Peter Bale - curated media, journalism, and related tech news - Issue #73
The missing element in this and in much of the reporting so far is how brilliantly Twitch managed to squelch the live-casting of the shooting. It was streamed for 81 seconds and almost immediately caught by Twitch's process to intercept real-world violence. Unlike the Christchurch mosque attacks streamed on Facebook, Twitch stopped the stream vast and effectively eliminated the possibility of it being copied. In this case, Twitch should probably be congratulated not attacked.
What a fiasco this turned out to be and the US government failed to explain itself adequately. Even the word "disinformation" -- the deliberate spreading of false information -- is being weaponised as a supposed attack on free speech. It is real and it is serious and it is not just some figment of a liberal imagination yet that is the new narrative.
It seems relatively clear that Shireen is highly likely to have been killed by the IDF -- evidently with a single shot -- and not a random Palestinian bullet. Yet again a debt of gratitude is owed to Bellingcat for its forensic work on trying to get to the bottom of murky events.
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I wasn't aware of these two stories from Brian Cathcart and it is a remarkable saga that secret deals were done with media -- essentially just newspapers in the UK -- for support during the pandemic. And that it is ongoing. It is a big contrast to the debate in New Zealand where media has been accused of being in the "pocket" of the government but where a new Public Interest Journalism Fund is entirely transparent. (I may disagree with how it is being spent but the intent was honest and clear).
NZ On Air’s decades-long dominance of public media funding is set to be upended, sources say.
Another New Zealand story that may have relevance outside: the government is forcing a merger between the publicly owned TV and radio broadcasters and also changing its funding model. I reckon New Zealand On Air (an arms' length quango that offers contestable grants to media and also directs funding to Radio NZ, is an elegant and tested institution.) The new public media entity is going to go all-in on the internet I suspect and start posing major problems competitively for the commercial competitors.
Also the merger proxy and Allianz Structured Alpha.
Nice work using the word "lie" in this.
Who wants to own Twitter? Maybe Elon Musk doesn't.
Australia -- especially New South Wales -- already has some of the most confronting and archaic defamation laws in the world and this apparent judgment makes it all even worse -- disclosing content to investigated subjects. It is a huge reversal of media freedom and comparable with what we see in the UK which is also a paradise for vexatious suits against media.
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I admit to loving this story -- despite the obvious class-led sneering at these people. Their behaviour and self-absorption are ghastly and the QCs involved some of the wittiest in court.