Good afternoon from Muck Rack, where you can get a snapshot of what journalists around the world are reading, thinking and commenting on right now.
Mid-week media chatter
The Atlantic wrote A Eulogy for Twitter. Their image for it is pretty spectacular. Tim Carmody with The Wire explained: “This is when the coach of our Twitter team gives us all the ‘no one believes in us’ speech.” Jared Keller, very recently of PolicyMic, wrote: “Something is wrong with Twitter. That something is people.” Taylor Lorenz at Daily Mail shared this quote from the story: “Twitter has done for social publishing what AOL did for email. But nobody has AOL accounts anymore.”
In Talking Points Memo, a Scientific American editor writes: Fox Told Me I Couldn’t Talk About Climate Change. Stephanie Grace from The Advocate tweeted: “Fair and balanced?” Seth Fletcher with Scientific American said, “Wow. Our man @mmoyr really made the best of his Fox & Friends appearance this morning. Bravo.” Freelancer David Sheets added, “Scientific American editor says his appearance on ‘Fox & Friends’ made him feel dirty…” Which sounds about right, in our opinion.
BBC reports that Actor Bob Hoskins died at age 71 of pneumonia. In case you’ve forgotten, Hoskins was well known for roles in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Long Good Friday. Andrew Beatty with AFP added that “The Chicago Tribune deserves a slap for this headline.”
For some good news, the Star Wars: Episode VII Cast was announced yesterday. Nicole Hernandez at Boston Globe tweeted her jubilation: “YEEEE!!!! #StarWarsVII.” Rob Salem with the Toronto Star said, “#StarWars fans all over the world have just peed their pants. (Never been one myself, but may the force be with ya).” Anthony DeBarros from Gannett Digital put things into perspective: “Only 597 days to go.”
An Oklahoma execution
The New York Times reports that Oklahoma Set a Double Execution Amid Storm Over Lethal-Drug Secrecy. Catherine Ho with the Washington Post explained: “During botched execution in Oklahoma, witnesses say defendant began to writhe & gasp after being declared unconscious.” Garrett Haake from 41 Action News Kansas City called it a “Horrifying story of botched execution in OK, which, like Missouri, keeps its execution drug cocktail & source secret.”
In case you’re into this sort of morbidity, Tulsa World has a minute-by-minute eyewitness account of what happened during Clayton Lockett’s execution.
BuzzFeed also found a series of tweets from Associated Press reporter Bailey Elise McBride that indicated “a botched Oklahoma execution attempt” last night.
Money matters
The New York Times thinks the U.S. is Close to Bringing Criminal Charges Against Big Banks. Binyamin Appelbaum there said, “The Justice Department is afraid of holding banks accountable for crimes, parts I and II.” Dan Wilchins at Reuters added, “Bharara is looking into criminal charges against BNP, CS, but wants to make sure they will not lose their charters.” Maxwell Strachan from the Huffington Post looked at the bright side: “We may soon get the first guilty plea from a major bank in more than two decades.”
Speaking of money, Bitcoin has made its way on Bloomberg Terminal.
And in Politico, Kenneth Vogel writes of big donor secrecy: ‘Irony, but it’s not hypocrisy’. He tweeted: “SCOOP: Dems raise $31M for mostly secret $ groups at Democracy Alliance mtg in Chicago — & mtg isn’t even over yet.” Ryan Kearney with The New Republic tweeted this quote from Vogel’s story: “The liberal strain of the argument is usually sprinkled with a heaping helping of moral superiority.” And Jonathan Martin at the New York Times added, “.@kenvogel has Valerie Jarrett, ee Blasio & Grimes acting like they have something to be guilty about by being at DA.”
Sports talk
We hear that Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston was arrested for shoplifting crab legs at Publix. This makes us sad because Publix is the best grocery store on planet Earth and stealing from them is doubly wrong.
Here’s a photo of what that might look like, courtesy of @MadeByTim. It seems to be on point because everyone on Twitter really liked it. Jay Busbee at Yahoo! News had a request: “Faster please next time, Internet.”
Moving on to sports news we do understand, you’ll definitely want to take a look at what the THE OFFICIAL SITE OF THE LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS looks like today, following Sterling’s lifetime ban.
Question of the Day
Yesterday’s question of the day asked: This famous Hollywood actor was studying broadcast journalism at Northern Kentucky University until he dropped out in 1981, allegedly because he was tired of constant comparisons to his father, already a well-known local TV newsman. Who’s the actor? That would be none other than George Clooney! Many of you, impressively enough, knew that off-hand!
Congratulations to Matt Nagel for being the very first to answer that correctly! Honorable mentions also go out to Lindsey Mastis, Dagmar Ebaugh, Jeanne Kirk, Virginia Alimenti, Alva Lewis, Paul DelColle, freelance journalist Amy Zipkin, Mike Mikaelian, Amiee White Beazley, eschuman, Kathleen Reilly Lee, Jeffrey Dvorkin, Paul Boyd, Sandi Mulconry, Hollywood Highlands, George McGrath, Hal Davis, and Jennifer Mascia for all also getting it right!
As for today’s question, here it is: There was another journalism drop-out of Northern Kentucky University who met a much more tragic end. He penned a three-part investigative series that alleged drug profits from Nicaraguan drug traffickers in Los Angeles during the 1980s were used to fund the CIA-supported Nicaraguan Contras. After years of criticism for this series, he was found dead from two gunshot wounds to the head, and a coroner pronounced it suicide. Who was he, and what was his series called?
Click here to tweet your answer to @MuckRack. We’ll announce the winners tomorrow!
The Center for Public Integrity welcomes video journalist Eleanor Bell as multimedia editor. Most recently Bell worked for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia’s national public broadcaster, where she earned a Walkley Award for her investigative multimedia report into urban social disadvantage.
Bell enters the fold of CPI at the same time as Bill Gray, who joins as media relations specialist.
“Big welcome to two great new additions to the @Publici newsroom, @paperbagged & @BGPublic,” data journalist Ben Wieder tweeted.
“A massive welcome to @BGpublic and @paperbagged, the newest members of team @Publici,” senior political reporter Dave Levinthal echoed these sentiments.
“Thanks @davelevinthal, @benbweider,” Bell replied. “Very excited about what’s ahead!”
Don’t forget – if you change your job in journalism or move to a different news organization, be sure to email Kirsten (kirsten [at] sawhorsemedia [dot] com) so we can reflect your new title. News job changes only, please! Thanks!
