The digital side of this war
Media statistic of the week?
Despite some eye-catching deals in the last year, venture capital funding for media has yet to return to 2015 peak. As Aisha Majid details at Press Gazette, data from Pitchbook shows that in 2020 venture capitalists invested $0.4 million in digital media startups in the US and Europe, a fraction of the $1.6 billion invested in 2015, the year Vice secured $400 million from Disney.
This past week in the media industry?
Journalists killed in Ukraine
Brent Renaud, a Peabody Award-winning filmmaker and journalist who grew up in Little Rock, Ark., was fatally shot Sunday in Irpin outside Kyiv. He is the first foreign journalist known to be killed in the war in Ukraine.
Renaud was on assignment for the television and film division of Time magazine working on a project focused on the global refugee crisis. The magazine’s editor in chief and CEO Edward Felsenthal, along with president and COO of Time and Time Studios Ian Orefice, released a Statement on the Death of Journalist Brent Renaud, emphasizing, “It is essential that journalists are able to safely cover this ongoing invasion and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.”
Renaud had also done work for The New York Times in the past, and Alex Traub has the paper’s obit for Renaud who, along with his brother Craig, made movies that examined social issues through intimate portraits of people that reveal how they see their own world, as Traub writes.
Renaud was a 2019 Nieman Fellow, and Mattia Ferraresi links to “A good read by @niemanfdn if you want to have a glimpse on who Brent Renaud was.” At CNN, Clarissa Ward, Mick Krever, Brian Stelter and Lauren Kent captured some of the other tributes that have poured in for Renaud. He was traveling with Juan Arredondo, a photographer and adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, who was injured in the same attack.??
Spare a thought for courageous journalists
The day after Renaud was killed, Oliver Darcy of CNN reported that Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall had been hospitalized after being injured while reporting near Kyiv. In a memo to employees, Fox News chief executive Suzanne Scott said, “This is a stark reminder for all journalists who are putting their lives on the line every day to deliver the news from a war zone.”
Then on Tuesday, we learned that Fox News cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra Kuvshynova, who were with Hall, were killed in Ukraine on Monday when the vehicle they were riding in was struck by oncoming fire.?
Jeremy Barr of The Washington Post reports that Zakrzewski, 55, an Irish citizen who was based in London, had been working in Ukraine since February. Kuvshynova’s death was confirmed Tuesday afternoon by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
As Susan Glasser says, “Please spare a thought today for the courageous journalists, Ukrainian and foreign, risking their lives to tell the world the story of this hell war.”
It’s also worth remembering that journalists continue to face risks around the world, not just in Ukraine. Here are just two examples:?
Last week marked 100 days since AP-accredited freelancer Amir Aman Kiyaro was detained by Ethiopian authorities. He is still being held and has not been charged with any crime. AP Executive Editor Julie Pace released a statement on Kiyaro, writing, “It is clear he is being targeted for his journalism. We once again call on the Ethiopian government to release Kiyaro immediately.”?
And Ali Kucukgocmen of Reuters reports that Turkey sentenced journalist Sedef Kabas to more than two years in prison, ruling that she insulted Erdogan, despite a ruling by Europe’s top rights court that the relevant law should be amended to safeguard free expression. The offense? Tweeting a proverb that was allegedly insulting to Erdogan.
The TikTok war
With millions getting their information about the war in Ukraine from TikTok, the Biden administration wants to get its message to top content creators—so it’s taking it to them directly. Taylor Lorenz of The Washington Post reports that the White House is briefing TikTok stars about the war in Ukraine. She obtained audio of last week’s Zoom call with 30 TikTokers and says it “shines light on how the administration is promoting their messaging w/ creators.”?
Brett Bachman admits, “Probably showing my age here, but it definitely feels like we’ve crossed some kind of rubicon here.” He highlights from Lorenz’s story, “People in my generation get all our information from TikTok,” one influencer said. “It’s the first place we’re searching up new topics.”
And Mike Baker was a bit surprised about the identity of one of those influencers: “???? The son of Lev Parnas (who aided Giuliani’s effort to pressure Ukrainian officials to investigate Joe Biden) is a TikTok influencer who just got a special briefing from the Biden administration about the war in Ukraine,” Baker noticed.
So it seems like everybody’s watching the war on TikTok—to the point that many are now calling this “the first TikTok war.” But is it? And is that a useful claim??
In a piece for The Atlantic, Kaitlyn Tiffany analyzes The Myth of the ‘First TikTok War,’ observing that “The history of war is also a history of media, and popular memory associates specific wars with different media formats.”
Tiffany writes, “Whether this really is ‘the first TikTok War,’ wishful thinking colors the very claim. People have good reason to look for some new, crucial difference between the images of one war and those of all other wars that came before. If something is new, then maybe we’ve escaped the same old story in which lots of people die for no reason.”
In Russia, meanwhile, TikTok users can see only old Russian-made content, as Dan Milmo reports at The Guardian. The platform says it’s blocked all non-Russian content in Russia but is allowing historical content uploaded by domestic accounts to stay online, including videos by state-backed media services.
Banned in Russia
Last week, referencing this post on Telegram, Max Seddon tweeted, “Russia is moving to ban Instagram, which seemed inevitable – and wants to have Meta, the parent company, declared an ‘extremist organization.’ Even in the context of wartime repression, this is astonishing – it basically likens Facebook to al-Qaeda.”?
On Monday, Russia made good on its promise and banned Instagram. At The Washington Post, Paul Sonne and Mary Ilyushina wrote about the Russian influencers bidding farewell to Instagram before the ban took effect at midnight.
“Clock strikes 12, and Instagram in Russia is done,” tweets Ilyushina. “The ban uncovered controversial things in society — with rich influencers crying over lost revenue (criticized by Ukrainians under fire) and charities and business losing a key survival tool.”
Taking sides
Earlier, Munsif Vengattil and Elizabeth Culliford of Reuters broke the news that Facebook would temporarily allow posts calling for violence against Russians and for Putin’s death in a temporary change to its hate speech policy. “Just a lil policy tweak over at Meta,” as Sandra Upson tweets.
“Wow. This is a truly remarkable moment in the ever-shifting debate over content moderation on social media,” Alexei Oreskovic says, while Alec Luhn predicted that “This hate speech exception will be seen as proof of what Moscow has been claiming, that the world hates Russians just for who they are.”
It does seem problematic. Ayantola Alayande says, “It’s clear the big techs are taking a side. This is a dangerous model for their business & global polity. Yes, this decision agrees with the ‘majority’ today, but still reinforces the concern that these platforms knowingly allow propaganda thrive…”
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(On Monday, Meta clarified: You can’t make Facebook posts calling for the assassination of Putin or other heads of state, CNBC’s Julia Boorstin and Dan Mangan reported.)
At The Washington Post, Will Oremus takes a closer look at how tech platforms are abandoning the illusion of neutrality. As he points out, from Facebook to TikTok to DuckDuckGo, companies that once claimed to be “unbiased” are showing that they can take a side after all.
More news from the info war
Charlie Warzel notes that the online fight between Russia and Ukraine has already surprised propaganda experts. It may only get more chaotic, as he writes in his piece for The Atlantic, The Information War Between Ukraine and Russia Is Far From Over.?
For that story, he says, “I spoke to a lot of smart people who’ve been observing the digital side of this war about things that have surprised them and about the need for nuance in discussing ‘the information war.’”
“Some useful cautions from @cwarzel here,” says Jacob Brogan.
Reuters Institute has a new Q&A with Alexey Kovalev, an award-winning Russian investigative reporter and the editor behind dozens of ground-breaking investigations at Meduza, a Russian independent news site: As Putin cracks down on the free press, independent news site Meduza aims to be Russians’ “only window to the world.”?
Ethan Zuckerman highlights “A key bit of interview with Alexey Kovalev of @meduza_en is the challenge Russia finds in blocking Telegram. ‘All the state propaganda is also on Telegram now....They can’t block Telegram unless they want to be left alone screaming into the void.’”
On that note, The New York Times announced that it has launched a Telegram channel to deliver news about the war. The channel delivers reporting on the war from a continuous live blog, where Times journalists are providing witness accounts, interviews and breaking news from the conflict.
And over at The Washington Post, Sofia Diogo Mateus tweeted, “Very happy to say that we have relaunched the @washingtonpost’s Telegram channel today to focus on the latest from the war in Ukraine. It’ll have reporting from our journalists on the ground, 24/7 coverage from our global newsrooms and exclusive footage.”
Cutting ties
Kathryn Hopkins of Women’s Wear Daily (WWD) reported last week that Hearst Magazines Has Cut Ties With Russia, terminating its licensing agreements with the Russian versions of Esquire, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, Maxim and Men’s Health.
And major music companies are pausing business in Russia, Ben Sisario reports at The New York Times. The three major record conglomerates— Sony, Warner Music and Universal Music—and the touring giant Live Nation are suspending operations, while individual artists have canceled tour dates.
More media must-reads
First up, “For anyone who still has the capacity to be surprised at what an unethical meathead Chris Cuomo was and is: New reporting shows how much he participated directly in doing public relations for his brother, fellow unethical meathead Andrew Cuomo.”?
Heidi Moore links to the reporting from Tim Marchman of Vice, who has new details on Chris Cuomo’s side hustle working as a PR flack for his brother: New Emails Show Chris Cuomo Working as Part of Brother’s PR Machine, in Detail. Or as Gita Jackson puts it, “!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Next, “Inside NYT, the latest Project Veritas video is being viewed as part of a broader harassment campaign the group has waged on the paper. Specifically, Veritas has targeted the three reporters who have written a series of exposés on the group. My story here.” That’s Oliver Darcy of CNN, who writes about how the right-wing group is targeting New York Times reporters who have aggressively reported on its spy tactics.
Hanaa' Tameez of Nieman Lab spent the last few months talking to journalists hired into diversity-focused roles after the media industry’s “racial reckoning.” How are their jobs going? Well, it looks like American journalism’s “racial reckoning” still has lots of reckoning to do. As she says, “What they told me ranged from enlightening and reassuring to horrifying to sad.”
If you missed Tameez’s piece when it came out, this is one you’ll want to check it out. Rowaida Abdelaziz tweeted, “I wish I could tweet the entire piece so instead I employ people, especially managers & editors, to read every word.”
Research round-up
Margaret Talev shares, “Two years ago we began a survey research project with @IpsosNewsPolls and @axios that we thought might last a couple months…” Ah Covid.?
According to an analysis of two years of data from the Axios/Ipsos Coronavirus Index, a key factor determining how Americans have handled COVID-19—more than race, education or even political affiliation—is where they get their news. Read Danielle Alberti of Axios for more from the Axios-Ipsos poll: Media habits defined the COVID culture war.
Poynter’s Angela Fu had details on a new study from the University of Michigan that shows journalists are so careful in their science reporting that they tend to understate — not exaggerate — scientific findings.?
Dharma Adhikari offers it up “with a pinch of salt??(not sugar) not surprising for the skeptics that journos are. Their reactions may also depend on perceived credentials of the sources.”
And Rebecca Sun of The Hollywood Reporter writes about the latest It’s a Man’s (Celluloid) World report from San Diego State’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film: Men outnumbered women onscreen by a factor of 2 to 1 in 2021. While women represent half of the global population in real life, fictional film worlds get by with just a third.
This movie gets even better
We’ll close out this week with Cecilia Kang’s look at What It Was Like to Work for Russian State Television. For that piece in The New York Times, she interviewed 11 former employees of RT America—some who “would discuss their experience only on the condition of anonymity for fear of drawing attention to the affiliation.”
Dorian Lynskey dubs it “From our schadenfreude correspondent,” while Scott Costen calls it “An interesting, fair, and sober look at the now-defunct RT America.”
Plus, “This movie gets even better,” tweets Kurt Andersen, who highlights, “William Shatner also had an RT show, and RT host Chris Hedges, former @nytimes Balkan bureau chief, ‘doesn’t own a television and didn’t know much about the network’ when he started hosting a show for them in 2016.”
A few more
From the Muck Rack Team
This week, Muck Rack published the State of Journalism 2022, a survey of more than 2,500 journalists in partnership with Online News Association (ONA), Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), Foreign Press Association (FPA), International Journalists Network (IJNET), Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) and more. Head over to the blog to see survey highlights and download the full report.