Category: Ideas
-
Daniel Pepper negotiates everyday journalistic problems…
…in Beirut. And when you’re a photojournalist based in Beirut, getting Hezbollah to credential you for their events becomes an important part of your job. It’s not exactly getting a University press pass to cover the volleyball game, but you get the idea. As Daniel wrote in a recent post about his ongoing Hezbollah melodrama,…
-
Last Hurricane Wilma Update
I’m a little behind on this, but my Mom let me know last Thursday that after spending all day trying to fill up her car with gas, she found the electricity on back at the house upon her return. More from her last update: What a mess…..this was the WORST ever. I have lived here…
-
Hurricane Wilma Update
An update from my Mom, who has spent the day trying to find an open gas station in Miami: Lines are hours long, as reported everywhere, and at the moment she’s in a line at a BP on Ives Dairy Road near 441, waiting for the station to refuel their generator (or were they adding…
-
My Brain Is Full
What’s Done: On the Spartan Daily Web site — A photo page, Google ads and search, a page aggregating stories about the “Fists of Freedom” unveiling In life — got an offer to freelance for a tech publication, my wife gave a presentation in front of 20-40 people to seal the deal for her internship…
-
Hurricane Wilma in my old neighborhood
Mom reports (via mobile phone) that Wilma trashed our neighborhood. Trees, power lines, telephone poles, all down in the streets and yards. Big concrete poles down too, not just old wooden ones. Most of the family has checked in safe, no flooding, some wind/debris damage to cars, the cats are fine, and no one expects…
-
Mass Commons Meeting Tonight
Hey SJSU/JMC Graduate students – tonight’s the second meeting/get-together/exercise-in-socialiazation known as the Mass Commons group. Stop by the Mission Ale House on Santa Clara & 3rd Street after 6pm Friday night and look for the folks reading Communications Policy and the Public Interest. [Ed. note: we won’t be reading.] We’ll be talking, eating, drinking, and…
-
Workaround for students trying to read the NY Times Opinion Pages
As many folks have pointed out, a stable of New York Times columnists have been locked behind a paywall online. I agree with everyone who thinks this is a load of crap. Hiding content behind a cash register serves only to further remove the NYT from public discourse. But that’s a given. Anyway, if you…
-
Bricks and Baseball Bats Win the Day in Toledo
In the Media Law class I’m in this semester, we’ve tossed around lots of fine examples of the First Amendment in action, including your classic cases of the Klan being allowed to march, speak, and get harangued by onlookers. As I’ve said before somewhere, everyone has the freedom to be an asshole. The theoretical response…
-
So what was this about anyway?
A Canadian J-School student asks about the purpose of journalism in the context of trying to nail down which elements of print carry over to the online medium. He chooses “to hold the powerful to account” as his top priority, but I’m not so sure. For me, it’s something like “to tell truths that wouldn’t…
-
Reality Check For the Paper World
These days, gasoline prices aren’t the only thing hitting all-time highs. Newsprint. Seriously, do you think this stuff…grows on trees? Well, okay, maybe it does, but at $625 per metric ton, every inch costs real live money. Meanwhile, the machines of progress are pushing toward real live e-paper and e-ink. [UPDATE: Siemens shows off e-paper…