Business of Media
Trump remains banned from Facebook after board upholds suspension
Facebook’s independent oversight board has upheld the social media giant’s decision to suspend former president Donald Trump from the platform following the January 6 insurrection, reports SMH‘s Matthew Knott.
But the board criticised Facebook for imposing an “indeterminate and standardless penalty of indefinite suspension”, saying the company must decide whether to allow Trump back on the platform or ban him permanently within six months.
The verdict means Trump will remain barred from Facebook for the time being, but it will ultimately be up to chief executive Mark Zuckerberg to decide whether Trump can return to the platform ahead of another potential run for the White House in 2024.
Inside ‘Facebook Jail’: The secret rules that put users in the doghouse
In Facebook Jail, many users are serving time for infractions they don’t understand, reports The Wall Street Journal‘s Kirsten Grind.
The company’s newly formed Oversight Board — a group of 20 lawyers, professors and other independent experts who consider appeals to decisions made by Facebook — has been charged with interpreting Facebook’s numerous detailed rules governing everything from the depiction of graffiti to swearing at newsworthy figures.
Since it began taking cases in October, the Oversight Board has received more than 220,000 appeals from users, and issued eight rulings — six of them overturning Facebook’s initial decision.
Ben Roberts-Smith accuses Nine of ‘fishing’ for info from his doctors in defamation case
Former soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has accused the Nine Entertainment newspapers he is suing for defamation of “fishing” for information by issuing subpoenas to his doctors, reports News Corp’s Lane Sainty.
The dispute is the latest pre-trial skirmish in the high-profile case as it draws closer to an eight-week hearing from June 7.
In a brief hearing on Wednesday, solicitor Paul Svilans told the Federal Court he had written to Nine’s solicitors saying two subpoenas issued to Roberts-Smith’s doctors were “fishing and should be set aside”.
The doctors have already provided some documents, the court was told, with more to come.
News Brands
Ita Buttrose irate at exclusion from ABC board talks
ABC chair Ita Buttrose has queried why she was excluded from the selection process of the national broadcaster’s board members, just weeks before three vacancies on the board are expected to be filled, reports News Corp’s Adeshola Ore and James Madden.
Buttrose told the National Press Club on Wednesday “it made no sense” that, as the chair of the organisation, she was shut out from having a say in the make-up of the board.
“I think that’s a mistake. I don’t know chairs of other companies who have no input into the composition of their board,” she said.
Award-winning journalist to lead Washington Post’s Australian set-up
American daily newspaper The Washington Post is establishing a bureau in Australia in a bid to report more extensively on issues that resonate with US readers, including the country’s relationship with China and its position on climate change, reports SMH‘s Zoe Samios.
The publication, owned by Amazon’s billionaire founder Jeff Bezos, has appointed reporter Michael Miller as its bureau chief to be based in Sydney. Foreign editor Douglas Jehl said the decision to move Miller to Australia will allow the newspaper to deepen its coverage of the region.
“So much that’s happening in Australia resonates with our global readership in Washington and around the world,” he said. “Australia reckons with challenges from climate change, to migration, to the relationship with China, to interaction with technology companies and its experience really resonates in so many parts of the world.
The New York Times tops 7.8 million subscribers as growth slows
No doubt, President Biden has lowered the temperature of the nation after four years under Donald J. Trump, a tumultuous period capped by the worst pandemic in a century. He may have also lowered interest in the news. For the first quarter, The New York Times Company recorded its smallest gain in new subscribers in a year and a half, reports The New York Times‘ Edmund Lee.
The Times reported a total of 7.8 million subscribers across both print and digital platforms, with 6.9 million coming for online news or its Cooking and Games apps. The company added 301,000 digital customers for the first three months of the year, the lowest increase since the third quarter of 2019.
The Times is still on a path to reach its goal of 10 million subscribers by 2025, and it has improved its profit margins as its digital business — which costs less than print — continues to rise.
Guardian Australia is eight years old, with 200 years of history
Milestone birthdays are times for reflection, for assessing achievements and charting the path ahead. Reflecting on 200 years of Guardian journalism would be easier done from a place of calm, rather than from newsrooms reporting and comprehending a deathly, history-changing pandemic, reports Guardian Australia‘s Lenore Taylor.
But the news is seldom calm, and, as our editor-in-chief Katharine Viner reflects in this essay to mark the Guardian’s bicentennial, our path forward is charted by the same principles that have guided us through those two centuries of reporting on wars and massacres and corruption and inequities and moments of progress and triumph.
The Guardian turns 200: Celebrations and tributes flow for the milestone
After The Sydney Morning Herald turned 190 on April 19th, The Guardian blows out the candles for its 200th birthday.
To celebrate, The Guardian are running their first digital festival, billed as “a mix of conversations about politics, activism, the environment, TV, music and more – brought to you, wherever you are in the world.”
The festival will be streamed on May 11th local time from Manchester, UK in honour of the fact that it was founded in 1821 as The Manchester Guardian by John Edward Taylor, the son of a cotton merchant. He set the paper up with financial backing from cotton and textile traders. The full lineup can be seen here.
Editors from around the world have given tributes to the paper on its anniversary.
Dean Baquet, executive editor, The New York Times said “There are many great things that can be said about the Guardian. But to me what it accomplished is becoming a truly great investigative paper willing to take on the most ambitious subjects – big government, big tech, the surveillance state. It forced us all to lift our game and it made us all better.”
Fran Unsworth, director, BBC News said “The Guardian’s history is a rich tapestry of investigative journalism, holding power to account and putting their readers at the forefront of everything they do. 200 years is an extraordinary achievement and a tribute to the enduring value of high-quality journalism that adds to the broad spectrum of views across the national conversation.”
Today The Guardian has US offices in New York, Washington and Oakland, California, and even more offices overseas. Guardian Australia launched in May 2013, and as Lenore Taylor writes, “as a startup in a country where the news was dominated by two big media companies and a public broadcaster under constant political pressure, and in spite of the fact the digital giants were at that very time upending the traditional news company’s revenue streams.”
Entertainment
Ball Park Music and Sycco lead 2021 Queensland Music Award winners
Brisbane band Ball Park Music has taken home top honours at a star-studded and celebratory Queensland Music Awards, reports News Corp’s Amy Price.
In their first win since 2013, the band was awarded album of the year for their self-titled sixth album while Brisbane newcomer Sycco won both song of the year and best pop song for her hit Dribble.
After a difficult year for Queensland musicians due to the global pandemic, both artists celebrated their wins by performing to their 700 music peers, who came together at The Fortitude Music Hall on Wednesday night.
Television
‘Completely helpless’: Sam Newman reveals trauma over wife Amanda Brown’s death
A grief-stricken Sam Newman has described the trauma of finding his wife Amanda Brown dead in their Docklands apartment and how he attempted CPR as he waited for ambulances to arrive, reports SMH‘s David Estcourt.
In an uninterrupted and deeply personal message he read out on his You Cannot Be Serious podcast on Wednesday, the football and media figure described feeling “completely helpless” when he came home on Saturday evening. “As I saw her, I knew she was dead,” Newman said.
Bluey in Top 100 Sitcoms of All Time
ABC hit animation Bluey has made it onto a list of the Top 100 Sitcoms of All Time, collated by Rolling Stone, reports TV Tonight.
The Ludo Studios series is the only Australian-produced show to make the cut, assembled by Rolling Stone writers (Question: is it actually a sitcom, though?).
However, Aussie format Review, based on ABC’s Review with Myles Barlow (2008 – 2010) ranked even higher.
Auditions: Lego Masters
Nine is already calling for new creative sparks for Lego Masters 2022, reports TV Tonight.
“With imagination their sole limitation, teams are required to conceptualise and craft some of the most ambitious and impressive Lego creations ever built, in an attempt to claim the $100,000 prize money,” a casting notice says.
“If your imagination was let loose in the ultimate Lego workshop… what would you build? We are searching for people who are passionate about Lego and love the story telling and creativity that Lego brings.”