Media Quiz: 21 Broadcast & Digital Media Questions

On Sep. 11, 2001, at 10:49 am ET, FOX News employed a 24-hour news ticker for the first time in the US (Sky News, also owned by Rupert Murdoch at the time, did the same – on the same day – in the UK). FOX News removed its on-screen ticker on Monday, Apr. 26, 2021.

FOX News and 9/11 Facts

In the days after the 9/11 attacks, FOX News’s audience surpassed CNN for the first time. In 2003, the right-wing news network was reaching 3.3 million Americans in time for the Iraq invasion. A year later, its Republican party conference broadcast ratings beat those of the three major broadcast networks.

Leo the Lion, AKA the roaring lion, has been the mascot of MGM Pictures since entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures, and Louis B. Mayer Pictures in 1924.

MGM News Fact

Online shopping giant Amazon is buying MGM in an $8.45 billion deal, making it the company’s second-largest acquisition after it bought grocer Whole Foods for nearly $14 billion in 2017. On May 26, 2021, Amazon said that it would use MGM’s vast library, which includes characters like Rocky, RoboCop, and Pink Panther, to create new movies and shows.

ViacomCBS Inc announced it’s changing its name to Paramount. The media conglomerate that owns CBS, Showtime, MTV, Comedy Central, BET, Nickelodeon, Smithsonian, Paramount Pictures, Paramount+, Pluto TV, and more announced the change during a presentation of its streaming strategy on Feb. 15, 2022.

Red Ventures, which owns Lonely Planet, CNET, TV Guide, Metacritic, and GameSpot, is arguably the most prominent digital publisher in America, according to the New York Times, with 4,500 employees and roughly $2 billion in annual revenues, and an average of 751 million visits a month.

Fox Corp. has completed its acquisition of TMZ, the company behind the daily syndicated TV shows “TMZ” and “TMZ Live,” from WarnerMedia at a price tag estimated at around $50 million. The September 2021 deal includes TMZ’s assets, including the TMZ Sports digital site and its TooFab celebrity unit that houses the hugely popular TMZ.com.

During the original “Star Trek”‘s third season, in 1968, Nichelle Nichols’ character, Lt. Uhura, and William Shatner’s Capt. James Kirk shared the first interracial kiss between a white man and a Black woman to be broadcast on a US TV series. Nichols died on July 30, 2022, at the age of 89.

Apple Daily was Hong Kong’s second most-read newspaper (and website), founded in 1995. The newspaper’s political alignment was pro-democracy.

Apple Daily 2021 Fact:

Hong Kong saw the last print edition of the country’s last remaining pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily, on Thursday, June 24, 2021. By 8:30 a.m, Apple Daily’s final edition of 1 million copies was sold out across most of the city’s newsstands. The closure of the 26-year-old Apple Daily comes after Hong Kong authorities froze the publication’s assets under a national security law and jailed its owner, Jimmy Lai.

The Emancipator was America’s first newspaper dedicated to ending slavery, founded in 1820 in Tennessee. A joint effort by Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research and The Boston Globe revives the historical publication and reimagines it on digital platforms. The new online Emancipator will feature written and video opinion pieces, multimedia series, and virtual talks to “reframe” the national conversation around racial injustice. Take a peek.

The Pandora Papers (not to be confused with the Malta Files, China Cables, or the Global tobacco industry ICIJ investigation) is a global investigation on how the rich and powerful hide their investments published by ICIJ – The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – on Sunday, Oct. 3, 2021. The Pandora Papers include more than 11.9 million records, amounting to about 2.94 terabytes of data. The investigation comes five years after the ICIJ’s Panama Papers investigation.

What did the Pandora Papers find (in 120 words)?

The Pandora Papers investigation found that advisers helped King Abdullah II of Jordan set up at least three dozen shell companies from 1995 to 2017. They also discovered that Tony Blair, U.K.’s former prime minister, became the owner of an $8.8 million Victorian building in 2017 by buying a British Virgin Islands company that held the property. The building now hosts the law firm of his wife, Cherie Blair. Lebanon’s billionaire prime minister, Najib Mikati, owns, according to the report. a Panama-based offshore company that he utilized to buy property in Monaco in 2008. The Washington Post revealed that the documents showed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mistress had used offshore funds to buy a flat in Monaco.

Roskomnadzor is Russia’s communications and media regulator who blocked Instagram and Facebook in the country, on March 21, 2022, for “extremist activity.” Prosecutors haven’t requested to ban WhatsApp’s Meta-owned messaging service, widely popular in Russia. A court’s ruling prohibits Meta from opening offices and doing business in Russia.

Which other news providers are blocked in Russia?

In addition to blocking Facebook and Instagram, Roskomnadzor, in March 2022, blocked the website of Euronews, a European news network, cut Euronews broadcasts, and shut access to foreign media websites, including BBC and Voice of America. Other blocked news providers include Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, and Latvia-based website Meduza.

Dmitry Muratov, co-winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize and editor of Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia’s last major independent newspapers, auctioned off his Nobel medal for a record $103.5 million to raise money for UNICEF’s humanitarian response for Ukraine’s displaced children. The auction of Muratov’s medal broke the record for any Nobel medal auctioned off. Previously, the most ever paid for a Nobel Prize medal was in 2014, when James Watson, whose co-discovery of the structure of DNA earned him a Nobel Prize in 1962, sold his award for $4.76 million.

Telegram is Ukraine’s most popular messaging app. The app, which has more than 550 million monthly users globally, was banned in Russia in 2018 after its founder Pavel Durov refused to give the authorities access to its user data. Russia lifted the ban in mid-2020. Telegram became a 24-hour news source for civilians, journalists, and even the military in the Ukrainian war.

Does Telegram block Russian and Ukrainian communications?

“We do not want Telegram to be used as a tool that exacerbates conflicts and incites ethnic hatred,” 37-year-old Durov posted on Feb. 27, 2022, as Telegram has been heavily used to spread fake news related to the war. Hours later, he changed his mind, following mass requests from users, who said it was their only source of information. “Double-check and do not take on faith the data that is published in Telegram channels during this difficult period,” Durov advised.

Verizon Wireless became a 3G network in July 2002 – the second 3G provider in the US and the first to stay in business – while AT&T launched the company’s 3G network in the US in 2004. Japanese phone giant NTT DoCoMo launched the world’s first 3G network in 2001.

 Are 3G networks disappearing?

Telecom companies are shutting down their old 3G networks. AT&T is scheduled to be the first carrier to shut down its 3G network on Feb. 22, 2022. In December, T-Mobile will shut down its 3G network and Verizon by Jul. 1. The upgrade will disconnect 1.5 million customers with 3G dependent fire or burglar alarms and about half a million with medical alert devices that run on 3G – unless they upgrade their devices.

Over 3.5 billion people worldwide use Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp – all of which were inaccessible for over five hours on Oct. 4, 2021. Facebook is also used to sign in to many other apps and services, making users unable to log in to other websites or sign in to their smart TVs.

What caused the 2021 Facebook outage?

Facebook said the 2021 outage was caused by changes to its underlying internet infrastructure that coordinates the traffic between its data centers, “bringing our services to a halt.”

When was Facebook’s previous outage?

Facebook’s last significant outage was in 2019, when a technical error affected its sites for 24 hours.

Google News closed in Spain in late 2014 in response to legislation that forced it to pay a collective licensing fee to republish headlines or snippets of news.

Is Google News returning to Spain?

Spain has adopted the European Union copyright directive that allows third-party online news platforms to negotiate directly with content providers on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021. The EU legislation requires platforms like Google, Facebook, and others to share revenue with publishers.

When did Google News return to Spain?

Alphabet reopened Google News in Spain on June 22, 2022, eight years after it shut down.

On Apr. 4, 2022, an SEC filing revealed that Elon Musk, the billionaire chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX and the world’s wealthiest person, had purchased a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter. Twitter will now have Musk as its largest shareholder, ahead of Vanguard, which owns 8.8 percent, and Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s former chief executive, who owns 2.3 percent. Musk has over 80 million Twitter followers.

The “Disinformation Dozen” are 12 anti-vaxxers responsible for almost two-thirds of anti-vaccine content on social media.

Is Facebook in trouble?

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen presented documents that show the social media platform has built a system that exempts high-profile users from some or all of its rules. On Wednesday, Oct. 13, the attorneys general of 14 U.S. states sent a letter to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. They said they are “extremely concerned” with the recent reports and want to know if the “Disinformation Dozen” are among those receiving special attention treatment from the company.

On Jan. 2, 2022, Twitter had banned the personal account of far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for multiple violations of the platform’s COVID-19 misinformation policy. The ban applies to Greene’s personal account, @mtgreenee, but does not affect her official Twitter account, @RepMTG. “Twitter is an enemy to America and can’t handle the truth,” Greene responded.

What’s Twitter’s Strike System?

Under the “strike” system, Twitter uses artificial intelligence to identify misleading, harmful posts about the coronavirus. Two or three strikes earn a 12-hour account lock. Four strikes evoke a weeklong suspension. Five or more strikes can get a user permanently removed from the platform. Twitter had previously suspended Greene’s personal account for periods ranging from 12 hours to an entire week.

Data collected by Newswhip from Apr. 4 to May 16, 2022, and published in Axios on May 17, indicated that news articles about the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard trial had generated more social media interactions per-article in the US compared to all other news topics.

Who won the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard trial?

On June 1, 2022, a seven-person jury in Fairfax, Virginia, found that Johnny Depp and his Ex-wife Amber Heard defamed each other. Heard was ordered to pay $10.35 million in damages for describing herself in a 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” Depp was ordered to pay $2 million in damages after the jury ruled that his lawyer had defamed Heard in one instance when he accused her of damaging the couple’s penthouse and blaming it on Depp. Heard plans to appeal.

On Feb 19, 2021, Facebook blocked Australian users from viewing and sharing local and international news and restricted local publishers from posting links on their pages. The move came as part of a dispute with the Australian government over a planned law forcing tech giants to pay for news content on their platforms. In a statement posted on Facebook, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the social media company’s actions to “unfriend Australia” were “as arrogant as disappointing.”

Are Facebook and Australia friends now?

Facebook agreed to reverse the decision on Tuesday, Feb 23, 2021, after the Australian government decided on last-minute changes to its proposed media bargaining code to bring Facebook back to the negotiating table with news companies.