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Alan Johnston
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Iraq blog…
An interesting-looking blog just started by someone who is heading out to spend eight weeks in Iraq is A Dweller in Mesopotamia. Not clear exactly what the author is going to do out there, and it’s anonymous (pseudonym Briony Tallis, for Ian McEwan fans), so no vouching for content. But early posts look like it’s…
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Journalism – serving your community
Having been raised in what journalistic cliche calls a “close knit community,” I’m deeply suspicious of the glorification of communities in the media. Some of the closest are also some of the nastiest. I take as my text an essay by the great Jessie Daniel Ames, called Editorial Treatment of Lynchings (1938).In a section The…
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Political ignorance and the trial of wits
Seamus McCauley has been discussing political ignorance, and in timely fashion US research centre Pew has a report out called What Americans Know: 1989-2007. The clue’s in the subtitle: Public Knowledge of Current Affairs Little Changed by News and Information Revolutions. It tells us that people are a little less able to answer a few…