"The Daily Show is no doubt entertainment, but it is entertainment, measurably, with a substantive point. It is, in its own way, another kind of No Spin Zone." The Project for Excellence in Journalism discusses what is and is not journalistic (PDF) about The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
posted on May 8, 2008 - View this thread

What happens when a US President declares war on a concept? In 1964, Canadian photojournalist Hugh O'Connor traveled to eastern Kentucky to document the battlefields of Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty and was shot for trespassing. The incident is the subject of a wonderful documentary, Stranger with a Camera by filmmaker Elizabeth Barrett, produced by Appalshop, a non-profit organization in Whitesburg, Kentucky, that works with local artists to promote self-representation in media and the expediency of culture to counteract a stagnating local economy. Makes you think twice about nostalgic representations of poor Appalachian coal miners plucking their banjo strings in the hollers, doesn't it?
posted on Apr 15, 2008 - View this thread

Saddam's Confessions - Given Saddam Hussein's central place in the American Consciousness over the last couple decades and particularly in recent years, I found 60 minutes' interview with FBI interrogator George Piro pretty fascinating.
posted on Jan 27, 2008 - View this thread

"You Don't Understand Our Audience" --what John Hockenberry (formerly of NBC, now at MIT Media Lab) learned about network news--good guys and bad guys, the "emotional center", synergy, facts, and why fewer and fewer watch nowadays.
posted on Dec 31, 2007 - View this thread

Once again, The Year in Media Errors and Corrections.
posted on Dec 28, 2007 - View this thread

Last week, the Chicago Reader laid off four of its best journalists: John Conroy (previously), Harold Henderson, Tori Marlan, and Steve Bogira. The cuts almost certainly mark the beginning of the end of the paper's role in Chicago as an investigative force and a corruption watchdog. The New York Times responds with a salute to Conroy and a defense of muckraking's relevance.
posted on Dec 11, 2007 - View this thread

The internet is killing the reporter, or at least the investigative journalist. So says David Leigh, the Guardian's esteemed dirty digger. But how right is he? Doesn't "the powerful global conversation", to quote the Cluetrain Manifesto, give investigative journalism new hope. Rather than be centred around the reporter, can communities of interest unite to share and uncover the sort of information that was once the sole property of reporters like Mr Leigh?
posted on Nov 14, 2007 - View this thread

Unqualified Reservations is a fascinating ongoing commentary on society and governance in postmodernity. He's currently on about the pwning of Richard Dawkins, after writing about Mediocracy and Official Journalism. It might be best to first read his earlier posts in which he defines the self-invented terminology he's fond of using, like: Formalism, The Iron Polygon, Universalism, Neocameralism, and The Rotary System.
posted on Oct 29, 2007 - View this thread

Amusing Ourselves to Depth: Is The Onion our most intelligent newspaper?: "While other newspapers desperately add gardening sections, ask readers to share their favorite bratwurst recipes, or throw their staffers to ravenous packs of bloggers for online question-and-answer sessions, The Onion has focused on reporting the news. The fake news, sure, but still the news. It doesn’t ask readers to post their comments at the end of stories, allow them to rate stories on a scale of one to five, or encourage citizen-satire. It makes no effort to convince readers that it really does understand their needs and exists only to serve them. The Onion’s journalists concentrate on writing stories and then getting them out there in a variety of formats, and this relatively old-fashioned approach to newspapering has been tremendously successful." The article is based on the premises of the late media critic Neil Postman, especially from his book "Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse In The Age Of Show Business."
posted on Oct 20, 2007 - View this thread

Old Magazine Articles Neat little database of .pdf copies of vintage magazine articles like Gilbert Seldes' 1922 review of Krazy Kat in Vanity Fair, a 1910 look at "Horse Versus Automobile," early nose jobs, an interview with James Joyce and more. [via ResearchBuzz]
posted on Sep 13, 2007 - View this thread

Going After Gore "Al Gore couldn't believe his eyes: as the 2000 election heated up, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other top news outlets kept going after him, with misquotes ("I invented the Internet"), distortions (that he lied about being the inspiration for Love Story), and strangely off-the-mark needling, while pundits such as Maureen Dowd appeared to be charmed by his rival, George W. Bush. For the first time, Gore and his family talk about the effect of the press attacks on his campaign—and about his future plans—to the author, who finds that many in the media are re-assessing their 2000 coverage."
posted on Sep 4, 2007 - View this thread

“It seems that everytime I get a request from a western photojournalist to do a project on Manila, it's always about the slums and squatters and I am sick of it.” Carlos Celdran is well known for his chatty walking tours of Manila, and he’s tired of the one-track perception Westerners have of the city. Manila as slum gothic – low-hanging fruit for lazy photojournalists or writers? Or is a fairer perspective (in more ways than one) possible?
posted on Aug 28, 2007 - View this thread

Since Rupes went to great lengths to protect Wendi, see some other examples of newspaper self-censorship
posted on Jul 24, 2007 - View this thread

Frederick Remington was an American artist who in 1898 became a war correspondent and illustrator for the New York Morning Journal during the Spanish-American War. The Journal's editor in chief, William Randolph Hearst I was an American newspaper magnate whose paper had, circa 1895, fought to liberate Cuba from Spanish rule by writing sensational stories of Cuban virtue and Spanish atrocities in an attempt to influence US opinion. In 1898, Hearst sent Remington to Cuba to report on the war which Hearst was certain was about to begin. However when Remington arrived, he telegrammed Hearst saying "Everything is quiet. There is no trouble here. There will be no war. I wish to return." Hearst responded "Please remain. You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war." Not long after, the war began. These telegrams are often cited as one of the most famous (if not the first) examples of yellow journalism (so much so it is mentioned in Citizen Kane) and is meant to speak to the powerful potential effects of the news media. But did The Remington-Hearst "telegrams"actually ever take place, or is this simply another urban legend?
posted on Jul 6, 2007 - View this thread

The rise and fall of the bus plunge story. [via slate] Bus plunge from Wikipedia. Bus Plunge the web site.
posted on Nov 14, 2006 - View this thread

Albania to get more corruption, and duct-tape expert-- ... As much as Ridge's security expertise, Berisha wants him to also bring to Albania his "success story" as Governor of Pennsylvania on education, the judiciary, information technology, agriculture and money laundering. ...
posted on Sep 5, 2006 - View this thread

Amateur Hour. Internet journalism and the traditional media. Nicolas Lehmann in the New Yorker.
posted on Aug 6, 2006 - View this thread

Rollback. Media critic Jay Rosen rises above the McClellan/"shake-up" foofaraw to put several pieces of the puzzle together and show how the Bush administration has significantly altered the long-standing relationship of the press to the White House. (More from Rosen here.) Another piece that fits: Donald Rumsfeld's bold, frequent, and rarely-challenged assertions that the American press is being expertly "manipulated" by Al Qaeda "media committees" in Iraq and Afghanistan.
posted on Apr 20, 2006 - View this thread

The big payback in Iraq. Last night on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, ROBERT LICHTER, President, Center for Media and Public Affairs put forth the following: You know, Charlie Peter, a great Washington journalist, once said, "The message of Watergate was dig, dig, dig, but journalists thought the message was act tough." And so I think you're getting negative coverage that may be kind of compensatory criticism.

Should the news focus more on the optimistic elements or is it reflecting public opinion. Is "compensatory criticism" justified for what it might wrongly perceive as possible White House manipulation during the run up to the war?
posted on Mar 23, 2006 - View this thread

Reporter candid about time at site of W. Va. mine explosion "I've had some time to sleep and some time to think about the past two days. It's a blur. I don't often like revealing my thought processes about my work and reporting, but I need to decompress. Here's what I remember, unedited and kinda raw."
posted on Jan 3, 2006 - View this thread

Newsfilter: Washington Post columnist/blogger Dan Froomkin writes the "White House Briefing," an online "daily anthology of works by other journalists and bloggers," which is often critical of the administration. This past Sunday, the new Post ombudsman wrote that the paper's White House correspondents worried that Froomkin's column creates an appearance of bias at the Post. Froomkin responsed, and hundreds of commentors offered their support. Then Post national politics editor John Harris weighed in, to somewhat less acclaim from commentors. Harris expanded on his views in this interview. The whole affair raises issues about allegations of a subservient, stenographic press, how the media deals with charges of liberal bias, the perceived vindictiveness of the Bush administration, and the relationship between in-house bloggers and the traditional media.
posted on Dec 14, 2005 - View this thread

100 Cartoons to celebrate Black Ink Monday "Over the last 20 years, the number of cartoonists on the staff of daily newspapers nationwide has been cut in half." Today, the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists protests "newspapers everywhere who have lost sight of the value of having a staff editorial cartoonist."
posted on Dec 12, 2005 - View this thread

Don't Bomb Us. In response to credible reports that Bush wanted to bomb al-Jazeera's HQ in allied Qatar (discussed here and here on MeFi), Al Jazeera staffers start their own English-language blog. Their site contains remembrances of their fallen colleagues, firsthand accounts of US attacks on their offices, links to relevant reports on the controversy, Flickr photosets of protests calling for an official investigation, and al Jazeera's code of ethics. Also, a quick note to Tony Blair: " P.S. Thanks for talking Mr. Bush out of bombing our offices!" Not surprisingly, their blog is generating some comments.
posted on Nov 26, 2005 - View this thread

The End of News? From the New York Review of Books. Michael Massing, a contributing editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, discusses the decline of the mainstream media and the ideal of objectivity: Accuracy in Media (1969), the Center for Media and Public Affairs (1985), the abolition of the Fairness Doctrine (1987), Rush Limbaugh (1988), Fox News (1996), weblogs, cost-cutting at newspapers. Of course, the newspaper business has always been a difficult one, as Walter Lippmann noted in his book Public Opinion (1921): [more inside]
posted on Nov 14, 2005 - View this thread

The world's 100 largest newspapers by circulation Japan and China take 9 of the top 10 spots; Greece enters at #17, the United States at #19. Newspaperindex now also has the list broken down by continent. [An updated top 100 list has been posted here] [via Cynical-C]
posted on Jun 12, 2005 - View this thread

Sy Hersh's Loose Relationship with the Literal Truth | Interesting article from NY Metro which seems to condem Hersh's squirrely handling of facts while admiring his accomplishments & tenacity: "In bending the truth, Hersh is, paradoxically enough, remarkably candid. When he supplies unconfirmed accounts of military assaults on Iraqi civilians, or changes certain important details from an episode inside Abu Ghraib (thus rendering the story unverifiable), Hersh argues that he’s protecting the identities of sources who could face grave repercussions for talking. 'I defend that totally,' Hersh says of the factual fudges he serves up in speeches and lectures."
posted on Jun 2, 2005 - View this thread

Foreign Exchange TV with Fareed Zakaria - I'd heard about it, but thought it was only showing on OPB; checked again and lo and behold all the episodes are online! Watched a couple episodes so far; they're pretty good, esp if you're into foreign policy and stuff :D
posted on May 26, 2005 - View this thread

Sunday the National Conference on Media Reform featured the first public speech by Bill Moyers since he left PBS. "I always knew Nixon would be back, again and again. I just didn’t know that this time he would ask to be Chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting."
posted on May 16, 2005 - View this thread

Gawker bucks vs journalists' bucks. The idea of bloggers going pro, though a relatively new one, has been discussed for a few years now. With blogging being discussed in the same breath as mainstream journalism, especially since last year's election in which the two activities seemed to clash in a very public way, is it time to ask ourselves if blogging is or can be just another form of journalism with its own professional personalities and success-based pay rates?
posted on May 11, 2005 - View this thread

The experiment has ended. Roughly 8 months ago, the Star Tribune joined forces with blogger Twins Geek. The hope: a productive union of traditional journalism and online weblogs. The verdict: an unholy marriage, apparently. And this was just a baseball blog.
posted on Mar 29, 2005 - View this thread

Sails to harness Vox Populi winds : "Technology is changing politics" [ not to mention journalism ] intones the well connected Personal Democracy Forum, and everybody's leaping into the "Blogging vs. Journalism" fray. Dan Gillmor, author of We the Media, has quit his job after receiving seed money from Mitch Kapor and from Omidyar Networks, to found the for-profit "Grassroots Media Inc." : Gillmor's got a hand, as well, in the noble and name studded OurMedia.org : "We'll host your media forever — for free.....Video blogs, photo albums, home movies, podcasting, digital art, documentary journalism, home-brew political ads"

Meanwhile, SusanG - in her most recent recently released investigative piece into the Jeff Gannon/fake journalism scandal notes her research group's effort "now encompasses so much more than Gannon" and announces future stories will post under the organizational name of ePluribus Media

"We're the People ! No you're not, we're the People ! No way ! We're the...."
posted on Mar 28, 2005 - View this thread

Project for Excellence in Journalism Report NYT: The annual Project for Excellence in Journalism report on the state of the media says that the use of anonymous sources in newspapers has dropped significantly over the last year. USAT: Non-traditional media gaining ground, consumers. LAT: Study warns of "junk news" diet. E&P: Survey finds newspapers slipping, facing cutbacks. WaPo: Study finds no shortage of opinion on Fox News.
posted on Mar 14, 2005 - View this thread

More to the story? So what are the chances that the whole Jeff Gannon/Jim Guckert thing is about more than partisan media manipulation?
posted on Feb 11, 2005 - View this thread

The Top 10 Most Underreported Humanitarian Stories of 2004 as compiled by Doctors Without Borders - wars, disease, famine, and repression that has gone largely unnoticed in mainstream media [via PBS' NewsHour - real audio streaming link].
posted on Feb 5, 2005 - View this thread

The Emperor's New Hump In the weeks leading up to the November 2 election, the New York Times was abuzz with excitement. Besides the election itself, the paper’s reporters were hard at work on two hot investigative projects, each of which could have a major impact on the outcome of the tight presidential race. One week before Election Day, the Times (10/25/04) ran a hard-hitting and controversial exposé of the Al-Qaqaa ammunition dump—identified by U.N. inspectors before the war as containing 400 tons of special high-density explosives useful for aircraft bombings and as triggers for nuclear devices, but left unguarded and available to insurgents by U.S. forces after the invasion. On Thursday, just three days after that first exposé, the paper was set to run a second, perhaps more explosive piece, exposing how George W. Bush had worn an electronic cueing device in his ear and probably cheated during the presidential debates.
posted on Feb 5, 2005 - View this thread

Administration Paid Commentator (WashPost membership rqd) The Education Department paid commentator Armstrong Williams $241,000 to help promote President Bush's No Child Left Behind law on the air, an arrangement that Williams acknowledged yesterday involved "bad judgment" on his part. I'm sure y'all check the Washington Post regularly, but isn't this simply bribing a journalist?
posted on Jan 8, 2005 - View this thread

"There was an attitude among editors: Look, we're going to war, why do we even worry about all this contrary stuff?'' "Editors at The Washington Post acknowledge they underplayed stories questioning President Bush's claims of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein in the months leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq." The weblog Lunaville notes that The Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland found that "since September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has been especially successful at getting the American media to confirm its political and diplomatic agenda. Media reporting on the President amplified the administration s voice: when Bush said to the country that Americans are vulnerable to WMD in the hands of terrorists, the media effectively magnified those fears." Lawrence Lessig says: "As media becomes more concentrated, competition to curry favor with politicians only increases... Concentrated media and expansive copyright are the perfect storm not just for stifling debate but, increasingly, for weakening democracy as well." Can we make the media democratic?
posted on Aug 12, 2004 - View this thread

The Newsweek-Fahrenheit wars - Michael Isikoff's "seven errors, distortions and selective omissions of crucial information" detailed by Craig Unger, "House of Bush, House of Saud" author (read excerpts of his book at Salon.com, for members or by a "day pass") Isikoff has heavily cited Unger's book but, it seems, not bothered to read Unger's generously provided source files. "Liberal" PBS is not excluded, as credulous (or ignorant) "On the Media" host Bob Garfield's July 2 interview with Isikoff demonstrates. What shall we call such pervasive, ongoing and seemingly willful patterns of inaccuracy, distortion, and selective omission?
posted on Jul 7, 2004 - View this thread

War is Hell: Generation Kill

Torn by War Porn*? Just can't get enough?

For those of you who stopped reading Rolling Stone some time in the 80's, and therefore most likely missed Evan Wright's war dispatches from Humvee Number One last summer, we bring you: Generation Kill:Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War

Reviewed here,and here ("reprint" of NYT review).

*Oddly enough, Evan Wright's journalistic career began as a porn critic for Hustler. True story.
posted on Jun 22, 2004 - View this thread

Bottom-Line Business Pressures Hurting Press Coverage, Say Journalists. "Press Going Too Easy on Bush" survey finds. This and more in the annual State of the News Media report, paid for and sponsored by The Pew Charitable Trusts (non profit established by the children of Sun Oil Company founder Joseph N. Pew).
posted on Jun 9, 2004 - View this thread

David Neiwert writes a thoughtful piece about how utterly corrupt the press is and adds to the long running mefi discussion about why "framing" works for conservatives: "But even beyond the bias is the way this framing really corrupts and trivializes the national debate, so that we find ourselves constantly arguing about the "morality" or "character" of politicians, an issue that is by nature a product of spin and propagandizing. This has never been more clear than in the current election, when the "character" of a pampered fraternity party boy who couldn't be bothered to serve out his term in the National Guard and who went on to fail miserably at every business venture he touched is successfully depicted as that of a sincere and patriotic regular guy, while that of a three-time Purple Heart winner who voluntarily left Yale to serve in Vietnam, and whose ensuing three decades of public service have been a model of principle and consistency, is somehow depicted as belonging to a spineless elitist."
posted on May 8, 2004 - View this thread

Reflections On Our Media of Communication. Traditional news media vs. the internet. Are people really abandoning TV, paper, and radio news? Does the 'net really offer the best in free-press? The ever lovable Fred thinks so, and he's not afraid to tell you why.
posted on Apr 22, 2004 - View this thread

State of the Media Report 2004 by journalism.org, which seeks to improve news coverage in a more neutral fashion than those who cry bias from the left and right. The group offers advice for average citizens and others. The report focuses mainly on US media and identifies eight trends. The content analyses finds that newspapers have more lifestyle news than in the past, but less government and foreign affairs, even with wars abroad. More front page articles about issues, less on crime and disasters. Network news was heavy on foreign affairs, government, accidents, disaster, crime and health care. The cable networks had a lot of politics and Iraq stuff, but also a lot more celebrity/entertainment/lifestyle stuff than the big four. Local TV news treats crime as topic A. The magazine audience is aging, and total pages are declining, but some, like The Economist and the New Yorker, have found success in niches. Internet journalism is "still largely material from old media rather than something original." And it's still text-y. But it is clearly the future of journalism. But don't pronounce the dinosaurs dead yet. Radio once ruled, and in a way it still does: 94 percent still tune in to radio news at least once a week.
posted on Apr 1, 2004 - View this thread

"You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month" (PDF, 112k) "The Covert News Network", on Project MOCKINGBIRD - "Watergate muckraker Carl Bernstein uncovered a list of over 400 reporters and a coterie of publishers and media moguls who had basically been rubber-stamping CIA propaganda since the 1950s." Alex Constantine on Mockingbird. "Investigators digging into MOCKINGBIRD have been flabbergasted to discover FOIA documents in which agents boast (in CIA office memos) of  pride in having placed "important assets" inside every major news publication in the country. " ( from Geoff Metcalf on Mockingbird). Cheryl Seal on Mockingbird, with additional links. Enjoy the election!
posted on Jan 20, 2004 - View this thread

The P.U.-Lizter prizes are out. Also, Geov Parrish's media follies.
posted on Dec 31, 2003 - View this thread

The news at a glance. Categorized news photos. [via slashdot]
posted on Nov 18, 2003 - View this thread

Bush orders officials to stop the leaks. News of Bush's order leaked almost immediately. And speaking of leaks, two U.S. officials are the primary sources of information about Israel's Harpoon cruise missiles which may or may not be used to attack Iran.
posted on Oct 16, 2003 - View this thread

The Subpoenas are Coming! The FBI, in an attempt to prosecute Adrian Lamo (discussed here) is sending letters to journalists telling them to secretly prepare to turn over their notes, e-mails and sources to the bureau. And by secretly, they mean don't tell your colleagues, editors or lawyers, or risk facing obstruction of justice charges. (Via dailyrotten)
posted on Sep 30, 2003 - View this thread

"Given the choice, it's better to be viewed as a foot soldier for Bush than a spokeswoman for al-Qaeda." This quote, captured in a USA Today article, came from Fox News spokeswoman Irena Briganti in response to allegations that CNN "was intimidated" by the Bush administration and Fox News, which "put a climate of fear and self-censorship."
posted on Sep 15, 2003 - View this thread

The dicey dynamics of exposing untruths. An interesting bit in the Columbia Journalism Review on why journalists tend to focus on politicians' small lies and let the big ones slide.
posted on Sep 10, 2003 - View this thread

U.S. Army Used Media Cover in Iraq for Own Ends which sounds like a big old bowl of yellow journalism but isn't really, at least I don't think so. It was more to refute the Iraqi Minister of Lies talking about the whooping the Iraqi war machine was delivering to the coalition forces.

The main issue that the reporters had was that they were only getting the one side of the story and not the Iraqi perspective.

But it raises some questions about the supposed objectivity of the media. Is this a proper use of them? To help achieve military goals? Or to try to avoid more unnecessary deaths?
posted on Sep 8, 2003 - View this thread

Search the New York Times website for any occurrence of the words "Valerie Plame" during the last week ...and you'll find nada, zilch, zip. The so-called "paper of record" has remained totally mum on what may be one of the biggest scandals of the Bush administration yet. You can read about it at Newsday, CBS, Time, and The Nation, and it's been mentioned on NBC... but not a word from the New York Times (save for a reference to it last week by syndicated columnist Paul Krugman, and a wire service story today; neither of those pieces mentions Plame by name). The Times' news and editorial divisions are asleep at the switch on this story. Maybe the Jayson Blair scandal was a distraction from the deeper problem: a paper that is so concerned with being balanced and respectable, it refuses to cover any politically controversial stories. You can e-mail letters@nytimes.com to ask why the Valerie Plame news blackout. Or just click this link a few dozen times to send 'em a message.
posted on Jul 25, 2003 - View this thread

GOP Warns TV Stations Not to Air Ad Alleging Bush Mislead the Nation Over Iraq They claim that the ad itself is dishonest, and cite the obligation of broadcast outlets to be free of misleading information. “Such obligations must be taken seriously. This letter puts you on notice that the information contained in the above-cited advertisement is false and misleading; therefore, you are obligated to refrain from airing this advertisement.” Despite the implicit threats, only one station has refused to run the ad, a Fox station.
posted on Jul 23, 2003 - View this thread

The Digital Journalist: Features. The Digital Journalist: Features. Photojournalism features on a spread of human life, from Afghan child labour, the Dalai Lama and the Soviet Union to Marilyn Monroe, jazz and Smalltown USA. (Warning - adverts).
posted on Jun 1, 2003 - View this thread

Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception The New York Times runs a long article detailing its preliminary findings in the matter of Jayson Blair, The Times' young staff reporter who made up sources, facts, and anecdotes in potentially hundreds of stories. Does this investigation help the Times avoid permanent disgrace? Or does this just confirm what you've always thought about the Times? Slate magazine is attributing part of the problem to affirmative action (Blair is black). Is AA relevant here?
posted on May 10, 2003 - View this thread

"Now America is reappraising the battlefield, delaying the war, maybe a week and rewriting the war plan. The first plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance. Now they are trying to write another plan." Seems patently obvious, no? But tell Iraqi state television that and suddenly you're speaking from "a position of complete ignorance," according to the White House.

Peter Arnett, highly respected, Pulitzer Prize winner and the first journalist to interview Osama Bin Laden on film, wouldn't back down the last time a network caved into craven submission at hands of the American military, and he's been sacked by NBC/MSNBC for again refusing to do so. There's no First Amendment case, obviously, and no real surprise that the military would be exerting pressure to maintain control over information, but does the firing of high-profile Arnett for the repeating the obvious increase anybody's confidence that we're hearing anything resembling the truth?
posted on Mar 31, 2003 - View this thread

Will the web be the only place left to cover "unpopular" stories? Exhibit A: This WP article reporting that media consultants are recommending TV and radio not to cover protests. (It's unpopular, therefore decreases ratings and therefore bad for business). Exhibit B: Clear Channel tells their stations to ban the Dixie Chicks (Clear Channel wants to get in good with Bush). Exhibit C: Courts rules the media have no obligation to tell the truth. Will a distributed or topic-specific IndyMedia be the best or main source for deviant news? Something like the The Internet Topic Exchange or pb's recent peacetrack? Another reason to work on the Metafilter Online Journalism Project? [more inside]
posted on Mar 28, 2003 - View this thread

The War is about to Start and for those of us without a TV we are part of a grand experiment to see if we can be as well informed. According to this Reuters article, Radio had World War II, Television had Vietnam, Cable TV had the Gulf War and now, the Internet may have the U.S. war with Iraq...reporters and producers with wireless laptops and handheld digital cameras will file reports from battlefields and military installations. Cameras are at key locations for live feeds 24 hours a day. Interactive, 3-D maps will update troop movements, casualties and weapons used. ''You're combining the speed of television with the depth of print,'' says Mitch Gelman, executive producer of CNN.com. ''This could define how future wars are covered.'' (more inside)
posted on Mar 19, 2003 - View this thread

With his own blog in place Tristan makes interesting observations on today's blogs. He's definitely got a point when it comes to the variety of information on most blogs... sometimes it seems I can visit 20 blogs and see the exact same source articles over and over again. An interesting read from tnl.net, as always.
posted on Feb 26, 2003 - View this thread

Less advertising, more national and international news. Star Tribune editor Anders Gyllenhaal writes, "How can we improve coverage in big and small ways?"
posted on Jan 13, 2003 - View this thread

Washington salutes its new Blog Overlords When Trent Lott finally fell from (g)race last friday, the ensuing MeFi thread discussed how Lott's statements were at first a sleeper in the mainstream media but that the blogosphere forced the story onto the front pages. However, this theory was met with some scepticism However, the theory of blog ascendancy has legs. In fact, the story is all over the place this morning. With this level of discussion, right or wrong, Blogs just arguably went mainstream. (It might also be the end of our golden era of blogging.) There are greater and lesser blogs. Its hard to tell which blog deserves the credit for toppling Lott. How will they determine the alpha blog? The winner could be the next "Drudge".
posted on Dec 23, 2002 - View this thread

Sony writes 'article' for Salon. In an effort to find new revenue streams, Salon has published an ad/article written by Sony Corp. National Geographic and Parent Soup have also published ad/articles, though the New York Times said no. While the articles do not directly reference Sony products, the feature people who do fascinating things with technology... technology which, it just so happens, is advertised conveniently right next to the technology featuring passage. Is this sort of thing ever ethical? If so, what sort of disclosures are necessary. Clearly the ad/articles are intended to appear to be regular content.
posted on Dec 2, 2002 - View this thread

I know its the Guardian but does the US media really show such contempt? Anyone got any examples?
posted on Nov 14, 2002 - View this thread

Sky Witness - New Site from Sky News Yet another another example of "big media" embracing audience involvement. Sky is asking people to "tell us in no more than 300 words how a particular news event touched your life," including eye witness accounts, and photos. The "most compelling" entries will be published on a special site at the end of the year. Anyone who has read the 9/11 Metafilter thread will know how extraordinary such commentary can be. Anyhow for the wordsmiths here, this could be a great opportunity to show just how clever you are ;-) My question to MF - how far can this go - should, or will big/national/local media open up far more to audience involvement?
posted on Oct 28, 2002 - View this thread

In the Papers, New York 1's, pre-blog video blog, the best thing on television, is now available on-line. I am going to cancel my cable this weekend!
posted on Oct 24, 2002 - View this thread

The international Press Freedom Index (Sept 2001-Oct 2002), published by Reporters Without Borders contains some surprises. Based on questionnaires sent to "...journalists or foreign correspondents living in the country, researchers, [and] legal experts...", RWB ranked the United States 17^th, below Slovenia and Costa Rica. Why? "The poor ranking of the United States (17th) is mainly because of the number of journalists arrested or imprisoned there. Arrests are often because they refuse to reveal their sources in court. Also, since the 11 September attacks, several journalists have been arrested for crossing security lines at some official buildings. "
posted on Oct 23, 2002 - View this thread

Jimmy Brelsin has been taking stabs at Catholic Church over the last two days (the bishops are abusing money this time). As one of the last true beat reporters in NYC, if not the nation, he's been writing for underdogs for over 40 years. Fairly well too.
posted on Oct 8, 2002 - View this thread

An Editorial from Jane's, 9/11: in search of context and meaning "Fiction, non-fiction, news, news analysis and opinion... And unfortunately we continually mix and merge these groupings, using them in similar ways and often believing them to contain similar weight and importance." "We now tend to respond to the news rather than attempting to get behind it and create policy."
posted on Sep 15, 2002 - View this thread

Why Aren't U.S. Journalists Reporting From Iraq? "This notion that the Iraqi leader is in cahoots with Osama will be easy to feed the American people. To the American people, one bad Arab is the same as the next, and Osama equals Saddam. People who wonder about the Bush war-urgency only need to think about this: there’s a blind spot that needs to be exploited now, before too many journalists get the idea to go inside Iraq and find out what’s really happening. As long as the Condi Rices, Dick Cheneys and other hawks are talking to journalists with no experience inside Iraq, they won’t get a raised eyebrow about this notion that the secular dictator is in bed with the jihadis -- even though [reports indicate]....the CIA has found no link between the Iraqi dictator and Al Qaeda."
posted on Sep 13, 2002 - View this thread

Israeli backlash to Ted Turner's comments prompts CNN offer a series of pieces focusing on the toll Palestinian terror has taken. "Ted Turner apologized, CNN's executives were quick to disassociate themselves from him and to announce he has no influence over the content of the broadcasts, and Eason Jordan, news director for the network, hurried to fly over to Israel and offer 'compensation' - a series of reports on the victims of terrorism.". Indeed, a visit to CNN's website this morning uncovers a series of focus items reporting on Israeli casualties and victims. Is this a case of journalism caving to political and commercial interests, or is Israel effectively combating the liberal bias of Western media?
posted on Jun 24, 2002 - View this thread

British papers seem to be the only place we can find out what goes on in the US these days. Probably has to do with the liberal media, wouldn't you say?
posted on Jun 18, 2002 - View this thread

Ottawa Citizen publisher fired for criticizing Chrétien.
CanWest Global keeps it real for the little guy once again by continuing to silence dissident voices. The Citizen's own coverage of the sacking is, unsurprisingly, scant on details.
posted on Jun 17, 2002 - View this thread

Notice something missing from today's Washington Post? In a creative protest of management's latest contract offer, Post union members withhold bylines from news stories and columns in the June 5 edition. Most articles are written "By A Washington Post Staff Writer" and pictures are taken "By A Washington Post Staff Photographer." What other unique forms of labor protest have you seen where the union gets its point across without striking or compromising the quality of the product?
posted on Jun 5, 2002 - View this thread

New US paper aims at Afghan war truth What do you do when you are fed up with the biased and slanted coverage that the major news organizations are giving the "war on terroirsm"? Start your own newspaper of course.
"A newspaper aimed at providing news of the war in Afghanistan is to be launched this month. Its editors argue that the mainstream media in the US are not providing a full picture of the war and its effects. "
posted on Apr 5, 2002 - View this thread

Media Torrent: ""I think this is one of many weird phenomena that contributes to a national attention deficit disorder."The crawl -- that stream of info-morsels and promotional hooks that seemed so urgent right after Sept. 11, but now seems so annoying and distracting -- seems to carry Gitlin's point with it as it creeps across the screen." Is this a real problem, or is it just the old guys not hip to the kids' video world? (via i want media)
posted on Apr 1, 2002 - View this thread

The editor-at-large of The Spectator has resigned in protest at the publication of an anti-American article. There has already been some discussion of this here but the British press seems to be tearing itself apart about how much to support the War on Terror, and what viewpoints it's acceptable to express. The offending article will presumably appear here sometime in the next few days, though its content is somewhat predictable given the views of the author. Funny quote: "I want to be in the magazine more often than I seem to be". Maybe the price of freedom is eternal whingeing.
posted on Mar 13, 2002 - View this thread

A print journalist admits her fear of blogs "What the blog threatens to do is dislodge the traditional news media's corner on the "scoop" market. With their unorthodox reporting strategies and lightning-fast publishing schedules, blogs are making it clear that you don't need to have some big, fancy newspaper job to break stories. In fact, you don't even need to write stories; you can just throw a couple of sentences up on your site with some telling links. And you can quote that naked boy in your bed who knows how to hack protocols. Whatever."
posted on Mar 1, 2002 - View this thread

Afghanistan looks at itself:

Q: So if I brought you free films but they weren't about fighting, would you show them?
A: No.

A moving photo-essay on rebuilding Afghanistan's media sources.
posted on Feb 22, 2002 - View this thread

File under "How Low Can You Get?". Las Vegas TV station dubs in sound and gunshots on a video tape showing an attempted robbery at Harrah's. Original footage had no sound so it had to be made more "dramatic".
posted on Feb 21, 2002 - View this thread

Wacky news is on the rise, and not just here at MetaFilter: it's showing up more and more on mainstream news media sites desperate for your attention (and in traditional print and broadcast media, too). For better or for worse, it's not just for FARK anymore. We've discussed many a weird news item here (much to mathowie's annoyance); what about weird news as a trend?
posted on Feb 16, 2002 - View this thread

"Be accurate, be fair, be American" is the Fox News mantra. Apparently, news with a moral slant is not only helping the Fox News ratings but many Americans report wanting their news to be "Pro-American." When did it become unpatriotic to at least want news that attempts objectivity? Are "accuracy" and "fairness" always possible if Fox journalists must also subscribe to News Corporation's prescription as to what it means to "be American?"
posted on Dec 3, 2001 - View this thread

Are war reporters manufacturing a picture of a failing war effort? Slate's William Saletan makes some interesting points. Reporters get frustrated simply reporting the same stuff each day -- they want news. With the current rarity of dramatic events in Afghanistan, Saletan suggests, media outlets are growing impatient, and letting their "professional biases" distort the picture they present. (Shucks. If only Bin Laden had tried to escape in a white Ford Bronco....)
posted on Nov 1, 2001 - View this thread

Is The Media's "Whining" About Access Justified? A journalist criticizes his colleagues: "The disconnect between the U.S. media and the public they purport to serve has turned into a virtual chasm in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks." What are/should be the limits on the ability of the press to obtain unfettered information in sensitive times?
posted on Oct 17, 2001 - View this thread

MSNBC taking advantage of high site traffic; FORCING ads. Personally I'm speechless. I think every other major site out there (no doubt the crippled Yahoo also) is doing this oor will be in the upcoming hours.
posted on Sep 13, 2001 - View this thread

The Examiner spells it out. As a newspaper page designer (for a much smaller, tamer paper), I wonder what you all think of the San Francisco Examiner's semi-profane but heartfelt front-page headline. On one hand, it's editorializing, but on the other, it expresses what an awful lot of people are thinking. I think I like it, but I also know it'd never get printed in a lot of papers, including my own.
posted on Sep 13, 2001 - View this thread

CNN & FOX: Birds of a feather? In an effort to improve his network's image with conservative leaders, new CNN chief Walter Isaacson huddled with House and Senate GOP leaders last week to seek advice on how to attract more right-leaning viewers to the sagging network.
posted on Aug 5, 2001 - View this thread

The New York Review of Books site has been sensibly redesigned. You no longer have to page through essays, and there are now links to related articles from the magazine's archives.
posted on Aug 4, 2001 - View this thread

Liberals Now Target Media Terry Anzur is not happy with reporting on the internet. She is unhappy that anybody with a website can be a reporter or a pundit.
posted on Jul 16, 2001 - View this thread

Media Deception and Iraq
An interesting quick story-- one journalist smells a rat in an AP report about Iraq using money to buy weapons, investigates the genesis of the story, and finds more deception. Meanwhile statistics on children dying from sanctions go unpublished.
posted on Jul 11, 2001 - View this thread

Is "me-zine" the new 'blog? Or is it just when traditional journalists do it? And is this whole thing now "legit"? [via medianews]
posted on Jul 9, 2001 - View this thread

Americans less supportive of 1st amendment. Roughly four in 10 people (41%) said the media have too much freedom. Four in 10 respondents (39%) believed the First Amendment goes too far in guaranteeing rights. 71% said it was "very" or "somewhat" important for the government to hold the media in check.
posted on Jul 8, 2001 - View this thread

Is the NY Times ranking its stories by "popularity" as they say, or as this writer suggests, what's "interesting"?
posted on Jun 6, 2001 - View this thread

Like smartertimes, but dumber - dumbertimes.com is kind of like the Onion of small independent sites that provide daily criticism of the New York Times.
posted on May 8, 2001 - View this thread

Gag order at Indy Media lifted. Looks like the FBI wanted to get "all user connection logs" from a 48-hour period although the feds were seemingly just concerned with one or two specific postings.
posted on Apr 27, 2001 - View this thread

'Is media bias real?', part two: Left-leaning media criticism folks FAIR have produced a report detailing some examples of of publishers, advertisers, and government officials killing stories they don't like and placing stories they do. What about the Chinese Wall between the business of news and the actual newsgathering? To quote a CBS news producer on the distinction between entertainment and news, "That line was over a long, long time ago....That line is long gone."
posted on Feb 25, 2001 - View this thread

A Clarification -- Dave Eggers wants to expose the process, "By reprinting your correspondence to me I hope to illuminate the journalist's mind: how a writer starts by telling me he is a fan of my work, supports my company's endeavors, etc, then writes a snippety little thing full of sneering and suspicion." so he's posted ALL of the email correspondance he had with david kirkpatrick before this unflattering piece was printed... and after.
    "I think it's important that our exchange be published. It's the only remedy commensurate with the impact you enjoyed with your original piece. I want your friends and family to see it, and to say 'David, ew.'"
    Meanspirited all around, but can you blame him?
posted on Feb 22, 2001 - View this thread

This week's bit of helpful corrective to the usual problematic coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the recent election.
posted on Feb 12, 2001 - View this thread

I was reading this article about the new breed of modern airships when I stumbled over the line "Not your grandfather's airship". That started me off thinking about the "Not your father's X" meme that's been part of the journalistic background noise for a while now. It seems to me to evoking something oedipal, a male child's revulsion of his father and his father's way of doing things. It's usually juxtaposed against technology or at least things that aren't all that old to begin with. Does anyone know who used it first? A quick search of Google reveals it in everything from "Cuba: not your father's stagnant nation" to "XML: Not your father's HTML". Anyone got any favorites?
posted on Jan 4, 2001 - View this thread

CueCats Held Hostage! A motley mix of left-wingers and computer geeks plans to march on the offices of the Dallas Morning News this weekend, armed with pet carriers filled with CueCats, in order to protest what they see as pro-GOP slants in the paper's reporting. If the paper doesn't agree to their demands for more left-favorable reporting, the CueCats will be executed! Why CueCats? Because the company that owns the News has been plugging CueCats like crazy. (second item on the page)
posted on Dec 14, 2000 - View this thread

That dude that's been doing the Gore vs. Bush graphics for CNN has outdone himself. It looks like Gore is actually trying to bite Bush's head... Egads!
posted on Nov 29, 2000 - View this thread

Is this annoying to anyone else? I usually get most of my news from either ABCnews.com or CNN.com, then this morning I noticed that every time I load ABCnews, an annoying ad banner pops up for AT&T over the browser toolbar. I know that big sites have used popups before (usually as announcements or something else), but an ad popup on such a major site seems like an even further blurring of that line between media and advertising. I guess I'm switching news sources.
posted on Nov 28, 2000 - View this thread

We the Public Press.. In order to form a more perfect newsmedia, establish reader distrust, avoid few legalities, provide for the common deafndumb, promote the grocery store impulse buy kiosks, and secure the Blessings of Boldfaced Lying to ourselves and our Readership, do completely avoid and ignore this annoying Code of Ethics...
posted on Nov 19, 2000 - View this thread

Superfluous and unnecessary. The :Cue Cat reader has insinuated itself into the very fabric of the Dallas Morning News, promising links to "expanded content" and "special promotions" by using this $50 future garage sale item. Is there a real need for bar code scanners in the average household? Or is :Cue Cat merely artificially creating a need for their services?
posted on Oct 3, 2000 - View this thread

John Stossel Reprimanded but not Fired by ABC - It is not exactly new information that Stossel has a habit of distorting facts and misleading the public. However, in this case he apparently thought he could get away with fabricating two complete sets of lab results related to food safety. Willingly disseminating false health information strikes me as a serious breach of journalistic ethics. In any case, ABC thinks a slap on the wrist will suffice, and tonight Stossel is expected to make an on-air apology. Will he admit he lied or blame an intern?
posted on Aug 11, 2000 - View this thread

like your news grassroots flavored? this is a really comprehensive list of hundreds of free weekly newsmags across the country. rock!
posted on Jun 26, 2000 - View this thread

the age weblog [via wetlog, of course]

it's pretty obvious she's reading MeFi [and memepool] -- but not linking to them.
posted on May 25, 2000 - View this thread

Crackpots brought to you by 'balance" is a piece over at the Boston Globe on the state of the media today. It focuses on the media's handling of the whole Elian G. business, but it also takes a different angle on the more general matter of being journalistically 'fair' . . . which I thought interesting too in the light of growth of online fora and web logs (and perhaps also ask-an-expert sites?) which are coming to be considered as legitimate news resources.
posted on Apr 27, 2000 - View this thread

HighWired.com helps high schools put their newspapers (and classrooms and other information) online -- but i wonder if putting articles like this one, which tell personal information about students, online is a good idea. following that logic, i guess it's good that it's difficult to search high wired or find a list of all the high school newspapers that it hosts. if you poke around a bit, you can find many papers and it's good for a laugh.
posted on Feb 2, 2000 - View this thread

The San Francisco Examiner is up for sale? I didn't even know this. I'm surprised no dotcoms have swooped in to buy the dead trees media. Apparently, they need a buyer very soon, or the paper will merge with the SF Chronicle. Will SF become yet another one-newspaper city? Sad...
posted on Jan 29, 2000 - View this thread