Chronicle of Higher Ed: Revalorizing the Trades.
“Having taught in art schools for most of my four decades in the classroom, I am used to having students who work with their hands—ceramicists, weavers, woodworkers, metal smiths, jazz drummers. There is a calm, centered, Zen-like engagement with the physical world in their lives. In contrast, I see glib, cynical, neurotic elite-school graduates roiling everywhere in journalism and the media. They have been ill-served by their trendy, word-centered educations.” Look around, you’ll see this generalization is rather true.
The Atlantic: Deficit Fears and the Pollster-Pundit Complex.
“This article is part of an unfortunate pollster-pundit complex where columnists, who are supposed to inform the public, instead recite public opinion without proper context or criticism, creating an infinite feedback loop that loses the central question: Is the public right? Halfway into the article, Zuckerman finally gets there: ‘Of course, the question remains whether public sentiment coincides with sound economics.’”
NY Times: What ‘Fact-Checking’ Means Online.
”But if the Web has changed what qualifies as fact-checking, has it also changed what qualifies as a fact? I suspect that facts on the Web are now more rhetorical devices than identifiable objects.” Only if we let them. But then, there’s a complicating factor ... see this previous post.
NewWest.Net Needs Contributors, Stories.
CurrrziO: Carl Mydans.
In spite of the headlines, this is very much what it was like the first time I climbed on an Amtrak heading to NYC in the 80’s. Chrome wall features, burgundy vinyl seats, and every seat had a passenger either reading NY Times or Wall Street Journal ... depending on whether they got off at Newark and took the PATH train, or went all the way in to Penn Station. Daunting, at the time. I never did pick up the paper habit. Preferred books and the early Walkmans.
1,205 unreads in NetNewsWire.
And it’s gonna be worse tomorrow morning. That’s what I get for missing a day. Then again, the incremental-news-posting thing is kinda nice to escape from. Whatever happened today - I don’t give a damn!
NY Times: The Economist Markets to the Sophisticated.
Jealous at all, NY Times?
Officials Say the Darndest Things.
A tumblog from ProPublica.
Washington Post: Mudslides in China, dumpster swimming in New York and more.
Today’s Day In Photos has some stunners.
Washington Times: NASA aims for more space station repairs Wed.
It took a little digging to find this: ”The system isn’t for the astronauts’ comfort, but rather keeps electronic equipment from overheating.” Well, that’s better. I thought they were circling the globe in a sauna.
Denver Post, Pictures of the Week: August 5, 2010.
Some you’ve seen, some you haven’t.
SF New Mexican: Santa Fe judge hears same-sex divorce case.
“But last year, Carrejo petitioned the state District Court to dissolve their marriage and divide their community property. Haught countered that the marriage was never legally valid, and consequently rules of community property don’t apply.” Media’s going to have a field day with this, if it goes national.
Reuters: Dog chews off Michigan man’s toe, saves his life.
”On the night Kiko ate his toe, Douthett said he had been out with his wife and drank about ‘six or seven beers’ and a pair of giant margaritas ‘big enough to put goldfish in.’” Slow news day at Reuters?
Vanity Fair: Topic of Cancer.
Hitch, on his cancer diagnosis ”… I can’t see myself smiting my brow with shock or hear myself whining about how it’s all so unfair: I have been taunting the Reaper into taking a free scythe in my direction and have now succumbed to something so predictable and banal that it bores even me.”
Denver Post PLog: Captured: America in Color from 1939-1943.
”These images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, are some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations.” Incredible, stunning images. Some of New Mexico. #6 may indeed show an early form of snippet blogging. Declared a MUST SEE.
Washington Post: Enough right-wing propaganda
NPR: Journalism Legend Daniel Schorr Dies At 93.
”‘What passes for commentary today is almost all opinion,’ Ritchie said, ‘but Schorr was part of that breed of commentators who dug up information before they pontificated about it.’” The point I keep trying to drive home. It’s hard to find straight facts anymore. It would be nice if editorials were footnoted. Rest in peace, sir.
ProPublica: Reverse Ferret! When Stories Bite Back.
If you’re going public with a rant based on a piece of edited video devoid of context, you’re a fool.
We used to teach school kids to not trust ‘jump cut’ interviews ... interviewing their friends over common cultural themes, and cutting them in with a replacement interviewer asking questions about Hitler or other controversial figures ("So, do you think Hitler was a great dancer?” “Oh YEAH. He’s TOTALLY sexy.” Kids were shocked, completely speechless that anyone might do such a thing. When first introduced to it, they found it unfair and a form of unwritten rule-breaking. Yet it’s done every day on newscasts all over the US. This is why sources such as C-Span are treasures. You can see all the video, in one long go.
That being said, a knee-jerk reaction is usually the wrong reaction. Most of us who have weblogged for a decade or more know this (and, speaking for myself, still keep learning it at times). Speed does not preclude the ethic of ‘not damaging truth in the process.’ The rush to post so often results in mountains of time dealing with retractions and angered readers.
For every controversial article I post, I probably throw a dozen away for lack of good reinforcing sources ... and with all of that back-end invisible work, I still end up with some dogs, real woofers at times.
This is why I argue for a ‘corrections’ category on every news-oriented weblog.
Guardian.UK: Times loses almost 90% of online readership.
”If none of the people visiting the site have already registered, the one-on-four dropout rate means that traffic actually going from the registration site to the Times site is just 84,800, or 1.06% of total UK newspaper traffic — a 93% fall compared with May.” Doesn’t bode well for other upcoming paywall experiments.
ProPublica: Foreign Help in the Gulf: The Facts Are Murky.
ars technica: Citizen journalism not making up for loss of local newspapers.
“Local arts and culture were very well represented among the citizen news sites, while legacy media seemed to have a fondness for crime. The sites identified as providing superior coverage seemed to have an abundance of government and economic stories, which may explain how they were identified as superior in the first place.”
NY Times: Ben Franklin Is a Big Fat Idiot.
This is being reposted around. Poor Richard is best read in context ... context of time, place and culture. To write a review like this, saying he’s an ‘idiot’ today ... you can make this same argument against Shakespeare or any number of other writers in the Western Canon. This, to me, is the frat-boy college argument against having to read literature. That the NY Times Sunday Book Review published this piece, depresses me.
The Atlantic Wire: Fox Plans Arabic News Channel.
This has to be a joke, right?
MediaBistro: ProPublica Photographer Detained By BP And Police.
“After taking the pictures for his investigative piece, Rosenfeld was followed in his car by a BP employee and eventually blocked by two police cars when he pulled into a gas station. He was eventually released after authorities reviewed his photos.” Not cool. Via Bloggasm.
Washington Post: Christopher Hitchens diagnosed with cancer, cuts short his book tour.
Terrible news. The prognosis for this type of cancer is very poor. Best wishes for recovery, Mr Hitch.
