In a banner year for journalism by non-conglomerate news outlets, the Park Center for Independent Media (PCIM) has announced the ninth annual Izzy Award will be shared by Mother Jones senior reporter SHANE BAUER and Nation Institute Investigative Fund reporter SETH FREED WESSLER who, working independently, revealed major abuses at for-profit U.S. prisons; and by … Read more Izzy Award Winners
CPJ releases annual assessment of press freedom worldwide New York, April 27, 2015 – Terrorist groups and the governments who purport to fight them have made recent years the most dangerous period to be a journalist, the Committee to Protect Journalists found in its annual global assessment of press freedom, Attacks on the Press, released … Read more CPJ releases annual assessment of press freedom worldwide
As former editors and writers for The New Republic, we write to express our dismay and sorrow at its destruction in all but name. From its founding in 1914, The New Republic has been the flagship and forum of American liberalism. Its reporting and commentary on politics, society, and arts and letters have nurtured a … Read more Statement by Former New Republic Editors and Writers
Andrew Salvati of H-Net has written a review of the Litwin Books title, Prophets of the Fourth Estate: Broadsides by Press Critics of the Progressive Era, by Amy Reynolds and Gary Hicks. His review starts like this: Comcast, Disney, NewsCorp, TimeWarner–in the second decade of the twenty-first century, the corporate parentage and commercialization of American … Read more H-Net review of Prophets of the Fourth Estate: Broadsides by Press Critics of the Progressive Era
Kevin M. Kruse has an Op-Ed in today’s New York Times: The Real Loser: Truth. It is about how American politics may have turned a new corner thanks to the Romney Campaign’s gamble that politicians can lie with impunity and come out ahead. Kruse says what a lot of people are thinking, but omits an … Read more On the Romney Campaign’s Disdain for Facts
I won’t comment much on this except to speculate that this may be an example of a state of affairs in journalism where reporters are making sloppy mistakes because the pace of the newsroom, like the pace of everything else in the internet era, is too quick for us to keep tabs on everything as … Read more Sloppy reporting on Saudi “City for Women”
A lot of local news, especially detailed news about suburban areas, is being outsourced to a company called Journatic, which sometimes uses fake names as bylines, as This American Life recently reported. NPR is reporting on the story in today’s Morning Edition. A good place for the details that are presently available is this story … Read more Outsourcing news agency using fake bylines
Alternatives in Print is a directory of book publishers and critical periodicals, consisting of the former print resources, Annotations and Alternative Publishers of Books in North America (APBNA). Library Juice Press published the 6th edition of APBNA, and the Alternative Press Center has been the publisher of Annotations, the periodicals directory. We have been working … Read more New online resource: Alternatives in Print
We have posted Robert Jensen’s foreword to our recently published book, Prophets of the Fourth Estate: Press Critics of the Progressive Era, by Amy Reynolds and Gary Hicks. It’s a good read. Comment if it interests you…
Library Juice blogger Alan Mattlage has posted a review of Prophets of the Fourth Estate: Broadsides by Press Critics of the Progressive Era, on his own blog. His review provides a good description of what is offered by this book.
Arthur Brisbane is New York Times Public Editor, a position outside the regular editorial team that is supposed to act as the reader’s representative. Followers of this blog have probably already heard about his recent post, “Should the Times be a Truth Vigilante?, which many readers found maddeningly stupid. Brisbane was asking whether NYT reporters … Read more The New York Times, Compromise, and the Past
Prophets of the Fourth Estate: Broadsides by Press Critics of the Progressive Era Authors: Amy Reynolds and Gary Hicks Price: $28.00 Published: January 2012 ISBN: 978-0-9802004-6-1 Printed on acid-free paper Prophets of the Fourth Estate: Broadsides by Press Critics of the Progressive Era highlights press criticisms during the Progressive Era (1890-1920) that aimed to enhance … Read more New Book: Prophets of the Fourth Estate
2nd Call for Papers Protest on the Page: Print Culture History in Opposition to Almost Anything* (*you can think of) Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture Madison, Wisconsin September 28-29, 2012 Protest has a long and varied tradition in America. The conference will feature papers focusing on authors, publishers and readers of … Read more Call for Papers: Protest on the Page: Print Culture History in Opposition to Almost Anything* (*you can think of)
Daniel Ellsberg spoke at the American Library Association Annual Conference in New Orleans this summer, about the current world situation and libraries. ALA’s Leonard Kniffel followed up with this on-camera interview.
MiT7 was a great conference – intimate, warm, stimulating, interdisciplinary, and cutting-edge. There were some brilliant minds at work. I plan to post a few comments on the conference later. For now, here are links to podcasts from the three topical plenary sessions: Media in Transition 7: Unstable Platforms Archives and Cultural Memory Power and … Read more MiT7 podcasts
Press release: NEW YORK (JTA) — JTA [a Jewish newswire] has launched a digital archive containing 250,000 articles dating from 1923. The JTA Jewish News Archive, which is searchable and free for the public to use, was launched officially Tuesday evening with a celebration at the Center for Jewish History in New York. Highlights of … Read more JTA News Archive
The attack on NPR during the present budget scare has been symbolic, but for more reasons than one. It’s been observed that the attack is symbolic because the proposed cuts in funding are not a very significant amount of money in light of the Federal budget problems. But the other reason it is symbolic is … Read more Say it isn’t so, NPR
There is an very good article by David Remnick in the February 28th issue of the New Yorker about Ha’aretz, the Israeli newspaper that has set the standard for accuracy in news there for many years while also providing the main support for pro-Peace viewpoints among Israelis. If you are interested in the role of … Read more Very good article on the Israeli newspaper, Ha’aretz
Michael Bugeja, author of Vanishing Act: The Erosion of Online Footnotes and Implications for Scholarship in the Digital Age, has an article in today’s Inside Higher Ed about the current state of journalism: Stewart, Assange and Journalism Education: Satirist Jon Stewart and activist Julian Assange are symbols of a world without journalism — a largely … Read more Michael Bugeja on Stewart, Assange and Journalism Education
I was discussing the free press with a Russian friend once, and she told me that the main difference between Soviet Russia and the contemporary USA was that Russians knew they were being lied to, while Americans have naively believed that what the news says is the truth. Amusingly, right wing skeptics are presently doubting … Read more Terrorists meeting at the Capitol Building today? Government information and alternative media