Journalism: June 2003 Archive Page

"Mr Sahhaf's daily press briefings in Baghdad during the war, at which his statements were increasingly at odds with reality, made him a figure of fun in the West.|He was dubbed 'Saddam's optimist' and 'Comical Ali' by media commentators, before disappearing as American forces entered central Baghdad." --'Comical Ali' Resurfaces (BBC)

Sahhaf is, perhaps unsurprisingly, working on a book.

"But although multidisciplinary study of the media is now commonplace, it is striking how little effort has gone into examining the role the media play in the public understanding of science, which is itself, by definition, a multidisciplinary activity, though one very much still dominated by natural scientists themselves. All of this tends to reinforce the perception that, so far as scientists are concerned, the problem about science and the public is largely the latter's ignorance of the former - what academics call the 'deficit model'." --Who's Misunderstanding Whom? (Economic and Social Research Council (UK))

This is good content, but the website design doesn't do it justice.

The page has no out-of-context title (it's posted as "Untitled Document"), it uses frames (which means I can't actually send you to the page from which I got the above quote -- if I did, you'd be on an orphaned page and you'd have to hack the URL to navigate), and each chunk of text is a long string of paragraphs set in tiny, tiny type -- no bold keywords or bulleted lists. There's even a button that is labeled "click here", that takes you to a page that lets you click again to download a PDF document.

Looks like the job of putting this text online was given to a talented brochure designer. While I applaud the publisher's decision to make the full text of the PDF document available in HTML, the design of the website could use some improvement.

"Omigod, Earth's core is about to explode, destroying the planet and everything on it! That is, unless a gigantic asteroid strikes first. Or an advanced physics experiment goes haywire, negating space-time in a runaway chain reaction. Or the sun's distant companion star, Nemesis, sends an untimely barrage of comets our way. Or ... " Gregg Easterbrook --We're All Gonna Die! (Wired)

"This past year has seen the world of Weblogs, aka the blogosphere, grow in power and stature, if not to the general public, then to the other media. So we've created a graphical depiction of what I believe to be the most influential blogs, pushing the direction of media coverage and perhaps even public policy. | The bigger the mouth, the more influential the Weblog. The position of the mouth shows its political orientation (left or right) and whether it's doing more blogging (top) or more journalism (bottom)." Mark Glaser --Mark Glaser's Guide to the Blogosphere (OJR)

"TV3 has apologised after a graphic labelling US President George W. Bush a 'professional fascist' flashed up during its primetime news. | The baseline graphic, which was supposed to have promoted an upcoming weather bulletin, was aired to 360,000 viewers halfway through Wednesday night's news." --New Zealand Newscast Accidentally Labels Bush 'Professional Fascist' (NZ Herald)

"In fact, our language is littered with words that once used to be brands. Escalator, pogo, gunk and heroin are all examples, as is tabloid, which was originally registered by a drugs company in 1884 and came to mean 'small tablet'." --Google Calls in the 'Language Police' (BBC)

This is a light-weight riff on the observation that widespread use of the verb "google" may threaten Google's trademark. Note those quotation marks in the headline... who, exactly, is being quoted? The picture of the roller-skating police officers looks like a psychological scare tactic, but the caption ("Definitely not Rollerblades.") makes it almost defensible.

Incidentally, the term "hoovering" is popular in the UK but not in the US.

It's pretty easy to think of coke, kleenex, band-aid, xerox, etc.

On Barger, Books and BlogsLiteracy Weblog)

Unless I'm mistaken, Jorn Barger doesn't seem to have updated his Robot Wisdom weblog in weeks (yeah, yeah, I'm the pot, he's the kettle, I know).

The 2 Blowhards critique of book culture reminds me of "Theory: Write a web-book in a day", a usenet posting by Jorn Barger. Barger responded to my input by telling me that I should go find my own Internet where I wouldn't bother the idealists.

Barger incidentally coined the term "weblog" in a 1997 Usenet posting. The term was met with some snarky responses about bias and yellow journalism, but Barger replied as if the "yellow" comment is a superficial complaint about his choice of background color. Was Barger playing dumb, or did he miss the point of the critique? The exchange reads ambiguously to me.

Barger's Web Resources FAQ of 1999 is similarly terse and provocative -- which is consistent with Barger's casting of himself as a free-floating radical. He has in the past threatened to stop blogging unless he gets consulting work, and he seems to have disappeared from Usenet as well.

"Not only is the First Amendment pressed into service at the drop of a hat (especially whenever anyone is disciplined for anything), it is invoked ritually when there are no First Amendment issues in sight. | Take the case of the editors of college newspapers who will always cry First Amendment when something they've published turns out to be the cause of outrage and controversy." Stanley Fish --Free Speech Follies (Chronicle)

"So perhaps journalists, playing Wizard of Oz for so many years behind the veil of assorted editors, fact-checkers and media executives, are now feeling a bit naked out in the open. It doesn't help that media companies have cut fact-checking down to the bone (if it exists at all). With the Net and bloggers breathing down their necks, journalists will just have to try harder, especially when it comes to quotes." Mark Glaser --Feeling Misquoted? Weblogs, Transcripts Let the Reader Decide  (OJR)

For more fun stuff regarding quotes, see Ann Coulter's observation that an "average guy on the street" named Greg Packer has been quoted about 100 times:

It was easy for the Times to spell Packer's name right because he is apparently the entire media's designated "man on the street" for all articles ever written. He has appeared in news stories more than 100 times as a random member of the public. Packer was quoted on his reaction to military strikes against Iraq; he was quoted at the St. Patrick's Day Parade, the Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Veterans' Day Parade. He was quoted at not one – but two – New Year's Eve celebrations at Times Square. He was quoted at the opening of a new "Star Wars" movie, at the opening of an H&M clothing store on Fifth Avenue and at the opening of the viewing stand at Ground Zero. He has been quoted at Yankees games, Mets games, Jets games – even getting tickets for the Brooklyn Cyclones. He was quoted at a Clinton fund-raiser at Alec Baldwin's house in the Hamptons and the pope's visit to Giants stadium.

Is this guy a made-up person, like the theatrical George Spelvin or cinematographcial Alan Smithee?

Update: an AP story, that does not credit Coulter, offers a profile of the oft-quoated Packer, a highway construction worker who enjoys rubbing elbows with celebrities.

Webloggers kick Trent Lott out of his job! Weblogger Salam Pax gives the best on-the-scene reports from Iraq! Webloggers take down the top management at The New York Times! Well, two out of three ain't bad.... But most journalists -- if not the public -- couldn't keep their eyes off the train wreck and continued to follow Romenesko during the scandal." --For Bloggers, NYT Story Was Fit to Print (OJR)

It's good to be back... my new permanent digital home isn't up and running yet, but I'm back online after my move from Wisconsin to Pennsylvania.