An Open Letter to New York Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger

The Times has always been a newspaper by, and for, the elite, but by squeezing out the few alternative voices that you once employed, it no longer publishes those articles that illuminate and connect us to a world outside the Beltway, or beyond Harvard Square.

Jon Jeter
By Jon Jeter
A.G. Sulzberger poses for a photo on the 16th floor of the New York Times building in New York. Dec. 13, 2017. Damon Winter | The New York Times via AP

Dear Mr. Sulzberger,  I read with great interest news accounts of your conversation with President Trump, in which you admonished him for his inflammatory characterization of the media as “fake news” and asserted that such polarizing language poses a threat not only to journalists but to American democracy itself. You needn’t be a partisan --

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Social Media Giants Choking Independent News Site Traffic to a Trickle

Several prominent figures, including Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, warned the EU Parliament that its proposed censorship measure would begin transforming the Internet from an open platform for sharing and innovation, into a tool for the automated surveillance and control of its users.

Whitney Webb
By Whitney Webb
Supporters of a right-wing group protest against censorship after their events, groups and profiles were blocked by Facebook in front of the Facebook Office in Warsaw, Poland, Nov. 5, 2016. (AP/Czarek Sokolowski)

MINNEAPOLIS – For much of the year, independent media has felt the sting of increased social media censorship, as the “revolving door” between U.S. intelligence agencies and social-media companies has manifested in a crackdown on news that challenges official government narratives. With many notable independent news websites having shut down since

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Don’t Call It Fake News! Facebook to Fully Fund Streaming Mainstream News Shows

By betting on content that is easily found on cable or network television — or even YouTube — Facebook may be making a miscalculation. After all, Anderson Cooper or Shepard Smith are hardly likely to be remembered as Facebook’s equivalent to the Netflix original smash hits “Stranger Things” or “Narcos.”

Elliott Gabriel
By Elliott Gabriel
Anderson Cooper attends the Turner Network 2016 Upfronts in New York. Cooper will star in Facebook Watch's new news programming. Evan Agostin | Invision | AP

MENLO PARK, CALIFORNIA – Facebook is pressing its ongoing offensive against “fake news” with a novel idea: it will fully shoulder the costs of producing what it claims are “high quality” news shows by a handful of mainstream media outlets. In so doing, it hopes to kill three birds with one stone: please the traditional media giants; ward off

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Elon Musk to Fight Fake News with New Website Called Pravda

Musk created a poll asking people to vote as to whether or not they felt Pravda was a good and useful idea. Eighty-eight percent of the 68 thousand asked supported its creation.

Matfey Shaheen
By Matfey Shaheen
elon musk battles fake news with pravda

Elon Musk is creating a website where “…the public can rate the core truth of any article & track the credibility score over time of each journalist, editor & publication,” as he said in a tweet. Interestingly enough, he plans on naming it

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Political Indoctrination Through Media Literacy Initiatives

When misrepresenting recent events and exaggerating external threats have become standard practice, are we aware of the influence that bias in mainstream media has on children?

Ed Hannan
By Ed Hannan
Illustrations by Ed Hannan

Anyone paying attention to popular culture trends in the West often disregard the messages that aim to shape political opinions of young people, whether it’s through Hollywood or the gaming industry, TV shows or music. If the young people that we know personally tend to have good mental health and carry a sufficient sense of self-awareness and

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A Bipartisan Majority of Americans Believe the “Deep State” Is Running the Country

“We usually expect opinions on the operation of government to shift depending on which party is in charge … but there’s an ominous feeling by Democrats and Republicans alike that a ‘Deep State’ of unelected operatives are pulling the levers of power.”

ZeroHedge.com
By ZeroHedge.com
A man dressed in red-white-and-blue sits on the curb during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016, in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

For the past two years, the long-running narrative, at least that promulgated by the mainstream media which continues to "explain away" Hillary Clinton's loss to Donald Trump, is that Americans had fallen for a massive, long-running fake news scam (in part aided and abetted by the likes of Facebook), which boosted Trump's popularity at the expense

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