The White House keeps praising these journalists who are, who’ve been killed … How does that square with the fact that this administration has been so aggressively trying to stop aggressive journalism in the United States by using the Espionage Act to take whistleblowers to court?
- Jake Tapper, pressing White House press secretary Jay Carney on what one might consider to be inconsistency on the administration’s views of doing journalism in the interests of democracy.
Yahoo’s Cutline blog has video, and a full transcript.
[Update: 2/23/12 2:20 p.m.: forgot the hat tip! Thanks tcairwaves!]
Obligatory occasional link to work David Brauer is doing that you should know about.
Bicycle advertisements; Newspaperdom, July 30 (Keating) and August 13 (Columbia), 1896.
In the 1890s, in the midst of America’s “bike boom,” newspaper managers encouraged their reporters to use the machines as a way to crisscross congested cities quickly and easily. Ads for bicycle companies started showing up in the journalism trade press during this period, as did articles noting the steady rise in the number of female journalists.
Newspaperdom, December 26, 1895.
Same as it ever was? Same as it ever was.
If you haven’t been following the scandal involving State Senator Amy Koch, this headline might make you think Minnesotans take holiday neckwear very, very seriously.
(Bonus points for the unfortunate juxtaposition of the headline below the Koch story.)
In the pre-Web days, someone like Ms. Cox might have been one more obsessive in the lobby of a newspaper, waiting to show a reporter a stack of documents that proved the biggest story never told. The Web has allowed Ms. Cox to cut out the middleman; various blogs give voice to her every theory, and search algorithms give her work prominence.
BUT! It’s a bit more complicated than most of the media are reporting (as usual). If you look for the words “even if” in the opinion (scroll down), you’ll see why Cox would be on the hook for the $2.5. million regardless of whether she was considered a journalist.
The Oregon shield law at issue doesn’t apply to civil defamation cases, so not even The Oregonian would be protected by it.
Broadly speaking though, it’s a good example of why, as NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen tweets, “courts should protect acts of journalism, not kinds of people.”
Some interesting comments on the media “blackout” during the eviction of Occupy Wall Street this week. 2:33. Hat tip to Meagan.
(I wonder, though, whether it was Stelter or Carr who was like, “I know! Let’s wear scaaaarves.”)
The story raises many questions and answers few, including the one it seems weirdly obsessed with: whether the verdict is the most ever awarded by a Minnesota jury in a defamation trial.
Hopefully a more complete analysis is forthcoming from elsewhere soon.
Minneapolis: crazy libel verdict capital.
Why isn’t the stuff about the Aurora Center and the assaults in the lead? Why are there no women quoted in this story? Why did only two frat chapters return the pledge to decrease assault? Why is all the focus on decreasing drinking and not eliminating sexual assault, which is the problem? Why are their grades even in the story?
Because Deborah’s criticism is spot on and I would like as many people to see it as possible.
