Duy Linh Tu, Bill Grueskin, and Ari Goldman quoted.

The comment section provides a great discussion on Columbia’s curriculum between print reporters and those who have adapted to new media. While facts within the article may be questionable –  the curriculum of ALL journalism schools are debatable especially with the current state of the industry. What should future reporters learn? Subject-specific schooling? Enterprising journalism? Business models? Computer Science?  Graphic design?  Video? Audio?  Computer-Assisted Reporting? New technology?

At the end of the day, reporters have to evolve with new technology, new business models, and new forms of storytelling to transform journalism for a new age of news-goers.

After 149 years and 311 days, the Rocky Mountain News published its final edition on February 27, 2009. The project was begun on Dec. 4th, when E.W. Scripps announced that the paper was for sale. It was shot and edited during the intervening months, but a great deal of final editing was done in the past week and well into last night by Matthew Roberts.

Visit http://graphicdesignr.net/papercuts/ to view all the layoffs and buyouts occurring in the industry.

Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.

BOOMBOX from Ely Kim on Vimeo.

We’re excited to announce that the Business of Detention project has been selected as a 2009 Finalist in the “Student” category at the South by Southwest Interactive Web Awards. The site will also compete for a People’s Choice Award (the online public’s favorite finalist). Winners are announced March 15, 2009.

The Business of Detention project was created by reporters Renee Feltz (’08) and Stokely Baksh (’08), while graduate students at Columbia University’s Graduate of Journalism. Our desire was to create an innovative way to present the business of privatized immigration detention management — using solid reporting skills and pairing that up with video and interactive info graphics. This was also an experiment for us in creating a platform for a news product, that largely went under reported in mainstream news when we started the Corrections Corporation of American investigative project in late 2007. That project became the first investigative-new media project for the University and has since won the Melvin Mencher Award for Superior Reporting and James A. Wechsler Award for National Reporting.

WE NEED YOUR HELP! Please visit http://sxsw.com/peoples-choice to vote us for the People’s Choice Award. You can vote once a day until the contest ends!

Pass this along and tell your friends, family, and students. We hope to get the word out to as many people as possible! Thanks.

Call me new school… but I come from a new generation of media journalists that enjoy music, creative editing, sounds, and things that pop visually… and aim to create that in every project that calls for it.

Burt Glinn and the Magnum Photographers recently created such an audio slideshow for “Cuban Revolution,” which looks at Fidel Castro and less than 24 rebels who led a two-year-long insurgency against the Batista dictatorship in Cuba.

Also go and see Che, 4 hours in the movie theatre won’t kill you. Although, I’d still be interested in a movie that documents South America connections with Africa.

On November 5, 2001, Dr. Andrew Bagby was murdered in a parking lot in
western Pennsylvania; the prime suspect, his ex-girlfriend Dr. Shirley
Turner, promptly fled the United States for St. John’s, Canada, where
she announced that she was pregnant with Andrew’s child. She named the
little boy Zachary. Filmmaker Kurt Kuenne, Andrew’s oldest friend,
began making a film for little Zachary as a way for him to get to know
the father he’d never meet. But when Shirley Turner was released on
bail in Canada and was given custody of Zachary while awaiting
extradition to the U.S., the film’s focus shifted to Zachary’s
grandparents, David & Kathleen Bagby, and their desperate efforts
to win custody of the boy from the woman they knew had murdered their
son. What happened next, no one ever could have foreseen…

If you have not, I encourage you to watch this documentary. It probably is one of the most powerful documentaries I’ve seen, it gives you a kick in the stomach. It’s a heart-breaking, crime and consequence story, failure of the Canadian criminal justice system, a tragedy that will make you cry, yet inspirational to those who seek change.

Asked if she had any regrets about the campaign, Palin bemoaned “the state of journalism today.”  “The blogosphere, the two, three hour news cycles, where just too much is reported based on gossip and innuendo and things taken out of context,” she explained, adding that she’d like to help improve the profession because she has “great respect for the world of journalism.” Read more.

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Muckety: http://news.muckety.com/
See the news with interactive relationship maps visually showing the connections between people, companies and organizations.

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Silobreaker: http://www.silobreaker.com/
Silobreaker aggregates news, blogs, research, audio, video and other digital media content from global news, shared, user generated and open access sources.

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Political Friendster: http://www.politicalfriendster.com/
A crowdsourcing site of political and business connections.

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Opensecrets.org:
Presenting political news, and the actual political positions of the parties and candidates, as well as disclosing how much campaign money they have raised.

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House Lobbying Disclosure Database: http://disclosures.house.gov/lc/lcsearch.aspx

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Senate Lobbying Disclosure Database: http://soprweb.senate.gov/

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Maplight: http://www.maplight.org/
Public database that illuminates the connection between campaign donations and legislative votes in unprecedented ways.

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FEC: Campaign Finance Database: http://www.fec.gov/DisclosureSearch/mapApp.do

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Huffington Post’s Fund Race: http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/

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Seattle Time’s Earmarks Datasbase: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/favorfactory/

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Taxpayers for Common Sense (Earmarks crowdsourcing): http://www.taxpayer.net/
Taxpayers for Common Sense is an independent and non-partisan voice for taxpayers working to increase transparency and expose and eliminate wasteful and corrupt subsidies, earmarks, and corporate welfare.

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Well-Connected Media Project: http://projects.publicintegrity.org/telecom/
Technology has created a chessboard of corporate and government interests in telecommunications and media. The players battle it out in Congress, at the Federal Communications Commission and in state houses. The “Well Connected” Project tracks this inside influence game.

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Project on Government Oversight Misconduct database: http://www.contractormisconduct.org/
The government awards contracts to companies with histories of misconduct such as contract fraud and environmental, ethics, and labor violations. In the absence of a centralized federal database listing instances of misconduct, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) is providing such data.

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TOP Government Contractors (Government Executive): http://www.govexec.com/features/0808-15/0808-15s1s1.htm (August ‘08) and previous top 200: http://www.govexec.com/top200/

We have a shaggy, brown pygmy (I think) goat that you could have for free. He is not a pet…I certainly wouldn’t let him in my house. But, he will keep the weeds down for you while fertilizing the ground. He is about 2-3 years old, and has not neen neutered, so he could also be used for breeding purposes. Can deliver, if you are close enough. Contact me via e-mail, if interested…

Someone pick me up this goat?