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‘There’s a curiosity about what’s behind the curtain’: the rise and rise of TV sports reality shows | Media
There’s a moment early in the first episode of Netflix’s behind-the-scenes tennis show Break Point at which 22-year-old Costeen Hatzi, current girlfriend of the Australian ace Nick Kyrgios, laughingly admits that she has never watched a tennis match in her life. “This is all new for me,” she says. In this respect she is a mirror image of the viewer that the streaming service, and indeed tennis itself, wants to attract. Sports television has long been the preserve of dedicated fans, the kind of people who can reel off scores, records, statistics, and tend to be what James Gay-Rees, the award-winning British producer of Break Point, calls “a male, pale…
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Bill Maher roasts failing educational system: Kids learn ‘nothing,’ just ‘rot their brains’ on social media
Invoice Maher sounded alarm bells about a failing educational program, warning that college students study “nothing at all” in a modern classroom since society is worried to “stigmatize” them. On his latest “Club Random” podcast, the host talked to comic Sebastian Maiscalo about the potential risks struggling with his two children, declaring, “I do not know what you feel your kids are mastering in faculty. But I’m pretty much sure it is nothing. I necessarily mean, they do nonetheless instruct them how to read through, scarcely.” He also lashed out at smartphones and social media, decrying them for “rotting” the brains of youthful folks today. Maher contrasted what he observed…
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Pac-12 media rights deal on hold as league awaits resolution on UCLA’s Big Ten status from regents meeting
The Pac-12’s long, winding road toward long-term security was never supposed to last this long. It is mid-December, and the league still must wait on the conclusion of Wednesday’s University of California system regents meeting to proceed in its media rights negotiations. Almost six months after news broke of USC and UCLA departing for the Big Ten in 2024, the league still has not reconfigured. While it is considered almost a formality by some that UCLA will ultimately be allowed to join the Big Ten, the regents’ concerns dragging the process out this long has added a layer of skittishness to the proceedings. “It has significantly impacted the timeline,” Pac-12…
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Trolls, propaganda & fear stoke Bukele’s media machine in El Salvador
SAN SALVADOR A Salvadoran twenty-something had been looking for work when an unexpected invitation arrived to sit down with a government official. It was 2019, and the communications specialist was well-versed in social media. Talks with the official led to a $600-a-month job in the capital of San Salvador working for the communications team of President Nayib Bukele, according to the employment contract seen by Reuters. It was decent money in this poor Central American nation. “I didn’t know it when I signed the contract, but I made a pact with the devil,” the communications specialist said. “I became a pro-Bukele troll.” Bukele, founder of the fledgling Nuevas Ideas party, had…
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After US Soccer changes Iranian flag on social media, Iran calls for US to be kicked out of 2022 World Cup
CNN — Iran point out media has called for the US to be kicked out of the 2022 Earth Cup just after the United States Soccer Federation transformed Iran’s flag on its social media platforms to display support for protesters in Iran. The federation had temporarily shown Iran’s countrywide flag on its formal Twitter, Instagram and Fb accounts without having the emblem of the Islamic Republic. A now-deleted graphic of the Team B standings posted on Saturday shown the Iranian flag only bearing its eco-friendly, white and pink colours. US Soccer informed CNN on Sunday that it wished to adjust the official flag for 24 hours to exhibit “support for…