Ed

Personal branding or media property? That’s at the crux of a very interesting lawsuit filed in Virginia by the Roanoke Times against one of its former reporter over the rights to a Twitter account. Andy Bitter, who covered Virginia Tech football for the newspaper, left for a similar job at the Athletic, a startup sports website. When he departed, he was asked by the Roanoke Times to turn over access to the account, citing precedent (Bitter’s predecessor had handed the account over when he left the paper in 2011). But the account has more than 27,000 followers now. It’ll be fascinating to see how this plays out.

Staying in media circles, I’ve been following the story about tariffs on Canadian newsprint with morbid curiosity since last fall (i.e., roughly when I left the newspaper business myself). It did not take a major leap of logic to see that it would unfold the way it has. The New York Times had an interesting summation on what it means for the smaller daily newspapers.

Aven

I laughed. I cried. It’s worth quoting the whole thing by Meg Elison:

I am the very model of a modern-age millennial,

I’ve got no cash, no house, no kids, and student debt perennial,

I know the rules of Tinder, and I’m not sold on monogamy

(For what it’s worth I think that stems from troubles ‘tween my mom and me)

I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters on the gender front

Myself, I am nonbinary; your labels I so do not want

Been disillusioned by my expectations with a lot o’ stuff,

The skills with which I am equipped for life are frankly not enough

 

My job prospects are hobbled by insistence on a living wage

Compete at entry level with some washed-up folks at twice my age

In matters of identity, employment and such petty ills

I am the very model of a modern-age millennial

 

On Monday I killed Applebee’s, on Tuesday I axed country clubs

I’ve never bought a diamond and I have no use for cashmere gloves

I quote dank internet memes in lieu of sharing actual thoughts

For earnestness has been passé since sometime in the early aughts

Still advertisers flail and fail to capture all my buying power

(The sum of which amounts to renting GIG cars by the paltry hour)

I’m subject to the bleak nostalgia of Generation Xers

And YouTube sensibilities adored by web-savvy youngsters

So I get to the take the blame for our country’s tanked economy

While fighting for my basic rights and bodily autonomy

In short I’m fucked in matters from the vital to the trivial

I am the very model of a modern-age millennial

 

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    • In fact, when I know what is meant by “social justice warrior”

    When I can tell at sight a fascist MRA conspirator

    When such affairs are treated as unsolvable new mysteries,

    I shake my head and wonder if the Boomers studied history

    When I have learnt what progress has been made and then just flushed away

    My generation’s best bet looks like playing Fortnite drunk all day

    In short, if you’re angry right now and spewing aged white vitriol

    Remember you created me: the modern age millennial

     

    For I’m the generation raised upon the game Monopoly

    You’re hoarding all the wealth and jobs and mock me for my poverty

    So now I’m skewing socialist with discourse quite ungenial

    Please check your local ballots for the modern-age millennial

    Kelsey H.

    Adding to the list of things that cause damage to the climate: plastic’s decay.

    Where there’s climate change, there are more natural disasters. Many Americans deny the fact that Puerto Rico is actually governed by the US while the island is still trying to recover from Hurricane Maria. But Puerto Rico looks like it will sign with one of the largest private prison corporations in the US to move more than 3,000 inmates to Arizona during this aftermath.

    And, in another ironic twist of societal woes, an all-women’s training camp in Texas is teaching empowerment through guns, of all things. Get this: the camp even let them fire machine guns from a helicopter. But, hey, I’m a woman, and I sure as hell can understand the basis behind self-protection and preparing for the worst. Does this type of stuff address the root problems that cause women to be so wary everywhere they go, though? No.

    I really don’t mean to be a Debby-downer, I swear. I just digest a lot of not-so-great news? Call me informed. America’s inequality just got worse, per new 2015 data.