The Huffington Post just announced that it is launching a new initiative to produce a wide range of investigative journalism — The Huffington Post Investigative Fund. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue on Mar 30, 2009 - 27 comments

Somewhat quietly within the past couple weeks, two major newspapers, on each side of the Atlantic, have opened up their data and content APIs. Last month, on their Open blog, the New York Times introduced their Developer Network. Then just yesterday, on their DataBlog and OpenPlatformBlog, the Guardian launched Open Platform. [more inside]
posted by netbros on Mar 10, 2009 - 18 comments

Virtually all the predictions about the death of old media have assumed a comfortingly long time frame for the end of print—the moment when, amid a panoply of flashing lights, press conferences, and elegiac reminiscences, the newspaper presses stop rolling and news goes entirely digital. Most of these scenarios assume a gradual crossing-over, almost like the migration of dunes, as behaviors change, paradigms shift, and the digital future heaves fully into view. But what if the old media dies much more quickly? What if a hurricane comes along and obliterates the dunes entirely? Specifically, what if The New York Times goes out of business—like, this May? [more inside]
posted by netbros on Jan 6, 2009 - 62 comments

Newsfilter: "After a century of continuous publication, The Christian Science Monitor will abandon its weekday print edition and appear online only, its publisher announced Tuesday." [more inside]
posted by Horace Rumpole on Oct 28, 2008 - 35 comments

Every issue of The Times published between 1785-1985, digitally scanned and fully searchable. (Via Wordorigins.org.)
posted by languagehat on Jun 23, 2008 - 45 comments

Gentlemen Ranters, a "brilliant compendium of reminiscences of the great days of Fleet Street". Via (check the comments for a more depressing viewpoint).
posted by criticalbill on Oct 12, 2007 - 5 comments

The website of the ridiculously awesome Newseum has been revamped and relaunched in anticipation of its October reopening. Check out the redesigned Today's Front Pages and Analysis sections - and go here for frequent, fascinating evaluations of current front page graphic design (archive). Browse the downloadable front pages of notable dates in recent history (e.g. Katrina, 2004 tsunami, 9/11). Watch discussions of some of the most recognizable Pulitzer Prize winning photographs, and check out the interactive archives of past exhibits. You can also pay your respects at the online version of the Newseum's Journalists Memorial. (previously)
posted by lalex on Sep 13, 2007 - 6 comments

Since Rupes went to great lengths to protect Wendi, see some other examples of newspaper self-censorship
posted by Geezum Crowe on Jul 24, 2007 - 14 comments

"A smart story often does contain new facts," Bennett explains. "But just as often it takes facts that are lying in plain sight and synthesizes them, or arranges them in a way — sometimes in a narrative — that really exposes some new meaning on an important subject. And I think that's a conceptual scoop." (via ATC)
posted by photoslob on Jun 20, 2007 - 14 comments

The ten things most likely to be on The Daily Express front page. This UK newspaper has gained something of a reputation of late because of their apparently monosyllabic attitude to the news and what'll appear as their front page story -- today with everything that's going in the middle east they ran with yet another story about Princess Diana. Here, Martin Belam analyzes the leaders for the past three months and examines the patterns.
posted by feelinglistless on Apr 4, 2007 - 31 comments

Charlotte Observer photographer Patrick Schneider has been fired. After a 2003 incident in which the North Carolina Press Association stripped him of his awards for three pictures (before and after can be seen here) the Observer has fired Schneider over the alteration of this image. The question remains among photojournalists: is it unethical to alter a photo in such a way that it more closely resembles what the eye saw and the camera is unable to capture, or is this a deceptive practice that damages the public's trust?
posted by TheGoldenOne on Jul 28, 2006 - 78 comments

The End of News? From the New York Review of Books. Michael Massing, a contributing editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, discusses the decline of the mainstream media and the ideal of objectivity: Accuracy in Media (1969), the Center for Media and Public Affairs (1985), the abolition of the Fairness Doctrine (1987), Rush Limbaugh (1988), Fox News (1996), weblogs, cost-cutting at newspapers. Of course, the newspaper business has always been a difficult one, as Walter Lippmann noted in his book Public Opinion (1921): [more inside]
posted by russilwvong on Nov 14, 2005 - 43 comments

Citizen journalism gets vetted, and the people of Greensboro101 etc. bite back. Should the new outlets emulate old-style papers or to each her own?
posted by Julie on Oct 11, 2005 - 16 comments

The world's 100 largest newspapers by circulation Japan and China take 9 of the top 10 spots; Greece enters at #17, the United States at #19. Newspaperindex now also has the list broken down by continent. [An updated top 100 list has been posted here] [via Cynical-C]
posted by mediareport on Jun 12, 2005 - 42 comments

Edinburgh's Scotsman newspaper has launched a digital archive covering all editions from 1817-1950. There are several stories with an American slant which may be something that interests you. There is coverage on such things as the hanging of the notorious bodysnatchers Burke and Hare. Unfortunately, after viewing the free archives it is a paysite, but I still think it's worth a look as there is easily a couple of hours of interesting reading on the free articles that are included. The set-up and look of this site is brilliant as well.
posted by ClanvidHorse on Jun 4, 2005 - 9 comments

Pages of the Past The Toronto Star has digitized each of its issues from 1892-2001. And they're searchable. And they're online. Unfortunately, access starts at about a buck an hour—but 1945 is free!
posted by DrJohnEvans on Jul 30, 2004 - 7 comments

Open Source Local Journalism. "A small California newspaper [The Northwest Voice] has undertaken a first-of-its-kind experiment in participatory journalism in which nearly all the content published in a regularly updated online edition and a weekly print edition is submitted by community members." Is the editor of your local newspaper aware of this?
posted by Blue Stone on Jul 22, 2004 - 7 comments

"The newspapers of the twenty-first century will give a mere "stick" in the back pages to accounts of crime or political controversies, but will headline on the front pages the proclamation of a new scientific hypothesis."

From an interview with Nikolai Tesla in 1937 about the now near future...
posted by Aleph Yin on Nov 29, 2003 - 12 comments

U.S. Army Used Media Cover in Iraq for Own Ends which sounds like a big old bowl of yellow journalism but isn't really, at least I don't think so. It was more to refute the Iraqi Minister of Lies talking about the whooping the Iraqi war machine was delivering to the coalition forces.

The main issue that the reporters had was that they were only getting the one side of the story and not the Iraqi perspective.

But it raises some questions about the supposed objectivity of the media. Is this a proper use of them? To help achieve military goals? Or to try to avoid more unnecessary deaths?
posted by fenriq on Sep 8, 2003 - 15 comments

Are bloggers the heir apparent of the independent weekly? Welch: For all the history made by newspapers between 1960 and 2000, the profession was also busy contracting, standardizing, and homogenizing. Most cities now have their monopolist daily, their alt weekly or two, their business journal. Journalism is done a certain way, by a certain kind of people. Bloggers are basically oblivious to such traditions, so reading the best of them is like receiving a bracing slap in the face. It's a reminder that America is far more diverse and iconoclastic than its newsrooms.
posted by skallas on Sep 6, 2003 - 4 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

Jayson Blair doesn't know when to shut up. The first interview with the disgraced New York Times reporter indicates that if he's feeling bad about what he did, he's not exactly showing it. Oh, and he has "a book full of anecdotes." Very subtle, Jayson.
posted by solistrato on May 22, 2003 - 36 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

Shhh! American Prisoners Being Held in Afghanistan This report is from Pravda, the Russian newspaper. I have not seen any media posting of this story and I wonder whether the story is false or our media does not want to go into this. Anyone at MF hear of this before?
posted by Postroad on Nov 28, 2002 - 17 comments

Jimmy Brelsin has been taking stabs at Catholic Church over the last two days (the bishops are abusing money this time). As one of the last true beat reporters in NYC, if not the nation, he's been writing for underdogs for over 40 years. Fairly well too.
posted by SimStupid on Oct 8, 2002 - 8 comments

Paper of Record provides a hi-res, searchable(!), archive of historical newspapers, generated from microfilm collections. Looks like one for Cory at Wrote['nother couple of similar links there]. Kind of new and largely Canadian at the moment, but worth watching, and subscriptions are cheap. Remember, those are Canadian dollars.
posted by Su on Aug 30, 2002 - 3 comments

British papers seem to be the only place we can find out what goes on in the US these days. Probably has to do with the liberal media, wouldn't you say?
posted by nofundy on Jun 18, 2002 - 36 comments

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 by poorhaus on Jun 17, 2002 - 11 comments

Matt Taibbi, co-founder of the eXile, Moscow's most caustic and painfully funny newspaper, has relocated to Buffalo, NY (?) to work his journalistic mojo there. That is, if he's not arrested over this editorial.
posted by GriffX on Jun 17, 2002 - 10 comments

Notice something missing from today's Washington Post? In a creative protest of management's latest contract offer, Post union members withhold bylines from news stories and columns in the June 5 edition. Most articles are written "By A Washington Post Staff Writer" and pictures are taken "By A Washington Post Staff Photographer." What other unique forms of labor protest have you seen where the union gets its point across without striking or compromising the quality of the product?
posted by PrinceValium on Jun 5, 2002 - 18 comments

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 by conquistador on May 9, 2002 - 31 comments

New York post fires reporter for story on Disney ... but publishes no corrections ...
posted by magullo on Mar 20, 2002 - 14 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

A print journalist admits her fear of blogs "What the blog threatens to do is dislodge the traditional news media's corner on the "scoop" market. With their unorthodox reporting strategies and lightning-fast publishing schedules, blogs are making it clear that you don't need to have some big, fancy newspaper job to break stories. In fact, you don't even need to write stories; you can just throw a couple of sentences up on your site with some telling links. And you can quote that naked boy in your bed who knows how to hack protocols. Whatever."
posted by ezfowler on Mar 1, 2002 - 23 comments

Ask the ombudsman. Are newspapers revealing too much information? too little? A news ombudsman receives and investigates complaints from newspaper readers or listeners or viewers of radio and television stations about accuracy, fairness, balance and good taste in news coverage. He or she recommends appropriate remedies or responses to correct or clarify news reports. Michael Getler: Internal Critic with Big Audience: how the Washington Post's Ombudsman does his job. An ombudsman is someone who handles complaints and attempts to find mutually satisfactory solutions. Ombudsmen can be found in government, corporations, hospitals, universities and other institutions. The first ombudsman was appointed in 1809 in Sweden to handle citizens' complaints about the government. It is pronounced "om-BUDS-man" and is Scandinavian in origin.
posted by Carol Anne on Oct 30, 2001 - 2 comments

There's now an electronic version of The New York Times for people who like to read the paper version of The New York Times on their computer. (Yes, you read that correctly.) Is this really necessary? Who would use such a service, much less pay 65¢ an issue for it?
posted by mrbula on Oct 23, 2001 - 40 comments

The Washington Post calls it "An Attack on the World." In addition, the London Times has a graphic of a world map that shows the number of people killed in last week's attacks from other countries.
posted by Taken Outtacontext on Sep 19, 2001 - 5 comments

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 by diddlegnome on Sep 13, 2001 - 23 comments

The New York Review of Books site has been sensibly redesigned. You no longer have to page through essays, and there are now links to related articles from the magazine's archives.
posted by pracowity on Aug 4, 2001 - 7 comments

Is the NY Times ranking its stories by "popularity" as they say, or as this writer suggests, what's "interesting"?
posted by lowblow on Jun 6, 2001 - 3 comments

The NYTimes looks back upon its 5 years of existence on the Web. There's even a small Flash movie detailing how the front page has changed over the years. When the heck did the Web start getting old?
posted by jkottke on Jan 21, 2001 - 28 comments

In the public interest or irresponsible journalism? One of our infamous tabloid newspapers published the names, locations and pictures of convicted paedophiles yesterday, the police have condemned what they did, the paper claims it is in the public interest and that the police don't do enough to protect us.....[more inside]
posted by Markb on Jul 24, 2000 - 7 comments

Stupid new marketing word of the day: "Advertorial" (spotted on this NY Times page). Here's a screenshot - what exactly are they trying to say? Do their advertisements now contain editorial copy that should help shoppers make a more informed decision, or are they just trying to fool us into thinking these advertisements have more credibility because they are "editorialized"? (disclaimer: I hate marketing BS)
posted by mathowie on May 31, 2000 - 14 comments

Moonies buy UPI; Helen Thomas quits. I've seen some, but not much, coverage of the fact that the Unification Church-owned Washington Times has purchased up the venerable United Press International. Although the UPI's been a cripped orginazation for years, I'm still disturbed to see it disappear into the maw of the crazier-than-you-think Times. Helen Thomas, the senior member of the White House press corps and all-around cool person, bailed immediately.
posted by snarkout on May 19, 2000 - 8 comments

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 by joeclark on Mar 8, 2000 - 3 comments

HighWired.com helps high schools put their newspapers (and classrooms and other information) online -- but i wonder if putting articles like this one, which tell personal information about students, online is a good idea. following that logic, i guess it's good that it's difficult to search high wired or find a list of all the high school newspapers that it hosts. if you poke around a bit, you can find many papers and it's good for a laugh.
posted by palegirl on Feb 2, 2000 - 0 comments

The San Francisco Examiner is up for sale? I didn't even know this. I'm surprised no dotcoms have swooped in to buy the dead trees media. Apparently, they need a buyer very soon, or the paper will merge with the SF Chronicle. Will SF become yet another one-newspaper city? Sad...
posted by mathowie on Jan 29, 2000 - 1 comment