Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 913

October 14, 2013

There Was No Trash for Glenn Beck to Pick Up on the National Mall

[image error]Glenn Beck hosted a rally on the National Mall this weekend to protest national parks being closed during the government shutdown, and he and and dozens of Tea Partiers showed their great dedication to this symbol of our nation by picking up trash on the mall. Except there wasn't really any trash to pick up. Black plastic bags twisted anemically in tea partiers' hands instead ballooning full of garbage. Animal New York's Andy Cush got video of the lush, green, trashless expanse from Aaron Black, an Occupy Wall Streeter, who, obviously, was not sympathetic to Beck's cause. "Patriots answered his call and showed that the government can't shut the people down," the conservative tweet site Twitchy said, noting Instagrams of Beck and Utah Sen. Mike Lee holding plastic bags for the cameras.

During the shutdown, the national parks have become an unlikely cause for conservatives. World War II veterans invaded their memorial when they were blocked from entering, and Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz protested veterans being unable to enter the closed parks this weekend. People at the Million Veterans March ("million" is not a literal term in Washington marches these days) left "Barrycades" in front of the White House. But at least one symbol of waste and neglect of our national treasures — trash on the mall — simply hasn't had time to accumulate for maximum photo op effectiveness.


       





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Published on October 14, 2013 14:44

Healthcare.gov Was Crippled by Bureaucracy from the Start

In some ways Healthcare.gov, a politically symbolic government IT project, was doomed from the beginning. That's the consensus several reports over the weekend reached — the bidding process for private contractors is broken, and federal officials are failing to acknowledge just how behind schedule the site was. 

According to a New York Times report on Sunday, there were several key mistakes made the by Obama administration months, even years before October 1, 2013, the debut of the Obamacare exchanges. CGI Federal, the major Healthcare.gov contractor, won its contract in December 2011, but the government took so long issuing the specifications for the project that CGI didn't start working until this spring. Several senior officials in the Department of Health and Human Services expressed doubts about the project, while others from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (tasked with managing the Healthcare.gov rollout) knew they didn't have the time or money to finish the project. In June, the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, said the site had a lot of work to do before October.

In a better, less political world the site launch would have been delayed, and everyone would have just understood. But the Obama administration was worried about giving Republicans fuel for their anti-Obamacare fire, so officials were told failure wasn't an option. The site would open as planned on October 1, just as government officials like Marilyn B. Tavenner, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said it would. We saw how well that turned out. 

It's not just that the contractor started work late. There are also been concerns about the way that the contractors were vetted. A report last night from the Washington Examiner claims that the government only accepted one bid for the designing of Healthcare.gov, from CGI Federal. CGI, based in Montreal, has a history of less than stellar work, including a failed online medical registry for Ontario, Canada. 

As Alex Howard wrote at BuzzFeed yesterday, the root of the federal exchange site's problems may be the way the government selects contractors for IT projects. As Howard notes, the rules that govern how contractors are selected are meant to protect against corruption, but they also stifle experimentation and innovation. Howard wrote:

The trouble is that all those rules are selecting for huge companies that are very good at getting contracts, not necessarily in delivering results. They’re also giving chief information officers and procurement officers an incentive to avoid the risk of working with newer firms, as opposed to managing it.

President Obama's former chief information officer once called the big enterprise companies, who also send lobbyist to the hill to influence legislation and projects, the "IT cartel." And though Obama and his administration have made strides towards improving the process, it's pretty far down on his second term checklist. Which is too bad, because the best and only consistently functional part of healthcare.gov, the home page, was designed by a D.C. start-up. Imagine if they'd designed the whole thing.


       





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Published on October 14, 2013 07:09

Which One of These People Will Save the World Economy?

The steam train of our economy continues on its merry way over the cliff's edge of default after a weekend of negotiations went nowhere. With proposals still wandering around the Capitol — one of which (hopefully!) will end up averting catastrophe — we decided to play oddsmaker on which elected official's leadership will save the American economy. (Treasury Secretary Jack Lew would have done the bookmaking, but he's spending a lot of time the phone. "No, it's in the mail." "What? We sent it last week. Weird.")

Rep. Paul Ryan

Odds: 10-to-1

National Review's Robert Costa, journalistic Freud to the Republican psyche over the past several weeks, has suggested that Ryan has been positioning himself to step into a leadership position in the budget debate. The divide preventing resolution, as it has been from the beginning, has been between the Republican House and the Democratic Senate, the former of which has consistently pushed for concessions and the latter of which has consistently said, no, let's fund the government and raise the debt ceiling.

According to Costa's report on Monday, here's Paul's opening bid to split the difference:

In the House, budget chairman Paul Ryan’s allies tell me he’s leading the talks, and looking hard at a package that would extend the debt ceiling for six weeks and include a handful of conservative provisions, such as strengthening the eligibility requirements for Obamacare and an elimination of the federal contributions for congressional health-care plans. But this gambit is far from policy; it’s more of a contingency plan, should Republicans struggle to craft an alternative.

At this point it's worth noting that "saving the world economy" is a very low, very easily surmountable bar: raise the debt ceiling, avoid potential catastrophe. So Ryan's gambit here, as Costa notes, isn't meant to permanently fix any points of contention — it's literally meant to avoid that catastrophe by putting together something everyone can support as they hop that low bar.

So why the not-great, 10-to-1 odds? Because everyone can't support the proposal, as it will likely be introduced. On Twitter, Costa offered more detail on the "conservative provisions," which include the Vitter and Lankford amendments, both of which are poison pills for Democrats. (We'll get into those more below.) And Ryan's proposal echoes the Republican's prior offerings: The Democrats give something up, and catastrophe is avoided. Not spectacular progress.

But he's got huge incentive to make something work. (That incentive is called "2016.") And he has confidence from conservative leaders.

Paul Ryan emerging as real leader. Responsible, consistent and on top of big issues.

— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) October 14, 2013
Sen. Lindsey Graham

Odds: 45,000-to-1

Rep. James Lankford

Odds: 35,000-to-1

Graham appears to have been reminded over the weekend that he is facing a conservative Republican primary opponent. He's not too vulnerable, but it seems he still decided he needed to establish his bona fides. And so, the prominent Republican senator is a new-found convert to the Vitter amendment.

The Vitter amendment, proposed by Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, simply removes the employer contribution for federal employees' health care plans. It is basically an attempt to force congressional staff to replicate the experience of being an individual using the Obamacare insurance exchanges: same plans, same out-of-pocket costs. The amendment has been excoriated by the conservative National Review, among others. But the soundbite — Make Congress subject to Obamacare! — is popular among conservatives. So not surprisingly, Graham is championing it. (No one on the Hill actually likes it, including John Boehner.)

And then there's the amendment from Oklahoma Republican James Lankford, which would impose mandatory spending cuts for every few months if no budget has been passed. The goal is to spur Congress to action on the budget. But as The Washington Post points out, that's hardly a disincentive for Republicans.

That's not a world in which there are "continued incentives for Congress and the President to reach agreement on regular appropriations bills." It's a world in which Republicans who want spending cuts have a continued incentive to refuse to reach agreement on bills to fund the government.

Don't think that's the case? In February, Boehner and the House Republicans tried their best to pin the "devastating" sequestration — comprised of similar mandatory cuts — on President Obama. By September, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor suggested that a sequestration-level budget at this point would mean Obama was "endorsing" such levels against the will of the Democrats.

Either Graham's or Lankford's advocacy could result in a deal. Neither is very likely at all.

Sen. Susan Collins

Odds: 50-to-1

Collins, a Maine Republican, stepped to the forefront over the weekend, offering a bill similar to Ryan's proposal: an extension of the debt-ceiling, a delay on a tax on medical device manufacturers, income verification systems for those applying for insurance in the Obamacare exchanges, and a short-term resolution to fund the government. One of the sticking points was the length of that resolution: Democrats want one that lasts only until the middle of January, before the next round of sequestration cuts kicks in. Collins' proposal was rejected by Democrats.

But the other problem is that it's not clear Collins can carry something that works in the House as well. Which brings us to …

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell

Odds: 40-to-1

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

Odds: 100-to-1

Vice President Joe Biden

Odds: 10,000-to-1

There are two simple reasons that McConnell could play the role of savior on the debt. The first is that McConnell was one of the architects of the 2011 debt ceiling deal, along with Vice President Joe Biden. The second is that, as the highest-ranking Republican in the Senate, he is in a position of some influence over any final deal, as it would need at least some Senate Republican support for passage.

In the aftermath of the defeat of the Collins proposal, Politico reports that McConnell and Reid are "quietly meeting" (with their seconds, Sens. Alexander and Schumer) in an attempt to craft something that could work for all involved. Reid, for his part, has been trying to advance the Democratic position for weeks, so it seems likely that resolution is far more within McConnell's power.

As for Biden, Democrats (including Reid) weren't exactly thrilled with his work in 2011. Reid has reportedly been deliberate about keeping the VP on the sidelines. Over the weekend, Biden was at Camp David on vacation, apparently of his own volition. Republicans like John McCain would love to have him back; on Face the Nation, the senator suggested that Biden was in witness protection.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi

Odds: 250-to-1

Given that the House is beholden to the whims of the Republican majority (and that that majority is beholden to the whims of its most conservative subsection), there's not much Pelosi can do to advance a debt ceiling increase. She has repeatedly pointed out to anyone who will listen, that nearly all of her 200-member caucus will vote to pass an increase to the debt ceiling and a funding bill. She's said that from Day One, of course, and it has repeatedly and aggressively been ignored. So it seems unlikely that she'll suddenly step into a position of prominence at this point.

Speaker of the House John Boehner

Odds: 1,000,000-to-1

The odds here are simple. Even if Boehner crafts a package that garners support from every living Democrat and Republican, it would take an awful lot to become America's savior. It would be like giving an award for heroism to one of those pyromaniac firefighters even after you figured out why he always had so much gasoline in the bed of his truck. The very best Boehner can hope for at this point is not to be "on the other hand" example in discussions of speakers for any and all future political science classes.

President Barack Obama

Odds: no bets

The president gets to sign whatever bill comes out of the Congress, if any, so he gets to be the actual savior by default. No bets.

No deal is reached

Odds: 10-to-1

A word to the wise: If you use these odds for any office pool or what-have-you, insist on receiving your winnings in cash. Maybe gold. If no deal is reached, you'll get 10-to-1 odds, but there may be no banks from which to draw checks.


       





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Published on October 14, 2013 06:59

Hundreds Arrested After Violent Race Riots Break Out in Moscow

Riot police were called to calm massive riots that broke out in Moscow over the weekend that highlighted a simmering racial tension between ethnic Russians and Muslims from the Caucasus that's always threatening to boil over.

Police arrested hundreds of people after Yegor Shcherbakov, a 25-year-old ethnic Russian, was killed in Moscow's Biryulyovo district on Sunday. The Associated Press says Shcherbakov was stabbed after a dispute erupted over his girlfriend while the couple was walking home on Thursday. Local media released a photo of the suspect, a man described as having a "non-Slavic appearance." Many Russian citizens concluded that the culprit was a Muslim migrant from the North Caucasus and started a relatively peaceful protest. Things eventually got out of hand when a small group started smashing windows in a shopping mall and raiding a vegetable stand that's known to employ many migrant workers. The group becoming increasingly unruly, smashing anything in sight, overturning cars, throwing hammers at police and chanting racist slogans just a few blocks away from the Kremlin. 

Many have called Sunday's riots the worst case of anti-migrant anger in three years, reigniting a longstanding distrust of a region that been the home of a lengthy and bloody separatist movement since the fall of the Soviet Union. As reuters explains further

The rioting in Biryulyovo was the worth outbreak of unrest over a racially charged incident in Moscow since December 2010, when several thousand youths rioted just outside the Kremlin.

The youths clashed with police and attacked passersby who they took for non-Russians after the killing of an ethnic Russian soccer fan was blamed on a man from the North Caucasus.

Riot police were eventually called to rein in the very violent demonstrations. The number of people reportedly arrested varies, but the BBC puts it close to 1,200. Though it should be noted that Russian police still haven't identified what charges they'll bring against any of the people arrested during the riots, saying only that they're investigating "involvement in criminal activity." 


       





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Published on October 14, 2013 06:58

SNL's Taran Killam Brings Bond's Illegitimate Children to Life (Sort Of)

[image error]The new comic book from Saturday Night Live's Taran Killam imagines that a James Bond-like s super-spy dies. To replace him, his agency brings together a team made up of his illegitimate children."I feel like Bond has been called ‘you bastard,’ in that phraseology of it, and we just took it in the more literal sense," Killam said. 

Killam appeared alongside his co-writer Marc Andreyko—who recently took over Batwoman for DC after her latest controversy—to hook the Comic Con audience on The Illegitimates, but the conversation turned into a wide ranging discussion which touched on Killam's comedy (Miley "won a lot of people over" on SNL) and Bond tropes (Killam loves Adele's "Skyfall"), even though Andreyko explained that they're "not doing copyright infringement" with their take on the legacy of a suave super-spy. 

Killam pitched Andreyko on the idea about five or six years ago—"before I mattered," he quipped—but thanks to a fortuitous encounter with DC editor Mike Marts, he found an artist, Kevin Sharpe, and the idea began to take life. The first issue establishes the Bond-ish lothario ways of Jack Steele, whose head is very quickly blown to bits. So the agency he works for, Olympus, introduces "Project Sire," creating the team of Steele's, well, spawn. Killam told the panel he likes the concept of a team whether it's The Dirty Dozen or The Avengers. "I like Maria Hill a lot," Andreyko said, referencing the part Killam's wife, Cobie Smulders, plays in the Marvel franchise. 

When we talked with Killam in the Con's Artist Alley after the panel, he said some of the inspiration came from the end of Bond movies, including Goldfinger and The World Is Not Enough, the latter of which featured what he called one of the series' "grossest" closing lines (regarding Bond Girl Christmas Jones, Agent 007 quipped, "I thought Christmas only comes once a year"). "That was like 'ughhhh' and that was just so graphic," Killam said. "It’s like, if he is coming, there could be major repercussions of that."  The comic, however, is not Austin Powers, Killam explained to the panel audience. "We didn’t want it to be making fun of the franchise and how ridiculous," he said. "It's more, how wonderful is the ridiculous."

The ridiculous, in this case —the idea that Bond (or, rather, Steele) has been having so much unprotected sex over so many years — wrestles with the complicated mythology of the Bond Girl. "Obviously, Bond has roots in misogyny," Killam told us. "It’s amazing what having a daughter will do to change your perception on just male and female roles. I also think there’s something very feminine about the character of Bond. He's very sensual in himself. So it only makes sense that of the five kids we meet, the alpha, the strongest, and in many ways the most macho is actually the female." That alpha is the South African Saalinge M'Chumba, the only one of the children with espionage experience. One of the male members of the team is a "cowardly lion" MMA fighter and underwear model. There's also, of course, the possibility that more than the initial five kids are out there. "He was very much like Johnny Appleseed," Andreyko said of their super-spy. 

For now, according to Killam, the kids have their own problems: "Daddy issues galore." 


       





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Published on October 14, 2013 06:50

Man 'Humiliated' When Suitcase Plastered with 'I Am Gay' at Airport

An Australian-based airline has apologized and said they are investigating the incident where employees plastered  "I Am Gay" down the side of someone's suitcase.  That turned out to be  embarrassing for the stay-at-home dad who owns that particular piece of luggage.

Here's the "gay" suitcase in question:

Utterly disgusted to find my luggage front and center on the @JetstarAirways luggage carousel looking like this. pic.twitter.com/ErU7LhRZDd

— Sleepysaurus Rex! (@aaronpp) October 13, 2013

Other details of the Internet-famous incident are slim in some spots. We don't officially know the last name of the man (he goes by Aaron on Twitter) who owned the suitcase. But we do know that the gay-ing of the suitcase happened between a flight from Perth to Brisbane on an airline called Jetstar over the weekend.

Aaron  blogged about the incident on Monday, explaining to the Internet that carousel-gate made him realize how terrible it is to be a gay person sometimes:

I am a white heterosexual male. This trifecta of privilege means that I'm not routinely subjected to prejudice. But for a few minutes I got to walk in the shoes of a gay person in a public place. For no good reason I had had a slur marked over my luggage. I was degraded. I was shamed. I was humiliated.

 Aaron added:

For me, this was only a few minutes of one day of my life. If what I felt for those few minutes is extrapolated out every day over a lifetime, then I can fully understand why our gay friends feel persecuted and why they have such high rates of suicide. It is unacceptable.

Now is probably as good a time as ever to remind everyone that calling someone "gay" is not an insult. "Gay" is a descriptor, just like calling someone Asian, white, black, brunette, blonde, or Christian. But imagine if Aaron got a bag tagged "I am black/Christian/Asian/female/etc." and then wrote about how offended he felt and how much pain he now knows. Though his intentions are sincere and solid, his response could have been worded better.  Whoever tagged that piece of luggage wanted to embarrass someone, but the first response to being called "gay" shouldn't have to be that it's a slur.

Slur or not, the airline has responded accordingly. "We are taking this matter very seriously and we have contacted the passenger to apologize for any distress caused," Jetstar said in a statement.


       





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Published on October 14, 2013 06:35

Kabul's Optimistic New Water Park

Afghanistan's future stability remains unclear at best, but that didn't stop four local investors from pooling together $5 million to build the new Kabul Water Park.


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The 24,760-square-foot facility comes with all the standard bells and whistles of your typical water park, including huge slides, a wave pool, and kids area. Admission costs 500 Afghanis ($9) and comes with a full body search from armed guards before entering. Men and women are separated, but girls can use the same areas as the opposite sex until the age of 10.

For Mahmod Najafi, one of the water park's managers, the investment is a statement. "My message to other Afghan businessmen is that if we don't invest because of concerns about 2014, we will remain backward," he tells Reuters. "Every Afghan has to work individually to promote this country."

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All images: Reuters/Omar Sobhani.


       





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Published on October 14, 2013 06:04

Meet the Women Who Are Changing Marvel and Comics

[image error]Kelly Sue DeConnick doesn't care about being liked. She doesn't care about making someone else uncomfortable. And she, for the most part, doesn't care about hurting feelings. She has to be tough as Captain Marvel, the heroine she writes, so her daughter and your daughter won't have to. "I am willing to make other people uncomfortable so my daughter won't have to," DeConnick said during the Women of Marvel panel at New York Comic Con on Sunday. "I appreciate and I am proud of the progress that’s being made and I don’t want to sweep it under the table. But this job ain’t done. Nobody sit down!" she said, after being asked about the criticism that minorities and women were making "too big a deal" of wanting to be represented in comics. 

"Having Kelly Sue be such an outspoken, unapologetic feminist is so wonderful. Those are the voices we need in industries like that so, like she said, our daughters (and our gay sons and our trans kids and any of our kids if we're not white) don't have to," writer Sam Einhorn told me. Einhorn blogs about feminism and the comics industry and attended Sunday's panel. "I'm glad Marvel not only has a voice saying 'we can do better' and 'our work isn't done' (and also occasionally 'shut up dude') but that they keep her around and give her books to write," Einhorn added. 

[image error]DeConnick, with her cherry-soda tinted hair and spike-studded heels, is perhaps the most influential, recognized and vocal feminist in comics today. What she writes and her place in Marvel's boy's club (she was the only female at Marvel's Inhumanity panel on Saturday) inspires comic-reading men and women. And I only say 'perhaps' because the woman that she currently writes, Carol Danvers a.k.a. Captain Marvel (and formerly known as Ms. Marvel), is giving DeConnick a run for her money.

Over the last year, DeConnick has taken Danvers and turned her into the one of the most powerful, complex, and unbreakable heroes in the Marvel universe. (In the first Captain Marvel comic, Danvers is quick to remind a villain, along with the audience, that she outranks Captain America.) And in doing that,  Danvers has become one of the most popular heroes among women (and men) and proved the "women don't read comics" and "men aren't interested in stories about female superheroes" tropes are wrong.

DeConnick has accomplished a lot in the past year. But neither she nor her nine Marvel colleagues (artists, editors, writers) who were a part of Sunday's panel—Sara Pichelli, Janet Lee, Stephanie Hans, Jeanine Schaeffer, Sana Amanat, Lauren Sankovitch, Emily Shaw, Ellie Pyle, and Judy Stephens — have any plans of resting on their work and Captain Marvel's cosmic laurels.

The women were there to show the beauty of working at Marvel, but also weren't shy about confirming that the comics industry is still a male-dominated field where sexism exists. It was just last month that Marvel godfather Stan Lee said there was no need for the company to "knock ourselves out" to create a female superhero movie because women paid to see The Avengers; and during a different panel on the topic of women in the comics industry this week, a female comics creator pointed out that that the gender gap was worse than Wall Street. 

[image error]"I think that the message is that no one is 'other,' that white males are not the 'default human being,'" DeConnick said on Comic Con's final day, crystallizing her credo. A glance around the room on Sunday proved that. The people that came to see these women speak came in all in all shapes, sizes, colors, and ages. "We’ve all felt like outsiders in our own way, and you can use that medium to address people who are outsiders and show that everyone actually is on the same playing field," said Sana Amanat, who edits Captain Marvel.  She said she feels lucky as a woman of color within the industry that she can "try to use the books to be inclusive."

The panel announced that She-Hulk (about time), and Black Widow would be getting solo books soon; also, the all-female X-Men book will continue and add Monet to the roster. So, yes, there are more stories and spotlights on women than there were yesterday; however, a majority of those stories are still being written by men. While a man (see: Claremont's Storm) can successfully write a strong female protagonist, DeConnick and her colleagues want to underscore women and minorities can — and should — tell those stories, too. 

"We need you to be ready," DeConnick said. "You will need each other. You will make stories that make you feel connected to others and the world and we will need that from you. Don’t be afraid. Start now." DeConnick has a new arc and book for Captain Marvel planned for March. 


       





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Published on October 14, 2013 05:50

More Than 100 Hindu Worshippers Killed in Stampede

Dozens of religious revelers were killed on Sunday when panicked crowds caused a stampede at Hindu festival in India. The tragedy occurred on the final day of Navaratra festival, which brings nearly half a million people to the small temple at the village of Ratangarh. The stampede was triggered when thousands of pilgrims tried to quickly escape a narrow foot bridge after rumors began to spread that the bridge would soon collapse.

At last count, the death toll had reached 111, but could be much higher, as many of the victims fell, jumped, or were pushed off the bridge and may have been washed away in the river below. Al Jazeera reports that many people leapt into the water, with some mothers throwing their children over the side in the hopes of saving them.

In 2006, nearly 50 people were killed after a similar stampede in almost the exact same location, leading the original bridge to be torn and replaced. Many people are now blaming police and local authorities for exacerbating the situation with poor planning and an even poorer response. Witnesses say police attempt to control the scene charged into the crowds with batons drawn, a move that only increased the panic among people.

The incident took place on the same weekend India was hit by a major cyclone, though the Ratangarh temple was far inland and unaffected by the storm. 


       





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Published on October 14, 2013 04:26

Someone Actually Bought Cory Booker's Startup

Waywire, a stagnant video sharing startup probably most famous for having the name Cory Booker attached to it, has been bought by another web video distributor, Magnify. To be fair, Booker got rid of his stake in the company back in September in the midst of his Senate run. That in itself came hot on the heels of news that the startup was for sale and the CNN head honcho Jeff Zucker's 15-year-old had somehow been handed an advisory role with the company—a move that raised considerable eyebrows.

It is unknown exactly how much Waywire sold for, even with investors like Eric Schmidt and Oprah Winfrey attached to it. Techcrunch reports that acquiring Waywire is Magnify's way of buying into the consumer video business:

According to a source familiar with the deal, Waywire has one thing that Magnify doesn’t right now — and that’s deals with a bunch of media companies. Acquiring Waywire will give Magnify instant access to a library of videos from companies like AOL, Yahoo, and MSNBC, which consumers would be able to curate, collect, and share.

The site has struggled with an identity crisis for a while. Whether magnify can turn it into a "consumer-facing video curation powerhouse" remains to be seen.


       





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Published on October 14, 2013 00:45

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