Five not necessarily easy pieces
A curated list of items I thought worth reading and sharing lately
— Peter Bale
Donald Trump and the new dawn of tyranny, Time.com by Timothy Snyder.
Tim is a noted historian on fascism and modern Europe with books including Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. He has written pieces for my old team at CNN and was close to the Anglo/French/American historian Tony Judt who has had a great influence on me.
In this piece Tim looks at the historic precedents for the kind of people Donald Trump has surrounded himself with and the methods they use.
Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media, The Observer by Carole Cadwalladr worth reading alongside this more detailed perspective on the data company Cambridge Analytica by Motherboard at Vice, The Data That Turned the World Upside Down. Fascinating and concerning perspectives on the ability of shadowy Big Data firms to analyse and influence behaviour, particularly in politics, with Brexit and the U.S. election. Scientific American took the analysis of this area of Big Data and politics one step further with: Will Democracy Survive Big Data and Artificial Intelligence? It’s also been pointed out to me since I first wrote this that the impact of the Cambridge Analytica work has been called into question. This piece from The Register puts it in some greater context.
- Peter Bale is the President of the Global Editors Network. Until recently he was the CEO of the Washington investigative journalism non-profit, The Center for Public Integrity. He has also worked at CNN, MSN, Reuters and FT.com. This commentary his is personal view.