NewsTrust - Sci/Tech - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Independent)

News articles as assets and paths

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

Buzzmachine - By Jeff Jarvis - May. 27 (Opinion) - This is the start of a new project I’m working on to brainstorm new forms, relationships, and (business) models for news. Responding to a current discussion on Twitter among @AntDeRose, @felixsalmon, @jayrosn_nyu & @davewiner about the form of articles, I’m posting it here. The discussion started when Jay challenged Anthony, as a representative of Reuters.

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We need to reinvent the article

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

seanblanda.com - By Sean Blanda - May. 27 (Opinion) - This post is outdated. Not the content, necessarily, but the way you are consuming it. Much of the discussion about reinventing media/journalism happens in a frustratingly small spectrum while instead we ought to be reconsidering everything. No really, everything. Perhaps the biggest reason traditional content creators are being usurped by seemingly unrelated and non-journalistic web services is because the foundation of journalism is broken. In other words: we need to reinvent the article.

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Andy Carvin on Twitter as a newsroom and being human

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

GigaOM - By Mathew Ingram - May. 26 (Interview) - In a discussion about his use of Twitter as a reporting tool, NPR strategist Andy Carvin made some interesting points about the value of crowdsourced journalism -- including the importance of being transparent about the process, and the virtues of being human.

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America's Best Bike City: Portland, OR

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

Bicycling - By Bill Donahue - May. 26 (Opinion) - Sit down, please, and take a deep belly breath now, for the truth is harsh: When a bicyclist pedals down toward the Willamette River, which divides Portland, Oregon, the waters do not part. The automobile traffic does not cease. Cars honk, and in a city obsessed with green transit, there are train rails—a gleaming cyclist’s nightmare—crisscrossing everywhere. And it rains. The sky is a brooding gray between October and May, and in winter the rain, falling as a fine, gentle mist, can be so cold that your gloves almost freeze on your handlebar. And as you near the river, you may find one of Portland’s five drawbridges raised high so a giant steel China-bound cargo ship can come churning through.

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"What We Do to the Land, We Do to the People"-- May 24 West Virginia Direct Actions Against MTR

Thu, 24 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Writing Corner - By Beth Wellington - May. 24 (Opinion) - As part of Mountain Justice Summer Action Camp taking place at the Appalachian South Folklife Center near Pipestem, WV, five members of Mountain Justice and RAMPS boarded a coal barge to protest the destruction of mountains in West Virginia through Mountaintop removal, while other members and their fellow concerned activists blocked coal transport at approximately 10 a.m. on Thursday, May 24.

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After Facebook fails

Thu, 24 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Harvard Blogs - By Doc Searls - May. 24 (Opinion) - At the heart of the Internet business is one of the great business fallacies of our time: that the Web, with all its targeting abilities, can be a more efficient, and hence more profitable, advertising medium than traditional media. Facebook, with its 90

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Malcolm Bull reviews ‘A Perfect Moral Storm’ by Stephen Gardiner · LRB 24 May 2012

Thu, 24 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The London Review of Books - By Malcolm Bull - May. 24 (Review) - For the benefit of anyone who has spent the past decade or so on a different planet, the most frequently asked questions about climate change on this one are as follows. Is it getting warmer? Yes, surface temperatures have risen by 0.8°C from pre-industrial levels. Are humans causing it? Almost certainly.

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How to peek through Dan Schultz’s Truth Goggles, the B.S. detection software

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

Nieman Journalism Lab - By Andrew Phelps - May. 20 (Opinion) - Last November I wrote about Dan Schultz and his Truth Goggles, a piece of software he’s developing in partnership with PolitiFact that highlights suspicious claims in news articles. It’s as simple as spellcheck. Now, as Schultz finalizes his graduate thesis at the MIT Media Lab, he’s conducting a user study to understand how people (anonymously) respond to a prototype of the tool. It’s our first look at the software in action, and he wants you to give it a try.

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How Crazy Is Wall Street, New York Times?

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

The Daily Beast - By Edward Jay Epstein - May. 20 (Opinion) - The New York Times published an opinion piece on May 12, 2012, concerning the question of whether the rich, from a moral standpoint, are good or bad. The story reported, “A recent study found that 10 percent of people who work on Wall Street are ‘clinical psychopaths’ and that they exhibit an ‘unparalleled capacity for lying, fabrication, and manipulation.’ ” The vivid term “clinical psychopath” brings to mind the berserk buzz-saw-wielding investment banker played by Christian Bale in the film American Psycho. Since some 3.9 million people work in the financial-services industry, a clinically diagnosed horde of lunatics numbering almost 400,000 people would certainly be a matter of public concern, though it might only confirm some journalists’ view of American capitalism.

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Social journalism research helps explain how information is verified on Twitter

Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Poynter Institute - By Craig Silverman, Alfred Hermida - May. 16 (Interview) - Hermida, a founding member of the BBCNews.com team who now serves as an associate professor at the University of British Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, also recently presented a paper at the International Symposium on Online Journalism about A

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Mitt Romney, the Unlikable Presidential Candidate

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

The Daily Beast - By Michael Tomasky - May. 13 (Opinion) - It’s been a long time since the country elected a man as personally unappealing as Mitt Romney. Will Americans overlook their deeply held conviction that he’s a jerk? Very few votes are going to be cast on the basis of what Mitt Romney did or didn’t do to John Lauber in 1965. So that, per se, isn’t Romney’s problem. But this is: The story lands as another brick on pile of evidence amassing that he’s just a disagreeable human being. A few days ago I wrote about Barack Obama’s biggest problem, which is that despite all the many areas in which Americans rate him higher than Romney, the one on which they give Romney the edge happens to be pretty important: handling the economy. Now we get to Romney’s biggest problem. The likability factor. He ain’t got it. And he ain’t got much of a way to get it.

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End Polluter Welfare Act

Fri, 11 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Bernie Sanders - May. 11 (Opinion) - 'Our federal government will give away over $110 billion in taxpayer dollars to oil, gas, and coal industries in the next 10 years. Totally absurd.' Bernie Sanders,

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Power and Money in America (Noam Chomsky)

Wed, 09 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Informed Comment - By Noam Chomsky, posted by Juan - May. 09 (Opinion) - The Occupy movement has been an extremely exciting development. Unprecedented, in fact. There’s never been anything like it that I can think of. If the bonds and associations it has established can be sustained [...]

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The Heartland Billboard Embarrassment and the Dangers of Ideological Ignorance - Huffington Post

Tue, 08 May 2012 19:44:18 -0700

Huffington Post - May. 08 - Mongabay.comThe Heartland Billboard Embarrassment and the Dangers of Ideological IgnoranceHuffington PostThe Heartland Institute, a fiercely conservative/libertarian think tank that champions denial of climate change, briefly ran a billboard in Chicago last week featuring a photo of notorious criminal Ted Kaczynski (aka the Unabomber) next to the message ...Insurers Pull Support For Heartland Institute After Campaign Likens Climate ...Hartford CourantHeartland Institute losing major corporate sponsors after comparing climate ...Mongabay.comABIR, State Farm Pull Heartland Support After Climate Change AdPropertyCasualty360The New American -Examiner.comall 226 news articles »

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Dino Farts Warmed The Earth

Mon, 07 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Travis Korte - May. 07 - By: Jennifer Welsh, LiveScience Staff Writer Published: 05/07/2012 12:02 PM EDT on LiveScience We might want to rename the Brachiosaurus with the moniker Gassiosaurus, new...

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Austerity Is So Wrong!

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

The Daily Beast - By Paul Krugman - May. 06 (Opinion) - In a new book, End This Depression Now!, Nobel Prize–winning economist Paul Krugman says the current economic problems can be fixed both more easily and more quickly than anyone imagines. But politicians’ desire to slash spending is deeply destructive, and he details why austerity is so appealing even to Very Serious People—and why it’s such a bad idea.

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Carl Pope: Suppose You Could Actually See Climate Change?

Thu, 03 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Carl Pope - May. 03 - This is an image that shows the cumulative increase or decrease in the amount of water on each part of the earth's surface from 2003-2009.

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Rising tide: Norfolk, Va., struggles on the front lines of sea-level rise [VIDEO]

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 07:54:07 -0700

Grist - Apr. 29 - A city on the front lines of sea-level rise wonders how long it can keep the Atlantic Ocean at bay.

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Earth Day: Discussing the Coming Climate Crisis With Heidi Cullen

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

The Daily Beast - By Heidi Cullen, Dominique Browning - Apr. 22 (Interview) - Record-breaking heat. Floods. Droughts. Tornadoes. Don’t believe the skeptics—the evidence of climate change is all around us. An interview with climatologist Heidi Cullen. When I reached Heidi Cullen, chief climatologist for Climate Central, she remarked on the glorious weather we were enjoying. But underneath our pleasure at the sunshine and blossoms, we were both feeling uneasy about the warmth. So far all 11 years of the 21st century have been among the 13 warmest years on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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Republicans Have Interesting Ideas About Climate Change

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

Huffington Post - By Katy Hall - Apr. 22 - Sunday is Earth Day, and some Republicans who aren't convinced of climate change may not be celebrating. Mitt Romney's views on the matter have evolved...

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Rosen’s Trust Puzzler: What Explains Falling Confidence in the Press?

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

Pressthink - By Jay Rosen - Apr. 19 (Opinion) - As you can see from the chart, the percentage of Americans who had a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of trust in the news media has declined from over 70 percent shortly after Watergate to about 44 percent today. Why? That is my question in this post. What makes it a puzzle is that during that same period, several other things were happening. Journalists were becoming better educated. They were more likely to go to journalism school, my institution. During this period, the cultural cachet of being a journalist was on the rise. Newsrooms were getting bigger, too: more boots on the ground to cover the news. Journalism was becoming less of a trade and more of a profession. Most people who study the press would say that the influence of professional standards, such as you would find in this code, was increasing.

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HuffPo science editor asks readers: Is climate science true?

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 23:56:00 -0700

Grist - Apr. 11 - Hey, Huffington Post: I’m not one to tell you how to do your business — your budget for the time it takes me to write this sentence is bigger than Grist’s budget for the year, so you must be doing something right — but maybe it would be a good idea to hi

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Antibiotics in your meat? The ethanol industry might be partly to blame

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 11:54:00 -0700

Grist - Apr. 11 - Last year, while touring a fairly small, pasture-based farmstead cheese company, I found myself in a giant feed barn with a group of curious foodies. It was one of the last stops before the cheese tasting, so no one wanted to linger. But I have a distinc

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Why Bob Woodward is wrong about the internet and journalism

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

GigaOM - By Mathew Ingram - Apr. 07 (Opinion) - Veteran investigative reporter Bob Woodward said this week the internet would not be of much use in a case like Watergate, the story he helped break in 1972. But he misses the point about the value of using a multitude of sources instead of just one.

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Why Do We Pay Energy Giants to Wreck Earth? |

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Bill McKibben - Apr. 06 (Opinion) - 1. Don’t subsidize those who already have plenty of cash on hand. 2. Don’t subsidize people forever 3. Sometimes you’ll subsidize something for a sensible reason and it won’t work out. 4. Don’t subsidize something you want less of. 5. Don’t give subsidies to people who have given you cash.

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