Nowadays when we say “media,” we don’t only mean print, radio, TV, and online. We mean all of the above — plus streaming services, podcasts, and big-time players like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Google.
As companies, not government entities, media outlets aren’t bound by the First Amendment, but they owe their power to shape and influence culture and thought to its continued existence.
Update, Thursday, Sept. 7: The Backpage trial will resume on Tuesday, Sept. 12, per an order today from the federal court in Phoenix. The court further ordered: ORDER as to Michael Lacey, et al., IT IS ORDERED that upon notice…
A coalition of sex worker-rights organizations will demonstrate from 5-8 p.m. today, Monday, Feb. 6, outside the Footprint Center in Downtown Phoenix as part of a “public and media education action” ahead of Super Bowl LVII in Glendale, now less…
Despite more than a decade of research, reports, editorials, magazine articles and even police accounts debunking the odious myth that the Super Bowl is a magnet for sex trafficking, this zombie lie remains catnip to local politicians, police and media…
At a Dec. 8th meeting of the Arizona Human Trafficking Council, Gov. Doug Ducey announced a statewide media campaign to bolster a long-discredited urban legend: that large sporting events such as the Super Bowl serve as magnets for the sex…
U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut combines the worst characteristics of Cotton Mather, Girolamo Savonarola and the Rev. Jerry Falwell — Senior, not Junior. The 76-year-old Democrat’s persistent, self-righteous efforts to censor the internet, using “the kids” as his rallying…
Riffing off an old chestnut, the inimitable Maggie McNeill once wrote that there are “lies, damn lies and sex trafficking statistics.” Now 60 Minutes+, a streaming version of the venerable news program, is helping to make McNeill’s point by highlighting…
Leave it to veteran Phoenix human rights activist Peggy Plews to sum up society’s complicity in the heinous killing of Marcia Powell, a 48-year-old, indigent, mentally-ill woman, whose heat-induced, 2009 death at Arizona’s Perryville Prison is recounted in filmmaker PJ…
There was a time, not too long ago, when liberals loathed censorship, cherished the idea of freedom of speech and held fast to the dictum, often misattributed to Voltaire, that, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend…
No one ever accused Saudi Arabia’s ruthless rulers of possessing a sense of humor. So it should arch nary an eyebrow that they object to an episode of the comedy series Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj that’s critical of the kingdom’s notorious young…
Those of us who were nursing our hangovers probably missed out. But on New Year’s Day, the nexus where Social Media Mavens, Social Justice Warriors, and Crossword Puzzle Solvers meet got a rare moment in the spotlight when the New…
