Posts under ‘Media Criticism’

This Washington Post story, “Slain Journalist’s Family Files $20 Million Lawsuit,” repeats a too-common failing: citing the amount demanded by lawyers who’ve filed a lawsuit as if the number means anything at all. It means basically zip. Lawsuits can ask for any amount of money. Lawyers put in big numbers, often to attract press attention. […]

Wired Magazine’s article about the YouTube “lonelygirl” phenomenon, “The Secret World of Lonelygirl,” is full of revealing detail. But in the end it’s a paean to deception — the hoodwinking of folks as part of a business plan. The article’s near-endorsement of the tactics lends Wired’s own credibility to the deceivers. Was that the intention? […]

Blogworks: The Blogosphere Loses Transparency. It’s been a bad week for transparency and honesty in the blogosphere, demonstrating that once blogging starts making money, the rules change.

Washington Post: O.J. Deal Leaves Sour Taste in Many Mouths. The two-part, two-hour TV interview is scheduled to be aired on the Fox network Nov. 27 and 29 and was conducted by hard-charging and controversial publisher Judith Regan. The show will run before the Nov. 30 release date of Simpson’s pseudo-confessional tome, “If I Did […]

Charlie McCollum (San Jose Mercury News): Fox digs deep in the sleaze, comes up with an O.J. Simpson special. Mike Darnell, the head of Fox’s alternative programming department and the man most responsible for bringing “If I Did It” to the airwaves, did say in the release that “this is an interview that no one […]

Howard Kurtz at the Washington Post says “Tightened Belts Could Put Press In a Pinch“: Real investigative reporting, as opposed to the what-happened-yesterday stuff, is time-consuming, risky and expensive. And as one news organization after another sheds staff in this tough financial climate, it’s worth considering what aggressive journalism has produced lately. Yes, worth considering. […]

The ombudsman of the New York Times, in his current column, decides somewhat incoherently, that the paper was wrong to blow the whistle on a semi-secret government spying program targeting, among others, U.S. citizens. If the job of the press isn’t to tell us when such things are going on, then the press has no […]

Milverton Wallace, in an essay entitled “The new Corinthians: How the Web is socialising journalism,” says: So now we’ve come full circle: from 17th /18th century amateurism, to 19th/20th century professionalism and back to amateurism in the 21st century. Here we use “amateur” in the noble, Corinthian sense – someone or an activity motivated by […]

Dave Winer: What comes after Who Knew What When: It was a question of Who Knew What When. Iraq, Katrina and Delay do not fit that template. So I have to wonder whether we should be concerned if CNN or MSNBC or the LA or NY Times are in trouble, if the only story they […]

Paul Henry’s “The War of the Words” is unfair in some respects and utterly one-sided. It’s also a brilliant example of how to use democratized media tools to make a point. Take a look.