Of all the offshoots of the "Stuff White People Like" meme, my favorite is Stuff Journalists Like. From Free Food to Press Passes to Exclusives, this blog is covering everything in the ink-stained-wretch's lifestyle, including some things they really just barely tolerate. For a more serious look at the Journalistic Profession during this time of Transition/Crisis/Insanity, there's always Jay Rosen, whose PressThink blog has been previously seen here and is getting more attention than ever via (shudder) Twitter. Or, for something more in-between... 10,000 Words uses a bright, shiny bunch of tag clouds, maps and other visual aids (plus fun with typography) to tell the journos how it should be done while doing it.
posted by wendell on Jan 2, 2009 - 20 comments

"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 by nospecialfx on Mar 9, 2008 - 34 comments

Amateur Hour. Internet journalism and the traditional media. Nicolas Lehmann in the New Yorker.
posted by semmi on Aug 6, 2006 - 12 comments

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 by punkbitch on Jan 8, 2005 - 44 comments

US Military 'still failing to protect journalists in Iraq' (Guardian link, reg. req use bugmenot.com)
This isn't the first time allegations of mistreatment of journalists have been levelled at the US troops. Nor is it the second and the military has even admitted to killing an Arab journalist and some are questioning if the US military wants to kill journalists? The list of dead journalists and another list from AlJazeera.net, continues to grow.

And, because I'd not seen if before and don't recall seeing it here before, the Iraq Body Count database (the civilian death toll) and here it is, all on one big page.
posted by fenriq on Nov 19, 2004 - 22 comments

"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 by FormlessOne on Sep 15, 2003 - 37 comments

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 by Artifice_Eternity on Jul 25, 2003 - 38 comments

Unbiased (ideally) but not inhuman (hopefully) The Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma at the University of Washington studies the effects of crazy badness ("if it bleeds, it leads") on reporters and studies ways in which the news media can better cover traumatic events in the life of the world: War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. From a piece on the site, "9-11 Journalists Share Memories, Support," "Long before Sept. 11, he was interested in how journalists respond to the pain and misery they encounter in their work, and the lack of support they often find in a traditionally tough-minded business. Then he nearly died while photographing the World Trade Center attack, and found those issues hit closer to home than he ever imagined."
posted by jengod on Jul 23, 2003 - 2 comments

Turning the tanks on the reporters The Observer's Phillip Knightley writes that Iraq will go down as the war when journalists seemed to become a target. Predicted here, discussed "in progress" here. The BBC, Al-Jazeera, and the US Committee to Protect Journalists thought it prudent to find out from the Pentagon what steps they could take to protect their correspondents if war came to Iraq... All three organisations concluded that the Pentagon was determined to deter western correspondents from reporting any war from the 'enemy' side; would view such journalism in Iraq as activity of 'military significance', and might well bomb the area.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly on Jun 15, 2003 - 25 comments

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 by hhc5 on May 10, 2003 - 39 comments

We all know that a number of journalists have quit the embedded roles they were playing. And while Saddam's regime may have been quite brutal to the press and others, some claim the recent loss of a few journalists was no accident.
posted by woil on Apr 11, 2003 - 17 comments

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 by insomnia_lj on Mar 12, 2003 - 74 comments

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 by astirling on Oct 23, 2002 - 9 comments

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

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 by Gaz on Mar 13, 2002 - 11 comments

Media Conspiracies Revealed! Ever notice unusual references to "creamy thighs," "okra," or the phrase, "it was as if an occult hand had. . . " in your daily newspaper? From The Poynter Foundation website, candid confessions from journalists about how they fight the boredom of writing daily news. It's a conspiracy, all right--"right down the cock."
posted by busbyism on Feb 8, 2002 - 5 comments

"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 by Kevs on Dec 15, 2001 - 7 comments

Hat's off to some brave ladies! I have only admiration for them, especially in the harsh environments of the Colombian and Sudanese journalists; not that ETA is child's play, just that Spain is relatively secure. In a completely unrelated vein, doesn't the term 'Homeland Security' sound vaguely Nazi-ish?
posted by mmarcos on Oct 18, 2001 - 9 comments

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 by ZachsMind on Nov 19, 2000 - 0 comments