That was the theory behind Journolist: An insulated space where the lure of a smart, ongoing conversation would encourage journalists, policy experts and assorted other observers to share their insights with one another [….] At the beginning, I set two rules for the membership. The first was the easy one: No one who worked for the government in any capacity could join. The second was the hard one: The membership would range from nonpartisan to liberal, center to left.
Backstory here.
“This, of course, is the Obama enigma: Who is this guy? What are his core beliefs?“
In related Stupid Headline News…
h/t Sammy
The money quote from Canadian Journalism Foundation’s Excellence in Journalism award winner Michael Cooke, editor of the Toronto Star:
“Is journalism 100 unpaid bloggers all talking and yattering at once, or a city filled with amateur citizen journalists uncoordinated in all their efforts? Those bloggers and citizen reporters are as close to real reporters as karaoke is to Frank Sinatra live and in person.”
What Cooke and many of his colleagues in the MSM fail to recognize or accept is that their “city filled with amateur citizen journalists” is actually a city filled with subject matter experts. In other words, unlike the generalist reporter, the citizen journalist has often spent a lifetime developing expertise in whatever subject he or she is writing about.
I don’t know about you, but when I want to know what’s wrong with my car, I go to a mechanic, not a reporter who happens to be writing about auto repair today.
Pentagon investigators are trying to track down Julian Assange, the elusive Australian-born founder of WikiLeaks, who they believe is preparing to publish several years of State Department cables allegedly passed by the 22- year-old Manning, now being detained in Kuwait. The cables contain “information related to American diplomatic and intelligence efforts in the war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq,” and they could do “serious damage to national security” if made public…
A poll that may not go horribly wrong, but we can give them a run for their money.
Update: It has taken just 90 minutes to shift the poll results from 15% “yes” to a near dead heat. SDA gets results!
680 – 680 at 6:16ET
Bumped: 20 hours later…
Yes 73% (3,275 votes)
No 27% (1,215 votes)
Total Votes: 4,490
h/t Jeremy
The news agency reacted to questions raised by an American blogger who showed that Reuters’ photo service edited out knives and blood traces from pictures taken aboard the activist ship Mavi Marmara during a clash with Israeli commandos last week. Nine people were killed and scores were injured in the clash.
The pictures of the fight were released by IHH, the Turkish-based group that sponsored the six-ship fleet that tried to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza.
In one photo, an Israeli commando is shown lying on the deck of the ship, surrounded by activists. The uncut photo released by IHH shows the hand of an unidentified activist holding a knife. But in the Reuters photo, the hand is visible but the knife has been edited out.
‘I believe that if you rely on the print version of the New York Times, the first time you will learn about the Thomas controversy will be in tomorrow’s paper. Assuming they cover her resignation.”
Find an anti-Semite.
Via Drudge, and several readers.
Related: Those Troublesome Jews.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s ambassador to the US gets the Quote Of The Day…
“For a final solution, you cannot ignore Hamas.”
Indeed.
Release of the Federal Trade Commission’s working paper on “reinventing journalism” makes it clear that there is no more time for diplomacy about this issue: Barack Obama is determined to federalize the news industry just as he has banking, autos, and health care.
[…]
Those in the administration who clearly view independent journalism as an obstacle to “change we can believe in” and their numerous allies in the old media, non-profit activists, and academic community who either share a similar ideological vision or see the FTC process as their salvation against the Internet will no doubt dismiss my assertions as extemism or alarmism.
Fine, call me whatever, but what they cannot deny is what is written in the FTC document and what it clearly tells us about the intention behind the initiative, which is to transform the news industry from an information product collected by private individuals and entrepreneurs as a service to buyers to a government-regulated utility providing a “public good,” as defined by government.
Via.
Reports that Bob Woodward* is still alive are greatly exaggerated.
“Here he is – about 15 feet away on the neighbor’s rented deck overlooking my children’s play area and my kitchen window. “
h/t
“She was trying to be controversial for the sake of being controversial,” said [Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists] president Graeme MacKay.*
“Where’s the gangplank?”
Alternate title: The World Still Has Too Many Reporters.
Just innocent victims of The News They Kept To Themselves.
Pablo Rodriguez gets the Michael Bryant treatment.
Related! CBC exonerates CBC, again.
“Did you know that Jason Kenney was Stockwell Day’s chief of staff?”
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
…. “The CBC has commissioned a study to determine whether its news is biased, the president of the public broadcaster told the Senate finance committee this week.”
…. “CBC refused to comment on the study’s methodology Thursday.”
Why look! Someone’s asking “what do you think?”
