Category: Media

  • The quiet part

    One of the not-too-hidden secrets of the anti-trans movement is that their goal is the total elimination of trans people. As with the forced birth movement, activists are very careful to disguise their goals, to self-censor and say only what they know they can get away with when they talk to the media. Hence “pro-life”…

  • When left turns right

    One of the interesting and frightening things we’ve seen in recent years is people who would consider themselves left-wing not only turning right, but turning far right. Some of the most extreme examples do so after public humiliation destroys their credibility – Naomi Wolf is a good example of that – or after online criticism…

  • It’s all connected

    Charles P Pierce is one of my favourite writers on politics, particularly US politics, and this piece on the links between US right-wingers and growing intolerance and violence in other countries is typically astute. As should be clear by now, this slouch toward authoritarian government is an interconnected, international phenomenon. It is a shadow government…

  • Be better

    Science writer Ed Yong’s coverage of COVID was superb, and his reporting of long COVID even more so. In a thoughtful piece for the NYT, he explains how journalists should and could do better: Reporting on Long Covid Taught Me To Be a Better Journalist. Covering long Covid solidified my view that science is not…

  • Pain is privileged

    There’s a good piece in Nieman Labs about the biases, often unconscious, that mean journalists adopt the evangelical right’s framing when it comes to reporting on trans people. How else to explain the tens of thousands of words this year and last devoted to questioning whether trans people have too much access to health care, rather than…

  • Money for nothing

    There’s a fascinating article in 404 Media about the shameful shuttering of Jezebel, one of the most important feminist publications online. According to the CEO of parent firm G/O Media, which acquired the site from its previous publisher, “our business model and the audiences we serve across our network did not align with Jezebel’s.” The…

  • Everyone isn’t everyone

    There’s an accidentally enlightening headline on the BBC report about blatantly obvious crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried, who has been convicted of stealing billions of dollars by defrauding would-be crypto millionaires. The headline: “Everyone got duped by Sam Bankman-Fried’s big gamble.” But that isn’t true. There were lots of people pointing out that this emperor didn’t…

  • AI won’t save publishing

    A wise post by Ian Betteridge on AI as a “burning platform moment” for publishing: publishers who see AI in editorial solely as a way of reducing costs aren’t seeing the big picture. AI reduces barriers to entry too: if you’re publishing “good enough” AI-written content, your rivals are everybody else with access to AI.…

  • Donating to hate

    The Huffington Post has a new article about another very rich American donating money to fund anti-trans groups. This one is Joseph Edelman, a billionaire hedge funder. He’s not alone: rich men’s money has been funding huge swathes of the anti-trans movement for some years now, and not just in the US and its UK…

  • Now that’s funny

    From Popbitch: The intensity of internet discourse can sometimes create an overinflated sense of just how interested the general public is in certain stories. For instance, Graham Linehan’s new memoir Tough Crowd: How I Made And Lost A Career In Comedy sold 390 copies in its first week – including pre-sales. A figure that fails to…