Trumping media

IN Media Watch Briefs | 18/07/2016

As the Republican convention to formally declare Donald Trump as the party’s presidential nominee gets under way in Cleveland, Ohio, later today, experts are wondering what it might mean for the US media. “It could be …a defining moment in American media, especially for the TV networks,” writes a commentator in the New York Times. A moment when the media will either gleefully treat this as a typical Trumpian extravaganza guaranteed to bring in the ratings, or live up to their given role to provide truth and context to what is a “competition for the presidency of the United States in fraught and dangerous times”. Given the ratings-obsessed television media, though, Trump’s characteristic wild assertions are likely to have more play than sober fact-checking over the next four days.

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Amazon resisting voluntary censorship

The new term for self censorship is voluntary censorship, as proposed by companies like Netflix and Hotstar. ET reports that streaming video service Amazon Prime is opposing a move by its peers to adopt a voluntary censorship code in anticipation of the Indian government coming up with its own rules. Amazon is resisting because it fears that it may alienate paying subscribers.

Let the games begin

Clearly, the run to the 2019 elections is on. A journalist received a call from someone saying they were from Aajtak channel and were conducting a survey, asking whom she was going to vote for in 2019. On being told that her vote was secret, the caller assumed she wasn't going to vote for 'Modiji'. The caller, a woman, also didn't identify herself. A month or two earlier the same journalist received a call, this time from a man, asking if she was going to vote for the BSP.