We are back with the Mediatwits podcast, revamped in a roundtable format with “regulars” and occasional special guests. This week we have Mark Glaser moderating, along with the Guardian’s Ana Marie Cox, Seattle Times’ Mónica Guzmán, Reuters’ Felix Salmon, and USC’s Andrew Lih. Special guest Kara Swisher will be joining us as well.
Our topics this week include the severe backlash on social media to Seth MacFarlane’s offensive jokes during the Oscars telecast. Did he go too far, or did the reaction go too far? And Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer laid down the law to work-at-home Yahoos: come in to an office or quit. That’s led to criticism of that policy in Silicon Valley, where most tech companies give more allowance for work-at-home employees. Plus, Cablevision is suing Viacom over bundling cable channels, and Groupon CEO Andrew Mason was fired from the struggling company.
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Mediatwits Bios
Ana Marie Cox is a senior political columnist for The Guardian. She is the founding editor of the Wonkette blog and has covered politics and the culture of Washington, DC for outlets including the Washington Post, Playboy, GQ, Mother Jones and Elle. She is the author of the novel Dog Days and lives in St. Paul, Minn. Follower her on Twitter @anamariecox.
Mónica Guzmán is a columnist for the Seattle Times and Northwest tech news site GeekWire and a community strategist for startups and media. She emcees Ignite Seattle, a grab-bag community fueled speaker series. Mónica was a reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and seattlepi.com, its online-only successor, where she ran the experimental and award-winning Big Blog and drew a community of readers with online conversation and weekly meetups. Follow her on Twitter @moniguzman
Andrew Lih is a new media journalist, and associate professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism where he directs the new media program. He is the author of “The Wikipedia Revolution” (Hyperion 2009, Aurum UK 2009) and is a noted expert on online collaboration and journalism. He is a veteran of AT&T Bell Laboratories and in 1994 created the first online city guide for New York City (www.ny.com). Follow him on Twitter @fuzheado and buy his book here.
Felix Salmon is the financial blogger for Reuters. He was named one of Time Magazine’s 25 Best Financial Bloggers, and offers his frank view on the maneuverings of Wall Street, Washington and popular culture. Watch him on Felix TV or follow him on Twitter @felixsalmon.
Special Guest
Kara Swisher is the co-executive editor of AllThingsD, and co-produces and co-hosts the D Conference with Walt Mossberg. She started covering digital issues for The Wall Street Journal’s San Francisco bureau in 1997. Her column BoomTown originally appeared on the front page of the Marketplace section and also online at WSJ.com. She’s written two books on AOL and previously worked as a reporter at the Washington Post. You can follow her on Twitter @karaswisher
More Reading
1. Social media backlash to Seth MacFarlane, The Onion at #Oscars
Our Sincere Pointless Cult of Apology at the Daily Beast
TV Review: Seth MacFarlane Wins
How To Do Outrage at Salon
Twitter’s Unstoppable Humor Police at Salon
2. Marissa Mayer lays down the law: work in an office or quit Yahoo!
Physically Together: Here’s the Internal Yahoo No-Work-From-Home Memo at AllThingsD
Survey Says: Despite Yahoo Ban Most Tech Companies Support Work-From-Home at AllThingsD
Current, Former Yahoo Employees Question the Ban on Working from Home at the Daily Beast
Marissa Mayer is a CEO First and a Mother Second at The Atlantic
3. Groupon CEO Andrew Mason fired
Groupon fires CEO Andrew Mason at CNN Money
Why Did the Groupon Board Fire Andrew Mason? at Forbes
Ousted Groupon CEO Andrew Mason Writes the Best Exit Memo Ever at Yahoo Finance
4. Cablevision sues Viacom over bundling cable channels
New attach on TV bundles at WSJ
Legal battle between Cablevision and Viacom could rattle TV business at LA Times
Cablevision Sues Viacom Over Bundling of Little Watched Channels at NYT Media Decoder
Poll
Be sure to vote in our weekly poll, this time about working at home:
Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian and fiancee Renee. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit. and Circle him on Google+