Newspaper ‘deeply troubled’ by revelation that records were secretly obtained over three months in 2017
The phone-call records of three reporters with the Washington Post were secretly obtained by officials with Donald Trump’s justice department over a period of three months in 2017, the newspaper reported.
Related: The sleazy, sordid Matt Gaetz scandal: are the walls now closing in on him?
Continue reading...Anthony Antonio, who faces five charges over role in January riot, ‘started believing what was being fed to him’, lawyer says
The lawyer for a Delaware man charged over the Capitol attack in January is floating a unique defense: Fox News made him do it.
Anthony Antonio, who is facing five charges including violent entry, disorderly conduct and impeding law enforcement during civil disorder, fell prey to the persistent lies about the so-called “stolen election” being spread daily by Donald Trump and the rightwing network that served him, his attorney Joseph Hurley said during a video hearing on Thursday.
Continue reading...Exclusive: BBC faces questions as further allegations made about Clarke – and co-star John Barrowman is accused of exposing himself
The Noel Clarke sexual harassment controversy threatens to embroil the BBC after several sources came forward to allege they were sexually harassed or inappropriately touched by the actor on a flagship show, Doctor Who.
Another Doctor Who actor, John Barrowman, has also been accused of repeatedly exposing himself to co-workers on two BBC productions, prompting questions about whether the corporation allowed a lax culture on its sets during the mid-2000s.
Continue reading...Our cartoonist celebrates our 200th birthday with a section-by-section reimagining of the first edition in 1821
The former secretary of state warns of the danger to democracy of lies flourishing online – and says big tech’s wings must be clipped
Her bid for the White House was engulfed by a tidal wave of fabricated news and false conspiracy theories. Now Hillary Clinton is calling for a “global reckoning” with disinformation that includes reining in the power of big tech.
The former secretary of state and first lady warns that the breakdown of a shared truth, and the divisiveness that surely follows, poses a danger to democracy at a moment when China is selling the conceit that autocracy works.
Continue reading...In 1938, there was a surge of classified ads in this newspaper as parents – including my grandparents – scrambled to get their children out of the Reich. What became of the families?
On Wednesday 3 August 1938, a short advertisement appeared on the second page of the Manchester Guardian, under the title “Tuition”.
“I seek a kind person who will educate my intelligent Boy, aged 11, Viennese of good family,” the advert said, under the name Borger, giving the address of an apartment on Hintzerstrasse, in Vienna’s third district.
Continue reading...Analysis: Trump will try to have it both ways over the verdict – decrying censorship but also eyeing an eventual return
It was not so much “Release the Kraken!” as “please tell the Kraken to pace around the room a few more times while we think about it”.
Facebook’s oversight board ruled that Donald Trump should remain banned from the platform for incendiary posts on the day of the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol. But it also told the company that its “vague, standardless penalty” should be reviewed within six months.
Continue reading...Advertising Standards Authority says ad that ran in Sunday Times magazine was irresponsible
A Max Mara advert has been banned for featuring a model with an “unhealthily thin” and “gaunt” appearance.
The Advertising Standards Authority, which received three complaints about the ad, said the model had been photographed from the side, drawing attention to the shape of her body and highlighting her very thin frame and the protrusion of her hip bone, which was visible through her dress.
Continue reading...Donald Trump’s Facebook account should not be reinstated, the social media giant’s oversight board said on Wednesday, barring an imminent return to the platform.
However, the board has punted the final decision over Trump’s account back to Facebook itself, suggesting the platform make a decision in six months regarding what to do with Trump’s account and whether it will be permanently deleted.
Continue reading...On the Guardian’s 200th anniversary, our editor-in-chief sets out how media can help rebuild a better world beyond Covid
I remember the day, in late March 2020, when I first worried that we might not be able to publish a newspaper, for what would have been only the second time in the Guardian’s history. I had driven into the office – no one was taking the train any more. Classed as an essential worker, I was permitted to travel, but the streets were utterly silent, with every school, cafe and shop closed.
I sat down with colleagues, spaced apart by yellow tape, to work out whether we could gather enough people to produce a print edition. We could publish the digital Guardian from anywhere, but to publish the newspaper, we needed a small number of people in the office. A handful of colleagues volunteered, but I wondered how we would be able to keep everything going. People were anxious for their families and friends and themselves – and frightened, too, for what kind of world we were entering, and what we would be left with.
Continue reading...Ex-president unveils retro webpage featuring series of statements resembling blogposts ahead of Facebook oversight board’s decision on his suspension
Banned by Facebook and Twitter, Donald Trump has gone back to the future with an online communication tool that might be described as a glorified blog.
His retro webpage, billed “From the Desk of Donald J Trump”, appears at DonaldJTrump.com/desk and features a small photo of the 45th president writing in a book on his desk.
Continue reading...Network of safe houses set up amid fears of rising violence as Nato forces prepare to pull out in September
Dozens of journalists have moved to safe houses across Afghanistan, and others have been sent abroad, as threats against media workers continue to rise.
New safe houses have been set up in several Afghan cities as evacuations increase, offering some security for targeted journalists.
Continue reading...Being urged to retouch then re-retouch the singer’s photo left Justine Cullen shaken. In this extract from her new book she recalls the ‘cookie cutter’ cycle her industry was trapped in
I stood and knocked tentatively on my publisher’s office door, holding a printout of my latest cover gingerly in my fingertips. The cover I held in my sweaty hands this time was Beyoncé, and she looked … well, she looked like Beyoncé. She looked perfect.
The publisher held the cover in her hands and looked at it approvingly. “It’s wonderful,” she said, nodding. I gave a relieved little sigh and turned to leave the room. But, just as I got to the door, she glanced back up from her computer screen and piped up, nonchalantly, as though having an afterthought: “Are you going to make her skin a little lighter?”
Continue reading...As local papers close their doors, a morning newsletter defied the odds. Now its founder aims to push the model nationwide
Local journalism has shed jobs faster than the coal industry, leaving swaths of North America as news deserts with little or no regular coverage.
But the grim prospects for an industry in decline didn’t deter the Canadian tech entrepreneur Andrew Wilkinson, who in 2019 hired a reporter and launched a daily newsletter in his home town, Victoria.
Continue reading...An idling student enlists the help of a wideboy friend in pursuit of a hot date in a comedy that veers between likable and laddish
Here is a vibrant, idiosyncratic portrait of Ghanaian youth, bursting with wisecracks and a boyish restlessness. There is an amateurish shakiness to the visuals, but the film overcomes this with a lot of charm and an innate understanding of its young subjects.
Related: 20 best African films – ranked!
Continue reading...It started as a newsletter platform for unknown writers. Now it is becoming a media giant in its own right – with many of the problems it was supposed to avoid
Isabelle Roughol was done with her day job at LinkedIn and was ready to start something of her own. She quit in early 2020 and launched Borderline, a podcast and newsletter aimed at “defiant global citizens”, and to help her build it she became an early user of a new online service: Substack.
Substack has marketed itself aggressively to people such as Roughol as a new type of tech company, one that will let writers build their own brands and communities. The company offers software to help people set up free or paid-for newsletters and promises the people creating them that they can write what they want and that they own their own mailing list and can take it with them if they leave.
Continue reading...Misogyny, bigotry and threats ‘cut public trust in critical media’, warns report after major investigation
An epidemic of online violence against female journalists worldwide is undermining their reporting, spilling over into real-life attacks and harassment, and puts their health and professional prospects in jeopardy, the UN has warned.
The avalanche of misogynistic abuse and threats is not only damaging women working in media, it is also weaponised “to undercut public trust in critical journalism and facts in general”, a report commissioned by the UN’s cultural agency Unesco has found.
Continue reading...ITV and Sky halt programmes featuring actor accused of sexual harassment and bullying
Allegations of sexual harassment and bullying made against the actor-producer Noel Clarke have shaken the film and television industry, prompting two broadcasters to cancel popular shows he was starring in and launching a debate about the treatment of women on sets.
The allegations against Clarke also led to questions about the decision by Bafta (the British Academy of Film and Television Arts) to give the actor a special award for outstanding British contribution to cinema last month.
Continue reading...Bill placing libel under criminal rather than civil law could see journalists jailed for three years for ‘misleading’ content
Journalists and social media moderators in Vanuatu could face up to three years in prison under a new bill that broadly criminalises threatening words, gestures and the “reckless” sharing of false statements.
Changes to the criminal libel and slander provisions of the South Pacific country’s Penal Code Act mean that Ni-Vanuatu could now face imprisonment for “any representation that is untrue or misleading” on public platforms including “television, radio, internet websites, social networking sites and blog sites”.
Continue reading...