Journalism

Sportswriter Mark Whicker Makes Light of Dugard Kidnapping

On Tuesday, Orange County Register sportswriter Mark Whicker used Jaycee Dugard's 17 years of captivity at the hands of a sexual predator as a premise for a light-hearted sports column. The result may be the most astonishingly tasteless thing I've ever read in a newspaper. Here's how Whicker starts: It doesn't sound as if Jaycee Dugard got to see a sports page. Box scores were not available to her from June 10, 1991 until Aug. 31 of this year. She never saw a highlight. Never got to the ... (read more)

2009/09/09

KCRA Journalists Giddy After Child Kidnapper's Call

Phillip Garrido, the 58-year-old sex offender in California accused of kidnapping Jaycee Dugard as an 11-year-old in 1991 and being the father of her two children over the years she was held in captivity, called Sacramento TV reporter Walt Gray yesterday. During the call, Garrido urged Gray to pick up a document from the FBI that will explain his actions. "Wait until you hear the story of what took place at this house," he said. "If you take this a step at a time you're going to fall over ... (read more)

2009/08/28

Little-Known Blogger Got William Calley Scoop

You may have heard last week that Lt. William Calley, for the first time ever, publicly apologized for his role in the 1968 My Lai massacre, in which 350 to 500 Vietnamese -- mostly unarmed women and children -- were killed by U.S. troops under his command. Calley was sentenced to life in prison for 22 murders, but his sentence was commuted by President Nixon to three years of house arrest. During an Aug. 19 speech at the Columbus, Ga., Kiwanis Club, Calley said, "There is not a day that goes ... (read more)

2009/08/26

Anderson Cooper: 'I Don't Know Anything About Sports'

As the media grappled with Sarah Palin's explanation that she quit the Alaska governor's office because she's not a quitter, CNN host Anderson Cooper had a hilarious exchange with Palin spokeswoman Meg Stapleton. Stapleton tried to use Palin's analogy that in basketball, a good point guard passes the ball and runs off the court in the middle of the game, never to return. The analogy was completely lost on Cooper, for reasons he makes apparent: Anderson Cooper: You say this is leadership, but ... (read more)

2009/07/06

Watching the Watchers Makes Use of Creative Commons

I've completed the second phase of the Watching the Watchers relaunch, which I began in late May. The site has become a digest of interesting news and commentary from sites that permit redistribution. As you can see, the traffic graph's become a lot more fun to look at lately. The site now includes stories that were published under a Creative Commons license that permits reuse. If you're unfamiliar with Creative Commons, it's a popular way to allow your copyrighted work -- whether it's text, ... (read more)

2009/07/02

Relaunching Watching the Watchers

I recently relaunched Watching the Watchers as an Utne Reader-style digest of interesting political news and commentary published on sites that permit redistribution. In the first phase, most of the content is coming from Daily Kos, which has the following license: Site content may be used for any purpose without explicit permission unless otherwise specified. Hundreds of diary entries roll through Daily Kos every day, and a lot of interesting stuff falls through the cracks. I only consider Kos ... (read more)

2009/06/16

The Case of Ann Landers' Box and the Naked Man

A question this week from Annie's Mailbox, the advice column written by the editors of Ann Landers: Dear Annie: I am 23 years old and a virgin. I have never seen a naked man in my life because I believe virginity should be kept until marriage. The other day I went with my sister to watch my nephew's baseball game. He plays on a field that is uphill, so you can see the backyards of some of the houses across the street. My nephew had heard from his friends that one of the men in those yards sits ... (read more)

2009/05/24

Currency Exchange is a Nickel and Dime Business

Neil Steinberg's column today in the Chicago Sun-Times has a surprising ending. He writes about an interesting Chicago character, Arnie Berezin, who has run a small currency exchange business for years: Neva Evans has spent most of the last decade in a Jewel shopping bag tucked away in the cluttered back room at the Ashland-Diversey Currency Exchange. Or at least her earthly remains have, ashes in a funerary jar with a mother-of-pearl finish. "Good morning, Neva," the owner of the currency ... (read more)

2009/03/11

Times Gives Aaron Swartz Props for RSS

In a discussion about journalism on venture capitalist Fred Wilson's blog, Dave Winer writes: ... professionals make plenty of these kinds of mistakes. For example last week the esteemed NY Times said RSS was software and that it was co-written by a 14-year old on a mail list. It is neither of those things. They never called me to check it out. The 14-year-old he references is Aaron Swartz, who got some nice press recently from the Times for an incredibly ballsy stunt he pulled to promote ... (read more)

2009/03/04

Newspapers Have Been Dying Since the '50s

Debra J. Saunders has an impassioned rant in today's San Francisco Chronicle about how we'll all be sorry when newspapers are dead: News stories do not sprout up like Jack's bean stalk on the Internet. To produce news, you need professionals who understand the standards needed to research, report and write on what happened. If newspapers die, reliable information dries up. ... I wonder who will be around in five years to cover stories. Or what talk radio will talk about when hosts can't ... (read more)

2009/02/26

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