As traditional news organizations face increasing pressure to cut back on investigative reporting and depend more heavily on celebrity and puff pieces (cheap to produce, attractive to advertisers, accessible to a mass audience), Dan Gillmor suggests that advocacy groups such as the ACLU have an opportunity to fill the gap. If only they were fairer…
A 2001 article from the Columbia Journalism Review… blogging it because one of my journalism courses this fall will focus on election coverage. What’s sure is that TV’s election night practices are in for significant reupholstery well before the 2002 races. Several networks promise they’ll project winners in the future only when all polls have…
Fascinating stuff… according to CNN, the story is, in order to secure the release of 15 hostages, the Colombian military set up a fake website that borrowed heavily from a real organization’s identity. The organization’s logo — a stylized red bird on a white background in the centermost of three concentric circles, with blue leaves…
Threat Level has a story on the McCain campaign’s tracking of the Obama website. Nothing really new about the practice, and nothing stunning about the revelation that the Obama camp sometimes updates its website (gasp!), but what’s unusual is that instead of independent pundits doing this in their pajamas from their living rooms, this is…
From the New York Times blog, The Lede: In the four-missile version of the image released Wednesday by Sepah News, the media arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, two major sections (encircled in red) appear to closely replicate other sections (encircled in orange). (Illustration by The New York Times; photo via Agence France-Presse) Latest update at…
I just saw Wall-E with the family. It’s rare for me to suggest that we all go see a movie — my wife is the cinema buff. But I had read outstanding reviews, and it is a Pixar film, so I went in with high expectations, and was satisfied. It didn’t knock my socks off;…
“Florida, Florida, Florida,” wrote Tim Russert on his famous whiteboard during the 2000 presidential election. In know the news cycle is moving on to other stories by now, but it’s a shame we’ll never know what he would have done for Election 2008. (Previously.) Similar:Pope Francis calls for "news communicated with serenity, precision and completeness"Pope…
A good overview of the context and significance of the Sokal Hoax (New York Sun). (Thanks for the link, Robert.) Most of us, most of the time, arrive at our beliefs for a host of psychological and social reasons that have little or nothing to do with logic, reason, empiricism, or data. Most of our…
A good example of new media journalism, in which narration and animation weave short video clips into a coherent analysis. Via the Washington Post. Our partners at Slate.com created a seven-minute satirical depiction of the Democratic primary season thus far. It covers Sen. Hillary Clinton’s “cackle,” Sen. Mike Gravel scowling at the camera, debates, former…
The Australian publishes an interesting detail about coverage of climate change: Duffy asked Marohasy: “Is the Earth still warming?” She replied: “No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not whethat you’d…
This article from Politico poses some interesting questions. The notion of the Democratic contest being a dramatic cliffhanger is a game of make-believe. The real question is why so many people are playing. The answer has more to do with media psychology than with practical politics. Journalists, for instance, have become partners with the Clinton…
Microsoft researchers discuss Blews, which is a horrible title for a promising new tool that sorts blogosphere chatter according to the red/blue political shift, and also identifies the emotional intensity of the response. Our current visualization shows the count of liberal inlinks to a news article as a blue “wing” on the left, and the…
Politico: Wolfson made the explosive charge in an interview with Politico after suggesting as much in a conference call with reporters. On the call, Wolfson said: “Sen. Obama is running on the strength of his rhetoric and the strength of his promises and, as we have seen in the last couple of days, he’s breaking…
I took a little break from evaluating a close reading assignment in order to look into the online chatter about George W. Bush’s interpretation of a painting called “A Charge to Keep.” Bush hung it on his wall because he identifies with the guy out in front, whom he sees as leading a tough climb…
Wired: A leading general and former top military spokesman in Iraq is pleading with the armed services to let troops blog and post to YouTube. Too bad the video site is banned on military nets, and Army rules squeeze military bloggers, hard. Greg Grant notes, politely, that Caldwell’s “recommendation that appears to run counter to…
On Jan 14, Ian Bogost of Persuasive Games rolled out Fatworld — a digital work that illustrates the complex connections between health, class, economics, and politics, via the rhetoric of the sandbox game. A sandbox game features open-ended play, with no single predetermined “winning” outcome. A target-shooting game such as Space Invaders forces the player…
New York Times: (the NYT Peramalink generator seems to be down.) “If I can walk into the office of a member of Congress and tell them we have 20,000 voters in their state who are already signed up to write letters and act based on game-related issues that concern them, that’s powerful,” he said. The…
Times Online: On the evening of Saturday January 17, 1998, the internet gossip merchant Matt Drudge posted a story that opened the most sensational scandal season in the history of the American presidency. He reported that Newsweek magazine had killed a story about President Clinton’s sexual relationship with a former intern. The next day he…
Karissa sent me this story from Macworld: Eight consumer and public-interest groups filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, saying mobile phone providers should not be able to block text messages from political groups and advertisers. […] If the FCC grants the petition, it would open up mobile phone networks to millions of…
Politico.com: Only 20 percent said they’d exchange their vote for an iPod touch. But 66 percent said they’d forfeit their vote for a free ride to NYU. And half said they’d give up the right to vote forever for $1 million. Similar:Spit & Polish ''Pac Gentleman"Spit & Polish: When this game was f…AestheticsCreate Engaging Infographics…