Craig Silverman, now the Toronto-based media editor for BuzzFeed News, has been digging into unhappy facts for years. But back in 2015, he came out with a report which would foretell the misinformation tsunami that would soon arrive. Published by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, “Lies, Damn Lies and Viral Content: How News Websites Spread (and Debunk) Online Rumors, Unverified Claims and Misinformation” pretty much speaks for itself.
Category Archives: Profiles
We Are All Africans
THEY CAME TO LIVE THE AFRICAN DREAM. Now they sit on patches of browned grass on the edges of our cities, living in tents, their bodies battered, their homes burnt to the ground, their possessions crushed, stolen. Now they must start again.
The True Believer
DAVID PASQUARELLI SITS QUIETLY, his hands folded in his lap. In his sunny lower Haight apartment, the young activist offers ice tea to his guests. He is soft-spoken and polite. He is on his best behavior.
Out to Annoy
HE’S MADE MICKEY MOUSE a homosexual martyr, strapped Dick Cheney to General Electric’s electric chair, slapped the pope onto a perforated condom wrapper and transformed Lady Liberty into a rifle-wielding madwoman.
Zunaid Khan’s Wild Ride
THERE WAS A NIP IN THE AIR IN NEWTOWN one May morning and a small group of tourists were bundled in caps and scarves. They huddled in a small circle listening to a hulking Indian in bright white Nikes, a white T-shirt and a red Ohio State baseball cap who was telling them how it was all going to go down.
The Hippie Chick Who Became One of the Richest Women in England
THERE SHE WAS, SPLAYED OUT ON THE COUCH, STARK NAKED, wearing only a sly smile, her bulging curves displayed for everyone to see. It was an affront. An assault, actually. It was, well, so un-Barbie like. And the beauty industry did not know what to make of her.
Lunch with the Queen
IT’S A SOGGY SATURDAY MORNING AND ANNA STARCKE, the Grande Dame of South African political analysis, has invited me for breakfast in her Kilarney flat. It’s an assault.
Tanya Pampalone 