NewsTrust - Media - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

President Obama Should Seize the High Ground

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Thomas Friedman - May. 27 (Opinion) - President Obama has quite a record of accomplishment to run on for re-election if he would only run on it. During a recent discussion in Seattle with a group of educators, one of them surprised me when she pointed out that even though their state did not win President Obama’s education “Race to the Top,” that program was critical in spurring education reform in Washington State. As I listened to her analysis, the thought occurred to me: I wonder how Barack Obama would do if he ran for president as himself. ... How he would do if he ran for re-election on all the things he’s accomplished but rarely speaks about.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The Facebook Illusion

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Ross Douthat - May. 27 (Opinion) - There were two grand illusions about the American economy in the first decade of the 21st century. One was the idea that housing prices were no longer tethered to normal economic trends, and instead would just keep going up and up. The second was the idea that in the age of Web 2.0, we were well on our way to figuring out how to make lots and lots of money on the Internet.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.4 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Liberals put the squeeze to Justice Roberts

Sat, 26 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By George Will - May. 26 (Opinion) - In one of his characteristic conniptions about people who frustrated him, Theodore Roosevelt, progressivism’s first president, said of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, “I could carve out of a banana a judge with more backbone than that.” TR was as mistaken about Holmes’s spine as are various progressives today about Chief Justice John Roberts’s. They are waging an embarrassingly obvious campaign, hoping he will buckle beneath the pressure of their disapproval and declare Obamacare constitutional. The crucial question is whether Congress exceeded its enumerated power to regulate interstate commerce when it mandated that individuals engage in commerce by purchasing health insurance.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.3 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The Most Powerful Special Interest in Washington: The Acronym

Sun, 20 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Micah Cohen - May. 20 (Opinion) - A linguistic plague is creeping through the nation's capital - the "bacronym," where a PAC or bill name is chosen so that the initial letters of each word form a desired word.

NewsTrust Rating: Not rated yet - See Info » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

How to Use the Internet Wisely, for Your Health and Your Country's

Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Atlantic Monthly - By Howard Rheingold - May. 13 (Opinion) - Use the following methods and tools to protect yourself from toxic bad info. Use them and then pass them along to others. Promote the notion that more info literacy is a practical answer to the growing info pollution. Be the change you want to see. Although the Web undermines authority (by enabling anybody to publish), authority is still useful as one clue to credibility in a detective hunt that accounts for many other clues. Claims to authority, however, need to be questioned. I might add credibility to my assessment if a source is a verified professor at a known institution of higher learning, an authentic MD or PhD, but I would not subtract it from people without credentials whose expertise seems authentic. If you are going to grant credibility to people whose expertise is based on being a professor of something, make sure that assertion is accurate. Don't stop at simply verifying that the claim to be a professor is valid if you are looking for scientific credibility. The next step is to use the Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index that derives a score from the scholar's publications, citations by other scholars, grants, honors, and awards. If you want to get even more serious, download a free copy of Publish or Perish software, which analyzes scientific citations from Google Scholar according to multiple criteria. Or use the h-index to calculate how many times other scientists have cited a particular source. Again, don't trust just one source; triangulate.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.9 average - 5 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Murdoch’s Pride Is America’s Poison

Sun, 06 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Bill Keller - May. 06 (Opinion) - Roger Ailes is (a) the genius who midwifed the astoundingly successful Fox News; (b) the sharpest thorn in the side of Barack Obama; and (c) the most important surviving officer in Rupert Murdoch’s global media army. ou can see why he would be a great subject for a biography. He is also (d) a political operator of the first order, which is why there are now three Ailes books in the works, two of which look to me like pre-emptive strikes by Ailes himself.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Thomas E. Mann, Norman J. Ornstein - Apr. 29 (Opinion) - Rep. Allen West, a Florida Republican, was recently captured on video asserting that there are “78 to 81” Democrats in Congress who are members of the Communist Party. Of course, it’s not unusual for some renegade lawmaker from either side of the aisle to say something outrageous. What made West’s comment — right out of the McCarthyite playbook of the 1950s — so striking was the almost complete lack of condemnation from Republican congressional leaders or other major party figures, including the remaining presidential candidates. It’s not that the GOP leadership agrees with West; it is that such extreme remarks and views are now taken for granted.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.1 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The Art of Getting Net Smart

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Forbes - By Shel Israel, Howard Rheingold - Apr. 29 (Opinion) - Howard Rheingold is a teacher, thinker, futurist and grower of the tallest sunflowers I have ever seen. He’s one the most profound thinkers of what happens online and how it changes the world. Just about every ten years, he checks in with a new book that seems to chart the course for the next decade or so. In 1993, he wrote The Virtual Community , which portended a world where people would share friendship and information with each other online, just as the first browser for the worldwide web was being popularized.

NewsTrust Rating: Not rated yet - See Info » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Wikipedia and the Shifting Definition of 'Expert'

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Atlantic Monthly - By Rebecca J. Rosen - Apr. 29 (Opinion) - How do we judge whether a person knows what he or she is talking about? How do we gauge someone's credibility? At least in part, we rely on a set of cues -- titles, university degrees, papers published, lectures given -- that have long been bound up in the concept of "expertise". If a person is deemed an expert, we are more credulous of their claims, and their words carry more weight. But expertise is a fraught commodity -- lashed inextricably to the commodities of privilege and power. Does an expert on poverty know more than someone who is poor? Are women given expert status on issues relating to women, but not others? Does expertise itself invest people with perverse incentives to maintain the status quo? How we ascribe expertise shapes whose voices and ideas have purchase in our discourse -- whose books get published, whose writing fill op-ed column inches, who sits at what tables.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.7 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

We Are All Nuns

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Nicholas D. Kristof - Apr. 28 (Opinion) - Look at the pope and at the nuns he’s cracking down on. Who’s more like Jesus?

NewsTrust Rating: 4.1 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Poor economy worsens Social Security's finances

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - By Stephen Ohlemacher, Ricardo Alonso Zaldivar - Apr. 24 (Opinion) - High energy prices and an economy that has been slow to rebound are worsening Social Security's finances, shortening the life of the trust funds that support program by three years, the government said Monday.

NewsTrust Rating: 1.9 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Whether the digital era improves society is up to its users – that's us

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Danah Boyd - Apr. 22 (Opinion) - Social media in particular has inexorably changed the world, driving openness and fear – but it is not beyond our control Most technology designers engage in their trade to make the world a better place. Technologists love to celebrate the amazing things that people can do with technology – bridge geography, connect communities and transform societies. Meanwhile, plenty of naysayers bemoan the changes brought on by technology, highlighting issues of distraction and attention for example. Unfortunately, this results in a battle between those with utopian and dystopian viewpoints, over who can have a more extreme perspective on technology. So where's the middle ground? One of my favourite maxims about the role of technology in society is called Kranzberg's first law . He argues that "technology is neither good nor bad – nor is it neutral". It's irresponsible to assume that the tools being built just wander out into the world with only positive effects. Technology doesn't determine practice, ...

NewsTrust Rating: 3.9 average - 6 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

8 questions that will help define the future of journalism

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Google News - By Richard Gingras - Apr. 19 (Speech) - These are extraordinary times. These are exciting times. There has been tremendous disruption, but let’s consider the huge positives that underly that disruption. There are no longer the same barriers to publishing: everyone has a printing press, and there are no gatekeepers. There are new ways for people to both consume and share news. There are powerful new technologies that can change what journalists do and how they do it. In my view, the future of journalism can and will be better than its past.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.8 average - 7 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Technology should help us share, not constrain us

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Richard Stallman - Apr. 18 (Opinion) - Companies like Amazon can control the way we use the ebooks we buy. Instead let's build a publishing model based on freedom I love the detective novel The Jehovah Contract , and I'd like everyone else to love it, too. I have lent it out at least six times over the years. Printed books let us do that. I couldn't do it with most commercial ebooks; it's not allowed. And if I felt like telling the publishers to take their evil rule and stuff it, the software in e-readers has digital restrictions management – malicious features that restrict access, so it simply won't allow it. And the books are encrypted in such a way to force you to use that malicious software. Many other habits that readers are accustomed to are not allowed for ebooks. With the Amazon Kindle, for instance, you're not allowed to buy a book anonymously. Kindle books are typically available from Amazon only, and Amazon doesn't accept cash so users must identify themselves. Thus Amazon knows exactly which books each user has read. ...

NewsTrust Rating: 3.3 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Keith Olbermann: Machine Gun for Hire

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By David Carr - Apr. 01 (Opinion) - Given Keith Olbermann’s abrupt removal at Current and his typically temperate response — “Current’s statement are untrue and will be proved so in the legal actions I will be filing against them presently” — it seems as if his next stop will be a puppet show shot from a basement somewhere. He’ll never work in this town, or any other, again, right? Wrong. Many of his past employers will testify to his unmanageability and unpleasantness, but the fact of the matter is that somewhere, sometime, after some kind of cooling-off period, Mr. Olbermann will be coming to a television near you. That has less to do with the greater fool theory, which suggests that there will always be someone naïve enough to think that they can accomplish what others have not — that is, make Mr. Olbermann behave like a professional when he is not on the air. (Remember that former Vice President Al Gore and Joel Hyatt — two of the principals at Current — blew through many stop signs to get to Mr. Olbermann. They made very hopeful statements when the deal was cut, which were followed by very frustrated noises thereafter.)

NewsTrust Rating: 3.5 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Tracking Women: Now There’s Not An App For That

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Andrew Dowell - Apr. 01 (Opinion) - Score one small setback for creepiness. Location-based social network Foursquare Labs has cut off access to its technology for an application that made it possible for guys to pinpoint the location of nearby women on a map and view their personal data and photographs.

NewsTrust Rating: Not rated yet - See Info » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Financiers and Sex Trafficking

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Nicholas Kristoff - Mar. 31 (Opinion) - This emporium for girls and women — some under age or forced into prostitution — is in turn owned by an opaque private company called Village Voice Media. Until now it has been unclear who the ultimate owners are. That mystery is solved.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.7 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The Outsourced Party

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Kevin Baker - Mar. 25 (Opinion) - Who speaks for the Republican party? The answer is that everyone does — and therefore, no one does. Much air time and many trees have been wasted trying to explain the division, rancor and lethargy that have beset the Republican nominating campaign, now into its second year and threatening to run all the way to the party’s national convention in late August. But it’s no great mystery. Republicans have fallen prey to one of the favorite tactics of just the sort of heedless, improvident, twenty-first century capitalism they revere. Their party has been outsourced.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.4 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The Tragedy of Mike Daisey's Lies About China

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Atlantic Monthly - By Max Fisher - Mar. 18 (Opinion) - American consumers can't do much for Central Africa or Afghanistan, but they have real power to improve Chinese labor abuses. Will they be less inclined to believe the next person who tells them how?

NewsTrust Rating: 3.9 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Howard Rheingold: Knowing How to Collaborate Is Essential

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

PBS - By Roland Legrand - Mar. 17 (Interview) - I just read the Kindle edition of "Net Smart," written by writer and critic Howard Rheingold. The book provides a thoughtful analysis of some major theories and discourses about the "always on" era, while at the same time giving new insights and practical advice about the literacies we need to thrive in this environment. I've followed Rheingold's posts and videos for some time now, attended presentations, and participated in some of his courses. He's not only an expert in virtual communities (a term he coined himself) and social media, but also teaches digital journalism. I had the opportunity to interview him recently about the implications of his thinking on media, journalism and journalism education.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.8 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

'This American Life' Retracts Episode on Apple's Suppliers in China

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Brian Stelter - Mar. 17 (Opinion) - The show says it was misled by Mike Daisey, whose one-man show "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" was the basis of a program that aired in January. Mr. Daisey responded, "I stand by my work."

NewsTrust Rating: 3.4 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Busting Mr. Daisey

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Reuters - By Jack Shafer - Mar. 17 (Opinion) - This week, the highly regarded public radio show This American Life learned a lesson that many journalists, including me, have learned the hard way: It’s almost impossible for an editor to fact-check a contributor who lies. The show, hosted by Ira Glass, just retracted its Jan. 6, 2012, episode, “Mr. Daisey Goes to the Apple Factory,” adapted from Mike Daisey’s popular one-man show, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, which is about working conditions in a Chinese factory that makes Apple products. Daisey’s deceptions were uncovered by Rob Schmitz, a China-based reporter for Marketplace. This American Life will air an hourlong explanation and re-examination this weekend, featuring both Glass and Daisey, about the circumstances behind the retraction. Glass and the show are to be commended for their quick response, and everybody who cares about real journalism owes a debt of gratitude to Schmitz.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.7 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Has Limbaugh Identified the G.O.P.’s Woman Problem?

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New Yorker - By Amy Davidson - Mar. 04 (Opinion) - Hint: it's got something to do with money. On Friday, President Obama called a law student at Georgetown to tell her not to take it to heart that Rush Limbaugh had called her a prostitute. “What was really personal for me was that he said to tell my parents that they should be proud,” the student, Sandra Fluke, who, needless to say, is not a prostitute, told Andrea Mitchell, of MSNBC. Is anyone proud of Rush Limbaugh—even anyone in his own party? Before answering, one should read his full remarks about Fluke, who had been a potential witness in a hearing, convened by Republicans, on health-care coverage for contraception at institutions with religious connections. (Georgetown is Jesuit.) On Wednesday, Limbaugh called her “a slut”

NewsTrust Rating: Not rated yet - See Info » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Arizona Debate: Conservative Chickens Come Home to Roost

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Feb. 25 (Opinion) - What we have here are chickens coming home to roost. It's as if all of the American public's bad habits and perverse obsessions are all coming back to haunt Republican voters in this race: The lack of attention span, the constant demand for instant gratification, the abject hunger for negativity, the utter lack of backbone or constancy (we change our loyalties at the drop of a hat, all it takes is a clever TV ad): these things are all major factors in the spiraling Republican disaster. Most importantly, though, the conservative passion for divisive, partisan, bomb-tossing politics is threatening to permanently cripple the Republican party. They long ago became more about pointing fingers than about ideology, and it's finally ruining them.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.2 average - 5 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Truth And The World Of Wikipedia Gatekeepers

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

NPR - By Timothy Messer-Kruse, Andrew Lih, Steven Walling, Neal Conan - Feb. 22 (Interview) - Wikipedia is the go-to source for succinct information on almost every topic imaginable. It strives to reflect neutral truths that can be verified by reliable sources. The site, known as "The Free Encyclopedia" is written and edited by volunteers.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.8 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer