– A video dedication to Eric Boehlert:
[youtube 7YvAYIJSSZY nolink]
“[Trump] is an utterly shameless self-promoter” and the media should stop enabling him.”
– An update to our story about the blogger slammed with the $2.5m charge, from Forbes:
Crystal Cox was that the judge in the case determined that she wasn’t a “journalist” according to Oregon law, because she was not “affiliated with any newspaper, magazine, periodical, book, pamphlet, news service, wire service, news or feature syndicate, broadcast station or network, or cable television system.” This has led to a slew of angry stories, pointing out that bloggers are journalists. But these stories have not dug deeply enough. The facts in the case are far more complicated, and after hearing them, most journalists will not want to include Cox in their camp.
This story is not like that of Johnny Northside Hoff, the Minneapolis blogger who was (unfairly) ordered to pay $60,000 to a university employee after a truthful post about mortgage fraud led to his firing. If you Google Crystal Cox’swork about Obsidian Financial Group, you will find a host of websites full of erratic writing about the firm’s allegedly unethical practices, with domain names like “obsidianfinancialsucks.com.” She mainly directed her ire at firm principal Kevin Padrick. His search results are ruined — dominated by posts on websites Cox created, such as “bankruptcytrustfraud.com,” “realestatelies.com,” and “realestatehoax.com.” Obsidian’s tech team found dozens of sites that appeared to have been created by Cox to write about Obsidian, says Padrick, and over 1,900 others that she had created to write about other people and companies. This is not the work of a journalist, but the work of someone intent on destroying reputations.
The post was also updated with feedback from the comments.
– Yahoo set to launch original comedy channel.
As part of a major redesign, Twitter is launching a new“discover” section — a personalized stream of news stories and other information “based on your current location, what you follow and what’s happening in the world.”
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