Highlights 5: Creativity for £12,500 per year; At UC Santa Cruz Where Managers Hire Managers; SHAME OF US MATERNAL MORTALITY; DEI-PHOBE TO RUN US MEDIA REGULATION; FEAR AND RING-KISSING; POPULARITY OF PROGRESSIVE POLICIES

Mullet Key, Fla. on November 18, 2018

BRITAIN DECLARES CREATIVE INDUSTRIES A KEY SECTOR; PAYS ITS CREATIVE WORKERS  £12,500 PER YEAR

 

‘A report commissioned by the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS), found that visual artists had a median annual income of £12,500, with 80% of the 1,200 creatives surveyed saying their earnings were “unstable”, or “very unstable”.

‘The situation was even more stark for women, who earned 40% less than men, while disabled artists took home a median of £3,750. Those artists who worked second and third jobs, such as teaching, earned an average of £17,500, far below the UK-wide average income of just over £37,000.

‘Christian Zimmermann, the CEO of DACS, said the situation was so challenging for visual artists trying to sustain a career in the UK that many would have to leave the country in order to carry on. . . .’

‘“It’s very tempting to lay the blame at the feet of AI,” said Thomas, “but I think it is the straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s like we’ve been playing a game of KerPlunk where you keep taking out different bits of funding and see how little you can sustain a career with.”

‘The artist Larry Achiampong, who had a break-out year in 2022 with his Wayfinder solo show, said the fees artists receive have plummeted.

‘“The compensation for the work that we do tends to be the last thing that’s brought up by institutions,” said Achiampong. “There are all kinds of excuses that are produced, I do the maths and find that I often end up out of pocket.”

‘The British-Ghanaian artist was offered £350 to participate in a group exhibition that would tour four institutions. “I have sympathy for organisations in terms of the funding cuts, but it doesn’t excuse the treatment of artists and their pay as an afterthought,” he added. . . .’

‘“Ten years from now, as a parent of two, I can’t go on like this, something has to give,” he said. “I’ve realistically looked at making money in other areas, like gaming, because if I carry on this way I’ll be packing up in five years.”’

 

SOURCE: Lanre Bakare, The Guardian

UC SANTA CRUZ HAD A STRUCTURAL DEFICIT, SO MANAGERS HIRED MORE MANAGERS

 

 

SOURCE: Santa Cruz Faculty Association calculations

 

BOSTON UNIVERSITY SUSPENDS ADMISSIONS TO HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCE PH.D. PROGRAMS

 

‘The university didn’t announce this in a news release and has not fully explained the move. In an email obtained by Inside Higher Ed on condition of anonymity, the heads of the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), in which all the affected programs are located, pointed to increased costs associated with the union contract that graduate student workers won after their historic, nearly seven-month strikeended in October. 

 

‘According to an undated post on the university’s website, the programs not accepting Ph.D. students for next academic year are American and New England studies, anthropology, classical studies, English, history, history of art and architecture, linguistics, philosophy, political science, religion, Romance studies, and sociology. . . .’

 

‘The deans also suggested that the larger university (which last reported an over $3.1 billion endowment) is leaving the college largely on its own to pay the higher tab. “The provost’s office has agreed to fund the increased costs this fiscal year, including students funded on external grants,” the deans wrote. “Beyond this year, CAS must work within our existing budget to fund this transition in our doctoral programs.”

 

‘The deans said, “It would be financially unsustainable to move forward with the cohort sizes discussed earlier this fall,” so the college is halting admissions “for all non-grant-funded doctoral programs” next academic year and reducing “cohort sizes of grant-funded programs.” This, they said, “will ensure that we have the financial resources available to honor the five-year funding commitments we have made to our currently enrolled doctoral students.”’

 

SOURCE: Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed

 

 

THE SHAME OF US MATERNAL MORTALITY—AND THE NEVERENDING RELEVANCE OF RACE

 

SOURCE: Commonwealth Fund via Adam Tooze, Chartbook 335

 

DEPARTMENT OF FAIR AND BALANCED: NEW FCC CHAIR IS A FAN OF ELON MUSK, NOT DIVERSITY INITIATIVES

‘Brendan Carr, the incoming chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, plans to challenge big technology and broadcast companies over their content choices and kill diversity and inclusion initiatives at the agency that oversees the nation’s telecom, internet and media industries.’

‘Late Sunday, shortly after President-elect Donald Trump announced his pick of Carr to lead the agency, the 45-year-old attorney launched into a tweet-storm that included calls for the FCC to “dismantle the censorship cartel and restore free speech rights for everyday Americans,” a likely reference to attempts by social media sites like Facebook to limit content deemed offensive.

‘Carr also re-posted a video that’s popular in conservative media channels of Argentine President Javier Milei ripping the names of government agencies off a white board while saying “afuera,” which means “out” in English. . . .’

‘Although Carr opposes so-called net neutrality regulations that require broadband providers to treat all internet traffic the same, he’s suggested that online platforms should be subject to neutrality obligations for posts they might otherwise take down for violating standards. . . .’

‘In his chapter in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, Carr suggests the agency limit the scope of Section 230 so that it only protects the decision of a platform to leave content on its site; Under his interpretation, a site wouldn’t be automatically immune from lawsuits over content that’s taken down.

‘He also called for applying broadband transparency disclosures to platforms like Google, Facebook and YouTube that manipulate search results, ban or suspend user accounts and demonetize content creators “without any apparent consistency.”

‘Broadcasters are also likely to enter Carr’s crosshairs. After NBC featured a cameo by Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday Night Live just before the election, Carr accused the network of attempting to flout agency rules and not giving Trump equal airtime. NBC ran a free Trump ad the next day.’

SOURCE: Kelcee Griffis, Bloomberg

FEAR AND RING-KISSING IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA

‘When MSNBC’s morning hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski announced to their viewers last week that they had paid a visit to Donald Trump at his Florida resort of Mar-a-Lago they must have suspected there would be a reaction.

‘The married co-hosts on the liberal news network made hay for years lambasting Trump, especially in the run-up to the presidential election. Now, in the wake of his victory, they told their viewers they were seeking to reset communications with the man they had warned only a few weeks ago was set to bring fascism to America.

‘“Joe and I realized it’s time to do something different,’ Brzezinski told Morning Joe viewers on Monday. “That starts with not only talking about Donald Trump but also talking with him.”

‘Their reward? An online barn-burning by their critics online and a fall in viewer numbers for a show – and a network – already struggling in a rapidly declining US cable news sector. The following morning, broadcast viewing figures for the network plummeted 38%, according to Nielsen Media Research. . . .”

‘According to Puck News, the couple’s visit to Trump’s tropical paradise was because Scarborough was said to be “petrified” that the president-elect’s Department of Justice would go after him. “That’s what this was about,” a source told the news site about the motive. “It has nothing to do with ratings or Comcast. It’s all about fear of retribution and investigation.”

‘“It was about access and power,” said Jeff Jarvis, a media writer. “But this visit didn’t do anything for access, and they didn’t come back with anything journalistic. They were willing to throw the reputation of the show, their reputations and the reputation of the network over for their own personal fears” . . .’

‘The Washington Post lost 250,000 subscribers after it declined to make a presidential endorsement. Bezos defended the decision, triggering suspicion that Amazon’s role as a defense industry data cloud contractor had played a part. But since Trump won, Lewis has not changed tack and a longstanding and widely respected political editor at the paper was reportedly removed from his job last week. . . .’

‘“You’re trying to pursue readers you’ll never have and in the process pissing off the readers you do have,” Jarvis, the media writer, said of outlets playing it safe on Trump. “That’s the paradox – mass media still believes in the mass media. The challenge for journalism now is for people to feel heard and a separation from the power structures of politics and money.” . . .’

‘The only network firmly in a good place appears to be rightwing Fox News, which dominated 24-hour news broadcasting through the election cycle and seems confident of its identity as America returns to life under a Trump presidency.

‘“The press is going to find itself in an existential battle for its own integrity if it does not decide to confront and challenge Trump top to bottom. There’s no way a truly free press can be neutral about lies and broken civic norms and survive,” said Jim Sleeper, author and retired lecturer in political science at Yale University.

“If the populace has decided to trade in its freedom and rights for stability and security that authoritarians always promise, then the press has to make a choice and decide that honest journalists are dissidents.”’

SOURCE: Edward Helmore, The Guardian 

IT'S NOT A RIGHTWARD SHIFT, IT'S AN ANTI-NEOLIBERAL POPULIST SHIFT

SOURCE: Data for Progress, July 2024, via Eric London