Category: [Media]

How the “mighty” have fallen

Ah, Buzzfeed, once upon a time you were so ubiquitous… now you’re just catastrophically in debt, and you should be:

In January 2023, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti announced in a memo to staff that the company was making a hard pivot to AI — years before the word “slop” was added to the public lexicon.
In the memo, which was published roughly two months after OpenAI unveiled its groundbreaking ChatGPT chatbot, Peretti said BuzzFeed would be using the software to enhance the company’s infamous quizzes by generating personalized responses.
The company’s stock price jumped aggressively, from around $3 per share to north of $15. But longer-term, neither insiders nor the public were particularly compelled by the move. Nonetheless, Peretti doubled down, promising in May 2023 that AI will “replace the majority of static content” on the site, just a month after shuttting down its Pulitzer Prize-winning BuzzFeed News division.
Reality soon set in. The AI quizzes were underwhelming, and the site was soon caught publishing entire AI-generated articles that were sloppy and repetitive. After the initial spike in enthusiasm, the company’s stock took a massive beating; as of this week, its shares are hovering around 70 cents.

Woof. I think Buzzfeed was already long past its peak anyway when Peretti was making the shift to AI, and the latter clearly failed to achieve what I assume was the goal, i.e. get people interested in BF again. The company has now admitted outright that they probably don’t have the wherewithal to meet its financial obligations over the next twelve months. And, as the first article ominously notes…

The brutal reality check seemingly hasn’t put Peretti off from pursuing AI, though. He now says he’s hoping to bring “new AI apps to the market” this year.

…Peretti doesn’t seem to have learned anything from the last few years. If Buzzfeed does go under, it will have deserved it if its founder couldn’t come up with a better idea…

JOOOOOOOOOOS!

Obviously I haven’t felt much like writing stuff in the last few days, which is not to say that at least some kind of fun stuff has happened amidst the horrors… and right-wing media’s meltdown over the legacy of Charlie Kirk has been one of them:

Now, this is in some respects just a continuation of the existing feud between Klandace and Benji Bear, but even so it’s kind of amazing just how far the former is willing to push it. The general right-wing freakout about the Charlie Kirk aftermath and what’s happening at Turning Point USA is too silly to talk about—it will fill books in years to come, but I can’t be arsed right now—but seeing all these dreadful people losing the plot is rather lovely. Ben has been losing it as much as any of them, of course, though certainly not as much as her… I mean, Candace is the person who said Hitler would’ve been perfectly fine if he’d just limited his ambitions to Germany, but I feel this is her going far beyond her personal issues with Boon Shabibula and her beef with the state of Israel, both legitimate targets, into hatred of Jews in general, not legitimate targets. She’s an even better useful idiot for the far right than Ben is, really, and her “black people’s problem is not white people” bullshit in this video is going to age VERY badly if the racists she’s pandering to ever get that ethnostate they want, even worse than his will…

Book ’em!

So the Channel 9 website had this story…

…Which, as the headline suggests, is about bookshop workers striking for better working conditions. Why, then, is the story illustrated initially by this video of police officers patrolling some shopping centre on a mission to crack down on violent crime? How is this connected to the story? Are we supposed to associate justifiable strike action with violent crime? Actually, probably…

Goodbye world

John Laws is gone at last. Did you know he was still alive until now? I certainly didn’t. I suppose this is what happens when you don’t listen to AM talkback radio stations that struggle to get more than a few thousand listeners, you don’t realise what coffin dodgers are on them… Anyway, nothing of value, etc? I don’t know. Nothing if not a fantastic voice, obviously, iconic figure and all that, and most charitably called “problematic”:

Laws did not achieve his fame and success without controversy. In 1999, he was at the centre of the cash-for-comment scandal alongside his fellow 2UE broadcaster Alan Jones. The pair were accused of accepting payments from companies in exchange for favourable on-air commentary. Both denied any wrongdoing.
“Nobody has suggested I have broken any law. But you would think from the controversy that it was first-class industrial espionage or industrial rape,” Laws said at the time. […]
He was found in contempt of court for interviewing a juror in 2000 and received a suspended jail sentence. In 2001, his show was found to have breached the rules around decency and the treatment of suicide. In 2013, Laws asked a tearful female caller describing her childhood sexual assault if she might not have been at fault.
Two years later, he told a distressed older male listener who had called in to describe his childhood sexual abuse to “go to the pub and have a lemonade” and, although he had been empathic, Laws was criticised for his lack of awareness. In 2015, the former Socceroo Tim Cahill hung up on Laws after he repeatedly questioned him about his wealth.
In 2021 he was found to have breached the commercial radio code after calling a listener “mentally deficient” and urging them to “say something constructive, like you’re going to kill yourself”.
“I’d hate to think I was very cruel. I’m certainly rude and I’m certainly impatient, intolerant and a lot of things I shouldn’t be” he told Studio 10 in 2017.
He called his producers “handmaidens” and insisted they wear skirts or dresses to work although at least one former female employee maintained he was always a courteous boss and said “his old-fashioned manner felt respectful” to her.

His Wiki entry further notes:

In 2004, Laws and rival talk-back host Alan Jones were accused of taking payment to make favourable comments on products and services under the guise of merely expressing personal opinion, after entering into deals with Telstra. The ABA subsequently found that Laws’ deal constituted cash for comment but Jones’ did not. Laws, apparently angered by what he saw as inequitable treatment, launched stinging attacks on Jones and the ABA’s head, David Flint. In an appearance on the ABC’s Enough Rope, Laws accused Jones of placing pressure on Prime Minister John Howard to keep Flint as head of the ABA, and made comments that many viewers took to imply a sexual relationship between Jones and Flint, and broadly hinted that Jones, like Flint, was homosexual.
In November 2004, Laws and 2UE colleague Steve Price were found guilty of vilifying homosexuals after an on-air discussion about a gay couple appearing in the reality TV show The Block. They described the couple as “young poofs”. Laws had previously apologised for another incident in which he called gay TV personality Carson Kressley, of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy fame, a “pillow-biter” and a “pompous little pansy prig”.

So another dinosaur bites the dust (along with Graham Richardson, who popped his own clogs just the other day). Nothing else to say about the tedious old git.

Sure, why not

Yeah, that’s an actual Infowars article and the actual photo therein. Apparently Youtube was offering amnesties to channels it removed in the golden age of Covid-19 for spreading Covid and election lies, because the policies under which they did so have since lapsed. So Alex tried… and Youtube promptly banned him again. Same thing happened to Nick Fuentes, though I don’t think the latter has gone to the extent of, you know, this facial hair in “protest”. (I assume that’s because Nick has trouble growing facial hair, though, and that he would if he could…) Alex’s own direct comment was this:

Interesting choice to snipe at the Democrats when the Republicans are the ones actually engaging in censorship at the moment, of course…

I suppose that’s a cheaper solution…

Fox “News” hosts really hate people:

LAWRENCE JONES (FOX HOST):  We don’t have to — we feel so compassionate because you see the mental health crisis happening.
AINSLEY EARHARDT (FOX HOST): You just get — exactly.
JONES  But it’s not our job — we shouldn’t have to live in fear while they figure out what is going on right there.
EARHARDT: Right, right.
JONES: Put him in a mental institution, put him in a jail, and you guys figure it out. But people having to duck and dive on the trains and the buses, walking through the street, this is one case, but this is happening all across the country, and it’s not a money issue. They have given billions of dollars to mental health and the homeless population. A lot of them don’t want to take the programs, a lot of them don’t want to get the help that is necessary. You can’t give them a choice. Either you take the resources that we’re going to give you and — or you decide that you are going to be locked up in jail. That’s the way it has to be now.
BRIAN KILMEADE (FOX HOST): Or involuntary lethal injection.
JONES: Yeah.
KILMEADE : Or something. Just kill them.
EARHARDT: Yeah, Brian, why did it have to get to this point?

And she didn’t ask that question in the sense of “what the fuck is wrong with you, you psychotic cunt?”, which is the question a normal person would ask if someone said the homeless deserve death for doing bad things. (By “involuntary lethal injection”, no less. What an idea to just… you know, leap to.) But these are not normak people, these are Fox hosts, and Kilmeade is a particularly vile example. I wonder if he imagines this as a general solution to the homelessness problem… you know, can’t have homelessness without homeless people…

But remember: it’s left-wing rhetoric that causes violence in America. Obviously.

I’m sure they’ll come around to the idea, though

DHS Slams Report on Citizenship Reality Show Pitch, Calls Daily Mail Story ‘False’

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is pushing back strongly against a widely circulated Daily Mail report that claimed the agency and its Secretary, Kristi Noem, were involved in a proposed reality TV show that would allow immigrants to compete for American citizenship.
The story, which stirred controversy online, alleged that DHS had entertained a pitch for a show titled The American, produced by Rob Worsoff — a veteran of unscripted television with credits including Duck Dynasty, Alpha Dogs, and The Millionaire Matchmaker. According to the Daily Mail, Secretary Noem had even “backed” the show, which would reportedly feature immigrants participating in challenges across the country, ranging from civic quizzes to physical tasks, for a shot at U.S. citizenship.
In a statement released Friday, DHS refuted the article, dubbing it “Fake News Friday” and accusing the Daily Mail of pushing a “media hoax.” The department said unequivocally that Secretary Noem was neither involved in, nor even aware of, the show’s pitch.

So news about this putative show broke yesterday, and I think the general reaction online was basically “this is fucked up but also in character for TrumpCorp”. Cos let’s face it, a reality show contest for this sort of thing is EXACTLY the sort of thing this hideous regime should be into, it’s an idea that speaks Mushroom Cock’s language. And the idea was perfectly real:

In an interview with the New York Times, Worsoff, a Canadian-born producer who is now a naturalized U.S. citizen, confirmed that the reality series idea was very real. He emphasized that the show was intended as a celebration of the immigrant experience, not a punitive spectacle.
“We need a national conversation about what it means to be American,” Worsoff told the paper. “We need to be reminded of how proud and how much of an honor it is to be American. We’re going to get to know these people and their stories and their journeys, and we’re celebrating them as humans.”
According to a pitch deck reviewed by both the Times and the Daily Mail, the show would be called The American. Contestants would participate in various challenges focused on U.S. civics and history, with the winner being granted citizenship. Importantly, Worsoff noted that contestants who did not win would not be penalized or deported.

Glad that he clarified that last point, because you can’t trust TrumpCorp not to do that. Indeed, if the regime were to actually come on board with this atrocity—and, whatever their protestations now, I wouldn’t be surprised if they wound up actually doing something like this—I can easily imagine them making it a punitive affair. Cos the US right now is not even remotely about celebrating immigrants, unless they’re white South Africans…

And which of these are we looking at here?

Oh Guardian, this was poorly chosen. What we’re actually looking at here is “American artist, community activist, and perennial candidate” Paperboy Prince at the New York City Mayoral Candidates Forum at Medgar Evers College, being hauled off the stage for protesting that he was a mayoral candidate but wasn’t allowed to speak at the forum. I don’t know the merits or otherwise of the case, but… well, when you use the headline “Holocuast Remembrance Day and mourners at the Vatican” for your photo section and then illustrate it with this picture of some dude in clown makeup, you’ve made a choice. And you should probably regret it. And lose your job for it.