Media Watch

MEDIA WATCH: SINCLAIR STEPS UP PROPAGANDA BROADCASTS

 

By Miriam Raftery

April 4, 2018 (San Diego) – Free press advocates and some anchors at Sinclair Broadcast Group are raising objections to Orwellian scripts that Sinclair is forcing its news anchors nationwide to read, including scripts denouncing “false news” that “national media outlets are publishing.”


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MEDIA WATCH: BATTLING BOTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

 

 

By Miriam Raftery

April 4, 2018 (San Diego’s East County) - Social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter are taking steps to combat bots, or automated accounts that have been used to spread Russian propaganda, influence U.S. politics, spreading fake news stories as well as inflammatory posts intended to divide Americans on issues such as race relations and gun control.


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MEDIA WATCH: SAN DIEGO PRESS CLUB DISCUSSES FAKE NEWS AT PROGRAM ON SNOPES.COM

 

East County News Service

February 25, 2018 (San Diego) – The San Diego Press Club will present a program on Snopes.com, a fact-checking and reference website, from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 27 at its downtown San Diego offices at the Spreckels Building, 121 Broadway, Suite 640. Cost to attend is free for members and $10 per person for non members. The event is open to the public.


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MEDIA WATCH: BIOTECH BILIONAIRE BUYS UNION-TRIBUNE AND LOS ANGELES TIMES

 



Update February 7:  TRONC announced today that the San Diego Union-Tribune and Los Angeles Times have been sold to Nant Technologies LLC, a private investment company owned by Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, for $500 million cash plus $90 million in pension liabilities.

 

By Miriam Raftery

Photo: UCLA

February 6, 2018 (San Diego) – Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a biotech billionaire, is in negotiations to buy the San Diego Union-Tribune and the Los Angeles Times from TRONC, formerly known as Tribune Media, the Los Angeles Times reports. The would-be media mogul currently owns a 28 percent stake in the company.  


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IF YOU'RE NOT ALARMED, YOU SHOULD BE; WHO'S LEFT TO HOLD CALIFORNIA'S GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABLE

 

By David Lesher, editor and CEO at Cal Matters, an independent public interest journalism venture covering California state politics and government

January 25, 2018 (Sacramento) -- Dear Californians,

If you care about this state, it’s time to sound the alarm about the crisis in media and what it means for the health of democracy in the world’s sixth largest economy.

Media is declining nationally, but unique pressures have made California into America’s laboratory for a dangerous experiment about what happens to the public interest when policy is made without the public’s awareness or accountability.


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MEDIA WATCH: FORMER FCC SECURITY EMPLOYEE: FCC LIED ABOUT WEBSITE HACK TAKING DOWN NET NEUTRALITY COMMENTS

 

Bombshell story from Gizmodo underscores need for FCC to address serious issues with its public comment process before making any decision on net neutrality. 15,000+ people call on lawmakers to demand that FCC comply with transparency laws

Source:  Fight for the Future

August 7, 2017 (Washington D.C.) --In a bombshell story from Gizmodo today, a former FCC security employee lays waste to the agency’s claims that a pair of DDoS attacks took down the FCC comment website at the exact moments when large amounts of pro net neutrality comments would have been flooding into the docket following viral segments from comedian John Oliver in 2014 and 2017. The agency’s inability to maintain a functional way for the public to comment on its net neutrality proceedings has become an issue of concern for members of Congress overseeing the agency, and raises questions about how it can or should move forward with its rulemaking process.


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MEDIA WATCH: TRUMP’S TWEET OF PRESIDENT ASSAULTING CNN IN WRESTLING RING DRAWS CONDEMNATION

 

By Miriam Raftery

July 4, 2017 (Washington D.C.) – President Donald Trump hit below the belt, in the view of professional journalists, when he tweeted a 28-second video altered to depict Trump wrestling and punching a figure with the CNN logo transposed on its head. The video also alters the CNN logo to read, “FNN: Fraud News Network.”


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TRUMP CALLS MEDIA “ENEMY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE”; PROMINENT CONSERVATIVES AND MEDIA LEADERS DENOUNCE WORDS, DRAW COMPARISONS TO INFAMOUS DICTATORS

 

By Miriam Raftery

February 19, 2017 (Washington D.C.) – President Donald Trump has raised disturbing comparisons to notorious dictators and to disgraced President Richard Nixon with his unjustified attacks on respected, established media outlets as “fake news” and his repeated denouncements of  “dishonest media.”  

Worse yet, Trump’s tweet this week calling media an “enemy of the American people” has drawn sharp criticisms from  a Fox News anchor, his own Secretary of Defense, Republican Senator John McCain, and Carl Bernstein, the reporter whose investigation exposed the Watergate scandal that led to Richard Nixon’s resignation.


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MEDIA WATCH: CONSUMER ADVOCATES VOICE CONCERNS OVER TRUMP’S NEW FCC CHAIRMAN

 

By Miriam Raftery

January 29, 2017 (Washington D.C.) – Consumer advocates are voicing concern over Ajit Pai, President Donald Trump’s newly appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).  Pai has a record of opposing net neutrality and supporting big media mergers. A former corporate attorney for Verizon, Pai could also enable Trump to escalate his war on media outlets such as CNN that he has harshly criticized for broadcasting hard-hitting news reports on his administration.


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Support community news in the public interest! As nonprofit news, we rely on donations from the public to fund our reporting -- not special interests. Please donate to sustain East County Magazine's local reporting and/or wildfire alerts at https://www.eastcountymedia.org/donate to help us keep people safe and informed across our region.

MEDIA WATCHDOG: UNION – TRIBUNE’S EXCLUSIVE WEBSITE SPONSORSHIP DEAL WITH SDG&E RAISES QUESTIONS

 

Updated to include clarification from  SDG&E that its sponsorship was short-term,  not long-term.

East County Magazine

By Miriam Raftery

September 19, 2016 (San Diego) — Last week, the San Diego Union-Tribune rolled out a much-touted revamp of its website featuring San Diego Gas & Electric, a division of Sempra Energy, as its only sponsor.  The deal allows SDG&E to reach news readers directly with messages such as energy saving tips, but also poses potential conflicts of interests for San Diego’s largest newspaper.

SDG&E spokeswoman Stephanie Donovan has clarified that the sponsorship was only for two days, not an ongoing sponsorship. She added thiis perspective on the sponsorship:


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Support community news in the public interest! As nonprofit news, we rely on donations from the public to fund our reporting -- not special interests. Please donate to sustain East County Magazine's local reporting and/or wildfire alerts at https://www.eastcountymedia.org/donate to help us keep people safe and informed across our region.

MEDIA WATCH: THE REALITIES OF OUR TOXIC FOOD & MEDIA INDUSTRY

 

Over 81% of corn in America is genetically modified--and can cause organ damage in mammals, a shocking new scientific study shows. So why hasn't our media sounded the alarm? 
 

By: Mera Szendro Bok

 


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Support community news in the public interest! As nonprofit news, we rely on donations from the public to fund our reporting -- not special interests. Please donate to sustain East County Magazine's local reporting and/or wildfire alerts at https://www.eastcountymedia.org/donate to help us keep people safe and informed across our region.