Rana Sweis

Journalism World

A duty to inform, as well as Entertain: The BBC on the Edge of an Abyss

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There were promising signs at the beginning of this year that BBC News and Current Affairs were preparing to rescue their reputation after a torrid time during the EU referendum. Their coverage in 2016 was widely panned by senior insiders like John Simpson and Justin Webb for not checking the factual claims made during Brexit debates, and putting too much weight on 'balancing' opinions rather than some more objective test of accuracy and truth.

But behind the scenes something big was stirring. For nearly two months in early 2018 BBC One's flagship documentary programme, Panorama, was looking at a stunning set of revelations from two whistle-blowers.

There were promising signs at the beginning of this year that the BBC News and Current Affairs were preparing to rescue their reputation.
The first was the testimony of Chris Wylie, the former head of research at Cambridge Analytica. Founded by Alexander Nix, Robert Mercer and Steve Bannon in 2013, the data-based electioneering company would deploy military-grade propaganda tools and weaponise the hacked information of 170 million Facebook users, both in the 2016 UK EU referendum and the US presidential election of Donald Trump.

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Rana Sweis Articles

Journalism World

The digital winter turns apocalyptic

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THIS WEEK, AS A LONG-PREDICTED collapse seemed to hit digital media, we saw a few of the tried-and-true ways managers use to explain to employees why they’re laying them off.

BuzzFeed chose the language of corporation-as-family, with founder Jonah Peretti telling staff that making the decision was “upsetting and disappointing.” Verizon went with meaningless corporate-speak. “Today marks a strategic step toward better execution of our plans for growth and innovation into the future,” a spokesperson said.

The results looked the same in the end: a 15 percent reduction in headcount at BuzzFeed, resulting in the layoffs of more than 200 people, and 800 cuts at Verizon Media Group, which includes HuffPost and Yahoo News.

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