Michael Jackson penned and recorded
lots of songs, many of which
remain unreleased. Perhaps the most infamous, and rarest recording, is his version of
Behind the Mask. Legend has it that upon hearing
Yellow Magic Orchestra's original track, somewhen around 1979, Quincy Jones fell in love with the track, and he and Michael worked together on their own version. Jackson wrote
new lyrics for it - adding to those of
Ryuichi Sakamoto and
Chris Mosdell - and eventually recorded it during his
Off The Wall sessions. For unknown reasons the track never made the final cut of, arguably, Jones' and Jackson's greatest work. Not long afterwards
Greg Phillinganes, Jackson's keyboard player, released his
own version of the song, which was later taken up and
re-recorded by Eric Clapton for his 1986, Phil Collins produced album,
August. The track has since been recorded/remixed by
Human League,
Senor Coconut,
Orbital and
others. Does an original Jones/Jackson recording of the song
even exist? Perhaps, as the world
continues to mourn the star's
sad death, someone
will finally allow us a listen.
posted by 0bvious
on Jul 1, 2009 -
31 comments
The Pirate Bay
will be sold to a Swedish
listed software company. The
press release states that the intention is to "introduce models which entail that content providers and
copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site".
Other stabs at this worked out less than brilliantly. The purchase amount (60MSEK of which half cash/half in stocks) matches the
fine a bit too closely, but
the founders states that the money are going into a foundation to promote
freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openess of the nets. Pirate ideals or gold loot on Booty Island? Stay tuned...
posted by mnsc
on Jun 30, 2009 -
233 comments
A bad day in the news gallery? Talkback recording of everything going wrong during The One O'Clock News from the BBC in 1986:
Part One,
Part Two,
Part Three. Unless of course, this was a typical day ... "I haven't got any scripts Mike! How am I supposed to run a show?" "Animate quantel or whatever you want to do..." [
via]
posted by feelinglistless
on Jun 9, 2009 -
12 comments
NPR Backstory is an automated Twitter feed providing helpful links to news items from the past 14 years that might be relevant to current events. For example, when masses of people started googling
medical information after a news item about 200,000 patients' medical histories being accidentally exposed, NPRbackstory linked to an April 2008 analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of storing patient records online.
[more inside]
posted by ardgedee
on May 14, 2009 -
7 comments
The death of the news. What is really threatened by the decline of newspapers and the related rise of online media is reporting -- on-the-ground reporting by trained journalists who know the subject, have developed sources on all sides, strive for objectivity and are working with editors who check their facts, steer them in the right direction and are a further check against unwarranted assumptions, sloppy thinking and reporting, and conscious or unconscious bias.
posted by adamvasco
on Feb 17, 2009 -
94 comments
The Canadian Journalism Project (CJP) and its websites,
J-Source.ca (English) and
ProjetJ.ca (French), provides a source for news, research, commentary, advice, discussion and resources about the achievement of, and challenges to, excellence in Canadian journalism.
posted by netbros
on Feb 2, 2009 -
5 comments
Metro Collective is an international coalition of independent photographers. This website is an ongoing compilation of
features and portfolios that represent the individual visions of Metro photographers and their commitment to particular subjects. Their
weblog features Metro news and single images, plus interesting outtake images, tearsheets, and behind the image commentary.
posted by netbros
on Jan 31, 2009 -
2 comments
Oh those vaunted "
first 100 days," they are finally upon us. Roosevelt's legendary time period has long been applied to new administrations, but never so emphatically or with such hope as to the Obama administration. And now you can follow them! For commentary, there's
The First 100 Days, for mainstream media there's
Obama's First 100 Days, for a comparison between old and new there
100 Days: Starting the Job, From FDR to Obama, for new media there's
Obama's First 100 Days, and finally, for a government perspective there's
First 100 Days.
I smell an idea for an ironic t-shirt...
posted by Cochise
on Jan 22, 2009 -
13 comments
Prominent blogger
Andrew Sullivan develops an unhealthy obsession over the (lack of) details surrounding the birth of Sarah Palin's youngest child.
Sullivan really, really won't let it go. Persistent rumors lead the editor of the Alaska Daily News to, "finally decide, after watching this go on unabated for months, to let a reporter try to do a story about the 'conspiracy theory that would not die' and, possibly, report the facts of Trig's birth thoroughly enough to kill the nonsense once and for all." Palin releases
press release slamming the paper. Editor of paper
publishes email from Palin's office along with his response.
Palin complains about "bored, anonymous, pathetic bloggers who lie," says episode is, "more indication of continued problems in the world of journalism." She also
thinks Katie Couric is bad at journalism, not the center of everybody's universe, and is exploiting Palin. Mike Huckabee disagrees, says Couric was
"extraordinarily gentle" with Palin. Political pundits and journalists are left scratching their heads - is she crazy?
Or a crazy genius? 2012 is just
around the corner.
posted by billysumday
on Jan 13, 2009 -
188 comments
Global Museum is sort of a daily paper for the museum world. The site, which marked its tenth year in 2008, aggregates museum news, job listings, and links from around the world, helping readers stay up-to-date on issues and events like artifact repatriation, art theft and trade, archaeological discoveries, innovative programs,
unusual museums, threats to collections from war and natural disasters, and plenty of stuff just for fun.
[more inside]
posted by Miko
on Jan 12, 2009 -
4 comments
Can nonprofit news models save journalism? The advertising-supported, for-profit institutional model of journalism (
skip this ad) is
on the wane. Except for a few large and successful outlets, investment in comprehensive reporting has suffered from a shrinking bottom line, even as the hoped-for development of
citizen journalism has been generally underwhelming. But
some see a
solution taking shape in
not-for-profit, independent, citizen-supported online news organizations that would employ skilled professional journalists. Pointing to the encouraging recent growth of
NPR and
PBS as news outlets, many industry thinkers are starting to agree that "
The only way to save journalism is to develop a new model that finds profit in truth, vigilance, and social responsibility." Editors are beginning to experiment with models like that of
Paul Stieger's
ProPublica (a sort of reporting clearinghouse),
Geoff Dougherty's
ChiTown Daily News, The NYC
Center for an Urban Future's
City Limits, and
Scott Lewis' Voice of San Diego. Great idea -
will it work?
posted by Miko
on Nov 23, 2008 -
35 comments
Newspaper Website Design: Trends And Examples. News websites can be intriguing to examine from a design perspective. Regardless of what type of news they cover, they all face the challenge of displaying a huge amount of content on the home page, which creates plenty of layout, usability and navigational challenges for the designer. The lessons that can be learned from examining how news websites address these challenges can be valuable for designers who work with other types of websites, including ones with blog theme designs.
posted by netbros
on Nov 11, 2008 -
9 comments
Cyberdyne. Works on robotic systems that shouldn't kill you unless you are named John Connor. And, maybe not then.
Cyberdyne. Works on robotic systems that could actually
help you walk.
Does it help any that they named it HAL?
posted by dwivian
on Oct 8, 2008 -
26 comments
…if you are the single newspaper in San Francisco or Kansas City or St. Louis, you are just highly constrained about how rigorous you can be in the accuracy of your reporting. Because the whole model is: You are appealing to everybody. Because the whole model is: You are appealing to everybody. … That's why the existence of an independent media sector is so important.
Talking Points Memo is one of the more notable successes in independent journalism and using blogs as a format for journalism. It has broken at least a couple of stories that got picked up by the mainstream press: The
Duke Cunningham bribery scandal, and the
U.S. Attorneys firing scandal. It's grown from being a
one-man shop in 2000 to a staff of ten today.
Josh Marshall talks about how it came to be.
posted by adamrice
on Oct 7, 2008 -
51 comments
NPR's On The Media presents a short set of pieces about comments on news websites and the challenges of "digital democracy," with
discussion from Ira Glass about responses to a show about teenage runaways, and New Republic editor and critic
Lee Siegel, who posted anonymously to respond insultingly to comments on his own blog. And a
Roanoke newspaper editor discusses how one paper sees the integration of comments into online news sites and whether it's a valuable reader service.
[more inside]
posted by Miko
on Jul 27, 2008 -
67 comments
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 by halekon
on Jul 25, 2008 -
118 comments
