“This is cool” vs. “smells funny” science storiesAre “news you can use” science stories the best way to engage the masses on otherwise nerdy topics? Or just cheap populism at the expense of “serious” science journalism? A defense of popular science.
Journalistic standards
Why we can no longer trust the WSJ
On Tuesday, the Wall St Journal ran a front-page photo of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan playing softball. It was clearly implying she is a lesbian, says Ryan Chittum: this never would have happened at the pre-Murdoch Journal.
Former Newsweek journo: we lied, plagarised, and drank vodka
Veteran journo Alex Beam reminisces on cutting his news industry chops at Newsweek in the 1970s: it was “like an upside-down journalism school” where he learned lots of bad habits — like poaching content from TIME.
Mark Day vs. Crikey
The Australian’s Mark Day has taken a swipe at Crikey’s muckraking journalism. Talk to the hand, says Margaret Simons.
Journos fail the spelling test
Hundreds of UK and US journalists took a spelling test by The Spelling Society — and the results aren’t good. A quarter couldn’t spell “embarrassed”, and many also tripped up on “millennium”, “accidentally” and “liaison”.
The 15 US papers that didn’t lead with health reform
It was arguably the biggest story in the world yesterday: Obama’s historic health care reforms. But Media Alley has dug up 15 newspapers that didn’t run with it on their covers. So what was more important? “Boy Scouts learn skills at Merit Badge College”
Spinning the Media: It’s up to you to read between the lines
Is the term “special report” actually industry parlance for “advertising feature” in some editorial departments? Daniel Bishton canvasses opinion on the topic.
Going undercover as a content farmer
Demand Media is the “biggest, scariest content machine on the web”, paying an army of freelancers to churn out traffic-driving content for sites like eHow.com and Cracked.com. Is there real money to be made? It it credible journalism? TIME journo Dan Fletcher gives it a crack.
The honeymoon is over at your ABC
Compare and contrast some recent ABC efforts with those of talkback radio. The results might surprise.
Over half your news is spin
Crikey reveals the results of a six-month investigation into the role PR plays in the Australian media, finding that 55% of newspaper stories analysed were driven by PR.
graph pr0n The spin cycle: how your newspaper fared
A joint study between Crikey and the ACIJ has found that nearly 55% of Australian newspaper articles analysed were driven by some form of PR. See all the damning data.
Editor of The Courier Mail, David Fagan, responds
Courier Mail editor David Fagan responds to our Spinning The Media study findings that 55% of the articles analysed in his paper were initiated by public relations.
Read Reuters’ new social media guidelines
News agency Reuters has released a new set of social media guidelines for its staffers: don’t break news on Twitter, don’t reveal your political preferences, and no hacking. Read the full “handbook” here.
The ethics of blogging
Citizen journalism gets it fair share of criticism for its lack of ethics, so Upstart offers a guide to ethical blogging, from linking to sources to realising that anyone may see your work.
Dear journalists: stop working for free
Journalists are just speeding up their own demise by doing unpaid or underpaid work, says media veteran Alan Mutter in a call-out for all writers to stop working for free.
Why you can’t trust a thing you read
The American media is fundamentally unreliable, says Glenn Greenwald: a mix of dodgy sources, unnecessary anonymity, and outright lies means we shouldn’t believe anything we read — even in papers like the NYT.
The year of calling “bullshit”: 2009 in media errors
Fact checking is fast becoming one of the internet’s favourite pastimes, says Craig Silverman, wrapping-up of the worst lies and cock-ups published, broadcast and tweeted in 2009. The Apology of the Year is an absolute corker.
How Rupert ruined the WSJ
On the second anniversary of Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of the Wall Street Journal, current and former writers say his conservative politics have tainted the paper’s editorial objectivity and quality.
How the press twisted the tale of Hawke’s bday bash
The press had great fun last week because whoever organised Bob Hawke’s birthday party stupidly decided to include a dancer in a bikini with a John Howard face mask — and anyone who attended became fair game for attack, writes Jeremy Sears.
Celebrity op-eds: the height of lazy journalism
US papers, even huge, reputable ones like the NYT and WSJ, are suckers for a celebrity op-ed, with Bono, Sean Penn, and even James Franco (really?) recently receiving column inches for no other reason than their stardom. It sucks, says Ravi Somaiya.
A battle between old and new media in the White House press corps
NY Post attacks Tiger Woods with Photoshop
There’s digital retouching, and then there’s… this: The New York Post’s latest cover features a picture of Tiger Woods, with scars, cuts, broken teeth and bandages Photoshopped in. Tasteful.
News Ltd blurs the line between ads and editorial
Several News Ltd publications are treading a very thin line between advertising and editorial by offering special product spruiks for high-paying advertisers — including an endorsement from the editor themselves.
Boston Globe / Wednesday, 2 December 2009
As of today, bloggers and tweeters in the US will be required by law to disclose any freebies and payments they get for product reviews or endorsements. Some of them are a bit miffed.