Category Archives: Media

Can Anna Wintour survive fashion’s reckoning with racism?

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While Condé Nast has said the Vogue editor-in-chief will not be stepping down, turmoil has been mounting as employees past and present speak out

For decades she has stood astride the fashion industry, micro-managing the look and content of US Vogue, marshaling a significant part of the global fashion industry to her worldview, and presiding over a annual gala which, at $25,000 a head, paying guests and favored courtiers mounted lavishly-carpeted steps of Metropolitan Museum of Art to symbolically kiss the ring.

But for Anna Wintour this has been her annus horribilis. New York fashion week has been written off, the Met Gala has been cancelled, magazine advertising revenues are plummeting and there are scarcely any frocks to shoot since the coronavirus barged its way into the European fashion shows in February.

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CMA to look into Facebook’s purchase of gif search engine

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Watchdog fears that social media giant’s takeover of Giphy may reduce competition

The UK’s competition regulator has opened an investigation into the proposed $400m (£320m) takeover of gif search engine Giphy by Facebook amid fears that the acquisition may reduce competition in the UK.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is inviting comments about Facebook’s purchase of a company that currently provides gif search across many of the social network’s competitors, including Twitter and the messaging service Signal.

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Apple removes two podcast apps from China store after censorship demands

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Pocket Casts says it refuses to restrict its content at request of Chinese authorities

Apple has removed two podcast apps from its Chinese app store, following government pressure to censor content.

Pocket Casts and Castro were both pulled from distribution in China after the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) demanded that the apps stop allowing content that breached the country’s restrictive speech laws.

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JK Rowling: UK domestic abuse adviser writes to Sun editor

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Interview with author’s first husband unacceptable, says abuse commissioner

The government’s lead adviser on domestic abuse has written to the editor of the Sun to condemn the newspaper’s decision to publish a front page interview with JK Rowling’s first husband, under the headline: “I slapped JK and I’m not sorry.”

In the letter seen by the Guardian, Nicole Jacobs, the independent domestic abuse commissioner, said it was “unacceptable that the Sun has chosen to repeat and magnify the voice of someone who openly admits to violence against a partner”.

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Twitter aims to limit people sharing articles they have not read

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Test to promote informed discussion will ask users if they want to retweet unread links

Twitter is trying to stop people from sharing articles they have not read, in an experiment the company hopes will “promote informed discussion” on social media.

In the test, pushed to some users on Android devices, the company is introducing a prompt asking people if they really want to retweet a link that they have not tapped on.

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Fox News host talks race by calling out the real enemy: Sesame Street’s Elmo

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In response to a family-oriented CNN town hall on racism Tucker Carlson launched an attack on the much-loved furry red muppet

The rightwing Fox News host Tucker Carlson launched an unprecedented attack on the beloved Sesame Street puppet Elmo on Tuesday night, after Elmo and his father, Louie, discussed racism in a one-off town hall episode on rival channel CNN.

Related: Ocasio-Cortez condemns 'white supremacist sympathizer' Tucker Carlson

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EU says China behind ‘huge wave’ of Covid-19 disinformation

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Brussels shifts position by accusing Beijing for first time of running false campaigns

China has been accused by Brussels of running disinformation campaigns inside the European Union, as the bloc set out a plan to tackle a “huge wave” of false facts about the coronavirus pandemic. 

The European commission said Russia and China were running “targeted influence operations and disinformation campaigns in the EU, its neighbourhood, and globally”. While the charge against Russia has been levelled on many occasions, this is the first time the EU executive has publicly named China as a source of disinformation. 

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Bon Appétit editor Adam Rapoport resigns over ‘brown face’ photo

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Several prominent staff members had spoken out about the photograph and the company’s internal culture

Adam Rapoport, the editor in chief of a popular US food magazine, Bon Appétit, has announced his resignation after a 2003 photograph of him dressed in “brown face” surfaced on social media.

In a statement posted on Instagram, Rapoport said he was stepping down “to reflect on the work that I need to do as a human being and to allow Bon Appétit to get to a better place”.

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Trump takes note as the far right lobbies for violent crackdown on peaceful protests

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Republican politicians, media personalities and rightwing activists suggest a show of force to George Floyd protesters – and the result could be severe

As protests over the police killing of George Floyd continue across the US, a slew of influential rightwing figures have been urging an ever more violent crackdown on the demonstrations – and it appears Donald Trump is listening.

Republican politicians, media personalities and rightwing activists have floated ideas including deploying specific units of the military, while one Republican candidate for Congress has even suggested she will shoot protesters.

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New York Times says senator Tom Cotton’s op-ed did not meet editorial standards

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Newspaper drops initial defence of ‘Send in the troops’ opinion piece that called for Donald Trump to use military against protesters

The New York Times has issued a mea culpa over the paper’s decision to publish an op-ed by the Republican senator Tom Cotton entitled: “Send in the troops”.

The decision to run the piece, which advocated for the deployment of the military against protesters rallying against police brutality toward black Americans, drew widespread criticism. Dozens of Times journalists voiced their opposition, noting that inciting a heavy-handed response to the protests put black journalists, and people of color more broadly, in danger.

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Facebook deactivates accounts of Tunisian political bloggers and activists

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Several accounts reactivated after protests with social media giant blaming ‘technical error’

The Facebook accounts of several high-profile bloggers and activists in Tunisia were among those deactivated without warning over the weekend.

Up to 60 accounts are understood to have been deactivated, including that of journalist and political commentator Haythem El Mekki.

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New York Times under fire over op-ed urging Trump to ‘send in the troops’

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Decision to run opinion piece from Republican senator Tom Cotton sparks criticism from staff who say it puts people in danger

The New York Times’ decision to run an op-ed from the Republican senator Tom Cotton titled “Send in the troops” is drawing widespread criticism, including from Times staff.

In the piece, Cotton called for the use of US military troops to quell civil unrest, and indicated the president would be justified in doing so under the Insurrection Act of 1807.

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Embarrassing teenage posts on Facebook? Now you can delete them

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Firm that said privacy no longer a ‘social norm’ rolls out tool to delete or archive

Facebook users no longer need to worry about their teenage posts coming back to haunt them in later life, thanks to a new tool for deleting hundreds or thousands of posts at once.

The “manage activity” feature, available now on Facebook’s mobile apps, lets users search for and remove posts from a particular time, mentioning a particular person, or within a range of dates. 

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Yemeni journalist who backed independence for south is shot dead

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Nabil Hasan al-Quaety, who worked for AFP among others, targeted in his car in Aden

A Yemeni journalist has been shot dead in the southern city of Aden in an incident that is likely to inflame tensions between the government and secessionists seeking independence for the south. 

Nabil Hasan al-Quaety, a 34-year-old photographer and video journalist who worked for news organisations including Agence France-Presse, was shot in his car shortly after leaving his home on Tuesday morning. 

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Mark Zuckerberg criticised by civil rights leaders over Donald Trump Facebook post

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Activists say Facebook boss’s decision to leave ‘shooting threat’ up sets dangerous precedent

Civil rights leaders have criticised Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to take no action against a Facebook post from Donald Trump appearing to threaten to start shooting “looters”, after a Monday night meeting with the company’s executives ended in acrimony.

“We are disappointed and stunned by Mark’s incomprehensible explanations for allowing the Trump posts to remain up,” Vanita Gupta, Sherrilyn Ifill and Rashad Robison said in a statement. “He did not demonstrate understanding of historic or modern-day voter suppression and he refuses to acknowledge how Facebook is facilitating Trump’s call for violence against protesters.

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Peru: at least 20 journalists died from Covid-19 as they covered pandemic

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Country is Latin America’s second worst-hit with more than 164,000 coronavirus cases and 4,500 deaths

At least 20 journalists have died from Covid-19 in Peru as reporters, photographers and camera operators raced to cover the pandemic’s spread through the country, often without protective equipment.

The number throws into sharp relief the risks and precarious work conditions which face journalists covering the global pandemic in the Andean country, which, after Brazil is Latin America’s worst-hit with more than 164,000 Covid-19 cases and 4,500 deaths.

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Facebook employees hold virtual walkout over Mark Zuckerberg’s refusal to act against Trump

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  • Workers dissatisfied with decision to not remove the president’s post
  • An oversight board member is involved in a racist speech controversy

Facebook employees are staging a rebellion over Mark Zuckerberg’s refusal to act against Donald Trump, expressing their dissatisfaction with their boss on social media in a rare public display of dissent and, in some cases, staging a “virtual” walkout.

Disagreement came from employees at all levels of the company, including some senior staff. Particular criticism was levelled at Zuckerberg’s personal decision to leave up the Facebook version of a tweet sent by Trump in which the president appeared to encourage police to shoot rioters. By contrast, Twitter hid the message behind a warning.

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Kylie Jenner in row with Forbes over billionaire status

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Kardashian family member reacts angrily to magazine’s claim she spun ‘a web of lies’

A row has broken out between one of the world’s leading business magazines and the youngest member of reality TV’s most famous family over the value of her cosmetics company.

Forbes magazine has accused Kylie Jenner, the youngest half-sister of Kim Kardashian West, of spinning a “web of lies” to inflate the size and success of her business. It claimed her family went to unusual lengths to present its youngest adult member as being richer than she was.

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Microsoft sacks journalists to replace them with robots

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Users of the homepages of the MSN website and Edge browser will now see news stories generated by AI

Dozens of journalists have been sacked after Microsoft decided to replace them with artificial intelligence software.

Staff who maintain the news homepages on Microsoft’s MSN website and its Edge browser – used by millions of Britons every day – have been told that they will be no longer be required because robots can now do their jobs.

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Facebook declines to take action against Trump statements

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Twitter responded to the president’s post, which suggested violence against protesters, by hiding it behind a warning label

As Twitter for the second time in a single week took unprecedented action against a tweet by Donald Trump, Facebook declined to take any enforcement action against the president’s statements.

Trump’s threatening statement on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram on Thursday night, “Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” echoed a racist 1960s police chief known for ordering patrols of black neighborhoods with shotguns and dogs. It was widely interpreted as a threat and potential incitement to violence against residents of the Twin Cities who have erupted in protest against the alleged police killing of George Floyd, a black man who begged for his life as a white police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes.

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