Police set up a sting in a park and men are arrested for lewd behavior. The mens behavior is illegal but should their lives be ruined? He says he was told to plead guilty and did so to avoid a harsher punishment that would have come had Giles pled innocent and then been found guilty. Afterward, his employer fired him. "When I lost my job over it my wife was so upset and distraught and distressed that she had a major heart attack," said Giles, whose wife died shortly after ABC News interviewed him. John Stossel does his report.
posted on Jul 25, 2008 - View this thread

Baby's first internet comes amidst other, less illustrated, concerns about the all-consuming 'blogosphere' and increasingly online life. The problems, it seems, are somewhat novel and (one assumes) almost endless.
posted on Jul 22, 2008 - View this thread

What's YOUR Pew News IQ? (not to be confused with the New Zoo Revue, even though it rhymes) We've discussed Pew's surveys about news knowledge before, but this time you can test yourself. Just 12 eeeee-zeee questions (not 100). Wendell got them all correct. Can you?
posted on Jul 18, 2008 - View this thread

The Exile is back. Iconoclastic Moscow-based web-rag The Exile, having recently been shut down by the Russian authorities for its often less-than-complimentary views on all things to do with the motherland, is back, having relocated to Panama. A victory for the spirit of Gonzo.
posted on Jul 15, 2008 - View this thread

"Pulse", a project by Markus Kison, "...is a live visualisation of the recent emotional expressions written on the private weblogs of blogger.com. These emotional expressions are parsed according to a list of synonyms and transform a physical shapeshifting object...." (QT video) (via)
posted on Jul 14, 2008 - View this thread

Lillian Ladele, a Christian registrar, has won her discrimination case after refusing to conduct same sex civil partnerships. " Islington Council cared too much about the "rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual" community, the panel ruled. "
posted on Jul 11, 2008 - View this thread

Man fined for stuffing 13 people in a Volvo. Big news story today in Wales about a man fined and banned from driving for driving around Llandudno with 12 passengers in his Volvo. There's a handy little film attached so you can see just how difficult this is. Great to see license fee money being used for such hard-hitting investigative journalism like this, silly season's come early. Giving the current fuel costs in the UK, expect to see more of this OTT car pooling.
posted on Jun 24, 2008 - View this thread

Every issue of The Times published between 1785-1985, digitally scanned and fully searchable. (Via Wordorigins.org.)
posted on Jun 23, 2008 - View this thread

CBC Filter: I guess parenting in Canada ain't what it used to be. The Senate wants to make spanking your children illegal and a Quebec judge quashes a dad's grounding of his 12-year-old daughter.
posted on Jun 19, 2008 - View this thread

Should Michael Reagan be free to say this on syndicated radio? Should Mark Dice be free to say this (NSFW audio) on his website?
posted on Jun 14, 2008 - View this thread

Google's Android goes live for demo. Lots of video and stills. Cache.
posted on May 28, 2008 - View this thread

The Tories first by-election win in over twenty-five years... the end of New Labour?
posted on May 23, 2008 - View this thread

The Day There Was No News is moving in its simplicity. The music is from Ben Frost's Theory of Machines, which is pretty good in its own right.
posted on May 14, 2008 - View this thread

Thirty-six years after the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse recommended that "simple possession" of pot be decriminalised, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has introduced a bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), to remove federal criminal penalties for possession of up to 100 grams (about three-and-a-half ounces) of marijuana and the not-for-profit transfer of up to one ounce (28.3 grams). Drug reform advocates lit up hailed the legislation as "an important step toward bringing federal law into line with scientific fact, practical reality and public opinion." Is America, at long last, having a collective moment of sanity?
posted on Apr 20, 2008 - View this thread

"Baby Lali with two faces, two noses, two pairs of lips and two pairs of eyes was born on March 11 in a northern Indian village, where she is doing well and is being worshipped as the reincarnation of a Hindu goddess, her father said Tuesday."
posted on Apr 18, 2008 - View this thread

As a result of the Dutch film Fitna, Indonesia has blocked several websites including MySpace and YouTube. This follows hot on the heels of a new bill which could see people face six years of jail time or a 1 billion rupiah fine for being caught sending out porn, “false news” or racial or religious slurs on the Web. The Indonesian government will start censoring the Internet next month with specialised software. Very disappointing for a country which had a reasonably free press.
posted on Apr 8, 2008 - View this thread

The dangers of being a TV news reporter. A guaranteed context-free three-minute montage of television field reports gone awry.
posted on Apr 8, 2008 - View this thread

Protestor grabs the Olympic torch in London. (SLYTP)
posted on Apr 7, 2008 - View this thread

Super Epic Video Game News. Several Channel 101 alumni are bringing their own distinctive style to game and tech journalism. Perfect for those who love video games, but hate the people that play them. The YouTube comments are an even split between impotent rage and people who get the joke.
posted on Apr 3, 2008 - View this thread

Enjoy over 170,000 screencaps of your favorite cable news personalities at ReporterCaps.com.
posted on Mar 30, 2008 - View this thread

GeeksOn "A show created by Geeks for Geeks, covering topics that Geeks like to talk about." This is one of my favorite podcasts out there, most topics they cover are talked about in a very smart manner with lots of philosophy and moral quandaries thrown in, and they have gone on to get some great interviews with various people in Geek culture including Christina Hendricks, who plays Saffron from Firefly, and its Producer, Lisa Lassek(Christina is the sister of one of the geeks), Orson Scott Card, George R.R. Martin, Forrest J Ackerman, Garrett Wang, and the man himself Joss Whedon!
posted on Mar 25, 2008 - View this thread

If burying Old Blue or Fluffy in the backyard just doesn't seem good enough, don't worry, for anywhere between $6,000 and $128,000, you can have them mummified old school style. Or if having to leave them on display in the living room while you leave the house seems just too hard, you could always wear them. Or of course you could always just have them turned into diamonds.
posted on Mar 20, 2008 - View this thread

Amsterdam plan to legalize public sex in park from this year September onwards. The police's National Diversity Expertise Centre (LECD) wants this to expand this plan to all public parks of the Netherlands.
posted on Mar 19, 2008 - View this thread

You stay classy, San Diego. A television reporter and an anchorman engage in an embarrassing on-air pissing contest in the middle of a newscast.
posted on Mar 12, 2008 - View this thread

Kids on Aciiiiid! In order to protect her pupils from internet pervs a British headmistress has censored photos on the school's website by slapping smileys all over them. The result is like some combined fever dream of Chris Morris and Banksy.
posted on Mar 6, 2008 - View this thread

The 'bullet magnet' is back. I can't believe that the British press kept a secret for so long (10 weeks is a miniature eternity in journalist time). It was supposed to last six months... I also can't believe that the odious Drudge has broken yet another big story. Was it all just a PR stunt?
posted on Mar 3, 2008 - View this thread

The Power of Photography (might or might not be NSFW) with accompanying articles: Stricken Child crawling towards a Food Camp [1994] | The Falling Man [2001] | The Youngest Mother [1939] | Born Twice [1999] (via)
posted on Feb 15, 2008 - View this thread

iReport.com - "a brand new beta site for uncensored, user-powered news. CNN built the tools, you take it from there. All the stories here are user-generated and instant: CNN does not vet or verify their authenticity or accuracy before they post. The ones with the "On CNN" stamp have been vetted and used in CNN news coverage."
posted on Feb 14, 2008 - View this thread

British Movietone News - Digital Archives :: Apparently complete archives of the UK Movietone Newsreels from 1929 - 1979. Free registration required. Uses Quicktime. Beware of many lost hours ahead. Via DaddyTypes
posted on Feb 12, 2008 - View this thread

World Press Photo of the year 2007. Category winners and runners up. (Some possibly NSFW)
posted on Feb 9, 2008 - View this thread

... a small, heavy package wrapped in brown paper arrived in the mail at the Woody Guthrie Archives in New York City. Inside was a mess of wires. It wasn't a bomb - it turned out to be the only live recording of Woody Guthrie known to exist. The wire was fragile, bent, stretched and twisted. Jamie Howarth applied some algorithms he had developed to restore old recordings, and the result has been nominated for a Grammy.
posted on Feb 8, 2008 - View this thread

The Sound of Music War
posted on Feb 2, 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

'Race' graphically illustrated - "most Europeans" vs. Ashkenazim (previously; see also IQ & Gladwell, viz. ;)
posted on Jan 23, 2008 - View this thread

Everyblock has launched. It's local news culled from (any and all available) services, including photos, news, restaurant inspections, classified ads, and civic announcements. Sounds pretty dry, but looking at my old neighborhood in San Francisco, there's a wealth of hyperlocal information that you can't get in one place. They're currently in three major metro areas of the US with many more to come -- their launch announcement has more. This site was spearheaded by Adrian Holovaty, a pioneer of the intersection between journalism and computer science, and winner of a $1million grant last year to build such sites.
posted on Jan 23, 2008 - View this thread

Marta Costello makes a big deal out of explaining why she didn't make a big deal...
posted on Jan 19, 2008 - View this thread

Got Questions About the News? Ask AP (Associated Press) All you have to do is "send your questions to newsquestions(at)ap.org, with "Ask AP" in the subject line. Then keep an eye out for installments of the new Q&A column, where you'll finally get some answers"... maybe... if they feel like it. Instant Analysis: No threat to Ask Metafilter.
posted on Jan 10, 2008 - View this thread

"Video of Iran ‘attack’ on three US warships released by Pentagon"
posted on Jan 9, 2008 - View this thread

Are we recording all this, Nick? I hope we are. Right here we go... In 2005, the BBC's royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell was preparing a "two-way" regarding that year's VJ Day 60th anniversary commemorations. He and the interviewer Richard Evans just couldn't see eye to eye as to how the story should be covered. Luckily for us, their tetchy conversation and the fall out with the producers was recorded (transcript/mp3). Despite the vintage, it's a rather revealing behind the scenes record demonstrating the process that's often gone through to decide how news is best communicated to we listeners.
posted on Jan 6, 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

Fairytale of New York... censored! No, not now... Shane will make 50 this Christmas... Sadly not Kirsty.
posted on Dec 21, 2007 - View this thread

Hammer films are back! ... The classic British horror film company has returned from the dead with the first new film in 20 years to be first broadcast in instalments via MySpace. This has allowed some news programs to camp it up just a little... See the trailer here. Behind the scenes.
posted on Dec 18, 2007 - View this thread

"'It's been a magical evening,' Joel says as the Great Khali hits the Undertaker with a dustbin lid." Jon Ronson (and son) journey into the world of WWE to investigate the death of Chris Benoit.
posted on Dec 8, 2007 - View this thread

Mark Wallinger has won the Turner Prize for 'State Britain' his recreation of Brian Haw's Parliament Square peace protest.
posted on Dec 5, 2007 - View this thread

Norman Mailer has posthumously won this year's Literary Review Bad Sex Award for his novel on the early life of Hitler, The Castle in the Forest. He was up against some stiff competition but Norman managed to rise to the occasion (sorry). Safe for work, but you might feel a bit dirty in the morning.
posted on Nov 27, 2007 - View this thread

The media begins to awaken. Recently, Tom Curley, the President and CEO of Associated Press lashed out at the absurd conditions surrounding the detention of Bilal Hussein. After being detained for over 18 months, the US Military has finally decided to charge him, but nobody can say for what, or when, or why, or what evidence might be brought forth. Strangely, Mr. Curley writes this without a hint of the irony present in being caught in the net of lies, deception and constructed memory hole that the media has participated in the creation of. Playing patsy comes back to bite. AP hosts a timeline of articles.
posted on Nov 26, 2007 - View this thread

You might have thought a six month hangover was bad enough but now in 'binge-drink Britain' there's a reported rise in 'exploding bladders'... safe for work but you might want to read it with your legs crossed. Or a least spend a penny first.
posted on Nov 20, 2007 - View this thread

Everybody has heard a story of someone being struck by lightning. People who survive such a strike can even join a support group. But if you do survive a strike, beware, as you will undoubtedly suffer adverse side effects!
posted on Nov 14, 2007 - View this thread

Live footage (in Georgian) as special police forces shut down dissident Georgian TV station IMEDI amid Tbilisi protests; the anchor staunchly trods on (transl. English by RussiaToday). IMEDI TV is co-owned by News Corp.
posted on Nov 7, 2007 - View this thread