Category: media

“In a move expanding the news outlet’s presence in Hollywood, The New York Times has named Caitlin Roper executive producer for scripted projects. Roper, who has been a senior editor at The New York Times Magazine since 2016, will develop Times stories for film and TV, ‘developing and producing alongside Hollywood producers using our stories as the launching point for fictional projects.'” – The Hollywood Reporter

Whoops, not an eight-episode season; a seven-episode season. That standalone can come later, if at all. – BBC

With fresh spikes in the virus in the U.S., studios delay releases again, and “hopes for a speedy substantial resurgence at the global box office were dashed.” – The Guardian (UK)

Just as some of the Boomers and Gen-Xers first encountered opera on Tom and Jerry, and just as some Millennials first found memorized U.S. presidents or learned the nations of the world from Animaniacs, younger generations have Arthur, and that’s why it was important for Rep. John Lewis, civil rights icon, to appear on the animated show. “Arthur decides to organize a cafeteria sit-in to force the school to hire an assistant for Mrs. MacGrady, and Lewis joins in the demonstration.” Of course he did. – Los Angeles Times

Podcasts were hot before the virus killed the commute, but even as their popularity takes a perhaps momentary break, true crime remains popular among listeners (yes, yes, Serial, but there are so many others). Many of them have focused on white men, but a few award-winners meet the standards for diversity in hosts and subjects. – The New York Times

The Avatar sequels are delayed – again. That’s the seventh delay, in case you’re counting. Will they ever happen? And what’s going on with James Cameron? – Vulture

“TikTok is launching a program to fund its most popular creators directly for their videos — with an initial $200 million earmarked for the U.S. … How much individual creators will be eligible to earn — and what specific criteria those payments will be based on — isn’t fully clear.” But you can apply starting in August. – Variety

“As part of the Times, Serial Productions will independently commission and edit its own stories, which ‘will now be amplified by the Times,’ the company said.” (The price was reportedly $25 million.) “In addition, the Times said it had entered into an ‘ongoing creative and strategic alliance’ … that will let This American Life continue to collaborate on long-form audio stories with Serial Productions as well as partner with the Times on marketing and ad sales.” – Variety

One force we must confront is the attention economy, an incentive structure designed to reward the most uncompromising, polarized, clickable minority. (Ironically, this minority is very often part of the white majority; see breathless, disproportionate coverage of white nationalists and supremacists following the 2016 election.) The resulting tyranny of the loudest presents an algorithmically-warped view of what’s happening in the rest of the United States. – Wired

A 44-year-old “animal rights activist” named Maksim Krivosh, who recently finished a prison term for fraud and weapons charges, ended a 12-hour standoff and released 13 hostages in the city of Lutsk after President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly endorsed a documentary about industry’s use and abuse of animals titled Earthlings and narrated by Joaquin Phoenix. – BBC