the Pulitzer Prizes. This is the mischief that ABC News unleashed.

Last night Trump’s lawyers sued the Des Moines Register for publishing Ann Seltzer’s poll. The implications are frightening. The media publishes polls frequently during campaigns. They may be right, they may be wrong. If they are wrong, will candidates sue them for “election interference”? How did Trump suffer any damages by publication of that poll? He won Iowa by 13 points.

Win or lose, Trump has a strategy: to strike fear in the hearts of every journalist who dares to write critically about him.

Be sure to read Jeff Tiedrich’s condemnation of ABC’s capitulation. He attributes the deal to Disney’s overriding principle: “Protect the mouse.”

Categories Elections, Ethics, Injustice, Media, Trump

Publisher of LA Times Will Use “Bias Meter” to Tell Both Sides of Stories

By dianeravitch

December 12, 2024 //

Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire publisher of the Los Angeles Times, recently revealed that the newspaper would employ a technology that will tell “both sides” of every story. Journalists are outraged by the implication that their stories are biased. After the publisher’s decision to prohibit an endorsement in the Presidential race, the chief editor of the editorial board resigned, followed by others.

At that time, the published defended

The New York Times reported:

Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of The Los Angeles Times, said on Thursday that he planned to introduce a “bias meter” next to the paper’s news and opinion coverage as part of his campaign to overhaul the publication.

Dr. Soon-Shiong, who in October quashed a planned presidential endorsement for Vice President Kamala Harris from The Los Angeles Times’s editorial board, said in an interview that aired on Scott Jennings’s podcast “Flyover Country” that he had begun to see his newspaper as “an echo chamber and not a trusted source.”

He previously said he planned to remake the paper’s editorial board and add more conservative voices. He has asked Mr. Jennings, a CNN political commentator and a Republican strategist, to join it.

Dr. Soon-Shiong, who bought The Times in 2018, said on the podcast that he had been working with a team to create the so-called bias meter using technology he had been building in his health care businesses.

On news and opinion articles, “you have a bias meter so somebody could understand, as a reader, that the source of the article has some level of bias,” he explained in the interview. “And what we need to do is not have what we call confirmation bias, and then that story automatically — the reader can press a button and get both sides of that exact same story based on that story, and then give comments.”

He said he planned to introduce the tool in January.

Dr. Soon-Shiong’s latest comments set off immediate pushback from the L.A. Times Guild, which represents journalists at the paper.

“Recently, the newspaper’s owner has publicly suggested his staff harbors bias, without offering evidence or examples,” the union’s leadership said in a statement on Thursday. The union said all Times staff members abided by ethics guidelines that call for “fairness, precision, transparency, vigilance against bias and an earnest search to understand all sides of an issue.”

In the comments that followed the article, many ridiculed the idea of the “bias meter.” One imagined an article that reported on an earthquake rated 9.5, which said that people feared that the earthquake would cause massive destruction of lives and property; those seeking a different perspective would press the bias meter to read an article saying that most people were not afraid of a 9.5 earthquake and say it’s no big deal.

Categories Bias, Ethics, Freedom of the Press, Los Angeles, Media

People Are Fleeing Twitter, Choosing BlueSky. I Am Too!

By dianeravitch

November 25, 2024 //

The day after the election, I opened an account at social media site BlueSky. I intend to abandon my Twitter account in a few weeks. I had over 140,000 followers on Twitter, but I don’t know how many are bots. On BlueSky, I have picked up 2,000 followers and expect to see the number rise. I know that every one of them is a real person.

I’m not the only one. According to the New York Times, one million people joined BlueSky since the election. Twitter claims 50 million in the U.S., over 500 million worldwide. BlueSky, founded by Jack Dorsey, the Twitter pioneer, has 14.7 million.

BlueSky is growing now at the rate of 1 million new accounts daily.

The numbers go up every hour, as people seek a site that moderates content.

Elon Musk has changed Twitter for the worse. It’s overloaded with ads for Trump merch. His own tweets are ads for Trump. He has restored the accounts of Nazis, anti-vaxxers, and haters. Misinformation is rampant, especially since he fired all the content moderation group. “Let hatred and lies prevail” seems to be the Twitter motto.

I am now posting at BlueSky.

BlueSky is a welcoming community. The tone is friendly. Commenters are not angry. No nazis, racists, or misogynists. There are lots of historians, journalists, academics, familiar names.

People offer advice about how to navigate the site.

It has good vibes.

I don’t want to be part of Elon Musk’s world. I had to leave.

Categories Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Media, Trump

Dan Rather: Is Jeff Bezos Killing the Washington Post?