Good example of ‘do NOT remove things from photos.’

Hat tip to my former student Kiley Fischer, who brought this story to my attention saying “Good example of ‘do NOT remove things from photos.’” Longtime City Paper reader Edward King-Smith, 37, of Pittsburgh’s Stanton Heights neighborhood was among those who alerted Deitch that his publication included a photo of a woman tattoo artist wearing…

The Media Pyramid: “Any content where ideology leads to falsehood is bad for you.”

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For Two Months, I Got My News From Print Newspapers. Here’s What I Learned.

Farhad Manjoo says he’s a better, more-informed person thanks to his decision to try getting his news only from print sources. Turning off the buzzing breaking-news machine I carry in my pocket was like unshackling myself from a monster who had me on speed dial, always ready to break into my day with half-baked bulletins.…

Chilling analysis of organized, anonymous disinformation campaign against Parkland survivors (impressive journalism from The Washington Post)

Forty-seven minutes after news broke of a high school shooting in Parkland, Fla., the posters on the anonymous chat board 8chan had devised a plan to bend the public narrative to their own designs: “Start looking for [Jewish] numerology and crisis actors.” The voices from this dark corner of the Internet quickly coalesced around a plan…

Don’t use that “18 school shootings since Jan 1” claim. It’s Inaccurate.

Don’t use that “18 school shootings since Jan 1” meme. It’s misleading. I’ve lost track of how many times this image has popped up on my social media feeds. The 18 “school shootings” marked on that map include an instance in which a third-grader accidentally pulled the trigger of a police officer’s holstered gun (nobody…

An Hour of Monastic Silence in Media Studies Class (plus an awesome drum solo)

I announced that my 300-level Media and Culture class would spend an hour in monastic silence, collaborating on a Google Doc. I expected the students would understand I was helping them get into the mood to appreciate the 14th century setting of The Name of the Rose. What I didn’t expect was an awesome drum…

My understanding of biased polls is… (choose one)

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Fie upon your multi-page, ad-stuffed crapfest of shame. (Don’t click!)

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Apology of Socrates, By Plato

Aristotle classified Plato’s work, representing Socrates’s defense against charges that he corrupted the youth of Athens, as a fiction. But what words! What a defense! (“Greatest mind of history / Solving life’s sweet mystery.” —Schwartz) For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your…

Certainty vs. uncertainty: “In which are we more likely to be deceived, and in which has rhetoric the greater power?”

I’ve taught Plato’s Phaedrus before, but in the past I have mostly focused on brief passages in which the characters discuss writing, which is really just a side issue. The purpose of today is mostly just to accustom my “History and Future of the Book” students to oral classical culture, in the hopes they’ll get…

Socrates envisaged a time when we would forget how to remember.

From Daisy Dunn’s review of Puchner’s The Written World: Socrates envisaged a time when we would forget how to remember. The Iliad, the Odyssey, the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Indian epic Ramayanahad been preserved through an oral tradition that seemed destined to perish through overreliance on papyrus. Akhmatova remembered because she had to but Socrates simply chose to. He…

The Pope’s Prayer for Countering “Fake News”

Today is the feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists. We are sharing a famous prayer that #PopeFrancis has adapted: a prayer to fight #fakenews. If you know a journalist, give them some love today, and feel free to share this prayer. (CNS illustration/Joanna Korhorst) —Catholic News Service Similar:Seton Hill graduates its last "New Media…