Media | Praxis

Donald Trump Is Seemingly Boycotting TV News Operations That Aren’t Fox News

Donald Trump, who never seemed to meet a camera he didn’t like, became a constant TV presence throughout the Republican primary, a bonafide celebrity crowding out a field of more conventional senators and governors. He understood the power of the medium, knocking out one TV interview after another before most politicians finished their morning coffee. As Republican standard-bearer, however, Trump has mostly retreated to the relatively cozy confines of Fox News. And it seems to be in response to having badly damaged his own candidacy…

Pokémon Go’s Popularity Is Fading

Pokemon Go is starting to lose the battle for mobile mindshare, according to Axiom Capital Management. As such, investors and executives at Facebook Inc., Instagram, Tinder (Match Group Inc.), Twitter Inc., and Snapchat can breathe a sigh of relief, says Senior Analyst Victor Anthony. “Given the rapid rise in usage of the Pokémon Go app since the launch in July, investors have been concerned that this new user experience has been detracting from time spent on other mobile focused apps,” he writes. Enthusiasm about the…

Does Sean Hannity Want to Work for a President Trump?

During major inflection points in Donald J. Trump’s campaign, the advisers, family members and friends who make up his kitchen cabinet burn up their email accounts and phone lines gaming out how to get his candidacy on track (and what counsel he might go along with). But one person in the mix brings more than just his political advice. He also happens to control an hour of prime time on the Fox News Channel. That person is Sean Hannity. Mr. Hannity uses his show on…

Judge: Glenn Beck Must Reveal Alleged Sources in Libel Suit

A looming First Amendment showdown drew closer Tuesday as a federal judge ordered conservative media host Glenn Beck to identify at least two confidential sources in connection with a defamation lawsuit stemming from Beck’s reporting on the Boston Marathon bombing. The suit was filed by Saudi Arabian student Abdulrahman Alharbi, who was injured at the scene of the deadly bombings. Beck continued to link the Saudi national to the attacks even after U.S. officials said publicly he’d been cleared. U.S. District Court Judge Patti Saris…

Facebook Tries to Block Ad Blockers

Digital ads pop up online so frequently and ubiquitously that many people are using software to block them. But if you try to stop ads from showing up on Facebook’s desktop website, you will now be out of luck: The social network has found a way to block the ad blockers. On Tuesday, Facebook flipped a switch on its desktop website that essentially renders all ad blockers — the programs that prevent websites from displaying ads on the page when a user visits the site…

Trump Voters Like Crime and Remodeling, Clinton Fans Prefer Strong Women

Earlier this week, I wrote about how conservative political junkies have become trapped in a political echo chamber that marginalizes them. A left-wing echo chamber exists as well (another day and another article). Regular Americans are also split in terms of their political preferences, of course, and it reflects sometimes in weird ways. According to an analysis from the DVR company TiVo, supporters of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have different preferences for entertainment shows as well. Might it be a televised version of the…

CNN Says It Will Host Town Hall Discussion for Green Party’s Jill Stein

The televised town hall discussion format has been a staple of CNN for decades. Originally done via phoned in questions from viewers, the news channel has since shifted to live group chats and has been doing many of them during this presidential campaign. After airing several featuring candidates from the Republican and Democratic parties, CNN announced Wednesday that it will also be conducting a town hall with Green Party candidate Jill Stein on Wednesday, August 17 at 9:00 p.m. ET. Undoubtedly, the move comes after…

Are the Olympics Irrelevant Now?

Forty-eight percent of Americans say they plan to watch a “great deal” or “fair amount” of the 2016 Summer Olympics. This is a sharp drop from 59% in 2012 and easily the lowest percentage planning to watch compared with the past four Summer Games. Thirty percent say they plan to watch “not much” of the Olympics, and 21% say “none at all” — the highest percentage saying so since Gallup began asking this question in 2000. These results come from a July 13-17 Gallup poll…

The Conservative Echo Chamber Is Making the Right Intellectually Deaf

One of the more interesting developments since the emergence of the web as a mass medium is the establishment of a conservative media presence. Prior to the internet, there were basically no large-audience right-leaning media operations aside from a few talk radio programs. Since the 1996 establishment of Fox News and the popularization of the web, it has now become possible for a conservatively inclined people to consume all kinds of news and opinion catering to their specific tastes and viewpoints. Many right-leaning people have…

Despite Media Hype, Americans Aren’t Freaking Out About Zika

So why aren’t Americans freaking out over Zika? One answer is a question of politics. Ebola’s particularly horrifying symptoms and its position in American pop culture (thanks, Dustin Hoffman) made it fertile ground for political exploitation in the run-up to the 2014 mid-term elections. As Charles L. Briggs and Daniel C. Hallin write in their book, Making Health Public, “Republican politicians and pundits integrated Ebola into a campaign narrative about the failure of the Obama administration to protect the United States from external threats.” With…

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