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Democracy Dies Behind Paywalls

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6 months ago

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How many times has it happened? You’re on your computer, searching for a particular article, a hard-to-find fact, or a story you vaguely remember, and just when you seem to have discovered the exact right thing, a paywall descends. “$1 for Six Months.” “Save 40% on Year 1.” “Here’s Your Premium Digital Offer.” “Already a subscriber?” Hmm, no.

Now you’re faced with that old dilemma: to pay or not to pay. (Yes, you may face this very dilemma reading this story in The Atlantic.) And it’s not even that simple. It’s a monthly or yearly subscription—“Cancel at any time.” Is this article or story or fact important enough for you to pay?

Or do you tell yourself—as the overwhelming number of people do—that you’ll just keep searching and see if you can find it somewhere else for free?

According to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, more than 75 percent of America’s leading newspapers, magazines, and journals are behind online paywalls. And how do American news consumers react to that? Almost 80 percent of Americans steer around those paywalls and seek out a free option.

Paywalls create a two-tiered system: credible, fact-based information for people who are willing to pay for it, and murkier, less-reliable information for everyone else. Simply put, paywalls get in the way of informing the public, which is the mission of journalism. And they get in the way of the public being informed, which is the foundation  of democracy. It is a terrible time for the press to be failing at reaching people, during an election in which democracy is on the line. There’s a simple, temporary solution: Publications should suspend their paywalls for all 2024 election coverage and all information that is beneficial to voters. Democracy does not die in darkness—it dies behind paywalls.

The problem is not just that professionally produced news is behind a wall; the problem is that paywalls increase the proportion of free and easily available stories that are actually filled with misinformation and disinformation. Way back in 1995 (think America Online), the UCLA professor Eugene Volokh predicted that the rise of “cheap speech”—free internet content—would not only democratize mass media by allowing new voices, but also increase the proliferation of misinformation and conspiracy theories, which would then destabilize mass media.

Paul Barrett, the deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights and one of the premier scholars on mis- and disinformation, told me he knows of no research on the relationship between paywalls and misinformation. “But it stands to reason,” he said, “that if people seeking news are blocked by the paywalls that are increasingly common on serious professional journalism websites, many of those people are going to turn to less reliable sites where they’re more likely to encounter mis- and disinformation.”

In the pre-internet days, information wasn’t free—it just felt that way. Newsstands were everywhere, and you could buy a paper for a quarter. But that paper wasn’t just for you: After you read it at the coffee shop or on the train, you left it there for the next guy. The same was true for magazines. When I was the editor of Time, the publisher estimated that the “pass-along rate” of every issue was 10 to 15—that is, each magazine we sent out was read not only by the subscriber, but by 10 to 15 other people. In 1992, daily newspapers claimed a combined circulation of some 60 million; by 2022, while the nation had grown, that figure had fallen to 21 million. People want information to be free—and instantly available on their phone.

Barrett is aware that news organizations need revenue, and that almost a third of all U.S. newspapers have stopped publishing over the previous two decades. “It’s understandable that traditional news-gathering businesses are desperate for subscription revenue,” he told me, “but they may be inadvertently boosting the fortunes of fake news operations motivated by an appetite for clicks or an ideological agenda—or a combination of the two.”

Digital-news consumers can be divided into three categories: a small, elite group that pays hundreds to thousands of dollars a year for high-end subscriptions; a slightly larger group of people with one to three news subscriptions; and the roughly 80 percent of Americans who will not or cannot pay for information. Some significant percentage of this latter category are what scholars call “passive” news consumers—people who do not seek out information, but wait for it to come to them, whether from their social feeds, from friends, or from a TV in an airport. Putting reliable information behind paywalls increases the likelihood that passive news consumers will receive bad information.

In the short history of social media, the paywall was an early hurdle to getting good information; now there are newer and more perilous problems. The Wall Street Journal instituted a “hard paywall” in 1996. The Financial Times formally launched one in 2002. Other publications experimented with them, including The New York Times, which established its subscription plan and paywall in 2011. In 2000, I was the editor of Time.com, Time magazine’s website, when these experiments were going on. The axiom then was that “must have” publications like The Wall Street Journal could get away with charging for content, while “nice to have” publications like Time could not. Journalists were told that “information wants to be free.” But the truth was simpler: People wanted free information, and we gave it to them. And they got used to it.

Of course, publications need to cover their costs, and journalists need to be paid. Traditionally, publications had three lines of revenue: subscriptions, advertising, and newsstand sales. Newsstand sales have mostly disappeared. The internet should have been a virtual newsstand, but buying individual issues or articles is almost impossible. The failure to institute a frictionless mechanism for micropayments to purchase news was one of the greatest missteps in the early days of the web. Some publications would still be smart to try it.

I’d argue that paywalls are part of the reason Americans’ trust in media is at an all-time low. Less than a third of Americans in a recent Gallup poll say they have “a fair amount” or a “a great deal” of trust that the news is fair and accurate. A large percentage of these Americans see media as being biased. Well, part of the reason they think media are biased is that most fair, accurate, and unbiased news sits behind a wall. The free stuff needn’t be fair or accurate or unbiased. Disinformationists, conspiracy theorists, and Russian and Chinese troll farms don’t employ fact-checkers and libel lawyers and copy editors.

Part of the problem with the current, free news environment is that the platform companies, which are the largest distributors of free news, have deprioritized news. Meta has long had an uncomfortable relationship with news on Facebook. In the past year, according to CNN, Meta has changed its algorithm in a way that has cost some news outlets 30 to 40 percent of their traffic (and others more). Threads, Meta’s answer to X, is “not going to do anything to encourage” news and politics on the platform, says Adam Mosseri, the executive who oversees it. “My take is, from a platforms’ perspective, any incremental engagement or revenue [news] might drive is not at all worth the scrutiny, negativity (let’s be honest), or integrity risks that come along with them.” The platform companies are not in the news business; they are in the engagement business. News is less engaging than, say, dance shorts or chocolate-chip-cookie recipes—or eye-catching conspiracy theories.

As the platforms have diminished news, they have also weakened their integrity and content-moderation teams, which enforce community standards or terms of service. No major platform permits false advertising, child pornography, hate speech, or speech that leads to violence; the integrity and moderation teams take down such content. A recent paper from Barrett’s team at the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights argues that the greatest tech-related threat in 2024 is not artificial intelligence or foreign election interference, but something more mundane: the retreat from content moderation and the hollowing-out of trust-and-safety units and election-integrity teams. The increase in bad information on the free web puts an even greater burden on fact-based news reporting.

Now AI-created clickbait is also a growing threat. Generative AI’s ability to model, scrape, and even plagiarize real news—and then tailor it to users—is extraordinary. AI clickbait mills, posing as legitimate journalistic organizations, are churning out content that rips off real news and reporting. These plagiarism mills are receiving funding because, well, they’re cheap and profitable. For now, Google’s rankings don’t appear to make a distinction between a news article written by a human being and one written by an AI chatbot. They can, and they should.

The best way to address these challenges is for newsrooms to remove or suspend their paywalls for stories related to the 2024 election. I am mindful of the irony of putting this plea behind The Atlantic’s own paywall, but that’s exactly where the argument should be made. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably paid to support journalism that you think matters in the world. Don’t you want it to be available to others, too, especially those who would not otherwise get to see it?

Emergencies and natural disasters have long prompted papers to suspend their paywalls. When Hurricane Irene hit the New York metropolitan area in 2011, The New York Times made all storm-related coverage freely available. “We are aware of our obligations to our audience and to the public at large when there is a big story that directly impacts such a large portion of people,” a New York Times editor said at the time. In some ways, this creates a philosophical inconsistency. The paywall says, This content is valuable and you have to pay for it. Suspending the paywall in a crisis says, This content is so valuable that you don’t have to pay for it. Similarly, when the coronavirus hit, The Atlantic made its COVID coverage—and its COVID Tracking Project—freely available to all.

During the pandemic, some publications found that suspending their paywall had an effect they had not anticipated: It increased subscriptions. The Seattle Times, the paper of record in a city that was an early epicenter of coronavirus, put all of its COVID-related content outside the paywall and then saw, according to its senior vice president of marketing, Kati Erwert, “a very significant increase in digital subscriptions”—two to three times its previous daily averages. The Philadelphia Inquirer put its COVID content outside its paywall in the spring of 2020 as a public service. And then, according to the paper’s director of special projects, Evan Benn, it saw a “higher than usual number of digital subscription sign-ups.”

The Tampa Bay Times, The Denver Post, and The St. Paul Pioneer Press, in Minnesota, all experienced similar increases, as did papers operated by the Tribune Publishing Company, including the Chicago Tribune and the Hartford Courant. The new subscribers were readers who appreciated the content and the reporting and wanted to support the paper’s efforts, and to make the coverage free for others to read, too.

Good journalism isn’t cheap, but outlets can find creative ways to pay for their reporting on the election. They can enlist foundations or other sponsors to underwrite their work. They can turn to readers who are willing to subscribe, renew their subscriptions, or make added donations to subsidize important coverage during a crucial election. And they can take advantage of the broader audience that unpaywalled stories can reach, using it to generate more advertising revenue—and even more civic-minded subscribers.

The reason papers suspend their paywall in times of crisis is because they understand that the basic and primary mission of the press is to inform and educate the public. This idea goes back to the country’s Founders. The press was protected by the First Amendment so it could provide the information that voters need in a democracy. “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press,” Thomas Jefferson wrote, “and that cannot be limited without being lost.” Every journalist understands this. There is no story with a larger impact than an election in which the survival of democracy is on the ballot.

I believe it was a mistake to give away journalism for free in the 1990s. Information is not and never has been free. I devoutly believe that news organizations need to survive and figure out a revenue model that allows them to do so. But the most important mission of a news organization is to provide the public with information that allows citizens to make the best decisions in a constitutional democracy. Our government derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed, and that consent is arrived at through the free flow of information—reliable, fact-based information. To that end, news organizations should put their election content in front of their paywall. The Constitution protects the press so that the press can protect constitutional democracy. Now the press must fulfill its end of the bargain.

Richard Stengel is a former managing editor of Time, former U.S. undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, and author of Information Wars: How We Lost the Global Battle Against Disinformation and What We Can Do About It.
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It’s time for a Halloween movie marathon. 10 iconic horror films

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2 days ago

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October 19, 2024

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Sometimes, you just have to return to the classics.

That’s especially true as Halloween approaches. While you queue up your spooky movie marathon, here are 10 iconic horror movies from the past 70 years for inspiration, and what AP writers had to say about them when they were first released.

We resurrected excerpts from these reviews, edited for clarity, from the dead — did they stand the test of time?

“Rear Window” (1954)

“Rear Window” is a wonderful trick pulled off by Alfred Hitchcock. He breaks his hero’s leg, sets him up at an apartment window where he can observe, among other things, a murder across the court. The panorama of other people’s lives is laid out before you, as seen through the eyes of a Peeping Tom.

James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter and others make it good fun.

— Bob Thomas

“Halloween” (1978)

At 19, Jamie Lee Curtis is starring in a creepy little thriller film called “Halloween.”

Until now, Jamie’s main achievement has been as a regular on the “Operation Petticoat” TV series. Jamie is much prouder of “Halloween,” though it is obviously an exploitation picture aimed at the thrill market.

The idea for “Halloween” sprang from independent producer-distributor Irwin Yablans, who wanted a terror-tale involving a babysitter. John Carpenter and Debra Hill fashioned a script about a madman who kills his sister, escapes from an asylum and returns to his hometown intending to murder his sister’s friends.

— Bob Thomas

“The Silence of the Lambs” (1991)

“The Silence of the Lambs” moves from one nail-biting sequence to another. Jonathan Demme spares the audience nothing, including closeups of skinned corpses. The squeamish had best stay home and watch “The Cosby Show.”

Ted Tally adapted the Thomas Harris novel with great skill, and Demme twists the suspense almost to the breaking point. The climactic confrontation between Clarice Starling and Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) is carried a tad too far, though it is undeniably exciting with well-edited sequences.

Such a tale as “The Silence of the Lambs” requires accomplished actors to pull it off. Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins are highly qualified. She provides steely intelligence, with enough vulnerability to sustain the suspense. He delivers a classic portrayal of pure, brilliant evil.

— Bob Thomas

“Scream” (1996)

In this smart, witty homage to the genre, students at a suburban California high school are being killed in the same gruesome fashion as the victims in the slasher films they know by heart.

If it sounds like the script of every other horror movie to come and go at the local movie theater, it’s not.

By turns terrifying and funny, “Scream” — written by newcomer David Williamson — is as taut as a thriller, intelligent without being self-congratulatory, and generous in its references to Wes Craven’s competitors in gore.

— Ned Kilkelly

“The Blair Witch Project” (1999)

Imaginative, intense and stunning are a few words that come to mind with “The Blair Witch Project.”

“Blair Witch” is the supposed footage found after three student filmmakers disappear in the woods of western Maryland while shooting a documentary about a legendary witch.

The filmmakers want us to believe the footage is real, the story is real, that three young people died and we are witnessing the final days of their lives. It isn’t. It’s all fiction.

But Eduardo Sanchez and Dan Myrick, who co-wrote and co-directed the film, take us to the edge of belief, squirming in our seats the whole way. It’s an ambitious and well-executed concept.

— Christy Lemire

“Saw” (2004)

The fright flick “Saw” is consistent, if nothing else.

This serial-killer tale is inanely plotted, badly written, poorly acted, coarsely directed, hideously photographed and clumsily edited, all these ingredients leading to a yawner of a surprise ending. To top it off, the music’s bad, too.

You could forgive all (well, not all, or even, fractionally, much) of the movie’s flaws if there were any chills or scares to this sordid little horror affair.

But “Saw” director James Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell, who developed the story together, have come up with nothing more than an exercise in unpleasantry and ugliness.

— David Germain

Germain gave “Saw” one star out of four.

“Paranormal Activity” (2009)

The no-budget ghost story “Paranormal Activity” arrives 10 years after “The Blair Witch Project,” and the two horror movies share more than a clever construct and shaky, handheld camerawork.

The entire film takes place at the couple’s cookie-cutter dwelling, its layout and furnishings indistinguishable from just about any other readymade home constructed in the past 20 years. Its ordinariness makes the eerie, nocturnal activities all the more terrifying, as does the anonymity of the actors adequately playing the leads.

The thinness of the premise is laid bare toward the end, but not enough to erase the horror of those silent, nighttime images seen through Micah’s bedroom camera. “Paranormal Activity” owns a raw, primal potency, proving again that, to the mind, suggestion has as much power as a sledgehammer to the skull.

— Glenn Whipp

Whipp gave “Paranormal Activity” three stars out of four.

“The Conjuring” (2013)

As sympathetic, methodical ghostbusters Lorraine and Ed Warren, Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson make the old-fashioned haunted-house horror film “The Conjuring” something more than your average fright fest.

“The Conjuring,” which boasts incredulously of being their most fearsome, previously unknown case, is built very in the ’70s-style mold of “Amityville” and, if one is kind, “The Exorcist.” The film opens with a majestic, foreboding title card that announces its aspirations to such a lineage.

But as effectively crafted as “The Conjuring” is, it’s lacking the raw, haunting power of the models it falls shy of. “The Exorcist” is a high standard, though; “The Conjuring” is an unusually sturdy piece of haunted-house genre filmmaking.

— Jake Coyle

Coyle gave “The Conjuring” two and half stars out of four.

Read the full review here.

“Get Out” (2017)

Fifty years after Sidney Poitier upended the latent racial prejudices of his white date’s liberal family in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” writer-director Jordan Peele has crafted a similar confrontation with altogether more combustible results in “Get Out.”

In Peele’s directorial debut, the former “Key and Peele” star has — as he often did on that satirical sketch series — turned inside out even supposedly progressive assumptions about race. But Peele has largely left comedy behind in a more chilling portrait of the racism that lurks beneath smiling white faces and defensive, paper-thin protestations like, “But I voted for Obama!” and “Isn’t Tiger Woods amazing?”

It’s long been a lamentable joke that in horror films — never the most inclusive of genres — the Black dude is always the first to go. In this way, “Get Out” is radical and refreshing in its perspective.

— Jake Coyle

Coyle gave “Get Out” three stars out of four.

Read the full review here.

“Hereditary” (2018)

In Ari Aster’s intensely nightmarish feature-film debut “Hereditary,” when Annie (Toni Collette), an artist and mother of two teenagers, sneaks out to a grief-support group following the death of her mother, she lies to her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne) that she’s “going to the movies.”

A night out with “Hereditary” is many things, but you won’t confuse it for an evening of healing and therapy. It’s more like the opposite.

Aster’s film, relentlessly unsettling and pitilessly gripping, has carried with it an ominous air of danger and dread: a movie so horrifying and good that you have to see it, even if you shouldn’t want to, even if you might never sleep peacefully again.

The hype is mostly justified.

— Jake Coyle

Coyle gave “Hereditary” three stars out of four.

Read the full review here. ___

Researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed from New York.

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Sutherland House Experts Book Publishing Launches To Empower Quiet Experts

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1 month ago

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September 19, 2024

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Sutherland House Experts is Empowering Quiet Experts through
Compelling Nonfiction in a Changing Ideas Landscape
TORONTO, ON — Almost one year after its launch, Sutherland House Experts is reshaping the publishing industry with its innovative co-publishing model for “quiet experts.” This approach, where expert authors share both costs and profits with the publisher, is bridging the gap between expertise and public discourse. Helping to drive this transformation is Neil Seeman, a renowned author, educator, and entrepreneur.

“The book publishing world is evolving rapidly,” publisher Neil Seeman explains. “There’s a growing hunger for expert voices in public dialogue, but traditional channels often fall short. Sutherland House Experts provides a platform for ‘quiet experts’ to share their knowledge with the broader book-reading audience.”

The company’s roster boasts respected thought leaders whose books are already gaining major traction:

• V. Kumar Murty, a world-renowned mathematician, and past Fields Institute director, just published “The Science of Human Possibilities” under the new press. The book has been declared a 2024 “must-read” by The Next Big Ideas Club and is receiving widespread media attention across North America.

• Eldon Sprickerhoff, co-founder of cybersecurity firm eSentire, is seeing strong pre-orders for his upcoming book, “Committed: Startup Survival Tips and Uncommon Sense for First-Time Tech Founders.”

• Dr. Tony Sanfilippo, a respected cardiologist and professor of medicine at Queen’s University, is generating significant media interest with his forthcoming book, “The Doctors We Need: Imagining a New Path for Physician Recruitment, Training, and Support.”

Seeman, whose recent and acclaimed book, “Accelerated Minds,” explores the entrepreneurial mindset, brings a unique perspective to publishing. His experience as a Senior Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, and academic affiliations with The Fields Institute and Massey College, give him deep insight into the challenges faced by people he calls “quiet experts.”

“Our goal is to empower quiet, expert authors to become entrepreneurs of actionable ideas the world needs to hear,” Seeman states. “We are blending scholarly insight with market savvy to create accessible, impactful narratives for a global readership. Quiet experts are people with decades of experience in one or more fields who seek to translate their insights into compelling non-fiction for the world,” says Seeman.

This fall, Seeman is taking his insights to the classroom. He will teach the new course, “The Writer as Entrepreneur,” at the University of Toronto, offering aspiring authors practical tools to navigate the evolving book publishing landscape. To enroll in this new weekly night course starting Tuesday, October 1st, visit:
https://learn.utoronto.ca/programs-courses/courses/4121-writer-entrepreneur

“The entrepreneurial ideas industry is changing rapidly,” Seeman notes. “Authors need new skills to thrive in this dynamic environment. My course and our publishing model provide those tools.”

About Neil Seeman:
Neil Seeman is co-founder and publisher of Sutherland House Experts, an author, educator, entrepreneur, and mental health advocate. He holds appointments at the University of Toronto, The Fields Institute, and Massey College. His work spans entrepreneurship, public health, and innovative publishing models.

Follow Neil Seeman:
https://www.neilseeman.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/seeman/

Follow Sutherland House Experts:
https://sutherlandhouseexperts.com/
https://www.instagram.com/sutherlandhouseexperts/

Media Inquiries:
Sasha Stoltz | Sasha@sashastoltzpublicity.com | 416.579.4804
https://www.sashastoltzpublicity.com
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What to stream this weekend: ‘Civil War,’ Snow Patrol, ‘How to Die Alone,’ ‘Tulsa King’ and ‘Uglies’

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1 month ago

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September 13, 2024

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Hallmark launching a streaming service with two new original series, and Bill Skarsgård out for revenge in “Boy Kills World” are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you.

Also among the streaming offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: Alex Garland’s “Civil War” starring Kirsten Dunst, Natasha Rothwell’s heartfelt comedy for Hulu called “How to Die Alone” and Sylvester Stallone’s second season of “Tulsa King” debuts.

NEW MOVIES TO STREAM SEPT. 9-15

— Alex Garland’s “Civil War” is finally making its debut on MAX on Friday. The film stars Kirsten Dunst as a veteran photojournalist covering a violent war that’s divided America; She reluctantly allows an aspiring photographer, played by Cailee Spaeny, to tag along as she, an editor (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and a reporter (Wagner Moura) make the dangerous journey to Washington, D.C., to interview the president (Nick Offerman), a blustery, rising despot who has given himself a third term, taken to attacking his citizens and shut himself off from the press. In my review, I called it a bellowing and haunting experience; Smart and thought-provoking with great performances. It’s well worth a watch.

— Joey King stars in Netflix’s adaptation of Scott Westerfeld’s “Uglies,” about a future society in which everyone is required to have beautifying cosmetic surgery at age 16. Streaming on Friday, McG directed the film, in which King’s character inadvertently finds herself in the midst of an uprising against the status quo. “Outer Banks” star Chase Stokes plays King’s best friend.

— Bill Skarsgård is out for revenge against the woman (Famke Janssen) who killed his family in “Boy Kills World,” coming to Hulu on Friday. Moritz Mohr directed the ultra-violent film, of which Variety critic Owen Gleiberman wrote: “It’s a depraved vision, yet I got caught up in its kick-ass revenge-horror pizzazz, its disreputable commitment to what it was doing.”

— AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr

NEW MUSIC TO STREAM SEPT. 9-15

— The year was 2006. Snow Patrol, the Northern Irish-Scottish alternative rock band, released an album, “Eyes Open,” producing the biggest hit of their career: “Chasing Cars.” A lot has happened in the time since — three, soon to be four quality full-length albums, to be exact. On Friday, the band will release “The Forest Is the Path,” their first new album in seven years. Anthemic pop-rock is the name of the game across songs of love and loss, like “All,”“The Beginning” and “This Is the Sound Of Your Voice.”

— For fans of raucous guitar music, Jordan Peele’s 2022 sci-fi thriller, “NOPE,” provided a surprising, if tiny, thrill. One of the leads, Emerald “Em” Haywood portrayed by Keke Palmer, rocks a Jesus Lizard shirt. (Also featured through the film: Rage Against the Machine, Wipers, Mr Bungle, Butthole Surfers and Earth band shirts.) The Austin noise rock band are a less than obvious pick, having been signed to the legendary Touch and Go Records and having stopped releasing new albums in 1998. That changes on Friday the 13th, when “Rack” arrives. And for those curious: The Jesus Lizard’s intensity never went away.

— AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

NEW SHOWS TO STREAM SEPT. 9-15

— Hallmark launched a streaming service called Hallmark+ on Tuesday with two new original series, the scripted drama “The Chicken Sisters” and unscripted series “Celebrations with Lacey Chabert.” If you’re a Hallmark holiday movies fan, you know Chabert. She’s starred in more than 30 of their films and many are holiday themed. Off camera, Chabert has a passion for throwing parties and entertaining. In “Celebrations,” deserving people are surprised with a bash in their honor — planned with Chabert’s help. “The Chicken Sisters” stars Schuyler Fisk, Wendie Malick and Lea Thompson in a show about employees at rival chicken restaurants in a small town. The eight-episode series is based on a novel of the same name.

— Natasha Rothwell of “Insecure” and “The White Lotus” fame created and stars in a new heartfelt comedy for Hulu called “How to Die Alone.” She plays Mel, a broke, go-along-to-get-along, single, airport employee who, after a near-death experience, makes the conscious decision to take risks and pursue her dreams. Rothwell has been working on the series for the past eight years and described it to The AP as “the most vulnerable piece of art I’ve ever put into the world.” Like Mel, Rothwell had to learn to bet on herself to make the show she wanted to make. “In the Venn diagram of me and Mel, there’s significant overlap,” said Rothwell. It premieres Friday on Hulu.

— Shailene Woodley, DeWanda Wise and Betty Gilpin star in a new drama for Starz called “Three Women,” about entrepreneur Sloane, homemaker Lina and student Maggie who are each stepping into their power and making life-changing decisions. They’re interviewed by a writer named Gia (Woodley.) The series is based on a 2019 best-selling book of the same name by Lisa Taddeo. “Three Women” premieres Friday on Starz.

— Sylvester Stallone’s second season of “Tulsa King” debuts Sunday on Paramount+. Stallone plays Dwight Manfredi, a mafia boss who was recently released from prison after serving 25 years. He’s sent to Tulsa to set up a new crime syndicate. The series is created by Taylor Sheridan of “Yellowstone” fame.

— Alicia Rancilio

NEW VIDEO GAMES TO PLAY

— One thing about the title of Focus Entertainment’s Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 — you know exactly what you’re in for. You are Demetrian Titus, a genetically enhanced brute sent into battle against the Tyranids, an insectoid species with an insatiable craving for human flesh. You have a rocket-powered suit of armor and an arsenal of ridiculous weapons like the “Chainsword,” the “Thunderhammer” and the “Melta Rifle,” so what could go wrong? Besides the squishy single-player mode, there are cooperative missions and six-vs.-six free-for-alls. You can suit up now on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S or PC.

— Likewise, Wild Bastards isn’t exactly the kind of title that’s going to attract fans of, say, Animal Crossing. It’s another sci-fi shooter, but the protagonists are a gang of 13 varmints — aliens and androids included — who are on the run from the law. Each outlaw has a distinctive set of weapons and special powers: Sarge, for example, is a robot with horse genes, while Billy the Squid is … well, you get the idea. Australian studio Blue Manchu developed the 2019 cult hit Void Bastards, and this Wild-West-in-space spinoff has the same snarky humor and vibrant, neon-drenched cartoon look. Saddle up on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S, Nintendo Switch or PC.

— Lou Kesten

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