MoveOn wanders off the reservation? An arm of MoveOn tries to "confront" Tribune Co. CEO today to present him with 45,000 signatures protesting deep staff cuts at the Tribune newspapers, claiming they undermine newspapers' vital watchdog role. New West's Jonathan Weber, former editor in chief of The Industry Standard, says "Most newspapers are businesses and it's silly to make a political cause out of what in this case is a highly routine business decision." Since it seems MeFites almost universally are fans of the emerging "citizen journalism," as well as ardent advocates for journalism's watchdog role, what do we think of MoveOn's effort here? And yes, my title and tags for this post indicate that I agree with Weber, not MoveOn.
posted on Dec 7, 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

Journalism's vacation from the truth One day after Tucker Carlson, the co-host of CNN's "Crossfire," made his farewell appearance and two days after the network's new president made the admirable announcement that he would soon kill the program altogether, a television news miracle occurred: even as it staggered through its last steps to the network guillotine, "Crossfire" came up with the worst show in its 23-year history
posted on Jan 15, 2005 - View this thread

A Senior Moment The sign of a good specialist writer is the ability to amuse those who aren't specialists, or even enthusiasts, of their particular field. Dan Neil of LA Times is probably the most entertaining automotive writing around. Here, regarding the Montego, he asks the Mercury people, "What were you thinking?" (Registration might be necessary). He's also funny when doing positive reviews, as when drooling over the Acura. No particular car lust required.
posted on Dec 11, 2004 - 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

Dalai Llama Misses Sex, Shoots Guns This is the finest tabloid newspaper headline evar. Remember Peter Falk, in Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities, admiring the rhythmic and sadistic anticlimax of the headline: 'Scalp Grandma, then rob her' ? This is better. Should I have worked on the school paper instead of playing bass? I could have been a contender.via fark.
posted on Aug 2, 2003 - View this thread

Anyone want a prestigious award for journalism? The USC Annenberg School for Journalism is accepting entries for the 2003 Online Journalism Awards, for independent and affiliated sites in eight different categories, including online commentary and creative use of the medium. So, who would you nominate? Any hidden treasures of the web this year?
posted on Jul 18, 2003 - View this thread

'Salam Pax' plays Americans for fools in Iraq more speculation from RogerLSimon, LGF and junkyardblog and a dissenting view needlenose.
posted on May 17, 2003 - View this thread

Ashleigh Banfield was recently "demoted." "Coincidentally," this came after her public comments about coverage of the war in Iraq. I have thought about her in the past, but never as an ideologue, and certainly not as a journalist on the level of Maria Bartiromo. It is shocking that her career might be a casualty of war. Thoughts about this fallen soldier, as a journalist, or as a hot little firecracker?
posted on May 5, 2003 - View this thread

Media Map of Iraq (Requires Flash 6.) Click on a location or unit to see a list of embedded reporters. Then each reporter's name is a link to a list of their war reporting either at their website or via a Google News search. Also, Poynter.org is constantly looking to improve this map via reader input, as the Pentagon is not giving up much information on the embedment program. Also, The Atlantic Monthly/Washington Post's Michael Kelly is the first embedded reporter to be killed in this war.
posted on Apr 4, 2003 - View this thread

Though you won’t hear about them , there are dozens of Pentagon P.R. officers embedded with reporters in Iraq.
posted on Apr 2, 2003 - View this thread

Celebrity TV journalist Geraldo Rivera kicked out of Iraq: Pentagon I had seen Geraldo drawing the map referred to. Geraldo was not "embedded" and therefore acting as a real reporter. Did he give away key info? My suspicion is No. I had earlier seen retired officers (they all retire and then go on TV) make similar marking to show where our forces were on the way toward Baghdad. I knew in advance where Geraldo would conclude his map in the sand because I had seen it on the "embedded" reports on various cable stations.
posted on Mar 31, 2003 - View this thread

"Journalists" vs. The White House - MSNBC's Tom Curry reports on the Bush administration's frustration with the war coverage. Rumsfeld: “Fortunately... the American people have a very good center of gravity and can absorb and balance what they see and hear.”
posted on Mar 28, 2003 - View this thread

This whole damn battlefield is entirely screwed up. Journalists are informants are medics are soldiers are noncombatants are enemies are friends are puppets are war criminals are spies are civilians are terrorists are injured are paramilitary are POWs are freedom fighters are MIA are bloggers are bystanders are children are involved. Will there ever again be an American war where it's clear who's who? And who's on which side?
posted on Mar 28, 2003 - View this thread

Robert Fisk in the Independent Today's front page of the UK broadsheet comprises solely of a text-only report of yesterday's bombing of a Baghdad marketplace, beginning: "It was an outrage, an obscenity. The severed hand on the metal door, the swamp of blood and mud across the road, the human brains inside a garage, the incinerated, skeletal remains of an Iraqi mother and her three small children in their still-smouldering car..." This is how war reporting should be.
posted on Mar 27, 2003 - View this thread

Sean-Paul Kelley and Nick Denton have some amateur infographics of the Iraq conflict online. [more inside]
posted on Mar 23, 2003 - View this thread

Embedded? Or In Bed With The Military Spin Doctors? Quite apart from the significant sexual and conspiratorial overtones of the word and concept themselves (when applied to people), there's something more than a little disquieting about the participant observation aspect of the large-scale practice of embedded reporting in the current invasion of Iraq - as opposed to the journalistic tradition of direct observation. Altogether too gung-ho - and inevitably so - I'd say. Me no like. And don't really trust myself to be able to epistemologically introduce, in my understanding of what I see, the (already minimal) distance that I'd previously taken for granted in standard reportage. What can be done to offset this bias? [Here is a very recent, detailed Department of Defense guide to what a media embed consists of [pdf format] and the release journalists must sign in order to be embedded.]
posted on Mar 22, 2003 - View this thread

Pentagon threatens to target journalists in Iraq. (RealAudio, 49 minutes into the broadcast.)
In an interview with Radio One Ireland, Kate Adie, former chief news correspondent for the BBC, drops a bombshell.
If satellite uplinks from the press are detected in Baghdad, they would be "targeted down", said a senior US military official. "They know this. They've been warned."
Ms. Adie also revealed that the US military are openly asking journalists what their feelings are on the war, and are using this information to block reporters from access to reporting on the conflict.
These actions are "shameless" and "entirely hostile to the free spread of information," says Ms. Adie. "What actually appalls me is the difference between twelve years ago and now. I've seen a complete erosion of any kind of acknowledgment that reporters should be able to report as they witness."
posted on Mar 12, 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

Does anyone here remember Daniel Ellsberg of the PentagonPapers fame? Well he may be relevant again and not only that, maybe essential.
posted on Nov 26, 2002 - View this thread

Hoaxed! In a follow-up to this thread where various news agencies were claiming the imminent demise of our blond brethren, based on "German experts" and WTO research, it turns out that the whole story was a hoax. It's either a case of serious journalistic inability to check sources...or the RTMark guys are at it again.
posted on Oct 1, 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

Newsguru is an "experiment in randomized photojournalism." Unfortunately, it doesn't have the bombardment value that My Left Asscheek(hee!) did, which strangely enough, they bought. Or, maybe, it just made for a great "press release" title.
posted on Jun 20, 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

John Dean's Watergate Expose , due to be published Monday, will not be as illuminating as he earlier claimed. Meanwhile, two time Pulitzer Prize winner William Gaines's journalism class at the University of Illinois names Pat Buchanan as Deep Throat on NBC's Dateline.
posted on Jun 14, 2002 - View this thread

Those free weekly alternative-press newspapers in your city? They suck. On the anniversary of Baltimore's City Paper, a writer celebrates by calling for change. Not just at Baltimore's paper, but at all alt-weeklies. That means you, Austin Chronicle, and Riverfront Times, and...
posted on May 9, 2002 - View this thread

Another interview with Greg Palast. This is a follow-up to the previously discussed interview with the self-imposed exile journalist.
posted on May 3, 2002 - View this thread

As a Denver news staple dies, he keeps a blog. Oh man, get the kleenex.
posted on Apr 4, 2002 - View this thread

Rewriting history in real time. Recent blogging epiphanies and Borg Journalism are creating an amazing system of information sharing. But this article raises some interesting questions about the flip side. If an entry is removed before anyone reads it, does it count?  Or has the collective made it impossible for anything that's said to be retracted?
posted on Apr 3, 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

Raffaele Ciriello killed in Ramallah early Wednesday. Ciriello ran the marvelous and heart-wrenching site Postcards from Hell (previously discussed, and currently down).
posted on Mar 13, 2002 - View this thread

The lasting legacy of Daniel Pearl. By William L. Winter, Ph.D. President & Executive Director American Press Institute.
posted on Feb 28, 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

A Picture is worth a thousand words
Jonathan Jones says America turns to Rockwell's idyllic images in times of trouble.
Remember This Guy from Tiananmen Square, June 5, 1989? A powerful image that seems to be linked to bravery and freedom in most stories I remember.
Now what about This Guy, A Palestinian boy throwing stones at an Israeli tank.
I'm not sure where the connection is here, but the tank images struck me as somewhat similiar to each other, yet, I imagine the two images will mean different things to different people.
I'm not sure what either tank image has to do with Rockwell, that's just the story that got me thinking.
posted on Feb 19, 2002 - View this thread

Great article about the decline of obituary writing in American journalism. Notable obits it names include Hunter Thompson's unflattering rendition of Nixon and H.L. Mencken's scathing posthumous indictment of William Jennings Bryan.

Should we go back to obits like these? Damn right we should, says suck.com.
posted on Jan 26, 2002 - View this thread

I've been known to chastise my self publicly for doing stupid things, After reading about this cop's misadventure, I suddenly dont feel stupid anymore.
posted on Jan 17, 2002 - View this thread

"I felt no spark of creativity...only guilt that I survived to tell the tale." We're all newshounds here, so how about a thought on for the eight journalists that have died bringing us news in Afghanistan?
posted on Dec 15, 2001 - View this thread

SAS man exposed as fraud The BBC has discovered that Tom Carew, who writes articles from an SAS perspective for the papers and has just published a book about serving in Afghanistan, was never actually a member of the SAS at all. I just saw this interview on TV and laughed and laughed when he punched the camera. WARNING: Realplayer link
posted on Nov 14, 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

BBC's John Simpson reports on the attacks from inside Afghanistan. i rate his reporting and am a great admirer of hir work and books
posted on Oct 7, 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

The war of words over Israel continued this week as CNN instructed its journalists to refer to "settlements" as "Jewish neighborhoods." Last month the BBC agreed to stop using the term "assassination" in favor of "targeted killings."
posted on Sep 4, 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 week in pictures - an outlet for the best photojournalism

Sometimes they do have really nice pictures.
posted on Jul 21, 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

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

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

Letterman makes like Rodney Dangerfield and goes "Back to School." David Letterman will be a special guest speaker in the journalism class that Al Gore is teaching. On a side note, does anyone else find it ironic that a class on journalism is being taught "off the record"?
posted on Apr 4, 2001 - View this thread

Bush will apparently stop holding formal press conferences , instead opting for "informal conversations" with reporters. He promises to be "accessible," but I for one wouldn't be surprised if "informal" began to translate as "ceases to tell the country what he's up to"...
posted on Mar 28, 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

Dr. Stupid sets things straight. Australian commentary site Crikey is where Dr. Stupid exposes the sloth, stupidity, and duplicity of journalists who should really know better. I enjoyed his autopsy of the recent flurry of Tom and Nicole coverage, and the rest of the column has some nice tidbits as well. Are there columns like this about the American press that you would recommend?
posted on Feb 17, 2001 - View this thread

The LA Times on entertainment journalism. An obvious but refreshing analysis of what gets reported, what doesn't get reported, and why. Particularly refreshing is the discussion of the ridiculous self-fulfilling prophecy of reporting box office numbers, and how that drastically affects the marketability of more sophisticated films meant to appeal to adults (who don't often see films on opening night).
posted on Feb 13, 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

Can we say "Most misleading headline"? "Cybersex News Report Sparks Outcry" sure doesn't imply to me the same thing as the body of the story. I thought there might actually be something more interesting inside.
posted on Dec 5, 2000 - View this thread

Glass Redux. I don't know what is going on with reporters lately. Did Stephen Glass start a trend?
posted on Dec 5, 2000 - View this thread

Published a year ago, the Village Voice series "AIDS: The Agony of Africa" is an incredible, award-winning, multi-part series. Superb reporting, tight writing, wrenching emotions, factual gold mine, this series is a model for good journalism--and a klaxon-call warning about the wretched state of a continent.
posted on Dec 1, 2000 - View this thread

Good Magazine. Some amusing stuff here. Eg, right now the home page has "An Interview with Neal Pollack Using Questions Intended for Mark Kingwell that Refer to His New Book."
posted on Oct 25, 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

Proof that Upside reporters read MetaFilter.
posted on Sep 8, 2000 - View this thread

Is online journalism dead? Good points, but don't know if I buy the whole argument
posted on Aug 30, 2000 - View this thread

When headlines go wrong... This ain't gonna leave a lot for the rest of us, is it? Seems to me that this ranks as the biggest acquisition in history.
posted on Aug 15, 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

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

The Corporatization of Weblogs Has Begun, it is decreed The current Editor & Publisher introduces blogging to its newspaper-editor audience and points out two blogs actually written by newspaper columnists. I do indeed agree that Weblogging is a viable new medium of expression for dead-tree media, and agree even more strongly that special-interest journalistic blogs are in desperate need. (I'm planning one myself, and wouldn't it be great to read dueling blogs on the same topic from rival newspapers?) I just worry that the column will have an illocutionary effect, i.e., it will cause something to happen just by uttering words, rather like "I now pronounce you married." In this case the words I worry about are "The corporatization of Weblogs has begun." I can hear Rushkoff griping about the good old days already. And I'd gripe along with him.
posted on Mar 8, 2000 - View this thread