Archive for the ‘Journalism’ Category

Did CNN Newscaster Ann Curry’s Twitter Today Mislead Her Followers That Unemployment in the Country Was “9.4 percent”?

Friday, August 7th, 2009

Her stats, from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, don’t take into account people who have given up hope and are no longer looking.

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CNN Quashes Watchdog Group’s Ad Campaign

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

CNN announced on Tuesday that it would not air ads produced by the media watchdog group, Media Matters. The group’s ads pressure CNN to direct Lou Dobbs away from further questioning the legitimacy of President Barack Obama’s birth certificate.

The host’s now infamous “birther conspiracy” broadcasts struck a chord with racist paranoiacs around the country when he insisted that Obama produce his original birth certificate for the sake of what Dobbs terms “transparency.” (more…)

Statement by Sandy Close, Executive Director of Pacific New Service/New America Media, on the Iranian Detainment of NAM Journalist Shane Bauer, His Girlfriend and Another Friend

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

I first met Shane Bauer in the Fall of 2008 when he visited the office of New America Media before leaving for the Middle East. Shane planned to travel there with his girlfriend Sarah, where the two of them would study Arabic and deepen their understanding of the cultures of the region.

As a student, artist-photographer and linguist, Shane proposed writing for New America Media and Pacific News Service, its mothership, and sending us photographs while traveling. We expressed strong interest and have posted more than a dozen well-written articles by Shane, often accompanied by photographs.

Shane’s dispatches have been enlightening and follow in the long tradition of American travelers developing into accomplished correspondents. His fluency in Arabic and his writing and photography skills enable him to provide a valuable lens into what ordinary people are thinking and saying in the Arab world. We consider Shane to be a gifted young correspondent.

Shane emailed me in late July to say that he planned a one-week trip to Iraqi Kurdistan in order to get a feel for the region. He was interested in observing and covering the Kurdish elections and proposed writing an article for us about them. We were awaiting his coverage when we learned that he, his girlfriend and another friend had been detained by Iranian authorities in northern Iraq while reportedly on a hiking trip.

We support Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s call for information about the three missing Americans, and look forward to a positive resolution of the situation and their safe return.

“Unemployed Woman Sues College For Tuition” — AP Story

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

Woman Sues College
…. over her inability to get a job after graduation.The reader comments on this piece are interesting.
How do Hunter students feel about this?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/02/unemployed-woman-sues-col_n_249544.html
Posted on Hunter-L, the College listserv, by the Chair of the anthropology department.

I posted a response:

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Keith Olbermann & Bill O’Reilly Nose-to-Nose

Sunday, August 2nd, 2009

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Honestly This Time: The Final WORD on Obama-Gates-Crowley

Sunday, August 2nd, 2009

Two sentences provide clarity about the driving forces of this particular race drama: If there was a teachable moment in this incident, it could be found in how some powerful white people well beyond Cambridge responded to it. That reaction is merely the latest example of how the inexorable transformation of America into a white-minority country in some 30 years — by 2042 in the latest Census Bureau estimate — is causing serious jitters, if not panic, in some white establishments.”

— Frank Rich, New York Times, Column, August 2, 2009
Click here for his column

Phishing Alert!

Friday, July 31st, 2009

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This Blog’s Wrapup of Cambridge–Obama–Gates–Crowley

Friday, July 31st, 2009

The mainstream news media, too much of its reporting/commentating flawed and insipid, may continue for a while to follow wrinkles, small or big and mostly frivolous, and only if those wrinkles of this race drama register on their radar, such as the alcoholic content of the beer of the Obama-Gates-Crowley confab and try to make something of it, like the insipid humor of CNN’s Campbell Brown’s farce yesterday evening, July 31.

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NYFD Black Firefighters Win Significant Court Battle: Where Are the Stories?

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009
Official organization of NYFD's African-American Firefighters - Picture Courtesy of Center for Constitutional Rights

Official organization of NYFD African American Firefighters

[Picture Courtesy of Center for Constitutional Rights]

By now, one would believe, that there would be numerous stories in metro New York City news media about the federal judge’s decision regarding United States, et al. v City of New York, a federal class action lawsuit originating from two Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charges filed by Center for Constitutional Studies on behalf of the Vulcan Society and three individual African-American firefighter applicants, charging the New York City Fire Department with racially discriminatory hiring practices.

Nope.

But there is an online front-page story in the

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Howie Kurtz’s “Reliable Sources” on CNN: Bravo

Sunday, July 26th, 2009

His CNN segment this morning about the news reporting and commentating on the Cambridge-Obama Never Ending Story (So Far) was exceptional, I believe, and so informative I’m planning to use transcripts of the show for my J-classes.

I also liked an earlier “CNN’s Howard Kurtz Criticizes CNN’s Lou Dobbs For Giving Airtime To ‘Birther’ Conspiracies.” No attempt here to comment or summarize. The serious should go to the source.

July 28 Update, NY Times.