Category Archives: Media

Sacha Baron Cohen: ‘If you’re protesting against racism, you’re going to upset some racists’

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Stopping Trump, reforming Facebook and risking his life to make a Borat sequel. In an exclusive interview, the actor unveils his plans for a revolution – and reveals how it feels to come out as himself

Seven months ago, Sacha Baron Cohen was in the back of a speeding ambulance. It was an escape car, and he was fleeing a gun rally. The Borat producers had chosen the ambulance as it could blend in, accommodate a small film crew and, if necessary, hasten a trip to hospital.

Baron Cohen – dressed as Borat, himself disguised as a country singer – had just led the crowd of far-right conspiracy theorists in a singalong. At first, they happily joined in: “Obama, what we gonna do? / Inject him with the Wuhan flu.” Then one or two smelled a rat. Then they all stormed the stage.

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Facebook is ‘schoolyard bully’ in Australia news row, says UK media boss

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Trade group chairman says robust regulation is needed to rein in monopolistic tech firms

Facebook’s move to block all media content in Australia shows why countries need robust regulation to stop tech firms behaving like a “schoolyard bully”, the head of the UK’s news media trade group has said.

Henry Faure Walker, the chair of the News Media Association, said Facebook’s ban during a pandemic was “a classic example of a monopoly power being the schoolyard bully, trying to protect its dominant position with scant regard for the citizens and customers it supposedly serves”.

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Facebook blocks Australian users and publishers from viewing or sharing news

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Company says it has made decision ‘with a heavy heart’ in response to proposed media bargaining code

Facebook has followed through on its threat to ban Australians from seeing or posting news content on its site in response to the federal government’s news media code.

The tech giant’s Australian and New Zealand managing director, Will Easton, said this it would block links to Australian publishers from being posted, while all Australian users would not be able to share or see content from any news outlets, both Australian and internation.

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Mozambique expels British journalist covering insurgency

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Tom Bowker tweets that he has been banned from country for 10 years over alleged irregularities

A British journalist covering an insurgency in northern Mozambique has been expelled from the country, he tweeted on Tuesday, days after his accreditation was revoked over alleged irregularities.

Tom Bowker, the co-founder of the anglophone Mozambican news website Zitamar News, had his foreign correspondent card withdrawn on 29 January – a move he has said was politically motivated.

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Google and Facebook: the landmark Australian law that will make them pay for news content

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Despite protestations from both companies, the Australian parliament is set to pass legislation it says is needed to boost public interest journalism

The Australian parliament is poised to pass a landmark media law that would make Google and Facebook pay news publishers for displaying their content.

The Australian law is separate to a deal Facebook made to pay mainstream UK news outlets millions of pounds a year to license their articles, but has a similar motivation.

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UK’s first football hate crime officer turns focus on social media

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Stuart Ward of West Midlands police aims to stamp out racist abuse in grounds and online to bring back community spirit

Since starting his role as the UK’s first football hate crime officer earlier this month, PC Stuart Ward has been busier than expected, considering football fans are banned from stadiums as part of the coronavirus lockdown.

Instead of jibes from the stands, players are now fielding more abuse on social media – just the other week, in Ward’s biggest case to date, West Midlands police arrested a man suspected of racially abusing West Bromwich Albion footballer Romaine Sawyers online.

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White House suspends press aide who reportedly threatened Politico journalist

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TJ Ducklo is sorry for ‘heated conversation’, says White House press secretary, but punishment appears to fall short of Biden’s threat to fire uncivil aides

The White House has suspended a press aide over allegations he threatened a reporter who was working on a story about his romantic relationship with another journalist.

Vanity Fair alleged on Friday that White House deputy press secretary TJ Ducklo had made threats – including saying “I will destroy you” – to a Politico correspondent who was reporting on Ducklo’s recently disclosed relationship with an Axios reporter, Alexi McCammond.

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US government appeals UK ruling against Julian Assange’s extradition

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Justice department confirms Joe Biden intends to have WikiLeak’s co-founder stand trial in US

The US government has appealed a UK judge’s ruling against the extradition of the WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, according to a justice department official.

The appeal made clear that Joe Biden intends to have Assange stand trial on espionage- and hacking-related charges over WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of US military and diplomatic documents.

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Microsoft urges US and EU to follow Australian digital news code

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Firm stood against Facebook and Google over plan to make tech giants pay news organisations

Microsoft is calling for the US and the EU to follow Australia in introducing rules that require technology companies to share revenue with news organisations and support journalism.

The company, which stood against Facebook and Google in supporting the proposal, argues that it is necessary to impose such a levy to create a level playing field between large tech firms and independent media organisations.

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China bans BBC World News in retaliation for UK licence blow

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China has been critical of BBC reports on Xinjiang, while Ofcom recently revoked CGTN licence

BBC World News has been banned from airing in China, a week after Beijing threatened to retaliate for the recent revocation of the British broadcasting licence for China’s state-owned CGTN.

In a statement published at midnight Beijing time on Friday, China’s National Radio and Television Administration said BBC World News’s coverage of China had violated requirements that news reporting be true and impartial and undermined China’s national interests and ethnic solidarity.

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Meghan wins privacy case against Mail on Sunday

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Judge gives summary judgment in favour of royal over extracts of letter to estranged father, Thomas Markle

The Duchess of Sussex has won her high court privacy case against the Mail on Sunday, hailing her victory as a “comprehensive win” over the newspaper’s “illegal and dehumanising practices”.

After a two-year legal battle, a judge granted summary judgment in Meghan’s favour over the newspaper’s publication of extracts of a “personal and private” handwritten letter to her estranged father, Thomas Markle.

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I found peace in an unexpected corner of the internet: nun Twitter

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Religious Twitter brings together nuns, monks, bishops and rabbis too and it may have something to teach us

There is a Rumi poem – it is my favourite. “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,” writes the 13th-century mystic, “there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”

I feel this way about religious Twitter.

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Oscars release first shortlists for 2021 Academy Awards

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Boys State, MLK/FBI and Crip Camp among contenders as categories announced include best documentary and best international film

Shortlists for nine Oscar categories have been unveiled by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Ampas), an intermediate stage in the thinning-out of films that have qualified for consideration for the Academy Awards. The categories include best documentary, best international film and best song, as well as best live action and documentary shorts.

The rules for each voting process vary, but in most categories a preliminary vote from industry specialists in each field is employed to create the shortlist and then the final five nominations, with the full membership of the Academy invited to vote on the winner.

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Perfect storm: have the influencers selling a dream lost their allure?

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Social media stars, already under fire for trips to Dubai in lockdown, are now involved in a row over Instagram posts

Makeup artist Sasha Louise Pallari started her hashtag #filterdrop in summer 2020. A social media campaign to discourage influencers promoting beauty products by using filters to exaggerate their effect, it paid off last week when the Advertising Standards Authority banned two tanning brands from using misleading filters on Instagram Stories. The ruling means that in future all use of filters will be more tightly controlled – and, so the theory goes, more “natural” content likely to be seen on social media.

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Two New York Times journalists leave paper over different controversies

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Staff memo said Donald McNeil, reporter who used racist slur on student trip, and Andy Mills, Caliphate podcast producer, departed

Two New York Times journalists have left the paper over separate controversies involving racist and sexist behavior, including its high-profile Covid-19 reporter Donald McNeil, following disclosures about his use of a racist slur while on a company-sponsored student trip.

The departures of McNeil and audio journalist, Andy Mills, a co-creator of the Daily podcast and a producer and co-host of the now partially retracted Caliphate podcast, come amid a wider reckoning across over racism and abusive behavior within American newsrooms.

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Is big tech now just too big to stomach?

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The Covid crisis has turbo-charged profits and share prices. But are the big six now too powerful for regulators to ignore?

The coronavirus pandemic has wrought economic disruption on a global scale, but one sector has marched on throughout the chaos: big tech.

Further evidence of the industry’s relentless progress has come in recent weeks with the news that Apple and Amazon both raked in sales of $100bn (£72bn) over the past three months – 25% more than Tesco brings in over a full year.

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Staff outraged at New York Times response to reporter’s racist language

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Letter criticizes handling of complaint that reporter Donald McNeil Jr used racist language while on a company-sponsored student trip

More than 150 New York Times staffers sent a letter on Wednesday to its executive leadership criticizing the paper’s response to complaints from parents that the journalist Donald McNeil Jr had used racist language while on a company-sponsored student trip, and for the handling of the scandal once those complaints were first reported.

“Our community is outraged and in pain,” staffers wrote, adding that despite the paper’s “seeming commitment to diversity and inclusion, [they’ve] given a prominent platform – a critical beat covering a pandemic disproportionately affecting people of color – to someone who chose to use language that is offensive and unacceptable by any newsroom’s standards”.

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Bezos leaves Amazon in its prime – keeping it that way is the task

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Analysis: Running the online retailer should be a dream job, but where and how to grow will challenge Andy Jassy

A pain-free departure of a visionary founder is a difficult trick to pull off for any business. The stakes are even higher for a company the size of Amazon, as Jeff Bezos steps back from his day-to-day management role.

The decision by Bezos, 57, to quit as chief executive later this year took analysts by surprise, but the first step has already gone smoothly, with Andy Jassy appointed as his successor without any public power struggle.

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Harry says Mail on Sunday underplayed gravity of false claim as libel case settled

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Duke settles libel case with paper and Mail Online over stories about his relationship with armed forces

The Duke of Sussex has accused the Mail on Sunday and Mail Online of underplaying the seriousness of an error in a story about his relationship to the British armed forces as the two sides formally settled a high court libel claim.

Harry had sued Associated Newspapers over two articles published in October, which claimed he had snubbed the Royal Marines and “not been in touch … since his last appearance as an honorary marine in March”, citing “informed sources”.

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New York Times ‘disciplined’ top Covid reporter accused of using racial slurs

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Paper says Donald McNeil Jr ‘showed extremely poor judgement’ in using racist language on a Times-endorsed educational trip

The New York Times has confirmed the paper investigated and “disciplined” its high-profile public health and Covid-19 reporter after he used racial slurs during a trip with high school students in 2019.

Donald McNeil Jr, a 45-year veteran of the paper and its lead reporter on the coronavirus pandemic, was accused by a number of students of using the N-word during a Times-endorsed educational trip to Peru. The reporter also suggested he did not believe in white privilege and used stereotypes about Black teenagers, according to complaints filed to the paper, which were reported by the Daily Beast.

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