May 2012
77 posts
FBI Sends Agent to "Check On" a FOIA Request
Talk about chilling…. via Truth Out.
I was stunned. I have never heard of the FBI sending out a field agent to check on a FOIA.
I called FBI headquarters and spoke with Kathleen Wright, a spokeswoman for the bureau and asked her about it.
Wright said the “visit” was “routine.”
“The purpose of the visit was to ensure this was a legitimate FOIA request and...
Algorithms, politics and public debate
Great post and an important read:
From “Can an Algorithm be Wrong?” http://limn.it/can-an-algorithm-be-wrong/
“The workings of these algorithms are political, an important terrain upon which political battles about visibility are being fought (Grimmelmann 2009). Much like taking over the privately owned Zuccotti Park in Manhattan in order to stage a public protest, more and...
A Restaurant That Crowdsources Dinner
Local and organic through foraging One Los Angeles chef...
My System: Bookmarking, Dog Ears and Marginalia
On Bookmarking, Dog Ears and Marginalia via booktwo.org This post and the comments that follow are a fascinating exploration into how people bookmark. I was particularly interested in the mixed online/offline strategies that people employ - in particular those that result in a kind of public commonplace book on a site like Flickr or Tumblr. After reading this, I was inspired to outline my...
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New Orleans Becomes Largest U.S. City Without... →
Newspapers and the Digital Divide
As the Times-Picayune cuts down to printing three days a week and shifts more and more online it is worth noting:
“Statewide, prospects for wider broadband access have stumbled, too. In November, Jindal refused an $80 million federal grant aimed at spreading broadband to poor, rural areas of the state.”
Meanwhile the big ISPs are writing laws to stop local communities to start up...
In language context, convention and circumstance...
via youtube.com Not sure which I like better - this amazing speech by Stephen Fry (http://www.stephenfry.com/2008/11/04/dont-mind-your-language%E2%80%A6/) or this incredible Kinetic Typography made out of the speech. For example: “do they bubble and froth and slobber and cream with joy at language? Do they ever let the tripping of the tips of their tongues against the tops of their...
Journalists involved in collaboration...
Journalists involved in collaboration should: · Invest in structures and strategies for open and reciprocal communications. · Express expectations, roles and goals clearly and early on (including financial, editorial and other). · Build and establish trust and build meaningful relationships between collaborators. · Expect to be flexible and accommodating,...
We're All Infrastructure Socialists - Forbes →
Photos of Journalist Abuse and Arrests at the NATO...
I spent the weekend tracking reports of press suppression and journalist arrests in Chicago at the rallies, marches and protests surrounding the NATO summit. See more photos and videos here.Pic: photojournalist injured during today’s protests #NONATO http://pic.twitter.com/L7aZVieAShare on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on PinterestShare on Google+Share on LinkedinShare by emailAmber Lyon...
“It’s a fairly basic constitutional issue for the press, whether or not there is...”
– James Risen, reporter, New York Times, in a talk at the National Press Club. ‘Reporter’s Privilege’ Under Fire From Obama Administration Amid Broader War On Leaks.
Background: The Obama Justice Department continues its attempts to force Risen to testify against CIA agent Jeffrey Sterling by arguing...
New news and old cities
Every futuristic vision that starts with a clean slate has a genocide or an apocalypse lurking in it. Real new cities are built through, within, around, and alongside of the old cities. They evolve. As Bruce Sterling says, “The future composts the past.” via boingboing.net I really appreciated Cory Doctorow’s post on the evolution of news and newspapers, and the clarity...
Make the Wind Visible: Beauty and Advocacy in the...
via engadget.com Back in grad school I wrote a lot about how environmentalists needed to get away from scientific arguments and use storytelling, art and beauty to make their case. One of the key debates at the time - and it still is today in many respects - is over wind farms. I think wind turbines are lovely - many don’t. However, when I saw this picture above I was floored. This...
Jeff Severns Guntzel on Journalism and...
I love long-form journalism. I love reading it and I love writing it. Long form journalism is not broken. Just ask @longform and @longreads.Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on PinterestShare on Google+Share on LinkedinShare by emailJeff Severns GuntzelWed, May 16 2012 09:46:28ReplyRetweet0
likes · 0
comments I’m not interested in the “non-article” because I...
Photojournalism Resources in Chicago
View Photojournalism Resources in Chicago in a larger map
If you are headed into Chicago to cover the events around NATO this week there’s only a few places for camera rental and repair inside the city proper, and only one place that’s open on Sundays. Here are some options compiled by local photographer Ryan Williams, mapped by me.
Calumet Photo - Good for film and digital, rentals,...
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“The essential skills today are relational, not just transactional.”
– There has been a lot of new debate recently about paywalls. I won’t rehash those debates, but I think the quote above (taken from a speech about organizing in the conservation movement actually) captures something critical to consider in debates over paywalls.
Paywalls emphasize the...
Finding our story
“Stories are the secret reservoirs of values: change the stories individuals and nations live by and tell themselves and you change the individuals and nations. Nations and peoples are largely the stories they tell themselves.” - Ben Okri “Our goal is simple: we want our country to flourish. Our dilemma is simple: we have not yet told our people a story that sticks.” -...
Searching for good news on the radio dial
A public radio show about leaders and visionaries who are transforming lives and communities via thepromisedland.org I have often bemoaned how news and journalism emphasizes the troubles of the world and so rarely celebrates positive stories. If the only stories we tell are those of struggle and strife, we don’t give people the language to re-imagine their own challenges and find...
What kind of journalism do you want? A list.
I want a reading experience that defends the news from the circus that online advertising creates. I want good storytelling and analysis, not naked facts. I want news that admits and defends its point of view (and acknowledges that there is a truth to be uncovered), not news that parrots the party line while making claims to objectivity. I want long essays on the events at Fukushima and the...
“Journalists like to think of themselves as responding to a calling, or duty. For...”
– Frank Smyth, Senior Adviser for Journalist Security, Committee to Protect Journalists. Should J-School grads just get up and go overseas? (via futurejournalismproject)
Classified Ad Offers "Fake News" for Your Local...
We’ve talked in the past about how “Fake News” is making its way into our airwaves, and the FCC even discussed it at length in their Future of Media report. The report describes the insidious growth of both “pay for play” arrangements between advertisers and newsrooms and the use of video news releases that are essentially ads, disguised as news stories. However, below is a shocking example...
Four Infographics on #PubMedia from the FCC Future...
See the full gallery on Posterous
Broadcast TV News: A Dictatorship of Numbers
This is a great quote from Newt Minow’s Vast Wasteland speech - one that has received very little focus but which is worth revisiting because of the troubling blurring lines between journalism and commercialism and pay-for-play news in broadcast TV right now:”Tell your sponsors to be less concerned with costs per thousand and more concerned with understanding per millions. And remind...
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Safety Tips for Covering Occupy Wall Street : CJR →
Good reminders for the week ahead in Chicago.
“If people who understand technology don’t claim positions that defend the...”
– The problem with nerd politics | Technology | guardian.co.uk
Roundup: The Intersection of Occupy Wall Street,...
This is a round up of a few articles published in the fall of 2011 that address the future of journalism and technology as it intersected with Occupy Wall Street. The journalist arrests and press suppression in New York and the SOPA debate in DC came just as Occupy Wall Street recognized its two month anniversary with events across the nation. Read together these posts create a productive...
Vaclav Havel “A state that denies its citizens...
To mark the passing of Vaclav Havel, a fitting quote on the day after more journalists were arrested at Occupy protests: “A state that denies its citizens their basic rights becomes a danger to its neighbors as well: internal arbitrary rule will be reflected in arbitrary external relations. The suppression of public opinion, the abolition of public competition for power and its public exercise...
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“There is NO winner in this sick game that magazines, newspapers and websites are...”
– Are YOU “Mom Enough?” « The Mamafesto
A great post by Avital Norman Nathman on the role of media in shaping our debates about family, mothers, and parents of all sorts. Be sure to follow her on Twitter: @themamafesto
This quote also resonated with me:
“All I can imagine is some new...
News and Poems
It is difficultto get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.— William Carlos Williams
— Tom Stites (@tomstites) May 13, 2012
“An American bomb detonates on Laotian soil. Thirty years later, a villager...”
– These Bowls | Ramblingspoon.com
“Like the authors of the Port Huron statement who described themselves as...”
– Media Making as Participatory Democracy: Port Huron to OWS | Media | AlterNet
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Relationships are the new SEO
Are you more likely to click on a really beautifully composed tweet, a very descriptive tweet, or a link with little context but from someone you really trust?
Two people in my stream who I trust and respect recently both tweeted vague tweets endorsing a link but without giving any context or explanation as to what one would find on the other side of the link.
What an incredible story....