Japanese culture? Yes!
[0]jonerik writes to tell us The Associated press is running an article
stating that several American newspapers are going to [1]start carrying
manga with their normal arsenal of comics. The papers feel that this will
help boost their readership amongst a younger audience. The two strips
that made the cut are [2]Van Von Hunter, and [3]Peach Fuzz which are both
created by American writer/illustrators and are being distributed by
[4]Universal Press Syndicate.
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=05/11/09/2136225
Links:
0. mailto:jonerik@@gis.net
1. http://abcnews.go.com/International/print?id=1289576
2. http://www.vanvonhunter.com/
3. http://www.tokyopop.com/dbpage.php?propertycode=PCH&categorycode=BMG
4. http://www.uexpress.com/
Friday, November 11, 2005
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
This is from Technology Review published by MIT and is a good example of both a tech. story and and interview.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Cellular Life in Japan
Anthropologist Mizuko Ito studies Japan's mobile-phone culture and warns against extrapolating from Japan's tech development.
By Wade Roush
To imagine how Americans might be using mobile devices such as cell phones in the future, just look at Japanese youth. At least that's the conventional wisdom (think Wired magazine's long-running "Japanese Schoolgirl Watch" column).
But the dynamic may not be so simple. While Japan is indisputably a hothouse of innovation in mobile technology, the way Japanese consumers actually use cell phones and other mobile paraphernalia is an outcome of historical and sociological factors unique to Japan, argues anthropologist Mizuko Ito, one of the world's foremost authorities on the comparative anthropology and sociology of mobile device usage. "I don't think it's appropriate to say any [one country] is defining technology evolution," Ito says.
A research scientist in the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Ito has a joint appointment at Keio University in Tokyo. She's also the lead editor of Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, a collection of scholarly essays recently released by MIT Press.
Technologyreview.com's Executive Web Editor, Wade Roush, interviewed Ito on November 8.
Technology Review: How long have you been studying the way people in Japan use mobile phones, and what got you interested?
Mizuko Ito: I first got interested in it about six years ago now. I went to do some post-doctoral work in the late '90s, and my research topic was how young people were using new media. For the boys, I was sort of gravitating toward gaming studies, but what was so interesting at the time was that the mobile phone was just coming into its heyday in Japan, and it was a technology use being driven by young girls. It's fairly unusual that teenage girls are seen as technology innovators, so it was a really attractive case for me for a lot of reasons. The gender aspects were interesting, and it was a different type of technology from gaming.
TR: You have dual academic appointments at USC and in Japan, at Keio University. You seem to be in a opportune position to do cross-cultural analyses of mobile technologies. How do you split your time?
MI: I first started my appointment at Keio when I was first living in Japan. I moved back to the U.S. a little over three years ago, to the research center here at USC. Now mostly I spend my time at USC during the academic years and my summers in Japan. The reason it works is I have some really good colleagues in Japan who manage the research, and we are really close collaborators with them, so even though I've been away I'm able to stay involved.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Cellular Life in Japan
Continued from Page 1
By Wade Roush
TR: One of the messages of your new book is that the people in different countries use cell phones differently depending partly on the way the technology is rolled out, and partly on the culture of each country. Do you feel that there's a misperception out there about cell phone culture in Japan that you and your collaborators were trying to correct?
MI: In conversations about technology in Japan, the assumption is that there is something inherent in a particular technology that makes it get taken up in a particular way, and it's not inherently culturally specific. But at the same time, if there is something that seems different from how other countries have taken up a technology, it gets attributed to the cultural strangeness of the Japanese, i.e., if the Japanese don't use cell phones like people in the U.S. it must be something cultural. I'm an anthropologist and I like cultural explanations, too. But it's important to look at historical, economic, and other factors playing into it.
For example, it would be really easy to say that the reason Japanese people like text messaging over voice calling is because the Japanese are inherently more polite, or they don't want to disrupt the environment. And that's probably part of the explanation. But there's also a lot of important historical reasons why that modality of communication has become so dominant.
The early history of pager technology, for example, had a very strong effect on how text messaging rolled out to other services like the mobile phone. [So many people used pagers for text-messaging before the spread of wireless telephony that texting was one of the first features the Japanese demanded in their cell phones. -Ed.] It's a little bit too simple to say that any one of those factors is totally determining. The thing I was trying to resist is using culture as a residual category for the otherwise unexplainable.
TR: Your book includes many essays by Japanese scholars. What drives sociological research on mobile devices in Japan? Is there a sense that the way teens and adults use mobile phones is a burning social question?
MI: I think the "moral panic" has calmed down a lot since the period in the late '90s when it was really a new phenomena...That term actually comes from Folk Devils and Moral Panics, a book by Stanley Cohen that was sort of a sociological work tracking how, whenever there's a new phenomenon in youth culture, there's this period where the press takes up these issues in a particular way. The usual pattern is that the activities of a relatively extreme minority of the youth population are generalized to the behavior of youth as a whole.
That definitely happened with mobile phones in Japan. Many people would say the mobile phone had an augmenting or maybe even a determining effect on the emergence of teen girl street culture.
Then there was the issue of manners and usage in public space, and I think that issue has really gotten resolved more or less, unlike in the U.S., where people are still working out the issue of when it's appropriate to make a voice call. That's totally disappeared as the subject of moral concern, partly because it's been successfully regulated.  The youth culture issues are inherently more complex, because there will always be a 'youth problem' that society is grappling with.
TR: Another theme in the volume is that people in Japan seem to use their mobile phones to strengthen their existing social connections within a fairly small group of intimates -- whereas in the U.S., for example, people tend to use the Internet to look outward and communicate with many more people than they usually would.
MI: I think the findings are mainly showing that most [Japanese] kids use their phones most of the time to keep in touch with a close and existing social group. There is a relatively significant minority of kids who use the phones to get outside of that network. These tend to be kids who had their social network handed down to them. It's less than 10 percent, but they're important.
If you look at the technical layer, mobile phones are definitely optimized for intimate, interpersonal communication, whereas the Internet is broader. The mobile phone is moving in that direction, but it's obviously still point-to-point communication.
I'm not really sure if this is an historically specific or culturally specific kind of trend. The fact that for most Japanese kids, their first point of access to the Internet is through the mobile phone, not the PC, is probably having a lot of subtle effects on how that networking is happening. But the concept that it's allowing kids in Japan to break new ground socially? The research on that is probably more conservative. I'm just starting up some research in that area.
TR: Is there any way in which people in the United States should feel that they are "behind" Japan when it comes to cell phone technology?
MI: I think one of the things that we were trying to argue in the book is that there isn't a single trajectory [for technology development]. If you look at Japan, South Korea, and the U.S., their technology trajectories have been completely different. That's where you get an interesting opportunity for comparative sociology.
In the U.S., obviously the PC-based Internet has been the dominant information technology. South Korea is interesting because you see the layering of technologies -- they are ahead in just about everything. But all three of these countries are outliers, in some sense. I don't think it's appropriate to say any of them are defining technology evolution. They represent three quite disparate ways in which information infrastructures have been rolled out.
Japan is interesting in that, unlike South Korea, it hasn't been the leader in broadband and network technology. The reason it's ahead in the mobile space is that it's optimized for usage in that space. It's still an advanced information ecology and yet it doesn't have the same widespread broadband access. The government isn't paying the same attention to certain forms of broadband wireless deployment.
The U.S. is an incubator for advanced PC Internet technology, and Japan is at the other end of the spectrum. The reason the Japanese are doing more diverse and cool things with their mobile phones is because they're depending on them more as their primary information devices. It will continue to be an incubator for interesting mobile technologies, but is certainly not the site were you should look for everything IT.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Cellular Life in Japan
Anthropologist Mizuko Ito studies Japan's mobile-phone culture and warns against extrapolating from Japan's tech development.
By Wade Roush
To imagine how Americans might be using mobile devices such as cell phones in the future, just look at Japanese youth. At least that's the conventional wisdom (think Wired magazine's long-running "Japanese Schoolgirl Watch" column).
But the dynamic may not be so simple. While Japan is indisputably a hothouse of innovation in mobile technology, the way Japanese consumers actually use cell phones and other mobile paraphernalia is an outcome of historical and sociological factors unique to Japan, argues anthropologist Mizuko Ito, one of the world's foremost authorities on the comparative anthropology and sociology of mobile device usage. "I don't think it's appropriate to say any [one country] is defining technology evolution," Ito says.
A research scientist in the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Ito has a joint appointment at Keio University in Tokyo. She's also the lead editor of Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, a collection of scholarly essays recently released by MIT Press.
Technologyreview.com's Executive Web Editor, Wade Roush, interviewed Ito on November 8.
Technology Review: How long have you been studying the way people in Japan use mobile phones, and what got you interested?
Mizuko Ito: I first got interested in it about six years ago now. I went to do some post-doctoral work in the late '90s, and my research topic was how young people were using new media. For the boys, I was sort of gravitating toward gaming studies, but what was so interesting at the time was that the mobile phone was just coming into its heyday in Japan, and it was a technology use being driven by young girls. It's fairly unusual that teenage girls are seen as technology innovators, so it was a really attractive case for me for a lot of reasons. The gender aspects were interesting, and it was a different type of technology from gaming.
TR: You have dual academic appointments at USC and in Japan, at Keio University. You seem to be in a opportune position to do cross-cultural analyses of mobile technologies. How do you split your time?
MI: I first started my appointment at Keio when I was first living in Japan. I moved back to the U.S. a little over three years ago, to the research center here at USC. Now mostly I spend my time at USC during the academic years and my summers in Japan. The reason it works is I have some really good colleagues in Japan who manage the research, and we are really close collaborators with them, so even though I've been away I'm able to stay involved.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Cellular Life in Japan
Continued from Page 1
By Wade Roush
TR: One of the messages of your new book is that the people in different countries use cell phones differently depending partly on the way the technology is rolled out, and partly on the culture of each country. Do you feel that there's a misperception out there about cell phone culture in Japan that you and your collaborators were trying to correct?
MI: In conversations about technology in Japan, the assumption is that there is something inherent in a particular technology that makes it get taken up in a particular way, and it's not inherently culturally specific. But at the same time, if there is something that seems different from how other countries have taken up a technology, it gets attributed to the cultural strangeness of the Japanese, i.e., if the Japanese don't use cell phones like people in the U.S. it must be something cultural. I'm an anthropologist and I like cultural explanations, too. But it's important to look at historical, economic, and other factors playing into it.
For example, it would be really easy to say that the reason Japanese people like text messaging over voice calling is because the Japanese are inherently more polite, or they don't want to disrupt the environment. And that's probably part of the explanation. But there's also a lot of important historical reasons why that modality of communication has become so dominant.
The early history of pager technology, for example, had a very strong effect on how text messaging rolled out to other services like the mobile phone. [So many people used pagers for text-messaging before the spread of wireless telephony that texting was one of the first features the Japanese demanded in their cell phones. -Ed.] It's a little bit too simple to say that any one of those factors is totally determining. The thing I was trying to resist is using culture as a residual category for the otherwise unexplainable.
TR: Your book includes many essays by Japanese scholars. What drives sociological research on mobile devices in Japan? Is there a sense that the way teens and adults use mobile phones is a burning social question?
MI: I think the "moral panic" has calmed down a lot since the period in the late '90s when it was really a new phenomena...That term actually comes from Folk Devils and Moral Panics, a book by Stanley Cohen that was sort of a sociological work tracking how, whenever there's a new phenomenon in youth culture, there's this period where the press takes up these issues in a particular way. The usual pattern is that the activities of a relatively extreme minority of the youth population are generalized to the behavior of youth as a whole.
That definitely happened with mobile phones in Japan. Many people would say the mobile phone had an augmenting or maybe even a determining effect on the emergence of teen girl street culture.
Then there was the issue of manners and usage in public space, and I think that issue has really gotten resolved more or less, unlike in the U.S., where people are still working out the issue of when it's appropriate to make a voice call. That's totally disappeared as the subject of moral concern, partly because it's been successfully regulated.  The youth culture issues are inherently more complex, because there will always be a 'youth problem' that society is grappling with.
TR: Another theme in the volume is that people in Japan seem to use their mobile phones to strengthen their existing social connections within a fairly small group of intimates -- whereas in the U.S., for example, people tend to use the Internet to look outward and communicate with many more people than they usually would.
MI: I think the findings are mainly showing that most [Japanese] kids use their phones most of the time to keep in touch with a close and existing social group. There is a relatively significant minority of kids who use the phones to get outside of that network. These tend to be kids who had their social network handed down to them. It's less than 10 percent, but they're important.
If you look at the technical layer, mobile phones are definitely optimized for intimate, interpersonal communication, whereas the Internet is broader. The mobile phone is moving in that direction, but it's obviously still point-to-point communication.
I'm not really sure if this is an historically specific or culturally specific kind of trend. The fact that for most Japanese kids, their first point of access to the Internet is through the mobile phone, not the PC, is probably having a lot of subtle effects on how that networking is happening. But the concept that it's allowing kids in Japan to break new ground socially? The research on that is probably more conservative. I'm just starting up some research in that area.
TR: Is there any way in which people in the United States should feel that they are "behind" Japan when it comes to cell phone technology?
MI: I think one of the things that we were trying to argue in the book is that there isn't a single trajectory [for technology development]. If you look at Japan, South Korea, and the U.S., their technology trajectories have been completely different. That's where you get an interesting opportunity for comparative sociology.
In the U.S., obviously the PC-based Internet has been the dominant information technology. South Korea is interesting because you see the layering of technologies -- they are ahead in just about everything. But all three of these countries are outliers, in some sense. I don't think it's appropriate to say any of them are defining technology evolution. They represent three quite disparate ways in which information infrastructures have been rolled out.
Japan is interesting in that, unlike South Korea, it hasn't been the leader in broadband and network technology. The reason it's ahead in the mobile space is that it's optimized for usage in that space. It's still an advanced information ecology and yet it doesn't have the same widespread broadband access. The government isn't paying the same attention to certain forms of broadband wireless deployment.
The U.S. is an incubator for advanced PC Internet technology, and Japan is at the other end of the spectrum. The reason the Japanese are doing more diverse and cool things with their mobile phones is because they're depending on them more as their primary information devices. It will continue to be an incubator for interesting mobile technologies, but is certainly not the site were you should look for everything IT.
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Where do the media get money from? Advertising which pays for the full operation of the paper and makes a profit for the owners. No money no reporters ect.
- TECHNOLOGY -
Google Wants to Dominate Madison Avenue, Too
By SAUL HANSELL
This year Google will sell more advertising than any
newspaper chain, magazine publisher or television network.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/business/yourmoney/30google.html?th&emc=th
- TECHNOLOGY -
Google Wants to Dominate Madison Avenue, Too
By SAUL HANSELL
This year Google will sell more advertising than any
newspaper chain, magazine publisher or television network.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/business/yourmoney/30google.html?th&emc=th
Friday, October 28, 2005
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Here is a scholarship to study in Canada all expenses paid:
Queen’s University
Office of Admissions
Gordon Hall
Kingston, ON
K7L 3N6
THE PRINCE TAKAMADO VISITING STUDENT SCHOLARSHIP
Application Form
Queen’s University has lost a distinguished alumnus and good friend with the untimely passing of His Imperial Highness Prince Takamado (1954-2002). During his years at Queen’s, Prince Takamado embraced the opportunity to learn, eager to master the English language and understand Canadian culture. Upon his return to Japan, Prince Takamado strengthened his connection to Canada, becoming a patron of the Canada-Japan Society, and promoting business and cultural links between Canada and Japan. In 1992, Queen’s University awarded His Imperial Highness an honorary degree, in recognition of his major contribution to the mutual understanding and appreciation of the cultures of the peoples of Japan and Canada.
The Prince Takamado Visiting Student Scholarship at Queen’s University is awarded to a second or third-year student of Japanese nationality (citizen) who is currently enrolled in a Japanese university, and who will study at Queen’s University on a Letter of Permission from their home university. Application should be made to Admission Services by 25 March. Admission Services will forward all applications from qualified applicants to the Student Awards Office. Value: Variable – Generally between $25,000 and $30,000 (Canadian Dollars), this will include tuition, books and supplies, and basic living expenses (including room and board and one return economy flight home) based on guidelines established by Queen’s University. A guaranteed residence room in Harkness International Hall will be available to the recipient if he/she chooses on campus accommodations.
Queen’s University is honoured to join with the Canadian Embassy in Japan in establishing The Prince Takamado Visiting Student Scholarship at Queen’s University – a fitting tribute to a loyal alumnus who dedicated so much of his life to fostering a strong relationship between Canada and Japan.
Queen’s University
Office of Admissions
Gordon Hall
Kingston, ON
K7L 3N6
THE PRINCE TAKAMADO VISITING STUDENT SCHOLARSHIP
Application Form
Queen’s University has lost a distinguished alumnus and good friend with the untimely passing of His Imperial Highness Prince Takamado (1954-2002). During his years at Queen’s, Prince Takamado embraced the opportunity to learn, eager to master the English language and understand Canadian culture. Upon his return to Japan, Prince Takamado strengthened his connection to Canada, becoming a patron of the Canada-Japan Society, and promoting business and cultural links between Canada and Japan. In 1992, Queen’s University awarded His Imperial Highness an honorary degree, in recognition of his major contribution to the mutual understanding and appreciation of the cultures of the peoples of Japan and Canada.
The Prince Takamado Visiting Student Scholarship at Queen’s University is awarded to a second or third-year student of Japanese nationality (citizen) who is currently enrolled in a Japanese university, and who will study at Queen’s University on a Letter of Permission from their home university. Application should be made to Admission Services by 25 March. Admission Services will forward all applications from qualified applicants to the Student Awards Office. Value: Variable – Generally between $25,000 and $30,000 (Canadian Dollars), this will include tuition, books and supplies, and basic living expenses (including room and board and one return economy flight home) based on guidelines established by Queen’s University. A guaranteed residence room in Harkness International Hall will be available to the recipient if he/she chooses on campus accommodations.
Queen’s University is honoured to join with the Canadian Embassy in Japan in establishing The Prince Takamado Visiting Student Scholarship at Queen’s University – a fitting tribute to a loyal alumnus who dedicated so much of his life to fostering a strong relationship between Canada and Japan.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Here is Al Gore's asssesment of the modern media:
. AL GORE'S CODE RED
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/26494/
"It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public
discourse," former U.S. Vice President Al Gore told the We Media
Conference in New York. "Something has gone basically and badly
wrong in the way America's fabled 'marketplace of ideas' now
functions." Gore cited the dominance and poor quality of television
as a main cause: "Clearly, the purpose of television news is no
longer to inform the American people or serve the public interest.
It is to 'glue eyeballs to the screen' in order to build ratings and
sell advertising. ... Just look at what's on: The Robert Blake
trial. The Laci Peterson tragedy. The Michael Jackson trial. The
Runaway Bride. The search in Aruba. The latest twist in various
celebrity couplings. ... More importantly, notice what is not on:
the global climate crisis, the nation's fiscal catastrophe, the
hollowing out of America's industrial base, and a long list of other
serious public questions that need to be addressed by the American
people." Gore, whose new business venture, Current TV, airs
"viewer-created content," also blasted television for lacking "true
interactivity."
SOURCE: AlterNet, October 6, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4057
. AL GORE'S CODE RED
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/26494/
"It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public
discourse," former U.S. Vice President Al Gore told the We Media
Conference in New York. "Something has gone basically and badly
wrong in the way America's fabled 'marketplace of ideas' now
functions." Gore cited the dominance and poor quality of television
as a main cause: "Clearly, the purpose of television news is no
longer to inform the American people or serve the public interest.
It is to 'glue eyeballs to the screen' in order to build ratings and
sell advertising. ... Just look at what's on: The Robert Blake
trial. The Laci Peterson tragedy. The Michael Jackson trial. The
Runaway Bride. The search in Aruba. The latest twist in various
celebrity couplings. ... More importantly, notice what is not on:
the global climate crisis, the nation's fiscal catastrophe, the
hollowing out of America's industrial base, and a long list of other
serious public questions that need to be addressed by the American
people." Gore, whose new business venture, Current TV, airs
"viewer-created content," also blasted television for lacking "true
interactivity."
SOURCE: AlterNet, October 6, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4057
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* Thoughts For Today -- On Journalists & Journalism (part 3)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a
distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the
truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.
- Graham Greene
Journalism is organized gossip.
- Edward Eggleston
The lowest form of popular culture -- lack of information,
misinformation, and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most
people's lives -- has overrun real journalism. Today, ordinary
Americans are being stuffed with garbage.
- Carl Bernstein
Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one
world, and life seen in the newspapers another.
- Gilbert K. Chesterton
I see journalists as the manual workers, the laborers of the word. Journalism can only be literature when it is passionate.
- Marguerite Duras
Journalist: a person without any ideas but with an ability to express
them; a writer whose skill is improved by a deadline: the more time he
has, the worse he writes.
- Karl Kraus
What a squalid and irresponsible little profession it is. Nothing
prepares you for how bad Fleet Street really is until it craps on you
from a great height.
- Ken Livingstone
If a person is not talented enough to be a novelist, not smart enough
to be a lawyer, and his hands are too shaky to perform operations, he
becomes a journalist.
- Norman Mailer
Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice
what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is
a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance, or
loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.
- Janet Malcolm
The real news is bad news.
- Marshall McLuhan
I think there ought to be a club in which preachers and journalists
could come together and have the sentimentalism of the one matched with
the cynicism of the other. That ought to bring them pretty close to the
truth.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
In America journalism is apt to be regarded as an extension of history:
in Britain, as an extension of conversation.
- Anthony Sampson
If I'd written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600
people -- including me -- would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to
Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in
the context of professional journalism.
- Hunter S. Thompson
The facts fairly and honestly presented; truth will take care of itself.
- William Allen White
In the real world, nothing happens at the right place at the right
time. It is the job of journalists and historians to correct that.
- Mark Twain
* Thoughts For Today -- On Journalists & Journalism (part 3)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a
distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the
truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.
- Graham Greene
Journalism is organized gossip.
- Edward Eggleston
The lowest form of popular culture -- lack of information,
misinformation, and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most
people's lives -- has overrun real journalism. Today, ordinary
Americans are being stuffed with garbage.
- Carl Bernstein
Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one
world, and life seen in the newspapers another.
- Gilbert K. Chesterton
I see journalists as the manual workers, the laborers of the word. Journalism can only be literature when it is passionate.
- Marguerite Duras
Journalist: a person without any ideas but with an ability to express
them; a writer whose skill is improved by a deadline: the more time he
has, the worse he writes.
- Karl Kraus
What a squalid and irresponsible little profession it is. Nothing
prepares you for how bad Fleet Street really is until it craps on you
from a great height.
- Ken Livingstone
If a person is not talented enough to be a novelist, not smart enough
to be a lawyer, and his hands are too shaky to perform operations, he
becomes a journalist.
- Norman Mailer
Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice
what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is
a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance, or
loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.
- Janet Malcolm
The real news is bad news.
- Marshall McLuhan
I think there ought to be a club in which preachers and journalists
could come together and have the sentimentalism of the one matched with
the cynicism of the other. That ought to bring them pretty close to the
truth.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
In America journalism is apt to be regarded as an extension of history:
in Britain, as an extension of conversation.
- Anthony Sampson
If I'd written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600
people -- including me -- would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to
Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in
the context of professional journalism.
- Hunter S. Thompson
The facts fairly and honestly presented; truth will take care of itself.
- William Allen White
In the real world, nothing happens at the right place at the right
time. It is the job of journalists and historians to correct that.
- Mark Twain
Saturday, October 08, 2005
This is a very disconcerting trend in America and could have reprocussions everywere. Think about it. Does this happen here?
. STEPPING UP THE ATTACK ON GREEN ACTIVISTS
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/26077/
"A remorseless rapist in Hamilton County, Ohio is sentenced to 15
years in prison for beating and raping a 57-year-old woman," writes
Kelly Hearn. "An environmental activist in California is sentenced
to 22 years and 8 months for burning three SUVs at a car dealership
after taking precautions to harm no lives. The disparity helps
illustrates what animal rights and environmental groups say is an
expanding Orwellian attack on American environmentalism being waged
under the pretext of eco-terrorism." On CounterPunch, Jeffrey St.
Clair writes, "Armed with the bulging array of new police and
surveillance powers handed the agency in the wake of 9/11, the FBI
is now free to prowl unfettered by even the thinnest strands of
constitutional due process through the lives, email and bank
accounts of activists trying to stop chemical plants from flushing
toxins into their water. ... On FoxNews, blinking eco-terrorist
alerts have replaced Tom Ridge's color-coded threat level."
SOURCE: AlterNet, September 30, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4038
. STEPPING UP THE ATTACK ON GREEN ACTIVISTS
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/26077/
"A remorseless rapist in Hamilton County, Ohio is sentenced to 15
years in prison for beating and raping a 57-year-old woman," writes
Kelly Hearn. "An environmental activist in California is sentenced
to 22 years and 8 months for burning three SUVs at a car dealership
after taking precautions to harm no lives. The disparity helps
illustrates what animal rights and environmental groups say is an
expanding Orwellian attack on American environmentalism being waged
under the pretext of eco-terrorism." On CounterPunch, Jeffrey St.
Clair writes, "Armed with the bulging array of new police and
surveillance powers handed the agency in the wake of 9/11, the FBI
is now free to prowl unfettered by even the thinnest strands of
constitutional due process through the lives, email and bank
accounts of activists trying to stop chemical plants from flushing
toxins into their water. ... On FoxNews, blinking eco-terrorist
alerts have replaced Tom Ridge's color-coded threat level."
SOURCE: AlterNet, September 30, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4038
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Pod casting seems to be one of the latest things. You download MP3 sound files and then listen to then or you can stream them live from an iPod or your computer. Here is a discussion that will help your listening and is of interest from a Journalistic point of view:
Suffragette Journalists at BlogHer 2005 (3.0)
---------------------------------------
The discussion about whether bloggers are journalists is one that inspires
heated opinions. In this conversation from BlogHer, several blogger/journalists
discuss the relationship between blogging and so-called traditional journalism.
Moderator Lisa Stone asks Anastasia Goodstein, Chris Nolan and Evelyn Rodriguez
to share their experiences of the relationship between independent online
publishing and traditional media.
http://ipost.com/rd/9z1znl513j9fjl1eog26p51jietsnnlt57un48enc40
Suffragette Journalists at BlogHer 2005 (3.0)
---------------------------------------
The discussion about whether bloggers are journalists is one that inspires
heated opinions. In this conversation from BlogHer, several blogger/journalists
discuss the relationship between blogging and so-called traditional journalism.
Moderator Lisa Stone asks Anastasia Goodstein, Chris Nolan and Evelyn Rodriguez
to share their experiences of the relationship between independent online
publishing and traditional media.
http://ipost.com/rd/9z1znl513j9fjl1eog26p51jietsnnlt57un48enc40
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Everybody should read over the following carefully:
What is Plagiarism?
Definition
1. Plagiarism is defined as "Passing off someone else's work as your own".
2. It happens if you copy somebody else's work instead of doing your own.
3. It also happens in those cases where people actually buy essays instead of doing the work themselves.
4. Schools, colleges, and universities regard this as a serious offence - and they often have stiff penalties for anyone found guilty.
5. Most people at school level call this 'cheating' or 'copying' - and they know it is wrong.
6. The problem is that at college or university, you are expected to use and write about other people's work - so the issue of plagiarism becomes more complex.
7. There are also different types and different degrees of plagiarism - and it is often difficult to know whether you are breaking the rules or not.
8. Let's start off by making it clear that all the following can be counted as plagiarism.
Plagiarism
• Copying directly from a text, word-for-word
• Using an attractive phrase or sentence you have found somewhere
• Using text downloaded from the Internet
• Paraphrasing the words of a text very closely
• Borrowing statistics from another source or person
• Copying from the essays or the notes of another student
• Downloading or copying pictures, photographs, or diagrams without acknowledging your sources
Why is this so complex?
9. The answer is - because in your work at college or university level you are supposed to discuss other people's ideas. These will be expressed in the articles and books they have written. But you have to follow certain conventions.
10. Plus - at the same time - you will be asked to express your own arguments and opinions. You therefore have two tasks - and it is sometimes hard to combine them in a way which does not break the rules. Many people are not sure how much of somebody else's work they can use.
11. Sometimes plagiarism can happen by accident, because you use an extract from someone else's work - but you forget to show that you are quoting.
12. This is the first thing you should learn about plagiarism - and how to avoid it. Always show that you are quoting somebody else's work by enclosing the extract in [single] quote marks.
In 1848 there was an outbreak of revolutionary risings throughout Europe, which Marx described as 'the first stirrings of proletarian defiance' in a letter to his collaborator, Frederick Engels.
13. This also sometimes happens if you are stuck for ideas, and you quote a passage from a textbook. You might think the author expresses the idea so well, that you can't improve on it.
14. This is plagiarism - unless you say and show that you are quoting someone else's work. Here's how to do it:
This painting is generally considered one of his finest achievements. As John Richardson suggests: 'In Guernica, Picasso lifts the concept of art as political propaganda to its highest level in the twentieth century'.
Academic conventions
15. Why do colleges and universities make such a big fuss about this issue? The answer to this is that they are trying to keep up important conventions in academic writing.
16. The conventions involve two things at the same time. They are the same as your two tasks:
• You are developing your own ideas and arguments and learning to express them.
• You are showing that you have learned about and can use other people's work.
17. These conventions allow you to use other people's work to illustrate and support your own arguments - but you must be honest about it. You must show which parts are your own work, and which parts belong to somebody else.
18. You also need to show where the information comes from. This is done by using a system of footnotes or endnotes where you list details of the source of your information.
19. The conventions of referencing and citation can become very complex. If you need guidance on this issue, have a look at our detailed guidance notes on the subject. What follows is the bare bones.
20. In an essay on a novel by D.H. Lawrence for example, you might argue that his work was influenced by Thomas Hardy. You could support this claim by quoting a literary critic:
Lawrence's characters have a close relationship with their physical environment - showing possibly the influence of Hardy, who Walter Allen points out was 'his fundamental precursor in the English tradition' (1)
21. Notice that you place a number in brackets immediately after the quotation. The source of this quotation is given as a footnote at the bottom of the page, or as an endnote on a separate sheet at the end of your essay.
22. The note gives full details of the source - as follows:
Notes
1. Walter Allen, The English Novel, London: Chatto and Windus, 1964, p.243
Do's and Don'ts
23. You should avoid composing an essay by stringing together accounts of other people's work. This occurs when an essay is written in this form:
Critic X says that this idea is ' ... long quotation ...', whereas Commentator Y's opinion is that this idea is ' ... long quotation ...', and Critic Z disagrees completely, saying that the idea is ' ... long quotation ...'.
24. This is very close to plagiarism, because even though you are naming the critics and showing that you are quoting them - there is nothing of your own argument being offered here.
25. If you are stuck for ideas, don't be tempted to copy long passages from other people's work. The reason is - it's really easy to spot. Your tutor will notice the difference in style straight away.
Copyright and plagiarism
26. Copyright can be quite a complex issue - but basically it means the 'right to copy' a piece of work. This right belongs to the author of the work - the person who writes it - or a publisher.
27. When a piece of writing is published in a book or on the Web, you can read it as much as you wish - but the right to copy it belongs to the author or the author's publisher.
28. Nobody will worry if you quote a few words, or a few lines. This is regarded as what is called 'fair use'. People in the world of education realise that because quotation is so much a part of academic writing, it would be ridiculous to insist that you should seek permission to quote every few words.
29. In fact there is an unwritten convention that you can quote up to 5% of a work without seeking permission. If this was from a very long work however, you would still be wise to seek permission.
30. This permission is only for your own personal study purposes - as part of your course work or an assignment. If you wished to use the materials for any other purpose, you would need to seek permission.
31. Copyright also extends beyond writing to include diagrams, maps, drawings, photographs, and other forms of graphic presentation. In some cases it can even include the layout of a document.
Plagiarism and the Web
32. The World Wide Web has made millions and millions of pages of information available to anybody with access to the Internet. But even though this appears to be 'free' - copyright restrictions still apply. If someone writes and publishes a Web page, the copyright belongs to that person.
33. If you wish to use material you have located on the Web, you should acknowledge your sources in the same way that you would material quoted from a printed book.
34. Keep in mind too that information on a Web page might have been put there by someone who does not hold copyright to it.
What follows is the rather strictly-worded code
on plagiarism from a typical university handbook.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the theft or appropriation of someone else's work without proper acknowledgement, presenting the materials as if they were one's own. Plagiarism is a serious academic offence and the consequences are severe.
a) Course work, dissertations, and essays submitted for assessment must be the student's own work, unless in the case of group projects a joint effort is expected and indicated as such.
b) Unacknowledged direct copying from the work of another person, or the unacknowledged close paraphrasing of somebody else's work, is called plagiarism and is a serious offence, equated with cheating in examinations. This applies to copying both from other student's work and from published sources such as books, reports or journal articles.
c) Use of quotations or data from the work of others is entirely acceptable, and is often very valuable provided that the source of the quotation or data is given. Failure to provide a source or put quotation marks around material that is taken from elsewhere gives the appearance that the comments are ostensibly one's own. When quoting word-for-word from the work of another person quotation marks or indenting (setting the quotation in from the margin) must be used and the source of the quoted material must be acknowledged.
d) Paraphrasing when the original statement is still identifiable and has no acknowledgement, is plagiarism. A close paraphrase of another person's work must have an acknowledgement to the source. It is not acceptable to put together unacknowledged passages from the same or from different sources link these together with a few words or sentences of your own and changing a few words from the original text: this is regarded as over-dependence on other sources, which is a form of plagiarism.
e) Direct quotation from an earlier piece of the student's own work, if unattributed, suggests that the work is original, when in fact it is not. The direct copying of one's own writings qualifies as plagiarism if the fact that the work has been or is to be presented elsewhere is not acknowledged.
f) Sources of quotations used should be listed in full in a bibliography at the end of the piece of work and in a style required by the student's department.
g) Plagiarism is a serious offence and will always result in imposition of a penalty. In deciding upon the penalty the University will take into account factors such as the year of study, the extent and proportion of the work that has been plagiarised and the apparent intent of the student. the penalties that can be imposed range from a minimum of zero mark for the work (without allowing resubmission) through to downgrading of degree class, the award of a lesser qualification (eg a Pass degree rather than Honours, a certificate rather than a diploma) to disciplinary measures such as suspension or expulsion.
What is Plagiarism?
Definition
1. Plagiarism is defined as "Passing off someone else's work as your own".
2. It happens if you copy somebody else's work instead of doing your own.
3. It also happens in those cases where people actually buy essays instead of doing the work themselves.
4. Schools, colleges, and universities regard this as a serious offence - and they often have stiff penalties for anyone found guilty.
5. Most people at school level call this 'cheating' or 'copying' - and they know it is wrong.
6. The problem is that at college or university, you are expected to use and write about other people's work - so the issue of plagiarism becomes more complex.
7. There are also different types and different degrees of plagiarism - and it is often difficult to know whether you are breaking the rules or not.
8. Let's start off by making it clear that all the following can be counted as plagiarism.
Plagiarism
• Copying directly from a text, word-for-word
• Using an attractive phrase or sentence you have found somewhere
• Using text downloaded from the Internet
• Paraphrasing the words of a text very closely
• Borrowing statistics from another source or person
• Copying from the essays or the notes of another student
• Downloading or copying pictures, photographs, or diagrams without acknowledging your sources
Why is this so complex?
9. The answer is - because in your work at college or university level you are supposed to discuss other people's ideas. These will be expressed in the articles and books they have written. But you have to follow certain conventions.
10. Plus - at the same time - you will be asked to express your own arguments and opinions. You therefore have two tasks - and it is sometimes hard to combine them in a way which does not break the rules. Many people are not sure how much of somebody else's work they can use.
11. Sometimes plagiarism can happen by accident, because you use an extract from someone else's work - but you forget to show that you are quoting.
12. This is the first thing you should learn about plagiarism - and how to avoid it. Always show that you are quoting somebody else's work by enclosing the extract in [single] quote marks.
In 1848 there was an outbreak of revolutionary risings throughout Europe, which Marx described as 'the first stirrings of proletarian defiance' in a letter to his collaborator, Frederick Engels.
13. This also sometimes happens if you are stuck for ideas, and you quote a passage from a textbook. You might think the author expresses the idea so well, that you can't improve on it.
14. This is plagiarism - unless you say and show that you are quoting someone else's work. Here's how to do it:
This painting is generally considered one of his finest achievements. As John Richardson suggests: 'In Guernica, Picasso lifts the concept of art as political propaganda to its highest level in the twentieth century'.
Academic conventions
15. Why do colleges and universities make such a big fuss about this issue? The answer to this is that they are trying to keep up important conventions in academic writing.
16. The conventions involve two things at the same time. They are the same as your two tasks:
• You are developing your own ideas and arguments and learning to express them.
• You are showing that you have learned about and can use other people's work.
17. These conventions allow you to use other people's work to illustrate and support your own arguments - but you must be honest about it. You must show which parts are your own work, and which parts belong to somebody else.
18. You also need to show where the information comes from. This is done by using a system of footnotes or endnotes where you list details of the source of your information.
19. The conventions of referencing and citation can become very complex. If you need guidance on this issue, have a look at our detailed guidance notes on the subject. What follows is the bare bones.
20. In an essay on a novel by D.H. Lawrence for example, you might argue that his work was influenced by Thomas Hardy. You could support this claim by quoting a literary critic:
Lawrence's characters have a close relationship with their physical environment - showing possibly the influence of Hardy, who Walter Allen points out was 'his fundamental precursor in the English tradition' (1)
21. Notice that you place a number in brackets immediately after the quotation. The source of this quotation is given as a footnote at the bottom of the page, or as an endnote on a separate sheet at the end of your essay.
22. The note gives full details of the source - as follows:
Notes
1. Walter Allen, The English Novel, London: Chatto and Windus, 1964, p.243
Do's and Don'ts
23. You should avoid composing an essay by stringing together accounts of other people's work. This occurs when an essay is written in this form:
Critic X says that this idea is ' ... long quotation ...', whereas Commentator Y's opinion is that this idea is ' ... long quotation ...', and Critic Z disagrees completely, saying that the idea is ' ... long quotation ...'.
24. This is very close to plagiarism, because even though you are naming the critics and showing that you are quoting them - there is nothing of your own argument being offered here.
25. If you are stuck for ideas, don't be tempted to copy long passages from other people's work. The reason is - it's really easy to spot. Your tutor will notice the difference in style straight away.
Copyright and plagiarism
26. Copyright can be quite a complex issue - but basically it means the 'right to copy' a piece of work. This right belongs to the author of the work - the person who writes it - or a publisher.
27. When a piece of writing is published in a book or on the Web, you can read it as much as you wish - but the right to copy it belongs to the author or the author's publisher.
28. Nobody will worry if you quote a few words, or a few lines. This is regarded as what is called 'fair use'. People in the world of education realise that because quotation is so much a part of academic writing, it would be ridiculous to insist that you should seek permission to quote every few words.
29. In fact there is an unwritten convention that you can quote up to 5% of a work without seeking permission. If this was from a very long work however, you would still be wise to seek permission.
30. This permission is only for your own personal study purposes - as part of your course work or an assignment. If you wished to use the materials for any other purpose, you would need to seek permission.
31. Copyright also extends beyond writing to include diagrams, maps, drawings, photographs, and other forms of graphic presentation. In some cases it can even include the layout of a document.
Plagiarism and the Web
32. The World Wide Web has made millions and millions of pages of information available to anybody with access to the Internet. But even though this appears to be 'free' - copyright restrictions still apply. If someone writes and publishes a Web page, the copyright belongs to that person.
33. If you wish to use material you have located on the Web, you should acknowledge your sources in the same way that you would material quoted from a printed book.
34. Keep in mind too that information on a Web page might have been put there by someone who does not hold copyright to it.
What follows is the rather strictly-worded code
on plagiarism from a typical university handbook.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the theft or appropriation of someone else's work without proper acknowledgement, presenting the materials as if they were one's own. Plagiarism is a serious academic offence and the consequences are severe.
a) Course work, dissertations, and essays submitted for assessment must be the student's own work, unless in the case of group projects a joint effort is expected and indicated as such.
b) Unacknowledged direct copying from the work of another person, or the unacknowledged close paraphrasing of somebody else's work, is called plagiarism and is a serious offence, equated with cheating in examinations. This applies to copying both from other student's work and from published sources such as books, reports or journal articles.
c) Use of quotations or data from the work of others is entirely acceptable, and is often very valuable provided that the source of the quotation or data is given. Failure to provide a source or put quotation marks around material that is taken from elsewhere gives the appearance that the comments are ostensibly one's own. When quoting word-for-word from the work of another person quotation marks or indenting (setting the quotation in from the margin) must be used and the source of the quoted material must be acknowledged.
d) Paraphrasing when the original statement is still identifiable and has no acknowledgement, is plagiarism. A close paraphrase of another person's work must have an acknowledgement to the source. It is not acceptable to put together unacknowledged passages from the same or from different sources link these together with a few words or sentences of your own and changing a few words from the original text: this is regarded as over-dependence on other sources, which is a form of plagiarism.
e) Direct quotation from an earlier piece of the student's own work, if unattributed, suggests that the work is original, when in fact it is not. The direct copying of one's own writings qualifies as plagiarism if the fact that the work has been or is to be presented elsewhere is not acknowledged.
f) Sources of quotations used should be listed in full in a bibliography at the end of the piece of work and in a style required by the student's department.
g) Plagiarism is a serious offence and will always result in imposition of a penalty. In deciding upon the penalty the University will take into account factors such as the year of study, the extent and proportion of the work that has been plagiarised and the apparent intent of the student. the penalties that can be imposed range from a minimum of zero mark for the work (without allowing resubmission) through to downgrading of degree class, the award of a lesser qualification (eg a Pass degree rather than Honours, a certificate rather than a diploma) to disciplinary measures such as suspension or expulsion.
Friday, September 09, 2005
Please read this article. This is a problem not only here in Japan but everywhere.
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Scandal claims key Asahi, industry exec
The Asahi Shimbun's executive adviser steps down from his post and resigns as chairman of
the Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association over a faked news report involving a
now-fired reporter.
[MORE] ->
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050908a3.htm
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Scandal claims key Asahi, industry exec
The Asahi Shimbun's executive adviser steps down from his post and resigns as chairman of
the Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association over a faked news report involving a
now-fired reporter.
[MORE] ->
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050908a3.htm
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Well I know it is hot and damp,humid, muggy but it is also wonderful in the evening. I though you would like to think about this as a 'what if':- ON THIS DAY -
On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis, which had just delivered key components of the Hiroshima atomic bomb to the Pacific island of Tinian, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Only 316 out of 1,196 men survived the sinking and shark-infested waters.
On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis, which had just delivered key components of the Hiroshima atomic bomb to the Pacific island of Tinian, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Only 316 out of 1,196 men survived the sinking and shark-infested waters.
Saturday, July 16, 2005
Hi hope you all have a nice summer. We'll talk about this one in the fall:
Two held in slaying of homeless man
Two people were arrested Saturday on suspicion of beating a homeless man to death last week in a park in Sumida Ward, Tokyo, police said.
Naoto Yoshida, 20, and a 19-year-old male whose name is withheld because he is a minor, are suspected of kicking a man believed to be Masamitsu Katori, 64, in the head and chest while he was sleeping in the park at around 3:30 a.m. Wednesday.
The man died from loss of blood, police said.
"I got carried away after drinking alcohol," the 19-year-old was quoted as saying.
"I didn't mean to kill but I kicked the man's head," Yoshida allegedly said.
The two suspects, who attend night school, had been drinking near the park and were on their way home.
They threw their shoes away because they left bloody footsteps in the park, police said.
The Japan Times: July 17, 2005
Two held in slaying of homeless man
Two people were arrested Saturday on suspicion of beating a homeless man to death last week in a park in Sumida Ward, Tokyo, police said.
Naoto Yoshida, 20, and a 19-year-old male whose name is withheld because he is a minor, are suspected of kicking a man believed to be Masamitsu Katori, 64, in the head and chest while he was sleeping in the park at around 3:30 a.m. Wednesday.
The man died from loss of blood, police said.
"I got carried away after drinking alcohol," the 19-year-old was quoted as saying.
"I didn't mean to kill but I kicked the man's head," Yoshida allegedly said.
The two suspects, who attend night school, had been drinking near the park and were on their way home.
They threw their shoes away because they left bloody footsteps in the park, police said.
The Japan Times: July 17, 2005
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Hi I'd like you the check this out:[NATIONAL NEWS]
U.N. calls for antidiscrimination law
A United Nations-appointed independent investigator says the government urgently needs to acknowledge the deep discrimination in Japan against minorities, Korean and Chinese residents and other foreigners.
[MORE] ->
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050712a1.htm
and....what do you think?
U.N. calls for antidiscrimination law
A United Nations-appointed independent investigator says the government urgently needs to acknowledge the deep discrimination in Japan against minorities, Korean and Chinese residents and other foreigners.
[MORE] ->
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050712a1.htm
and....what do you think?
Saturday, July 09, 2005
Hi I thought that you should read this from the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper. If you are not familiar with the issues here ask me about it in the next class and we can talk about it. It's important. Clark
Kids, don't fall for 'free press' hype
July 8, 2005
BY CAROL MARIN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
Advertisement
Just about every week, the phone rings with an earnest, young journalism student at the other end asking what he or she needs to do to become a reporter. Some have already given it a great deal of thought. Most have not.
For a while now, I've toyed with the notion of one day writing a book, a kind of road map for would-be reporters on some of the obstacles ahead. I'm not sure what I'd call it. Maybe, Hey, Kid, So You Wanna Be A Reporter? I was forced to abandon my original title, News Reporting For Dummies, after a media-bashing friend of mine sneered that it was redundant.
Lesson No. 1: Even your friends will despise you.
Reporters have long since lost the luster of the glory days of Woodward and Bernstein and Watergate. Journalists, in the eye of the public, have gone from swashbuckling to scum-sucking. Some of our wounds are self-inflicted. The Jayson Blair affair at the New York Times and the CBS/Dan Rather case of questionable documents are just two of too many.
But don't for a second doubt that genuine, hard news reporting is under siege. It is. Just ask Judith Miller, who was jailed Wednesday for refusing to reveal her sources for a story she never even published. Or better yet, ask the Bush administration, which has no compunction about recruiting public relations people to pose as reporters in taxpayer-subsidized video news releases that were peddled as "news reports." That's the same Bush administration that is classifying documents at breakneck speed to keep actual vs. manufactured information out of the hands of the public and the press.
Lesson No. 2: Judith Miller
Anybody who thinks they want to be a reporter should be required to read every single word of the opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia No. 04-3138. That's the one that ordered Miller and Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper to reveal their confidential sources to a federal grand jury.
Pay particular attention to pages 72 through 78. Why? Because they're blank, that's why. Even experienced constitutional lawyers are flabbergasted by this. But at the request of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor assigned to this inquiry, his most powerful arguments for why Miller and Cooper should break their promises to sources are too sensitive for any of us to see.
As one respected First Amendment expert was heard to say, "What is this, freakin' Albania?"
Lesson No. 3: Reporters are not above the law
Not you. Not me. But civil disobedience holds a crucial place in our history. From the fight for civil rights to anti-war protests to reporters protecting the identity of their sources, there are those who have always defied the law on principle and paid the price. Miller is in jail because in a society of laws, good ones and bad ones, there are consequences. She has accepted the consequences.
Any aspiring reporter who thinks there is a martyred romanticism to her incarceration needs to think again. Nobody, including Miller, wants to have their hands and feet shackled, go to the bathroom under the gaze of a security camera, or lose even a minute of their liberty. Think early and often about what you will do when a subpoena arrives with your name on it. Take it from me, it will.
There are, young would-be journalists, risks involved in this work. It's true for political reporters confronting government, for business reporters taking on corporate interests, and for sports reporters uncovering the darker side of the game. Covering the news can win you a lot more enemies than friends. That's true when you get the story right as well as when you get the story wrong.
Miller has mostly gotten things right in her distinguished career, but not everything. Her most notable error was a big one, believing that Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi actually knew what he was talking about when he claimed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
There are some who believe Miller's current fight is a way to redeem that failure. I don't buy it. Not exactly known as Miss Congeniality in the New York Times newsroom, Miller admits to having "sharp elbows." I don't think she's suddenly worried about her image. I think she's standing for a vital principle. Not to mention giving aspiring journalists the hardest of lessons.
Kids, don't fall for 'free press' hype
July 8, 2005
BY CAROL MARIN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
Advertisement
Just about every week, the phone rings with an earnest, young journalism student at the other end asking what he or she needs to do to become a reporter. Some have already given it a great deal of thought. Most have not.
For a while now, I've toyed with the notion of one day writing a book, a kind of road map for would-be reporters on some of the obstacles ahead. I'm not sure what I'd call it. Maybe, Hey, Kid, So You Wanna Be A Reporter? I was forced to abandon my original title, News Reporting For Dummies, after a media-bashing friend of mine sneered that it was redundant.
Lesson No. 1: Even your friends will despise you.
Reporters have long since lost the luster of the glory days of Woodward and Bernstein and Watergate. Journalists, in the eye of the public, have gone from swashbuckling to scum-sucking. Some of our wounds are self-inflicted. The Jayson Blair affair at the New York Times and the CBS/Dan Rather case of questionable documents are just two of too many.
But don't for a second doubt that genuine, hard news reporting is under siege. It is. Just ask Judith Miller, who was jailed Wednesday for refusing to reveal her sources for a story she never even published. Or better yet, ask the Bush administration, which has no compunction about recruiting public relations people to pose as reporters in taxpayer-subsidized video news releases that were peddled as "news reports." That's the same Bush administration that is classifying documents at breakneck speed to keep actual vs. manufactured information out of the hands of the public and the press.
Lesson No. 2: Judith Miller
Anybody who thinks they want to be a reporter should be required to read every single word of the opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia No. 04-3138. That's the one that ordered Miller and Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper to reveal their confidential sources to a federal grand jury.
Pay particular attention to pages 72 through 78. Why? Because they're blank, that's why. Even experienced constitutional lawyers are flabbergasted by this. But at the request of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor assigned to this inquiry, his most powerful arguments for why Miller and Cooper should break their promises to sources are too sensitive for any of us to see.
As one respected First Amendment expert was heard to say, "What is this, freakin' Albania?"
Lesson No. 3: Reporters are not above the law
Not you. Not me. But civil disobedience holds a crucial place in our history. From the fight for civil rights to anti-war protests to reporters protecting the identity of their sources, there are those who have always defied the law on principle and paid the price. Miller is in jail because in a society of laws, good ones and bad ones, there are consequences. She has accepted the consequences.
Any aspiring reporter who thinks there is a martyred romanticism to her incarceration needs to think again. Nobody, including Miller, wants to have their hands and feet shackled, go to the bathroom under the gaze of a security camera, or lose even a minute of their liberty. Think early and often about what you will do when a subpoena arrives with your name on it. Take it from me, it will.
There are, young would-be journalists, risks involved in this work. It's true for political reporters confronting government, for business reporters taking on corporate interests, and for sports reporters uncovering the darker side of the game. Covering the news can win you a lot more enemies than friends. That's true when you get the story right as well as when you get the story wrong.
Miller has mostly gotten things right in her distinguished career, but not everything. Her most notable error was a big one, believing that Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi actually knew what he was talking about when he claimed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
There are some who believe Miller's current fight is a way to redeem that failure. I don't buy it. Not exactly known as Miss Congeniality in the New York Times newsroom, Miller admits to having "sharp elbows." I don't think she's suddenly worried about her image. I think she's standing for a vital principle. Not to mention giving aspiring journalists the hardest of lessons.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Hi as your assignment for next week is a science related article I thought you might like a look at this one:
more articles
next article >>
Fingernails store personal information
6 July 2005
Japanese researchers are using femtosecond laser pulses to write data into human fingernails.
Secure optical data storage could soon literally be at your fingertips thanks to work being carried out in Japan. Yoshio Hayasaki and his colleagues have discovered that data can be written into a human fingernail by irradiating it with femtosecond laser pulses. Capacities are said to be up to 5 mega bits and the stored data lasts for 6 months - the length of time it takes a fingernail to be completely replaced. (Optics Express 13 4560)
Fingernail storage
"I don't like carrying around a large number of cards, money and papers," Hayasaki from Tokushima University told Optics.org. "I think that a key application will be personal authentication. Data stored in a fingernail can be used with biometrics, such as fingerprint authentication and intravenous authentication of the finger."
The team's approach is simple: use a femtosecond laser system to write the data into the nail and a fluorescence microscope to read it out. The key to reading the data out is that the nail's fluorescence increases at the point irradiated by the femtosecond pulses.
Initial experiments were carried out on a small piece of human fingernail measuring 2 x 2 x 0.4 mm3. The writing system comprises a Ti:Sapphire oscillator and Ti:Sapphire amplifier. Pulses of less than 100 fs at 800 nm are then passed through a microscope and focused to three set depths (40, 60 and 80 microns) using an objective lens.
Each "bit" of information has a diameter of 3.1 microns and is written by a single femtosecond pulse. A motorised stage moves the nail to create a bit spacing of 5 microns across the nail and a depth of 20 microns between recording layers.
An optical microscope containing a filtered xenon arc lamp excites the fluorescence and reads out the data stored at the various depths. "We regulate the focus with the movement of the microscope objective," explained Hayasaki. "The distance between the planes is set to prevent cross-talk between data stored at different depths."
Hayasaki adds that the same fluorescence signal is seen 172 days after recording.
Although the initial experiments have concentrated on small pieces of nail, the team is now developing a system that can write data to a fingernail which is still attached to a finger. "We will develop a femtosecond laser processing system that can record the data at the desired points with compensation for the movement of a finger," said Hayasaki.
Author
Jacqueline Hewett is technology editor on Optics.org and Opto & Laser Europe magazine.
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Fingernails store personal information
6 July 2005
Japanese researchers are using femtosecond laser pulses to write data into human fingernails.
Secure optical data storage could soon literally be at your fingertips thanks to work being carried out in Japan. Yoshio Hayasaki and his colleagues have discovered that data can be written into a human fingernail by irradiating it with femtosecond laser pulses. Capacities are said to be up to 5 mega bits and the stored data lasts for 6 months - the length of time it takes a fingernail to be completely replaced. (Optics Express 13 4560)
Fingernail storage
"I don't like carrying around a large number of cards, money and papers," Hayasaki from Tokushima University told Optics.org. "I think that a key application will be personal authentication. Data stored in a fingernail can be used with biometrics, such as fingerprint authentication and intravenous authentication of the finger."
The team's approach is simple: use a femtosecond laser system to write the data into the nail and a fluorescence microscope to read it out. The key to reading the data out is that the nail's fluorescence increases at the point irradiated by the femtosecond pulses.
Initial experiments were carried out on a small piece of human fingernail measuring 2 x 2 x 0.4 mm3. The writing system comprises a Ti:Sapphire oscillator and Ti:Sapphire amplifier. Pulses of less than 100 fs at 800 nm are then passed through a microscope and focused to three set depths (40, 60 and 80 microns) using an objective lens.
Each "bit" of information has a diameter of 3.1 microns and is written by a single femtosecond pulse. A motorised stage moves the nail to create a bit spacing of 5 microns across the nail and a depth of 20 microns between recording layers.
An optical microscope containing a filtered xenon arc lamp excites the fluorescence and reads out the data stored at the various depths. "We regulate the focus with the movement of the microscope objective," explained Hayasaki. "The distance between the planes is set to prevent cross-talk between data stored at different depths."
Hayasaki adds that the same fluorescence signal is seen 172 days after recording.
Although the initial experiments have concentrated on small pieces of nail, the team is now developing a system that can write data to a fingernail which is still attached to a finger. "We will develop a femtosecond laser processing system that can record the data at the desired points with compensation for the movement of a finger," said Hayasaki.
Author
Jacqueline Hewett is technology editor on Optics.org and Opto & Laser Europe magazine.
Friday, July 01, 2005
Altough the assignement for this weeks is to write a review on some artistic event, and you should do that, there are other stories out there that you can also follow. For example:
By REIJI YOSHIDA
Staff writer
The subtitle of a recently published book by political analyst Atsuo Ito sounds like a joke: "The most irritating data book in Japan."
Atsuo Ito poses during an interview about his new book on alarming Japanese statistics at a hotel in Tokyo. The political insider is trying to fight public indifference to Japanese politics. REIJI YOSHIDA PHOTO
But much of the data in "Seiji no Suji" ("Figures in Politics") is no laughing matter for voters and taxpayers.
According to the book, the Japanese Embassy in Paris spent 8.49 million yen in March 2000 alone to foot the drinking tab of the diplomats. The money, which comes to an average 274,000 yen a day, came from the "diplomatic discretionary fund" -- a secretive Foreign Ministry slush fund that does not require public disclosure on its use.
But Ito said many Japanese diplomats he met overseas used vast amounts of the fund to wine and dine Diet members on overseas junkets and to entertain themselves with extravagant meals at the same tables.
Ito also describes in the book how 53.6 percent of the Liberal Democratic Party's successful candidates in the 2003 House of Representatives election were "hereditary" lawmakers -- offspring, grandchildren or other close relatives of politicians.
This dominance of such a political elite, who "inherit" local support bases and vote-gathering machines, is readily denounced as a feudal type of nepotism rather than a modern democracy.
Ito, a former director general of the Democratic Party of Japan, said his decades-long career as a nonelected insider in Nagata-cho has convinced him that the general public will take a greater interest in politics if it knows more about what's truly at stake.
"To narrow the gap between politics and ordinary people, you have to start with explaining how politics affect their wallets and their entire personal life," Ito said in an interview with The Japan Times.
"That's why pension issues drew considerable public interest last year," he said, referring to heated debate over public pension reform -- an issue that delivered a setback to the ruling coalition in last July's House of Councilors election.
In the book, Ito points out that taxpayers pay 157 million yen to elect each House of Representatives member in the form of government funding for election campaigns and 259 million yen to elect each member of the House of Councilors.
In addition, the salary and expenses of each Diet member cost taxpayers at least 63 million yen a year.
Still, 40.14 percent of the nation's eligible voters failed to exercise their voting rights in the 2003 Lower House election, Ito said. Thus he urges voters to cast ballots anyway -- even blank ones ---- so the polling expenses don't go to waste.
Ito's book takes a cynical look at political data -- and for good reason.
Once dubbed the "contractor for new parties," Ito headed the secretariats of three parties that emerged in the late 1990s.
He had been a salaried employee at LDP headquarters in Tokyo for about 20 years before departing in 1993, the same time that dozens of LDP lawmakers defected, ousting the party from its decades-long stint in power.
He then helped the defectors create one new party after another in a bid to rival the LDP. He sometimes played key roles in media relations by collecting scandalous information to use as ammunition against the LDP.
The last party he served, the DPJ, which he left in December 2001, has since grown into the main opposition force and the LDP's main threat, in terms of Diet members.
But Ito admitted he feels more of a "sense of emptiness" rather than a sense of achievement.
"It is true the (political realignment) of the past decade gave birth to the DPJ. But all other opposition parties were failures," he said.
Of the 36 Lower House members who bolted from the LDP to form Shinseito in 1993, only four have retained Diet seats without ever returning to the LDP's sphere, according to Ito. Others have either returned to or formed alliances with the LDP, lost their seats, retired or passed away.
Their revolt kept the LDP out of government from August 1993 to June 1994, when the party returned to power by forming successive coalitions.
"Japanese politics have basically witnessed little change," Ito said, adding that he intends to analyze and learn from the failures of past political realignments in his bid to nurture people's interest in politics.
"It's quite easy to let politics be corrupt and decay," he says in the afterward for another of his books. "All you need to do is allow people to be indifferent."
The Japan Times: July 1, 2005
(C) All rights reserved
By REIJI YOSHIDA
Staff writer
The subtitle of a recently published book by political analyst Atsuo Ito sounds like a joke: "The most irritating data book in Japan."
Atsuo Ito poses during an interview about his new book on alarming Japanese statistics at a hotel in Tokyo. The political insider is trying to fight public indifference to Japanese politics. REIJI YOSHIDA PHOTO
But much of the data in "Seiji no Suji" ("Figures in Politics") is no laughing matter for voters and taxpayers.
According to the book, the Japanese Embassy in Paris spent 8.49 million yen in March 2000 alone to foot the drinking tab of the diplomats. The money, which comes to an average 274,000 yen a day, came from the "diplomatic discretionary fund" -- a secretive Foreign Ministry slush fund that does not require public disclosure on its use.
But Ito said many Japanese diplomats he met overseas used vast amounts of the fund to wine and dine Diet members on overseas junkets and to entertain themselves with extravagant meals at the same tables.
Ito also describes in the book how 53.6 percent of the Liberal Democratic Party's successful candidates in the 2003 House of Representatives election were "hereditary" lawmakers -- offspring, grandchildren or other close relatives of politicians.
This dominance of such a political elite, who "inherit" local support bases and vote-gathering machines, is readily denounced as a feudal type of nepotism rather than a modern democracy.
Ito, a former director general of the Democratic Party of Japan, said his decades-long career as a nonelected insider in Nagata-cho has convinced him that the general public will take a greater interest in politics if it knows more about what's truly at stake.
"To narrow the gap between politics and ordinary people, you have to start with explaining how politics affect their wallets and their entire personal life," Ito said in an interview with The Japan Times.
"That's why pension issues drew considerable public interest last year," he said, referring to heated debate over public pension reform -- an issue that delivered a setback to the ruling coalition in last July's House of Councilors election.
In the book, Ito points out that taxpayers pay 157 million yen to elect each House of Representatives member in the form of government funding for election campaigns and 259 million yen to elect each member of the House of Councilors.
In addition, the salary and expenses of each Diet member cost taxpayers at least 63 million yen a year.
Still, 40.14 percent of the nation's eligible voters failed to exercise their voting rights in the 2003 Lower House election, Ito said. Thus he urges voters to cast ballots anyway -- even blank ones ---- so the polling expenses don't go to waste.
Ito's book takes a cynical look at political data -- and for good reason.
Once dubbed the "contractor for new parties," Ito headed the secretariats of three parties that emerged in the late 1990s.
He had been a salaried employee at LDP headquarters in Tokyo for about 20 years before departing in 1993, the same time that dozens of LDP lawmakers defected, ousting the party from its decades-long stint in power.
He then helped the defectors create one new party after another in a bid to rival the LDP. He sometimes played key roles in media relations by collecting scandalous information to use as ammunition against the LDP.
The last party he served, the DPJ, which he left in December 2001, has since grown into the main opposition force and the LDP's main threat, in terms of Diet members.
But Ito admitted he feels more of a "sense of emptiness" rather than a sense of achievement.
"It is true the (political realignment) of the past decade gave birth to the DPJ. But all other opposition parties were failures," he said.
Of the 36 Lower House members who bolted from the LDP to form Shinseito in 1993, only four have retained Diet seats without ever returning to the LDP's sphere, according to Ito. Others have either returned to or formed alliances with the LDP, lost their seats, retired or passed away.
Their revolt kept the LDP out of government from August 1993 to June 1994, when the party returned to power by forming successive coalitions.
"Japanese politics have basically witnessed little change," Ito said, adding that he intends to analyze and learn from the failures of past political realignments in his bid to nurture people's interest in politics.
"It's quite easy to let politics be corrupt and decay," he says in the afterward for another of his books. "All you need to do is allow people to be indifferent."
The Japan Times: July 1, 2005
(C) All rights reserved
Thursday, June 30, 2005
It is always interesting to see how other countries view your own. Here is an article, written by an English Report, about the atmosphere of fear in the American media:
1. DEMOCRATIC MEDIA: A DO-IT-YOURSELF STARTER KIT
by Sheldon Rampton
"I visit the States three or four times a year, and watching the
television news in hotel rooms in the last three years has been like
witnessing a time-lapse study of emasculation," writes Henry Porter,
the London editor of Vanity Fair magazine, in his ruminations about
the unmasking of FBI official Mark Felt as "Deep Throat," the
Watergate whistleblower.
"It's not just the unbearable lightness of purpose in most news
shows; it's the sense that everyone is rather too mindful of the
backstairs influence of the White House in companies such as Viacom
and News Corporation that own the TV news," Porter writes, adding,
"The result of this climate of fear and caution is that few
Americans have any idea of the circumstances in which 1,600 of their
countrymen have lost their lives in Iraq, the hideous injuries
suffered by both Iraqi and American victims of suicide bombers, or
even the profound responsibility that lies with Rumsfeld for
mishandling practically every facet of the occupation. The mission
to explain has been replaced by the mission to avoid. If today there
was a whistleblower as well-placed, heroically brave and strategic
as Mark Felt, one wonders whether he would now find the outlet that
Felt did at the Washington Post between 1972 and 1974."
For the rest of this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3782
1. DEMOCRATIC MEDIA: A DO-IT-YOURSELF STARTER KIT
by Sheldon Rampton
"I visit the States three or four times a year, and watching the
television news in hotel rooms in the last three years has been like
witnessing a time-lapse study of emasculation," writes Henry Porter,
the London editor of Vanity Fair magazine, in his ruminations about
the unmasking of FBI official Mark Felt as "Deep Throat," the
Watergate whistleblower.
"It's not just the unbearable lightness of purpose in most news
shows; it's the sense that everyone is rather too mindful of the
backstairs influence of the White House in companies such as Viacom
and News Corporation that own the TV news," Porter writes, adding,
"The result of this climate of fear and caution is that few
Americans have any idea of the circumstances in which 1,600 of their
countrymen have lost their lives in Iraq, the hideous injuries
suffered by both Iraqi and American victims of suicide bombers, or
even the profound responsibility that lies with Rumsfeld for
mishandling practically every facet of the occupation. The mission
to explain has been replaced by the mission to avoid. If today there
was a whistleblower as well-placed, heroically brave and strategic
as Mark Felt, one wonders whether he would now find the outlet that
Felt did at the Washington Post between 1972 and 1974."
For the rest of this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3782
Friday, June 24, 2005
The assignment for this week is for you to find a phot opportunity and take the picture. Blog the picture with a coupe of sentences discribing it. Good Luck. You can download BlogBot for windows or Flicker for Macs for free at the Blogger web site. The item I would like to discuss with you next week is the "Culture Defense" which is always very weak. Because it is part of thier culture is it OK for people in the South Pacific to eat other people? As it was part of the culture of the American South to have slaves it that OK? So what do you think about the following story?
Two research whale burgers to go, please
The Associated Press
A Hokkaido fast food joint began offering whale burgers Thursday as antiwhaling nations urged Japan to cut back on its catch at an international whaling conference.
Restaurant chain Lucky Pierrot serves a deep-fried minke whale meat burger, served with lettuce and mayonnaise, for 380 yen at its 10 joints in Hakodate.
Japan is facing mounting criticism over its research whaling program, which sees whales killed for study purposes before their meat is then sold. Critics say this is commercial hunting in disguise.
Miku Oh, a Lucky Pierrot official, said the chain is only utilizing stock already obtained from research whaling and it wants to preserve the culture of eating whale meat.
"People in other countries may think (eating whale) is strange, but it is our culture," she said, adding the whale for the burgers is cooked in such a way that "it tastes like beef and tuna, and since it is deep fried, it has no odor."
Annually, Japan kills about 400 minke whales in the Antarctic and another 210 whales -- 100 minke whales, 50 Bryde's whales, 50 sei whales and 10 sperm whales -- in the Northwestern Pacific.
At an annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission currently being held in Ulsan, South Korea, antiwhaling countries passed a resolution Wednesday urging Japan to drop plans to more than double the number of whales it hunts each year for research.
The commission has also rejected a proposal earlier to end its almost two-decade ban on commercial whaling. Another proposal by Japan to allow its northern coastal communities to resume limited hunts of minke whales was turned down Thursday.
Japan says it must kill whales to properly study them, including their stomach contents to glean details of their diets.
Environmental groups and antiwhaling countries, including the U.S. and Britain, say Japan's research whaling is a thinly disguised commercial whaling venture, stressing that meat is sold to Japanese supermarkets and restaurants to help fund the program.
The Japan Times: June 24, 2005
(C) All rights reserved
Two research whale burgers to go, please
The Associated Press
A Hokkaido fast food joint began offering whale burgers Thursday as antiwhaling nations urged Japan to cut back on its catch at an international whaling conference.
Restaurant chain Lucky Pierrot serves a deep-fried minke whale meat burger, served with lettuce and mayonnaise, for 380 yen at its 10 joints in Hakodate.
Japan is facing mounting criticism over its research whaling program, which sees whales killed for study purposes before their meat is then sold. Critics say this is commercial hunting in disguise.
Miku Oh, a Lucky Pierrot official, said the chain is only utilizing stock already obtained from research whaling and it wants to preserve the culture of eating whale meat.
"People in other countries may think (eating whale) is strange, but it is our culture," she said, adding the whale for the burgers is cooked in such a way that "it tastes like beef and tuna, and since it is deep fried, it has no odor."
Annually, Japan kills about 400 minke whales in the Antarctic and another 210 whales -- 100 minke whales, 50 Bryde's whales, 50 sei whales and 10 sperm whales -- in the Northwestern Pacific.
At an annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission currently being held in Ulsan, South Korea, antiwhaling countries passed a resolution Wednesday urging Japan to drop plans to more than double the number of whales it hunts each year for research.
The commission has also rejected a proposal earlier to end its almost two-decade ban on commercial whaling. Another proposal by Japan to allow its northern coastal communities to resume limited hunts of minke whales was turned down Thursday.
Japan says it must kill whales to properly study them, including their stomach contents to glean details of their diets.
Environmental groups and antiwhaling countries, including the U.S. and Britain, say Japan's research whaling is a thinly disguised commercial whaling venture, stressing that meat is sold to Japanese supermarkets and restaurants to help fund the program.
The Japan Times: June 24, 2005
(C) All rights reserved
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