Introduction 9
twenty-first-century Citizen Kane, at The Washington Post and how,
under his tenure, a flagship print newspaper became one of the ultimate digital media companies just at that moment when Donald Trump
changed the news cycle completely. The fact that one of the most successful news sites in the world is controlled by the world’s richest man
will also have a far-reaching effect on the reporting of the world’s most
powerful democracy. Finally, the chapter ends with a turn away from
the heavily American-centric focus of this book (inevitable when the
biggest technology companies are based in the USA) to examine some
of the ways in which various aspects of the media ecology considered in
this book come into play in smaller scale reporting in Africa. Big tech
may be viewed, rightly in my opinion, with ever-greater suspicion, but
the desire to use technology to communicate with others is fundamental
to the development and future of journalism.
Notes
1 Chris Johnston, “Apple is the First Public Company Worth $1 Trillion”, BBC
News, 2 August 2018, www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45050213; Thomas
Heath, “Apple is the First $1 Trillion Company in History”, The Washington
the-first-1-trillion-company-in-history/2018/08/02/ea3e7a02-9599-11e8-a679b09212fb69c2_story.html; Mark Gurman, Mira Rojanasakul, and Cedric
Sam, “How Apple Overcame Fits and Flops to Grow Into a Trillion-Dollar
Company”, Bloomberg, 2 August 2018, www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018apple-at-one-trillion-market-cap/; Kevin Kelleher, “As the Stock Market Closes,
Apple Is Officially the First Trillion-Dollar U.S. Company”, 2 August 2018,
http://fortune.com/2018/08/02/apple-trillion-dollar-stock-price/.
2 Lucinda Shen, “Apple Is Worth Over $900 Billion. But It Won’t Be the
World’s First Trillion-Dollar Company”, Fortune, 8 November 2017, http://
fortune.com/2017/11/08/apple-stock-amazon-trillion-aapl-iphone-x/.
3 Lucinda Shen, “Amazon and the Race to Be the First $1 Trillion Company”, Fortune, 31 March 2017, http://fortune.com/2017/03/31/amazonstock-trillion-dollar-company-apple-tesla-google/.
4 Ryan Derousseau, “Apple Isn’t the First to Hit $1 Trillion In Value. Here Are
5 Companies That Did It Earlier”, Money, 2 August 2018, http://time.com/
money/5282501/apple-trillion-biggest-companies-in-history/.
5 Jeff Desjardins, “Most Valuable U.S. Companies Over 100 Years”, Visual
Capitalist, 14 November 2017, www.visualcapitalist.com/most-valuablecompanies-100-years/.
6 Ben Bagdikian, The New Media Monopoly, Boston, MA: Beacon Press,
2004, p. 3.
7 Rafe Needleman, “Eric Schmidt: ‘Gang of four’ Rules Tech”, CNET, 31
May 2011, www.cnet.com/news/eric-schmidt-gang-of-four-rules-tech/.
8 Bryan Glick, “Beanbags 2.0 – The New Google Office”, ComputerWeekly.com, 26 July 2012, www.computerweekly.com/blog/Downtime/
Beanbags-20-the-new-Google-office.
9 Jacky Law, Big Pharma: How the World’s Biggest Drug Companies Market
Illness, London: Constable, 2006.
10 Olivia Solon, “Tech’s Terrible Year: How the World Turned on Silicon Valley in 2017”, The Guardian, 23 December 2017, www.theguardian.com/
technology/2017/dec/22/tech-year-in-review-2017.
twenty-first-century Citizen Kane, at The Washington Post and how,
under his tenure, a flagship print newspaper became one of the ultimate digital media companies just at that moment when Donald Trump
changed the news cycle completely. The fact that one of the most successful news sites in the world is controlled by the world’s richest man
will also have a far-reaching effect on the reporting of the world’s most
powerful democracy. Finally, the chapter ends with a turn away from
the heavily American-centric focus of this book (inevitable when the
biggest technology companies are based in the USA) to examine some
of the ways in which various aspects of the media ecology considered in
this book come into play in smaller scale reporting in Africa. Big tech
may be viewed, rightly in my opinion, with ever-greater suspicion, but
the desire to use technology to communicate with others is fundamental
to the development and future of journalism.
Notes
1 Chris Johnston, “Apple is the First Public Company Worth $1 Trillion”, BBC
News, 2 August 2018, www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45050213; Thomas
Heath, “Apple is the First $1 Trillion Company in History”, The Washington
the-first-1-trillion-company-in-history/2018/08/02/ea3e7a02-9599-11e8-a679b09212fb69c2_story.html; Mark Gurman, Mira Rojanasakul, and Cedric
Sam, “How Apple Overcame Fits and Flops to Grow Into a Trillion-Dollar
Company”, Bloomberg, 2 August 2018, www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018apple-at-one-trillion-market-cap/; Kevin Kelleher, “As the Stock Market Closes,
Apple Is Officially the First Trillion-Dollar U.S. Company”, 2 August 2018,
http://fortune.com/2018/08/02/apple-trillion-dollar-stock-price/.
2 Lucinda Shen, “Apple Is Worth Over $900 Billion. But It Won’t Be the
World’s First Trillion-Dollar Company”, Fortune, 8 November 2017, http://
fortune.com/2017/11/08/apple-stock-amazon-trillion-aapl-iphone-x/.
3 Lucinda Shen, “Amazon and the Race to Be the First $1 Trillion Company”, Fortune, 31 March 2017, http://fortune.com/2017/03/31/amazonstock-trillion-dollar-company-apple-tesla-google/.
4 Ryan Derousseau, “Apple Isn’t the First to Hit $1 Trillion In Value. Here Are
5 Companies That Did It Earlier”, Money, 2 August 2018, http://time.com/
money/5282501/apple-trillion-biggest-companies-in-history/.
5 Jeff Desjardins, “Most Valuable U.S. Companies Over 100 Years”, Visual
Capitalist, 14 November 2017, www.visualcapitalist.com/most-valuablecompanies-100-years/.
6 Ben Bagdikian, The New Media Monopoly, Boston, MA: Beacon Press,
2004, p. 3.
7 Rafe Needleman, “Eric Schmidt: ‘Gang of four’ Rules Tech”, CNET, 31
May 2011, www.cnet.com/news/eric-schmidt-gang-of-four-rules-tech/.
8 Bryan Glick, “Beanbags 2.0 – The New Google Office”, ComputerWeekly.com, 26 July 2012, www.computerweekly.com/blog/Downtime/
Beanbags-20-the-new-Google-office.
9 Jacky Law, Big Pharma: How the World’s Biggest Drug Companies Market
Illness, London: Constable, 2006.
10 Olivia Solon, “Tech’s Terrible Year: How the World Turned on Silicon Valley in 2017”, The Guardian, 23 December 2017, www.theguardian.com/
technology/2017/dec/22/tech-year-in-review-2017.