Yesterday I attempted to shed a little light on the PR crisis strategy behind the Komen Foundation’s sudden Planned Parenthood “backtracking.” Contrary to what Komen’s highly-paid PR crisis hacks and gullible headline writers at newsdesks around the nation would ask you to believe, The Susan G. Komen Foundation does NOT promise to fund Planned Parenthood in the future. They promise to let
Read moreNews Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch has issued a public apology for the News of the World scandal, which appears in several British national newspapers this weekend. The final text is available here. For those unfamiliar with the exciting world of public relations, these kinds of official statements often go through a rigorous process of draft, revision, review, more revision, show
Read morePart 2 of a series; Previously: What Bell Labs and French Intellectuals Can Tell Us About Cronkite and Couric The Signal-to-Noise Journey of American Media The 20th Century represented a Golden Age of Institutional Journalism. The Yellow Journalism wars of the late 19th Century gave way to a more responsible mode of reporting built on ethical and professional codes that
Read morePart one of a two-part series. From Cronkite to Couric: the Kingdom of Signal is swallowed by the Empire of Noise The recent death of Walter Cronkite spurred the predictable outpouring of tributes, each reverencing in its own way a man who was the face and voice of journalism in America for a generation or more. The irony of all
Read moreFirst, just in case you haven’t seen it, please review the video (in three parts). The Daily Show With Jon StewartM – Th 11p / 10c Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 1 Daily Show Full Episodes Important Things w/ Demetri Martin Political Humor Jim Cramer
Read moreWhen readership began dropping among younger demographics, they didn’t innovate. When new media technologies began emerging in the early ’90s, they didn’t innovate. When Craigslist began eating their lunch and fucking their trophy wives on the dinner table, they didn’t innovate – not unless “hey, if we fired all the employees, we’d theoretically be infinitely profitable” counts as innovation. But
Read moreCountyFair had an important and much-needed lesson in journalistic ethics for us this morning. The key points: First: it should never, ever be considered acceptable to quote a candidate or official making a false claim without noting its falsity. Reporters do this all the time, justifying it by saying they’re just presenting both sides, or that they aren’t making the
Read moreWe just did another audio session with Edmundo Rocha, who’s still under curfew in Houston. He talks about the aftermath (as he’s able to perceive it) and examines where the preparations may have gone wrong. edmundo_houston_530_1 edmundo_houston_530_2
Read moreWe’ve been asked if we can pull together an index page with links to all of our Hurricane Ike coverage. If you want, bookmark this and we’ll add everything we do in here as the story develops. Edmundo Rocha on Ike: one third of 911 calls are from Latin areas that should have been evacuated Audio w/ Edmundo, 8:35 CDT:
Read moreI spoke with Edmundo about an hour ago. He’s fine, but Ike is all that was advertised and then some. Power is out for 99% of those in the area and they’re being told it will be weeks before it’s fully restored. As of 8:30 Houston time he was reporting that the worst of the storm – the back side
Read moreEdmundo has some video taken from his apartment. Still looks fairly tame, huh?
Read morePost Updated at 4:35 PM MDT. Click on “Full Story” to read the update. First, Ann Ivins reports that “traffic is starting to pick up along Interstate 10 coming in from Houston. They haven’t created evacuation lanes yet. Gas prices have jumped in the last two hours by a few cents.” Second, Edmundo Rocha will be tweeting on Ike from
Read moreA couple disparate pieces of information have come together in a way that’s potentially a little scary. Earlier, Ann Ivins noted that: Even with the terrible planning and deadly highway gridlock, San Antonio was full by the time Rita hit – and she was headed further north. Galveston’s already flooding. There’s no one here. The hotels and motels along 37
Read moreAs Edmundo Rocha noted earlier today, things are looking pretty dire for those in Ike’s path. For those interested in what it looks like on the ground, he’s liveblogging as best he can over at ¡Para Justicia y Libertad! Meanwhile, we’ve gotten a few more e-mails from him. Here are the relevant parts: Most of Surfside Beach was submerged by
Read moreEditor’s Note: The S&R team just received the following e-mail from our friend and colleague Edmundo Rocha, who lives in Houston. The city has had time to prepare, but it sounds as though significant errors have placed people in greater danger. Fingers crossed for Edmundo and everybody else down there – we’ll keep you posted as we hear more. UPDATE:
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