The Kansas City Defender is a nonprofit news site for young Black audiences across the Midwest
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Thursday, August 11, 2022
We are taking a brief summer break. The next issue of our newsletter will go out on August 22.
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The Kansas City Defender is a nonprofit news site for young Black audiences across the Midwest“We do advocate against the racist function of policing, [but] we focus equally on being present in the community, doing poetry nights, basketball park takeovers, and other community-building, life-affirming activities.” By James Anderson. |
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Cable news has a much bigger effect on America’s polarization than social media, study finds“Compared to online audiences, partisan TV news consumers tend not to stray too far from their narrow sets of preferred news sources.” By Homa Hosseinmardi. |
What We’re Reading
Local News Initiative / Penny Abernathy
A tale of two local news sites →
“If digital-only operations are to fill the gap in existing news deserts, then funders and entrepreneurs must begin to address the disparity between the resources available to urban sites compared to those in smaller suburban and rural communities, as well as traditionally underserved urban neighborhoods.”
Vanity Fair / Charlotte Klein
“Call it a self-imposed term limit”: Why media critic Margaret Sullivan is leaving The Washington Post →
“I’m encouraged one day, despairing the next.”
The Washington Post / Tim Starks and Aaron Schaffer
For ransomware gangs, journalists are another tool of the trade →
“A problem that a lot of reporters have privately wrestled with is, how do you report this, which is important, without acting as a PR person for the ransomware groups?”
The Berkshire Eagle / Greta Jochem
In search of 90 miles of news, a reporter hits the Appalachian Trail →
“I'm going to explore miles and miles of the Berkshires that are rarely traveled by local journalists. And I love being outside.”
Los Angeles Times / Kate Linthicum
“Not even Orwell could have dreamed up a country like this”: Journalists forced to flee Nicaragua en masse →
“With virtually no independent media left inside the country and foreign reporters banned from entering, Nicaragua has become ‘an information black hole,’ said Natalie Southwick of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Government propaganda is all that remains.”
The Guardian / Wilfred Chan
Right-wing media embraces AIDS-era homophobia in monkeypox coverage →
“I’m about killing the alligator closest to the boat. And right now that means getting information to men who have sex with men about how to avoid this.”
CNET / Oscar Gonzalez
Americans see misleading info daily in search results. So Google is making changes →
“Google Search can now understand what is the consensus on a certain query by checking across other sources deemed to be high-quality. Search can also now detect some false premises, the company said.”
The Verge / James Vincent
Facebook begins testing default end-to-end encryption on Messenger →
“Facebook has been criticized for not making [end-to-end encryption] default on Messenger, especially in the wake of the reversal of Roe v. Wade in the United States, where digital footprints like app chats will be used as evidence in prosecuting newly criminalized abortions.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Jon Allsop
The maddening coverage of the Mar-a-Lago search →
“There remains a whole lot that we don't know about the search, including very basic facts like what the searchers were looking for — and critics of the coverage are, I think, ultimately right to say that the resulting vacuum has been filled with a lot of noise that has been unhelpful at best, destructive at worst.”
Politico / Zoya Sheftalovich and Camille Gijs
Russian anti-war protest journalist Marina Ovsyannikova faces criminal charges →
“Ovsyannikova came to international attention in March, when she crashed the set of Russia's top evening newscast Vremya wearing a necklace in the colors of the Ukrainian and Russian flags, and brandishing an anti-war poster.”
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