Tucker & Vlad

Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in early February has generated controversy for, among other things, violating the SPJ code of ethics (‘Tell the truth and report it’). Here are some takes on the interview from three very different perspectives — Jon Stewart, Glen Greenwald and Ian Bremmer:

First, Jon Stewart, who is disgusted by Carlson:

Second, Greenwald, who is pro-Russian and highlights Putin’s responses to supposed Western “provocations” …

And next, Ian Bremmer, a journalist and scholar of Russian history who is not pro-Russian …

And … let the hilarious memes begin …  

Remembering Apple’s 1984 ad

On the 40th anniversary of the Apple Super Bowl ad for the first Macintosh computer, we remember the people who created the ad as well as a time when hackers hoped to liberate computing.

It is no small historical irony that today,  the most restrictive and least liberated of the big tech companies  is Apple.

When the ad first aired — once, at the Super Bowl on Jan 22, 1984 — it was such a strong and unusual claim that it was replayed over and over on network television.   The claim was that this computer represented a vision of a free internet.  That is, free as in “free markets” and “free speech” — freedom from censorship and dark cycle forced purchases.   Computing that could afford to be ethical. 

Most of all it meant freedom from IBM, which at the time had a strict corporate culture and a record of ethics-free service to government — even the government of Germany in the 1930s.  

Apple was supposed to be above all that, and these days, historians often lead us to believe that it was.  The usual celebrations of Apple Corp., and Steve Jobs gloss over the wretched stuff — the Foxconn suicides,  the the dictatorial tantrums, his astonishingly selfish family life.

However, it was the open source liberated computing movement with Ted Nelson, Richard Stallman,  Bill Joy and others who really changed computing.  The Unix operating system and the Apache web server, among many others, are fundamental to the way networks operate today. Without them, computer users would be paying much more for the privilege of getting online, and the prospect of an open World Wide Web would have been foreclosed.      

Most of the articles about the Apple 1984 ad focus on the ad’s style, not its message of liberation.

A Feb. 9, 2024 NY Times article on the anniversary of the ad features interviews with director Ridley Scott; John Sculley, Apple; Steve Hayden, a copy writer; Fred Goldberg, the Apple account manager; and Anya Rajah, the actor who famously threw the sledgehammer. (Little known fact: The hammer was paper mache).

Other videos about the ad include:
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Farewell, Sports Illustrated

First cover, Aug. 16, 1954. (Wikipedia)

By Bill Kovarik

Sports Illustrated — once the beloved icon of sports news and photography — has been sidelined for financial irregularities and technical fouls. It probably won’t be back.

The fouls involved articles scraped up through artificial intelligence bots – an ethical lapse which came to light in November, 2023. Worse, the magazine tried to cover it up with AI portraits of the supposed authors. The ruse was quickly spotted and the editor was fired.

As advertisers began pulling out, the remaining editors and management faced increasing financial trouble and then, on Jan. 5, 2024, defaulted on regular quarterly payment to its owners, Authentic Brands Group. Two weeks later, ABG terminated the licensing agreement and laid off most of the reporting staff.

So, let’s pause for a moment of silent reflection, in recognition that another great institution is passing us by, headed for the intellectual property bone yards, where its icons will be recycled to brand products like designer swimsuits and tennis shoes.

Sports Illustrated was founded in 1954 by Henry Luce of the Time-Life group to compete with two of the major sports magazines of the time — Sport (founded 1946) and the venerable Sporting News (founded 1886). Back then, people thought Luce was crazy to invest in a “jockstrap” magazine, but his timing was good.

Illustrated magazines were filling the consumer demand for high quality visual experiences while the dominant media — radio and early television — offered audiences only low visual definition. Sports Illustrated also presented better quality journalism and photography than was possible in daily newspapers at the time, and Luce managed to keep all his magazines a step ahead of the competition.

In the 1950s and 60s — a time when politics was America’s most dangerous occupation — Sports Illustrated occupied center field by raising the tone of sports news. Along with sports that were already well covered, like boxing and baseball, Sports Illustrated opened tennis, golf, football and basketball to greater public participation.

Some of its editorial innovations are still well known, such as the athlete of the year and the annual swimsuit issue. Making the cover of Sports Illustrated was, for an athlete, a lot like a Nobel Prize for a scientist.

However, by the end of the twentieth century, the business of magazine and newspaper publishing fractured under competitive pressures from cable, streaming and internet publications. Advertising and circulation declined, and so did Sports Illustrated, despite valiant attempts to save it.

The magazine was sold during the Time-Warner breakup in 2018 and, after changing hands, was picked up by Authentic Brands Group, which specializes in

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Experience history with COMS 300 in Fall 2023.  (Click thru image for details.)

Learn to use an 18th century goose quill on parchment; set type by hand; send & receive morse code; use cryptographic techniques;  and experience the history of newspapers, photography, radio, cinema, TV and computers.

Sign up for COMS 300, #16209,  T-Th 11-12:15, during add-drop this fall.

Happy Wayzgoose, everyone

Wayzgoose falls on August 24th each year, so let’s make the most of it. 

What’s Wayzgoose? You may well ask.

It’s the traditional holiday for printers,  typesetters, bookbinders, copy editors, journalists and all the ink stained wretches who wear garters on their sleeves and sit below the salt.

The centuries-old event  has largely been lost in the  21st century, but it was still very much alive a generation or two ago, especially among printing unions in the US and UK.

Wendell Berry has written extensively about farming as agriculture, with the accent on culture.  Similarly, printing was a living culture at the heart of European and American society, and worth remembering,  if only because its echoes can still be heard, faintly, in modern times, especially around Aug. 24.

The holiday has its origins in the feast day for St. Bartholomew, the patron saint of scribes and, later, of printers and writers.

The odd name for the holiday, Wayzgoose, refers to the centerpiece of this holiday meal: a goose that had been fattened on stubble (or wayz) from a harvested field of grain.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the Wayzgoose was

An entertainment given by a master-printer to his workmen ‘about Bartholomew-tide’ (24 August), marking the beginning of the season of working by candle-light. In later use, an annual festivity held in summer by the employees of a printing establishment, consisting of a dinner and (usually) an excursion into the country.

The celebration would be held at the master printer’s home, or in later centuries, as part of an excursion into the country.

The Wayzgoose was often the occasion for the introduction of new apprentices, the promotion of older apprentices to journeymen, and speeches about the virtues of the profession.

A speech by the company’s owner or master printer might include a reminder  that printers had much in common with the monks who once laboriously copied books by hand.

He (or not infrequently, she) might tell them that the printing company was still called a chapel, the foreman
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Franklin museum demonstrates printing press

Women’s history month 2023

An exhibit at the Missouri Historical Society reminds us that women have had an important but often overlooked place in media history.  This photo from the exhibit shows the staff of the Miami Herald’s women’s pages in the 1950s.

The photo features many women who made important contributions to journalism. Dorothy Jurney is in the immediate foreground. Roberta Applegate is seated facing the camera against the far wall with her arm on her typewriter. Marie Anderson is at the center of the photograph seated at her desk with a pencil in her hand. Eleanor Ratelle is standing next to the filing cabinet in the back. [Jurney, Dorothy Misener (1909-2002), Papers, 1920-1992 (C3904)]

This is only the latest in a global effort to ensure more accurate and equal representation of women in all professions and walks of life.

Other articles and historical resources about women in journalism include:

Black history month 2023

Ida B. Wells

February is traditionally black history month, and it’s time to recall that one of the most  significant moments in the history of the American press involves the long, ongoing struggle for civil rights in the Black press and the resistance from  the White / mainstream press against civil rights, which only gradually changed in the post World War II era.

There are two stories. Part I is the story of the African American / Black press —  the  mainstay of the long movement for equality.  Part II is the story of  the White / mainstream press reluctantly awakening to its responsibilities.   

The Black press “was the signal corps,” wrote Margot Lee Shetterly, author of  Hidden Figures, “giving the watchword so that the negro community moved forward in synch with America.”    

Read more: “Civil Rights and the Press” here, at Revolutions in Communication.

A heartfelt holiday wish

Peace on Earth, 1939 — Hugh Harman’s animated short  was a break from the light-hearted tradition of animation in the 1930s. The MGM cartoon was a serious plea for peace just as World War II was starting. It depicted never-ending wars and the last people on earth killing each other, followed by animals rebuilding society using the helmets of the soldiers.

‘Not the enemy’ says retiring Philly anchor

“Permit me a final word, if you would,” said Jim Gardner, retiring Philadelphia ABC affiliate news anchor, in his final address to the audience Dec. 21, 2022.

“The American free press has been under attack, not by forces from other countries, but from elements embedded in our own society, and even our own government. It worries me deeply.”

Gardner went on to quote Thomas Jefferson’s words to John Jay in 1786, “Our liberty can not be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it.”

“We are not the enemy of the people. Serving the people, you the people of the tri-state area, with responsible and unbiased journalism. This is our mission now and in the future. And if we falter, you damn well better let us know, for your benefit and for ours.”

Happy animated Halloween

 

 

A history of social media

By Kristi Hines, Sept. 2, 2022
SEARCH ENGINE JOURNAL 

Randy Suess and Ward Christensen introduced the Computerized Hobbyists Bulletin Board System in 1978.

While initially designed to help the inventors network with fellow members of a computer club in Chicago and generate content for their club’s newsletter, it eventually grew to support 300-600 users.

CBBS still exists today as a forum with posts dating back to 2000.

As modems increased speed, bulletin board systems became more popular with computer users. Using the telnet BBS Guide, you can travel back in time and see over 1,000 bulletin board systems.

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Honoring a Black editor

The Richmond Mercury
Feb 15, 2022 

A new license plate could be added this summer to the more than 250 options Virginians can choose from if the House of Delegates passes and the governor signs a bill to introduce the design commemorating a newspaper founded by emancipated men.

The bill to create a license plate in honor of the Richmond Planet passed the Senate unanimously last week. Sen. Joe Morrissey, D-Richmond, introduced the bill on Jan. 21 with Sen. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, as a cosponsor. However, the effort to increase awareness of the history of the pioneering Black newspaper started last year when Tappahannock native Reginald Carter started gathering the 450 preorders needed to kickstart the process before the General Assembly’s session began.

“It was definitely a sigh of relief,” Carter said of his reaction to the bill passing the Senate. “You know, sad that we’re not done, but this is a major step in the process that has been achieved.”

The Richmond Planet caught Carter’s attention while he conducted research with a Tappahanock genealogy society to tell the story of a lynching that took place in the area on March 23, 1896. That’s when he encountered articles by John Mitchell Jr., the editor and publisher of the newspaper who had been born into slavery and became an advocate for civil rights in Richmond and elsewhere in Virginia.  Continue reading

Holding social media accountable

The Conversation asked three experts on social media, technology policy and global business to offer one specific action the government could take about Meta’s Facebook service.

LET USERS CONTROL THEIR DATA 

Anjana Susarla, Professor of Information Systems, Michigan State University

Social media sites like Facebook are designed for constant interaction to engage users’ attention. To rein in Facebook, lawmakers must first understand the harm that results from algorithmic manipulation on these platforms. One thing Congress could do is make sure Facebook gives users more control over what data the company collects about them and why.

Most people who use Facebook are unaware of how algorithmic recommendations affect their experience of the platform and thereby the information they engage with. For example, political campaigns have reportedly tried to manipulate engagement to get more traction on Facebook.

A key aspect of providing such transparency is giving users greater access to and control over their data, similar to what’s proposed in California’s Consumer Privacy Act. This would allow users to see what personal data Facebook collects about them and how the company uses it. Many people don’t realize that Meta has the ability to make inferences about their political preferences and attitudes toward society.

A related issue is data portability tools and rights that allow users to take the data, including photos and videos, that they shared on Facebook to other social media services. Continue reading

A modern Pulitzer & a 19th century editor

The 2021 Pulitzer Prize for commentary and editorial writing, won by Richmond Times Dispatch columnist Michael Paul Williams,  begins by noting that there were objections to the massive statues of Robert E Lee and other Confederate heroes erected in the 1890s in the former capitol of the Confederacy.
Williams wrote:

The original opponent of the Robert E. Lee statue issued a stern prophesy after the monument was erected in 1890.  John Mitchell Jr. — newspaper editor, politician, banker and civil rights activist — predicted that the monument “will ultimately result in handing down to generations unborn a legacy of treason and blood.”  

John Mitchell, Jr., was editor of the Richmond Planet from 1884 – 1925.   A resident of Richmond, Va.’s  Jackson Ward area, Mitchell was born into slavery in 1863, but his family was freed when Union troops liberated the city in April 1865.

Beginning in December, 1884, Mitchell started reporting on injustice and lynchings. For example, he reported on a lynching in Smithville,  Charlotte county, Virginia in May, 1886. Afterwards, someone sent Mitchell a rope with a note attached to it, warning that he would also be lynched if he ever set foot in Smithville. He responded with a line from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar:

“There are no terrors, Cassius, in your threats, for I am so strong in honesty that they pass by me like the idle wind, which I respect not.”

Afterwards, armed with two Smith & Wesson pistols, Michell took a train to   Smithville and walked  five miles from the station to see the site of the hanging.

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Science & Information Revolutions

Fact checking a lie

This is an example of just how far right-wing disinformation will go. According to the narration in this video:  “The Holocaust stuff was about them (the New York Times)  not wanting to be seen as a Jewish-owned  newspaper, because this was America in the 1940s, there was a lot of antisemitism. They were afraid it would jeopardize their position in the market, and for them, that was just something they would not sacrifice, even for the truth. They actually forbade the word “Jew” in their news reports during that period.”  

That seemed pretty far fetched on the face of it, so we fact checked the claim that the word “Jew” could not show up in the New York Times. In fact, using a full text ProQuest database search of the Times,  for the words  “Jews or Jewish” in the date range 1933 – 1946, we found 95,085 articles over 5114 days (14 years), for an average of  18.6  articles mentioning Jews or Jewish people  per day.

The media “expert” in the video also says that the New York Times w0n Pulitzer prizes during World War II for pro-Nazi coverage.  In fact, checking the roster of Pulitzers from 1942 through 1946, there are no prizes for the Times coverage of the European war. There are two for  Pacific war coverage, and one in 1941 for general coverage of the emerging war. Astonishingly, there are none for “pro-Nazi” coverage.

So yes, this Prager video is promoting outright lies with the intention of portraying the New York Times as antisemitic and racist.

Also See: 
American Public Opinion and the Holocaust (Gallup polls)
Samantha Bee and Prager U   “Prager U is as much of a real college as Monsters University.”

Franklin’s printing press