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

The fun-filled ocean resort at Guantánamo Bay |

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Glenn Greenwald - Mar. 28 (Advocacy) - A growing hunger strike among detainees is mocked by gullible journalists spouting familiar Potemkin Village propaganda If you're looking for a fun activity-filled resort to take your family for a summer vacation, you simply cannot do better than Club GTMO, according to a new glossy travel guide just published by Robert Johnson, the Defense Editor of Business Insider, under the guise of a news article. Scrumptious meals. Video games galore for the kids. Outdoor sports. Newspapers from your hometown delivered by smiling bellhops to the front door of your villa. Picturesque Caribbean vistas. All that and more can be yours - provided that you're "compliant". What more could vacationers - or prisoners kept in a cage for more than a decade with no charges thousands of miles away from their family - possibly want? They are, proclaims Johnson, treated "absurdly well". Not just well: absurdly well. They are, he actually writes, lavished with "resort treatment". The context for Johnson's glowing ...

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The Public Editor: An Empty Seat in the Courtroom

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Margaret Sullivan - Dec. 09 (Opinion) - Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks are a major story for The Times, so why was the paper so late to cover the soldier’s pretrial hearing?

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Post Democalypse 2012 - America Takes a Shower - Karl Rove's Math

Sat, 10 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Daily Show - By Jon Stewart - Nov. 10 (Comedy News) - (video)

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Nate Silver, the geeky statistician who is singlehandedly dismantling the myth of Mitt-mentum

Sat, 27 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Daily Telegraph - By Dan Hodges - Oct. 27 (Comment) - When Charles Foster Kane takes one final look back at his tumultuous life, he encapsulates it in a single, immortal word: “Rosebud”. In years to come, when Mitt Romney takes a look back at this tumultuous election campaign, I suspect he may very well do the same. Except he will not speak of a cherished object, but a person: “Poblano.”

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Live-Blogging the Third Presidential Debate

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Oct. 23 (Comment) - 8:56 This thing has turned so completely into sports coverage... on CNN they're talking about the coin toss and the importance of the last two minutes. I may just do a quick mention of every sports metaphor I hear tonight.

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Austin Tice, missing US journalist, filmed alive in Syria

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Daily Telegraph - By Telegraph Staff - Oct. 01 () - The footage shows Mr Tice blindfolded as he is prodded and dragged by gunmen dressed in the traditional garb of Islamist militants. The heavily-bearded reporter, wearing a torn green shirt, gives a jumbled recitation of an Arabic prayer before crying out

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Washington Post's sad decline raises tricky questions in US

Sat, 09 Jun 2012 23:12:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Peter Preston - Jun. 09 (Opinion) - One of the greatest US papers is a shadow of its former self. Now, more and more critics – including even internet guru Clay Shirky – think it needs to change tack. The Washington Post is, perhaps, the best known newspaper in the world. Take two young reporters, one battling editor – and one president of the United States, toppling into oblivion… Yes, the Post has a resounding, historic name: but, baby, look at it now.

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Syrian rebels tried to get me killed, says Channel 4 correspondent

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Ben Dowell - Jun. 08 (Interview) - Alex Thompson says crew was led to 'free-fire zone' as deaths would discredit Bashar al-Assad's regime • Read Alex Thompson's blog Channel 4 News chief correspondent Alex Thompson has claimed Syrian rebels deliberately tried to get him and his crew killed by gunfire from government forces in a bid to discredit the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Thompson alleged a small group from the Free Syrian Army deliberately guided the vehicle in which he and his Channel 4 News colleagues were travelling into what he described as a "free-fire zone" on a blocked road in "no man's land" in the vicinity of the city of al-Qusayr, because "dead journos are bad for Damascus". He also claimed UN vehicles the Channel 4 News team were travelling with later abandoned them when they were surrounded by "shouting militia". Thompson said after being led into no man's land between Syrian army and rebel forces by four men in a black car, his team were fired upon and forced to take evasive action, eventually ...

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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'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."

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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.

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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.

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Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Christian Science Monitor - By Terry Hong - Feb. 20 (Review) - 'Pure, astonishing reportage’ of makeshift life in an Indian slum. ...

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Why Wall Street Should Stop Whining

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Feb. 10 (Opinion) - When I read things like this I'm simultaneously amazed by two things. The first is the unbelievable tone-deafness of people who would complain out loud, during a time when millions of people around the country are literally losing their homes, that their bonuses - not their total compensation, mind you, but just their cash bonuses, paid in addition to their salaries and their stock packages - are barely enough to cover the mortgage payments for their new condos, the taxis they take when walking is too burdensome, and their girlfriends with expensive tastes. The second thing that amazes me is that Sherman is buying all this.

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The New York Times public editor's very public utterance

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Clay Shirky - Jan. 13 (Opinion) - Thursday, Arthur Brisbane, the public editor of the New York Times, went to his readers with a question : "I'm looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge 'facts' that are asserted by newsmakers they write about." Brisbane (who, as public editor, speaks only for himself, not the Times) referred to two recent stories: the claim that Clarence Thomas had "misunderstood" a financial reporting form when he left out key information, and Mitt Romney's assertion that President Obama gives speeches "apologising" for America. Brisbane asked whether news reporters should have the freedom to investigate and respond to those comments. The reaction from readers was swift, voluminous, negative and incredulous. "Is this a joke? THIS IS YOUR JOB." "If the purpose of the NYT is to be an inoffensive container for ad copy, ...

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Best of the Web Today: Bad-Faith Journalism

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - By James Taranto - Jan. 04 (Opinion) - It's not as eagerly awaited as Time's "Man of the Year" was back when people paid attention to Time, but PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year" nonetheless manages to generate a lot of chatter, aimed as it is at those who chatter for a living. This year almost all of the chatter was negative, as the St. Petersburg Times's self-styled "fact checking" operation, which usually leans left, tacked to the right, naming as its "Lie" the claim that "Republicans voted to end Medicare." The reference is to Rep. Paul Ryan's reform proposal, which passed the GOP-controlled House as part of a budget resolution before being rejected by the Democratic Senate.

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How will technology influence the news in 2012?

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Dan Gillmor - Dec. 29 (Opinion) - Predicting the next year's news is a fool's errand, but looking at technological trends could give us a hint At the beginning of 2011, aging dictators ruled Egypt and Libya, and despotism was the nearly unquestioned reality in most of the Middle East. The eurozone was seeing trouble at its edges, but wasn't heading toward collapse. News International had successfully covered up most of its rampant bad acts, and Rupert Murdoch was on the verge of even greater control over British media and politics. Anyone who might have predicted how utterly and rapidly those realities would change might have been branded a lunatic. Which is one reason why the annual journalistic ritual of making predictions about the year ahead is a fool's errand. With that in mind, let me offer instead some observations about the technology and media trends we've seen in past months, and how they might play out in 2012. In many cases, the trajectory is deeply worrisome. But I remain an eternal optimist in the face of ...

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The Post-Truth Campaign

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Dec. 23 (Opinion) - Mitt Romney is blazing new trails in politics, where not telling the truth doesn’t seem to have any consequences.

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The World Is Ending, Please Update the Home Page

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By David Carr - Dec. 06 (Opinion) - Let’s say, just for giggles, that the word was ending. Could be an alien invasion, a pandemic or nuclear annihilation. If one of those scenarios became a news event, how would it be covered? That question was posed by Andrew Fitzgerald, one of the partic

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Restoring Factchecking

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

San Francisco Chronicle - By Craig Newmark - Nov. 29 (Opinion) - Recently, Jeff Jarvis at the City University of NY held an event on restoring factchecking to the news business. He did a really good job getting a bunch of players in this arena to play well together.

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Craig Newmark driven by philanthropy, fact checking

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

San Francisco Chronicle - By James Temple - Nov. 23 (Interview) - In early March, some 16 years after launching his namesake mailing list, Craig Newmark fully pivoted in the direction he'd been leaning all along. The founder of the for-profit - but certainly not for-maximum-profit - Craigslist launched a full-fledged philanthropic venture, Craigconnects. The goal is to leverage the power of the Internet to identify, connect and empower sustainable nonprofits. Eight months after the launch, and with the holidays upon us, it seemed an appropriate time catch up with Newmark.

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The facts about the fact checkers

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Politico - By Ben Smith - Nov. 02 (Opinion) - Mostly true: Roughly half the political universe loves each item churned out by the booming industry of political factchecking. The other half despises it. It just depends whose pants are adjudged to be on fire any given day.

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

The fun-filled ocean resort at Guantánamo Bay |

The Public Editor: An Empty Seat in the Courtroom

Post Democalypse 2012 - America Takes a Shower - Karl Rove's Math

Nate Silver, the geeky statistician who is singlehandedly dismantling the myth of Mitt-mentum

Live-Blogging the Third Presidential Debate

Austin Tice, missing US journalist, filmed alive in Syria

Washington Post's sad decline raises tricky questions in US

Syrian rebels tried to get me killed, says Channel 4 correspondent

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

Wikipedia and the Shifting Definition of 'Expert'

8 questions that will help define the future of journalism

The Tragedy of Mike Daisey's Lies About China

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

Busting Mr. Daisey

Truth And The World Of Wikipedia Gatekeepers

Behind the Beautiful For­evers

Why Wall Street Should Stop Whining

The New York Times public editor's very public utterance

Best of the Web Today: Bad-Faith Journalism

How will technology influence the news in 2012?

The Post-Truth Campaign

The World Is Ending, Please Update the Home Page

Restoring Factchecking

Craig Newmark driven by philanthropy, fact checking

The facts about the fact checkers

Behind the Beautiful Forevers