Here's A First Look At YouTube's Cable TV Service

Google

There are already a dozen different ways you can watch TV without cable – and now, Google is offering cord cutters yet another option, called YouTube TV, that offers a mix of live TV, cloud DVR storage, *and* on-demand content to set itself apart from established competition like Netflix and Amazon. The new service, which costs $35 a month, will be offered on the web, Android, iPhone, iPad, Google Chromecast, and Chromecast-enabled TVs.

US households pay $103.10 per month on average for cable, so it’s no wonder that services streaming shows, movies, and sports over the Internet are increasingly popular. Most streaming sites charge between $9 and $25 a month to access content on-demand, on multiple devices, wherever there’s a strong Internet connection. Another plus? Not having to deal with frustrating customer service representatives trying to force you not to cancel your subscription.

YouTube TV is a way for Google to compete with the likes Hulu and Netflix by offering its massive user base premium content, rather than just (mostly amateur) user-uploaded content. The homepage of the YouTube TV app features popular YouTube web series from independent creators like Lizzie Bennet, alongside shows from ABC and Showtime.

So, is YouTube TV worth it? I had a few days to play with the Android version of the new app, and think it’s a compelling option for those who are really into TV, especially live TV. But the on-demand content is fairly limited, so YouTube TV is pricey if you already subscribe a standalone sports package or a TV-focused service, like Hulu Plus.

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News

Here’s what you get for $35 per month.

YouTube TV is essentially three things: a live TV streaming service, a cloud-based DVR with unlimited storage, and a link to YouTube content related to those TV shows.

A subscription to YouTube TV gets you live streams from Disney (including Disney Channel, ESPN, and ABC), NBCUniversal (including MSNBC, Bravo, E!, and Telemundo), CBS (including The CW and CBS Sports Network), Fox (including Fox News and Nat Geo), AMC Networks (including AMC and BBC America) and The Weather Channel.

It's a bit more limited than what Sling Blue, plus some extras, and Playstation Vue offer though, depending on the package, those are a bit more expensive than YouTube TV. You’ll notice that Viacom channels like Comedy Central and Turner Broadcasting programming from CNN and TBS are missing.

According to Google, YouTube TV subscribers will soon be able to purchase premium add-ons like Showtime ($11/month), Fox Soccer Plus ($15/month), Shudder, and Sundance Now in addition to the base tier.

The full list of YouTube TV&039;s channels:

Disney: ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNU, ESPNews, SEC Network, Disney Channel, Disney Junior, Disney XD, Freeform

NBCUniversal: NBC, Telemundo, Bravo, Chiller, CNBC, E&033;, Golf Channel, MSNBC, Universo, NBCSN, Oxygen, Sprout, SyFy, Universal HD, USA, Comcast Regional Sports Networks, NECN (New England Cable News)

CBS: CBS, The CW, CBS Sports NetworkFox: FOX, FS1 (Fox Sports 1), FS2 (Fox Sports 2), BTN (Big Ten Network), FX, FXX, FXM, Nat Geo, Nat Geo Wild, Fox News, Fox Business, Fox Regional Sports NetworksAMC Networks: AMC, BBC America, BBC World News, WE tv, IFC, Sundance TV

The Weather Channel: Local Now

You’ll also have access to YouTube Red, which is premium ad-free content made by YouTube stars and would cost you $10 per month without a YouTube TV subscription.

It’s basically an Internet-friendly, mobile-friendly live TV guide.

The experience is great on mobile (it’s available on Android, iPhone, and iPad, as well as web and Chromecast). The “Live” tab in the app feels the most like a traditional TV experience. You can scroll through different channels and preview what’s streaming live on each. To start watching a show, you tap in and are taken to a different page with the stream on top and lots of extra content around it, like what’s coming up next and shortcuts to jump to most recently watched channels.

Underneath the stream, there’s a section of recommended content, which is how I went down a Real Housewives rabbit hole for nearly two hours. I recommend tilting your phone to view in landscape, so all of that extra distraction goes away and the show goes full screen.

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News

YouTube TV feels a lot like TiVo on your phone.

The playback works like TiVo (lol, remember TiVo??). What you’re watching is live, but you can pause, rewind, and move forward. Unfortunately, like live TV, you have to sit through ads. All of them. (Unless you’ve DVR’d the content and can fast forward.)

Also like TiVo, you can save upcoming live content to your DVR. Throughout the app, you&039;ll see a big (+) plus button that indicates you can “add” that show or movie to your library. Any show in your library will be recorded the next time it airs on TV, no matter which network it’s on.

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News

Both new episodes and reruns will be recorded in Google’s cloud, and you weirdly can’t set the app to record just new episodes, but that doesn’t matter, since YouTube TV’s DVR has unlimited storage space.

There are YouTube videos embedded throughout the app.

The YouTube TV app takes plenty of opportunities to suggest you watch YouTube videos. Scripted shows like Scandal and reality TV series like Real Housewives have their own landing pages with “Related on YouTube” sections that are auto-populated with YouTube content about the show. For Keeping Up With the Kardashians, there were highlights from past episodes uploaded by E&033;’s official YouTube account. The Bachelor, on the other hand, featured an interview from Nick and Vanessa, the series’ newest couple, on Jimmy Kimmel Live and a video titled “Top 10 Worst Bachelors On The Bachelor” by a user named MsMojo (hard agree).

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News

What you can and can’t watch on-demand is a bit confusing.

The availability of a show&039;s episodes depends completely on the network. Let’s say you missed last night’s episode of Scandal on ABC and failed to add the show to your “library” beforehand. You can stream the last five episodes, as you would on ABC Go (with a TV provider account) or Hulu Plus.

On Fox’s Empire, you can stream the entire season so far, but only season three is available on YouTube TV, while Hulu has seasons one through three. The same goes for NBC’s The Voice. All 13 episodes that have aired this season are available.

For MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show only one episode, the latest, can be streamed. That’s also true of All In With Chris Hayes.

You can DVR games for teams, but you can’t follow individual athletes.

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News

If you love hockey or basketball, you’ll be able to record upcoming games from your favorite teams. But if you’re a tennis fan, you can’t add “Roger Federer” to your library. You could only watch the US Open if it’s playing on one of the networks signed on to YouTube TV.

Ultimately, a streaming service is only as good as its content, and if YouTube TV doesn’t offer a show you watch, it’s not worth it.

On day one, the YouTube TV service will be pretty limited. For now, the service is only open to viewers in LA, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Google says that more markets will follow in the coming months.

If you’re into network shows with a strong live following like The Bachelor, ones that are more timely like NBC Nightly News, or live sports, then YouTube TV isn’t a hard sell. Its closest competitor is Sling TV, starting at $20 per month, though most customers get Sling Blue ($25), plus a variety of extras for news and lifestyle channels at an additional $5 per month per package. Sling has noteworthy channels that YouTube TV doesn’t, like CNN and Comedy Central and recently launched a 50-hour cloud DVR service for $5 per month.

If you’re addicted to HBO’s Game of Thrones or Amazon’s Transparent, then YouTube TV probably isn’t your best choice. HBO, like most premium networks, offers a standalone Internet-only subscription service called HBO Now for $15 per month, specifically targeting cord cutters. Amazon Prime Video costs $9 per month, which is similarly priced to other on-demand services like Hulu Plus and Netflix. If you are already an Amazon Prime member, you get limited access to the Prime Video library. For most cord cutters, it might be better to mix-and-match services with content you’ll actually watch than to pay $35 a month for YouTube TV.

Quelle: <a href="Here&039;s A First Look At YouTube&039;s Cable TV Service“>BuzzFeed

This American Shero Buttchugged Mountain Dew

Susan B. Anthony. Rosa Parks. Hillary Clinton. And now add to that list of feminist icons, @lilbabybytch. On the second to last day of Women’s History Month, this fearless woman leaned in and broke a whole new barrier: the first woman to buttchug Mountain Dew.

WARNING: PIC IS OF SOMEONE BUTTCHUGGING MOUNTAIN DEW. WE WARNED YOU.

Twitter: @lilbabybytch

A second angle:

Here&#039;s the link to the tweet, which we can&039;t embed here because we can&039;t blur it.

Twitter: @lilbabybytch

NOTE: BUZZFEED DOES NOT ACTUALLY ENDORSE BUTTCHUGGING ANYTHING. DO NOT DO THIS. SERIOUSLY. WE MEAN IT.

This isn’t the first time @lilbabybytch has shattered the glass ceiling of doing dirtbag stuff. In 2015, she made headlines here at BuzzFeed for buttchugging cough syrup with the help of her friend @freakmommy. It may surprise you that both women do not drink or do drugs, nor do any of the partygoers at the Mountain Dew event.

Here’s @lilbabybytch in 2015 buttchugging cough syrup (NSFW):

Twitter: @freakmommy

I caught up with this American shero to ask her a few questions about her groundbreaking journey to fully do the Dew.

BuzzFeed: What inspired you to undertake this experiment?

@lilbabybytch: Well the same as with the alcohol-free cough syrup, I just wanted to see if it would work at all. Coffee enemas are pretty common, so I wanted to try some uncharted caffeine suppository territory.

So what happened when you did it? Did it work? Did it all just poop/splash out?

So a can of Mountain Dew only has about 55mg of caffeine in it, and I did not get anywhere near 12 oz. in there. I didn&039;t notice any obvious effects, but I couldn&039;t sleep. I lay awake grinding my teeth for about four hours&#033; I shotgunned a Mountain Dew after the buttchug though, so honestly there&039;s too many variables to speak on it definitively.

Here’s a video of it in action. WARNING: VERY NSFW

So it stayed inside you?

I didn&039;t poop for four hours. I thought I would have the runs (it felt like I would), but it was pretty mellow and ended quickly. Here&039;s a picture of my friend Carolyn next to the part that leaked out of my butt in the couple minutes afterward:

Note the wet spot on the couch ^^^^^

@lilbabybytch

Any weird poops after?

No&033; It didn&039;t get my digestion going off in any weird way. I wish it had.

Was it classic Mountain Dew, or one of the flavors, like Code Red?

Classic. My favorite flavor is Voltage.

Any advice for the fans out there?

If you wanna get a lot of liquid in your ass, do it like an enema. Handstands are not conducive to receiving large volumes of soda. But most of all, you don&039;t need to do drugs to have fun.

LINK: Meet The Girl Who Buttchugged Cough Syrup

Quelle: <a href="This American Shero Buttchugged Mountain Dew“>BuzzFeed

How To Keep Your Browsing History Actually Private

Last week, the House repealed Internet privacy rules requiring broadband companies to ask for your consent before sharing or selling your information, like browsing history, location data, app usage data, and content communications. If Donald Trump signs the legislation into law, all of your unencrypted online activity – essentially everything you do on websites without a padlock in the URL bar – is up for grabs by advertisers.

Without these privacy protections, your porn viewing, shopping, and search habits could be made public. There is, however, one very easy way to maintain your privacy: using a virtual private network, or a VPN, which is like an Invisibility Cloak for your browsing history.

Twitter: @AbbottColton

Who does the repeal affect?

You, and everyone else reading this article in the US, are subject to having their browsing history sold to the highest bidder. That is, unless you subscribe to Sonic or Monkeybrains, two California-based providers that have pledged to not sell browsing history.

What can my Internet company actually do under the repeal?

As my colleague Hamza Shaban pointed out, your Internet service provider can not only sell your browsing history, but compile web profiles, inject targeted ads, and deploy hidden tracking cookies on your phone.

Some companies (including Charter, Cogent, DirecPC) have also been known to hijack searches through a service called Paxfire, and send you to brands that paid for more traffic.

What the heck is a VPN?

A VPN, or virtual private network, is a service that will privatize everything you do on the Internet through encryption. In other words, it will hide your IP address (which reveals your physical location) and the pages you’re visiting. A VPN is like a secret tunnel that turns all of the data running through Internet cables into gibberish, so your Internet service provider (AT&T, Comcast, Charter, etc.) can’t see what you’re up to and, therefore, can’t sell that information to marketers.

It’s safer, too. Most VPNs have servers that scan data in real-time for websites with hidden malicious software.

This “VPN thing” sounds really complicated. How hard is it to set up?

Not hard at all&#033;&033; Using a VPN usually means downloading software or a mobile app, and logging onto a website, signing in, clicking connect, and then… that’s it. For some services, you’ll be automatically logged into the VPN every time you use your home Internet. You may, however, need to select a VPN server location before you can connect to the Internet. You can use a VPN anywhere you are: on your phone, on home Wi-Fi, on plane Wi-Fi, etc.

cwtv.com / Via giphy.com

How do I choose what VPN service to use?

Picking the right VPN is actually a little complicated, but hopefully this guide will make it less so.

Security expert Francis Dinha, CEO of Private Tunnel, offered a few of his best tips:

– “Stay away from free services, because you’ll go back to the same problem. Some VPNs are going to collect your information to push advertisements to monetize,” said Dinha. Hola VPN was caught violating user privacy in 2015. Just remember: There’s no such thing as a free lunch&033;

– Dinha also advised staying away from providers that use weak protocols. If you’re not sure what makes a protocol strong, VPN University has a great chart comparing different methods. It shows that OpenVPN is the strongest protocol, followed by L2TP (Layer 2 Tunnel Protocol), and the Windows PC-only SSTP (Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol), which all use 256-bit level encryption. On the product site you’re looking at, look for those bolded words and you should be safe.

– Avoid PPTP (point-to-point tunneling protocol) at all costs. Vulnerabilities in the protocol were exposed in 2012, when Moxie Marlinspike (the founder of Open Whisper Systems, which is what the encryption for WhatsApp, Signal, and other apps, is based on) created software called CloudCracker that could crack any PPTP connection.

– When looking for tools to protect your privacy, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Noah Swartz said to look for a product using an open-source technology (like OpenVPN), that would allow other engineers to verify that its code retain strong encryption and best practices.

– Also, make sure the provider doesn’t log any user activity (some VPNs keep extensive logs of users’ IP addresses) and has a strong commitment to privacy.

That detailed VPN comparison chart is the most comprehensive way to look at every aspect of most major providers, including logging, privacy policy, pricing, and connection speeds. On this chart, green means “generally good,” yellow means “something of concern,” and red means “something of major concern.” There’s even a version for the color blind&033;

So, what apps meet those requirements?

A 2015 study compared 14 popular VPN service providers and found that the only services that did not suffer from “IPv6 traffic leakage,” which is when your VPN fails to hide your unique IP address, were TorGuard, Private Internet Access, VyprVPN, and Mullvad. Astrill was not secure against IPv6 leaks, but was safe against DNS hacking, which is when a third party (like a hacker or an Internet service provider) redirects queries to a different site.

For those more technically proficient, you can try running your own DIY VPN, using Streisand or OpenVPN Install on GitHub.

What are the downsides I should know about?

First and foremost, it’s important that you select a provider with a strong privacy policy that you can trust, because VPNs have the ability to see all of your traffic, log your activity, and modify that traffic (see the How do I choose a VPN? section). Even when using a VPN, it’s important to use sites that have HTTPS turned on (any website with a lock icon in the URL bar) and apps with end-to-end encryption, like WhatsApp or iMessage (between iPhones only).

If you really want to stay anonymous, you should use Tor, which scrambles your activity through a network of servers so it’s virtually undetectable. It will, however, affect browsing speeds.

If you’re concerned about government surveillance, you should know that a VPN doesn’t completely anonymize you, especially if you’re using an account tied to your real name.

Using a VPN can also mean random connection hiccups. Usually the ol’ turn-it-off-then-turn-it-on-again method does the trick.

When using a VPN, your Internet connection is routed through a server that may be in a different state or country, which means the content you look at may reflect that VPN location.

VPN’s don’t protect you from phishing (those sketchy emails that look like password reset forms), so make sure you’re protecting your privacy in other ways, too (like using two-factor verification).

Looking to learn more about protecting your privacy? Read this guide.

Quelle: <a href="How To Keep Your Browsing History Actually Private“>BuzzFeed

People In Their Thirties Can't Stop Hoarding CDs

I swear, I used to be cool. There was a time I cared a lot about music, which is the thing you care about when you’re cool. And now I’m old and not cool and don’t really care anymore and I mostly just listen to the radio or the Spotify top 50 while I’m at the gym. And even though I don’t care, I still have a box of my old CDs under my bed that I haven’t touched in years.

This box represents my musical taste from high school and college, approximately 1996–2004. It’s horrible. I’m deeply embarrassed by this box. At the time, I thought I had very cool taste in music, but a lot of that era has not aged well, and some of the buzzy bands of the early aughts have faded into obscurity (Longwave, anyone?). I’ll be blunt: There’s a lot of mid-&#039;90s ska revival.

I think of this box kind of like the painting in The Picture of Dorian Gray. As time passed and I aged, the Get Up Kids CDs got more and more gnarled and horrifying.

I’ve read Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and I believe in the doctrine. I’ve purged my closet, my books, and my knickknacks, but I just can’t get rid of that box of CDs under my bed. I haven’t played any of them in years, and have no intention to.

My terrible box of CDs. Note at least FOUR Less Than Jake albums.

BuzzFeed News

The heyday of CDs wasn’t that long. The first year they outsold cassettes was 1993, and the transition to digital was cemented in 2005 when the affordable iPod shuffle came out. So the cohort of people whose prime music consumption years — high school and college — happened during the reign of CDs are now in their thirties and forties. They’ve dragged this box around for several apartment moves, but maybe now they’re having kids and need the space. (Our CDs may not be long for this world anyway; recent evidence shows that “CD rot” means that discs are degrading at around 25 years in some cases.)

Mike Pace, age 38, has hundreds of CDs stored in his parents’ basement. “I&039;ve been trying to figure out the best way to sell them but have NO IDEA,” he told me. “My mom&039;s been asking me for years to get rid of them and part of me is willing, but only if I can find them a good home.”

My coworker at BuzzFeed, Sami Promisloff, is also a fully grown adult abusing her parents’ basement as a storage space. The remnants of her middle and high school jam band phase numbers an estimated 300–400 CDs in binders, and then more stacked on spindles.

“I was on the leading edge of tape trading turning into CD trading, which then turned into LimeWire and Kazaa for any good gigs I didn&039;t yet own, plus Archive.org rips,” she told me. “I have an entire book with live Phish CDs only, and another one that&039;s gotta be 50% Dave Matthews Band followed by other H.O.R.D.E. tour alumni (ranked in order of importance, and the order is very profound/purposeful).”

Because live gig tapes are huge in the jam band community, Promisloff’s collection is almost exclusively burned CDs, which means there’s no chance of her selling it to a used CD store.

Not that she’d get much for them anyway. The market for used CDs is, well, not great. Academy Records, a used CD and vinyl shop in Manhattan, has plenty of customers, even on a rainy Monday afternoon. Ari Finkel, their 23-year-old used CD buyer, also plays in an experimental band. He’s an anachronism — a fresh-faced relic from another time when snooty record store clerks were a recognizable breed (Finkel hasn’t seen Empire Records, but admits that High Fidelity is completely accurate). He doesn’t even really own that many CDs, and admits, “most people my age want nothing to do with this.” The typical CD seller he sees is over 30, and it’s not unusual to see them unsuccessfully try to dump their whole collection. “Generally if someone brings them all in and they’re an able-bodied young person, we’ll tell them to bring them to Housing Works [a charity thrift store] a block away.”

Donation is your other option — charity resale shops like Goodwill or Housing Works will always take them. A clerk at a Paramus, NJ Goodwill told me that plenty of people still buy their used CDs, which sell for $1.99 each. Another Goodwill in Maryland explained that if they end up with more CD donations than they sell (which happens fairly often), they move the excess around to other stores or other parts of their organization. So a CD donation is always appreciated.

Academy will almost always buy classical and classic rock: A Beatles or Rolling Stones CD will sell, so they’ll buy it for $1). They’ll also take stuff that’s obscure or out of print. They may take your Belle & Sebastian album if they don’t have any on hand at the moment, but don’t expect more than 50 cents for it. Finkel swears that his personal taste doesn’t come into play when he buys for the store; he only goes by cold capitalism. He knows for certain that the following will not sell:

• One hit wonders from the ‘00s or ‘10s (sorry, The Ting Tings)

• Any U2 from the ‘00s (‘80s/’90s are ok)

• Those “chillout” electronica compilations that sound like Svedka ads. Finkel notes that somehow everyone whose entire collection is otherwise exclusively rock seems to have one of these terrible mix CDs

Academy also receives a fair amount of full CD collections coming from estates after someone died. When CDs first came out, a lot of baby boomers re-bought their whole vinyl collections onto the hot new technology — tons of Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac. Now, Academy is getting calls from widows or children who are getting rid of the whole collection. For big collections and for older people, they’ll do house calls.

Ryan Martin, a late-thirtysomething who ran a indie label called Dais for experimental music, sold off his collection through a housecall. The famous record store Princeton Record Exchange in Princeton, NJ came to his Brooklyn apartment and gave him $7,000 for his full collection of more than 10,000 CDs. Of course, this was 10 years ago. “Even the appraiser who wrote me the check was like, ‘ha, good thing you are doing this now; in 2-3 years these will be worthless,’’ Martin said. He was fairly unsentimental about letting his collection go. “Seven grand was an unthinkable amount of money for me back then, so it was more like jubilation. I think I went out to a fancy dinner when the check cleared.”

Chris Capese works via word of mouth, and will come to your house, appraise your collection, buy it, and haul it off. He only works with real-deal collections, not your one box of Smash Mouth CDs.

Both he and Finkel pointed out that how many copies of a title were printed affects the market in a way you might not have considered. We tend to think of albums in digital terms now, where tangible supply is never an issue. Not so with CDs. “The more popular an artist is, the less valuable it will be,” Finkel said. “Music from the ‘90s and ‘00s was this golden era of CDs where everything was being manufactured in such huge quantities. Things like R.E.M. or Oasis, there are just so many copies in existence.”

A magic five-disc changer.

Leo-setä / Creative Commons 2.0 / Via flic.kr

Without sounding too “kids these days&#033;”, I think that kids these days will never understand the way that owning physical copies of music feels so different than streaming or mp3s. Musical taste will always be important for young people, and almost certainly more access to music means kids will love even more of it. But the intense feelings you get when you go to a store and buy a CD and bring it home and remember the track order and the liner notes – that’s different. And that’s why us old people are so attached to them. It’s hard to say goodbye to those memories not only of enjoying your teenage music, but also of being a young person who had the time to sit and read the lyrics in the liner notes along while listening to the album in entirety. Our CD collections aren’t just nostalgia, they’re part of our identities.

Elizabeth Olson, 38, kept her old CDs in a paid storage space for years while moving cross country for work and living in a small apartment. Now settled with a house and a baby in the New Jersey suburbs, she has room in the basement for her boxes. “Part of me hopes that one day my son will bring home a dusty CD player from the thrift store and be super excited to listen to It’s A Shame About Ray,” she said.

Quelle: <a href="People In Their Thirties Can&039;t Stop Hoarding CDs“>BuzzFeed

Pro-Trump Media Has A New Obsession: The White House Briefing Room

Lee Stranahan / Via youtube.com

Following Trump administration Press Secretary Sean Spicer&#039;s pledge to establish a White House press corps with voices “outside of Washington”, a number of unabashedly Trump-friendly news outlets have made the pilgrimage to the west wing briefing room — the symbolic heart of the establishment. Their goal: to bring their anti-elite, pro-Trump, and occasionally trollish brand of coverage to the White House.

For some of these self-described “real news” outlets and personalities, landing a seat in the White House briefing room is vindication of their often sensational and semi-factual 2016 presidential campaign stories which some believe undermined the candidacy of Hillary Clinton and helped propel Trump to the Oval Office. For others, it’s a chance to ask questions the mainstream media won’t touch. And for many, there’s a singular benefit worth the trip to Washington alone: the exposure that comes from seeing and being seen on the highest rated show on daytime TV.

“The briefing room has become a piece of pop culture for this generation and the people who followed the election every day on TV and are now glued to the day-to-day,” one newer White House correspondent told BuzzFeed News. For the reporter, being in the room brings with it the intoxicating proposition of asking a question that could set news cycle for the day — or the week. “And so it&039;s definitely an opportunity for far-right, crazy blogosphere types to make a name for themselves. It’s that way for anyone new but definitely true for the far-right guys. Everyone’s watching.”

“It&039;s definitely an opportunity for far-right, crazy blogosphere types to make a name for themselves.”

For Jim Hoft and Lucian Wintrich of the far-right blog Gateway Pundit, a short time in the briefing room has generated enormous returns. Hoft, Gateway Pundit’s founder, announced Wintrich’s White House correspondent position at ‘The Deploraball’ the night before Trump was sworn in as president. Since then, the 28- year old Wintrich has been the focus of dozens of articles (one by this writer), the star of a documentary film, and last week, the subject of a lengthy New Yorker profile. Earlier this month, he was the alleged victim of an altercation inside the briefing room involving Fox Radio’s John Decker, who, according to Wintrich and a few observers, openly chastised Gateway Pundit as a racist, xenophobic outlet. The incident — the details of which are disputed by both parties — was partially witnessed and tweeted by the well-followed members of the White House press corps, written up in a variety of publications, and outrage-shared across the pro-Trump internet, casting Wintrich among the far-right as the heroically aggrieved party, just trying to do his job.

But Wintrich has yet to ask a question of Spicer. Instead, he’s opted to “feel out the room” and “learn the protocols” before jumping in. “If you see pictures of me on Twitter in the briefing room. I’m literally squeezed in the corner taking notes,” he told BuzzFeed News.

The daily briefing spectacle has caught the eye of non-Washington types like New Right blogger and Twitter personality, Mike Cernovich, who lives in California. “It&039;s so good for your brand to be in the room now because it still seems like this prestigious place,” he told BuzzFeed News. “That&039;s why the press corps is losing it — White House access is a major status thing and now it feels like everyone&039;s able to do it.”.

While Spicer’s briefings may appear more open to the media’s fringes, the truth is, the briefing has never been overly exclusive. Day passes for a trip to the press room require little more effort than submitting some personal information to the White House (caveat: full-time “hard passes” are much harder to obtain). Cernovich said he has tentative plans to try and drop by a briefing sometime in April. Last week on Twitter he asked his followers, “should I get a White House pass?” (again, it doesn’t quite work that way, but the sentiment suggests he wants to show up). Responses ranged from “Light eradicates darkness. DO IT&#033;” to “I think we should revoke CNN&039;s and give it to you.”

The conspiracy and pro-Trump news site Infowars has deftly injected itself into the Beltway news cycle multiple times without even stepping into the briefing room. In February, Infowars’ founder Alex Jones posted a video falsely claiming he’d secured White House press credentials from the Trump administration. Jones subsequently walked back that claim, explaining he’d simply taken initial steps to secure credentials. Then, in late January, Jones hired former World Net Daily writer and fellow conspiracy theorist, Jerome Corsi to head up an Infowars Washington bureau. In early February, Corsi tweeted that the White House had told him it “didn’t think there would be any problem in Infowars and Alex Jones and me getting press credentials.”

Two weeks ago, Lauren Southern, a controversial far-right Canadian media personality, made her way to DC to attend a White House briefing, where she tweeted a selfie with the caption, “Independent media takeover.” The tweet ricocheted around the internet; for pro-Trumpers it was another win for the unsung voices of “new media.” Southern — known for her previous denunciations of both rape culture and popular feminism— showing up in the briefing room registered to some as alarming breach. A few hours after posting the selfie, Media Matters ran a story with the headline, “Meet Lauren Southern, The Latest “Alt-Right” Media Troll To Gain Access To The White House Press Briefing.” The story called Southern “just the latest of the fringe, sycophantic “alt-right” media personalities that the White House is letting into its press briefings.”

Southern said she decided to show up in the room after Wintrich’s confrontation. “I heard there was hostility towards new media in the briefing room and wanted to see the experience for myself,” she told BuzzFeed News, adding that she intends to return “in order to ask questions the MSM won&039;t touch.”

The new prestige of the White House briefing room reverses decades of decline. For years the role of White House correspondent had gradually shifted from being central in journalism to one that many reporters dreaded as being captive to unresponsive, low level aides while big stories broke across the internet and elsewhere. As such, tensions over briefing room access have flared in the early weeks of Trump’s presidency. A number of reporters for mainstream outlets have voiced public concerns on Twitter over Spicer and President Trump’s penchant for calling on conservative media outlets during press conferences.

This month, after a reporter for the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal served as the press pool reporter for a Vice Presidential event, the Washington Post’s Paul Farhi questioned partisanship’s role in the White House press corps in an article headlined, “What’s a legitimate news outlet? A new face in the White House press pool raises questions.” And in a recent New Yorker article, White House correspondents and camera crew from legacy news outlets were quoted sniping at the new publications that have popped up in the briefing room. In one instance a radio correspondent was overheard bemoaning that, “at best, they don’t know what they’re doing…at worst, you wonder whether someone is actually feeding them softball questions.”

The prickly reception given to White House briefing room newcomers isn’t exactly unprecedented. At his first press conference in 2009, President Obama’s decision to call on The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein prompted a mini news cycle of its own. In 2009, Time Magazine described Obama’s decision as such: “the whole White House media shop, has crossed a Rubicon of sorts, acknowledging the equivalent legitimacy of an unapologetically unobjective media outlet, which lives nowhere but the Internet and which didn&039;t even exist four years ago”

At the time, New York Times White House reporter, Peter Baker called the decision to add partisan-leaning blogs to the press corps “troubling,” arguing that “We’re blurring the line between news and punditry even further and opening ourselves to legitimate questions among readers about where the White House press corps gets its information.” It’s a position Baker still appears to hold today; this month he told the told The Daily Signal that the issue has only grown murkier. “It becomes harder to draw lines now and say this organization is acceptable and this one is not,” he wrote.

Multiple self-professed members of pro-Trump outlets told BuzzFeed News their welcome to the room by more established outlets was less than friendly — “there’s a palpable tension there,” Wintrich told BuzzFeed News. While two other White House correspondents said allegations of a freeze-out were “overblown.” The discrepancy likely results from the spectrum of conservative outlets and reporters in the Trump press room. While some, like Wintrich and Gateway Pundit delight in trolling, plenty of reporters from right-leaning new media outlets try to play it straight and push the administration on claims like wiretapping and Russian interference in the election. “Plenty of those guys come from conservative outlets but still show up everyday ready to do the hard work like everyone else,” one White House correspondent said.

“They&039;re playing right into our fucking hands — it&039;s ridiculous.”

Regardless, the perceived tension and occasional hand-wringing from mainstream media is having the — perhaps unintended — consequence of elevating the profiles of the new faces in the room. The trolls, in essence, have been fed.

“They&039;re playing right into our fucking hands — it&039;s ridiculous,” Wintrich said describing the reaction to the briefing room altercation a few weeks ago. “So many members of conservative media after this happened reached out all supportive and told me how unfair the situation was. That&039;s street cred for me.” For Southern, the reaction from places like Media Matters is what will keep her coming back to the press room. “I literally just stood there and this was their reaction? I look forward to seeing the collective meltdown when I actually get a question in,” she said.

“I think members of the media are doing a disservice to themselves by putting so much attention on people who don&039;t report each day from the White House and use the briefing to bring attention to themselves,” one White House reporter said. “The Gateway Pundit situation was an ordeal and all but at the end of the day I don&039;t know I’ve ever read anything by [Wintrich]. So why not just ignore it?” In Southern’s case, Cernovich agrees. “They&039;re so triggered by the presence of people like Wintrich that they made him into an overnight sensation. He got the mainstream media to troll themselves.”

Quelle: <a href="Pro-Trump Media Has A New Obsession: The White House Briefing Room“>BuzzFeed

Do You Rinse Your Lemons?

It has recently come to my attention that some people do a completely absurd thing: They rinse lemons before using them. Not just if they’re going to put a slice in a drink, but even if they’re just going to use little juice for say, a salad dressing.

A quick poll of friends and coworkers revealed that people are bitterly divided on this issue. Those who rinse think it’s disgusting that people wouldn’t rinse, and the non-rinsers think it’s a big waste of time.

Well, when life hands me a debate about lemons, I make some phone calls and fix myself a tall glass of sweet, refreshing journalism lemonade.

First, I spoke to Jaydee Hanson, senior policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety, an organization that advocates a variety of agricultural issues, like trying to keep genetically modified apples out of supermarkets and encouraging popcorn producers to use bee-friendly pesticides.

“Yes, lemons definitely should be washed,” Hanson told me. His reasoning was that the rind is chock-full of pesticides that could transfer to the lemon while cutting, or transfer onto your hands while you touch the rind. “In addition to having pesticides on them, they also have antibiotics on them,” Hanson continued. “Most people don’t realize this. The EPA granted emergency use of antibiotics on citrus crops to prevent citrus greening.” Citrus greening is a bacterial disease passed along by bugs that has been plaguing U.S. citrus crops in the last few years.

Hanson admits that the amount of pesticides on a lemon aren’t exactly deadly. “Are you going to die from it? Not unless you’re allergic to the antibiotics.”

Hmm. I know plenty of people who are allergic to antibiotics, and I’ve never heard of anyone ever having a reaction from eating fruit. If this sounds perhaps a little alarmist, you’re not the only one thinking that.

Lemons at the grocery store, touched by who knows how many germy hands.

Katie Notopoulos / BuzzFeed News

Jim Adaskaveg is a professor of plant pathology at University of California, Riverside, who specifically studies post-harvest fruit problems and sanitizing fruit. His career is basically dedicated to whether or not you should rinse a lemon.

To understand if you should rinse a lemon, you first have to understand what rinsing would actually accomplish. Are you really washing off those pesticides and antibiotics? Nope&#033; “Most lemons in a supermarket are processed and treated and ready to be consumed,” Adaskaveg explained. Fruit is washed at a processing plant between the field and the supermarket. After it’s washed, they’re treated with a wax and a safe fungicide to keep them from getting moldy.

And the wax means that any trace amount of pesticide residue is not really getting washed off anyway – at least not be a few seconds of rinsing.

However, Askaveg still is in favor of rinsing. The reason? Germs from whoever touched them at the grocery store: the manager who set up the display, or a customer who test-squeezed a few. Or even you when you touched them before washing your hands. “The pesticides aren’t really dangerous, even though people think they are,” he said. “The risk of any poisoning is astronomically low compared to germs from handling.”

So there you go. Whether you believe the food safety guy or the fruit packing professor about the dangers of potential pesticide residue, they still agree that a rinse is worth it. Most of all, this is terrible news for me, since it means my husband was right. Goddammit.

Quelle: <a href="Do You Rinse Your Lemons?“>BuzzFeed

Samsung Reverses Plans To Throw Away 4.3 Million Explosive Galaxy Note7s

Jung Yeon-je / AFP / Getty Images

Samsung has announced that it will refurbish and sell some Galaxy Note7 phones, which is a reversal of its previous plans to dispose all 4.3 million of the recalled phones outright. The Note7 was recalled in the US in September 2016 and later in China for fire hazards after people reported that their phones were exploding.

A Samsung spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that it will not sell or rent refurbished Note7 phones in the US. In a statement, the company outlined three commandments that will govern how the phone is recycled:

“First, devices shall be considered to be used as refurbished phones or rental phones where applicable.

Second, salvageable components shall be detached for reuse.

Third, processes such as metals extraction shall be performed using environmentally friendly methods.”

Samsung didn&#039;t say how it would determine which phones would be recycled and which ones would be refurbished for future sale or rental.

Greenpeace protesters interrupted Samsung&039;s Mobile World Congress just a month ago with demands for the company to recycle the devices in an environmentally friendly way. A Samsung spokesperson told BuzzFeed News, “the objective of introducing refurbished devices is solely to reduce and minimize any environmental impact.” Greenpeace published a jubilant blog post about the refurbishment effort titled “You did it&#033; Samsung will finally recycle millions of Galaxy Note 7s.” Samsung declined to comment on whether the protest influenced its decision.

Refurbished Note7s could change significantly, even in name: a Samsung spokesperson said, “the name, technical specification and price range will be announced when the device is available.”

Samsung said it&039;s working with local regulators to determine the required condition of phones before reselling them. Beyond saying it won&039;t sell the phones in the US, it did not specify where the company plans to resell them. For phones it recycles, Samsung is hoping to harvest semiconductors, cameras, copper, nickel, gold, and silver.

People on Twitter had mixed reactions to the announcement:

Some were skeptical and made jokes:

Or angry:

But some were…excited?

Samsung plans to announce another flagship phone, the Galaxy S8, on March 29.

Quelle: <a href="Samsung Reverses Plans To Throw Away 4.3 Million Explosive Galaxy Note7s“>BuzzFeed

Is This An Ad? Lin-Manuel Miranda's Interview For Morgan Stanley

Welcome to “Is This an Ad?,” a column in which we take a celebrity social media post about a brand or product and find out if they’re getting paid to post about it or what. Because even though the FTC recently came out with rules on this, it’s not always clear. Send a tip for ambiguous tweets or ’grams to katie@buzzfeed.com.

THE CASE:

On March 15, the investment bank Morgan Stanley published an interview with Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator and star of Hamilton. The interview is about Miranda’s own journey to understanding personal finance and wealth management, and is full of really weird moments like this quote: “In writing about Alexander Hamilton, I had to learn a great deal about the birth of our financial system” and this question: “With the incredible success of Hamilton, what has your journey as a writer, actor and artist taught you about the importance of financial literacy?”

Via morganstanley.com

It feels kinda like an ad, but is it one?

THE EVIDENCE:

So, famous Broadway celebrities don’t normally do interviews for, um, bank websites? And it’s sort of unclear what kind of “content” this actually is. First of all, the article doesn’t have a byline, which is a strong indicator that it’s sponcon or advertising, not purely editorial content. Second of all, this isn’t even an interview about what Miranda actually does (theater) —it’s about personal finance? Come on, this SCREAMS “it’s an ad&#033;”

On the other hand, you have to take into account who it is. Lin-Manuel Miranda is not exactly someone you’d expect to sell out and do sponsored content for some investment bank, right? For one thing, he’s got an aura of wokeness that is at odds with shilling for Wall Street. Also, he’s probably rich as fuck&033; Do you know how expensive Hamilton tickets are? I have no idea, to be honest, because even thinking about it makes me break out in poverty sweats. He doesn’t need to do some bullshit paid interview for a Morgan Stanley site.

On the other other hand… he did cut his ponytail off recently. There’s no surer a symbol of selling out.

Short haircut of a soulless corporate shill?

Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images

THE VERDICT:

Morgan Stanley declined to comment for this article. A rep for Lin-Manuel Miranda told me he did NOT receive any compensation for this interview. However, one thing I’ve learned from doing this column is that it’s rarely that simple: Almost never do celebrities just get a pile of cash in exchange for doing an Instagram or tweet — which is exactly what makes sponcon so insidious and so hard to spot. Sometimes you have to ask the question using the right words. (For instance, some places will deny something is a “paid ad” if they gave a celebrity free merchandise instead of outright cash *cough Airbnb cough*. )

A lot of these big Wall Street places will pay for big speakers to come, and pay handsomely – remember the scandal over Hillary Clinton’s speaking fees from Goldman Sachs? Perhaps he did a paid speaking gig for Morgan Stanley, and this interview was part of that. Nope, said the rep. Not that either.

But then I saw a Facebook post for an event held by CAT Youth theater, a free after-school theater program for middle school and high school kids in New York City. The post reads:

On Wednesday, January 27th, we were thrilled to be Morgan Stanley’s Awareness Partner at “An Afternoon on Broadway, HAMILTON: An American Musical.” YT Alum Lin-Manuel Miranda was introduced by Youth theater Program Director Helen White.

AHA&033; So Miranda is involved with a charity near and dear to his heart — he attended this theater program as a kid — and Morgan Stanley gave money to the charity. Miranda’s rep confirmed that the interview occurred during that lunch event at the CAT Youth Theater.

You can imagine how this probably went down. Miranda is a passionate supporter of this youth theater program, and was happy to do an interview for Morgan Stanley’s website as an enticement to have them give money to the program. [I reached out to the theater program and have not heard back at press time.]

A sample convo I’m imagining:

Theater: Hey Lin-Manuel, will you help us do a fundraiser event?

Lin-Manuel: Sure, anything for the kids&033; This program changed my life&033;

Theater: Hey Morgan Stanley, will you be our awareness partner? Lin-Manuel will be at the event.

Morgan Stanley: Hmmm can we do something with Lin-Manuel for our website?

Theater: Uh, sure, I’m sure we can work it out.

Theater: [to Lin-Manuel, nervously] So….. you have to do an interview about personal finance.

Lin-Manuel: Ugh, fine. How much are they giving you guys again?

Theater: [mumbles some large number]

So if you suspect that something smelled funny, you were right. There is indeed some form of quid pro quo and exchange of money going on here. It’s true, celebrities don’t just do this kind of thing for no reason. I would consider this one to be not an “ad”, but with an asterisk because there&#039;s some sort maneuvering and charity tie-in here.

Yes, he’s shilling, but he’s shilling for a good cause. Morgan Stanley’s money isn’t going into his pockets, it’s funding a program for kids.

The last question in the interview goes:

What are you saving for today?

My family, my children, and supporting causes dear to my heart.

Indeed, he’s supporting a cause close to his heart by literally answering that question.

Quelle: <a href="Is This An Ad? Lin-Manuel Miranda&039;s Interview For Morgan Stanley“>BuzzFeed