just a little media watch item to follow up the joshua kinberg arrest….
on august 15, the new york post said this:
Manhattanite Joshua Kinberg, 25, is using a high-tech bike he created as part of his thesis at the Parsons School of Design to scrawl anti-Bush messages on the sidewalk in “environmentally safe, nonpermanent” chalk.
and after the arrest, went this way:
* A 35-year-old man was arrested for using a convoluted spray-paint mechanism to deface city streets.
Riding a bike and carrying a laptop computer that was programmed to propel spray-paint on the street, Joshua Kinsberg inked the words “America is a free-speech zone” around downtown.
it’s chalk. not spray-paint. and you knew that, guys.
update (2004.08.31): apparently i’m not alone on this one.
posted by roj at 11:25 pm
the new york times, on august 22, ran an article called Google Is One for the Books, Leaving Some With Regrets. that’s not terribly surprising, since google was a big attention getter over the past few months leading up to the ipo. what’s surprising is that the new york times has the google ipo happening in august of 2000. [and for when that link dies, here’s a local copy.]
ipo like it’s 1999!
[via kevin marks, who saw it first]
posted by roj at 3:56 pm
a while ago we got the news that doonesbury was being dropped by a group of newspapers. i was curious about that, and eventually found this:
[Continental Features President Van] Wilkerson said he conducted the survey because Garry Trudeau’s comic “created more controversy than other strips.” In the poll e-mail he sent Continental’s newspaper clients this spring, Wilkerson wrote: “(I)t is my feeling that a change in one of the features is required. I have fielded numerous complaints about ‘Doonesbury’ in the past and feel it is time to drop this feature and add another in its place. … If the majority of the group favors a replacement, you will be expected to accept that change.”
Of the 38 papers that run the Continental-produced Sunday comics section, 21 wanted to drop “Doonesbury,” 15 wanted to keep it, and two had no opinion or preference. “I wouldn’t call the vote [to drop ‘Doonesbury’] overwhelming, but it was a majority opinion,” Wilkerson said.
there we have a good statement to hang this comment on: you will be expected to accept that change.
i like the democratic process, but here we have one of the threats exposed, and it is a huge threat as we work competition out of the media industry: the tyranny of the majority.
wrapping this decision in a poll gives wilkerson political cover (he didn’t decide to axe doonesbury – in fact, he has doesn’t “have an opinion about ‘Doonesbury’ one way or another.”) no personal responsibility or accountabilit required. the papers voted. we’re just doing what they asked us to do.
posted by roj at 2:24 pm
because, through the power of blogs, we can “sign” open letters with a little trackback or comment.
i direct your attention to this open letter, and affirm my beliefs that third parties should not suffer for the agendas of the media, that there are consequences to playing fast and loose with the truth, and that we are all on the record.
posted by roj at 11:48 pm
“KERRY’S CHOICE Dem picks Gephardt as VP candidate,” blared the banner headline in the Post, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and is openly supportive of Republican President Bush.
The paper’s editor-in-chief, Col Allan, said he ran the story because the newspaper received information it believed to be correct.
“We unreservedly apologize to our readers for the mistake,” Allan said in a statement.
maybe the post had the information on the wmd as well…?
posted by roj at 4:54 pm
update (05:20): my mistake. i got the evildoers confused. the image is khalid shaikh mohammed. the first alternative source i found for the image had it mis-identified. i still think the photo needs a name in the caption. this is what i get for reading the wires and posting on the blog while pushing a deadline 🙂
next to the banner headline, “9/11 Plot Reportedly Hatched in 1996” and “Mastermind Says He Pitched Plot That Culminated in 9/11 Attacks to Osama Bin Laden in 1996, ” abc news is running a photo of what appears to be saddam hussein.
see it yourself here – at least until it’s corrected or pulled, in which case you can see a screen capture here:
i have to assume this is an associated press issue, since it’s an ap photo and an ap story, but really… you’d think someone would catch this, particularly during the week that the question about the iraq-al qaida connection is so prominent in the news. in any case, it’s just a little detail we managed to catch and put on the record for you…
posted by roj at 2:40 am
hot on the heels of the new york times mistake, we got another hot one from abc….
geography quiz in the morning! 25% of your final grade!
at least get the headlines right….
update (2004.04.25): more than 30 hours later, the headline remains.
posted by roj at 5:02 pm
ok, this is just irresistable…. i’ve been poking around for satellite images of the north korean explosion site since it happened, and i’m a bit surprised that none are available… at least no good ones. anyway, that means i’ve seen a few images of the area lately. and then i saw one again….
but more surprising is that the new york times is running a year-old image with a big black spot near a rail yard and not disclosing that it’s a year old. i can only assume they picked this nice, black scorched-looking spot because it’s the only thing in the image that looks… blown up. sorta. only it’s not. it was like that a year ago.
the new york times front page, with the caption on the popup version of the image “Estimates of the death toll in a huge train blast at a North Korean railroad station varied today from 50 to several hundred, with thousands injured.” the popup version of this image is 217k:
the original image from digital globe is dated may 13, 2003. this version has been scaled down, rotated and the area of interest highlighted, but the original is here. (warning: that’s a 4-meg image). the popup version of this image is 470k:
wow. so the meta-roj blog busts the new york times? amazing.
[thanks to straup and wiredfool for the lead]
posted by roj at 3:35 pm
