Journalism: April 2003 Archive Page

"Trainee teachers are being told to avoid the word for fear of offending pupils with epilepsy. Instead they are being advised to use 'word storm' or 'thought shower'." Liz Lightfoot

--Talk of Brainstorming 'May Offend Epileptics'Telegraph)

Who or what is telling these teachers not to use "brainstorming"? The reporter quotes a charity that says some teachers had asked them about the word, but there is no quote from a person stating that they are telling other people or they have been told not to use the word. The quoted words appearing in the headline aren't assigned to any speaker. This is a rather pointless non-story; the best thing about it is the reporter's cool name. Many amusing linguistic goodies are to be found on Tongue Tied.

"The pundits are blogging. The journalists are blogging. And now the candidates are blogging.| Who needs television? Let's just eliminate the middleman....Candidate gives speech. ABC News reports speech. ABC's Note blogs speech. Then candidate blogs his own speech, knocking down any negative interpretation by other bloggers. And we blog the whole incestuous process."

--Modem MadnessWashPost (reg. req'd))

This article will disappear in a few weeks, but I still thought it was worth blogging.

"[Cyberpunk novelist William] Gibson is currently winding up the book tour in Ireland and Britain. Once it is over, he'll end the weblog, he says. 'I have to go do whatever it is I do, to find the next novel,' he said. 'Writing novels is pretty solitary, and blogging is very social.'" Karlin Lillington

--Gibson Kicks the Blogging Habit Wired)

The text of the article states that Gibson will soon wrap up his blog; the headline screams that it's a done deal.

fisk (v): debunk via critical annotation, typically with heaping doses of contempt.
Recently Jill Walker lamented that it was hard to teach her students to blog critically. Perhaps we should first teach them to fisk.

Over the past month, I've seen the verb "fisk" pop up in weblogs discussing media coverage of Iraq. The eponymous verb is named for Robert Fisk, an award-winning reporter for the UK Independent. His writing talent is without question:

Did I sit on President Saddam's throne? Of course I did. There is something dark in all our souls that demands an understanding of evil rather than good, because, I suppose, we are more fascinated by the machinery of cruelty and power than we are by angels.|So I sat on the blue throne and put my hands over the golden armrests and surveyed the darkened chamber in which men of great power sat in terror of the man who used to sit where I was now. -- Independent 12 Apr 2003

While not flinching from calling Saddam evil, Fisk has been highly critical of the U.S.-led coalition's invasion of Iraq. He is extremely popular with [some] anti-war forces, in part becaue of his opinionated writing; but his consistent pro-Palestine slant does not escape the watchful eyes of pro-Israel media watchdogs, some of whom find his statements anti-Semitic.

But just as "boycott" derives not from something that the evil English landlord Captain Boycott did, but rather what the Irish villagers did to him, so too "fisk" does not refer to what Fisk does, but rather what is done unto him. In the blogosphere, some feel motivated to respond to Fisk's writing by refuting him in minute detail -- often repeating long chunks or the entirety of his articles, and interlineating their challenges. See: "Fisking Fisk."

The best definition I have found so far is by Eugene Volokh, who recalls an article in which Fisk "(1) recounted how he was beaten by some anti-American Afghan refugees, and (2) thought they were morally right for doing so." This, then, would seem to be the very first "fisking". Volokh credits an August 8, 2002 Instapundit post, and asked whether anyone had found an earlier usage. I wonder whether the term owes something to "MiSTing" -- a form of cultural criticism that formed the premise for "Mystery Science Theatre 3000," in which silhouetted wise-crackers in the lower right corner of your TV screen comment on and ridicule bad movies.

In general, then, the term "fisking" can be applied to any point-by-point critical annotation of another text. It is a mode of criticism well-suited to the WWW, since it begins by copying the full text of the target text, and proceeds to point out logical flaws and raise doubts. Since the fiskee's fixed text cannot respond to the challenges, the fisker can without too much trouble make the fiskee look ridiculous. While the term seems to have originated in conservative attacks against liberal positions, I recently came across a postmodern blogger who fisks an anti-postmodernist.

--Fisking as a Rhetorical ConstructLiteracy Weblog)

My idle curiosity about the term has turned into something of an epic quest... I think I'll post this now and take a break. You can post comments on the KairosNews version of the fisking entry.

"With regard to the article by David Whitehouse posted Friday, 18 April, 2003, 13:45 GMT 14:45 UK: Does anyone actually read these BBC stories before they are posted? It would be polite to to spell Mr. Rutan's name properly ('Burt' not 'Bert'). Moreover, this is not the 'world's first manned sub-orbital space programme'. I cannot imagine that Burt Rutan would have ever referred to his new project as the BBC says he did..." Cowling

--BBC Screws Up AgainNASA Watch)

This site appears to be an activist website focusing on NASA. Apparently Mr. Cowling has had past dealings with the BBC reporter whose story he criticizes above. The BBC story has apparently been silently corrected. Tissy-fits and snarkiness aside, this is yet another case of a reporter getting the facts wrong, which is why students should put extra effort into finding peer-reviewed journal articles instead of trusting whatever comes up on Google. Via Daily Dish.

"A panel of celebrity judges will help eliminate two contestants each week, leaving one lucky winner the undisputed leader of Iraq at the end of the season. Viewers can participate by casting phone-in votes, although Darnell noted that voting is restricted to calls originating from within the continental U.S."

--New Fox Reality Show to Determine Ruler of IraqThe Onion)

The title of the spoof series, "Appointed by America," is a brilliant detail that makes a concise political point.

"It is rare for a pregnant woman to vanish. But Peterson's case likely received extra media attention from the start because she was from the same town as another well-known missing person and homicide victim -- Chandra Levy, the Washington, D.C., intern who had an affair with then-Rep. Gary Condit."

--Eerily Similar Case [Missing Pregnant Woman] Languishes in ObscuritySF Chronicle)

The victim of the story making headlines was a white girl-next-door. The victim of the story nobody is following was an illegal immigrant, and the father of her baby was a married man. Meanwhile, an official with the National Organization for Women challenges the double-homicide charge against Laci Peterson's husband.

I'm a little behind in blogging Elwyn Jenkins' response to Dan Gillmor's Making the News. Here's what Elwyn says: "Writing, that you see here in this [Elwyn's] weblog, is not journalism. This is more about pedagogy than it is about journalism. This is about organizing information -- some bloggers do that by simply amassing a list of links and a little comment to cause others to look and think. I practice more of what I used to do in school -- drawing together an argument in order to present, cause thinking and seek from my readers their attention to think this topic through for themselves.|This differs from journalism, whether you are a linker and pointer blogger or a didactic blogger like myself. Journalists are much more even-handed, they are objective, edited and far more objective. We teachers tend to move towards the perimeters of thinking and over-emphasize what we are saying. Or we act like Dave Winer who keeps pointing and pointing to what he is reading and thinking. Do not trust him to be even-handed or objective. He is a teacher -- he has even taken up a teaching job at a University, so much is he like a teacher. Bloggers worldwide would very easily take up teaching, few of us would be able to take up jobs as journalists."

--Helping Gillmor: Making the NewsMicrodoc News)

Hmm. I'd quibble with this. Really good teaching involves holding back your own opinion so that students can, on their own, develop skills that help them master the material. When I stand in front of the classroom and voice my personal opinion, the quality and direction of the discussion is affected. There are always a few bright students whose educational strategy is to get good grades by flattering and parroting the teacher. (It's one reason why arrogance is an occupational hazard of college teachers-- we are constantly surrounded by bright young people seeking our praise.) In the humanities, where there are probably more often conflicting philosophies than there are in the sciences, teaching involves empowering students to make their own judgments. In the sciences, where empirical evidence validates certain approaches and invalidates others, the nature of the material lends itself better to a mode in which an expert presents information to learners.

Jill Walker recently observed, "It's hard to work out quite how to teach independent, critical thought. To my great surprise I've discovered that giving a 2 x 45 minute lecture is way easier than setting up tasks and discussions and problems that actually help the students develop their own skills."

Perhaps blogging offers both Elwyn and Dan a middle ground, where teaching and journalism borrow from each other and become something new and better. Plenty of "Town Square Meetings" look very much like college seminars. I think all Gillmor really needs to do is state his assumptions up front, refer to what is to be gained from people whose opinions are different, and demonstrate how pursuing his particular line of thought will advance everyone's understanding of the subject.

On a related note, Jenkins refers to "pointing bloggers," which, according to "personality blogger" Rebecca Blood, are so different from the "journal blogs" that they need a different term. Taxonomy is fun, fun, fun!

We all look at blogging (and everything else) through the lens of our experience. Jenkins sees weblogging as information management; Gillmor sees it as a new kind of journalism; Blood sees it as a form of personal journal. (If I weren't a teacher, here's where I would say what I think blogging is -- but instead I'm going to be coy.)

"Unfortunately, I never actually heard the protester's name pronounced, just caught him spelling it out for others and jotted it down in my notepad. | I wrote the story for Sunday's paper, tucked the quote down near the bottom, filed it to my editors in Charleston and blithely went about my life, unaware that this one name was about to make my own name known around the country. | On Monday afternoon, thanks to some astute readers with a vivid recollection of elementary school vernacular, I realized I had been duped." James Scott

--Embarrassing lesson: Duped reporter learns the hard wayPost and Courier)

"The Institute for Interactive Journalism helps news organizations use innovative computer technologies to develop new ways for people to engage in critical public policy issues."

--The Institute for Interactive JournalismJ-Lab)

Fascinating approach to journalism as telling, showing, and doing. The site features a "balance-the-budget" game and information about awards for innovative journalism. This site isn't quite "hip" enough to embrace blogging as a form of journalism (the rules for one contest require the content to be produced by an established news organization).

"King County prosecutors and sheriff's detectives asked the editors at the Eastside Journal, now called the King County Journal, to run a fake story about a staged arson to make Sherer believe an accomplice had carried out his plans. The newspaper complied."

--Ethics of Paper's Fake Arson Story Debated Seattle Times)

Woah! When does the paper's responsibility to the community include publishing a lie? This is troubling. But this isn't a story about simply trying to catch an arsonist. The suspect was planning multiple murders, and wanted to test whether he could trust an accomplice before hiring him for additional murders.

"Good evening, I'm Andy Card -- Chief of Staff to President George W. Bush. I welcome you to the inaugural 'Ask the White House' online discussion. I am pleased to be here tonight to answer your questions. The Internet is an important communications medium. We have witnessed, especially during Operation Iraqi Freedom, a substantial increase in the amount of traffic to Internet sites as more and more people -- worldwide -- are relying on the internet for information. | We see the 'Ask the White House' series as another way for our citizens to interact with the White House. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and answering your questions during tonight's online discussion. | With that, I'm happy to begin . . . " Andy Card

--Ask the White HouseWhite House)

While this appears to be the perfect set-up for some Onion-style humor (see "Ask a High School Student Who Didn't Do the Required Reading"), it's actually the introduction to a real event that took place last night. Card's responses are a bit dry, but I hope this feature returns. When it does, the new transcript will probably replace the one I've linked to, which is annoying. They should put a copy of the transcript in an "archive" file right away, if they're really serious about following up with similar events featuring other government figures. It's a good experiment in providing raw blogger fodder, unmediated by professional journalism practices.

"Until earlier this afternoon, a CNN server housed mock-ups of web pages announcing the yet-to-happen deaths. The CNN pages, which were discovered by the intrepid folks at fark.com, were yanked about 20 minutes after being exposed... In addition to Cheney and Reagan, CNN also prepped online farewells to Fidel Castro, Bob Hope, Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela, and Gerald Ford." --Not Dead Yet! CNN Obituary Mock-UpsThe Smoking Gun)

"I was on the roof of the Ministry of Information, preparing for my first 'live shot' on CNN. A producer came up and handed me a sheet of paper with handwritten notes. '[CNN President] Tom Johnson wants you to read this on camera,' he said. I glanced at the paper. It was an item-by-item summary of points made by [Iraqi] Information Minister Latif Jassim in an interview that morning with Mr. Johnson and Mr. Jordan.... The president of CNN was telling me I seemed less-than-enthusiastic reading Saddam Hussein's propaganda." Peter Collins

--Corruption at CNNWashTimes)

The print media don't mind taking potshots at the electronic media. And The Washington Times has its own history of "issues" stemming from its ownership by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. But still food for thought.

Last week, Elwyn Jenkins provided a good rebuttal to Orloswki's "second superpower" complaint. When I recently noticed that the good microdoc resorted to an ad hominem argument against Orloswki, I was a bit put off. Can't we all get along without name-calling?

But then I read Orlowski's rant against the PageRank of his "googlewashing" article. As Elwyn and Madman have pointed out, and as any of my undergraduate students who read my handout on out-of-context page titles might notice, the TITLE tags of all articles on The Register's site simply read "The Register," which might skew the PageRank of the whole site. I wonder whether Orlowsky Googled for alternatives such as "googlewashing" or "googlewash" instead of just "googlewashed".

In all fairness, Orlowsky probably doesn't have any control over the way his articles appear on The Register's website. The many bloggers whose shorter, more recent blurbs ranked above Orlowsky's original article probably do have that control. Orlowsky's article will probably float to the top as the blog postings age. All this adds up to another lesson for the increasing number of people whose professional reputation depends upon their Google ranking. I think the world needs its critics of Google, but making shrill accusations is not the way to earn the respect of your readers.Googlewashing OrlowskyLiteracy Weblog)

"The Sims Online married a hot concept -- multiplayer online gaming -- to The Sims, the best-selling PC game series of all time. In addition, it was designed in part by Will Wright, one of the game industry?s most renowned developers. All of this combined into a rich maelstrom of hype: The Sims Online was featured on the cover of the Nov. 25, 2002, issue of Newsweek and GameSpot posted a 13-page behind-the-scenes feature. Mainstream press and hardcore game publications touted The Sims Online as the first mass-market online game. | Then the reviews came out." --Ethics in Videogame JournalismOnline Journalism Review)

I've come across two websites that use news photos to tell very different stories. A Tale of Two Cities contrasts photos of anti-war protests in San Francisco with photos of Iraqi citizens kissing US soldiers and celebrating in Baghdad. But "A Tale of Two Photos" shows a wide-angle shot of the site of statue torn down by Iraqis, where it appears the square is nearly empty, surrounded by US tanks. The absence of huge crowds of Iraqis suggests that the statue incident was staged.

But consider this editorial in the NY Times, "The News We Kept to Ourselves", written by a CNN employee: "I came to know several Iraqi officials well enough that they confided in me that Saddam Hussein was a maniac who had to be removed. One Foreign Ministry officer told me of a colleague who, finding out his brother had been executed by the regime, was forced, as a test of loyalty, to write a letter of congratulations on the act to Saddam Hussein. An aide to Uday once told me why he had no front teeth: henchmen had ripped them out with pliers and told him never to wear dentures, so he would always remember the price to be paid for upsetting his boss. Again, we could not broadcast anything these men said to us."

It will be a long time before the full truth really emerges.Does the Camera Lie?Literacy Weblog)

"A team of cold-hearted, killjoy scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory callously announced Monday that the likelihood of complex life on Mars is 'extraordinarily low,' dashing the hopes of the public just like that." --Mean Scientists Dash Hopes for Life on MarsThe Onion)

"Peter Arnett, recently fired from NBC for giving an interview to Iraqi TV, has provided a lesson in media relations in today's global society.... We live in a celebrity age. Arnett had turned himself into a controversial celebrity. As such, anything he says is fair game. The Dixie Chicks just learned this when lead singer, Natalie Maines told the audience at a performance, "We're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas." Within hours, that comment was being replayed, and fans made it clear they were ashamed of the Chicks. Despite an apology from the group, stations and fans around the country are boycotting their songs. One of the perverse aspects of celebrity is that missteps can ultimately bring more celebrity. Arnett was hired within hours by one of London's leading tabloids. Other journalists may sniff that he is lowering his journalistic standards, but he certainly raised his market value." Merrie Spaeth

--Words Matter: Arnett's Baghdad Boo-BooUPI)

The authors warns, "you don't have a personal opinion" when you are a public figure (journalist, politician, or entertainer) and there is a TV camera nearby. Reagan is still being ridiculed for his infamous "we begin bombing in five minutes" joke, and footage of the assistant combing Bush's hair as he prepared to address the world a few weeks ago will outlast many other less candid moments.

What does the above title make you think? It's a quote from an article in the Chicago Daily Herald., which reports that in a particular precinct, a worker registered 127 residents of a treatment center for sex offenders; 120 residents of that facility later submitted absentee ballots. "In the clerk's race, 229 voters were cast in that precinct. So sex offenders made up more than half the vote.| Voots, the Republican, received 42 votes in the precinct. May, the Democrat, received 187."

The reporter notes that the Republican (who ended up winning after all had "championed the 1998 state law responsible for [sex offenders] being detained for treatment, perhaps for life, rather than freed." Thus, this particular group of offenders would have had a motive to vote for the Democratic opponent. The statistic provided in the news article applies only to a particular precinct that happens to contain a sexual assault facility; but by taking that quote slightly out of context, I can create the impression that the news article is making a statement about all Democrats (or all sex offenders). The moral of the story: be skeptical when you read a startling statistic (or any statistic, for that matter)."Child Molesters, Rapists and Other Sexual Deviants Overwhelmingly Supported Democrats"Literacy Weblog)

I found this quote on Megnut: "59% of all Americans believe that what is written in the Bible's Book of Revelations will come to pass." She was citing a BBC article about Bush and religion. My question is this... what, specifically, does the study say 59% of Americans believe about Revelations? Conservative evangelical churches can't agree whether "The Rapture" will be pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation, or post-tribulation, and Catholics have a completely different understanding of the meaning of the Book of Revelation (few Catholics believe the Church is the Whore of Babylon, for instance, and I recently heard a radio interview with a theologian who argues that Revelations is actually a highly poetic description of what goes on during the Mass -- thus from a certain point of view, it is not a distant prophecy but something that most Catholics see every week). My point is not simply to raise a theological question, but rather to note that the BBC could have added a web link so that the curious could find out more about this intriguing statistic. (A few minutes with Google led to me to a blogger who credited a Time poll, but I didn't get any farther than that.)Apocalypse StatisticsLiteracy Weblog)

"It is bound to go down as one of the great moments in PR history. | With US tanks rolling into Baghdad and the sound of artillery fire reverberating around the city, Iraq's ever jovial information minister popped up yesterday to declare that the 'infidels' were facing 'slaughter'.... Standing on the roof of Baghdad's Palestine Hotel, Mr [Mohammed Saeed al-]Sahaf ignored the sight of Iraqi troops running for cover on the other side of the Tigris river to declare: 'Baghdad is safe. The battle is still going on. Their infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad. Don't believe those liars.'"

--'Baghdad is Safe, the Infidels are Committing Suicide'Guardian)

Reuters quoted Abdul-Aziz, a Saudi writer: "Sahaf is vulgar but he is a brave liar...If the rest of the Iraqi government or army were this brave, they would inflict many more losses on US and British forces." Black humor is always difficult to laugh at in the face of real violence, but I couldn't help but think of The Black Knight from Monty Python and The Holy Grail, who continues to attack King Arthur despite the fact that Arthur eventually lops all of his limbs off. "Alright, we'll call it a draw," he assents. When Arthur starts to leave, the Black Knight taunts him.

"Cecile de Brunhoff, the inspiration for Babar, the enchanting little elephant whose adventures captivated generations of children, has died in Paris. She was 99."

--Inspiration for 'Babar the Elephant' DiesAP)

To say that somebody was the inspiration for a cartoon Elephant suggests something unflattering. The headline could have been clearer: "Inspiration for 'Babar' Stories Dies" ?

A chart comparing newspaper references to the terms "weblog" and "blog". Not only is usage of both terms on the rise, "blog" is overcoming "weblog". Via Torill Mortensen --"Weblog" vs. "Blog"Eszter's Blog)

"Be pro-active, not reactive. Tell stories that provide background and context FIRST. We've tried to avoid two traps some media organizations, including The Bee, have fallen into:

• The 'minority of the week' story (writing about minorities for the sake of writing about minorities, i.e., 'Here are our Latinos!').
• The 'minority bad news story of the week' (writing about people of color whenever there's a problem, i.e., violence in minority neighborhoods). Those certainly are stories, but they go down a lot easier when you've provided context, and written stories emphasizing other aspects of minority life.

One big-picture story is worth 20 briefs. It lays a positive foundation, so when it comes time to write a critical story (i.e., the high welfare rate among Hmong and Iu Mien), you've got sources, they trust you, and they realize you've been fair to them." Stephen Magagnini of The Sacramento Bee

--Tips on Covering Race & EthnicityPenn State U)

Apparently this was reproduced as part of a journalism class. Via Donna Hibbs.

"Kelley's insightful window on the details of the war brought him increasing readership (118,000 page views on a recent day) and acclaim, including interviews in the The New York Times and on NBC's Nightly News, Newsweek Online and National Public Radio.| The only problem: Much of his material was plagiarized -- lifted word-for-word from a paid news service put out by Austin, Texas, commercial intelligence company Stratfor. |'You got me, I admit it.... I made a mistake,' Kelley said. 'It was stupid.'" Daniel Forbes --Noted War Blogger Cops to CopyingWired)

"Often the best reports were those that were carefully written and edited. Some were essentially radio reporting on TV. Technology made some reports stand out but got in the way when it was used for its own sake. Too often the rush to get information on air live created confusion, errors and even led journalists to play the game of 'Telephone,' in which partial accounts become distorted and exaggerated in the retelling."

--Embedded Reporters: What Are Americans Getting?Project for Excellence in Journalism)

Interesting... title of this study suggests either that Americans are the primary audience for the embedded reporters, or that the authors of the study did not choose to study other audiences. Why?

"Because McLuhan saw the media as extensions of the human body ? printed books as extensions of eyes, radios as extensions of ears ? he believed that each new technological advance would reshape humanity and traumatize it, too. 'We shape our tools and our tools shape us.'.... The tanks rolling into Iraq from the south were not just tanks but extensions of marching legs and protective skin. The night vision goggles were extensions of eyes. And what about those television cameras attached to the tanks? They were harder to classify.....Are the television cameras the witnesses to war, or are they part of the weaponry?" Sarah Boxer

--McLuhan's Messages, Echoing in Iraq CoverageNY Times)

I found the reason I was hooked by the cable coverage of the war was becuase I sat there, inert and overwhelmed. While TV may have been cool and engaging when McLuhan wrote, I think the multiple boxes, scrolling bars, flashing logos, etc., makes TV a much hotter medium now. A McLuhanite blogger from Toronto ponders whether the grainy camera footage from the embedded reporters will cool down the medium once more.

I haven't had cable TV at home for six or eight years, but I spent the first week of the war in a guest house with cable. I usually get my news from GoogleNews, but I didn't have web access. I felt trapped and hemmed in by the TV coverage -- I couldn't accelerate the story when the anchor was repeating stuff I already knew, and I couldn't click on the reporter's face to see what else he/she had written. I found it all terribly frustrating.

But I suppose this could be explained by observing that McLuhan's "hot" and "cold" categories are relative. I remember as a kid doing an experiment where you put one hand in ice water and another hand in very warm water, and then put both hands into a container of room temperature water. One hand feels warm, and the other hand feels cold, even though you are holding hands with yourself. A very odd experience.

"On Monday, March 31, the Los Angeles Times published a front-page photograph that had been altered in violation of Times policy. The primary subject of the photo was a British soldier directing Iraqi civilians to take cover from Iraqi fire on the outskirts of Basra. After publication, it was noticed that several civilians in the background appear twice. The photographer, Brian Walski, reached by telephone in southern Iraq, acknowledged that he had used his computer to combine elements of two photographs, taken moments apart, in order to improve the composition."

--LA Photographer Fired for Digitally Altering News PhotoLA Times)

The "new" photo certainly does look better than either of the two from which it was made. Photographers often touch up images (removing scratches, reducing red-eye, etc.). The "new" picture creates a relationship between the soldier raising his hand and the civilian holding his child. Maybe that relationship really was there, and the photog was ticked off that he couldn't capture it. But either way, it was wrong to pass off the faked picture as real.