Author: Trent
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Cranberg wants a serious probe of why the press failed in its pre-war reporting
Nieman Watchdog: The shortcomings of Iraq coverage were not an aberration. Similar failure is a recurrent problem in times of national stress. The press was shamefully silent, for instance, when American citizens were removed from their homes and incarcerated solely because of their ancestry during World War II. Many in the press were cowed during…
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In Books, a Clash of Europe and Islam
NYT: The resulting stir within the usually well-mannered book world spiked this week when the president of the Circle’s board, John Freeman, wrote on the organization’s blog (bookcriticscircle.blogspot.com): “I have never been more embarrassed by a choice than I have been with Bruce Bawer’s ‘While Europe Slept,’ he wrote. “It’s hyperventilated rhetoric tips from actual…
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Little Ideas We Love: Random Acts of "Public Embroidery"
Wooster Collective: To give a little life to drab seats on buses and trains in Sweden, Ulrika performs random acts of “public embroidery” – small images or short words (for example hello, hugs) that are quickly cross-stitched on seats in public transportations. Here.
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Breaking the Myth of Megapixels
NYT: It goes like this: “The more megapixels a camera has, the better the pictures.” It’s a big fat lie. The camera companies and camera stores all know it, but they continue to exploit our misunderstanding. Advertisements declare a camera’s megapixel rating as though it’s a letter grade, implying that a 7-megapixel model is necessarily…
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Newspaper ties death at Club Deep to FSU
PunkNews: The Asbury Park Press has released an article speculating on the possible involvement of the “crew” FSU, or “Friends Stand United”, in the recent death of a James Morrison at a scheduled Ramallah show in Asbury Park, NJ. According to numerous letters, emails and phone calls to both Morrison’s mother and the Asbury Park…
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NoTxt #8
Featuring Corey Smith, Meredith Edlow, Mario Sughi, Bryan Mitchell, Charlie Blackledge, Yana Payusova, Eduadorian children edited by Ashley Franscell, Ross Mantle. Check it out here.
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Contact Press Images:
Digital Journalist: Contact Press Images celebrated 30 years of remarkable photography in 2006. Founded by Robert Pledge and David Burnett in 1976, the agency has maintained its involvement with humanitarian and human-rights issues. This involves the responsibility to understand an issue and see that it could have consequences beyond the borders of one’s own town,…
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The Gangs of Port Moresby and Suicide Bombers in Gaza
Digital Journalist: Plagued by 60 percent unemployment and chronic poverty, crime in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, in Oceania is rampant, earning the city a reputation as being one of the most dangerous places in the world. Much of the violent crime – armed robbery, rape, and carjackings – is committed by young gang members…
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Seeing Red in Venezuela
Ramin Rahimian, Digital Journalist: Being a citizen and a journalist from the U.S. worked in my favor and against me. In a busy deli in downtown Caracas, close to the capitol – a heavily Chavista area – I was approached by a middle-aged man wearing the party’s traditional red T-shirt. He was belligerent and seemed…
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In Washington, Contractors Take on Biggest Role Ever
NYT: The most successful contractors are not necessarily those doing the best work, but those who have mastered the special skill of selling to Uncle Sam. The top 20 service contractors have spent nearly $300 million since 2000 on lobbying and have donated $23 million to political campaigns. “We’ve created huge behemoths that are doing…
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The Importance Of “Seeing” The War
CJR: The most shocking, and simultaneously compelling, aspect of the Baghdad dispatch in the New York Times this past Monday was its intimate close-up of one soldier’s death. It was impossible not to feel frustrated by the story of Hector Leija, an Army staff sergeant who was struck down by a sniper while on a…
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The camera operator’s testimony
Providence Journal: Feb. 20, 2003, was a busy day for Brian Butler, a camera operator at Channel 12. He raced around to a handful of stories: A chess club event. The opening of a play. A man whose prayers for his son’s health had been answered. A pedestrian hit by a car. A brothel that…
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Italian football reels after Sicily riot death
The Observer: After a series of violent clashes at Serie A games, 1,500 police were drafted in for the Sicilian derby. The rivalry between the historically underachieving teams, which has reached fever pitch as both joust for Champions League places, took centre stage after half time as Palermo fans fired tear gas at the home…
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US 'victory' against cult leader was 'massacre'
Another view of Iraq Waco, from the Belfast Telegraph: The cult denied it was involved in the fighting, saying it was a peaceful movement. The incident reportedly began when a procession of 200 pilgrims was on its way, on foot, to celebrate Ashura in Najaf. They came from the Hawatim tribe, which lives between Najaf…
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Invaders' FAQ
Wooster Collective: Along with hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world, we’ve been obsessed by Space Invader’s work for years. This week, Invader updated his website, and for the first time, posted a Q&A which gives some background and explains what his project is all about. We thought we’d pass it along.…
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Sally Mann Portrait in Which She’s the Star
NYT: Ms. Mann’s approach to her subject certainly had precedents in art. In the 1920s the photographers Imogen Cunningham and Nell Dorr took nude pictures of children in the wilds as expressions of their own interest in naturalism. But Ms. Mann’s images arrived just as the country was beginning to fall deeper and deeper under…
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Cult had dug in for massive battle
LA Times: But the camp itself, amid lush groves of eucalyptus and palm trees, offered a trove of details about the members of Heaven’s Army. They had plenty of food. Each fighter had his own supply of chocolate and biscuits. They were prepared: A 6-foot dirt berm and an equally deep trench surrounded the 50-acre…
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Bush Is Not Above the Law
Op-Ed by James Banford, NYT: LAST August, a federal judge found that the president of the United States broke the law, committed a serious felony and violated the Constitution. Had the president been an ordinary citizen — someone charged with bank robbery or income tax evasion — the wheels of justice would have immediately begun…
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Look up in the sky! It's a bird, It's a plane, No, It's Chuck Connors pretending a log is his kak!
WFMU’s Beware the Blog: This is probably the funniest comic book related website out there – devoted to proving that, contrary to popular belief, Superman was an a*hole. Featuring sections devoted to unintentionally sexual comic book covers, comic book war propaganda, comic covers featuring apes (it’s ridiculous just how many there are), stupid super powers,…
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GORGOROTH Frontman Calls For More Church Burnings; Police To Investigate
Blabbermouth: “Black metal was never meant to reach an audience,” Gaahl told The Observer. “It was purely for our own satisfaction. Something entirely self-centered. The shared goal was to become the true Satan; the elite human, basically. The elite are above rules. So people did what they wanted to do. And they had a common…