STAYING ON TOP OF THIS

What’s Joe Biden up to these days?

Remember Joe Biden? Remember the Democratic primary, and the 2020 election? Remember…February? Those were the days. Anyhow, ever since the thing that has taken over our lives showed up and took over our lives, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has struggled to capture much attention. So our politics team checked in on what’s going on in Biden world.

“What’s left of the presidential campaign is now happening almost exclusively online and on TV. For Trump, that’s been fine: The coronavirus pandemic has given him an endless media platform through daily televised briefings,” they report. “And Trump has been very online since becoming a presidential candidate five years ago; his digital director from that first campaign, known for valuing Facebook over traditional media, is now his reelection campaign manager.”

But the change has been harder on Biden, who has never been very online. And TV networks are often skipping his live addresses, instead cutting to press conferences by Democratic leaders who have hands-on roles addressing the coronavirus outbreak, like Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

On the plus side, like every other human being on Earth, Biden has a podcast now. He launched Here’s The Deal this week, with the opening episode featuring Ron Klain, who led the Obama administration’s response to the Ebola outbreak in 2014. “Well, it’s good to be doing my very first podcast,” Biden says at one point in the episode. “Things are changing an awful lot.”

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SNAPSHOTS

A man attempted to crash a train into the US Navy hospital ship docked at the Port of Los Angeles. “You only get this chance once,” he allegedly told the officer who arrested him. “The whole world is watching.”

The Federal Trade Commission is suing tobacco giant Altria over its $13 billion investment in Juul. The owner of Marlboro and other top cigarette brands illegally manipulated competition in the e-cigarette market via the investment, the FTC alleges.

Trolls keep dropping in on video conference calls, bombarding them with porn and racist insults. The FBI is investigating at least two incidents, including one where a person dropped into a virtual classroom for children to reveal his swastika tattoos.

Chinese propaganda has found a friendly outlet at a UK newspaper. The Daily Telegraph continues to run sponsored “advertising features” by a Chinese state media outlet, including a recent one claiming traditional Chinese medicine cures the coronavirus.

People's Daily Online

THE LONG WAR

The lockdowns will end. Social distancing will live on.

One question on everyone’s minds is how long the current lockdowns across most of the US will last. But even as they’re lifted, whenever that may be, there will likely be a longer period of time for which various places will need to tighten or loosen social distancing policies, depending on local factors, including hospital capacity and the spread of the virus.

“We are probably looking at five- to six-month phases, done in different ways and times in different places across the country,” Irwin Redlener, a pandemic expert at Columbia University, told BuzzFeed News reporter Dan Vergano. “Putting people through that process will be extremely difficult.”

It’s going to be a strange period, and nobody really knows how it will play out. “We are going to learn a lot of lessons here about ourselves,” Redlener said. “I’m hoping we come out of this a stronger, more resilient people.”

Aaron Chown / AP

LIVE TV IN THE ZOOM ERA

It’s a strange time for late night shows

On the one hand, audiences are stuck at home, incredibly bored, and looking for anything to keep them entertained. On the other, it’s no longer possible to make a live TV show the way you used to — no more live audiences, no heavily staffed studios — often no studios at all.

BuzzFeed News spoke with Samantha Bee about how her show has made the transition. Full Frontal With Samantha Bee is now shot in the backyard of her house in upstate New York, with her husband, comedian Jason Jones, as the sole crew member. They’re no longer dealing with the old-school problems of live TV — celebrity guests showing up late, or drunk, or a lack of energy in the studio audience. They’re facing some very new-school problems.

“We were filming yesterday and we had to hold production because my neighbor was chainsawing logs," said Bee. A few days earlier, there was a hawk circling above Bee, loudly screeching. “We had to hold for hawk," she said.

MRS POTATO HEAD

Life conducted over video calls brings new challenges

Maybe the lighting in your studio apartment is awful. Perhaps you forgot to brush your hair. Or maybe you accidentally turn yourself into a potato on the call, and can’t figure out how to return to your human form.

via @PettyClegg

The latter is what happened to Lizet Ocampo, the political director at People for the American Way, a progressive political group. She’d installed some filters to try and add a bit of fun to her video calls, but has no idea how it escalated to this point. “When we started the meeting, I saw myself as a potato," she told Lauren Strapagiel. She tried to fix it, but nothing seemed to work. "I just kind of gave up and stayed as a potato for the rest of the call."

Remain as a potato for as long as you want today,

Tom