"No number of part-time bloggers and citizen journalists will ever be able to perform the watchdog role of a fully-staffed newspaper. But the new web-based publication “can’t just be about getting the old band together for another tour."

My friend the hypocrite.

If you’re so stalwart in your ways about national boundaries upholding their own laws–particularly with foreign agents–then why can’t you let women choose what to do with their own bodies?

State media says NKorea convicts 2 US journalists, sentences them to 12 years in labor prison

urg:

interweber:

North Korea’s top court has convicted two U.S. journalists, and sentenced them to 12 years in labor prison, the country’s state news agency reported Monday.

Ling and Lee - who were working for former Vice President Al Gore’s California-based Current TV - cannot appeal because they were tried in North Korea’s highest court, where decisions are final.

This is so scary. Reminds me of Brokedown Palace and Ganja Queen because I have nothing else to compare it to… (via fletter:brooklynmutt)

Say it ain’t so!

I shouldn’t have read The Economist’s leader on the “jobs crisis” over lunch yesterday. A few snippets:

“An American who loses his job today has less of a chance of finding another one than at any time since records began half a century ago… .

“Morever, many of yesterday’s jobs, from Spanish bricklayer to Wall Street trader, are not coming back. People will have to shift out of old occupations and into new ones…

“The bare truth is that the more easily jobs can be destroyed, the more easily new ones can be created.”

Tough noogies and self-help for journalists

"Maybe so, but Niles’s protestations notwithstanding, blogs are largely parasitic. Yes, a handful of bloggers do original reporting, usually on highly specialised topics, but most simply react to the news of the day. The blogosphere, as others have pointed out, acts as a kind of global echo chamber. An idea gets swatted around like a ping-pong ball for a few hours until a fresh one takes its place."
–

Read me first

The nature of blogging explained to those who don’t blog.


"

re: you talking/writing about “white people” etc.

great work…and badly needed

anyway, be sure to wear steel-toes so your foot doesn’t hurt from kicking so much ass

"

Think Progress

Send flowers to Helen Thomas.

No typing, all casting - Los Angeles Times

After a series of phone calls to secret sources, I found out that most of the celeb-mag “editors” who appear on TV don’t actually edit, write or in any way help produce the magazine. Instead, Star, US, Life & Style, In Touch, InStyle and People find attractive people and pay them to go on TV and talk about articles as an “editor at large” or “national correspondent” or “television editor.”

I called Star magazine editor-at-large Julia Allison to confront her about this scandal, and she told me to calm down, especially because she was shopping…