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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump. Photograph: Wong Maye-E, Pablo Martinez Mons/AP

An accidental spark could ignite a catastrophic conflagration in north-east Asia, Chinese state media has warned, after Donald Trump threatened to unleash fire and fury on North Korea.

In an English-language commentary, Chinas official news agency, Xinhua, said tit-for-tat confrontations between Washington and Pyongyang would lead nowhere and argued dialogue was the only way to defuse the North Korean nuclear crisis.

South Korea, whose capital is just 35 miles from the North Korean border, needed to be particularly wary of how a war of words might spiral out of control.

For Seoul, an uncontrolled situation and even perhaps any accidental spark could trigger a conflict and prove to be a disaster it cannot afford, Xinhua warned.

Other Communist party-run media outlets weighed in on the latest slanging match between the US and North Korean leaders on Thursday, with one newspaper likening the situation to a train racing down an increasingly dark tunnel.

Hu Xijin, the outspoken editor of the Global Times, a nationalist Communist party-controlled tabloid, claimed the US would come off worse from any military clash with North Korea since it had far more to lose.

The US is more powerful than North Korea but in a real showdown I dont think they would beat North Korea. There is a Chinese saying: A man with nothing to lose, doesnt fear a man with something to lose, he said in an online opinion video.

The Chinese language edition of Hus newspaper made the same point, in more poetic terms. The barefoot man does not fear he who wears shoes, it said.

Continuing to punish North Korea with sanctions and threats of military action was like wringing an almost completely dry towel to expel the last couple of drops of water, the Global Times added.

Experts say Trumps incendiary declaration will have displeased the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, who is currently gearing up for a key political congress this autumn marking the end of his first term as Chinas top leader. Trumps comments came less than 72 hours after China had thrown its weight behind a UN security council resolution bringing tougher sanctions against Pyongyang in what it saw as a big concession to the US.

However, Liu Ming, a North Korea expert from the Shanghai academy of social sciences, said Beijing would not read too much into the US presidents ultimatum to Kim Jong-un.

He has made boorish remarks before and we all know what kind of person he is. Trumps a boorish person ... If we took all of his comments as hard policy then China-US relations would deteriorate immediately.

Shen Dingli, an international relations expert from Shanghais Fudan university, said Trump had used tough talk to force concessions from China on trade and now hoped to do the same with North Korea and its weapons programs. But if [Pyongyang] uses its own fury to deal with Trumps fury then it could lead to a very dangerous scenario.

Trump is not stable, Shen said. But luckily his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, is.

Additional reporting by Wang Zhen

See the original post:
Chinese media warn Trump's war of words with North Korea could spiral out of control - The Guardian

The Polish government, with whom Donald Trumpenjoysclose relations, is planning new laws restricting foreign ownership of media that would disproportionately harm U.S. companies.

The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) [party] will likely submit a bill setting limits to foreign ownership of media outlets in Poland at the autumn session of parliament, a research note from political analysts Teneo Intelligence said.

Ownership limitations would adversely impact German and U.S. media groups that currently dominate Polish media market, thus increasing the risk of a sharply negative international response, it continued. Otilia Dhand, senior vice president at Teneo, says Viacom and E.W. Scripps are both particularly active in Poland.

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Dhandtells Newsweek that the type and level of restrictions the government imposes will likely depend on the amount of outcry generated over its proposals.

According to Teneos note, the bill could set a limit as low as 15 percent on foreign ownership of media corporations. But other recent proposals have been scuppered or rowed back after international criticism.

For example, a recent attempt to pass three laws that would have cemented government control over the judiciary ended with the countrys presidenta usually submissive former member of PiSvetoing two of them. Dhand says U.S. pressure may have been partly behind the move.

Dhand says the push to take more control over the private media sector follows the governments early move to consolidate control over public media. At the start of 2016, the government passed legislation that allowed it to appoint the heads of state TV and radio outlets.

They do want to gain control, leverage, over the private media to avoid criticisms. So thats the sort of basic aim. It is a big question ofwhat form does this leverage [take], Dhand said.

Dhand cited the example of the Polish banking sector, where the state insurance company has been instructed to buy up stakes in banks as they come onto the market, as a model the government could follow in the media sector.

Polands government took office in late 2015 and has proved controversial on the world stage ever since. It is engaged in two rows with the European Commission in Brussels:one over its plans for the judiciaryand another over logging rights in a primeval forest.

Donald Trump visited Poland in July, and at a press conference where he faced difficult questions from U.S. reporters he jokingly asked President Andrzej Duda whether he struggled with a hostile media too.

See more here:
Freedom Of Speech: Poland Plots Restrictions On Foreign Media And US Companies Could Be Hit - Newsweek

Last year, Cirque du Soleil simultaneously produced 20 different shows that were staged around the world, seen by more than 10 million people. To ensure these productions are profitable, the company started using logistics software from SAP, centralizing business management from their headquarters in Montreal.

Today, TV media companies are also grappling with how to manage the logistics of their business. TV content is beginning to be distributed across OTT, VOD, mobile, and social. Advertisers want a piece of each of these channels, and are interested in targeted audiences and addressable content placements that break down standard GRP pricing. Many media companies are creating new channels and subdivisions and are partnering with new vendors in order to keep up. These actions, while they have good intentions, can backfire if they are not coordinated across process, technology and strategy. Media companies must follow several broad strategic principles to ensure their long-term success across new channels.

Centralize Control Over Your Assets

Media companies should start with a centralized audience and product strategy. Earlier this year, NBCU announced Audience Symphony, to stitch together the different flavors of audience targeted advertising that they have created across their various advanced TV content distribution channels. This is the right move. Media companies who are not as far ahead as NBCU should do what they can to start out with a centralized approach. Without centralization, new channels are not as scalable, and it is harder to gain cross-channel insights.

Centralizing an audience and the products sold against it gives media companies control over ad sales, an understanding of frequency and better insights for the entire business (such as which channels deliver the most value or have the highest engagement.) This starts with buy-in of a single strategy, and a champion that can rein in rogue experiments that dont add scalable value. This is why many companies, Comcast and Charter included, have installed veterans of targeted TV at the helm of their ad revenue businesses.

A centralized strategy also requires technology that can knit together disparate forms of data. Some DMPs like Lotame are starting to manage TV data as well as digital data. However, media companies must also be on the lookout for new forms of data management that might fit better with advanced TV advertising, which includes audiences, channels, formats, metrics, pricing and other important elements. Recently, for example, retail companies have started to use something called a CDP or consumer data platform, which focuses on building rich profiles of individuals with first party data, rather than cookies.

Be Easy to Work With

Consumers are not the only ones that have gotten used to convenience through technology. While linear TV media companies have a relatively opaque negotiation process with advertisers that can last for days between rounds, digital alternatives like Google and Facebook offer automated audience targeting. Advertisers are not going to wait around for even longer just to get a proposal from a TV company that also includes a small addition of programmatic TV or OTT delivery when they can get audience reach with the press of a button from companies like Google and Facebook.

Turner, Fox and Viacom address another issuecomplexityin their letter about the Open AP initiative where they stress the need for consistently defined audience targets and standard measurement and reporting.This is one area where media companies will do well to work together and push back against advertisers who inadvertently make it harder for everyone to do business by layering on a variety of new metrics and performance targets. Digital medias issue with too many metrics is an example of the problems caused when media companies allow complexity to overshadow their offerings.

Maintain Control of the Ship

Digital publishers did not focus enough on maintaining control in the market. Programmatic prices are low even though they are more targeted than direct sold. Advertisers bring their own audience data, leaving publisher data to languish. Buyers require a variety of metrics and quality standards that are governed by expensive and arbitrary vendor relationships. Even reporting standards favor advertisers, allowing discrepancies in the buyers favor up to 10%, with their own ad server as the source of record.

TV media companies must have a loud voice as advanced TV standards are hammered out in order to avoid industry norms that hurt them. Media companies should start talking now about what they want in a future targeted TV equivalent of the IAB standard digital advertising Terms and Conditions.

Media companies must also start protecting internal assets and revenue controls. Centralized product information in a single catalogue gives sellers control over the proposal process and gives delivery teams control over campaign execution. Yield optimization teams ensure that prices and campaign delivery is maximized. New vendors should be scrutinized for transparency and fair payment practices.

With Facebook and Google dominating the publishers whose businesses have already transitioned to a digital realm, it is clear that TV media companies will be faced with new threats. Channel management is a philosophy and a discipline that ensures media companies stay in control across new channels as their advertisers, viewers and even their content changes dramatically.

Lorne Brown is president of SintecMedia, which offersmedia business management solutions.

Go here to see the original:
How TV Media Companies Can Get Ahead of Channel Management - Broadcasting & Cable (blog)

One of Ubers biggest shareholders, Benchmark Capital, has sued co-founder and ousted CEO Travis Kalanick, claiming he has not honored the terms of his resignation and has been trying to change the makeup of the board to advantage himself.

Along with claiming he wanted to entrench himself for his own selfish ends, the high-profile Silicon Valley venture firm has alleged that the pugnacious entrepreneurs overarching objective is to pack Uber's Board with loyal allies in an effort to insulate his prior conduct from scrutiny and clear the path for his eventual return as CEO.

Non-legal translation: Steve Jobs-ing it, except meaner. Really mean.

A Kalanick spokesman decried the lawsuit: The lawsuit is completely without merit and riddled with lies and false allegations. This is continued evidence of Benchmark acting in its own best interests contrary to the interests of Uber, its employees and its other shareholders. Benchmarks lawsuit is a transparent attempt to deprive Travis Kalanick of his rights as a founder and shareholder and to silence his voice regarding the management of the company he helped create. Travis will continue to act in the interests of Uber and all of its stakeholders and is confident that these entirely baseless claims will be rejected.

Sources said Kalanick only found out about the lawsuit earlier today, which is just the way you knew this fantastically awful corporate drama about Silicon Valleys most famous and infamous startup would go.

In addition, the rest of the Uber board not suing each other, which includes Arianna Huffington andDavid Trujillo from TPG, also only found out about the lawsuit after it was filed in Delaware.

(Update: The six board members who are not part of the lawsuit met tonight to discuss what to do about this mess, including how to best proceed with its CEO search despite this tension. They will likely release a statement tomorrow, said sources.)

According to sources, what prompted the lawsuit was Kalanick not yet signing an agreement he made with investors including Benchmark, which owns about 10 percent of Uber when he was forced out by them 52 days ago. (Yes, 52 days!)

He agreed then to give up his ability to appoint an additional three seats to the board, a power he held both directly or indirectly via ownership in common and preferred shares. Kalanick promised this in his resignation letter, said the sources.

Benchmark wants a preliminary injuction to remove Kalanick from the board. Which it apparently left him on after the ousting, since he was talking to candidates to replace him.

In fact, he definitely appeared to have occupied one of those seats, after giving up the ex officio seat he had held as CEO, which Benchmark is claiming it did not agree to, either. There are then two remaining seats and Kalanick has apparently not signed the document that would then return those seats to the boards control.

Got it? Me either, but it is completely safe to say a very big mess just got messier (if possible).

A spokesperson for Uber which is nominally named in the lawsuit for legal reasons I have no interest in explaining declined to comment. (Excellent move!)

As to the current search for a CEO to replace Kalanick, as Recode previously reported, there are still three candidates to take over top leadership at the car-hailing company. Before this, the board had hoped to make a decision within two weeks.

But now, those directors are in full-scale war, so who knows if that will happen? Attention Jeff Immelt, the outgoing General Electric CEO who is still in the running for the job: You might want to duck.

Such a legal attack is, I think it is safe to say, unprecedented for any tech venture firm, as well as for Benchmark, especially since it concerns one of its most high-profile and lucrative investments.

By the way okay, I will explain: The reason Benchmark also had to add the company to the suit is due to Delaware law, but it is not seeking any relief from Uber itself.

Just from Travis, whom the firm appears to want to decimate. Also dismember. Also smash into the ground. But just legally, so bygones!

Nonetheless, the lawsuit is potentially damaging to Uber, because it contains an awful lot of information about internal woes at the company, confirming a cornucopia of reporting done on Kalanicks dysfunctional management. So, while it aims at him, Uber is obviously going to get strafed too, one source close to the board pointed out.

This is only going to hurt Uber, said the source. Its incomprehensible why Benchmark did this, although Travis should have signed the document.

But which comes as a surprise to absolutely no one who knows him even passably well Kalanick did not. And here we are!

Oh yeah, lest we forget, Uber employees still at the company have to run its complex business operations in a deeply competitive market as if nothing were wrong.

Now, all we need in this legal wrangling is the Holder report which chronicled a lot of this corporate disaster and more to be part of the discovery in this case and it will provide an entire season of drama for the media.

Indeed. Already, five claims that Benchmark makes in the 38-page lawsuit to substantiate what they call Kalanicks gross mismanagement are pretty gnarly and sometimes based on reporting done by Recode and others.

Largely, this allegation centers on failure by Kalanick to disclose much of anything to the in-the-dark board. Such as:

In closing, your honor, all I and my friends in the media (as well as Lyft) can say to Benchmark for dropping this nasty legal bomb on a Thursday in August: Thank you so very much.

Read more:
Benchmark is suing Travis Kalanick (and Uber) over board control, claiming a 'selfish' power grab - Recode

Aubrey Plaza has self control when it comes to social media. The 33-year-old actress plays the Instagram obsessed titular character in her upcoming movie Ingrid Goes West, and whilst she admits that she allowed herself to indulge in the photo sharing app in preparation for her role, she insists she knows when its time to get off in real life. Speaking to People magazine, Aubrey said: I did allow myself to indulge in going down those rabbit holes of Instagram and to really look at other peoples stuff way too long. In my real life I dont do that, I have enough self control to go, Okay, Ive been on here too long I dont need to be looking at my ex-boyfriends girlfriends page. When I find myself looking at strangers pictures and going, Oh, I wish I was doing what they were doing, Im like, Okay thats enough, time to get off. It comes after the Parks and Recreation star said earlier this year that she feels bad if she spends too much time online. She said at the time: Im familiar with going online and spending hours on there that ultimately make me feel bad about myself. So I think there were definitely times on set when I would just allow myself to go there, to exist in that space that we all are familiar with, but some of us dont really go into full force. Meanwhile, Aubreys co-star Elizabeth Olsen who plays Instagram celebrity Taylor Sloane who is stalked online by Ingrid in the comedy previously said she would enjoy using social media more herself if she wasnt famous. Asked if she likes using social media, she said: I think Id enjoy it if I werent an actor. There are a lot of funny things that are shared on it, and a lot of my friends, especially during the election year, would show me really funny things that were being passed around the internet that like, went viral I dont know what qualifies something as viral.

Excerpt from:
Aubrey Plaza has 'self control' over social media | divine.ca - Divine.ca