Friday News: Publishing and politics
Publishing Newscensorship / election / fake news / news / politics / publishing / reddit / social media9 Comments
Book Publishers Scramble to Make Sense of Trump’s Rise to Victory – We talk a lot about what direction publishers are taking, especially traditional publishers, and for the next months, at least, one significant focus may be politics. This isn’t surprising, of course, because commercial publishers are always engaged in capitalizing on a popular trend or issue. And elections are big business, even for publishers. Still, the recent U.S. presidential election was hardly routine, and it’s going to be interesting to see what is published and what sells in its aftermath.
“People are curious, and people are baffled, and from the point of view of a publisher that’s both an opportunity and a hurdle, because you need to find a way to explain what happened,” said Peter Osnos, founder of the publishing imprint PublicAffairs, who has worked on books by Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. “The big question is who will emerge with something that’s compelling, original, revelatory and provocative.” – New York Times
Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say – I personally think the mainstream U.S. media had a huge influence on the election results, but this article is interesting because it takes another look at the way social media and has changed the way people consume information, and in particular the way significant numbers of people can easily be manipulated into believing false news stories, and the often blurred lines between news and propaganda. Combined with nationalistic arrogance, the combination can be potent and even more problematic when you think about how publishing is now revving up to profit off the current political landscape.
Two teams of independent researchers found that the Russians exploited American-made technology platforms to attack U.S. democracy at a particularly vulnerable moment, as an insurgent candidate harnessed a wide range of grievances to claim the White House. The sophistication of the Russian tactics may complicate efforts by Facebook and Google to crack down on “fake news,” as they have vowed to do after widespread complaints about the problem. . . .
Putin, a former KGB officer, announced his desire to “break the Anglo-Saxon monopoly on the global information streams” during a 2013 visit to the broadcast center for RT, formerly known as Russia Today.
“For them, it’s actually a real war, an ideological war, this clash between two systems,” said Sufian Zhemukhov, a former Russian journalist conducting research at GWU. “In their minds, they’re just trying to do what the West does to Russia.” – Washington Post
New book shows how ‘The Daily Show’ redefined the news – As much as I love The Daily Show, should we really be celebrating the idea that a stand up comic is credited with transforming mainstream news, even becoming a “primary news source” for people? I know that many people do not see a strong link between writing and publishing books and politics, but when readers (audiences) are consuming information in a variety of ways, that cannot help but have an effect on what they want to read, how they read, and how they interpret what they read. And that’s something that needs thoughtful consideration and discussion.
It was Jon Stewart who took a basic-cable comedy, half-hour spoof of the news and turned it into a progressive, powerful and highly influential voice in American culture. The show won 23 Emmys during his tenure, was voted one of Time magazine’s 100 best TV shows of all time, and, for many viewers, became a primary news source. . . .
But The Daily Show (The Book) does deftly recount the way Stewart’s sensibilities, political realities (and unrealities), defining events like 9/11, advances in technology and changes in the television news landscape moved the show from spectator to player. And Stewart from “a struggling standup comic who was one strike away from getting kicked out of show business to the host of one of the smartest and most satirical shows of the era.” – USA Today
Reddit CEO in whole heap of trouble with users of popular Trump subreddit – Oh, this is rich. The CEO of Reddit edits “abusive” messages directed at him after a thread focused on particularly disgusting fake news story was shut down with the message “this community is banned.” Consistently at the center of an ongoing discussion about free speech and harassment, Reddit can reflect the best and the worst of online engagement. And as this story demonstrates, it’s easiest to defend free speech when the worst of it isn’t being directed at you.
The CEO apparently decided he wasn’t going to take matters lying down. On Thursday afternoon, a moderator for “r/The Donald” alerted users to the fact their posts had been changed. All the abusive posts directed at Huffman had allegedly been modified to include the names of the moderators of the Trump forum, bouncing the expletives back to them.
The moderator turned out to be correct. Huffman replied within the same thread admitting that he had, in fact, changed the vitriolic messages. Expressing regret for his behavior, Huffman stated the following in his comment: “As much as we try to maintain a good relationship with you all, it does get old getting called a pedophile constantly. As the CEO, I shouldn’t play such games, and it’s all fixed now. Our community team is pretty pissed at me, so I most assuredly won’t do this again.” – Digital Trends
That Washington Post article is unbelievably bad. When a bunch of fake news purveyors in Macedonia spew out pro-Trump articles it’s Facebook and Google’s fault, but when Russian fake news people do it, it’s Putin’s? They have shown no evidence that Putin is behind this propaganda. Sure, RT and Sputnik amplified the reach, but US news sites have done the same thing. Do we call that part of a vast conspiracy? Wait, don’t answer that.
The “researchers” are (a) a trio of guys connected with a right-wing, hawkish think-tank who don’t give their scholarly bona fides anywhere I can find (they say where they’ve worked but not what their degrees are in); and (b) a group of *anonymous* people who have compiled a blacklist which includes legitimate dissenting political activists. Never mind that no one, including the real experts they cite, makes concrete links between the propaganda being disseminated and actions people have taken (besides liking and sharing) as a result of being exposed to this propaganda.
Nice work, WaPo. We can only hope that dumping this piece during the Thanksgiving news desert, when most people aren’t paying attention, will confine its effects to the hardcore Twitterati. I look forward to the no-doubt-forthcoming editor’s note.
@Sunita: I wanted to add: the problem isn’t that the research quoted in the Post isn’t done by card-carrying PhDs, it’s that we have no idea how they conducted their research. I’ve looked at both sites and there’s nothing in the original writeups that explains or links to an explanation, but there are plenty of weasel words that qualify their OTT conclusions. These just don’t pass the smell test.
@Sunita: I read a lot of it as a defensive “we aren’t to blame for the election results” statement on the part of the Washington Post (and mainstream media in general). And I think we’re going to see a lot more of it, not only from publishers looking to cash in, but also from myriad media sites who are even now using the term “fake news” all over the damn place. Because there’s NOTHING propagandistic or imperialistic about the U.S. media!
@Janet: That would be fine on the editorial page, or even (heaven help us) in PostEverything or Morning Mix, neither of which seem to be held to any obvious journalistic standards. But this article is in the Business section and is written by one of their regular beat reporters. As such it is supposed to conform to standard sourcing and evidence requirements, both of which it fails (this is not how the two-source rule is supposed to work).
@Sunita: I’m not in any way disagreeing with your comments, Sunita. In fact, one of the reasons I posted all of these items together is because I think they all represent (albeit in different ways) troubling aspects of information media (from publishing to journalism to user-driven social media platforms).
“If your mother says she loves you, check it out,” is truer today than ever. The astonishing lack of critical thinking, of intellectual curiosity, saddens/angers me. I don’t agree with everything my husband says, sometimes I don’t even agree with everything *I* say. So how on earth could I agree with or believe everything any fake or legitimate media outlet or political party says, unless I’d surrendered my ability to think and reason for myself?
Even my beloved PBS Newshour doesn’t always ask the most obvious follow-up question during an interview or report, while I’m sitting on the couch yelling, “Wait a minute, that doesn’t make sense.” The readers on network and cable news are far worse; it’s clear they’ve never even seen the stories they’re taking off the teleprompter prior to the words leaving their lips.
What’s my point? I wish I knew. Maybe I hope we all will think and question more instead of swallowing whole any story simply because it supports our world view. Maybe I’m just exhausted by the last many months of any kind of news. At least The Daily Show makes me laugh. /rant
Robin, they definitely do that. I think the WaPo one set me off because it is getting harder and harder to separate the real reporting from everything else. I so agree with Darlynne’s rant on this (and it’s not really a rant, Darlynne, just telling the truth). How can we separate factual reporting from opinion, wheat from chaff, propaganda from dissent, if everything starts to blend together?
I understand how hard it is for media to stay afloat in a world where classified ads are gone and online ad systems are hard to control, let alone profit from. And I really want to support them. But stuff like the WaPo story makes me wonder why I am even bothering to try. Of course I will keep going but damn, they are making it difficult.
@Sunita: The ode to John Stewart is the one that pushed me over the edge, but they are all problematic.
It’s pretty ironic that Jon Stewart pushes you over the edge but you actually pushed a false news story and never walked it back. Cognitive dissonance, anyone? Perhaps you should expand your news sources if you accept something that other journalists immediately called out as crap, even as other corporate media sources promoted it.
We, in general, should be reading every piece of “news” and asking ourselves about the source and whose interests it serves instead of simply accepting something that already reinforces our own world view.
Jon Stewart may have been fake news but he showed cognitive dissonance on both sides and got serious about a number of topics. Hell, Stephen Colbert, his protege, showed us in real time with tons of humor about how politics really worked. The corporate media will NEVER “show” us that as their job really is to support the status quos narrative in general,.
I certainly have my own biases which I must try to account for but I don’t promote pieces which are obviously smear campaigns. Now that more information is available on a wider basis, Please update your readership with a newer piece.
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2016/11/washington-posts-propaganda-russian-propaganda.html
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/washington-post-blacklist-story-is-shameful-disgusting-w452543
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/26/washington-post-disgracefully-promotes-a-mccarthyite-blacklist-from-a-new-hidden-and-very-shady-group/
etc. etc. etc. You can google more article or simply look at twitter to find out more.