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• Africa Needs to Know the Weather

  "It is a difficult proposition, drafting a weather map for a country that has never seen one."
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  • 010: The China Issue
  • Date: Mar 18 2008
  • Contributors: Ryan Bowman

• Common Sense

  In an attempt to restore the power of pamphleteering, the Center for Urban Pedagogy has created a series of printed primers on critical issues.
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  • 010: The China Issue
  • Date: Mar 19 2008
  • Contributors: Alex Goldmark

• Invest in International News

  "If the market for global news is growing, why is the delivery of it shrinking?"
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  • 010: The China Issue
  • Date: Mar 18 2008
  • Contributors: Alisa Miller

• Gas Tax Milkshakes Bring No One To Yard

  As you may have heard, McCain and Clinton have both suggested we all stop paying the 18.4 cent-per-gallon excise tax on gas over the summer. They think this is a good idea (or, more likely, hoped the public would think so) because at first glance a gas tax holiday sounds like a sale on gas. Who wouldn't want a sale on gas? People who study how money works, that's who. Economists across the political spectrum agree this is a bad idea. Putting this in terms we can understand—frozen desserts—the Christian Science Monitor points out that "If a driver uses 10 gallons a week, he or she would save about $26 during the three months – enough to buy seven or eight milkshakes." So for only a handful of milkshakes per person, we'd suffer a huge administrative hassle, add to the deficit, and take a big step back in weaning ourselves off oil. Pandering isn't new. The fact that the media and the pundits aren't biting is what surprises us. News shows can't find economists to support the plan on air, and Matt Yglesias even found a case of reporting on television (below). Is the media going to start dabbling in objectivity and insight again or is this a special case?
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  • Date: May 01 2008
  • Posted by andrewprice

• China's Less-Polished News Sources

  Too frequently the slick, overly produced style of network television news shows ends up obscuring the actual subjects they're purportedly covering—most programs, despite the opportunities presented by the medium, are sadly more "tell" than "show." As a result, some of the more interesting glimpses of life in China can be seen via various scrappier and less polished outlets. Over the past couple of years, Current TV has presented a handful of China pieces, including stories on the influx of Western entrepreneurs trying to establish businesses in China, migrant labor, and the Chinese sex industry. The expat-run web-video concern Sexy Beijing TV produces quirky documentary snapshots on urban development and local culture, and Al Jazeera often runs China stories, including reports on the growing Chinese auto industry, and about Chinese workers brought to Italy to work in sweatshops operated by the country's textile industry.
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  • Date: Apr 30 2008
  • Posted by Jaime Wolf

• Pentagon Propaganda Machine

  A piece from Sunday's New York Times details how the Pentagon used a large number of retired generals as a propaganda machine to combat criticism of Donald Rumsfeld in 2005. Called "Military Analysts" by the "news" stations on which they appeared, and "message force multipliers" by the Pentagon officials who gave them their marching orders, the generals would parrot administration talking points on TV in exchange for access to classified information. Check out the top right-hand screenshot above: one of these stooges even sneaked onto PBS! Evidently investigative journalism has survived into the present, if only to occasionally expose the sham journalism that's running rampant. See the article here and the slideshow here.
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  • Date: Apr 21 2008
  • Posted by andrewprice

• GroundReport's on it

  GroundReport.com is a citizen journalism platform devoted to democratizing the news-- we agree with Alissa and are pursuing this strategy. And we invite all you GOOD people to do the same by publishing your stories to the worldon GroundReport.com.
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  • Date: Apr 28 2008
  • Posted by GroundReport

• I'd buy BBCNews.com

  Seems like a good opportunity to give BBCNews.com a well deserved shout out. I am a daily reader and fully aware that the news is a commodity that is bought and sold...the BBC feels like they are attempting to stay closer to objective journalism. An interesting comparison is to see what CNN.com is saying about the same story. But then I might just like what the BBC is selling more than CNN
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  • Date: Apr 21 2008
  • Posted by Davian

• Dear Black Type

  Surely the glory days of The Face were the Acid House years? Also, Smash Hits really ought to be here if any British magazine is. It summed up so many things so well, and unlike many magazines aimed at teenagers never patronised the audience or their tastes.
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  • Date: Apr 20 2008
  • Posted by mippy