Category Archives: Media

Ask Philippa: meet the Observer’s brilliant new agony aunt

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As psychotherapist and author Philippa Perry becomes our new agony aunt, she reveals why helping you with your worries will help us all. Plus, a special welcome from Jay Rayner

John Dunton founded the Athenian Mercury in the 1690s. A paper that consisted of readers’ questions and the answers. His idea was that readers could send in dilemmas to be answered by a panel of experts, the Athenian Society. But his great innovation was that they could do so anonymously and this has remained a feature of problem pages ever since. Poor old Dunton could have done with some advice himself, because he ended his days in poverty as he was a better innovator than he was a business person. He blamed his woes on other people rather than taking responsibility for his own failings. I think an agony aunt today might have spotted that for him and possibly saved him from destitution.

His panel of experts, depicted as 12 learned men with him in the centre in an engraving at the top of the pages, were largely fictitious. It was just Dunton and a couple of mates who went through all the letters in a coffee shop.

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‘We have more in common than what separates us’: refugee stories, told by refugees

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In One Thousand Dreams, award-winning photographer Robin Hammond hands the camera to refugees. Often reduced by the media’s toxic or well-meaning narratives, the portraits and interviews capture a different and more complex tale

Robin Hammond has spent two decades crisscrossing the developing world and telling other people’s stories. From photographing the Rohingya forced out of Myanmar and rape survivors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to documenting the lives of people in countries where their sexuality is illegal, his work has earned him award after award.

But for his latest project the photographer has embarked on a paradigm shift: to remove himself – and others like him – from the process entirely. Instead, as part of an in-depth exploration of the refugee experience in Europe, the stories of those featured are told by those who, arguably, know them best: other refugees.

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Hongkongers queue to buy Apple Daily copies after editor-in-chief arrested

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Public outpouring of support for tabloid after raid on offices by national security police

Hongkongers queued at city news stands before dawn on Friday to buy the latest edition of the Apple Daily newspaper, a day after national security police arrested its editor-in-chief and four other directors.

On Thursday morning hundreds of officers from the Hong Kong police national security department raided the homes of the employees, including editor-in-chef Ryan Law, and the Apple Daily newsroom for the second time in less than a year. It froze millions of dollars in company assets.

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Two journalists killed in Mexico, meaning three dead so far this year

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Gustavo Sánchez Cabrera shot dead Thursday, and Enrique Garcia killed Wednesday, apparently during work as ride-hail driver

Prosecutors in southern Mexico said reporter Gustavo Sánchez Cabrera was shot to death Thursday, and another journalist was killed just west of Mexico City, bring to three the number killed so far this year in the country. Two other reporters have disappeared.

The prosecutor’s office in the southern state of Oaxaca said Sánchez Cabrera was riding a motorcycle with another person on a rural road when gunmen opened fire on them.

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‘Worst of times’: Hong Kong media defiant amid police crackdown

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Apple Daily hits back after executives arrested in second raid on pro-democracy paper’s newsroom

Apple Daily’s journalism has ruffled feathers since its establishment in 1995. A populist Hong Kong tabloid owned by Jimmy Lai, a pro-Trump media mogul and now jailed activist, the paper is fond of sensational crime stories, celebrity gossip, and investigations into government scandals and corruption. It’s a vocal supporter of the pro-democracy movement, a thorn in the side of police, and has become a symbol of resistance against Hong Kong’s crackdown.

Hong Kong’s police commissioner has accused it of creating hatred. Pro-Beijing media have called for it to be shut down. Lai has said the paper is on the right side of history.

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Brenda Myers-Powell: she was pimped out, left for dead – then survived to fight for other girls

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As a teenager, she became a prostitute on the streets of Chicago. When a customer attacked her, she vowed to escape, dedicating her life to women’s safety and happiness

Nobody can tell Brenda Myers-Powell’s story better than Brenda herself. It’s what she has been doing since escaping 25 years of abuse and sexual exploitation to transform herself into a beacon of hope and compassion for women in desperate circumstances.

Now 63, she is the co-founder of the Dreamcatcher Foundation, a US-based non-profit set up in 2008 to fight human-trafficking in the Chicago area, and the vivacious, multiple wig-sporting star of an acclaimed 2015 documentary about her work, also called Dreamcatcher. In late June, her memoir, Leaving Breezy Street, will be published in the UK, and a film adaption is already on the cards.

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Hong Kong police arrest editor of Apple Daily newspaper – video

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Ryan Law, the editor-in-chief of Apple Daily, has been arrested along with four other directors of the pro-democracy newspaper on suspicion of collusion with a foreign country or 'external elements' to endanger national security. The newspaper's owner, Jimmy Lai, is serving a jail sentence on charges relating to pro-democracy protests in 2019

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Hong Kong police arrest editor-in-chief of Apple Daily newspaper in morning raids

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Ryan Law among five directors detained under national security legislation imposed by Beijing

Hong Kong national security police have arrested the editor-in-chief and four other directors of the Apple Daily newspaper in early morning raids involving more than 100 officers, in the latest crackdown on the media.

The police force’s national security department said the five directors had been arrested on suspicion of collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security. All were arrested at their homes, at around 7am.

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Cotton plantations and non-consensual kisses: how Disney became embroiled in the culture wars

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The company has been addressing its historical racism and sexism, adding disclaimers to films and altering theme park rides. But these moves have stirred contempt as well as approval

Very little ammunition is required for a culture war these days, so long as your troops are primed to mobilise at the drop of a blog. Julie Tremaine and Katie Dowd, two writers for the online newspaper SFGate, discovered this last month. Their review of the revamped Snow White ride at Disneyland was generally positive, but queried a new scene showing the prince giving Snow White the all-important “true love’s kiss”.

“A kiss he gives to her without her consent, while she’s asleep, which cannot possibly be true love if only one person knows it’s happening,” they wrote. “It’s hard to understand why the Disneyland of 2021 would choose to add a scene with such old-fashioned ideas of what a man is allowed to do to a woman.”

Matters escalated quickly and predictably. Within 24 hours, the review was reported across Twitter and conservative media. Fox News ran 13 segments on the story in one day: “Cancel culture going after Snow White”; “The woke movement taking aim at Disneyland”, etc. Senator John Kennedy was brought on to express his disdain: “We are so screwed … I don’t know where these jackaloons come up with this stuff.” The UK’s Sun chimed in: “Snow White may be CANCELED” [sic]. As did Piers Morgan in the Daily Mail: “Leave Snow White’s Prince alone, you insufferable woke brats.” Then Fox News reported on that: “Piers Morgan slams consent criticism over revamped Snow White ride.” And so forth. All of them triggered by a single paragraph in an online review.

Disney increasingly finds itself caught in the crossfire of these skirmishes. Understandably, to some extent, since it is the biggest target. Already a byword for family entertainment, Disney is now the dominant purveyor of popular culture following its gradual acquisitions of Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, Avatar, Alien, The Muppets, The Simpsons and numerous other household-name properties. But having successfully captured entertainment’s centre ground, Disney now finds itself under attack on both flanks. From one side, it is criticised for its old-fashioned and bigoted legacy; from the other, it is criticised for being too “woke”. What’s an unprecedentedly powerful media corporation to do?

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‘It is obscene’: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie pens blistering essay against social media sanctimony

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The novelist describes helping two writers who went on to insult her online, and condemns era of ‘angels jostling to out-angel one another’

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has written a detailed essay about the conduct of young people on social media “who are choking on sanctimony and lacking in compassion”, who she says are part of a generation “so terrified of having the wrong opinions that they have robbed themselves of the opportunity to think and to learn and to grow”.

Titled It Is Obscene, the essay was published by the Nigerian novelist and feminist on her website on Tuesday night. It attracted so much attention that her website temporarily crashed.

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My husband’s death inspired It’s a Sin scene, says Russell T Davies

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In new Guardian podcast, TV dramatist tells Grace Dent about writing Colin’s final hours

Russell T Davies, the writer of It’s a Sin, the Channel 4 drama about the HIV/Aids epidemic in the late 1980s, has revealed that the death of Colin, one of show’s characters, was partly based on the death of his partner.

Speaking to the food writer Grace Dent on a new Guardian podcast, Comfort Eating, which launches on Tuesday, Davies said he had drawn on the experience of watching his husband, Andrew Smith, die from brain cancer in 2018 to write the scenes featuring Colin’s death.

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Rupert Murdoch writes down value of Sun newspapers to zero

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Move follows £200m loss caused by Covid-19 pandemic and one-off charges related to phone hacking

Rupert Murdoch has written down the value of the Sun newspapers to zero as the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic helped to fuel a £200m loss at his flagship tabloid titles.

Advertising and sales revenues at the Sun and the Sun on Sunday plummeted, with turnover falling by 23% from £419.9m to £324m in the year to the end of June 2020.

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Ruben Sergeyev, longtime Guardian fixer in Moscow, dies at 65

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Former colleagues remember ‘intelligent, playful, constantly curious’ news assistant and friend

Ruben Sergeyev, a longtime consultant and friend to Guardian correspondents in Moscow from the Gorbachev era through to the Putin years, has died of Covid-19 at the age of 65.

He died on Wednesday after being admitted to hospital in Moscow. Sergeyev worked from 1988 until 2014 as a news assistant, fixer, and all-round explainer of Russia during a time of rapid change. He helped a succession of bureau chiefs including Jonathan Steele, David Hearst, James Meek and Miriam Elder.

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Half of adults in UK watched porn during pandemic, says Ofcom

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Research shows PornHub has bigger audience than BBC News – and people increasingly live lives online

Half the adult population of the UK watched online pornography during the pandemic, according to a projection by Ofcom which lays bare the activities of the 26 million individuals who view adult material.

By far the most popular pornography site was PornHub, which was visited by 50% of all males and 16% of all females in the UK in September 2020 – giving the site a far larger audience than mainstream television channels such as Sky One, ITV4 and BBC News.

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Biden accused of U-turn over Egypt’s human rights abuses

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Critics say US president’s realpolitik ignores Sisi regime’s ‘hostage-taking tactics’ against dissidents

“It’s a hostage negotiation and it has been all along,” said Sherif Mansour, describing the arrest of his cousin Reda Abdel-Rahman by Egyptian security forces last August as an attempt to intimidate Mansour into silence.

Abdel-Rahman has been imprisoned without trial for nine months. Mansour, an outspoken human rights advocate in Washington with the Committee to Protect Journalists, has since learned that he and his father are listed on the same charge sheet, all accused of joining a terrorist group and spreading “false news”.

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Sinéad O’Connor retracts retirement announcement

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The Irish musician said her statement, made on 5 June, was a ‘kneejerk reaction’ against the UK and Irish media’s ‘constant abuse and invalidation’ of her mental health

Sinéad O’Connor has retracted her announcement, made over the weekend, that she would retire from music and live performance.

In a new statement posted to Twitter, the Irish musician explained to fans that she had felt “badly triggered” by a series of interviews regarding her new memoir, Rememberings, in which she writes of surviving physical and psychological abuse.

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Massive internet outage hits websites including Amazon, gov.uk and Guardian

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Technical problem traced to network run by Fastly brings some sites down entirely

A massive internet outage has affected websites including the Guardian, the UK government’s website gov.uk, Amazon and Reddit. The issue made the sites inaccessible to many users for more than an hour on Tuesday morning.

The outage was traced to a failure in a content delivery network (CDN) run by Fastly. It began at about 11am UK time, with visitors to a huge number of sites receiving error messages including, “Error 503 service unavailable” and a terse “connection failure”.

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‘On a rampage’: the African women fighting to end FGM

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Female genital mutilation has revived under Covid but activists are pushing hard to save girls at risk

It was when the phone started ringing with calls from worried mothers in Somalia that Ifrah Ahmed knew she was making an impact. The women told her their daughters had been bleeding for hours after undergoing female genital mutilation and asked what to do. Ahmed told them to seek medical attention, and probably saved lives by doing so.

The mothers called because they had heard the story of a 10-year-old girl who had bled to death after being cut in central Galmudug state in July 2018. It was the first confirmed death in years in a country where any complications arising from FGM are generally denied and it gained worldwide attention. The death was first revealed by a local activist who had been trained by Ahmed’s foundation in how to use the media to publicise her work.

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‘The darkest days are coming’: Myanmar’s journalists suffer at hands of junta

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Journalism has been outlawed in all but name since the coup, with reporters and editors fleeing the country or leading double lives to survive

As a cyclone rolled over the Bay of Bengal on 24 May, American journalist Danny Fenster, 37, contemplated the brooding skies near a terminal window at Yangon international airport.

For a while, the threat of foreigners being seized at the airport by Myanmar’s military was real, but after watching international reporters exit the country safely in April, the Michigan native was more worried about turbulence.

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