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A dot on the BBC map of the world
Enterprising young BBC journo Stuart Pinfold has produced a nice map showing how impressively broad is the BBC’s network of international coverage. Correspondents, reporters and stringers show up on the map as little dots and triangles. So what does it feel like to be a dot on the map: Funny that my name is on…
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Time to call off the plagiarism police?
Can I suggest it is time to call off the plagiarism police? Case in point. Journalism professor admits plagiarism. Yup, it is a neat headline. So was this a Jayson Blair-style rip-off? Hardly. In fact it wasn’t plagiarism at all. The plagiarism in question was three quotes (lifted from this piece) included in a curmudgeonly…
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Double standards in propaganda, journalism and life
Reading Propaganda by Edward Bernays. Although Bernays is popularly portrayed as an anti-democratic elitist, he was – by the standards of his time – liberal and progressive. He ends the book with a typical progressive sentiment – that more education, and better information will make public debate more reasoned and more enlightened: If the public…
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Forensic reporting
I first became aware of Danie Krugel through a review by Anton Harber of an edition of South African current affairs show Carte Blanche. It was an investigation into the whereabouts of missing victims of a paedophile murderer. Harber said: “I am not sure what Carte Blanche was doing in this story, but it is…