“MTV’s Choose or Lose and the John S and James L Knight Foundation present Street Team ‘08: 51 state-based citizen journalists covering election ‘08 from a youth perspective. Armed with laptops and video cameras, and charged with uncovering the untold political stories that matter most to young people in their states, they will submit weekly reports online and via mobile.”
“We hope to find out whether or not our most important political event — the election of a president —matters to young people, and whether or not if matters more when it comes to them through the lens of their issues and the screen of their cell phone,” said Eric Newton, vice president of journalism at the Knight Foundation. “We also hope to find out what important youth issues are being overlooked by traditional media as the Street Team coverage goes beyond the presidential horse race.”
Graham Smith (aka, the athenian), one of NPR’s Iraq inquisitors, observes a disturbing “journalistic tic” wherein the newscaster segues from bloody-to-bloody story with “In other violence….” Next, it’ll be “In Ultra Violence….”
From 2004, a phone message left by a WHYY reporter to laptoplobbyist.com. She was frustrated with their spam. Her apology wasn’t enuf to get her job back after getting fired for (0:16 mp3):
Turning on the news yesterday I couldn’t help notice that LA is on fire…again. All my life it seems LA has been on fire–in one way or another. Floods, fires, mudslides, celebrity antics and the slow disaster of constant traffic—a theme park of natural, and un-natural, disasters. I’m not too worried when I see Southern California’s flirtation with the apocalypse continuing, because I know it’s prepared. I’ll never forget, growing-up in North Hollywood, all the preparedness drills we went through in school.
The LA Weekly article, “Night of the Living Dead,” is an unflattering portrait of Pacifica station KPFK, “where North Korea meets North Hollywood,” and its outgoing GM. For those who enjoy heavy doses of bile and vitriol with your journalism:
During her more than five-year tenure, Georgia has plunged the listener-run station into a dark hole, alienated its staff, pared down its already marginal audience, allowed its signal to decay, and filled the airtime with loonies, ranters and fringies… Not that any of the above made much difference, as Georgia’s bosses – those who run the local station’s board as well as the Pacifica network’s national board – are even loopier and less competent than she is. They’re a crew of slogan-chanting zombies, nary a one with any professional understanding of radio.