BETTER YOUR BRAIN

(via reallyfoxnews)

directcitation:

thedailywhat:

African Stereotype of the Day: Gabriel, Benard, Brian, and Derrik, who live in Kenya, were inspired to poke fun at the way African men are portrayed by Hollywood: “If people believed only what they saw in movies,” they said, “they would think we are all warlords who love violence.” Mama Hope — an organization that partners with African organizations to help transform their communities — was more than happy to hand them a mic as part of a video campaign to “Stop the Pity, Unlock the Potential.”

Good stuff.

[boingboing]

We’re talking to you, shirtless Matthew Mcconaughey.

(via respectacles)

hotfudgemondae:

womenaresociety:

methodistcoloringbook:

nosugarjustequal:

ballroom-communism:

diffindo-:

this is why i am a feminist

I actually cried when I watched this.  

this was really wonderfully done.

holy shit. i am so happy this exists.

*If you do nothing else today, WATCH THIS. Shows the detrimental impact of (sexist, demeaning) mainstream media, and the extent to which it’s ingrained in our lives. Because women only control approx. 3% of media content like advertising and publishing, images and portrayals of women are being controlled by men who continually sexualize, exploit, and undermine (even the most powerful women) in our country - in addition to socializing boys and men to view women as objects and that being a man means always being in power, in control, and better than women. Shows several real-life examples from the media.

this is just way too great to not reblog

fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

Chart from “Media Monopoly Revisited,” Extra!, October 2011 issue

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)

This has never failed to freak me the hell out.

What Wikileaks Tells Us About Al Jazeera

fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

This article from the bourgeois magazine Foreign Policy attempts to gloss over the U.S./CIA relationship with Al Jazeera (currently on display in Libya and Syria), but has useful information.

Al Jazeera has been making waves in the Middle East ever since it aired its first broadcast on Nov. 1, 1996. In its news dispatches and talk shows, the pan-Arab satellite channel, which is funded by the state of Qatar, has been a strident critic of U.S. foreign policies in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Palestinian Territories, even while it has been a thorn in the side of many an Arab autocrat. But after the last dump of leaked U.S. diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks, on Aug. 30, articles have begun to circulate — especially in Iranian and Syrian media outlets — about Al Jazeera’s close relationship with a surprising interlocutor: the U.S. government.

Huffington Post Recruiting Teens to Write for Free

futurejournalismproject:

Last Friday Forbes reported that AOL’s Huffington Post Media Group is launching HuffPost High School, a vertical aimed at the teen set.

The site will be edited by a paid 17-year-old but like much of the Huffington Post, content will be produced for free. In this case by unpaid teenage bloggers.

Running with the strategy, AOL will also solicit unpaid contributions from young teens and high schoolers for Patch, its network of 800 hyperlocal news sites.

“We’ll be expanding our sharing platform to teens,” an AOL spokeswoman explains to Forbes using the company’s social vernacular.  

Over at AdAge, Simon Dumenco is none too pleased:

Let’s get real here: AOL is not just another benign outlet for aspiring teen writers; it’s not the school newspaper writ large. It is, thanks to its combo with HuffPo, a massive, highly aggressive, cynically SEO’d page-view machine with a history of dubious ethics — and let’s not forget that AOL, despite all its troubles, still had second-quarter revenue of $542.2 million.

Back in February, AOL property TechCrunch reported that Patch “is churning out one piece of content every 9 seconds.” That’s what this is about, folks: churn. Page views. And getting unpaid children to help AOL shovel content — digital coal — into its page-view oven.

Quite simply, AOL/HuffPo intends to monetize the work of minors earning $0/hour. On Patch and HuffPost High School, it will sell ads against content created by minors — but it will not share advertising revenue with those minors.

Self-respecting advertisers have to ask if they really want to be a part of something like this.

Meanwhile, a $105 million class action lawsuit by former unpaid Huffington Post writers continues. So too a Newspaper Guild call for writers to boycott the publication.

HuffPo has long defended its practice of using unpaid contributors by arguing that consenting adults can share their labor in any way they please. True enough, but what happens when your writers aren’t old enough to legally consent?

Writes Jeff Berkovici:

Should teenagers who can’t legally vote, drink or have sex be allowed to decide for themselves what to publish in a place where it could potentially be read by millions of people? What if a 15-year-old wants to write confessionally about having an abortion, as this adult writer did, or joke about smoking marijuana, as this writer did? And what if that 15-year-old’s parent wants to have that posting deleted? And what if that parent is divorced, and his ex-spouse who shares custody gives her permission?

Definitely not something I’ll be participating in. there’s so much wrong with AOL and its associates, and there’s so much opportunity for free enterprise in journalism now that this just seems wholly unnecessary. 

This was my favorite remark from the conference yesterday, so much so that it gets it’s own post.

“ The difference was that we didn’t put all the burden on the people who are least able to protect themselves, who don’t have lobbyists in this town, who don’t have lawyers working on the tax code for them — working stiffs out there, ordinary folks who are struggling every day. And they know they’re getting a raw deal, and they’re mad at everybody about it. They’re mad at Democrats and they’re mad at Republicans, because they know somehow, no matter how hard they work, they don’t seem to be able to keep up. And what they’re looking for is somebody who’s willing to look out for them. That’s all they’re looking for.

And for us not to be keeping those folks in mind every single day when we’re up here, for us to be more worried about what some funder says, or some talk radio show host says, or what some columnist says, or what pledge we signed back when we were trying to run, or worrying about having a primary fight — for us to be thinking in those terms instead of thinking about those folks is inexcusable.

I mean, the American people are just desperate for folks who are willing to put aside politics just for a minute and try to get some stuff done.”

This is the president I campaigned for, and the one I want to campaign for again. The one who will take a stand, and who is so incredibly aware of the humanity and gravity of the situation we are in.

“And at some point, I think if you want to be a leader, then you got to lead. Thank you very much. Goodnight.”