Once upon a time, local newspapers could depend upon a steady stream of local classified ads — people advertising looking to hire a handyman, or to sell their old sofa or used car. The income from local ads in locally-owned newspapers would go back to the communities, in the form of the paychecks for the…
From Buzzfeed: Sitting before the Stars and Stripes, another flag pinned to his lapel, former president Barack Obama appears to be delivering an important message about fake news — but something seems slightly…off. Similar:Pope Leo XIV names AI one of the reasons for his papal nameWashington Post Cartoonist Who Quit Over Bezos Cartoon Wins…
Sometimes people get the name of my school wrong. On a whim, I searched Google for “dennis jerz seton hall” and found a recent letter to the editor that referenced one of my handouts: Verify or Duck: Good Journalists Confirm Details They Didn’t Witness Dennis Jerz of Seton Hall University writes “Good journalists confirm details they…
Do you have a regular news-consumption routine? Facebook doesn’t want you to leave Facebook, so it’s algorithm favors posts that will keep you on Facebook, rather than links that will send you elsewhere. I listen to a 5-minute podcast from NPR News Now about once a day, usually while I am doing my morning exercises.…
A federal judge ruled that CNN correspondent Jim Acosta can keep his White House hard pass, handing a victory to CNN in its lawsuit against President Trump and top White House officials. The case could be a precedent-setting case for journalistic access to the White House. Judge Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump-appointed judge, announced the…
Bob Woodward, half of the Washington Post team whose coverage of the Watergate scandal brought down the Nixon presidency, told an audience at the Global Financial Leadership Conference in Florida that media figures are letting their emotions affect their reporting. NBC journalist Dylan Byers quoted Woodward as saying, “In the news media there has been…
From Wikipedia: In 1888 Bly suggested to her editor at the New York World that she take a trip around the world, attempting to turn the fictional Around the World in Eighty Days into fact for the first time. A year later, at 9:40 a.m. on November 14, 1889, and with two days’ notice,[19] she boarded the Augusta Victoria, a steamer of…
CNN has filed a lawsuit against President Trump and several of his aides, seeking the immediate restoration of chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta’s access to the White House. The lawsuit is a response to the White House’s suspension of Acosta’s press pass, known as a Secret Service “hard pass,” last week. The suit alleges that…
Fake news is not a problem caused by those dishonorable people whose political values differ from yours. Misinformation researchers have proposed two competing hypotheses for why people fall for fake news on social media. The popular assumption—supported by research on apathy over climate change and the denial of its existence—is that people are blinded by partisanship,…
This morning a journalism student told me a friend in a different class was complaining that “the media” was stigmatizing mental illness in its coverage of yesterday’s mass shooting in California. My student told me she remembered I had mentioned that reporters often don’t write the headlines under which their stories are published, but she…
For the UK Guardian, the news is the words the White House used while accusing Acosta of an action caught on video. For Fox, Sanders was accused of sharing an allegedly “‘doctored’” video of a neutrally-identified “interaction.” For the Washington Post, the White House “shares doctored video” — no accusation, no scare quotes. Read…
Fox News was the first major outlet to predict the House would flip to blue, in a show of professional confidence that drew praise from journalists. The decision desk’s call made me think that somewhere — under all its appalling propaganda and conspiracy peddling — a beating heart of news is still pumping away, however…
Twenty-one-year-old political science student Kieran McMurchy says he’s shocked at how quickly Trump supporters have “lost faith in pillars of free speech like the Washington Post and the New York Times.” A few months ago, he was planning to go to law school. Now, he says he’s fired up to be a journalist. “It’s definitely concerning the way…
I got a perfect score. How did you do on this Pew Research quiz? See below how your results for the factual and opinion statements compared with the 5,035 randomly sampled adults that took part in our national survey and review how you responded to each question. For more information, see the full report, “Distinguishing Between…
I touched up and board-ified a presentation on “fake news” for Seton Hill’s “Celebration of Scholarship” event. Similar:Washington Post Cartoonist Who Quit Over Bezos Cartoon Wins Pulitzer PrizeA.I. Is Getting More Powerful, but Its Hallucinations Are Getting WorseDoctor Bashir, I Presume #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 16) Smarmy hologram des…Had a great time with…
Flight 93 crash site and Tower of Voices. Well worth the side trip on the way back from a weekend gig. I had to explain to the girl why the 9/11/2001 newspaper in the exhibit didn’t mention the attacks (it had been printed overnight). She was especially moved by the recorded messages left by some…
As circulation has declined, local newspapers have had to adjust for the loss in revenue, sometimes by shrinking the size of their staffs, sometimes by selling out or closing up shop all together.
This is an important time to teach people what journalists do and why it matters. “The media” is much larger than “journalists devoted to the objective coverage of the news.” If you don’t like the slant, or the shallowness, or the opportunism of the media you run across, then check out several different sources, including…
I don’t want to make light of a little girl’s fear, but she wasn’t seriously hurt, and this is a damn fine lead: When they heard the screams, no one suspected the rooster. (Tampa Bay Times, 2002) And from a little farther into the story: The rooster struck around noon as Dechardonae ventured from her…
These folks are amazing! It’s such an honor to teach them. Similar:This 1960s teenager knew the neighborhood that inspired August Wilson’s playsWashington Post Cartoonist Who Quit Over Bezos Cartoon Wins Pulitzer PrizeHad a great time with AmLit students at the August Wilson block partyShakespeare did not leave his wife Anne in Stratford, letter fragment suggestsPater…