Here are links I found interesting on August 22, 2011:
- Blog Debunks 13-Year-Old Scientist’s Solar Power Breakthrough – Yes, the kid is smart. But he hasn't saved the world yet. And THIS is why we have peer review.
Tag Archives: media
Interesting Links, July 18, 2011
Here are links I found interesting on July 18, 2011:
- Nearly 100 Fantastic Pieces of Journalism – Here's a good non-fiction reading list.
- Make An OS X Lion Boot Disc – I haven't tried it yet, but it could work.
- Borders to Shut Down – Another brick and mortar bookseller goes down.
- News of the World phone-hacking whistleblower found dead – Cue the Twilight Zone theme. Things are starting to get seriously weird.
- A Sobering Look At Apple – Holy crap! BYTE magazine comes back online, launches with a rant against Apple that's clearly designed to be link bait, and is roundly blasted by the Apple community. BYTE apologizes, takes back the rant via strikethru, and the comments keep coming. Frankly, I think the author of the rant should give up writing and get a day job, perhaps flipping burgers at McDonald's. What an idiot. And I really question BYTE's decision to publish and then (at first) defend it. Read the comments; they're better than the original post.
- News and Its Critics – So incredibly sad to see Murdoch using the Wall Street Journal — of all newspapers! — as a platform to defend himself and his company against criticism.
- U.K. Tabloid Scandal: ‘Lapping At The Door Of No. 10 Downing St.’ – Will Murdock's troubles take down the British Prime Minister?
- Letting Bankers Walk – Krugman explains why we should not go easy on the banks.
- How the Guardian Broke the News of the World Hacking Scandal – THIS is why quality newspapers with investigative journalists MUST NOT DIE. If it weren't for the hard work of real journalists, the truth would never be known. Bloggers and aggregators (think HuffPo) cannot replace real investigative journalists.
- 21 Things You Can Do Today to Change Your Photography Forever – I can't say I agree with ALL of this, but there are a few good tips here.
- For News Corporation, Troubles That Money Can’t Dispel – Apparently, News Corp has been throwing money at it's problems for a long time.
- The real Rupert Murdoch exposed – This just keeps getting better and better. Sad, though, to see Murdoch using the Wall Street Journal to defend his slimy ways.
Murdoch Drags the Wall Street Journal Down to His Level
Comment
Such a sad, sad sight to see.
Defending News Corp against criticism of its illegal phone hacking and police bribing activities, Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece that included this classic line:
Do our media brethren really want to invite Congress and prosecutors to regulate how journalists gather the news?
I am deeply offended by this piece on several levels.
- Murdoch has built a fortune with yellow journalism. By buying up and controlling so many media outlets, he has brought journalism standards down worldwide. Not convinced? Roger Ebert explains the impact Murdoch had on the Chicago Sun-Times during his ownership.
- Murdoch has insulted the intelligence of half the American public and conned the other half with his so-called “fair and balanced” news network, Fox News. The network not only promotes tasteless and sensationalist news stories, but it clearly promotes Murdoch’s conservative viewpoint, often with misstatements, half truths, and quotes taken out of context.
- In the opinion piece from which the above quote was taken, Murdoch seems to suggest that his company’s news gathering techniques are protected under the First Amendment. In other words free speech allows journalists to collect news by whatever means are available to them. The legality of their actions simply doesn’t matter. Of course, Murdoch is also free to define “news” any way he sees fit.
In my opinion, there is no single news organization that has done more harm to America than Fox News. It oozes hate and mistrust, it pits Americans against each other and their elected political leaders. It makes news out of scandal — except this one, of course — and ignores or misrepresents the real issues that Americans need to know about.
Murdoch is responsible for this.
Fortunately, those Americans who haven’t been sucked into the half-truths spewed by FOX News have other sources of information: NPR, PBS, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal. Well, scratch that last one.
The above-referenced opinion piece is the first example — at least the first I’ve seen — of where the Wall Street Journal is being used as a Murdoch disinformation tool. Not only has the Journal’s business reporting suffered, but it’s now becoming Fox-ified.
In the Journal piece, the unnamed author says this about its competing media outlets:
The Schadenfreude is so thick you can’t cut it with a chainsaw.
Why shouldn’t it be? News Corp has done more damage to the news industry than any other organization. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m enjoying the schadenfreude, too.
Want another point of view on this Journal opinion piece? Read what Felix Salmon says on Reuters.
Interesting Links, July 17, 2011
Here are links I found interesting on July 17, 2011:
- Call to action: Help save GPS – I personally can't imagine the US government allowing a private company to screw up the GPS system…but then again, i dont know how many of our fine politicians have been bought.
- Wash. pilots be alert for military’s aerial rodeo – So now it's not just crop-dusters that I'll have to contend with.
- The Journal Becomes Fox-ified – "It’s official. The Wall Street Journal has been Fox-ified." Read more in the NY Times.
- Choose your own flight path… – Some thoughts on a different approach to building a career.
- The Six Worst Things to Happen to Rupert Murdoch Today – I'm really enjoying the misfortunes of this guy. Yes, it's true schadenfreude.
Interesting Links, July 16, 2011
Here are links I found interesting on July 16, 2011:
- America’s debt: Shame on them – "The Republicans are playing a cynical political game with hugely high economic stakes." Read more in The Economist.
- UK govt defends Murdoch ties as scandal spirals – It should be interesting to see how this all plays out. There's nothing I'd like more than to see Fox News go down, too.