Why the Atlantic removed the Scientology advertorial

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – The Atlantic apologized on Tuesday for posting a sponsored advertorial from the Church of Scientology, celebrating its leader David Miscavige.

The sponsored post, which went live Monday at 9:25 a.m. PT, touted 2012 as “milestone year” for the secretive church, which has been steeped in controversy throughout the years.

It was taken down about 8:30 p.m. and replaced by a message saying the magazine had “temporarily suspended this advertising campaign pending a review of our policies that govern sponsor content and subsequent comment threads.”

“We screwed up,” Natalie Raabe, an Atlantic spokeswoman told TheWrap after the firestorm of criticism and mockery the advertisement generated on the web. “It shouldn’t have taken a wave of constructive criticism – but it has – to alert us that we’ve made a mistake, possibly several mistakes.”

The Atlantic issued the following statement:

We screwed up. It shouldn’t have taken a wave of constructive criticism – but it has – to alert us that we’ve made a mistake, possibly several mistakes. We now realize that as we explored new forms of digital advertising, we failed to update the policies that must govern the decisions we make along the way. It’s safe to say that we are thinking a lot more about these policies after running this ad than we did beforehand. In the meantime, we have decided to withdraw the ad until we figure all of this out. We remain committed to and enthusiastic about innovation in digital advertising, but acknowledge – sheepishly – that we got ahead of ourselves. We are sorry, and we’re working very hard to put things right.

The timing of the ad was no surprise. New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright’s book-length exposé on Scientology – based on his 2011 profile of former Scientologist Paul Haggis – is due out Thursday.

Sponsored content, otherwise known as native ads or advertorials, have become a popular source of revenue for online publications, including Forbes and Business Insider.

But, normally, advertisers do not want comment threads under their paid-for content, and while this has never been a problem for previous Atlantic clients, the heated feelings surrounding Scientology erupted in the comment section below the article.

The Atlantic’s marketing team was moderating the comments – about 20 in all before the post was pulled – as they were posted, Raabe said.

“In this case, where a mistake was made, where we are taking a hard look at these things, is there were comments allowed on this post,” an Atlantic official with knowledge of the situation told TheWrap. “For a subject like this where people very strong feelings, we realized there’s not a clear policy in place for things like commenting.”

The Church of Scientology told TheWrap no one was available to speak on the controversy, and its media relations team did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Why the Atlantic removed the Scientology advertorial
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/why-the-atlantic-removed-the-scientology-advertorial/
Link To Post : Why the Atlantic removed the Scientology advertorial
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Washington Heights Exclusive Sneak Peek

Emotions are running high in The Heights this week as Ludwin struggles to keep it together in the face of family drama while his needy girlfriend Diana demands attention he can no longer give. 

Video: Is 'Buckwild' the New 'Jersey Shore'?

Check out an exclusive sneak peek of the drama-filled episode in the player above!

Washington Heights airs Wednesday at 10:00 p.m. on MTV.

Read More..

LI drunk driver who crashed through elderly woman's house gets 1 1/2 years

A Long Island drunk driver was sentenced today for blasting his parents’ Mercedes into an elderly woman’s house — but his lawyer claimed that he only plead guilty to the crime to protect his ex-girlfriend, who was really behind the wheel.

“I’m telling you that my client wasn’t the one driving that night,” said William Keahon, the lawyer for Dan Sajewski, 23, who was sentenced to one and a half years in prison.

Instead, he said, Sajewski’s Brooklyn hipster girlfriend, Sophia Anderson — who has since moved back to Connecticut with her parents to recover from her hard-partying days — drive the car into the Huntington house.

Victor Alcorn

“He pleaded guilty because he cares for Sophia and didn’t want her to face this,” Keahon said, adding Anderson wrote Sajewski a tender letter in prison thanking him for agreeing to plead guilty.

Initially, Anderson almost took the rap for the May 23, 2012 accident because Sajewski was already on probation for a drug charge, said her lawyer, John LoTurco.

"Sophia didn't need to be protected by Daniel," LoTurco said.

"She needed to be protected from Daniel. Sophia was protected by the truth and the overwhelming evidence establishing Daniel as the driver."

LoTurco blasted Keahon's claim -- and portrayed Sajewski was trying to take advantage of a vulnerable young girl to save his own hide. Anderson was 21 years old at the time of the crash.

Sajewski, who has theft and drug charges on his rap sheet, appeared stoic yesterday during his brief sentencing in Riverhead.

He had lived with Anderson in Bushwick before the accident split them up.

Anderson is slated for sentencing Thursday and will likely avoid jail time by pleading to violations related to the crash, sources said.

Read More..

.CO sets sights on changing ‘the fabric of the Internet’

For the millions of people who equate the Web with .com, . CO Internet is out to change that mindset.

The Miami company that manages and markets the .co domain is already making impressive gains — more than 1.4 million in 200 countries have hung their businesses, blogs, personal projects or dreams on a .co virtual shingle. Still, that’s just a tiny fraction of industry titan VeriSign’s 105 million .com registrants.

“We want to change the fabric of the Internet,” Juan Diego Calle, founder and CEO of .CO Internet, said during an interview in .CO’s Brickell office. “We can only make that happen not by changing what happened in the last 25 years of the Web, which is owned by .com. We want to change the next 25.”

About 2½ years after the launch of .CO Internet, .co — the country code of Colombia — continues to be one of the fastest-growing Internet domains in the world and grew by 24 percent in 2012. .CO Internet is profitable and is projecting to bring in more than $25 million in revenues this year, the company said. The early success of .CO Internet, with operations in Miami and Colombia, is powered by passion and perseverance.

Calle moved to Miami from Colombia at age 15 with his family. He started several businesses, including one he sold in 2005 providing seed capital for what would come next. “I can’t say I ever sat still.” When he learned Colombia would be commercializing the country's .co domain extension in late 2006, he said it hit him like a lightning bolt.

With the right strategy and by “marketing the hell out of it,” the entrepreneur believed .co could solve a huge problem in the market — vanishing Internet domain names. If you’ve tried to nab a new .com address lately, you can relate — it’s difficult to find one that hasn’t been snatched up.

Calle thought that by appealing to the hearts and minds of the entrepreneur, .co could go where .info, .biz, .net or .me had never gone before. But first he needed the right team.

One of this first stops: The Big Apple, to visit Nicolai Bezsonoff, who had been an advisor and shareholder in Calle’s TeRespondo.com, a sort of Ask Jeeves for the Latin American market that was sold to Yahoo in 2005. At the time, Bezsonoff was the director of technology and operations at Citigroup.

“We went out for coffee, he started pitching me on a napkin. I said ‘really dude you want me to leave a big job at Citigroup for this?’ ” said Bezsonoff. “But he kept showing me the numbers … Later, that napkin was on my desk and it was one of those boring days and I kept looking at it and thought maybe I should.” He would become .CO’s chief operating officer.

Lori Anne Wardi, a lawyer and serial entrepreneur who was working at a venture capital firm at the time, became vice president in charge of brand strategy, business development and global communications. “She’s the heart and soul of the company,” said Calle. Eduardo Santoyo, based in Bogota, would become corporate vice president over policy and be the liaison with the Colombian government. “Some would say it was overkill talent but I needed the best. ... When you have a big dream, you have to think big and hire the right people,” Calle said.

Read More..

Children living in home of missing baby taken into DCF custody

The four young siblings of Brittney Sierra, the mother of a Hallandale Beach baby whose remains may have been found behind their former rental home last week, have been taken into custody by the Department of Children & Families.

The children, 8-year-old twins, a 10-year-old boy and an 11-year-old girl, are the children of Renee Menendez, Sierra’s mother.

Sierra’s other two children had already been taken into DCF custody.

DCF picked up the children late Friday due to a “prior history” with the family, said spokeswoman Paige Patterson-Hughes. The were put into a state shelter over the weekend.

On Monday, a Broward County judge ordered there be no contact between the children and their parents.

Meanwhile, Sierra, 21, and Calvin Melvin, 27, are being held in Broward County jails on child neglect charges. The each are being held on $100,000 bond. Sierra is being represented by public defender Don Williams.

Tiny skeletal remains were unearthed behind the home at 106 NW First Ave., in Hallandale Beach Friday and Saturday. They are presumed to be those of 5-month-old Dontrell Melvin, who has not been seen in 18 months.

“The medical examiner will be examining the remains found on Friday and Saturday,” said Hallandale Police Chief Dwayne Flournoy. “DNA testing will be conducted for a positive ID. Until then, this is still an investigation of a missing persons case and a homicide case.”

He said that how soon the information becomes available depends on “the scientists and the protocols they use.”

Melvin and Sierra and two of Sierra’s children moved into another Hallandale Beach home just five blocks west of where they had been living when Dontrell disappeared about a year ago. They moved in with Sierra’s mother and her own four children.

The search for Dontrell began last week when authorities responded to a Department of Children & Families hotline call of alleged child neglect. When police arrived at the home, they found only two of Sierra’s children where there when there were supposed to be three.

Melvin had an explanation: He had taken Dontrell to live with his parents — the boy’s grandparents — because he and Sierra were experiencing financial difficulties. Officers went to the grandparents’ Pompano Beach home to check out the story, but the grandparents said it wasn’t true.

Police went back to talk to Melvin, but he was gone. He later turned himself in.

Melvin later offered police a variety of stories about his son’s disappearance. One was that he had left the boy at a North Miami-Dade fire station — which is legal under the state’s Safe Haven law, though only for about a week after a child’s birth.

Police didn’t believe him.

Sierra initially told police that Melvin walked out of their Hallandale Beach home with Dontrell in July 2011 — and came back without him. When she pressed Melvin about what he had done with the boy, he said he had given the child to his parents. She said she believed him, and life went on in the Hallandale Beach house, minus Dontrell.

Melvin and Sierra would have another child. There was also a third child — one by a different father — in the household.

Throughout the coming months, no one — not Sierra, not Melvin, not the boy’s grandparents nor other family members — reported to authorities that Dontrell had vanished.

Read More..

Smartphone data consumption tops tablets for the first time ever

Title Post: Smartphone data consumption tops tablets for the first time ever
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/smartphone-data-consumption-tops-tablets-for-the-first-time-ever/
Link To Post : Smartphone data consumption tops tablets for the first time ever
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

REPORT: Lance Armstrong Tells Oprah Winfrey He Doped

After more than a decade of denials, Lance Armstrong has reportedly come clean to Oprah Winfrey.

RELATED: Armstrong Agrees to Oprah Interview

According to The Associated Press, a person close to the situation spoke on a condition of anonymity, claiming that Armstrong confessed to using performance-enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France during an interview with Oprah for OWN's Oprah's Next Chapter.

ABC News reports that Armstrong spoke to about 100 Livestrong Foundation staffers in Austin, Texas prior to his interview. Spokeswoman Katherine McLane described Armstrong's speech to ABC News, calling it a "sincere and heartfelt apology" in which he "took responsibility" for any trouble that he may have brought on the foundation.

A report from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency led to Armstrong being stripped of his seven Tour titles last year, but Armstrong has maintained his innocence until now.

USADA chief executive Travis Tygart has accused Armstrong of taking part in "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen."

RELATED: Armstrong To Be Stripped of Tour De France Titles

Oprah is scheduled to appear live on CBS This Morning tomorrow, January 15. Armstrong's episode of Oprah's Next Chapter airs Thursday, January 17 at 9 p.m. on OWN.

Read More..

Lance Armstrong confesses to Oprah Winfrey: report

AUSTIN, Texas -- A person familiar with the situation says Lance Armstrong confessed to Oprah Winfrey during an interview Monday that he used performance-enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the interview is to be broadcast Thursday on Winfrey's network.

Armstrong was stripped of all seven Tour titles last year in the wake of a voluminous U.S. Anti-Doping Agency report that portrayed him as a ruthless competitor, willing to go to any lengths to win the prestigious race. USADA chief executive Travis Tygart labeled the doping regimen allegedly carried out by the U.S. Postal Service team that Armstrong once led, "The most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen."

REUTERS

Lance Armstrong

After a federal investigation of the cyclist was dropped without charges being brought last year, USADA stepped in with an investigation of its own. The agency deposed 11 former teammates and accused Armstrong of masterminding a complex and brazen drug program that included steroids, blood boosters and a range of other performance-enhancers.

Read More..

Miami Dolphins worry Marlins stand between them and a tax-funded roof for Sun Life Stadium

The Miami Dolphins are reviving their failed bid to win tax dollars for a football stadium. But team executives want no comparisons to a successful bid to win tax dollars for a baseball stadium.

Dolphins owner Stephen Ross has called a press conference for Monday to unveil a plan for an improved Sun Life Stadium. Sources say the plan will include asking state and local governments to help pay for a $400 million renovation of the 1987 facility.

State lawmakers in recent years rebuffed the Dolphins when the team asked for help on a less expensive renovation. And while the economy and state finances are more favorable this time around, Dolphin executives see a bigger challenge now from lingering backlash against the $639 million ballpark taxpayers built for the Miami Marlins.

“It can’t be anything close to what the Marlins did,’’ said state Sen. Oscar Braynon, a Democrat whose Miami Gardens district includes Sun Life Stadium and who sponsored a 2011 bill to raise hotel taxes to fund the Dolphins renovation plan. “Unless you do something totally counter to what the Marlins did, nobody is going to vote for it.”

Polls showed Miami and Miami-Dade’s 2009 votes to build the baseball stadium with 75 percent public money were never popular. But the Marlins’ recent stripping of star players from their payroll has made the new Little Havana park Topic A when it comes to plotting a Dolphins’ victory for winning tax dollars themselves.

Both the Marlins and the Dolphins declined to comment for this story. The Dolphins have not released details of how they want to pay for the renovation.

Dolphins executives plan to pursue two funding sources from state and local government, according to several people familiar with the team’s plans. For the first funding stream, the Dolphins plan to ask Miami-Dade to raise taxes charged mainland hotels from 6 percent to 7 percent and earmark the extra money for the stadium. The Dolphins also plan to ask Florida for an additional $2 million rebate on sales taxes on top of the $2 million the stadium already receives from the state each year under a special subsidy for professional sports teams.

Ross is expected to pledge a significant amount of the renovation money himself. Sources who have been briefed on the Dolphins’ proposal say the total pricetag for the project is $400 million. That’s almost double the renovation budget the Dolphins proposed when the team last went to the Legislature for money in 2011.

At the time, the Dolphins unveiled a $225 million redo of Sun Life with expanded sideline seating, high-definition lighting and a partial roof that would both shade seats during hot games and shield spectators from the kind of downpour that drenched the stands during the 2007 Super Bowl in Miami Gardens. The Dolphins, top executives at the NFL and some community leaders have warned that without upgrades to Sun Life, South Florida risks losing its standing as one of the nation’s top venues for the Super Bowl and college football championships.

“We need to keep up with the times,’’ said Phillis Oeters, the chair of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce. “Sports is big, big business here.”

Backlash against the 2009 Marlins deal was an obstacle when the Dolphins asked for tax money in 2010 and 2011, but the baseball team’s unloading of ace Josh Johnson, star shortstop Jose Reyes and other stand-out players in November revived public anger against the financing arrangement.

Read More..

Investigators to determine cause of fatal MacArthur Causeway boating accident

Investigators on Sunday were looking into the circumstances surrounding the death of a woman killed after the boat she was passenger in slammed into concrete pilings underneath the MacArthur Causeway bridge.

Janette Africano, 35, of Hialeah, suffered severe blunt trauma to the head or body and died Saturday afternoon after being rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center.

An autopsy will determine the exact cause death.

Africano and her boyfriend had been pleasure boating minutes before the 5 p.m. accident on the Intercostal Waterway near PortMiami, authorities said.

The accident occurred as the couple, traveling in an 18-foot white and red boat, were heading south. As they approached the MacArthur bridge, there was a cruise ship making a turn ahead of them. At that point, the couple decided to turn back north, said Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesman Jorge Pino on Sunday.

But the currents near the bridge were rough and the couple began drifting toward the pilings. Africano may have stood up and tried to stop the boat from colliding. Somehow the boat violently slammed into the piling, fatally injuring her.

Why the boat roared out of control is under investigation, Pino said. He said the accident is considered “unusual“ because it involves a single boat and neither excessive speed or alcohol appear to be a factor.

No charges have been filed as of Sunday as investigators piece together what occurred.

“We’re looking at every possible cause, including mechanical failure and the experience of the driver,” Pino said.

Read More..