Stranger Than Fiction

A brief daily note of things you might find interesting or useful

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TOP NEWS

  • George Floyd protests continue. “Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz sent in the National Guard as demonstrators clashed with police for a third straight day to protest the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white officer pinned him to the ground with a knee on his neck in an incident captured on video.Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who has called for the police officers involved in the incident to be criminally charged, had requested the assistance.The Third Precinct police station, which has been a central site for demonstrations, was taken over and set on fire late Thursday, according to local news reports and video posted on social media.” - WSJLive updates on Minneapolis - Reddit Megathread

  • Twitter takes another action on a new Trump tweet. The president called the demonstrators thugs and warned: “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”Mr. Trump’s post can now only be seen after users click a box with a notice saying it violated Twitter’s rules against encouraging violence, but it otherwise remains visible.“We’ve taken action in the interest of preventing others from being inspired to commit violent acts, but have kept the Tweet on Twitter because it is important that the public still be able to see the Tweet given its relevance to ongoing matters of public importance,” Twitter said on its official communications account.” - WSJ

  • Seven people were struck by gunfire at a protest in Louisville, Ky., on Thursday night as tensions there continued to escalate over the fatal shooting of a black woman by three white police officers in March. Protesters had gathered in the streets to call for police accountability in the fatal shooting of the woman, Breonna Taylor, chanting “no justice, no peace, prosecute police.” Hundreds of demonstrators made their way through the city throughout the evening. Jessie Halladay, a spokeswoman for the police department, said the gathering began peacefully but escalated to involve assaults on officers and property damage before the shooting.” - NYTimes

  • Infections and deaths are rising in more than a dozen states, an ominous sign that the pandemic may be entering a new phase. Wisconsin saw its highest single-day increase in confirmed cases and deaths this week, two weeks after the state’s highest court overturned a stay-at-home order. Cases are also on the rise in Alabama, Arkansas, California and North Carolina, which on Thursday reported some of the state’s highest numbers of hospitalizations and reported deaths since the crisis began.” - NYTimes

WHAT I’M READING + WATCHING + LISTENING TO

THE COMMENT

"Putting talent at the center of its business opens up entirely new opportunities for media companies when the core asset and value is attributed to the individual. The new line of business now becomes somewhat inverted: instead of everything being limited to under a brand halo where advertisers buy on the brand and consumers subscribe to the brand, the company and its customers now look at the individual as their business. This presents a business opportunity that’s so often seen in the media industry tied to talent which is interoperability (see: Kara Swisher, Andrew Ross Sorkin). If the talent within your organization wants to write, produce, create elsewhere, then with a new business model that enables equity and investment in the individual by that brand, that is beneficial to the both parties bottom line.” - Jarrod Dicker

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