Newsworthiness

NEW YORK: An amateur video posted on a Pennsylvania newspaper's Web site, showing strippers performing lap dances at a golf course, was apparently too adult for the Associated Press, which chose not to distribute the images. The Morning Call of Allentown, Pa. reported that AP officials decided the minute-long clip of the X-rated behavior at a Stroud Township, Pa. golf course was too hot to handle...

A revolution of sorts is under way in Latin America with Uruguay holding the torchlight for the concept of democratic, community media. A draft community media law that says television and radio frequencies in Uruguay should be equitably distributed has already won overwhelming support in the House of Representatives. On June 5, 2007, the Uruguayan Congress (Cámara de Representantes) approved by...

Hamas’ recent takeover of the Gaza Strip has been described as many things: an escalation of Palestinian civil war, a threat to Israel’s existence, and a major setback for Palestinian statehood. The last of these descriptions, prevalent throughout the American mainstream press, has dramatic consequences for those seriously interested in the peaceful co-existence of both Palestinian and Israeli...

Most major news outlets are unwilling to let the public see how their editorial process works, a new study has concluded. Fewer than half of the websites surveyed publicly corrected mistakes in their stories and only a handful shared with readers the journalistic and ethical standards that theoretically guide their newsrooms. 'Openness & Accountability: A Study of Transparency in Global Media...

Journalism fellowship programs are feeling the fallout of the media industry’s turmoil. Some prominent universities have noticed a drop in applications from American journalists. Stanford, M.I.T. and Harvard report a decline in journalists seeking to specialize in business, science or other disciplines. But foreign applications are pouring in at a record pace. The decline comes as many newsrooms...

NEW YORK "BlackBerry" is in, and "widower" is out. "Hip-hop" finally makes the grade and so does "boogie." It's the 2007 edition of the AP Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law, now available in both print and online versions. Norm Goldstein, editor of the 2007 version, says in a release that emphasis this year rests on the great functionality offered by subscription-based online access. "The online...

It seemed like a good idea at the time. With blogging flourishing and citizen journalism just budding, Mark Potts and Susan DeFife thought they had a winning formula for a new kind of journalistic enterprise. One evening in the summer of 2004, they sketched out their common vision: A series of hyperlocal, news-oriented Web sites whose tone and content--news, commentary, blogs, photos, calendar...

When Maggie leaves her township home to catch a bus to work in the mornings, she stops to buy a newspaper. It's a new experience for her. Ten or 15 years ago, she did not bother. Then she occasionally listened to news reports broadcast by radio but, she admits, she wasn't particularly interested. The news did not affect her. "We lived in a different world then," she says. "Now I have a different...

Not Iraq, where, according to a new report from the Arab Archives Institute, 52 Arab journalists have lost their lives since 2001; not Palestine, where journalists are caught between Israel and the Palestinians and between Fatah and Hamas; nor Lebanon, where reporters have been in the cross-hairs of rival factions and governments. Darfur is a hot-button issue in the newsroom not because of the...

May 24, 2007 - According to a Pew Research Center poll released earlier this week, Muslim-Americans are “largely assimilated, happy with their lives, and moderate with respect to many of the issues that have divided Muslims and Westerners around the world.” The poll showed the majority surveyed have close non-Muslim friends, believe in a strong American work ethic and feel there is little conflict...