By David Farrell
How Pandora Papers offshore leak became 'biggest journalism partnership in history'
The investigation was co-ordinated by the US-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which got 150 media outlets in 117 countries involved after it received a leak 11.9m confidential offshore investment data files.
The Guardian, BBC Panorama, Washington Post, Radio France, Le Monde, the Indian Express, Australia’s ABC and Australian Financial Review, and Canada’s CBC and Toronto Star were among the media organisations to take part. – Charlotte Tobitt, Press Gazette
Peter Mansbridge has a new memoir about his past and shares his fears over the CBC’s future
“Somewhere in all this, the CBC lost its way, I think. And they’ve got to get back on track. I mean, when you look at the CBC these days, and see that the top-rated shows are like ‘Coronation Street’ and ‘Family Feud,’ hopefully, this will change a little bit when we get into the real schedule but, you know, it’s a prime-time lineup that is not attracting Canadians.
“And you’d think someone would care about that.” –Vinay Menon, The Star
Widespread labour shortage not going away any time soon: BDC report
Much has been written in recent months about Canadian employers struggling with labour shortages 18 months into the COVID-19 pandemic. A report released Wednesday provides additional evidence, with more than 60 per cent of Canadian businesses saying that widespread labour shortages are limiting their growth.
The report, produced by the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), combines the findings of two surveys — one that polled 1,251 Canadian entrepreneurs in May 2021 and a survey of 3,000 Canadian employees conducted in June 2021. Its findings suggest 49 per cent of business owners have had to delay or have been unable to deliver orders to clients due to a lack of labour. –Amanda Stephenson, The Canadian Press
If Facebook is the problem, is a social media regulator the fix?
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen told Congress on Tuesday that one option for making social media less harmful would be to create a dedicated regulatory agency to oversee companies like Facebook, which could have former tech workers on staff.
"Right now, the only people in the world who are trained to ... understand what's happening inside of Facebook, are people who grew up inside of Facebook or Pinterest or another social media company," she said during a hearing before a Senate Commerce Committee panel. – Elizabeth Culliford, Reuters
Publishers break silence over secret deals behind Google’s $1B Showcase scheme
Google is understood to have made advertising commitments with publishers in addition to News Showcase deals.
One senior source at an international publisher that declined to become a News Showcase partner claimed that rivals had been offered extra payments in exchange for their use of Google products like YouTube, Gmail and other office tools. – William Turvill, Press Gazette
Far-Right ‘One America News Network’ gets 90% of revenue from CNN owner AT&T
OANN, which broadcasts conspiracy theories about Covid-19 and the 2020 election to its conservative audience, was even the idea of AT&T executives, who, per testimony reviewed by Reuters, asked now-CEO Robert Herring Sr. to make a conservative network to compete with Fox News in 2013. The executives, he testified, thought there were too many liberal channels, too. (Thanks to an acquisition of WarnerMedia in 2018, AT&T owns CNN.)
Per Reuters, AT&T has contributed “tens of millions of dollars in revenue” to the network, which has faced lawsuits for its coverage of the 2020 election. – Lindsay Ellefson, The Wrap
Right-wing humour is no joke as it remains largely invisible in the mainstream
Despite its growing prominence, right-wing comedy remains largely invisible in both mainstream and scholarly discussions of media and humour. In part, this has happened because social media algorithms don’t send users jokes likely to challenge or offend their political sensibilities. There are also intellectual trends that make it possible for Greg Gutfeld to spend two decades sneaking up on the Colberts of the world. Comedy theorists tend to diminish, or at least distinguish, right-wing humor from what they deem to be more authentic, liberal humour. – Nick Marx & Matt Sienkiewicz, NiemanLab
The most hated brands in every country
Rave Reviews used the research tool SentiStrength to assess over a million brand-related tweets for positive or negative content. It then calculated the hate rate (% of negative tweets) and ranked the brands by location and category to find the most hated brands in every country.
Rave Reviews defined ‘biggest brands’/‘popular global brands’ as those with the highest search volume on Google.
Key Findings
Uber is the most hated brand in both the US (48.35% negative tweets) and the UK (47.88%).
Uber is also the most hated brand in the highest number of American states (8).
Video game developer Game Freak has a 100% hate rate in Canada.
Sony is the ‘popular global brand’ that is the most hated in the most countries (10, including Canada, Argentina, and Greece).
