Articles of interest about journalism, scams, writing & more - Feb 25

***COIVD-19

Studies Examine Variant Surging in California, and the News Isn’t Good

CDC says there’s one thing you shouldn’t do within 2 weeks of your coronavirus vaccine 

Clergy On The Pandemic Front Lines: 'How Do We Really Grieve?'

What Could Happen If You Miss Your Second Covid-19 Vaccine Dose?

***JOURNALISM

A rule for good journalism: What is missing from this story?

Texas journalists are providing critical information about a disaster they’re living through  

With the Loss of Physical Newsrooms, How are Young Journalists Faring?

One America News clashes again with White House correspondents over Trump-approved camera tent ($) 

Trying a Des Moines Register reporter arrested while covering a protest violates free press rights (opinion)  

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

Pandemic drives nonprofit media boom  

Al Jazeera to launch rightwing media platform targeting US conservatives 

Judge rejects Rep. Nunes' defamation lawsuit against CNN

Sale Of Tribune Publishing To Alden Global Capital Raises Concerns In Newsrooms

The news media bargaining code could backfire if small media outlets aren’t protected: an economist explains

***FREE SPEECH 

DOJ Settles First Amendment Suit Over White House Press Access 

***WRITING: MICROSOFT WORD 

Microsoft Word getting killer upgrade to battle Google Docs

This new Microsoft Word feature is bound to be a hit, especially with slow typists

***WRITING & READING

AI can write a passing college paper in 20 minutes

Slow Down and Write Better Emails

What does a manuscript rejection really mean? (probably not what you think) 

Library staffer fired after being accused of burning Trump, Coulter books  

The rise of Black science fiction and fantasy

***FAKES & FRAUDS   

Science Is Truth Until It Isn’t

People with extremist views less able to do complex mental tasks, research suggests

Nearly 30,000 Macs reportedly infected with mysterious malware

The viral Mars Perseverance rover video going around is fake

The Disinformation Vaccine: Is There a Cure for Conspiracy Theories?

Scientists said claims about China creating the coronavirus were misleading 

***SCAMS 

Scam alert: Caller tells viewer she must pay to watch TV newscast 

Online scammers are rushing to exploit people desperate to get the Covid-19 vaccine

7 Podcasts About the Art of the Scam ($)

***FAKE NEWS 

Dominion's MyPillow and Smartmatic's Fox News election suits put 'disinformation' on trial

Fake News? How to spot a deep fake

How memes became a major vehicle for misinformation 

***QANON

The future of QAnon

Pizzagate’s violent legacy ($)

Life amid the ruins of QAnon: ‘I wanted my family back’ ($)  

***SOCIAL MEDIA 

From Clubhouse to Discord to Twitter, The Future of Social Media Is All Talk  

***FACEBOOK

Facebook says it will pay news industry $1 billion over 3 years

Facebook Hashtag Purge Fails To Stop Covid-19 Conspiracy Theories Spreading

Facebook knew for years ad reach estimates were based on 'wrong data' per court filing

Facebook’s underground obituary pages

***SECURITY 

France to boost cyberdefense after hospital malware attacks

Owner of app that hijacked millions of Android devices with one update exposes buy-to-infect scam 

Microsoft: SolarWinds attack took more than 1,000 engineers to create  

Ransomware gangs are running riot – paying them off doesn't help

How to stop robocalls: Every way we know to prevent the annoying ringing

***PRIVACY 

You’ve been invited to Clubhouse. Your privacy hasn’t.

Tracker pixels in emails are now an ‘endemic’ privacy concern

***PRODUCING MEDIA

Audio takes off during the pandemic 

***LANGUAGE

The Made-Up Language That Accidentally Became Real: The Story of Klingon

***POETRY 

Beat poet, publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti dies at 101

Poems by 10 Contemporary Black Poets

An experimental program enrolled students from high-poverty high schools in a Harvard poetry course, and the students excelled

Thanks to Undocupoets, poets don’t need papers to be heard