Regis and Kelly Discuss Amy Goodman

Humbled by meeting Amy Goodman at a dinner party, Regis (and Kelly) acknowledge their morning show is about "nothing." No joke. Watch the 2007 video here. (Is it a parody of Morning Latte skit on Saturday Night Live?)

Donation gets you dinner with Amy Goodman

Dinner with Amy.

Lynching of Blacks . . .

. . .prompted this classic Billie Holiday song, which she recorded despite the obstruction of her record company.

One of the last lynchings took place in Poplarville, Mississippi, in 1959.

Early Indy Publications -- NOT reader-friendly

Check out the overly dense layout of William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist publication, The Liberator, here and here and here. Not exactly USA Today. Cady Stanton's/Anthony's feminist publication The Revolution was a tiny bit less dense: here and here. Content was king (or queen) back then.

NBC Olympics Woes

NBC ("Never Broadcast Currently") has long been criticized for its Olympics coverage, delaying live broadcast of events while targeting anyone who puts the events up online earlier. More criticism of NBC's Winter Olympics coverage here and here and here from a US Olympics skier and here.

Public better informed in other countries

A 2008 academic study compared the level of public knowledge about current events in Denmark, Finland, England and the U.S. The two countries with TV/radio dominated by public broadcasting -- Denmark and Finland -- were the best informed. Our country was the least informed. The study's authors suggest that differing media systems play a role in those results.

Tweets and rumors about NYT piece...

Rumors of a NY Times blockbuster expose of New York Governor Patterson around for nine days. Why should the Times have to deny rumors spread by others --in Tweets, blogs, NY Post crazy front page -- about a story they have not published?

Reporters sometimes seem unaware of how potent Twitter is. For example, ABC's Terry Moran -- with a million followers -- once tweeted Obama's off-the-record epithet ("jackass") about Kanye West and his Video Music Awards antics. Moran quickly deleted the tweet and ABC apologized.

Human rights through video and blogs

The nonprofit group, Witness.org, uses new video technology to expose and resist human rights abuses. Their slogan: "See it. Film it. Change it." This intro video describes how Witness distributes cameras to minimize abuse.

Vancouver Film School students created this video, "Iran, A Nation of Bloggers", and put it online months before the tech-fueled protests over Iran's disputed 2009 election.

President to citizen: Get lost, you idiot!

French president Sarkozy caught on Net video; French politicians having a rough time tolerating the scrutiny from new media, Internet, YouTube. Here's video of conservative cabinet member dancing with young folks to Black Eyed Peas tune (hat tip to Christine Pearl).

Egyptian Bloggers

With the Egyptian government dominating all major media in the country, brave Egyptians risk arrest, imprisonment, torture to blog or tweet about human rights abuses. Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas interviewed by BBC. Abbas was attacked in his home in April 2009.

Fascinating video (with not great English translation): "Internet Freedom in Egypt"

Profile of blogger Marwa Rakha, born and raised in Egypt. Her blog post on an incident of mass detention of bloggers, including Wael Abbas, to cover the aftermath of a massacre of Egyptian Christians.

Crowd-Funded Reporting

Would you spend $20 to help underwrite a feature or investigative report? Check out Spot.us, a community-funded journalism project explained in this video by young founder David Cohn.

News 21 Student Journalism

News 21 involves journalism students from 8 campuses nationwide focusing on various topics. Syracuse student journalists focused on impact of technology -- one produced this absorbing multimedia piece on a Latino family in Arizona: 7 kids, 1 laptop.

New nonprofit local news sites...

are filling gaps left by disappearing or shrinking daily newspapers -- from the well-funded, well-staffed VoiceofSanDiego.org to Baltimore's 3-person InvestigativeVoice.com .

New re Sandra Steingraber

Recent interview with the journalist/scientist who was diagnosed with cancer at age 20. Trailer for documentary movie based on Steingraber's book, Living Downstream.

Indy Video Plays Role in 2008 Campaign

A Brave New Films' mini-video "McCain's Mansions" -- over 600,000 views. This self-promotional behind-the-scenes video, "The Making of McCain's Mansions," shows how the video went up the media food chain and became part of the mainstream diet.

Corporate ownership + access obsession = censorship

Host of indy web TV show The Young Turks draws lessons about traditional journalism from National Enquirer suppressing a Tiger Woods expose in 2007.

I don't usually say this, but. . .

. . .DrudgeReport.com's banner headline story this morning -- "COURIC FACES PAY CUT; DEEP LAYOFFS HIT CBS NEWS" -- includes some important reporting from Drudge about the impact of exorbitant anchor salaries in a newsroom. Drudge doesn't have the greatest track record for accuracy; hopefully, the quote is accurate from the "angry" CBS News "veteran producer."