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Journalism’s greatest quality – availability
What do people want from the news? The folks at every CEO’s favourite consultancy have some of the answers: When asked to explain which sources of news were most useful, respondents expressed a preference for those offering convenience, comprehensiveness, or timeliness rather than quality. Specifically, they were far more likely to consider a news source…
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Roasting chestnuts: the journalist-blogger
In the course of reading Christopher Allbritton’s take on US policy towards Iran, I came across his recent post on the truth about blogging-as-journalism: When I started Back-to-Iraq, almost five years ago, I was hopeful that my brand of online journalism, supported by the public, would take off. That’s not been the case. Why? Because…
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The McCann coverage, my two cents
Demonstrating, perhaps, my MBO (Master of the Bleeding Obvious*) skills, here are my recent contributions to coverage of the ongoing Madeleine McCann saga. From the Associated Press: And playing commentator tag in Time with Charlie Beckett: For earlier posts – from May – see here and here. *Basil Fawlty: Next contestant, Mrs. Sybil Fawlty from…
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The Psychology of Newspapers
From a paper by Harvard psychologist Gordon Allport and Janet Faden in the December, 1940 edition of Public Opinion Quarterly: It is well known that waves of interest in governmental reform are notoriously short-lived for the population at large; yet they do constitute a lasting tide of concern for a handful of professional reformers. So…