AltWeeklies Wire
How Cablevision Is Destroying Newsdaynew
The nation’s fifth-largest cable TV operator is tearing apart what was once one of the mightiest newspapers in the country. Interviews, financial documents and internal memos paint a picture of a paper under siege, both financially and journalistically.
Long Island Press |
Christopher Twarowski and Michael Patrick Nelson |
03-05-2010 |
Media
Tags: James Dolan, Times Mirror, journalism, media, newspapers, Cablevision, publishing, Newsday, Sam Zell
1-800-Adopt-a-Haitian: America, Please Step Away from Trophy Disaster Babiesnew
Let me say this with due respect to those who feel the best option for these kids is a comfy, middle-class ’burb home with loving, caring white parents and siblings: Back away from the trophy case. A lot more is necessary for a quality black life than material goods and vows to do the right thing.
Weekly Alibi |
Gene Grant |
02-26-2010 |
Race & Class
On the Late Molly Ivins and Her Crusade Against Corporatized Americanew

My old Columbia classmate Molly Ivins has been gone for three years now. Things have slipped fast since her funeral. Even Molly, with her keen nose for mendacity, might be amazed by the ethical dry rot that's eating away at the business of news.
Carl Sagan Protege Cliff Mass is Changing the Way Weather is Forecasted in Americanew

Mass is pushing the National Weather Service and the American meteorological community at large to move from a largely deterministic model of communicating weather forecasts to more complex, computer-driven "probabilistic" models.
Seattle Weekly |
Mike Seely |
11-23-2009 |
Science
South Carolina's Broadband: How Officials Quietly Privatized a Key State Assetnew
To its supporters, auctioning off the state's broadband spectrum has meant snaring millions of much-needed dollars for the state's ailing coffers. But opponents say the deal privatizes the public trust and will deepen the state's massive digital divide.
Columbia Free Times |
Corey Hutchins |
11-19-2009 |
Media
The Difference Between Deaths Here and 'Over There'

Thirteen soldiers die in Texas and it's all we talk about. Two million die in Afghanistan and Iraq and we don't notice -- and we don't even want to hear about it.
Will a New Vermont Free Speech Law Protect Website Owners from a Powerful Religious Sect?new

The Exclusive Brethren is suing the owners of a website that serves excommunicated believers. Will Vermont's new anti-SLAPP statute protect them?
Seven Days |
Andy Bromage |
11-04-2009 |
Religion
Tears of a Clown: On the Glenn Beck Phenomenonnew

The ex-Top 40 disc jockey, recovering drug addict and alcoholic, convert to Mormonism and the National Rifle Association, is American popular culture at its most incomprehensibly weird and offensive. He's also a huge success, a hit, a phenomenon -- a star.
Smack Time: Is There Really a New Heroin Epidemic?new

A spate of recent media reports have claimed that America -- and especially the New York metro area -- is suffering from a terrifying new heroin epidemic. Curious, I decided to revisit a world that had once held me in its clutches for so long. This time around, I brought along a notebook and a clear head.
New York Press |
Matt Harvey |
10-22-2009 |
Drugs
Birth of a Blowhard: Glenn Beck in Connecticutnew

When Beck arrived at KC 101 in early 1992, he was a semi-failed, drug-and-alcohol addicted, Top-40s radio jock desperately looking for a route to stardom. By the time he left seven years later, he had figured out that talk radio was the future and conservative shtick could be revamped to serve as his escalator to fame and fortune.
Hartford Advocate |
Gregory B. Hladky |
10-21-2009 |
Media
Blogger Busted: Free Speech Goes on Trial in Central Illinoisnew

Scott Humphrey, a 57-year-old man from Springfield, Ill., faces four criminal misdemeanor charges for two specific online statements that he made on a political blog. Sources say civil suits and criminal charges will increasingly be used to stop speech on the internet.
Illinois Times |
Amanda Robert |
10-15-2009 |
Media
Al Giordano's School of Authentic Journalism Tweaks J-School Conventionsnew
The school, which is located on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, has grown steadily in the past seven years. And this past month, the school announced it will be offering 24 scholarships for "up-and-coming journalists and communicators" to attend a 10-day session there this February.
Boston Phoenix |
Mike Miliard |
10-14-2009 |
Media
Philly's Journalists Won't Return to 1989new
It wasn't difficult to see this coming: Brian Tierney's "Keep It Local" campaign to retain control of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News apparently applies only to ownership -- not to the employees of those newspapers.
Philadelphia Weekly |
Joel Mathis |
10-05-2009 |
Media
Censored! The Top 10 Stories Not Brought to You by Mainstream Medianew

Every year since 1976, Project Censored has spotlighted the 25 most significant news stories that were largely ignored or misrepresented by the mainstream press. Here's what you might not have read this year.
San Francisco Bay Guardian |
Rebecca Bowe |
09-30-2009 |
Media
Tags: media, Project Censored
The Media Sucks: Sometimes, There Aren't Two Sides to a Debatenew
Isn't it the responsibility of the news to point out that one side is clearly out of their gourds, or at the very least trafficking in misinformation? When a news reporter tells me "we let you the listener decide," isn't that reporter pretty much abdicating his or her responsibility to educate and inform?
Philadelphia Weekly |
Brendan Skwire |
09-28-2009 |
Media