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Security desk: Google, US Share China Dilemma
Dragonfly, a unique search engine for China, has split Google, reports Bloomberg’s Eli Lake. Thousands of Googlers signed an open letter protesting the project, saying it would help a totalitarian regime censor the web and track Internet users. But hundreds of others (led by Chinese nationals) signed their own letter insisting Dragonfly “is not diametrical but crucial to the company’s mission” of global outreach. That flags an overlooked issue, namely “how the Chinese government pressures and deploys its citizens in order to expand its power and influence.” Indeed, “the role of Chinese citizens in Chinese statecraft is raising concerns in official and unofficial Washington.” Time was when the West felt its companies could make China “more like us.” Now, says Lake, “it’s becoming clearer that it’s just as likely to be the other way around.”
Social critic: CUNY Has an Anti-Semitism Problem
For the past 10 months, Michael Goldstein has been the target of a virulent campaign demanding his removal as an adjunct business professor at Kingsborough Community College, according to Tablet’s Armin Rosen. Hard-left students and faculty accuse Goldstein, an observant Jew, of racism and contend he is “a Trump supporter and a Zionist” who’s being “protected by a network of Zionists.” The threats have been so aggressive that Goldstein “now has a public safety officer and a security camera stationed outside of his office” because he no longer feels safe. Says Rosen: “As in plenty of other historical moments, the treatment of Jews exposes other, barely hidden fissures, even at a community college in the midst of one of the most Jewish places on earth.”
Business editors: Can We Take Three More Years of Blas?
Five years into Bill de Blasio’s mayoralty, contend the editors of Crain’s New York Business, “it feels as though he’s been in office much longer.” He’s worked to tamp down some criticisms of his first term, but “far more disconcerting revelations have emerged” — and “foremost among them is the mayor’s coddling of campaign donors.” It’s now clear that “anyone who forks over a pile of cash can have the mayor eating out of his hand in no time.” Then there are two other “unbecoming habits”: hypocrisy and prevarication. Meanwhile, de Blasio and his wife “have been gallivanting about the country on the taxpayers’ dime to elevate their profile, and he used city funds to pay a $2.6 million legal bill stemming from a political campaign.” Which is why the editors say they’re “grateful for term limits.”
Five years into Bill de Blasio’s mayoralty, contend the editors of Crain’s New York Business, “it feels as though he’s been in office much longer.” He’s worked to tamp down some criticisms of his first term, but “far more disconcerting revelations have emerged” — and “foremost among them is the mayor’s coddling of campaign donors.” It’s now clear that “anyone who forks over a pile of cash can have the mayor eating out of his hand in no time.” Then there are two other “unbecoming habits”: hypocrisy and prevarication. Meanwhile, de Blasio and his wife “have been gallivanting about the country on the taxpayers’ dime to elevate their profile, and he used city funds to pay a $2.6 million legal bill stemming from a political campaign.” Which is why the editors say they’re “grateful for term limits.”
Media critic: Bloomberg Doesn’t Get It on Journalism
Kathy Kiely, who quit as a politics editor at Bloomberg News after being told in 2016 the news agency would not cover owner Mike Bloomberg’s possible presidential campaign, says at The Washington Post that the former mayor is at it again. More actively considering a 2020 run, he told a radio reporter he may order the news service “not to cover politics at all.” That, says Kiely, reveals “a disturbing attitude toward the First Amendment — and democracy generally.” Both he and President Trump, in fact, “are signaling that they shouldn’t have to take a taste of what they’re dishing out.” So she applauds his suggestion that he might sell the business: “Give the terrific journalists who work for you what they deserve, Mr. Bloomberg: Set them free.”
Policy wonk: Public Media Must Reimagine Itself
As he steps down from the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Manhattan Institute’s Howard Husock at Current suggests that “public media should stop expecting a handout.” It also means taking “a fresh look” at its own role of providing content “that commercial producers fail to do.” Commercial TV, after all, “is no longer the vast wasteland” of the 1960s. And unless local public stations start producing “content which can’t be found on smartphones and tablets, they will have no reason to exist.” Which is why he urges a particular emphasis on “robust local journalism.” It also means CPB board members “must resist cheerleading the system as it is and overlooking its flaws and limitations.”
— Compiled by Eric Fettmann
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