John Bell and his dog Darcy search for survivors in Chautara, which is northeast of Kathmandu, Nepal, following the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck on April 25, 2015. The UK Department for International Development uploaded the […]
Category: Media
Responsible Reporting Section 1 ‘News in Context’: Chapters I and II
My ebook Responsible Reporting: Field Guide for Bloggers, Journalists, and Other Online News Gatherers is divided into three sections. The first, “News in Context”, is a state of the online news industry. The second, “The Five Journalisms”, examines five categories of news gathering most relevant to the age of context. The last, “What You Must Do”, applies concepts from the other two to present guidelines for responsible reporting.
In this second installment, I present two chapters from the first section. Opener “In Just Eight Years” is in part adapted from my June 2009 analysis “Iran and the Internet Democracy“, which is a provocative lens for looking back to look forward at the state of the news industry.
Flickr a Day 122: Baby is Born
Once again, our attention turns to Nepal and the relief effort following the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that devastated parts of the country on April 25, 2015. Here, a baby is born at the Israel Defense Services […]
Flickr a Day 121: Teen Rescue
We commemorate rather than celebrate May Day with the first of three photos documenting the aftermath of the devastating magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck Nepal on April 25, 2015. Yesterday, rescuers pulled 15 year-old Pemba […]
Brief Moment of Reflection
Six years ago today, Ziff Davis Enterprise and I parted ways. My earning power has never been the same, in part because of the circumstances affecting my profession, undesirable San Diego, Calif. location, and age (mid-50s, gulp). At the time, I wrote two blogs: Microsoft Watch, which I inherited from the esteemed Mary Jo Foley, and Apple Watch, which I created. Got to wonder: What kind of legal issues would there be if the second blog continued today in context of the Apple smartwatch and the company’s well-publicized tactics for extinguishing anything brand offending.
ZDE laid me off with offer to stay on, in different capacity and 36-percent pay cut. I declined and only occasionally regretted the decision. Groveling commands no respect and is no position from which to advance. My role would be nothing more than a journalist past his prime meeting a 5-story a day quota that would require the kind of news writing that pollutes the web today. The Google free economy is not a sustainable source of revenue for most news sites—more so for those with niche audiences.
Flickr a Day 120: ‘Peace’
Our series’ fourth month ends with, like Day 87, the Leica Camera AG M Monochrom. Ross Pollack captured the photo in Hong Kong, when he lived there. He is now stateside after residing a decade […]
Flickr a Day 119: ‘Staring Out Into The World’
The Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens is fabulous for portraits, too, as today’s selection shows. Daniel Lee shot self-titled “Staring Out Into The World” on Jan. 18, 2014, using the Canon EOS 6D. Vitals: […]
Flickr a Day 118: ‘Partly Cloudy’
The Skagit Tulip Festival ends in two days. If you live in Washington State, there is still time—and perhaps today’s selection will move you along. Howard Ignatius shot self-titled “Partly Cloudy” on April 4, 2015, using Nikon D800 […]
Flickr a Day 117: ‘Run Duckling, Run!’
For the second day we have a photographer with similar name—beginning with K and now C. I mean no teasing or offense calling out the interesting: Cat Burton shooting self-titled “Run Duckling, Run!” She captured […]
Responsible Reporting: Foreward
Today begins the serialization of my ebook Responsible Reporting: Field Guide for Bloggers, Journalists, and Other Online News Gatherers before its release into the public domain. I did similarly with Comic-Con Heroes: The Fans Who Make the Greatest Show on Earth. That book goes into the public domain on May 7, after my exclusive distribution commitment with Amazon ends.
Responsible Reporting was a labor of love. My profession is in a dramatic state of transition. I sought to provide a realistic treatise for the new journalism. New it is, steeped in ethical quagmire. I hoped to provide reasonable guidelines that accept how things are, rather than cling to how things were.
Flickr a Day 116: ‘Give Me a Ring’
Street photography this difficult looks too easy. Toronto, Canada-based Kat N.L.M. is the roving eye whose lens captures contrasting subjects—things that go oddly, yet somehow appropriately, together. Today’s selection is typical of his setup. You […]
Seventh Star Dreamer
In early 1979, I moved into my first apartment, for the rip-roaring rent of $40 per week. I had never lived alone before and spent much of my off-job time listening to music or songwriting. I wrote short “Seventh Star Dreamer”, lyric and melody, 36 years ago this month, sitting at the kitchen table late one afternoon.
By choice, I worked third-shift at a factory producing laminate tabletops. My typical day ended as most other people’s began. But there was something refreshing about my nocturnal lifestyle and evening walks, with stars above, to my job. The Milky Way inspired my writing.
From my catalog of other lyrics or songs posted for this year: “Cries by Day, Cries by Night“; “Dank Deep Eyes the Darkness“; “Disco Queen“; “Empire State“; “Road to Jericho“; “Surrealistic Pillow“.