Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• Faking It: How the Media Manipulates the World into War - YouTube

  "Global Research TV" video on media manipulation and war.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

As the Leveson Inquiry gets to grips with a British tabloid culture out of control, it's worth remembering there's nothing new in the world. Chicagomag.com remembers the days of sensational Yellow journalism at the start of the 20th Century:

Arthur Brisbane was William Randolph Hearst's go-to editor, whom he recruited from the grip of Joseph Pulitzer. Brisbane headed up the Evening Journal, the Mirror, and Chicago's own Herald and Examiner under Hearst, during the scrappy period that inspired Ben Hecht's The Front Page:

In Carson's desk, at Hearst's Chicago Herald & Examiner, was an arsenal of blank search warrants, summonses, writs, a full repertory of badges for police, detectives, sheriffs, coroners, Federal agents. When a story broke Carson simply faked an appropriate document. A tough, impersonating reporter or Carson himself did the rest. The evidence was usually photostated in the office, quietly returned, the forged "writ" destroyed. A dozen sets of wiretapping apparatus supplemented his arsenal.

He was arguably the newspaper editor of his time... and, ironically enough, was a pioneer of the yellow journalism of the period made famous by Hearst's papers.

How did Brisbane become the most powerful newspaper editor in America? I'm glad you asked:

He had cut his teeth in [Charles] Dana's London bureau, where he had the good fortune, for a journalist at least, of being present when Jack the Ripper was terrorizing Whitechapel. Brisbane devoted himself to the Ripper tale, often sending back reports so exaggerated and colorful that his New York editors found them to be stomach-turning. As Brisbane himself once noted, he knew that "murder, mayhem, and mystery" sold newspapers. When Pulitzer, his second major employer, complained that his precious journal was turning into a Victorian scandal sheet, Brisbane retaliated by trotting out the circulation figures and the increased advertising revenues.

Sensation sells and always will.

Digital First and the Future of News from CUNY Grad School of Journalism on Vimeo.

I just caught up with this wonderful documentary - a year in the life of the New York Times as it deals with the news and the delicate issue of survival. Anyone who loves journalism, newspapers, cares about the digital transition great news organisations are grappling with should watch. 

It also gave me a new hero - NYT Media correspondent David Carr who has a leading role in the film and has a brilliant dry blunt  turn of phrase. Some outakes:

"Some stories are beyond the database. Sometimes people have to make the calls, hit the streets and walk past the conventional wisdom."

And admonishing a critic of their Africa coverage: "Before you ever went there we had reporters there reporting genocide after genocide. Just beause you put on a f***ing safai hat and lifted some poop doesn't give you the right to insult what we do."

"I can't get over the idea that Brian Stelter (a new colleague) was a robot assembled in the basement of the New York Times to come and destroy me".

"For many of us who work in the media life is a drumbeat of goodbye speeches to cheap cakes and sweet sparkling wine."

But then..."I've been a single parent on benefits. This is nothing."

And there's a great moment where, on one of those "future of news" panels, he holds up a print out of the home page of a major aggregator - and then says "what happens when you take out the content from traditional media?" and holds up another page riddled with holes....

Good man. 

Those of you who still subscribe to this blog will know that for the last couple of years it has basically been a feed of web bookmarks. However, enough people have said they still find it interesting for me to keep it going, especially as it involved no effort with an automated feed from Delicious.com. 

However, Delicious has relaunched and the automated blog feed seems to have gone. I will strive to find another way to do it when I can find a spare hour or so (and if any of you have suggestions on how please let me know!)

Meanwhile in the unlikely event you are suffering withdrawal symptoms, my Edelman blog is linked above and here and my Delicious feed continues here.

Oh, and Im on Twitter here.