Media & Politics Must Reads, April 21, 2017

Our weekly roundup of news found at the intersection of media, politics, policy and technology, from the Shorenstein Center and from around the web.

This Week at the Shorenstein Center

Sarah Smarsh: Reporting on Rural America and Class. Sarah Smarsh, a reporter on socioeconomic class, politics, and policy for The New Yorker, The Guardian, Harper’s online, and other publications, discussed media coverage of class in the U.S.

News from Faculty and Fellows

The Future of Political Campaigning in the Age of AI & Social Media. A panel moderated by Shorenstein Center Director Nicco Mele discusses how social media and machine learning algorithms have changed the way political campaigns are run.

Donald Trump’s Multi-Pronged Attack on the Internet. Susan Crawford, John A. Reilly Clinical Professor of Law and a Shorenstein Center faculty affiliate, writes about threats posed to net neutrality by the FCC’s “fiercely deregulatory” chairman, Ajit Pai.

Accolades for Judy Woodruff. Judy Woodruff, fall 2005 fellow, will receive the Poynter Medal for Lifetime Achievement, as well as the 2017 Cronkite Award (which will also honor the late Gwen Ifill). Congratulations Judy!

Conservative Media

• Bill O’Reilly’s Ouster Will Test Loyalties of Fox Viewers, from The New York Times.
• Breitbart and Trump relationship: it’s complicated, from CNN.
• Alex Jones And The Dark New Media Are On Trial In Texas, from BuzzFeed News.

Press Freedom

U.S. Press Freedom Tracker will keep tabs on the safety of journalists in America, from Poynter.

The Trump Administration and the Media

• Donald Trump killed the news cycle, from Columbia Journalism Review.
• White House says it won’t make visitor logs public, from
• Spicer Argues That More Public Disclosure Is Unnecessary, Even Harmful, from The New York Times.
• Secrecy on White House visitor logs shows Trump administration allergic to transparency, from the Sunlight Foundation.
• How Trump Is Helping Vanity Fair, Others Shift to a Completely New Business Model, from The Street.
• ‘No one else is going to speak for us’: LGBTQ media rise in age of Trump, from Columbia Journalism Review.

International Media and Elections

• It’s France’s Turn to Worry About Election Meddling by Russia, from The New York Times.
• In France, Snapchat takes the lead in producing political content, from Digiday.
• The French magazine L’Obs is using Facebook Messenger to follow undecided voters, from Nieman Lab.
• A Lesson in Moscow About Trump-Style ‘Alternative Truth,’ from The New York Times.
• In China, the art of media censorship is becoming more sophisticated, from Journalism.co.uk.

Local Newsrooms

• Great local reporting stands between you and wrongdoing. And it needs saving. From The Washington Post.
• A Boston Globe memo puts the spotlight on an emerging consensus on how to transform metro papers, from Nieman Lab.
• One Fusion editor is taking road trips around the country to work with local journalists, from Poynter.

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