Have a NACAF Summer

Blog of the UTS Journalism Summer course in News and Current Affairs

Entries from December 2005

Blogging at the Washington Post

December 24th, 2005 · Comments Off

Harry Jaffe reports on new blogging developments at the Washington Post:
Chris Cillizza is the first person hired by Washingtonpost.com—based in Virginia—to spend most of his time in the downtown newsroom, accordin g to political editor John Harris. The Post may have found the crossover reporter to bridge the gap between its print newspaper and Internet [...]

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Tags: blogging

Spin City

December 23rd, 2005 · Comments Off

This sums it all up. From a Washington Post profile on White House press sec Scott McLellan:
On the Thursday morning after his reelection in November 2004, President Bush bounded unexpectedly into the Roosevelt Room of the White House, where about 15 members of his communications team were celebrating. He just wanted to thank everyone for [...]

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Tags: spin

Bigger than Jesus

December 21st, 2005 · 2 Comments

Any article that begins: “How big are blogs? Bigger than Jesus. Bigger than sex” sounds like it’s going to be yet another blogsploitation spiel. However Daniel Rubin’s article in the Philadelphia Inquirer is a pretty good summary of major blogging trends.
If 2004 was the year blogs entered the language (so says Merriam-Webster), then 2005 was [...]

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Tags: blogging

Not racist?

December 20th, 2005 · Comments Off

First the PM, and now Peter Costello and Maurice Iemma, they all say that “Australia is not a racist country.” It is as if repeating the refrain will somehow transform our current grim reality.
Costello’s other claim is that the media – including Alan Jones – didn’t “whip” anything up.
“I think racism can be easily whipped [...]

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Tags: oz media

It takes a riot

December 18th, 2005 · Comments Off

It takes a riot to get Australian news into the world media.
This week we even made SF Gate’s World Views with the unflattering headline: “Australia’s Leb Bashings” the other piece in the column this week was on the international reaction to the US torture policy – fine comapnion pieces:
War, bombings and torture in other places [...]

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Tags: oz media

Nifty new tool

December 11th, 2005 · Comments Off

Some of you may remember that I mentioned that blogs could be written and edited from a blog editor such as ecto. This means:

you can do it anywhere you have net access,
it overcomes any browser/platform compatibility issues and
gives you added functionality such as a spell checker.

I am writing this post from a [...]

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Tags: social software

NYT joins the blogsphere

December 11th, 2005 · 1 Comment

The New York Times has finally got on the blog wagon. Deputy managing editor Jon Landman promised further blogs but noted that blogs “make some newspaper people nuts”:
In an memo to staff on Wednesday (first posted at LAObseved), Jon Landman, the paper’s deputy managing editor, promised a real estate blog by Damon Darlin in [...]

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Tags: blogging · celebrity

Celebrity, Politics and Culture

December 9th, 2005 · Comments Off

A couple of today’s stories feed into our next topic about news and popular culture.
First up are the reports that Mel Gibson may be the new favorite for replacing Arnie as governor of California. The Age reports that conservative Republicans are disappointed with Schwarzenegger’s move to the center and are hoping for a more gung-ho [...]

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Tags: celebrity · politics & pop culture

Celebrity Anchor Wars

December 9th, 2005 · Comments Off

There’s been lots of speculation about Katie Couric leaving her successful morning spot on the Today show and replacing Dan Rather as CBS’ main news anchor. This raises many interesting questions about the nature of journalism and the development of celebrity journalists. The New York Times reports:
Reports of her impending flight from “Today” to sign [...]

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Tags: celebrity · tv news

Journalists are Combatants

December 9th, 2005 · Comments Off

Think Progress reports that a former army intelligence officer is spruking the idea that journalists are “combatants” in wartime:

You might think that in a free society the media should find the facts and truthfully report them to the public. But former Army intelligence officer Lt. Col. Ralph Peters disagrees. In his recent [...]

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Tags: journalists & war