A Bullet Dodged

We all knew the sordid details of Palin’s candidacy would emerge, but who figured they pour out so soon or on Fox News? Via Borkweb.com

It’s Official

WPopac, a project I started on my nights and weekends, is now officially one of my day-job projects too.
We’ve been using our WPopac-based catalog as a prototype since February 2006, but the change not only allocates a portion of my work time specifically to the development of the project, but also reflects the library’s decision [...]

We Regret The Error

Not all errors in news reporting are as trivial as this one:
THE COST of beer kegs has risen by about 30% since the end of 2003. In addition, Neil Witte is the draught beer quality-control specialist of Boulevard Brewing Co., and Steven Pauwels is the brewer’s brewmaster. A March 14 page-one article on beer-keg theft [...]

Richard Sambrook Talks Citizen Journalism

I’m not sure what to think of Richard Sambrook appearing to struggle to find a place for traditional journalism in the age of the internet, but the story’s worth a read.

The Aural Times

Thanks again to a good tip from Ryan, I’ve get something new to laugh at: The Aural Times.

Pravda March 18 Headline: US To Collapse on Feb 5

I regularly check the English language online edition of Pravda for laughs and sometimes for their take on US domestic affairs. But today’s headline left me scratching my head. What calendar are these people using, anyway?

The headlined story is offered without any context or explanation. As it turns out, author Ian Magnussen really did mean February 5th 2006, not 2007 or later. Had it appeared two months ago it might have been called speculative fiction, though more likely seen as a crazy conspiracy theory. I just find it a bit scary. But still, why publish it now?

Geolocating The News

Last week I got excited about the as-yet unreleased geolocation API for BBC Backstage. Now Larry D. Larsen of the Poynter Institute is excited too. In a post titled The Future of News (… Hint: GPS) he talks about putting news in geographic context with geolocation tags.
Eventually, clicking an article in a news/Google Map hybrid [...]

BBC Backstage Is Gonna Rock (Once They Release The APIs)

The APIs aren’t yet out, but the BBC has already won me over with their Backstage BBC concept. Of course, I’m a fan of anything with an API, but the real deal here is that it appears they’re planning on releasing a “query by geo-location data” API — and I’m all a gaga about about [...]

Fox and Conservative Pals Out Spreading More Slander and Libel

Welcome the flacks. I don’t get many comments on stories here at MaisonBisson, so I was interested when I found a comment to my story about the Outfoxed documentary just an hour after I’d posted it.
Here’s my theory, and it’s supported by stories in Eric Alterman’s What Liberal Media and Al Franken’s Lies: conservative groups [...]