What If Rupert Murdoch’s Empire Were Hacking All The Way Down?

Rupert Murdoch owns a lot. That sentence doesn’t even need an indirect object. He simply owns a lot. Of newspapers, of movie studios, of television networks, of television programs, of websites, of magazines, of record labels. He even owns fifty percent of Australia’s National Rugby League. Chances are that of the thousands of pieces of content you interact with everyday, a good third to one-half of them link back to him in some sort of gold-plated game of Six Degrees of Rupert Murdoch.

He now owns one hell of a scandal. Murdoch’s News Corporation is the parent company of News International, which published the British tabloid News of the World. It’s recently come to light that News of the World engaged in phone hacking to illegally obtain information. Earlier this month, British prime minister David Cameron called for a massive government inquiry into the affair, hoping to address claims of hacking and police bribery.

High-ranking British police officials are stepping down. Members of Murdoch’s empire are being arrested. The United States is now getting involved: the FBI just began investigating whether or not News Corp’s violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act with the alleged hacking and bribery. Oh yeah, and they might have accessed the voicemails of victims of the 9/11 attacks and the 7/7 London bombings.

Rather than wade into this quagmire and attempt to report on it (there’s plenty of that going on already), I’d like to speculate on what the world would be like if such underhanded behavior pervaded the furthest reaches of Murdoch’s empire. Cue the dream sequence music.

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All-Star Tuesday: One Year Later

About a year ago, I was fortunate enough to attend last year's MLB All-Star Game in Anaheim.  Yesterday I was fortunate enough to liveblog the Home Run Derby, which featured an exciting, last-ups victory complete with a record number of home runs hit in the final round by the Yankees' Robinson Cano.  Just when I was beginning to think of the #HRDerby as dull and repetitive, they come back with an exciting nailbiter - kind of like how whenever MythBusters starts to get too stuffy and science-y, they pull out a sequence featuring Kari Byron running through some obstacle course or something.

And yet even after all the fun I had last year, and all the fun the fans in attendance have, and all the fun players appear to be having on the field, getting the chance to fraternize with the best and brightest in the sport, there's still a contingent arguing that the All-Star Game is obsolete?  Because of TV ratings?  Come on!  Everybody knows that TV ratings only exist for the benefit of advertisers and every advertiser knows that the climate of the industry is gravitating away from the 30-second TV spot and towards more new-age, interactive means of reaching consumers.

The All-Star Game is about so much more than TV ratings and showcasing the world's best commercials (the same cannot be said for events of other major sports).  It's all the things Mr. Fetter notes in his "Atlantic" article: a break from the grueling baseball season, and a (better) way to decide home field advantage in the World Series (than simple alternation).  But it's also about so much more.  It's about... well, I won't spoil it in the opening; you'll have to hit the jump to find out.

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Sunday Reading: A Sordid Cast Around Casey Anthony

I didn’t follow the Casey Anthony trial that closely. There was even a period of time where I thought Casey was the child’s name, and all the talk of nannies led me to believe for a short while that a nanny was the one on trial.

The information mess was cleared up for me in the last week as the country sat through the trial, listening to 911 calls, reliving the horrific details of a little girl’s disappearance. This story didn’t just dominate the news, it smashed through newsroom walls and grabbed microphones away from anchors, demanding it be discussed.

And it’s not surprising we listened, or that the trial itself whirled into town like a travelling circus. Harming children has for ages been represented in our culture as the ultimate crime. The Greeks had Medea. Shakespeare sprinkled his tragedies with scores of child-murderers. Films like Rabbit Hole weave narratives out of normal, twenty-first century people’s primal reactions to an incredible loss.

Writing for the New York Times, Frank Bruni elaborated on the Anthony trial’s dramatis personae. There are the defense lawyers: bird-flipping Cheney Mason and the boastful Jose Baez. There’s Casey Anthony herself, who will the burden of this nightmare long after the relief of a Not Guilty verdict fades. What I found so refreshing was Bruni’s indictment of HLN anchor Nancy Grace:

“No wonder he so thoroughly riled Nancy Grace, who doesn’t need any riling. While other commentators, responding fairly enough to what they were seeing and hearing, put their chips on Anthony’s guilt, Grace bet the whole house on it. Crusaded for it. Brooked no alternate outcome. Ever certain, ever merciless, she’d give 25-to-life to an alleged jaywalker based on the testimony of a 99-year-old with cataracts.

After the Anthony verdict, her wrath was biblical: “The devil is dancing.”

She doesn’t serve the cause of victims with such histrionics. She serves the cause of Nancy Grace.”

Bruni concedes that Grace is a bit of a chicken and the egg question. She wouldn’t be so successful if there weren’t 5.2 million people willing to watch the verdict on HLN. But her ascent is still unsettling, as it represents more people turning to “news” networks for affirmation rather than information.

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Stephen Colbert Granted a Super PAC by the FEC, Satire Abounds

There’s more than one Stephen Colbert. One is a real human being. The other is a caricature of other real human beings (Bill O’Reilly, etc.) played by the actual human being on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report.

It’s easy to lose track of which one’s which.

Both were born in South Carolina. Both spent their teenage years playing Dungeons & Dragons. Both hold honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degrees from Knox College (though it may be more accurate to say they both hold the same honorary degree). Both prefer the faux-French version of their last name (/koʊlˈbɛər/) to the actual Irish pronunciation (/koʊlbərt/).

One is a comedian, political satirist, and aspiring musical theatre star. The other is a pundit, journalist, and fearer of bears. One performed extensively with Chicago’s improv troupe Second City. The other performed at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where he cracked wise about the Bush administration while standing amidst – who else? – the Bush administration.

That wasn’t the only time the caricature Stephen Colbert poked his nose into (or jammed his foot up the rear of) reality. Just yesterday, the Federal Election Commission granted the latter permission to form a Super PAC capable of raising unlimited campaign funds for whatever/whomever Colbert sees fit.

And this is just the latest episode in Colbert’s quest to satirize politics and bureaucracy with his mere parodical presence.

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Supreme Court Rules to Protect Videogames Under First Amendment

In a 7-2 decision yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that a California law restricting the sale of violent videogames to minors violated the First Amendment. The Court’s ruling on Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association upheld a previous decision by a federal appeals court and deemed California’s ban on violent game sales unconstitutional.

By extension, videogames are now officially protected as free speech. From the syllabus of the Court Opinion:

“Video games qualify for First Amendment protection.  Like protected books, plays, and movies, they communicate ideas through familiar literary devices and features distinctive to the medium.  And “the basic principles of freedom of speech . . . do not vary” with a new and different communication medium.”

It’s a major step forward for a nascent form of expression, but before we commence the hoot-n-hollering, let’s dig a bit deeper.

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I Pledge Allegiance to the Ads: The Cannes Lions Festival

As anyone even remotely interested in the Advertising Industry should know, it's time for the Cannes Lions  International Festival of Creativity (formerly the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, but who wants to limit themselves these days?). As you read this, all the biggest of wigs from the most prestigious ad agencies around the world are gathering in the South of France for awards presentations, workshops, networking, partying, and general patting each other on the backs behavior.

And why not? Advertising is a $300 billion industry. It's the driving force behind what we watch on TV (and why it comes on when it does), what we see on billboards as we drive through the city, what we have to click through while we surf the web, what we hear during the breaks in our Internet radio stations, and what we have to avoid accidentally hitting with our thumbs while we use our mobile phones. It determines pop-cultural phenomena and, whether we like to admit it or not, seriously impacts our actions.

You hear it all the time: advertising is manipulation. But doesn't advertising make use of art (and creativity)? And isn't it true that all art is manipulation - of the mechanisms which trigger human emotion, (to paraphrase Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder)? But in advertising all that artistic and creative energy is used with the express purpose of supporting the machine of capitalism. Does that preclude advertising from being considered as a true art form? Probably. Does it make ads in themselves any less creative? Not in the slightest.

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LulzSec – The Lulz-Focused Hacktivist Successor to Anonymous

Shh. No, really. Quiet down. If anyone finds out I’m writing this, this website may cease to exist – for a few hours, anyway.

I want to talk to you about LulzSec. Yes, that LulzSec. Shhh! If they hear us, they’ll shut us down. They’ll use their network of botnets and whatever-the-hell-else-they-use to slam the site with traffic. They’ll find our phone numbers and unleash outdated auto-dialing machines to tie up our phones like that episode of The Simpsons.

Why? Why would they deliberately screw with strangers on the Internet, potentially damaging digital commerce and divulging private information?

For the lulz.

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The Twitter News Network

The ever-present news story this week (you know, the one about that guy the U.S. has been in search of for a decade) has me thinking about the way we get out news. Almost as central to the story itself was the way the news spread. So how do I really get my news? Yes, I listen to NPR in the mornings while shaving (it's my "me time," thankyouverymuch), and sure, my personal choice in the Big Four is NBC, but where do I really get my news from first? Sad to say: Twitter.

Let me tell you my "Where Were You When Osama Died" story, in an effort to illustrate. I was working at my restaurant that fateful night. The bartender, a "seasoned vet" of the industry, came running over. He spun on me, his crackling voice tight with excitement, "Did you hear? One of the guys at the bar said they found Osama! Shot him down, too!" Knowing our bar crowd to be a proud and boastful lot I dismissed this story at first. Then I thought to check Twitter. Let me reiterate: My home base for fact checking is now a social media website. Sure enough, my feed was full of the news and Osama was a trending topic. Why didn't I turn one of the TV's to CNN? Why didn't I ask the cooks to turn the radio to NPR for a second (well, because I would have lost a finger to their butcher's knife)? Why, oh why, did I turn to Twitter?

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What To Do Now That PSN Has Been Hacked

Last week, Sony’s Playstation Network went down. The company remained tight-lipped on the matter for a few days, leading to rampant speculation. It didn’t help that last Tuesday was one of the various days Skynet was supposed to go online, and Amazon cloud servers were degrading into failure cascades, disabling popular sites like Reddit and Foursquare. The Internet was breaking, and Sony was at the heart of it.

Last Friday, Sony admitted that the outage was due to an “external intrusion.” That’s suit-and-tie for “We were hacked.” Very little else was said, again leading to rampant speculation re: the extent of the hacking. Everyone circled round to the same question: was my credit card info stolen?

Early this week, Sony finally answered the question with a resounding “Maybe.”

Hit the jump for what you should do next.

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The Huffington Post Lawsuits: No Heroes Here, Only Villains

Earlier this year, AOL purchased the Huffington Post for $315 million dollars, virtually guaranteeing the site's place among the corporate news pantheon of the Internet, as well as unleashing a lot of hurt feelings and people looking to cash in on this deal. The latest exhibit in the latter category is Jonathan Tasini, an unpaid freelance blogger for the Huffington Post who filed a class action lawsuit against the publication on Tuesday, asking for a third of the money from the AOL deal to go to these bloggers who post to the site. 

Let's get this straight - no one aspires to become a writer, let alone a blogger, for the money. Tasini himself had been blogging for the Huffington Post since its infancy in 2001, and many others have voluntarily elected to do what he does. Unpaid blogging can be done for any number of reasons - padding for the resume, experience in the field, a way to increase one's readership, a forum to voice one's opinions, or (in my case) a hobby and creative outlet. Tasini knew from the start that he would not be getting paid for his work and, as his decade-long connection to the Huffington Post demonstrates, he must have been okay with this. 

It is unlikely that Tasini is going to walk away with any money, let alone a third of the profit from the Post's sale. And Tasini himself understands that; he acknowledges that he is not suing because of a breach of contract. In fact, it's sort of unclear what Tasini's actual argument is, besides the fact that its unfair that Arianna Huffington walks away with so much money on the backs of her unpaid writers. What is his game plan here? Does he have a strategy?

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We're as Sad as Hell and We're Not Gonna Take This Anymore! - R.I.P. Sidney Lumet

By now any of you out there with any sort of connection to the wider world will have heard the news that legendary director Sidney Lumet passed away this weekend at the age of 86. He leaves behind one of the most solid and astonishing filmographies of any Hollywood director in the past half decade. 12 Angry Men, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, The Verdict, the list goes on. Lumet established himself as one of the best directors for confronting capital i Issues through the use of cinema. And yet he never won an Oscar (except for a lifetime achievement award from the Academy a couple years ago, which is nice I suppose).

By far the most iconic and oft-referenced of Lumet's movies is 1976's television satire Network. Owing much to Peter Finch's famous-for-a-reason "Mad as hell" speech, you see this one get brought out every couple years or so at Oscar montages, and like I said, it's famous for a reason: it's so damn good.

Network is centered around the story of Howard Beale, the primetime news anchor at "UBS" the lowest-rated network in the country. When he receives the word that he's been fired, he suffers what seems to be a nervous breakdown; or is it a prophet's revelation?

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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – Media Responses to the Japan Earthquake

It’s been difficult to sift through all of the news coming out of Japan, especially as more news arrives every minute. Conflict reports on nuclear facilities are nonetheless troubling. Videos of the wreckage and photos of struggling survivors take your breath away.

Now scientists are saying the 8.9 magnitude quake moved Eastern Japan moved Japan 13 feet closer to the United States and shortened Earth’s day by about 1.6 microseconds. That doesn’t even sound like it should be possible, let alone something that massive quakes have done before.

Even tougher to follow has been the rush of news in the tech and entertainment world as companies react to crisis. A lot of trivial, some of it heartwarming, the Internet’s been abuzz with news of everything from cancellations to missing persons reports.

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Charlie Sheen: Vatican Assassin Warlock

Two nights ago, we saw a lavish celebration of the best and brightest movies from 2010. Stars were interviewed on the Red Carpet, badly timed jokes were cracked by the ceremony's younger-skewing hosts, the network's five second tape delay came in handy during Melissa Leo's Best Supporting Actress acceptance speech, and gold statuettes were handed out to some of Hollywood's most deserving artists/entertainers. But one significant figure in the entertainment industry was nowhere to be found during the proceedings: Charlie Sheen.

Despite his absence (court-ordered or otherwise), Sheen's presence could be felt in two instances throughout the night: once when a drag-clad James Franco cracked a passing joke, and once when a promo for Sheen's upcoming interviews with Good Morning America and 20/20 aired during the telecast. Gee, given his recent epic BIFF on a radio interview with Alex Jones - leading directly into the announcement that Two and a Half Men is no longer a viable television program - you'd think he would stay away from public exposure for a while. But prudence was clearly never the Sheen way...

Selections from said epic BIFF can be found in this article - I wanted to give it its own paragraph, lets it get lost in the shuffle. You can find the full audio here. It really is some pretty amazing stuff. I don't know where he found the inspiration for such powerful vitriolic rants (my first guess would be the drugs he was taking, and my second guess would be a reaction from quitting said drugs cold turkey), but I think he could be on to something, both in style and in substance.

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La-La Land: Your Place for Events This Season

We must be in the middle of Sweeps Month or something, because I can't seem to turn on my TV of a Sunday evening without stumbling on some national broadcast of a highly anticipated annual event. First there was the Golden Globes all those weeks back. Then the Super Bowl. Then the Grammys. And this most recent Sunday, the NBA All-Star Game. And of course we all know what highly-politicized, celebration of the year's best in cinema happens next Sunday…

Living in Los Angeles, it was hard to escape the buzz of All-Star Weekend, the festivities of which took place at Staples Center, the home stadium of All-Star Game MVP Kobe Bryant (and fellow All-Stars Pau Gasol and Blake Griffin). The Staples Center has been playing double and triple duty later, as it was recently home to the aforementioned Grammys in addition to its role as home for the Lakers, Clippers, and Kings, as well as a happening venue for concerts and special events.

Events at the Staples Center are fun. I've been to a single Laker game and a single WWE Event there, and have enjoyed my time thoroughly. The LA Live center surrounding it is shiny and metallic and perpetually seems to have the mall equivalent of new car smell. And despite the havoc wrought by these events on the already legendary LA traffic, it's nice to know that there is never a dearth of culture and excitement in this, the entertainment capitol of the world.

Fortunately, the events downtown didn't impact the traffic to LAX, so I was able to make my flight for my surprise, late-notice business trip without any hassle. Unfortunately, said trip is taking up the majority of my time and energy right now, so I'll be back next week in full technicolor and with a full-length post. Continue...

The 2011 Grammys: Where the Points Don't Matter

I don't go to many live music shows. In fact, I think I've been to just three concerts in the past four years - and two of them were Rush. Going to see live music just isn't my "thing" - in the same way that going to live baseball games IS my "thing." So, naturally, I was excited about Sunday night's Grammy Awards telecast, as it afforded me the opportunity to see some live (on tape) performances from some of the biggest names and most important players in the music industry.

The Grammys have long ceased to be an "awards show" in any significant way. The "honor" of receiving a Grammy inspires more lampoon than praise nowadays. The award categories themselves are so confused as to basically not mean anything anymore (as expertly spoofed by Dave Letterman in a mid-broadcast "Top 10"). And the the format of the show reflects this opinion, focusing on the big performances, while sneaking in an awards presentation right before the commercial break.

That being said, the Grammy Awards themselves can have cultural implications, such as when Esperanza Spalding's win over Justin Bieber in the "Best New Artist" category sparked a spree of Wiki-crime from fans crazed with the Bieber-fiever. (I guess synchronizing the release of his big movie with the Grammys didn't help his award chances.) However, the Grammys are and have been about the performances, some of which I saw, and will relate here.

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Super Bowl Commercials 2011: A Tremendous Display of Blatant Capitalism!

"You know, I think I'm paying more attention to the commercials than to the actual game. I need to reverse that."

This was a comment I overheard during Super Bowl XLV. And while this is never the scenario a football fan envisions during their sport's biggest broadcast of the year, I can't say I could find fault with his initial reaction. At the time, the game was looking like it would turn into a blowout (a situation that was thankfully rectified later on) and each 30-second spot was garnering laughter and cheers from the audience.

Which is to be expected. When a company is shelling out up to $100,000 per second of airtime, the marketing folks had better have what it takes to steal the show. Many of these companies brought their A-Games, saturating the screen with arrangements of color and light and sound designed to stimulate the highest possible desire to buy their products.

I, for one, enjoyed watching some of the higher-echelon commercials, but they didn't inspire in me a desire to buy - they only inspired in me a desire to blog about commercials. Who would have thought the blogosphere would provide us with the tools to undermine the advertising age?

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This is the Dawning of the Age of ... Capricorn???

Ophiuchus, the serpent-bearer

Have you ever read your horoscope in hopes of gaining some supernatural preparation for what the future holds? Or have you ever looked at a breakdown of your astrological sign, latching on to all the vague tidbits that accurately represent your personality type (or rather the personality type you wish you had), and conveniently ignoring the ones that aren't so insightful? If you answered yes to either of these questions, then you might have already heard that the astrological sign you always used to define yourself could be wrong.

Last Monday, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported a claim made by astronomer Parke Kunkle that, thanks to a gravitational shift, the Earth is no longer aligned with the zodiac signs the way it used to be. That means that on your next birthday the sun (or moon or whatever) might not be "in" the same constellation it was in on the day you were born. The news took a few days to go viral over the Tweeters, and the Diggits, and the FaceUnions, and it's been a few more days until my scheduled post where I can tell you all about it.

Many astrology buffs have reacted with feelings ranging from annoyance to rage at finding out that their favorite pseudo-science has suddenly proved unreliable. And I can't say I blame them. I didn't read my horoscope before the big change, and I don't plan to now. But do I have to start identifying myself with a whole new portion of the population? And what's with this crazy 13th sign, Ophiuchus? And Scorpio only lasts a week now!? There's plenty to read about after the jump.

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'Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark' Reviewed or "Turn it off! Turn it off! TURN IT OFF! *sobs*"

As was the case with my parents' last visit to my New York abode, my father decided to spring for a Broadway show when they came to town two weeks ago. This time around, on Christmas Day 2010, he opted to secure tickets to a preview performance of the already infamous Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark. For those of you who don't have subscriptions to Playbill (or you know, read the Internet) Spider-Man is currently on track to being the most expensive show ever to (dis)grace the Great White Way, with costs rivaling those of a summer blockbuster. More than that, technical problems and a shocking number of near-death experiences on the part of the cast  have delayed the production by over a year. Yes, I saw that show.

As you may or may not have been noticed, I am a lifelong Spider-Fan (I self-identify with that term). Spider-Man was, depending on the sources you consult, my first favorite superhero (largely varying on whether or not one counts Jun Fukuda-era Godzilla as a "superhero"). Spider-Man helped inspire my love of science fiction and served as a moral compass on my impressionable youthful psyche. My love of the character continues to the present day, being nurtured by the (first two entries of the) recent film series and a slavish devotion to the comics.

In addition, I was a theater kid in high school. I loved the spring musical, even if my particular vocal talents had yet to develop and I was usually relegated to non-singing roles (my greatest part played was the Constable in Fiddler on the Roof). My stage years nurtured in me a healthy appreciation for showtunes and admiration for the talents and perofrmances of live theater.

So, I basically had to see this show.

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A Heap of Digital Images: Identity in the Age of the Internet

This week, online tabloid Jezebel posted a lengthy email chain between three old college buddies, concerning their competition to sleep with as many women as possible. If you're feeling extra slimy today and want to read the exchange, you can find it here, but there's not necessarily any reason to look at it. It's not particularly humorous, and the misogyny and maturity are about what you would expect from the sort of person who would engage in this contest in the first place. Jezebel tries to add fuel to the fire by framing the men as "Princeton alums" [sic] and pointing out that one apparently works for the State department. 

Let's get this straight right away - this is a very scummy activity, and it's depressing to read three men boasting about wooing and bedding girls they're not attracted to just to up their statistics. It's a sick idea, through and through. 

That being said, why is this being published at all? Is it any surprise that their are some seedy men out there that engage in this sort of activity? The article ends with Jezebel also directing the reader to these upstanding citizens' blogs and Twitter accounts, apparently trying as hard as possible to get the violent cybermobs riled up to action. The website is doing it's best to fire up some sort of controversy. 

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News Brief: Internet Not Totally Shafting Musicians

SoundExchange, the company responsible for collecting royalties from songs streamed on the Internet, satellite radio, and cable television (?), is reporting that it handed out $155 million in royalties to artists in 2009 and has collected $260 million that they hope to distribute to artists in 2010. That's up from $100 million in 2008. The LA Times' Pop & Hiss blog has the story:

Each time a song is played on Pandora, KCRW's website or XM Satellite Radio, the virtual sound of fractions of pennies are heard dropping into SoundExchange's pocket. Multiply that by billions of songs heard over the Internet each year and, voila, a new income stream for musicians is born.

The only problem is that the company, a non-profit based in Washington, DC, can't always find the musicians who make the music that gets so much e-love. By the end of 2009, SoundExchange had accumulated a whopping $111 million in undistributed royalties. They do seem to be getting better at finding the squirrelly hipsters who're getting all this fat online cash, though. The company distributed 84% of what they collected in 2009, which is a big increase over the 71% they distributed in 2008, and practically dwarfs the 28% they got to musicians  in 2007. They're hoping to get to 97% this year. It's worth pointing out that the $155 million SoundExchange handed out in 2009 accounts for around 1.5% of the total revenue made by the music industry in the same year. So online radio isn't going to totally save the industry's soul.

Cash is cash, though. And if I were a (real) musician, I'd be checking this unpaid artists list right quick. Continue...