Latest news with #Discourse
Business Insider
5 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Zak Jason named Executive Editor of Discourse
I'm thrilled to announce that Zak Jason is Executive Editor of Discourse. Zak is one of our most gifted editors — a creative idea generator, sharp conceptualizer, and surgical wordsmith. His talents are regularly on display on a wide range of Business Insider stories, from Amanda Hoover's standout pieces to numerous features, including Ashley Stewart's Copilot story and a memorable exploration of what Zak coined the "most rejected generation." Zak has helped us lead in major news moments. When the UnitedHealthcare CEO was killed, Zak conceived of and edited two strong quick-turn features on the social-media reaction. On the recent controversy surrounding Shaun Maguire, he collaborated with Melia Russell on a terrific Silicon Valley analysis and shaped a fascinating profile of the financier. You might recall Zak wrote about his own drama with income taxes, a dread-filled read that expanded his personal experience into a reported feature with broad takeaways. Zak joined Business Insider two years ago from Wired, where he had been a features editor and also served as director of standards. His facility with standards will be a great asset at Discourse, where we pursue some of our most ambitious journalism. Before Wired, Zak traveled broadly as a writer for Boston College Magazine and for many years freelanced for numerous publications, including The New York Times Magazine, the Boston Globe Magazine, Slate, and NPR. Zak will work closely with Bob Bryan and Edith Honan, both also exceptional editors, and the current crackerjack Discourse reporters. We will also be expanding opportunities to make Discourse a place where journalists throughout our newsroom will produce some of their most impactful, insightful, revealing work. Zak tells me he is committed to making Discourse the "greatest, can't-miss party in journalism," and I know it's going to happen.
Vogue
27-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Vogue
Not to Be Dramatic, But the Paparazzi Are Ruining Movies for All of Us
Obviously, paparazzi taking pictures of TV and movie stars while they film is nothing new (especially when they're doing it in New York City, in broad daylight), but thanks to the ubiquity of Instagram, X, and every other social media app slowly sapping years off of my lifespan, it feels like there's been a shift in just how widely those pictures are disseminated—and how quickly they're absorbed by the Discourse, for better or for worse. Like, I'm as excited as you would imagine any Vogue employee to be about The Devil Wears Prada 2, but I'm not going to lie: Already knowing what Anne Hathaway's Andy Sachs wears in the movie is kind of letting the wind out of my sails. I want to imagine Andy's grown-up, post-Runway world for as long as I can until the movie's actually in theaters, okay? Ditto for Ryan Murphy's upcoming John-John and Caroline Bessette-Kennedy series, actually. Yes, I'm devouring every paparazzi photo of a blonded-up Sarah Pidgeon like candy, but I'm feeling just as mildly nauseous and overstimulated in the aftermath as I do when I polish off an entire bag of gummy peach rings and call it 'lunch.' One could argue that if I really wanted to discourage the spread of these spoilery pap shots, I could simply stop trawling Getty Images and SplashNews and republishing them—but come on. We in fashion and entertainment media rely on the shadowy paparazzo economy to do our jobs. What I do think would be nice, however, is if paps respected the bounds of intellectual property just a little bit more, and stuck mostly to haunting the Meatpacking District, looking for drunk, overexposed celebutantes doing embarrassing stuff on their way out of clubs, as per tradition. Just let me look forward to something on this cruel mortal coil, for God's sake!
Time Out
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
You can get ramen lattes at this new three-month coffee residency in Wicker Park
Sip or slurp? Ramen lattes are now trending in Chicago's Wicker Park—seriously. Those oddball brews come courtesy Milwaukee's award-winning experimental coffee concept, Discourse Coffee, which is partnering with Cornerstone Restaurant Group for a three-month java residency at Urbanbelly. Launching on Saturday, June 14 with a grand opening party from 10am to 1pm, the collaboration will show off Discourse's cutting-edge coffee creations for a Midwest mash-up of bold flavors and beverage innovation. Author of The New Art of Coffee Ryan Castelaz and Discourse Coffee partner Sean Liu are masters at coffee origination—now the pair will work alongside Chef Bill Kim at Urbanbelly to bring their creations to life at a dedicated coffee counter on Thursdays and Fridays from 7am to 2pm, and Saturdays and Sundays from 8am to 4pm. The menu will include Discourse's "Core 4" beverages, each known for their inventive flavor combinations like the "Channel Orange" (made with espresso, milk, smoked-and-oaked orange vanilla syrup, blackstrap bitters, orange powder and black lava salt), the "Moonwater" (a blend of espresso, milk, honey, cinnamon, Tellicherry black pepper and applewood smoked sea salt), the "Motorhead" (which combines espresso, milk, pork fat and apple caramel, root beer bitters, apple powder and smoked salt), and the "Parisian," a refreshing mix of matcha, milk, four-tea syrup lime and blackberry. Beyond the "Core 4," there are two exclusive-to-Urbanbelly beverages on cheeky offer: a "Ramen Latte" and a "Coconut Curry Latte," offering playful nods to Chef Bill Kim's favored signature dishes. 'The moment Ryan and Discourse came across my radar, I was floored. I remember thinking right away, 'We have to work with this insanely talented kid, no question.,'' said Danny McGowan, President and COO of Cornerstone Restaurant Group. 'Partnering with Discourse reflects our passion for championing creativity, fostering collaboration, and continuously finding new ways to innovate.'
The Guardian
14-02-2025
- The Guardian
Online forums being used to request and trade explicit images of local women, charity warns
An underground network of men are using peer-to-peer internet message boards to order, share and trade explicit images of local women, according to the UK's leading 'revenge porn' charity. In a development that has echoes of the forums used to organise the drugging and rape of Gisèle Pelicot in France, the Revenge Porn Helpline said that 'systematic deep-seated misogyny' was behind a dark trade in images in the UK. 'We are seeing images posted by strangers, collected and re-shared peer to peer,' said Sophie Mortimer, a helpline manager. 'Men state they are looking for images of named individual women from York or from Huddersfield or anywhere in the country. Pictures are then being shared with derogatory comments about the women and what they would do to them.' She added: 'I think that's the most frightening area for me, because we're not talking about the sharing of images after a relationship breaks down. We're talking about a systematic deep-seated misogyny.' Mortimer said the hotline had experienced an increase in reports about images shared on networks such as Discourse – an online communities app – and messaging app Telegram, which has been criticised for an alleged lack of control on extreme content. The helpline, which is marking its 10-year anniversary this week, has seen a 57% average yearly increase in reports. The hotline has introduced a chatbot to meet rising demand for its services which helps about 50 people a day and receives between 350 and 400 in-person calls a month. 'Revenge porn' – the sharing of private or sexual images or videos of a person without their consent – became an offence in England and Wales in April 2015, but the number of convictions remains low, 277 people were convicted in the year ending June 2024 according to Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) figures. Scotland and Northern Ireland introduced similar laws in 2016, but in some cases, the law is unable to help. Alice*, was grieving after the death of her partner of 10 years when she received Instagram messages that revealed he had shared nude pictures with her name online, and both were on a pornography website. The charity helped remove more than 4,000 intimate images – more than 90% of the total – of her across the internet. Images are now less likely to be found on mainstream sites such as Facebook or Pornhub, which had made improvements at managing and taking down content, said Mortimer. But this could result in content being pushed to the 'less compliant' margins, she said. 'The landscape is a lot more complicated,' she said. 'These images can be much harder for us to access because they're not visible. People have so much more content and it moves much faster because there are many more websites hosting and sharing it.' Some women can battle for years to get such images erased. One woman has been working with the charity for more than eight years to remove around 150 different images created in a consensual relationship but then shared under her full name by her ex-partner after they split up. 'It has had the most devastating impact on her entire life, and understandably she has really struggled,' said Mortimer. Another woman, who had images taken of her while she was being abused by a former partner, was told by strangers that they have seen intimate pictures online alongside her name and the town where she lives. 'We are much better at removing content but if it is still there, you can't put it behind you, you can't move on,' said Mortimer. 'It's just endlessly debilitating.' The charity argues that the law needs to be widened to make adult non-consensual intimate images illegal, rather than just the sharing of them – and say this would make them easier to remove from the internet, and is already the case for child abuse images. Minister for victims and violence against women and girls, Alex Davies-Jones, said the government was strengthening the law and that includes the Online Safety Act, which forces platforms to remove intimate images. 'Sharing intimate images online without consent is an abhorrent violation that can inflict profound and lasting harm on victims, particularly women and girls,' she said. 'Women have the right to feel safe wherever they are, in both the online and offline world. This government is determined to make that happen.' But a widening of legislation – and multinational cooperation – must be combined with work to create a societal shift said Mortimer. 'I think this is actually a really dangerous time for women,' she said. 'What I've learned from doing this work is that men who doing this are not monsters living in their mothers' basements … This is all around us, under our noses, the men that we think are allies, in many cases, are not as benign as they appear.'
