FILM MPAA R transferred to court case

Weinstein Company appeals against R-rating for transgender film 3 Generations.

WEB 2.0 Has it killed off press influence?

It's tempting to read such stories as the academic report into 'dark money' (illegal, especially foreign, funding that may also exceed strict UK voting laws) that swung the Brexit campaign and threatens to leave the UK with a shamocracy like the US, where politics is dominated by who can gather the biggest (corporate) donor cheques.

That would be to ignore the role of the press within this social media, often fake news, campaigning. Getting stories planted in newspapers confers legitimacy, and once done, reporting their coverage reinforces the original point. Any later retraction or correction by newspapers won't undo the impact and influence of lazily inaccurate or ideologically inspired reporting.

Chomsky includes source strategies in his propaganda model; dark money, often from millionaire or billionaire individuals (including media magnates), not just corporations, spend fortunes funding (and disguising their links) think tanks and research groups who provide seemingly authoritative quotes on the points of view they want to push, and pressure politicians into following. This is a subsidy for the media, making it cheaper and easier to gather 'news', with think tank reports themselves becoming news stories and opinion pieces.

Can IPSO regulate this? In short, no; it already fails to adequately cover the global nature of most UK 'national' papers, many of which have more foreign (especially US) readers than British ones!

‘Dark money’ is threat to integrity of UK elections, say leading academics https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/01/dark-money-threat-to-uk-elections-integrity?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

WILD WEB Soul Searching over ads and publisher status

A longer post will follow.

While the centuries old NoTW folded in days following an advertiser boycott, the current growing campaign after The Times exposed Google's profiting from ads linked to hate-speech, racist videos doesn't threaten the colossus Google, but has fatally undermined it's crucial claim to NOT be a publisher, simply a means of finding, sharing publishers' content.

Facebook likewise is part of this global digital duopoly starving the print media (other industries will surely follow) of the oxygen of ad revenue whilst profiting hugely from 'sharing' their content, with a compliant US government backing them but an increasingly hostile EU, and national governments within it (not least Germany and Holland), putting up roadblocks to this runaway train.

How's that for a grab bag of mixed metaphors?!

Are we finally reacting to the disruptive supremacy of Facebook and Google? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/26/finally-reacting-disruptive-supermacy-of-facebook-and-google?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

2008 Eastenders gay kiss and watershed controversy

TBC

(see post)

ADVERTISING Web giants taking 99% of new ad revenue, Guardian relies on donations

By April 2019, we hope to be supported by the equivalent of 1 million members, who will help secure the Guardian’s future in a tough commercial environment. Advertising conditions remain highly treacherous, with advertising in the Guardian — which helps pay for our journalism — down £11m this year. For every new advertising dollar spent in the US, 99 cents is now taken up by Facebook and Google.

Thank you for your support, which is more important now than ever https://www.theguardian.com/membership/2017/mar/13/thank-you-for-your-support-which-is-more-important-now-than-ever?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

LIBEL TWITTER Hopping mad at cost of tweet defeat

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/katie-hopkinsdefeated-by-jack-monroe-in-libel-case_uk_58c28bf5e4b054a0ea69df05?6k71294rd9akvgqfr

FILM IRAN Up in arms over uncovered Oscar presenter

Iran news agency gives Charlize Theron a polo neck in altered Oscars footage https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/mar/01/iran-news-agency-charlize-theron-polo-neck-oscars-asghar-farhadi-salesman?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

WEB 2.0 Crowdfunded StopFundingHate targets tabloid advertisers

Once again, we see alternatives to formal regulators springing up.

Chomsky recognised the power of advertisers, one of the five filters in his propaganda model; Curran and Seaton argue that the government encouraged press industry reliance on ad revenue to ensure that radical papers would struggle; the NoTW was closed by Murdoch when advertiser boycotts were organised online and major advertisers began to announce they'd cease paying for ads in the paper (he feared this would widen to the Sun/Times and Sky), while the Times in the 60s changed their editorial policy to be more right-wing, and alienate the new swathe of working class readers they picked up (advertisers refused to pay any extra for these new readers); Facebook and Google refused to consider any action on racist and other right-wing ads until a threatened advertiser boycott ...

Like Hacked Off, this is a citizen pressure group, making use of new media to push their agenda, including crowdfunding to launch the campaign:








Crowdfunder link.

WEB 2.0 Media giants faking online following

A bizarre but significant twist - with pressure to show a strong online footprint growing in relation to declining print and linear viewing figures, it seems falsely boosting the numbers may be a common strategy. (see yournewswire)

There is much dispute over how papers calculate online readership, and similar arguments over online viewing figures (with YouTube's changing policies seeing huge drops in published figures for many channels and uploads).

According to one source at least the mainstream corporate media have also engaged in using specialists to set up 100s of 1000s of fake social media accounts to create a false sense of engagement ... AND to campaign against their critics, something that Chomsky and Herrman's near 40 year-old classic, Necessary Illusions, with its radical propaganda model, would recognise as flak (one of the five filters they argue systematically removes counter-hegemonic content from mainstream media discourse, or at least undermines it).

CHINA Live lyrics checked: Metallica Master of Muppets

Blabbermouth report on Metallica's willingness to allow Chinese authorities to censor the songs they select or song lyrics to play live there.

WEB 2.0 Citizen journalism Guardian of truth with unregulated press

Another example of the failure of formal (self-) regulation leading to alternative action online (see Prescott's successful tweet against Sunday Times made-up quotes, completely ignoring PCC/IPSO but getting swift action).

Readers of the Guardian newspaper, fed up at its drift away from accurate reporting, not least through its blatant antagonism to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, grouped together to create their own online news outlet.

This would clearly not be necessary if IPSO was doing the job its very name reflects: improving press STANDARDS - not least on accuracy, Clause 1 of the Editor's Code. Clause 1 breaches are routine for a right-wing press accustomed to throwing flak at left-wing leaders, policies and ideas, and building over decades British hostility to immigrants and the EU through content dripped of often inaccurate, sensationalist reporting ... but the (supposed) centre-left press, in the form of the Guardian, has joined in the ritual slaughtering of Corbyn, misrepresenting his speeches, selectively ignoring his successes etc.

LIBEL GLOBALISATION Bend it like Beckham: UK injunction sunk by Euro papers

Libel law remains a generally hidden form of press regulation; along with privacy laws and the ever growing powers of police and security forces to ignore the once sacred press/journalist right to protect the identity of their sources, the law courts play a significant role.





Publication of hacked David Beckham emails renders injunction worthless: the Sunday Times printed a front page story telling their readers they had a celebrity scandal they were injuncted (blocked: thats what a media injunction is, a ban on sharing, publishing or repeating information) from revealing. It turns out this was on David Beckham, and they were soon able to report it once the story was widely published in France and elsewhere; globalisation, and the sharing of global media content through twitter and others, often undermines UK court injunctions.

WEB Top shelf Instagram led by murky Mail

Snapchat is tightening up its guidelines for publishers on its Discover service, banning the posting of risque images without editorial value, and clarifying guidelines intended to prevent the spread of fake news on the platform.The changes, according to a spokeswoman for Snap, Snapchat’s parent company, are intended to “empower our editorial partners to do their part to keep Snapchat an informative, factual and safe environment for everyone”.Toeing the line between keeping Snapchat age appropriate for younger users – the app bars children from under 13 from making accounts, but allows 13- to 17-year-olds on the service – and allowing publications on Discover editorial freedom has been difficult for the company, particularly when media organisations know one way to appeal to the app’s millennial user base is with prominent use of risqué images.The Daily Mail, for instance, has attracted user complaints for frequently posting semi-nude images as its “cover” on the service. “I find it incredibly offensive that I can’t opt out of seeing these images and that I am forced to see these images every time I open up the app to see my friends’ stories,” one user told the Guardian. “Usually, I just put up with it, but a few weeks ago, a definite line was crossed”, she said: “The image was of a completely nude female on the top … The picture was taken from the side, so you can’t see the nipples but her breasts were dangling over her boyfriend who she was mounting. She was dressed on the bottom and I believe her boyfriend was completely dressed.”Due to the prominence of Discover features in Snapchat’s app, the cover story is visible even to users who simply use the service to talk with friends and family. In July 2016, Snapchat faced a lawsuit over sexualised Discover stories. It was eventually settled out of court.Snapchat’s new rules will require some news justification or other editorial value before such stories can be posted to the service. Snap also plans to give publishers a tool in February that will allow them to age-gate content, presenting different stories to users over and under 18, according to the New York Times.

Snapchat cracks down on risque images and fake news.

BBC finds itself guilty before OfCom takeover

BBC Trust says Laura Kuenssberg report on Corbyn was inaccurate https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jan/18/bbc-trust-says-laura-kuenssberg-report-on-jeremy-corbyn-was-inaccurate-labour?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

WEB TV Top Gear remake hits low note

Richard Hammond under fire for 'ice cream is gay' line on the Grand Tour https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/dec/27/richard-hammond-ice-cream-gay-the-grand-tour?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger