Strat Comm, Journalism and the War in Iraq

Excellent investigative piece in Sunday's New York Times. It covers the Pentagon's efforts to sway public opinion by using military analysts as TV commentators.
This certainly says something about the administration's strategic communication efforts. Are they ethical? But it also says something about our journalism. Are those practices ethical?

Are You Informed?

This piece is worth a read:

http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=QYw8fVKV9Vv4V6kWySfwnJynqhrkzfSg

I am routinely troubled by our failure in getting and keeping ourselves informed. A student asked me a few weeks ago what specific steps she could take to improve her base of knowledge. Our exchange went roughly like this:

What is the home page that opens when your launch your primary Web browser?
Facebook.
Change it to Google News, New York Times or Washington Post. You can still visit Facebook, but you'll see key news every time you launch.

Do you subscribe to a print publication, either newspaper or magazine?
No.
Pick one. I get a local and national. But I'm about to subscribe to a magazine called "The Week" that serves as a digest of key issues worth knowing.

Do you ever talk about current issues with friends?
Not really.
Try once a day to have a conversation with someone about something you read.

Links from Student for Online

Hey Katy,

Here is a great post about newspapers and blogs with plenty of great links to check out and some good comments from the former director of photography of men's journal

http://aphotoeditor.com/2008/03/31/newspapers-and-bloggers/.

And another one called Why Print Will Never Die- (from a photography perspective)

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/magazines/why_print_mags_wont_die_80956.asp#more

Sources Beyond Google

Katy,
I thought you might share this with the students on the blog?
I went to the Midwest Journalism Conference in Minneapolis this weekend and Al Tompkins from the Poynter Institute gave a great seminar.
He posted his favorites sites(over 100) for Internet research from his "Beyond Google" seminar.
Everything from voting records to cell phone numbers.

http://atompkins711.googlepages.com/home

Social Networks and Tragedy

The issue we've been discussing has hit close to home. I rec'd this message from a former student:

Hey Katy-

I don't know if you still run the blog for 202 anymore, but if so I thought you might find this situation interesting. Channel 3000 posted a link to Brittany Zimmerman's MySpace page next to her picture and the story of her homicide. I, for one, find this to be completely rude and unethical. Thought it might spark some conversation for your class.

What do you think? Connect this to the earlier post on Facebook at UMass.