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
Environmental Justice? Unjust Coverage of the Flint Water Crisis. A new paper by Derrick Z. Jackson, Joan Shorenstein Fellow (fall 2016), Boston Globe essayist, and a climate and energy writer for the Union of Concerned Scientists, examines the failure of national media outlets to respond to the Flint water crisis in an urgent manner, as well as biases in coverage.
News from Faculty, Fellows, and Students
Juliette Kayyem: ‘We Just Took Two Big Steps Towards Collusion.’ For Juliette Kayyem, Belfer Lecturer in International Security and Shorenstein Center affiliate, Donald Trump Jr.’s emails “provide evidence that the Trump campaign was willing to keep secrets and receive assistance from the Russians.”
President Trump’s Tweets And ‘The Bully Pulpit On Steroids.’ Nicco Mele, Shorenstein Center director, discusses the Shorenstein Center’s studies on media coverage of Trump, press freedom, and more on WBUR.
Health Care Debate: A Really Big Story, Except When It Isn’t. The Shorenstein Center’s intern at The New York Times, Avantika Chilkoti, examines the frequency of news coverage of the GOP healthcare bill–and Thomas Patterson, Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press, observes that crafting the bill behind closed doors is a way to avoid press attention, and therefore pressure from outside groups.
Health reporters: Secrecy, speed, and Twitter changed coverage of GOP bill. Trudy Lieberman, spring 2001 fellow, interviews reporters who covered the Affordable Care Act, and finds that the GOP’s “covert and rushed” approach to healthcare reform has made it more difficult for journalists to “provide clear consequences of the GOP bill for their audiences.”
Documentary Explores Flaws In How The Media Cover Presidential Campaigns. Dan Kennedy, spring 2016 fellow, reviews a new film, Democracy through the Looking Glass: Politics and Media in the Post-Truth Era, which features Nicco Mele.
Startups are co-opting Donald Trump’s digital playbook to push progressive politics in 2018. Nicco Mele says that interest in political startups, driven by opposition to Trump, is “a natural part of the political cycle…Some will find the right timing, message and execution, and others will disappear.”
Mandatory Digital Privacy Labels: One Way to Protect Consumer Data. HKS student Katherine Mansted writes in the Kennedy School Review that “consumers feel that they have lost control because they do not clearly understand how and when firms collect and use their personal information,” making updated privacy laws essential.
When Rising Seas Hit Home: Hard Choices Ahead for Hundreds of US Coastal Communities. Derrick Jackson, fall 2016 fellow, developed four case studies on coastal cities facing flooding, for a new Union of Concerned Scientists report.
Donald Trump’s warning about ‘western civilisation’ evokes holy war. Walter Shapiro, spring 2005 fellow, argues that “the Trump-Bannon worldview depicts Europe and America reeling from a second Muslim invasion,” as alluded to in the president’s recent speech in Poland.
Trump Jr. Emails
- Pro-Trump media scrambles to react to bombshell emails, from CNN.
- Trump Allies Reportedly Planning To Defend Trump Jr. By Digging Up Dirt On Reporters, from Huffington Post.
- How Trump Jr.’s ‘Transparency’ Erodes Trust With the Media, from The New York Times.
Partisanship and Media
- Partisan gap over news media’s impact on country grows, from Pew Research Center.
- Partisanship and the media: How personal politics affect where people go, what they trust, and whether they pay, from American Press Institute.
President Trump and Twitter
- The freedom-of-speech institute suing @realDonaldTrump to unblock his critics on Twitter has its eye on other lawsuits, too, from Nieman Lab.
- Getting Trump banned from Twitter would be a huge mistake, from Columbia Journalism Review.
Social Media and News
- News Outlets to Seek Bargaining Rights Against Google and Facebook, from The New York Times.
- Legacy media diverge from digital natives in fight against Facebook, Google, from Columbia Journalism Review.
- The News Business Sinks Ever Closer to Rock Bottom, from The Atlantic.
- Facebook is getting ready to test paid subscriptions with publications, from Digiday.
- Study: Bots have turned Twitter into a powerful political disinformation platform, from VentureBeat.
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