blogging

RECENT POSTS

What’s global health journalism?

Flickr, Atle Brunvoll

My online reporting or blogging — or whatever it is I think I’m doing here (the point of this post, by the way) — was interrupted this week by flying back-and-forth between Seattle and Washington, D.C.

I was invited to participate in a discussion at the Kaiser Foundation about “The Future of Global Health Journalism” — in which I was quoted extensively out of context.

That’s fun to be able to say, since usually people complain to me about doing this to them. What I mean by out of context, however, is I was quoted after losing my context (i.e., job) when my former employer, the Seattle Post Intelligencer, decided to get rid of most of its staff and become instead an online blogfest of mostly unpaid “hyperlocal” citizen journalists.

I now operate within a new context, as an “experiment” for NPR, the nature of which is not always totally clear even to me yet supposedly represents the future of journalism — online journalism, new media, social media or (yuck?) blogging. The Kaiser Foundation does a great job of covering the coverage of global health news but I’m not sure it gets where journalism is going. I’m not sure anyone does, though some do claim to know. Continue reading

What was Juan Williams thinking? Should he have told you?

Well, I guess Juan said what he was thinking. On Fox News. About guys who dress like Muslims and how it makes him nervous. And so NPR terminated his contract.

This is big news today — tops on Google News. It may even be good for Juan, since journalists are supposed to become a “brand” themselves these days. I’d say Juan’s been branded pretty well by this episode.

I am not going to ask what you think about NPR terminating Juan Williams, or what you think about people who wear Muslim clothing (I’m not sure what that means, actually ….).

What I want to know is if you think journalists should tell you what they think. Should they reveal their opinions, their biases, or keep these thoughts to themselves — and pretend to have no opinions? Continue reading