"no way for readers to tell"

There is a good article on The Washington Post's website about how the New York Times ran three big stories that all relied mainly on unnamed sources. It's a good example of how online independent news sites can seem more credible than traditional media outlet, allowing the reader to investigate the journalist's claims and judge for themselves. If these stories ran on a blog it is likely that most readers would doubt their credibility, and the sources motives, straight away.

Sketchbook Magazine is a new British quarterly print magazine. It uses sketches rather than photography to accompany its articles. The magazines first ever issue was dedicated entirely to citizen fashion bloggers. It is quite uncommon for a print publication to honor the influence of citizen journalists. While it is said that magazine's are more likely to succeed than newspapers, blogger's are increasing saying that by the time a print issue of a magazine comes out they have already read and seen everything on blogs.

The front cover Sketchbook Magazine is of 'Susie Bubble' a well-known fashion blogger who started blogging merely with an interest in fashion. But through her talent and dedication to the blog (maintaining daily posts) she now works at the popular magazine Dazed and Confused. Her career shows how important it is to put your work out there with the potential job opportunities that could come from it.

Twitter ruins NASA's big day

If you haven't heard by now the moon has water on it. This may come as a surprise because you would think the media would be all over it, fighting for who can upload the big news to the website the quickest. But instead it slowly drizzled out media outlet after media outlet. The Times got the story out Wednesday 23 September but most of the other news outlets didn't until the next day. So how did this happen? The journal, Science, who was doing the research put out an embargo on the story, and instead the plan was that the news would be announced at a NASA press conference. However, the blogging world got news of the embargo and once they saw what the study was investigating they put two and two together. With the rumours making waves across the Net India's mainstream press reported the story. The Times' Delhi correspondent then picks up the story and it makes the top of their website as an exclusive. As David Gregory writes on the BBC:

Eventually the journal Science sees the cat is out of the bag, drop the embargo at 22.57 our time last night and all the British science journalists who've obeyed the embargo wake up to find they've missed one of the biggest days for the moon since we walked on it.

Gregory goes on to make a valid point. The internet makes embargoes designed to keep a story a surprise are nearly impossible. All it does is inhibit mainstream news organizations that have agreed to abide by it. Gregory writes:

But in these days of a global, 24-hour news media the process appears to be broken. You can't shut up bloggers and you can't shut down Twitter. The only thing that can go is the embargo system itself.

The Washington Post Restricts Tweets

As print newspapers continue to lose profit many are starting to embrace the internet and Web 2.0 programs. This to me seems logical. With more and more citizen journalists breaking news on Twitter you would think traditional media outlets would be encouraging staff to use the program to show readers that they are still relevant. Not the Washington Post which has put out a new set of guidelines for staff using Facebook, Twitter and other online social networks. The Post's main worry is that readers will mistake a journalists personal opinion for the papers. With an ever growing number of journalists also blogging this seems a bit pointless. I would be very suprised if any readers did not recognise an objective opinion from hard news. Here a bit of what the Post has to say:

“When using these networks, nothing we do must call into question the impartiality of our news judgment. We never abandon the guidelines that govern the separation of news from opinion, the importance of fact and objectivity, the appropriate use of language and tone, and other hallmarks of our brand of journalism.”

The Chaser's APEC stunt.

After watching the ACORN video I was reminded about a stunt during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation 2007 summit in Sydney. Leading up to the week-long event for the 21 members of the Cooperation, there was a lot of media attention about how much the Australian government was spending on the security. A lot of this attention had to do with the fact that George W. Bush was attending the meetings and the press was questioning whether this highly expensive operation was just for Bush. Many of Sydney's road were closed for the event and the government later revealed that security measures cost over AU$170 million.

The Chaser's War on Everything is a comedy show that usually plays stunts on politicians. The show is broadcast on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, a state owned, but very liberal, channel. For the APEC stunt eight members of the team (including five runners dressed as bodyguards) and three hired chauffeurs manned a fake Canadian motorcade consisting of two motorcycles, two black four-wheel drive vehicles, and a black sedan. One of the Chaser team was dressed as Osama bin Laden. While the team made it obvious it was a joke, with security passes marked "JOKE", they were able to get passed the check points. The team didn't think they would get passed the first check point, but when they realised that they could get through they ended up getting out of the car in front of the building. While the Chaser isn't an independent media program, it shows how these stunts are able to challenge, or test, what the government is doing in ways that traditional media outlets aren't. The YouTube clip spread all over the Internet, showing the world the failings of the very expensive security measures put in place for the meeting.