John Solomon had grand plans for the digital future of the Center for Public Integrity. But there was always a catch…
And dozens of new organizations have begun moving in on the Center’s turf. (In fact, since 2004, the number of nonprofit investigative newsrooms climbed from four to roughly 30.) Among them was ProPublica, which launched in 2008 and quickly leaped over the Center to become the nation’s top nonprofit investigative outfit.
.. The report urged the Center to diversify its funding sources, up its digital game, and extend its reach by finding more attention-grabbing stories.
.. First, instead of publishing a few dozen stories a year, the Center would transform itself into a destination news site, which reportedly would publish between 10 and 20 original stories each day. This was expected to create a surge in Web traffic, which the organization would parlay into a bounty of advertising. According to internal Center documents, the organization aimed to sell $635,000 in advertising (the Center called it “underwriting”) by year two.
.. The idea was to offer access to this platform as a premium for an NPR-style membership. In the first year alone, the Center projected it would sell 50,000 memberships at $50 a piece, for a total of $2.5 million—a bold target, given that the largest membership-based news organization, Minnesota Public Radio, has only about 127,000 members, a base it took MPR decades to build.
.. Kaplan says he worried that embracing what he called “Solomon’s dubious revenue-generating schemes” would tip the organization back into financial chaos, and that the demands of churning out multiple stories each day would make it all but impossible to do the kind of deep reporting the Center was founded to do—a grave loss to journalism as a whole.
.. Arianna Huffington says the $2 million figure was aspirational rather than a firm target, and never part of the formal merger agreement. As for traffic, she says Huffington Post only agreed to use “commercially reasonable efforts to cause at least 200,000 visits to the website per month
.. during Solomon’s tenure the site had been set to refresh every 5 minutes, which artificially inflated pageview numbers. When the refresh feature was rolled back, traffic dropped.
Unless You’re Oprah, ‘Be Yourself’ Is Terrible Advice.
We are in the Age of Authenticity, where “be yourself” is the defining advice in life, love and career. Authenticity means erasing the gap between what you firmly believe inside and what you reveal to the outside world. As Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston, defines it, authenticity is “the choice to let our true selves be seen.”
.. But for most people, “be yourself” is actually terrible advice.
.. “Deceit makes our world go round,” he concluded. “Without lies, marriages would crumble, workers would be fired, egos would be shattered, governments would collapse.”
.. High self-monitors advance faster and earn higher status, in part because they’re more concerned about their reputations. And while that would seem to reward self-promoting frauds, these high self-monitors spend more time finding out what others need and helping them.
.. sincerity. Instead of searching for our inner selves and then making a concerted effort to express them, Trilling urged us to start with our outer selves. Pay attention to how we present ourselves to others, and then strive to be the people we claim to be.
.. younger generations tend to be less concerned about social approval. Authentic self-expression works beautifully, until employers start to look at social media profiles.
.. No one wants to hear everything that’s in your head. They just want you to live up to what comes out of your mouth.
Trump triples down on attack on judge’s ethnicity
Pressed by CNN’s Jake Tapper, Trump repeated his claim that U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s Mexican heritage creates “an inherent conflict of interest.”
Story Continued Below“Jake, I’m building a wall. OK? I’m building a wall. I’m trying to keep business out of Mexico. Mexico’s fine,” Trump said.
“But he’s an American,” Tapper responded.
“He’s of Mexican heritage,” Trump said. “And he’s very proud of it, as I am of where I come from.”
“But he’s an American,” Tapper reiterated. “You keep talking about it’s a conflict of interest because of Mexico.”
Later in the extended back-and-forth on the issue, the CNN host asked Trump whether his assertion that Curiel’s heritage makes him unable to do his job is “the definition of racism.” Trump said it was not.
NY Attorney General’s Suit Regarding Trump University
51. Former president Michael Sexton admitted in his sworn subpoenaed testimony that “[t]here wasn’t anything sophisticated about” the three-day seminar and that instead it was “really an opportunity for an individual to make the decision[:] is real estate investing something that I am actually going to pursu[?]” rather than actually teaching them what they needed to know to get started.
.. 59. As students later discovered, these claims were untrue. Rather than being photographed with Donald Trump, they were offered the chance to have photos taken with a life-size photo of Donald Trump.
.. 104. As noted above, Trump University speakers at three-day seminars urged students to call their credit card companies during a break in the sessions, requesting increases to their credit limits.
105. Speakers often claimed that the reason for this request was to obtain additional capital for real estate transactions and property improvements for “flipping” houses and apartments, but in reality the purpose was so that students could use the additional credit to purchase expensive Trump Elite programs.
106. Trump University even provided handouts with scripted talking points for students to use in their phone calls with credit card companies, explicitly encouraging people to falsify their current income, “add[ing] projected income from corporate entities that had not been created, with the script telling students: “If they ask you to prove income, inform them that it will be too much trouble to put all the paperwork together.”
.. 119. Trump University was also aware that some of its instructors and mentors who had been investing in real estate had filed for Chapter 7 bankrupcy protection shortly before coming to work at Trump University, belying any claims of success as real estate investors.
.. 146. Sexton was President of Trump University from its inception in 2004 until late in 2010. He was one of the four members of Trump University LLC, with a 4.5 equity interest. He was also involved in the creation of Trump University, including bringing the idea to Trump in 2004 and meeting with him and Trump Organization employees to discuss its formation and the terms of the Trump University LLC agreement.
.. 149. Trump Organization also directed and controlled the acts and practices of Trump University and had knowledge of its fraudulent and illegal conduct.
150. Indeed Trump University LLC corporate form was regularly ignored. There were never any meetings of the members, no votes ever taken, and no minutes of meetings ever prepared.
151. Major corporate decisions were routinely made for Trump University LLC by individuals at Trump Organization who were not officers, directors, or employees of the company or its members, such as the decision to change Trump University’s business model in 2005, or to wind down its operations in 2010 due to poor revenue performance.