Early You Tube Stars Got Real Income

What the Buck? Here's Michael Buckley's "My You Tube Story." According to a Dec 2008 NY Times report, "You Tube Videos Pull In Real Money," Buckley earned over $100k in the previous year from his YouTube video-commentaries or rants about celebs. 

Since she was about 14, my now-19-year-old daughter's main source of daily news was, for years, Philly D (of "The Philip DeFranco Show"), who offers his take on current events and celeb news. (Should I have been monitoring my daughter's online activities better?)

Cory Williams and his smpFilms hit the big-time with "Hey Little Sparta" (aka "The Mean Kitty Song" -- over 80 million views). He told the NYT in 2008 that he was earning over $200k per year, partly from (ugh!) product placements in his videos. 

The rise of The Young Turks

The Young Turks is a web TV phenom,  and YouTube played a major role in its success; here's a Turks' video on media censorship. And here's the trailer for new doc, "Mad As Hell," about Cenk Uygur and The Young Turks. (Here's the original "Mad as Hell" excerpt from the 1976 movie Network.) A 2014 London daily profiled Cenk. Yours truly was interviewed by TYT about media coverage of candidate Bernie Sanders. 

Brave New Films' "McCain's Mansions" played a role in the 2008 election campaign, thanks in part to YouTube. Ditto for this citizen journalism video about the then-dictator of Tunisia.

AOL's Journalistic Values

Soon after AOL announced its merger with HuffingtonPost in February, 2011 Business Insider (followed by the Boston Globe) published leaked AOL documents offering a glimpse into that company's journalistic approach -- not one that Arianna Huffington would endorse. (H/t to former indy media student Leah T, for posting the Insider's summary of AOL's guidelines.)

Conservative political blog . . .

Legal Insurrection, WAS launched by Cornell Law professor William Jacobson in 2008.  College Insurrection was launched in 2012.

"The Price I've Paid for Opposing Donald Trump"

Conservative journalist David French describes the violent, racist deluge he and his wife received from Trump supporters.

Web censorship in China

After Yahoo provided info to China's government that led to 10-year prison sentences for two Chinese dissidents beginning in 2003 and 2005, the families of the victims (Wang Xiaoning and Shi Tao) sued Yahoo. As a result, Yahoo announced in 2008 that it had established a fund for people persecuted or jailed in China for posting political views online. Too little, too late?

In response to demands from China's government, Google agreed in June 2010 to quit automatically switching its users in China to Google's uncensored Hong Kong search site. But there's a tab users can click to be switched. Should Chinese citizens feel safe when hitting that tab?

Web censorship in the USA

In 2008, the media reform group Free Press highlighted media and telecom corporations who'd recently been caught censoring web or cellphone traffic.

Inner City Press was delisted by Google News not long after its founder/leader asked an embarrassing question of Google at the United Nations.