Giles Coren is restaurant critic at the Times (of London). Last week he wrote a very angry letter to the subeditors complaining that they were "tinkering with his copy". The subs were guilty of deleting a single indefinite article.
posted on Jul 24, 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

A Dispatches documentary Gaza: The Killing Zone shows the shocking reality of seemingly ordinary Palestinians caught in the crossfire between Hamas and Israeli forces. Feels almost like a sci-fi movie about some fictional totalitarian regime. Hard to believe it's their everyday life. WARNING: contains scenes of graphic violence, which you may find disturbing.
posted on Jun 23, 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

Guantanamo: Beyond the Law From the table of contents: "An eight-month McClatchy investigation of the detention system created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has found that the U.S. imprisoned innocent men, subjected them to abuse, stripped them of their legal rights and allowed Islamic militants to turn the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba into a school for jihad." A few pieces are already up -- "We got the wrong guys", and "'I guess you can call it torture'" -- and more will be released as the week goes on. The project also includes a database of detainees and their stories of detention, documents acquired during the investigation, video and a whole lot more.
posted on Jun 16, 2008 - View this thread

Tim Russert dead at 58.
posted on Jun 13, 2008 - View this thread

Meet Adam Chodikoff. He's the guy that finds those before and after videos, where politicians contradict themselves, for The Daily Show.
posted on Jun 7, 2008 - View this thread

War is Boring.
posted on Jun 4, 2008 - View this thread

"This might be a weird request, but I just want to cuddle," Nevada Sagebrush columnist Jordan Butler decided to do something for his last column (before graduating college) that he hadn't done before. He decided to solicit a brothel. Here's the catch: he wasn't interested in paying for sex. He just wanted something to write about for his last column. The result is half after school special and half Twilight Zone episode, but it's all funny.
posted on May 23, 2008 - View this thread

"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

"'If voters fail to return Mr. Mugabe to office...Prepare to be a war correspondent.' Mugabe's party in Zimbabwe spasms into mass repression and political violence to prevent Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change from winning power. The African Union dithers, as does the UN (as it gives Zimbabwe leadership positions). Many Chinese rationalize their government's weapon shipment. According to the government-published Herald, everything's just fine. What are the options?
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

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

Then again, maybe Puff Daddy wasn't involved in the shooting of Tupac.
It looks like the L.A. Times' March 17th story drew upon forged FBI reports created with a prison typewriter by James Sabatino. The Times is now conducting an internal review.
posted on Mar 26, 2008 - View this thread

"Now when I screw up, people from all over Charlotte mindlessly come to Belk looking for Magic Johnson." Thee entertaining screw-ups from author and sports columnist Joe Posnanski.
posted on Mar 20, 2008 - View this thread

"We need to make a comic so I can eat lunch." You're in your office sitting at your desk. There's a hot mic in the room. It's 45 minutes 'till lunch, your tummy's grumbling and you still have to write a comic. Fortunately your best friend -- who is also the co-founder of your decade-old business empire -- is sitting at his desk a few feet away. You are "Gabe" or "Tycho" of Penny Arcade, and the next 45 minutes will be captured on tape and published for all the world to hear as a podcast. But only if it's good. "Downloadable Content, The Penny Arcade Podcast" is practically a documentary on collaboratively authoring webcomics. The most recent episode is a particularly good example of that.
posted on Mar 11, 2008 - View this thread

"AngryJournalist.com, an increasingly popular site that consists of nothing but rants from pissed-off reporters, is now the most accurate summation extant of journalism as an industry," (via Gawker). It's spawned a marvelously less popular HappyJournalist.com, and what appears to be an unrelated copycat called AngryResident.com, for "for every doctor-in-training tired of suffering in silence."
posted on Mar 9, 2008 - View this thread

Gaming journalism at its silliest. What do you get when you have the designer of Grim Fandango and Psychonauts Tim Schaefer play a game that you make up on the spot? Text based adventure hilarity. More of the same feature here.
posted on Mar 8, 2008 - View this thread

To The Best Of Our Knowledge is one of the most wide-ranging and literate public radio shows in the US, a two-hour "radio salon" featuring leisurely exploration of weekly themes like No Smoking, Identity Crisis, Weekend, and The Mind, Music, and Math. Host Jim Fleming approaches these big ideas through the works of authors - journalists of all stripes, memoirists, poets, fiction writers, essayists. Five years' worth of shows are available on audio archives; you can also search the impressive list of authors by name, or subscribe to the podcast.
posted on Feb 27, 2008 - View this thread

The Frontline club is a media club in west London supporting international independent journalism. Started by Vaughan Smith (prev) after the Frontline TV agency closed, it has a restaurant, cinema and hosts talks by leading journalists. The website has blogs, articles and photography, and you can watch full length videos of talks, with people like Jeremy Paxman, David Horovitz and Robert Thomson
posted on Feb 15, 2008 - View this thread

Saved from a lynching: Enrico Dangino, friend of Vigilante Journalist photographs a man seized by a mob and about to be set ablaze, then, with the help of his compatriot, frees him. More photographs and blogging from the ground in Kenya's current political crisis from Vigilante Journalist. via.
posted on Feb 13, 2008 - View this thread

The Washington Independent went beta a few weeks ago. The site employs several reporters to do investigative journalism on topics of national importance.
posted on Feb 8, 2008 - View this thread

Bob Greene Returns
posted on Feb 2, 2008 - View this thread

groundviews is Sri Lankan citizen journalism initiative.
posted on Jan 29, 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

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

As Iraqis See It. "About a year ago, McClatchy Newspapers set up a blog exclusively for contributions from its Iraqi staff. 'Inside Iraq,' it's called, and several times a week the Iraqi staff members post on it about their experiences and impressions. 'It's an opportunity for Iraqis to talk directly to an American audience,' says Leila Fadel, the current bureau chief. As such, the blog fills a major gap in the coverage." Previously discussed here. [Via disinformation.]
posted on Jan 15, 2008 - View this thread

Toronto: Justice Denied. Mark Kingwell writes about Toronto. The article is a great read even if you've never stepped foot in the city.
posted on Jan 10, 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

Image of the Year. From the article: "If you want to go shallow for an Image of the Year, you can't do better than Paris Hilton, seen through the window of a Los Angeles sheriff's car, weeping as she's being hauled back to prison to complete a probation-violation sentence. But when you first notice the credit on that now infamous picture, there's a double take. The image came from the camera of Nick Ut, whose picture of a little girl burned by napalm, naked and running directly toward the camera and into the conscience of the American people, became perhaps the most powerful and influential vision of the Vietnam War. Not only was the Paris Hilton image taken by one of this country's most celebrated war photographers, it was taken June 8, 35 years to the day after the devastating image of 9-year-old Kim Phuc fleeing her bombed-out village. Let's put these two pictures up on the wall together for one last, end-of-the-year look, and see if something emerges."
posted on Dec 30, 2007 - View this thread

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

Vanity Fair sits down with Larry Flynt --his history and hits and misses, how much he pays for scandals involving hypocritical public figures, and a new (and limp) Nixon anecdote -- and tons of other juicy tidbits, of course).
posted on Dec 20, 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 joke falls flat in Eugene, Oregon.
posted on Dec 7, 2007 - View this thread

Jessica Hagy, author of indexed (previously) covers the 2008 Presidential Election for McClatchy's "alt.campaign" site.
posted on Dec 7, 2007 - View this thread

[archaic tech filter] Foreign correspondents and reporters in the field at the New York Times say goodbye to the paper of record's recording room.
posted on Dec 6, 2007 - View this thread

In the same spirit as the Open Net Initiative and Committee to Protect Bloggers that both track global internet filtering, Sami ben Gharbia's Access Denied Map tries to track the blocking of sites like Blogger, Flickr, YouTube and others by governments, as well as efforts by activists to keep them accessible or to challenge their blockage.
posted on Nov 19, 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

Photo-Essay on the Marlboro Marine and PTSD. An update on this story: 1, 2.
posted on Nov 12, 2007 - View this thread

"Together they panhandled with Nam Vet Needs Help signs at the highway entrance, converted their proceeds into Icehouse beer and Rich & Rare whiskey, and shared their nights in the perpetual dusk beneath the elevated highway, taking turns seeking the full sleep that never came, so loud was the traffic above, so naked were they below, in addled vulnerability.

Every Sunday Dan Barry writes about America in his This Land column for the New York Times.
posted on Nov 10, 2007 - View this thread

Enzo Biagi (August 9, 1920 - November 6, 2007) was one of the few left on italian public tv. If there's an afterlife they may be writing a two hands article with Indro on how eulogies and their writers kind of suck.
posted on Nov 6, 2007 - View this thread

The 2007 Frédéric Bastiat Prize for Journalism has been awarded to Amit Varma (economics journalist for Mint and writer of the interesting India Uncut blog). Clive Crook (Atlantic & FT) was second. The Prize was developed to encourage, recognise and reward writers whose published works elucidate the institutions of the free society, including free trade, property rights, the rule of law, freedom of contract, free speech and limited government.
posted on Oct 31, 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

What Cats Know About War. A reporter adopts cats to reconnect with life amid unremitting death. [Via linkfilter.]
posted on Oct 14, 2007 - View this thread

Gentlemen Ranters, a "brilliant compendium of reminiscences of the great days of Fleet Street". Via (check the comments for a more depressing viewpoint).
posted on Oct 12, 2007 - View this thread

Censored: The scariest news may be the stuff you haven’t seen yet. David Phinney thought he’d struck journalistic gold. The veteran reporter, who has done freelance work for PBS, ABC, The New York Times, and other news companies, learned from a disgusted American contractor that the Kuwaiti company hired to build the U.S. embassy in Iraq was using forced laborers trafficked in from Asia.
posted on Oct 12, 2007 - View this thread

New Yorker Festival Interveiw with Seymour M. Hersh
posted on Oct 10, 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