Mathew Ingram
Columbia Journalism Review
Toronto, ON, Canada
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Recent articles by Mathew:
Government funding for journalism: necessary evil or just evil?
As advertising revenue continues to decline, virtually every publisher in North America has had to seek other sources of funding. Some have turned to venture capital, while others are experimenting with nonprofit status, crowdfunding, and even selling shares to readers. Now there’s another option: government funding. The state of New Jersey has agreed to give […] → Read More
Brazil’s attack on Greenwald mirrors the US case against Assange
Over the years, Intercept co-founder Glenn Greenwald has made more than a few enemies. What some of his fans and supporters see as a crusade for truth and justice can strike others—including those who become the targets of his journalistic crusades—as needlessly hostile and potentially biased. But there is one enemy that has stood out […] → Read More
Who is right about political ads, Twitter or Facebook?
As the 2020 federal election draws closer, the issue of online political advertising is becoming more important, and the differences in how the platforms are approaching it more obvious. Twitter has chosen to ban political advertising, but questions remain about how it plans to define that term, and whether banning ads will do more harm […] → Read More
The YouTube ‘radicalization engine’ debate continues
For many people, YouTube is a place to kill time by watching sailing videos, or to pick up tips on how to train their dog, or change a car headlight. But the Google-owned video service also has a darker side, according to a number of news articles, including one from the New York Times last […] → Read More
The dilemma that is Times columnist Bret Stephens
The holiday season and the arrival of a new year are often cause for reflection and soul-searching. Many critics have made it abundantly clear that they would like the senior management of the New York Times to consider why the newspaper allows op-ed columnist Bret Stephens to write the things he does. As most people […] → Read More
Impeachment vote makes history, but right-wing circus continues
Everyone keeps on saying how historic it is to have an impeachment vote against a sitting US president. There’s no question it fits the technical definition, since it has only happened twice before, and Trump’s impeachment will undoubtedly go down in history. And yet, the vote in the House on Wednesday — much like everything […] → Read More
Silicon Valley’s Stonewalling
During the 2016 presidential race, Cambridge Analytica, a consulting firm, used data from up to eighty-seven million Facebook profiles to target voters on behalf of Donald Trump. An academic researcher had access to the data as part of a standard research arrangement, but then sold it, in defiance of Facebook’s rules. The breach caused a […] → Read More
Is engaging with readers the key to both trust and revenue?
As more media companies move toward subscription and membership-based models to generate revenue, engaging with readers has become ever more important. Yet some institutions seem uncomfortable with building community outside their walls. How should journalists approach this task? This week, I asked a group of experts during a week-long series of interviews on our Galley […] → Read More
How does fact-checking work when we can’t agree on the truth?
Last month, Facebook announced that it would exempt political advertising from the fact-checking standards imposed on the rest of its platform. The move was controversial. More than ever before, social media users are finding ways to debunk disinformation, yet the volume of inaccuracies and outright falsehoods never seems to diminish, thanks in large part to […] → Read More
Everyone is admitting what they get paid to work in journalism
When journalists want to talk among themselves about something difficult, the anonymous Google Doc seems to have become the mechanism. First there was the “Shitty Media Men” document, which was circulated in 2017, and eventually grew into a long list of alleged sexual harassers, working at some of the leading media outlets in the country. […] → Read More
Disinformation still running rampant on Facebook, study says
Most of the attention on Facebook and disinformation in the past week or so has focused on the platform’s decision not to fact-check political advertising, along with the choice of right-wing site Breitbart News as one of the “trusted sources” for Facebook’s News tab. But these two developments are just part of the much larger […] → Read More
Facebook, free speech, and political ads
A number of Facebook’s recent decisions have fueled a criticism that continues to follow the company, including the decision not to fact-check political advertising and the inclusion of Breitbart News in the company’s new “trusted sources” News tab. These controversies were stoked even further by Mark Zuckerberg’s speech at Georgetown University last week, where he […] → Read More
YouTube takedowns are making it hard to document war crimes
Like every other large social platform, YouTube has come under fire for not doing enough to remove videos that contain hate speech and disinformation. The Google-owned company has said repeatedly that it is trying to get better at doing so. But in some cases, removing videos because they contain graphic imagery of violence can be […] → Read More
YouTube takedowns are making it hard to document war crimes
Like every other large social platform, YouTube has come under fire for not doing enough to remove videos that contain hate speech and disinformation. The Google-owned company has said repeatedly that it is trying to get better at doing so. But in some cases, removing videos because they contain graphic imagery of violence can be […] → Read More
Zuckerberg wants to eat his free-speech cake and have it too
Facebook’s relationship to speech is complicated. The giant social network routinely takes down hate speech provided it meets certain criteria (although critics say it misses a lot more), along with gratuitous nudity, and other content that breaches its “community standards.” And it hides or “down-ranks” misinformation, although only in certain categories, such as anti-vaccination campaigns. […] → Read More
On Facebook, disinformation, and existential threats
Last week, The Verge published transcripts of two hours of audio leaked from a town hall with Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook. His comments included a reference to Senator Elizabeth Warren, whose plans to break up the company Zuckerberg called “an existential threat.” Some wondered: Would Facebook try to put its thumb on the […] → Read More
Some lessons from the MIT Media Lab controversy
When the news first broke that the MIT Media Lab had a close relationship with deceased billionaire and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, some saw it as a momentary lapse in judgment, and there was widespread support for Media Lab director Joi Ito. But then New Yorker writer Ronan Farrow reported that the Epstein relationship was […] → Read More
What happens when Facebook confronts an existential threat?
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t do a lot of off-the-cuff speaking. His public appearances–whether before Congress or at a launch event—tend to be carefully scripted and rehearsed. A cardboard cutout would seem animated by comparison. All of which helps explain some of the excitement surrounding a Verge report this week, consisting of two hours of […] → Read More
Google plays hardball with European news publishers
While the US obsessed on Wednesday over what technically constitutes impeachment for a sitting American president, European news publishers were focused on something quite different: namely, a decision by Google to play hardball with French media companies when it comes to linking to their content in its search results. As of Wednesday, unless a French […] → Read More
What we’ve learned from our week of climate coverage
Today marks the beginning of a global climate strike and Monday will bring the UN Climate Action Summit, so we’re dedicating this installment of our newsletter to media coverage of climate, and whether it’s getting any better. This spring, CJR and The Nation co-founded Covering Climate Now, an unprecedented journalistic collaboration aimed at strengthening news […] → Read More