Archives for August 2021

China’s Ministry of Education in April ordered online gaming companies to ensure that minors could not play from 10 p.m. each school night. In early August, the share prices of Tencent Holdings and other big Chinese video game companies fell sharply after a Chinese newspaper called their products “spiritual opium.” The article singled out Tencent, which owns Honor of Kings, a hugely popular game in China.

Chinese parents complained that children constantly found new ways to sneak past the limits on gaming hours, said a report issued in August by the government-funded Beijing Children’s Legal Aid and Research Center. Many parents, the report stated, “reported that their children had big changes in their temper and personality after becoming addicted to games, even as if they had become another person.”

Tencent, which already reduced the amount of time minors could spend on Honor of Kings, said it would abide by the new restrictions. In its latest financial disclosures, the company said that in the second quarter of 2021, players under 16 accounted for just 2.6 percent of its gross receipts for China gaming.

“Since 2017, Tencent has explored and applied various new technologies and functions for the protection of minors,” a spokeswoman for Tencent said in a statement. “That will continue, as Tencent strictly abides by and actively implements the latest requirements from the Chinese authorities.”

Raymond Zhong contributed reporting. Liu Yi contributed research.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/30/business/media/china-online-games.html

The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and American Booksellers Association, two other industry groups, also faced criticism this summer.

In June, the society’s chief equity and inclusion officer issued a statement condemning antisemitism in response to a rise in hate crimes, but did not also make a statement condemning Islamophobia. She resigned in the ensuing backlash and apologized. She later told Newsweek that she was harassed online and received death threats. The society declined to comment for this article.

The American Booksellers Association apologized this month for two recent incidents. In the first, a staff member filling in for someone on vacation was assembling a best-seller list and included the cover image from the book “Blackout,” by the right-wing media personality Candace Owens, in place of a Y.A. novel with the same title that was jointly written by six popular authors. In the second instance, the association included “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters” in a box of books it mailed to members. Publishers pay the association to include certain books, and it has been its policy not to review them so that they do not decide the titles members have access to.

In a letter to its members, Allison Hill, the association’s chief executive, said the organization would review its box mailing policy, create a new diversity, equity, inclusion and access manager position, and donate to the Transgender Legal Defense Education Fund, among other measures.

Last summer, the president and board chairman of the Poetry Foundation resigned after an open letter signed by more than 1,800 people criticized the foundation’s statement about the Black Lives Matter movement as too weak. Around the same time, several board members at the National Book Critics Circle resigned after one board member accused another of making racist comments as the board discussed what to say in a statement supporting antiracism.

Both organizations said they have since made a number of changes aimed at making the groups more inclusive and elevating more diverse authors, in addition to appointing new leadership.

Criticism of these groups have generally taken place on social media, especially Twitter, where complaints that might have been more easily ignored or dealt with quietly in the past can quickly pick up steam.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/30/books/diversity-literary-rwa-scbwi.html

Vinyl helped Olivia Rodrigo reclaim the No. 1 spot on the Billboard album chart this week, while a long-delayed arrival on streaming brought a 25-year-old album by Aaliyah to the Top 10 for the first time.

Rodrigo’s “Sour” notches a fifth week at No. 1 with the equivalent of 133,000 sales in the United States, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking service. It had 70 million streams, very good for a three-month-old album. But it was the album’s release on vinyl that sent “Sour” back to the top. It sold 76,000 copies on LP, the second-best weekly number for a vinyl album in at least 30 years, after Taylor Swift sold 102,000 copies of “Evermore” in June. Just a few weeks ago, Billie Eilish sold 73,000 of her latest, “Happier Than Ever.”

The success of these albums reflects the rising popularity of vinyl records, which last year in the United States generated greater retail revenue than CDs for the first time since 1986. But the releases have also benefited from a Billboard chart rule that went into effect last October. Before then, many vinyl sales were counted when fans first placed their order; even if the record wasn’t ready yet, fans often received a downloadable copy while they waited. Now, those sales count once the record is shipped to a customer — allowing many artists to rack up weeks’ or months’ worth of advance sales.

Also this week, the rapper Trippie Redd opens at No. 2 with “Trip at Knight,” and Lorde’s new “Solar Power” makes its debut at No. 5. Rod Wave’s five-month-old “SoulFly” lands at No. 3 after a deluxe reissue, and Doja Cat’s recent “Planet Her” is No. 4.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/30/arts/music/aaliyah-olivia-rodrigo-billboard.html

Mr. Mohseni said a wholesale clampdown on the news media would also prove difficult in the era of TikTok and Twitter. About 60 percent of Afghans are 25 or younger, he noted, and they had come of age with mixed classrooms of male and female students; uncovered women; and Snapchat.

“Today’s Taliban are savvy. They check or ban smartphones and WhatsApp in remote villages. They can monitor phones,” he said. “But the country has changed, the population is young, and the Taliban will not suddenly be able to deprogram people and tell them the world is flat when they know that it is not.”

Massoud Sanjer, director of content for Tolo’s entertainment arm, recalled that during the last Taliban rule, he watched foreign films like “Braveheart” by installing a banned satellite dish on his roof, hidden behind a concrete wall.

“Afghans know how to adjust to circumstances,” he said.

Mr. Mohseni said that after entering Kabul, the Taliban visited Tolo’s compound, confiscated all the state-issued weapons and offered their protection. He said Tolo politely declined.

Though many female journalists have fled, he added, some have continued to report on the ground despite his pleas for them to stay at home.

Though he said Tolo’s news content wasn’t being censored, a review of recent coverage on Tolo’s popular “6 P.M. News” showed some signs of self-censorship. Stories about what a future Taliban government may look like are conspicuously absent or underplayed, as are profiles of Taliban leaders.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/30/world/asia/afghanistan-tolo-taliban.html

Mr. Mohseni said a wholesale clampdown on the news media would also prove difficult in the era of TikTok and Twitter. About 60 percent of Afghans are 25 or younger, he noted, and they had come of age with mixed classrooms of male and female students; uncovered women; and Snapchat.

“Today’s Taliban are savvy. They check or ban smartphones and WhatsApp in remote villages. They can monitor phones,” he said. “But the country has changed, the population is young, and the Taliban will not suddenly be able to deprogram people and tell them the world is flat when they know that it is not.”

Massoud Sanjer, director of content for Tolo’s entertainment arm, recalled that during the last Taliban rule, he watched foreign films like “Braveheart” by installing a banned satellite dish on his roof, hidden behind a concrete wall.

“Afghans know how to adjust to circumstances,” he said.

Mr. Mohseni said that after entering Kabul, the Taliban visited Tolo’s compound, confiscated all the state-issued weapons and offered their protection. He said Tolo politely declined.

Though many female journalists have fled, he added, some have continued to report on the ground despite his pleas for them to stay at home.

Though he said Tolo’s news content wasn’t being censored, a review of recent coverage on Tolo’s popular “6 P.M. News” showed some signs of self-censorship. Stories about what a future Taliban government may look like are conspicuously absent or underplayed, as are profiles of Taliban leaders.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/30/world/asia/afghanistan-tolo-taliban.html

Old resentments among Mr. VandeHei, Mr. Harris and Mr. Allbritton then boiled over. Mr. VandeHei, Mr. Allen and the company’s chief revenue officer, Roy Schwartz, quit Politico and started the newsletter outfit Axios, an immediate success that became a serious competitor. The move brought an end to what had seemed to outsiders like a close friendship between Mr. Allbritton and Mr. VandeHei, though Mr. Allbritton said he didn’t take it personally.

“A lot of other people had much bigger emotional reactions than I did,” he said brightly.

He also said that he did not consider Axios a competitor, given that its coverage was “broader” than Politico’s. He pointed to recent Axios articles on Apple News and the hurricane approaching New Orleans.

“We would never do a piece on meteorology,” Mr. Allbritton said.

But Mr. VandeHei’s exit did not sit well with his former longtime editorial partner, Mr. Harris, and the site’s new editor, Carrie Budoff Brown. “Politico implodes,” gloated The Post. And as Axios took on the sheen of hot new thing, the rivalry between the two publications turned bitter. (At this point, assigning blame for the breach is a little like trying to glibly arbitrate the Israel-Palestine conflict.)

Mr. Harris spent the next year persuading Politico’s reporters and editors not to abandon ship, while Ms. Budoff Brown restructured the newsroom and worked to improve a workplace culture some employees described as grinding and sometimes sexist.

In May, Mr. Allbritton said he caught wind that Mr. VandeHei was in talks to sell Axios to Axel Springer. Did he start negotiating with the Germans to spoil Mr. VandeHei’s deal? I supposed that might have been part of the attraction. And in Politico’s news release announcing the planned sale, a quote from Mr. Allbritton suggested as much: “Particularly in recent years,” he said, “we have put the emphasis on doing rather than boasting.” A spokesman denied that the line was aimed at his former colleagues, and Mr. Allbritton said he was simply, after years of flirtation with Axel Springer, ready to acknowledge that his family business didn’t have the “horsepower” necessary to keep growing.

“We’re better off with this publication going to a big global company,” he said.

On the day of the announcement, The New York Times reported that Axel Springer might still pursue a deal for Axios — perhaps Mr. VandeHei would be chief executive after the two publications merged? (I’d always assumed he would run for office in his native Wisconsin one of these days.) Politico’s executives in Washington pressed the German company to add a firm denial to the story, which they did.

Asked why he had chosen Politico over Axios, Mr. Döpfner told me in a telephone interview, “It’s an easy decision that you go for the No. 1.” Mr. VandeHei called the sale “great news” for companies that produce quality journalism in a text to me.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/29/business/media/politico-robert-allbritton.html