The Data Journalism Handbook is intended to be a useful resource for anyone who thinks that they might be interested in becoming a data journalist, or dabbling in data journalism. [more inside]
posted by Foci for Analysis on Apr 30, 2012 - 8 comments

In 2007, the Madison (WI) Police Department hired their first civilian Public Information Officer: former reporter Joel DeSpain. Over the last five years, Mr. DeSpain has reportedly combined "humor, a flair for the dramatic and sense of the absurd", and turned the mundane Madison Police Blotter into an "art form and a thing of joy." So Why Has Madison Wisconsin Has Become the Weird News Capitol of the Midwest? Meet the United States’ most whimsical police reporter. (Last one's a gawker link. If you dislike their site / interface, have no fear: all reports in that article (plus four extras) can be found after the jump.) [more inside]
posted by zarq on Feb 28, 2012 - 19 comments

The Police Gazette had it all: misogyny, violence, racism, and venereal disease. It was yellow journalism concentrated into its purest form (SL Cracked List).
posted by reenum on Feb 21, 2012 - 55 comments

Life, as we might experience it, is here warped by the closeness of death. [more inside]
posted by Ahab on Aug 6, 2011 - 7 comments

"In the sweet leisure of his retirement — if you don’t count the chemotherapy — former Poynter president Jim Naughton" (and the only member of the White House Press Corps to ever question a US President while wearing a chicken head,) has written a memoir: "46 Frogs: Tales of a Serial Prankster." Poynter Online has posted four excerpts as part of their ongoing Best Practices: Leadership & Management series:
* Turning the boss’s office into a fun & inviting place
* How bringing 46 live frogs into the newsroom fosters a philosophy of fun
* How newsroom humor can create a sense of togetherness
* Interviewing the U.S. president while wearing a chicken head

posted by zarq on Apr 15, 2011 - 4 comments

An oldie, but a goodie: Michael Lewis goes to Columbia's School of Journalism to see what such schools actually do to prepare their students.
posted by reenum on Dec 28, 2010 - 16 comments

ProPublica now has a tumblelog.
posted by reenum on Jul 30, 2010 - 8 comments

In late October, New York Newsday put their website content behind a pay wall. How many subscribers signed up since then? 35. [more inside]
posted by reenum on Jan 26, 2010 - 65 comments

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 by Blazecock Pileon on Nov 19, 2007 - 5 comments

David Halberstam's last column, The History Boys - Politics and Power, is in this month's Vanity Fair magazine. In other news, the student driving him at the time of his death, Kevin Jones, has been charged with vehicular manslaughter. (Previously)
posted by nevercalm on Jul 5, 2007 - 21 comments

Iran: Blogger/Journalists arrested over banned Reformist websites (stop.censoring.us)
posted by hoder on Sep 8, 2004 - 15 comments

"In the history of the world, no one has ever washed a rented car." Analyzing the writings of NYTimes' Thomas Friedman. via atrios
posted by skallas on Nov 12, 2003 - 27 comments

Arafat on our side? Other than this story (Guardian), I haven't seen much coverage of Yasser Arafat's behind the scenes efforts to protect Western journalists in Iraq. Possibly not the act of the evil man that he's often portrayed as?
posted by daveg on Apr 3, 2003 - 37 comments

"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 by JollyWanker on Mar 31, 2003 - 30 comments

Sunday, Bloody Sunday... On the night of 30 January 1972, Murray Sayle was sent by the Sunday Times to Londonderry to report on the fatal shooting of 14 unarmed civil rights marchers by British Army Paratroopers. The article he wrote diverged from the official line; it was never printed. Twenty-six years later, his lost copy was unearthed by the new Inquiry. In what follows, he returns to Derry to give evidence. His original article is reproduced in full, along with a map marking the locations of the dead and wounded, and a memo Sayle wrote to the editor of the Sunday Times when the article failed to appear.
posted by dejah420 on Sep 4, 2002 - 17 comments

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 by Summer on Nov 14, 2001 - 34 comments