Twitter will give away $1 million in free ad credits to 10,000 small businesses on Saturday November 24. The $100 in free credits per business will be offered to the first 10,000 businesses who apply and meet eligibility requirements for the program. The money from the program can be used to purchase ad credits towards Promoted [...]
People who follow media criticism are likely aware of the term "false balance," used to describe coverage that presents "both sides" of an issue as if they are equivalent–when they are anything but. Does that label apply to coverage of the current Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip? A November 15 Washington Post headline read, "Civilians in Gaza, Israel Suffer Amid Conflict." The piece would appear to want to give readers the sense that comparable suffering is occurring on both sides. But reality tells a different story–one that is not so symmetrical. The piece begins in a Gaza hospital, where [...]
Fox News CEO Roger Ailes recently renewed his contract, and he gave an interview to explain why. As one might expect, given the we-only-look-biased-because-the-other-guys-are-so-biased philosophy at Fox, he's motivated by what he sees as the outrageously partisan media everywhere else (MediaBistro, 11/16/12): Ailes was also sparked by what he experienced at a Washington journalists' dinner. "When I saw the president say, 'I know you all voted for me,' and a thousand people stood up and cheered and applauded and then when the applause died down, he said, 'Oh probably except you guys at the Fox table.' I thought, 'Am I [...]
Facebook is ramping up its attempts at creating a more secure ecosystem for its users. The company announced on Monday that it is in the process of moving users from HTTP to HTTPS (secure) connections. While the move will help protect against spam bots, fake profiles, malicious apps and other security threats, some experts worry [...]
At the end of ABC's This Week (11/18/12), Martha Raddatz presented a brief viewer-mail segment: And finally, "Your Voice This Week." Today's question comes from Cheryl Robinson, who writes, "What happened in Benghazi was terribly tragic, and now we're hearing of another Middle Eastern war on the brick. Let us and you, the media, not forget about the war that our own kids are fighting for us in Afghanistan. Why is there so little coverage?" Well, because, unfortunately, very few people feel the way you do, Cheryl. There is a war-weariness with the public, and outside of campaign season, the [...]
On NBC Nightly News (11/15/12) , correspondent Martin Fletcher gives viewers a sense of the suffering on both sides of the Israel/Gaza conflict: FLETCHER: Terror in Israel. (SHOUTING) FLETCHER: "There is another one," a soldier screams. (SHOUTING) FLETCHER: More than 200 missiles fired at Israel today. And in Gaza, despair. (SHOUTING) FLETCHER: Burying an infant killed in an Israeli attack. Frightened Israeli soldiers are being terrorized. And Gazans burying a child? Something else, apparently.
Today's New York Times editorial (11/15/12) begins: No country should have to endure the rocket attacks that Israel has endured from militants in Gaza. The Times has questions about the wisdom of a ground invasion in Gaza–questions that mostly involve whether it would be wise from an Israeli point of view. Such an escalation would be "especially risky," and might not be the "most effective way of advancing" Israel's "long-term interests." But from the start, the message is that this violence is, on some level justified. On CNN (11/14/12), Fareed Zakaria endorsed the Israeli attacks: I think there is no [...]
It's bad enough when media refer to civilian deaths in U.S. wars as "collateral damage," but it was jarring to see how the phrase was used in a Washington Post headline today: Obviously, they're talking about the sex-and-emails scandal. How could dead Afghan civilians ever threaten the career of a high-ranking U.S. official?
Facebook is currently testing a new form of comment ranking for brand and subscriber pages. The company’s new algorithm will place more emphasis on comments that are engaging more users, allowing for a better user experience across the board. As comments receive more interaction they move further up the comment thread, ensuring that those engaging [...]
Time magazine's Joe Klein found the lesson (11/7/12) in Obama's re-election. And it involves… wait for it… moving to the right: It will, and should, be argued that the election was a mandate for moderation. The last month of Mitt Romney‘s campaign, when he rushed to the center and suddenly made it a race, ratified the real will of the people: a sensible centrism that runs deeper than the over-caffeinated bluster that seems to dominate the media. The election hinted that the third rail of American politics–the certain death that comes to those who question entitlement programs like Social Security [...]
Surveying international reaction to Barack Obama's re-election, NBC Nightly News correspondent Richard Engel declared (11/7/12): In the Middle East, there is hope that President Obama will embrace the Israeli/Palestinian peace process in second term the way he embraced the Arab Spring in his first. This would be a surprising reaction to find among people in the Middle East, given that Obama did not really "embrace" the Arab Spring. Consider Egypt, arguably the most high-profile uprising; the original White House response was to stand by dictator Hosni Mubarak. The White House continues to support the regime in Bahrain. And it's likely [...]
Facebook wants users to know exactly when they receive a private message, someone writes on their Timeline, etc. For that reason the social network is testing new sound notifications. The new alert sends out a ping sound when someone interacts with your Facebook account, much like the noise your phone sends when a text message [...]
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President Barack Obama celebrated his victory on Tuesday night by sharing a photograph on his Facebook page. That photo which features the President in a warm embrace with First Lady Michelle Obama has quickly become the “most liked” photograph in the history of Facebook. Under his photo was the simple caption “four more years.” The [...]
The L.A. Times (11/6/12) reports that following the election, the Federal Communications Commission appears likely to ease cross-ownership rules–because supposedly nobody cares about that stuff anymore. The article by reporter Jim Puzzanghera tries to work up sympathy for media moguls: Paul Boyle, senior vice president for public policy at the Newspaper Association of America, said the rules make it difficult for investors who have as little as a 5 percent ownership in a broadcast company to buy a newspaper in the same market. Pity the poor billionaire who owns a mere 5 percent of Disney or Time Warner–and still they're [...]
The battle of the mobile photo filter apps is under way! Yesterday it was revealed that Twitter was secretly working on an Instagram competitor and now Facebook has launched a filter program of its own. Fresh off the heels of its Instagram acquisition the world’s largest social media network has delivered photo filters for Facebook [...]
After establishing that Republican operative Karl Rove is a terrible political prognosticator, Dana Milbank (Washington Post, 11/2/12) does the false-balance thing and attacks polling blogger Nate Silver: Rove is an easy target because his motive–conveying a false sense of momentum for Republicans–is so transparent. But he has plenty of company among prognosticators who confidently predict that which they cannot possibly know. There's Nate Silver, a statistician-blogger at the New York Times, who predicts with scientific precision that President Obama will win 303 electoral votes and beat Romney by 2 percentage points in the popular vote. He gives Obama an 81 [...]
A FAIR Action Alert (10/24/12) criticized the PBS NewsHour for reporting that "Iran's nuclear weapons program has been a particular flash point" in the presidential race. As we noted, there is no hard evidence that Iran has such a weapons program; in fact, international inspections have consistently found no evidence that Iran has diverted uranium for military purposes. Soon after FAIR activists began writing to the show, the NewsHour responded by posting an Editor's Note: EDITOR'S NOTE: This transcript has been updated to account for an error in the NewsHour's broadcast reference to Iran's widely suspected military ambitions in pursuing nuclear [...]