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Offering extremely candid comments from mainstream journalists, this report provides a snapshot of an industry [news media] caught between the pressure to deliver page views, the impulse to cover manipulators and “trolls,” and the disgust (expressed in interviewees’ own words) of accidentally propagating extremist ideology. After reviewing common methods of “information laundering” of radical and racist messages through the press, Phillips uses journalists’ own words to propose a set of editorial “better practices” intended to reduce manipulation and harm. As social and digital media are leveraged to reconfigure the information landscape, Phillips argues that this new domain requires journalists to take what they know about abuses of power and media manipulation in traditional information ecosystems; and apply and adapt that knowledge to networked actors, such as white nationalist networks online.
(tags: media news harassment nazis fascism overton-window journalism racism press)
Ash Sarkar on how to counter the new right
‘a) Acknowledge that the fascist threat has changed. It’s political operations are far more nebulous and diffuse; it works in political institutions and dark corners of the internet; it will adopt and distort liberal tropes and talking points. b) Deal with the fact that traditional forms of policing will be of little effectiveness in countering it. Those with the most power to inhibit the dissemination of far-right and racist ideology are the digital platforms they rely on: reddit, Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook. c) Transform current affairs media. For too long, producers and editors have taken the alt-right at their word, and framed issues as free speech/limits of offensive humour. That must change. Unless you’re willing to do rigorous research first, don’t commission the debate. d) Overhaul the teaching of PSHE & Citizenship in education to prepare young people for the desensitising and extreme content they will see online. Create space for healthy debate and discussion in respectful environments. Don’t let groomers take advantage of their curiousity. e) Get a very big bin, and put Melanie Phillips, Rod Liddle, and Douglas Murray in it. Then fire the bin into outer space.’
(tags: alt-right fascism media politics internet social-media twitter reddit ash-sarkar)
Why Do so Many Egyptian Statues Have Broken Noses? – Artsy
wow, TIL. ‘The ancient Egyptians, it’s important to note, ascribed important powers to images of the human form. They believed that the essence of a deity could inhabit an image of that deity, or, in the case of mere mortals, part of that deceased human being’s soul could inhabit a statue inscribed for that particular person. These campaigns of vandalism were therefore intended to “deactivate an image’s strength,” as Bleiberg put it.’