Filippo Menczer, Luddy Distinguished Professor of Informatics and Computer Science at Indiana University, writes… Facebook has been quietly experimenting with reducing the amount of political content it puts in users’ news feeds. The move is a tacit acknowledgment that the way the company’s algorithms work can be a problem. The heart of the matter is the distinction between […]
By Denise-Marie Ordway, writing for The Journalist’s Resource… Two experts offer insights to help journalists – and non-journalists – make sense of the recent controversy around critical race theory, a decades-old legal framework for examining how U.S. laws and systems have perpetuated racism. Republican lawmakers and elected leaders across the U.S. have spoken out in […]
From Amaris Castillo, writing for Poynter… Last Friday, U.S. intelligence agencies released a report that many were eagerly awaiting: a preliminary assessment on unidentified aerial phenomena. In layman’s terms, UFOs. The unclassified report said these phenomena clearly pose a flight safety issue but that there aren’t enough high-quality reports on them to draw any firm conclusions. Sightings […]
By Bruce Hennes, Hennes Communications Crisis communications is a sub-specialty of the public relations profession that is designed to protect and defend an individual, company, or organization facing a public challenge to its reputation. Crisis communications is aimed at raising awareness of a specific type of threat, the magnitude, outcomes, and specific behaviors to adopt to reduce the threat. […]
By John Gramlich, writing for the Pew Research Center… Americans see a variety of factors as important when it comes to deciding whether a news story is trustworthy or not, but their attitudes vary by party affiliation, demographic characteristics and news consumption habits, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. Overall, broad majorities of U.S. […]
Sam Wineburg, Professor of Education and History at Stanford University, writing for The Conversation… The web is a treacherous place. A website’s author may not be its author. References that confer legitimacy may have little to do with the claims they anchor. Signals of credibility like a dot-org domain can be the artful handiwork of a Washington, […]
From Michael J. O’Brien and Izzat Alsmadi, writing for The Conversation… Sorting through the vast amount of information created and shared online is challenging, even for the experts. Just talking about this ever-shifting landscape is confusing, with terms like “misinformation,” “disinformation” and “hoax” getting mixed up with buzzwords like “fake news.” Misinformation is perhaps the […]
Next to Warren Buffett’s annual letter to stockholders, one of the most eagerly anticipated document every year is the Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community. From Wikipedia: This report is delivered at a hearing of the US Senate Select Intelligence Committee that has occurred each year since 2006, until 2020. Each hearing includes at least one […]
From Sophie Maerowitz, writing for PR News… A Las Vegas man has gone viral for criticizing Disney World’s socially conscious updates to employee guidelines and its signature theme rides. In an opinion column for the Orlando Sentinel titled “I love Disney World, but wokeness is ruining the experience,” Jonathan VanBoskerck expresses his frustration with the theme park. […]
From Aaron Krolik and Kashmir Hill writing for The New York Times… At first glance, the websites appear amateurish. They have names like BadGirlReports.date, BustedCheaters.com and WorstHomeWrecker.com. Photos are badly cropped. Grammar and spelling are afterthoughts. They are clunky and text-heavy, as if they’re intended to be read by machines, not humans. But do not […]