by Kathy Sandler
This holiday season, I am grateful for all of you – my loyal subscribers! Happy Holidays and hope you have a wonderful new year!!
Important Items
Taliban bans women from all Afghan universities
The Taliban banned women from studying in private and public universities in Afghanistan. It’s the latest in the extremist group’s ongoing attacks on women’s rights since it took control of the country again after the U.S. withdrawal.
In Public Schools, the N.R.A. Gets a Boost From Junior R.O.T.C.
Instructors in military-sponsored J.R.O.T.C. classes have offered to promote the N.R.A. in high schools in exchange for money for their marksmanship programs.
How Many Republicans Died Because the GOP Turned Against Vaccines?
RT @draccah “Party leaders are unquestionably complicit in the premature deaths of their own supporters.” #covid #vaccines
The F.D.A. Now Says It Plainly: Morning-After Pills Are Not Abortion Pills
Labels of Plan B One-Step had previously said, without scientific evidence, that the pill might block fertilized eggs from implanting in the womb.
In the Southeast, power company money flows to news sites that attack their critics
HT @emorwee At least six local news websites across Alabama and Florida have been secretly taking payments from power companies to run stories attacking clean energy + other policies
She was an ABC News producer. She also was a corporate operative
An ABC News freelance producer confronted critics of a consulting firm’s powerful clients. Her actions confirm people’s worst suspicions about the news media, says a former network news president.
Face Recognition Tech Gets Girl Scout Mom Booted From Rockettes Show — Due to Where She Works
RT @KevinBuist Extremely dark stuff. A mom was taking her daughter to Madison Square Garden and she wasn’t allowed in because facial recognition identified that she worked for a law firm that’s suing MSG’s parent company. The mom isn’t involved in the case.
Stores limit purchases of children’s pain-relief medicine
HT @veronikellymars Increased demand has led CVS and Walgreens to limit purchases of children’s pain-relief medicine, the companies confirmed to CNN on Monday. Rite Aid said on Wednesday it’s limiting certain online purchases.
Innovation
Real or Fake Text
Can you detect whether text was written by a person or machine? It’s hard. Here’s a game that can help train you. Real or Fake Text game #AI
Innovating in Uncertain Times: Lessons from 2022
How managers can drive growth through transformation in the year ahead. #DigitalTransformation
Technology
Talent Will Matter Even More
RT @gregverdino 👉”The typewriter did not write A Farewell to Arms. Hemingway did.” As @rishad writes, technology is leverage for taking talent farther, but it is no replacement for talent itself. Now, the key is in finding ways to combine talent and technology.
Amazon Inspire Treads in TikTok Territory
Amazon is launching a TikTok-like feature called Inspire that lets users scroll thru short-form videos & buy stuff from brands, but industry observers aren’t too inspired by this latest venture into social commerce, an area that hasn’t really exploded. #Amazon
Instagram just quietly added QR codes for posts
You can also create QR codes for Reels, tags, locations, and more. #Instagram
Platforms Are Pivoting to Video. Publishers, Again, Follow Suit
To combat slumping social traffic and revenue, publishers have retooled their strategies.
Walmart drone delivery service launches in Arizona, Florida and Texas
HT @NigelFenwick The offering with DroneUp is part of a wider plan to offer the same-day option in six states by the end of this year.
Meta Platforms to pay $725 million to settle Cambridge Analytica privacy lawsuit
Meta Platforms has agreed to pay $725 million to settle class-action claims that it violated users’ privacy by sharing their info with outside developers, according to court papers filed late Thursday. #Meta
Fortnite maker Epic Games to pay $520 million in children’s privacy case
Fortnite maker Epic Games Inc. will pay $520 million in fines and consumer refunds for violating a children’s privacy law and tricking consumers into making purchases, the US Federal Trade Commission said Monday.
TikTok Spied On Forbes Journalists
ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location using their IP addresses, as first reported by Forbes in October. #TikTok
Publishing
The Most Sought After Manuscript in Publishing? The Jan. 6 Report.
Publishers are releasing more than half a dozen editions of the report, and are now in a frantic race to be first to market. #BookPublishing
The PW Publishing Industry Salary Survey 2022
HT @Jennifer_deG The PW Publishing Industry Salary Survey 2022: Our first salary and jobs survey in three years found that the publishing industry’s lack of racial diversity and gender pay gap haven’t improved much.
The future of freelancing
“Being able to call on a diverse pool of readers, with a range of experience, is so helpful for making our books authentic as well as accurate” Samantha Fletcher, senior desk editor at @panmacmillan, shares the success of their proofreading traineeship
How 2022 became the year of the fragmented-identity novel
HT @publishingtrend It’s been a broken, chaotic year in life and in fiction. Authors such as Hernan Diaz and Namwali Serpell broke their novels and heroes into pieces.
These were the most borrowed books from NYC’s public libraries in 2022
The Very Best of the Best Books of 2022 – Publishers Lunch
The votes are all in and we’re ready to celebrate the consensus very best books of 2022, based on a broad collection of lists. Hernan Diaz’s Trust emerged as both novel of the year and overall book of the year, with Gabrielle Zevin and Celeste Ng’s novels close behind. #BestBooks
Resources & Opportunities
Download 586 Free Art Books from The Metropolitan Museum of Art
RT @eBookEvangelist Wow! Download 569 Free Art Books from The Metropolitan Museum of Art #freebooks
6th Annual Bronx Book Festival
RT @bronxisreading 🔊SAVE THE DATE 🔊 The 6th Annual Bronx Book Festival returns to Fordham Plaza on June 8th-11th, 2023. See you there! 😄
Get Your COVID Booster Now!
MT @MarkLevineNYC @nycHealthy has released, for first time, detail on rate of bivalent boosters. Overall citywide rate: 12% Age 65+: 23% Most neighborhoods are at 10% or less. We need to do much better than the this. If you’ve been waiting to get boosted, do it now.