Philly Inquirer asks: Is Melania Trump the ‘first sexy first lady’?; Internet explodes
One day after millions of women marched in the name of civil rights and equality, Philadelphia’s paper of record published an article headlined: “Melania Trump: the first sexy first lady?”
Written by longtime Inquirer fashion writer Elizabeth Wellington, the headline, which was also used in tweets promoting the article, struck many as outwardly sexist and spurred outrage across the internet.
(Source: billypenn.com)
White House Pushes ‘Alternative Facts.’ Here Are the Real Ones. - The New York Times
(Source: The New York Times)
“Demanding equality is a core tenet of journalism, a fundamental belief of many of its practitioners, and should no longer be sidelined. In an era when public trust in the media has hit a historic low and our work and its ethical underpinnings are questioned at every turn, America needs to get to know journalists as I know them: We are not perfect. Sometimes we are too obedient, too slow to query, too easy to distract. But we are by and large ethical and fair-minded people tasked with a job that gets harder all the time. Our identities are not a bias. Women who want equality aren’t biased. They are fair.” —
Shaya Tayefe Mohajer
Why journalists should be able to join the Women’s March - Columbia Journalism Review
(Source: cjr.org)
Now you can fact-check Trump’s tweets — in the tweets themselves -
The Washington Post “made a tool that slips a bit more context into Trump’s tweets. It’s still in the early stages, but our goal is to provide additional context where needed for Trump’s tweets moving forward (and a few golden oldies).”
(Source: Washington Post)
The Right Is Building A New Media "Upside Down" To Tell Trump’s Story -
Welcome to the New Media Upside Down: a parallel universe (think the Upside Down from the Netflix series Stranger Things) that operates as a mirror image of its mainstream counterpart with its own “alternative facts,” audience, and interpretation of truth. The New Media Upside Down looks a lot like the media it’s trying to undermine and replace, but it’s darker in vision — and raw. If you live in the mainstream media world, the New Media Upside Down can be hard to find — the only real crossover between the two worlds is on Twitter, where its leaders lambaste mainstream news reports often with the aim of discrediting them. It’s (reasonably) young and hungry, and has risen with Trump all the way to the White House — where Steve Bannon, who helped construct this upside-down media world while running Breitbart News, now holds sway as senior counselor to the president himself.
The New Media Upside Down is hardly concentrated or uniform in its voice. It’s helmed by a number of charismatic personalities, among them “New Right” blogger, self-described sometimes troll, and self-help author Mike Cernovich; undercover journalist James O’Keefe, conspiracy theorist and radio personality Alex Jones; conservative radio personality Laura Ingraham; pro-Trump Twitter pundit Bill Mitchell; Twitter provocateur and #Pizzagate truther Jack Posobiec; and online conservative media personality Hoft. The New Media Upside Down is diffused across mostly anonymous, massive conservative Facebook pages. But it’s also a beacon for young news organizations like One America News Network (a cable channel that recently hired former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski as a talking head) and Lifezette, as well as more established fringe outlets like InfoWars, the Gateway Pundit, Conservative Treehouse, and Breitbart News.
(Source: BuzzFeed)
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The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press wants to reminds journalists that our legal hotline service is available if they find they need legal assistance during the events surrounding the Presidential Inauguration this week.
The hotline can be reached at 800-336-4243 or hotline@rcfp.org.
Journalists occasionally get swept up in arrests during protests at national political events, and the Reporters Committee will be working to help them get back to gathering the news as quickly as possible.
Reporters are advised that:
-You should always carry a government-issued ID like a driver’s license or passport; court processing will be slowed significantly without it.
-If arrested, always let the officer and any booking officer or other official know that you are a reporter, and carry some sort of identification to establish that fact. This will not mean that you will be immediately released, but police have often defended arrests of reporters and photographers by pointing out that the individual did not notify anyone of their status as a journalist.
-Many misdemeanors in D.C. are handled through a “post-and-forfeiture” system, where the arrestee forfeits money to resolve charges immediately. Regardless of the name, these charges can be disputed in court later, and the payment is not considered a conviction or admission of the crime. Journalists should carry $100 in cash for such payments.
-Inauguration Day is a holiday for the courts, so an arrest on a more serious charge might lead to detention until Saturday, when the courts reopen for arraignments.
-Arrests will probably be handled by D.C. Police, but if you are arrested by U.S. Park Police or U.S. Secret Service, you may be held elsewhere and brought to federal court.
-We cannot guarantee that we can secure representation for reporters, so arrestees who are offered assistance from the public defender’s office or through services provided by groups such as the National Lawyers Guild should use those services if they’re facing an arraignment.
-If you are trying to find information about another journalist who has been arrested, you can contact the National Lawyers Guild hotline at (866) 796-6444. The NLG will have a volunteer staff of observers at events, protests, courts and police stations where arrests are likely. Their service is primarily meant for protesters and activists, but they will work with anyone arrested while exercising First Amendment rights.
(Source: rcfp.org)
Ethics in the News - Fake News and Facts in the Post-Truth Era -
(Source: ethicaljournalismnetwork.org)
“This one person, who many once assumed was crazy and whose doctoral work her own college failed to support, changed our professional lives by introducing us and the world to an entirely new form of storytelling. And no offense to you white guys in media out there, but for once the pioneer we can publicly herald as our progenitor is not a white male, but a Latina and a mom.” —
Dan Pacheco honors Nonny de la Peña, known as the “Godmother of VR,” by tracing the innovations she has pushed with virtual reality storytelling in journalism.
Honoring a Godmother – journalism360 – Medium
(Source: medium.com)
New York Times Study Calls for Rapid Change in Newsroom -
(Source: The New York Times)
(Source: niemanlab.org)