Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Washington Post: On YouTube, Charges of Security Flaws

From the Washington Post, via Truthout.org:

"Michael De Kort was frustrated. The 41-year-old Lockheed Martin engineer had complained to his bosses. He had told his story to government investigators. He had called congressmen. But when no one seemed to be stepping up to correct what he saw as critical security flaws in a fleet of refurbished Coast Guard patrol boats, De Kort did just about the only thing left he could think of to get action: He made a video and posted it on YouTube.com."

Comment: And this is why citizen media, citizen journalism, whatever you want to call it, is winning.

Monday, August 28, 2006

Washington Post: Blogging Under The Radar

From the Washington Post:

"The fragile cease-fire still holds, but for wary Lebanese and Israelis the barrage of noise continues -- in cyberspace. By provoking a trade in words, the 33-day war in Lebanon didn't just wreak death and destruction. It also helped knock down a wall of silence."

Sunday, August 27, 2006

The Economist: More media, less news

From Economist.com:

"Newspapers are making progress with the internet, but most are still too timid, defensive or high-minded."

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Financial Times: Computers write news at Thomson

From the Financial Times:

"First it was the typewriter, then the teleprinter. Now a US news service has found a way to replace human beings in the newsroom and is instead using computers to write some of its stories. Thomson Financial, the business information group, has been using computers to generate some stories since March and is so pleased with the results that it plans to expand the practice."

Comment: Having done this job myself, I can tell you that I'm surprised all market stories aren't being generated by computers at this point. A colleague and I came up with the idea to do Mad Libs style market stories while waiting in line to see the first Austin Powers movie.

Monday, August 14, 2006

New York Times: Ease of Alteration Creates Woes for Picture Editors

From the New York Times:

"The recent discovery that a Lebanese freelance photographer, Adnan Hajj, had manipulated pictures he took for Reuters has raised questions about the standards of photojournalism at a time of widespread digital photography."

Comment: Okay, here's a link to one of the doctored photos on Little Green Footballs. Anyone who knows more than the basics in Photoshop can see that this photo is doctored -- the smoke has clearly been enhanced using the clone tool. It is frankly impossible that the Reuters photo editors wouldn't have seen this if they looked at the photos for more than a nanosecond.

Friday, August 11, 2006

CJR Daily: Parroting the Party Line

From CJR Daily:

"But [the objective] method of reporting -- which is actually of somewhat recent vintage -- has some huge drawbacks. This is especially true for the casual news consumer who is trying to navigate her or his way through the rocky shoals of political reporting, with all of its competing agendas and professional spinners muddying the waters of public discourse."

Digital Tampering in the Media, Politics and Law

From Hany Farid's website:

"Photography, of course, lost its innocence many years ago. In as early as the 1920s, shortly after the first commercially available camera was introduced, Stalin had his enemies "air-brushed" out of photographs. With the advent of high-resolution digital cameras, powerful personal computers and sophisticated photo-editing software, the manipulation of digital images is becoming more common. Here, I have collected some examples of digital tampering in the media, politics, and the law."

NPR : Exciting Times in American Journalism

From NPR:

"One news junkie who's been around says mergers in old and new media are reinvigorating the profession -- and audiences."

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Slate: How the Times makes local papers dumber

From Jack Shafer:

"Lisa M. George and Joel Waldfogel... found that the increased availability of the Times cut into the circulation of local newspapers among "targeted readers"—that is, well-educated readers—but that local newspaper readership increased among those not targeted by the Times—the less-educated. Finally, they found reason to believe local newspapers become more local wherever the Times invades."

Online Journalism Review: Online media's 'Californian' adventure

From Online Journalism Review:

"One newspaper in Bakersfield, Calif. shows how an old media company can work like a nimble dot-com."

AlterNet: You're the Director Now

From AlterNet:

"Welcome to the world of the Wikimentary -- where you're the director and the audience."