#editorial bias

[salarta]

I've decided I'm going to say a few things now, instead of holding into them for another month or two.

I was informed of an article on screenrant about the Marauders issue where Kate Pryde gets to benefit most from the Genosha stuff. Two things stood out to me. Why is the article capitalizing the word Ghosts? And why are they making this article two whole ass months after the issue they're talking about was published?

That's when I started to put two and two together. This story was conceived in a manner that allowed Kate Pryde to benefit most from Genosha, where the loss of her father is treated as infinitely more important when "wrapping up" Genosha than the experience of an actual survivor of the genocide who experienced it firsthand. The story was constructed in such a way that they bent over backwards to act like Lorna has no history with the island when she's there, because to acknowledge her history would mean overshadowing what they've decided is their most important objective of fawning over Kate Pryde.

To be clear to Kate Pryde fans, I have no problem whatsoever with her getting a spotlight. I don't have a problem with her leading her own team book, or having the loss of her father and its impact on her acknowledged and explored. I don't even necessarily have an issue with her leading the action taken in those issues. I think Lorna would've been more appropriate, but this isn't the only way Lorna's history with all this can be acknowledged and respected. What I do have a problem with, though, is how the X-Men comics office is so unwilling to show even the most minimal of respect toward Polaris as a character to the point where she's clearly only here cause they think having her show up for a couple panels and whine about lack of coffee is enough involvement for her.

But here's the two and two together part of it.

I've been told by others that Kate Pryde is Jordan White's favorite X-Men character. Jordan White also knows how important Lorna's experience on Genosha and surviving the genocide are to the character. I know that second part for a fact because I told him myself back in 2018.

If Kate Pryde being his favorite character is true, then that means Kate getting to be the focus of the Marauders "wrap-up" of Genosha all while Lorna is treated like she's worthless to the story of something she survived all comes down to White's bias controlling the story. Exactly how he's controlling it doesn't matter. He could be forcing this by editorial mandate. Or the writers could be pitching this way to please him. Both reasons boil down to Jordan White being the direct cause of the X-Men comics office being this horrendously disrespectful to this aspect of the character and what it means to fans that resonate with it.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

President Joe Biden dug himself a hole and now he is trying to climb out. But many fellow Democrats and some in the media keep shoveling dirt on him. One 20-minute TV interview was never going to swing the race back in Biden’s favor after his halting debate performance against Donald Trump — whose own shambolic showing was largely shrugged off. Legitimate questions remain as to whether Biden, 81, or Trump, 78, are up for the grueling campaign and four more years of a relentless job that has aged past Oval Office occupants. Biden insists he is staying in the race. He must now convince voters he has the mental strength and stamina to do the toughest job in the world. The same bar does not apparently exist for Trump, who loses no points for incoherence or incompetence. The country is not electing the next debate champion. Biden is a decent and honorable man with a substantive record of accomplishment. But to make his case, Biden should hold more unscripted events, including town halls, press conferences, and interviews. At each stop there will be no margin for error. The media is tracking Biden’s every move with an obsession greater than the 2016 focus on Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. The rules have always been different for Trump. Recall when seven members of Trump’s team used private email accounts, including his daughter and son in law, it barely caused a ripple. [...] But little attention has been paid to Trump’s incoherent debate performance because he is often incoherent. Trump told more than 30 lies in 90 minutes during the debate like it was another day at the office. [...] Apparently, it’s OK for Trump to spew nonstop nonsense, but Biden can’t ever lose his train of thought. [...] Trump’s list of flubs is long and more frequent. To be sure, anyone on the public stage will have occasional gaffes. But stringing words together is not what should worry voters the most. Some pundits have suggested that it’s time to take away Biden’s keys, but any fair-minded American should know by now that Trump is unsafe to serve at any speed. Four criminal indictments, two impeachments, one guilty verdict, a sexual abuse judgment, and a civil fraud finding should have sent Trump to the ash heap of history.

Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial Board on the hypocrisy of media coverage between President Joe Biden's cognitive decline and Donald Trump's cognitive decline (07.06.2024)

The Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial Board is on point here as to why Joe Biden's cognitive decline is getting all the coverage but Donald Trump's is being ignored with this phrase: "Apparently, it’s OK for Trump to spew nonstop nonsense, but Biden can’t ever lose his train of thought."

[sweetlyxaqq09]

The fun we had🤭

Edit - mine

TAGS

[thoughtsofthegirlwiththecurl]

Instead of getting an actual expert on AI to write this book, they just got someone who wants to suck AI's dick 🤦‍♀️

[lilliankillthisman]

The Financial Times is one of the most reliable news sources in world history and I enjoy and appreciate its daily newsletters. At the same time though. Come on guys.

[artsysurvivor-nfr]

[Image ID: A screenshot of 3 paragraphs from the article linked: "'I started telling them, ‘I’m not an Arab, I’m a Jew.’ They ran toward me, screaming in terror and grabbed me, shouting, ‘You’re a Jew, how are you not ashamed of yourself?''

'Some were in IDF uniforms and holding guns. There were 20 or 30 of them who beat me as I shouted for help, hoping that soldiers would hear me. But they were the soldiers… I laid on the floor, as every one of them kicked me in the head and stomach,' Golan says.

'They left me stripped and threw my motorcycle keys into the fire, so I’d have no way to get home. They had hate in their eyes,' he says" /End ID]

[mossadegh]

• Mossadegh media: newspaper & magazine articles, editorials

[jcmarchi]

Professor Emerita Mary-Lou Pardue, pioneering cellular and molecular biologist, dies at 90

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/professor-emerita-mary-lou-pardue-pioneering-cellular-and-molecular-biologist-dies-at-90/

Professor Emerita Mary-Lou Pardue, pioneering cellular and molecular biologist, dies at 90

Professor Emerita Mary-Lou Pardue, an influential faculty member in the MIT Department of Biology, died on June 1. She was 90.

Early in her career, Pardue developed a technique called in situ hybridization with her PhD advisor, Joseph Gall, which allows researchers to localize genes on chromosomes. This led to many discoveries, including critical advancements in developmental biology, our understanding of embryonic development, and the structure of chromosomes. She also studied the remarkably complex way organisms respond to stress, such as heat shock, and discovered how telomeres, the ends of chromosomes, in fruit flies differ from those of other eukaryotic organisms during cell division.

“The reason she was a professor at MIT, and why she was doing research, was first and foremost because she wanted to answer questions and make discoveries,” says longtime colleague and Professor Emerita Terry Orr-Weaver. “She had her feet cemented in a love of biology.”

In 1983, Pardue was the first woman in the School of Science at MIT to be inducted into the National Academy of Sciences. She chaired the Section of Genetics from 1991 to 1994 and served as a council member from 1995 to 1998. Among other honors, she was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, where she served as a council member, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She also served on numerous editorial boards and review panels, and as the vice president, president, and chair of the Genetics Society of America and president of the American Society for Cell Biology.

In the 1990s, Pardue was also one of 16 senior women on MIT’s science faculty who co-signed a letter to the dean of science claiming bias against women scientists at the Institute at the time. As a result of this letter and a subsequent study of conditions for women at the Institute, MIT in 1999 publicly admitted to having discriminated against its female faculty, and made plans to rectify the problem — a process that ultimately served as a model for academic institutions around the nation. 

Her graduate students and postdocs included Alan Spradling, Matthew Scott, Tom Cech, Paul Lasko, and Joan Ruderman.

In the minority

Pardue was born on Sept. 15, 1933, in Lexington, Kentucky. She received a BS in biology from the College of William and Mary in 1955, and she earned an MS in radiation biology from the University of Tennessee in 1959. In 1970, she received a PhD in biology for her work with Gall at Yale University.

Pardue’s career was inextricably linked to the slowly rising number of women with advanced degrees in science. During her early years as a graduate student at Yale, there were a few women with PhDs — but none held faculty positions. Indeed, Pardue assumed she would spend her career as a senior scientist working in someone else’s lab, rather than running her own.

Pardue was an avid hiker and loved to travel and spend time outdoors. She scaled peaks from the White Mountains to the Himalayas and pursued postdoctoral work in Europe at the University of Edinburgh. She was delighted to receive invitations to give faculty search seminars for the opportunity to travel to institutions across the United States — including an invitation to visit MIT.

MIT had initially rejected her job application, although the department quickly realized it had erred in missing the opportunity to recruit the talented Pardue. In the end, she spent more than 30 years as a professor in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

When Pardue joined, the biology department had two female faculty members, Lisa Steiner and Annamaria Torriani-Gorini — more women than at any other academic institution Pardue had interviewed. Pardue became an associate professor of biology in 1972, a professor in 1980, and the Boris Magasanik Professor of Biology in 1995.

“The person who made a difference” 

Pardue was known for her rigorous approach to science as well as her bright smile and support of others.

When Graham Walker, the American Cancer Society and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) professor, joined the department in 1976, he recalled an event for meeting graduate students at which he was repeatedly mistaken for a graduate student himself. Pardue parked herself by his side to bear the task of introducing the newest faculty member.

“Mary-Lou had an art for taking care of people,” Walker says. “She was a wonderful colleague and a close friend.”

As a young faculty member, Troy Littleton — now a professor of biology, the Menicon Professor of Neuroscience, and investigator at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory — had his first experience teaching with Pardue for an undergraduate project lab course.

“Observing how Mary-Lou was able to get the students excited about basic research was instrumental in shaping my teaching skills,” Littleton says. “Her passion for discovery was infectious, and the students loved working on basic research questions under her guidance.”

She was also a mentor for fellow women joining the department, including E.C. Whitehead Professor of Biology and HHMI investigator Tania A. Baker, who joined the department in 1992, and Orr-Weaver, the first female faculty member to join the Whitehead Institute in 1987.

“She was seriously respected as a woman scientist — as a scientist,” recalls Nancy Hopkins, the Amgen Professor of Biology Emerita. “For women of our generation, there were no role models ahead of us, and so to see that somebody could do it, and have that kind of respect, was really inspiring.”

Hopkins first encountered Pardue’s work on in situ hybridization as a graduate student. Although it wasn’t Hopkins’s field, she remembers being struck by the implications — a leap in science that today could be compared to the discoveries that are possible because of the applications of gene-editing CRISPR technology.

“The questions were very big, but the technology was small,” Hopkins says. “That you could actually do these kinds of things was kind of a miracle.”

Pardue was the person who called to give Hopkins the news that she had been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. They hadn’t worked together to that point, but Hopkins felt like Pardue had been looking out for her, and was very excited on her behalf.

Later, though, Hopkins was initially hesitant to reach out to Pardue to discuss the discrimination Hopkins had experienced as a faculty member at MIT; Pardue seemed so successful that surely her gender had not held her back. Hopkins found that women, in general, didn’t discuss the ways they had been undervalued; it was humiliating to admit to being treated unfairly.

Hopkins drafted a letter about the systemic and invisible discrimination she had experienced — but Hopkins, ever the scientist, needed a reviewer.

At a table in the corner of Rebecca’s Café, a now-defunct eatery, Pardue read the letter — and declared she’d like to sign it and take it to the dean of the School of Science.

“I knew the world had changed in that instant,” Hopkins says. “She’s the person who made the difference. She changed my life, and changed, in the end, MIT.”

MIT and the status of women

It was only when some of the tenured women faculty of the School of Science all came together that they discovered their experiences were similar. Hopkins, Pardue, Orr-Weaver, Steiner, Susan Carey, Sylvia Ceyer, Sallie “Penny” Chisholm, Suzanne Corkin, Mildred Dresselhaus, Ann Graybiel, Ruth Lehmann, Marcia McNutt, Molly Potter, Paula Malanotte-Rizzoli, Leigh Royden, and Joanne Stubbe ultimately signed a letter to Robert Birgeneau, then the dean of science.

Their efforts led to a Committee on the Status of Women Faculty in 1995, the report for which was made public in 1999. The report documented pervasive bias against women across the School of Science. In response, MIT ultimately worked to improve the working conditions of women scientists across the Institute. These efforts reverberated at academic institutions across the country.

Walker notes that creating real change requires a monumental effort of political and societal pressure — but it also requires outstanding individuals whose work surpasses the barriers holding them back.

“When Mary-Lou came to MIT, there weren’t many cracks in the glass ceiling,” he says. “I think she, in many ways, was a leader in helping to change the status of women in science by just being who she was.”

Later years

Kerry Kelley, now a research laboratory operations manager in the Yilmaz Lab at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, joined Pardue as a technical lab assistant in 2008, Kelley’s first job at MIT. Pardue, throughout her career, was committed to hands-on work, preparing her own slides whenever possible.

“One of the biggest things I learned from her was mistakes aren’t always mistakes. If you do an experiment, and it doesn’t turn out the way you had hoped, there’s something there that you can learn from,” Kelley says. She recalls a frequent refrain with a smile: “‘It’s research. What do you do? Re-search.’”

Their birthdays were on consecutive days in September; Pardue would mark the occasion for both at Legal Seafoods in Kendall Square with bluefish, white wine, and lab members and collaborators including Kelley, Karen Traverse, and the late Paul Gregory DeBaryshe.

In the years before her death, Pardue resided at Youville House Assisted Living in Cambridge, where Kelley would often visit.

“I was sad to hear of the passing of Mary-Lou, whose seminal work expanded our understanding of chromosome structure and cellular responses to environmental stresses over more than three decades at MIT. Mary-Lou was an exceptional person who was known as a gracious mentor and a valued teacher and colleague,” says Amy Keating, head of the Department of Biology, the Jay A. Stein (1968) Professor of Biology, and professor of biological engineering. “She was kind to everyone, and she is missed by our faculty and staff. Women at MIT and beyond, including me, owe a huge debt to Mary-Lou, Nancy Hopkins, and their colleagues who so profoundly advanced opportunities for women in science.”

She is survived by a niece and nephew, Sarah Gibson and Todd Pardue.

[salarta]

Polaris' Biggest Obstacle: Jordan D. White

You've seen me complain about how the X-Men comics office treats Polaris/Lorna Dane for a while.

You've seen me point out how important being a survivor of the Genoshan genocide, one who had to relive those final moments constantly until the X-Men found her in Genosha's ruins, is to Lorna as a character.

You've watched as the X-Men comics office refused, and refuses, to acknowledge this essential part of her character history.

This problem has existed for over 15 years now. It's not new. But what is new, is that Lorna fans have been making its importance very clear for several years now. The X-Men comics have been addressing Genosha more and more since 2019, while excluding Polaris, and there's exactly one person to blame for this.

That person is current X-Men comics editor Jordan D. White. He's been deliberately undermining Polaris whenever he has his hand in anything involving her, based on his own biases against the character.

This isn't an accusation based on nothing. I have receipts.

Let me first give you a little background on this man. I've always said you need to know what you're fighting to figure out how to deal with it. We don't need to dive very deep right now. Just the essentials.

Like most editors at Marvel, he got his start as an assistant editor in the mid-00s. He worked his way up that chain, working as an editor for several books until eventually becoming senior editor of the X-Men comics in 2018. However, it wasn't until during COVID that read the original run of X-Men comics. That includes Lorna's introductory issues of X-Men #49 - #50.

Before I delve any further into the history lesson, let me take a detour. Into what he thinks of Polaris.

I was, quite frankly, not planning on ever pointing this out publicly. I intended to keep it to myself because he was replying to me, and it felt wrong to use his willingness to talk with me against him.

But things have changed. He's shown he has no respect for Polaris or any fans of her, and gives zero fucks about the impact of his actions in this regard. So I will likewise exhibit zero fucks in using this. I've been holding on to this for years. And now it's coming out.

In 2018, the year he took over as senior editor of the X-Men comics, Jordan White responded to tweets I was making that complained about how the comics were treating Lorna. First, he replied to one I had written directly to him. But then he found and replied to one of my tweets where I had not tagged him.

This is the exchange. It was a typical tweet for me. I said Lorna is underused, underrated, and deserves way more than Marvel gives her.

He didn't like that.

Below, are screencaps of the most critical bits.

At the time, I made a critical mistake: I let myself believe he actually meant any of this. I let myself think that since he was willing to talk with me, that must mean he's being honest. It must mean he's trying to be considerate, and understand where I'm coming from. It must mean he really does care, but he has a lot to juggle.

I was fucking wrong. This was him covering his ass. Every step of the way. He's made it more apparent with every year he's been an editor.

This is where I start to take his lies apart.

Let's go back now. To his history.

Jordan White did several comics before he become X-Men senior editor. Guess which X-Men comics he did before 2018.

At least as early as 2011, White was an assistant editor of Peter David's long second X-Factor run. White was also assistant editor for Lorna's origin issue, X-Factor #243. However, he didn't have much power yet - because he was still just an assistant. He was still under Daniel Ketchum, and sometimes working alongside other editors. However, that changed toward the end of that second X-Factor run. By the end, he was an editor.

Now here's the million dollar prize for you all.

After that run ended, Marvel announced a new X-Factor. This run, All-New X-Factor, would be Polaris very first time running a team as its intended leader. She had been a leader on prior occasions, from 90s X-Factor when Havok was gone to her time on Genosha.

Guess who served as editor for All-New X-Factor.

Come on. Guess.

That's right. You guessed it. The main asshole himself: Jordan D. White.

You might be thinking to yourself: wait a second, if this is Polaris' time to shine as leader, then doesn't him serving as editor for this book mean he was actually in support of Lorna? That he was trying to give her a shot?

Oh how naive. How sweetly, sweetly naive. The problem, dear reader, is that you're assuming Peter David went at this project with good intentions all around.

He didn't. He royally fucked up the book. He killed it. He destroyed every ounce of possible real win Lorna could have gotten out of this book. If All-New X-Factor had succeeded, with REAL editorial precision and care, it could have continued on. And Polaris would be in a much, much better place today.

To understand this, you have to understand how he fucked up the book.

The book and its whole concept actually started out very well. Lorna formed the team under Serval Industries. She recruited Gambit. Pietro joined under the company's guidance. So far so good.

Then... we get to the rest of the book.

Here's Lorna depicted as so randomly unhinged that she's about ready to slaughter a cat for scratching her.

Here's Gambit written with the POV of Lorna being shittily unhinged and unfit for leadership, not listening to or working with her teammates, just doing shit.

Here's Gambit acting like the actual leader of the team, Lorna clearly not wanting Danger to join but ending up having to accept her anyway cause Gambit wants her.

Here's Lorna trying to give the team some orders, only for Gambit to be written as single-handedly deciding what she, the team leader wants to do, must be stopped.

Here's yet another case of Gambit written as "putting his foot down" on Lorna, who's supposed to be the team leader, and... wait, what? Gambit gets to do this and Lorna DOESN'T rearrange his face or chew him out, in direct contradiction to how she was written with the cat and with Danger in prior issues?

And lastly, here's Gambit making the offer to Cypher and Warlock for them to join X-Factor, with Lorna just backing him up.

This is supposed to be Lorna's team. She's supposed to be the leader.

Why the fuck is she being depicted as if she wouldn't know how to lead her own ass to water, let alone lead a team? Why is Gambit being presented as if he's moreso the leader than her?

Oh. That's right.

But wait. There's mooooore! We have a bonus round of White dickery.

Jordan White around on this book as editor until All-New X-Factor #14 - the issue where Wanda showed up to interact with Lorna shortly before the Axis retcon, and the point at which Marvel announced they had cancelled ANXF.

When the issue starts up, for a moment there it looks like it just might have a shot of having Lorna and Wanda work out any issues they have concerning M-Day when Wanda had depowered many mutants including Lorna.

For a moment there, we were about to get some actual discussion and development! Something tangible! They could've just got through this, came to an understanding, and that's a wrap.

But then, on the very next page...

A... a renaissance faire?

They're going to a renaissance faire?

They're going to a renaissance faire.

They have real issues to work through and they're going to a renaissance faire instead. What the fuck.

After this issue, the remaining 6 issues got handed off to a different editor to finish it up. The damage had been done. He had "successfully" ruined and killed Lorna first and to date only chance she's ever had, in over 50 years, to lead a team book of her own.

At the time ANXF was coming out, Peter David provided interviews where he talked up how excited he was to write Gambit. He also talked about how he thought Danger would be ANXF's break-out star. I'm not saying any of that is true or false. I'm not in his head, I don't know what he was thinking.

But to me, it seems very, very odd for a writer to take a character he had written at various points across two decades, give her an opportunity to stand on a pedestal as a book's intended team leader for the first time, and then fuck her up royally to promote other characters.

No. I think what likely happened, behind the scenes, is that Jordan White absolutely abhorred the concept of Polaris leading a team of her own and getting out from under the shadow of "Havok's girlfriend."

According to Jordan D. White, X-Men senior editor and self-proclaimed expert on Polaris' viability for meaningful use (despite the fact he knows dick all about her in any real way), Lorna doesn't "deserve" such opportunities. According to him, Lorna doesn't have fan demand, editorial interest, or writer interest for her to become a star in the X-Men comics, and so doesn't deserve any of the good and fair treatment so many other characters got and get all the time.

A view of his that was shut down quite readily with her winning the X-Men vote to be on the main team in 2020. Which, quite honestly, I'm surprised he actually honored instead of lying through his teeth to claim she lost. Maybe there was too much oversight for him to get away with that.

But the X-Men vote matter will come up in a future post. If it's needed. I have more receipts in that vein to present if Jordan White forces me to put them out there.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Judd Legum at Popular Information:

Jeff Bezos is the second-richest person in the world, with a net worth of approximately $211 billion. Most of Bezos' wealth is derived from his 9% stake in Amazon, the company he founded. Bezos also founded and owns Blue Origin, a private space exploration company worth billions.  Bezos also owns the Washington Post, which he purchased in 2013 for $250 million in cash. Is Bezos now making decisions at the Washington Post to protect and enhance the value of his other enterprises? Many current and former employees of the Washington Post believe so. 

[...] The Washington Post, unlike Amazon and Blue Origin, has been a money loser for Bezos, reportedly running a deficit of $100 million last year. More importantly, Bezos believes that former President Trump's hostility toward the Washington Post, which produced critical coverage of Trump's presidency, cost his companies billions in government contracts.

[...] On Friday, days before the election, Washington Post publisher William Lewis — installed by Bezos earlier this year — announced that "the Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election." The announcement, less than 2 weeks before Election Day, was a break from decades of precedent. Bezos made the decision, according to the New York Times, after the Washington Post "editorial board had already drafted an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris."  Marty Baron, the former Executive Editor of the Washington Post, slammed Bezos' decision as "cowardice" and linked it to Bezos' desire to appease Trump. Baron said it would backfire, and Trump would "see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner [Bezos]."  Hours after Lewis published the announcement, Trump was seen meeting with Blue Origin CEO David Limp. Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign's chief spokesman, embraced the suggestion that the meeting and the announcement of the non-endorsement were linked. 

[...]

The billionaire owner of the LA Times

Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the LA Times, also abruptly demanded his publication stay neutral in the presidential election. Soon-Shiong bought the paper for $500 million in 2018.  Soon-Shiong is a healthcare and biotech entrepreneur whose companies rely on the federal government. His companies regularly seek FDA approval for new drugs, vaccines and therapies and federal funding for research. 

The editorial board had planned to endorse Kamala Harris and publish a series of columns tentatively titled "The Case Against Trump." But in a post on X, Soon-Shiong said he offered the LA Times editorial board "the opportunity to draft a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH candidate during their tenures at the White House, and how these policies affected the nation." Soon-Shiong said that "[i]nstead of adopting this path as suggested, the Editorial Board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision."  Soon-Shiong did not explain why he did not demand a similar approach for U.S. House and Senate races, state ballot initiatives, and many other contests facing California voters. Beginning in September, the LA Times has endorsed in dozens of races up and down the ballot.  

In response to the spiking of the presidential endorsement, 200 LA Times staff members signed an open letter calling on Soon-Shiong to "provide readers with an explanation for not issuing an endorsement, along with clarity about the broader endorsement process." Three members of the paper's editorial board have resigned. "I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent," Mariel Garza, the LA Times editorials editor, said. "In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up." 

Cowardly billionaire media owners have shunned common sense by taking a pass on endorsing Kamala Harris, such as the Washington Post and LA Times.

[themetaphorical]

AI Innovations: Advancements and Studies Redefining Industries

Amanda JacksonThe MetaphoricalFebruary 9, 2024 Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues its relentless march forward, with recent breakthroughs and studies highlighting its transformative potential across various fields. From healthcare to finance, education to transportation, the latest advancements in AI are reshaping industries and opening new avenues for innovation. In healthcare, AI is…

[determinate-negation]

CNN is facing a backlash from its own staff over editorial policies they say have led to a regurgitation of Israeli propaganda and the censoring of Palestinians perspectives in the network’s coverage of the war in Gaza.

Journalists in CNN newsrooms in the US and overseas say broadcasts have been skewed by management edicts and a story-approval process that has resulted in highly partial coverage of the Hamas massacre on 7 October and Israel’s retaliatory attack on Gaza.

“The majority of news since the war began, regardless of how accurate the initial reporting, has been skewed by a systemic and institutional bias within the network toward Israel,” said one CNN staffer. “Ultimately, CNN’s coverage of the Israel-Gaza war amounts to journalistic malpractice.”

According to accounts from six CNN staffers in multiple newsrooms, and more than a dozen internal memos and emails obtained by the Guardian, daily news decisions are shaped by a flow of directives from the CNN headquarters in Atlanta that have set strict guidelines on coverage.

They include tight restrictions on quoting Hamas and reporting other Palestinian perspectives while Israel government statements are taken at face value. In addition, every story on the conflict must be cleared by the Jerusalem bureau before broadcast or publication.

[fairuzfan]

I mentioned this before but the one thing I cannot stand is selfishness which is where a lot of zionist talking points come from even when they *are* advocating for "peace" and "coexistence" because it centers ISRAELI safety and only thinks of Palestinian safety as secondary and indecental to Israeli (ie: the only way Israelis get safety is if their Palestinian """"neighbors"""" get safety which is such a selfish way to view the imprisonment and oppression of Palestinians) but then again they publish literal thinkpieces about the guilt Israeli soldiers feel when they eat food left behind by starving Palestinians — who, again, are starving BECAUSE OF ISRAELIS WHO ARE THE OPPRESSORS — so there's no way mainstream Israeli society will ever make changes to their language they they carefully curate to not include Palestinians (Haaretz is a beautiful example of this — take a look at their editorial staff list) because they all feed into their own sense of self pity and self righteousness rather than actually uplifting the voices of the oppressed. But then PALESTINIANS are the ones in this scenario who are accused of bias because they advocate and fight for their stories to be heard. Israelis do not have to find alternative means to put out their stories — has it occurred to you why Palestinians have had to use SOCIAL MEDIA to share their stories rather than traditional networks? It's because no one gives us the time of day. So we developed our platform through social media, even on here where @el-shab-hussein has been documenting FOR YEARS the human rights abuses perpetuated by Israelis on Palestinians because we know that's how anyone learns the truth about Palestine. So when people are trying to take down tiktok specifically, it's sinophobia and also fueled in recent months by antiPalestinian sentiments.

Sudan is like this too — the news we get about Sudan are from people who are on the ground because they've largely been abandoned by human rights orgs and by news stations. We learn the most about Sudan from people like @/bsonblast and Ze on Twitter.

Then people like come on here and make fun of people who get their news from social media (which is code for "Palestinians," they always mean it as code for Palestinians) as if "professional" media takes anyone from the Global South seriously or gives them space to talk about their stories and when they DO, people say things like "hamas run media" or whatever lol like these people have never had to doubt what they see on public media before and it shows! No one takes you seriously when you say the words "islamofascist state" about Gaza when CNN publicly admits to having their content reviewed by the IOF! Hypocritical at best!

[akajustmerry]

helloooooooo. So, in 2023, myself and 2 other colleagues of colour lost our jobs at a Certain Australian Media Outlet™️ for calling out racism and anti-Palestinian bias in the editorial team. Since then, the three of us decided we needed a place to write the kind of articles analysing race, gender, and pop culture that our clueless, racist management team refused to publish. And so! The Offcut substack was born. We're trying to get our foot in the door for press junkets, press-certification, etc. but it's really hard when 1) you're a brand new publication and 2) you're three writers who have been blackballed for speaking up about racism. So, if any of that interests you, OR you just wanna help an outlet founded by 3 journalists of colour (including me!) get press-cred - subscribe below ❤️