Journalism

Where journalism and technology meet: Inspiring projects springing up across the Arab world

Sat, 19 May 2012 20:10:40 +0000

7iberLabs meet-up in Jordan in January

Copyright: Hiber Labs

Hacks/Hackers chapters and other meet-up groups that bring
journalists and developers together are springing up across the
Arab world.

Hacks/Hackers, which started in New
York in 2009, have now spread to scores of cities across five
continents. However, the Middle East groups are choosing not to use
the term Hacks/Hackers as the groups’ organisers feel “hackers” is
a loaded term.

“The public have come to understand ‘hackers’ as having negative
connotations,” Ayman Salah, a Knight International Journalism
Fellow, who set up the Tunis and Amman chapters told me.

Instead the groups refer to themselves as the “Media Innovation
Initiative” within the countries.

Along with others in Hacks/Hackers Amman and Hacks/Hackers Tunis,
Salah is also involved in plans to spread
Swara, an audio reporting tool developed in India by a Knight
International Journalism Fellow, across five countries: Jordan,
Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco.

CGNet Swara is a messaging system for voice recordings to be made
and retrieved using a phone.
The International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ) said that audio
is what makes it powerful

“Rural people, who are very often illiterate, now have a two-way
news source,” Ben Colmery, deputy director, Knight International
Journalism Fellowships, told me by email.

One of the huge benefits of Swara is that it can be used by anyone
with access to a phone and does not rely on smartphone technology.
And mobiles are popular across the region.

“For example, landlines were introduced in Egypt in 1920 and there
are only 11 million nearly 100 years on and that number is
decreasing,” Salah said.

“Mobile phones were introduced commercially in Egypt in 1997 and
there are now 74 million, in a country with a population of around
84 million.”

And in Jordan the number of phones is now greater than the number
of people: there are 6.2 million mobiles to a population of 6
million, he added.

Hacks/Hackers Amman

Hacks/Hackers Amman was set up in December and is
working on an Android app for citizens to be able to send text, pic
and video reports directly to news media. AmmanNet will moderate and publish
these reports on their website, in a page similar to CNN’s
iReport.

Salah also helped launch and attended an event which took place in
February that was
funded by Internews (you can see a Storify of the event
here). He led sessions at the innovation event and was one of
the judges selecting the ideas that for seed funding.

Those who took part in the event came up with a number of ideas,
one which relies on mobile, another based on a crowdsourced
map.

Banadora: A mobile solution to a problem of too many
tomatoes

Banadora is a play on Pandora’s box and Banadora, the name given to
tomatoes in Jordan.

It was born out of a farming dilemma in the north of Jordan.

“Farmers who harvest tomatoes to sell to Amman or other cities are
often forced to sell them at a price which is below the cost of
production as supply outweighs demand,” Salah said. “They throw
them away as they don’t have tomato processing factories to turn
them into tomato paste.”

The group came up with a way to let farmers communicate to work out
whether they should harvest their tomatoes.

They are solving the costly problem with the help of SMS and Swara,
which allows people to record news using a voicemail message
system.

Haratna: A traffic light map connecting communities

Another project being developed by the Jordanian group is Haratna,
the name given to small alleys or streets.

The concept is based on the fact that “people who live in the same
streets have the same interests”, Salah said.

Haratna will be a “platform between the people and the government”,
Salah said.

“If we have a problem with the sewers we can bring someone from the
government into the platform to discuss and tell us what is
happening.”

The platform, which takes inspiration from micro volunteering site
Sparked, will
use SMS messaging and Ushahidi, an open source mapping tool which
received much attention when it was
used following the Haiti earthquake of 2010.

When a report is red it signals a problem has been flagged, when
the authorities have been notified the report it turns yellow to
denote it is under investigation and the map notification changes
to green once fixed.

It will also integrate Twitter and Facebook to add a social
dimension.

“It can be used to sell used clothes to neighbours, offer services,
and if you play backgammon well and you need a competitor you can
find it in Haratna,” Salah said.

Jordan’s Al Ghad
newspaper has agreed to be a partner for Haratna, hosting the
map and providing marketing.

Salah hopes it will encourage transparency. “If you can put this
information into a newspaper it will show whether or not the
government is working.”

What Ails the Quality of Journalism in Balochistan? | The Baloch Hal

Sat, 19 May 2012 04:05:26 +0000

By Yousaf Ajab Baloch

Despite being rich in terms of its natural resources and significant due to its geostrategic location, Balochistan has remained the most backward of all Pakistani provinces. Hence, the province does not get sufficient attention in the national media whereas there is a tremendous need for building journalists’ capacity. Balochistan also lags behind in terms of standard of journalism practiced here. The poor quality of journalism in Balochistan is because of lack of proper training and exposure opportunities for the local journalists.

The key problem or the cause of backwardness of journalism in Balochistan is somewhat because of a lack of training and internship opportunities for reporters because mainstream Pakistani media organizations hardly provide such chances to journalism students from Balochistan. Students even cannot fully available an internship offer, if ever made, to them from outlets based in Karachi, Islamabd or Lahore because the host media organizations or the universities where the students are enrolled do not pay travel or lodging expenses to facilitate such rare learning opportunities.
Meager financial resources also hinder the news gathering process in the province. Most social and political issues are not reported because the regional newspapers lack the funds to train their reporters about the idea of investigative journalism and encourage them to follow a career in this essential domain of journalism. Even a university degree in journalism does not necessarily lead to investigative journalism skills. The absence of trainings causes the poor standard of reporting. Journalists, who hold professional degrees cannot prove themselves as skilled journalist , because the degree holders work only on theory rather than practical work. No doubt, there has not been any productive output of journalist classes at the University of Balochistan because a large number of students prefer to go out of Balochistan and work in other provinces mainly in Karachi , the capital city of Sindh, to pursue a career in journalism.
The backwardness of journalism in Balochistan is depicted in the deficient media. Most newspapers carry press releases from government offices, headquarters of political parties which they are sent to them via fax. They also suffice with calling their friends and getting news. Having done that, they publish then news which are in fact mere “desk stories”. In local press clubs, all journalists share the same news story and fax it to their news offices by only changing the bylines. What we learn from such practices is the deficiency of investigative work. Journalists get information from their colleagues instead of going out in the field to dig out stories themselves. Not surprisingly, the same news report gets published the next day in a number of local publications without even a single edit in the entire copy. This reflects not only weaknesses in the reporting section but also a sad state of affairs in the copy-editing department.
Newsrooms often remain contended with press releases they receive from various sources via fax or stories they copy and paste from the internet or news agencies.

In most of the cities teacher and clerks work with newspapers published from Quetta, the capital city of Balochistan. Newspapers hardly pay the reports or journalist for their work, therefor; they can find teachers to report for their newspapers without paying them any compensation for their services. Fulltime commitment is extremely essential for high quality and this job cannot be performed by government school teachers in such exploitative circumstances.
The unprofessional editors further contribute to the deplorable situation because the publishers and owners of the newspapers simultaneously also serve as the editors. They have little or no journalistic experience at all. The other owner-cum-editors are unskilled, untrained or compliant of government dictations because they want to receive advertisements from the government’s Ministry of Information.
Apart from, above mentioned issues journalist face threats from sectarian , armed groups and allegedly intelligence agencies. Currently, journalists of Balochistan are witnessing the appalling murder of their professional colleagues on a regular basis. More than 12 journalist of Balochistan have either been shot dead or killed and dumped after being abducted.
The local journalists are still unfamiliar with the concept and benefits of social media and internet. It has been observed that a large number of writers and journalist cannot use computer and they do not know how to use the internet to send their news reports by using email.
There is a great need to create opportunities of exposure and trainings for journalist of Balochistan to know the required techniques of the time in journalism and become aware of the standard in journalism or media which has been applied in the developed countries.
Although a number of national and international organizations have extensively worked in various major cities of Pakistan to develop the capacity of journalists and introduce them with modern tools and techniques, such initiatives have, unfortunately, not been taken on a large scale for the journalists of Balochistan. It is the time these organizations prioritized Balochistan in their media development projects considering the overwhelming need in this important area.

Yousaf Ajab Baloch is a Staff Writer at The Baloch Hal. Read his previosu posts here

In chasing down stories, are we furthering the agendas of others …

Fri, 18 May 2012 20:08:38 +0000

This evolving feature of The Lens will feature some behind-the-scenes looks at our staff and our decisions, as well as remind you of our upcoming events.

When we received a tip that City Councilman Jon Johnson owned a rundown Lower 9^th Ward property that had received a taxpayer-financed loan for renovation – yet hadn’t been significantly fixed up – it seemed like a worthwhile story to look into.

But was the timing of the tip a bit suspect?

After all, the information landed in our laps as Johnson and Cynthia Hedge-Morrell are in a contentious standoff with four others on city council, with the pair delaying action on a number of issues by skipping meetings.

Certainly, keeping a file of embarrassing information on your political colleagues is a practice as old as politics. When things get tense, you threaten them privately or publicly release the material, if you need to get tough.

Was that happening here? Was The Lens being used to further someone’s political fight? Maybe. Was it still a story worth pursuing? Absolutely.

Though it happens, few news tips come to us from disinterested parties seeking only to serve the truth. Most people have an agenda. We take such things into consideration, but in the end, we choose to run down a story because it meets our standards and will be a service to our readers.

When we determined that everything checked out – and after we tried to talk to Johnson to get his side of the story – we let people know that one of their elected officials who talks tough on blight is the owner of a home that neighbors consider an eyesore, and that he is past the deadline to use the state-administered loan. Further, neighbors wanted to know why the city hadn’t cracked down on him, as it has on other properties nearby.

As a result of our questions, the city sent and inspector out and cited Johnson, and the property will move through the adjudication process.

Just tweeting it out there

Even as we were reporting that story, we were covering the meetings – or lack thereof – of the City Council, which were being scuttled by the absence of Johnson and Hedge-Morrell. Sitting in the council chambers Wednesday morning, looking at their empty chairs, I wondered where they were. One person on Twitter suggested we offer a prize for a photo of them taken somewhere that day.

I decided we should request the council members’ calendars for a couple of weeks to see what they were doing. And in a new-media moment of openness, I tweeted out a note to The Gambit, asking whether we should flip for it or both file the request. They wrote back that we should all do it. We were too busy to pursue the request, but the increasingly aggressive reporters at our alternative weekly publication took it on. They produced this story about how the two met with Mayor Mitch Landrieu the day before they weren’t able to attend the meeting.

Wonder what they talked about?

Mea culpa

While we’re on the subject, I want to publicly apologize to Landrieu spokesman Ryan Berni. In our reporting on that meeting, and the mayor’s subsequent response to it, I my interpretation of his statement mistakenly got into print. Neither the mayor nor Berni were making a judgment about Council President Jackie Clarkson. We were wrong, and it was my fault.

We quickly moved to correct the reporting after Berni pointed it out. You’ve probably noted that it’s not our policy to simply make our mistakes go away. As is common in other online publications with high standards, we strike the incorrect copy, underline the additions and add a note to succinctly explain the changes.

We’re an organization dedicated to educating the public while advocating for transparency, honesty and accountability. We want to hold ourselves to those standards, too, and we hope this correction policy serves that end.

Our new look

Thanks to the many readers who have emailed me, tweeted or commented on Facebook about our redesign. Your comments have been largely positive, and we’ve talked with our designers about some of the things you’ve said are a bit hard to read.

It was pure coincidence that our redesign came out very near the new setups at nola.com and WDSU-TV. At least we didn’t go with an eye-searing yellow.

We wish the best to our former engagement editor, Maggie Calmes, who has moved to nola.com to help that site with its social-media work. When she’s not busy tweeting or making things happen on Facebook or Tumblr, she’s helping to promote New Orleans Ladies Arm Wrestling. Maggie’s the exuberant one second from left in the photo with this recent TP story on the topic, which catches up with this December story in the British newspaper The Guardian, which was written by former Lens staffer Matt Davis.

Knight Science Journalism Tracker » Blog Archive » Copy-cat ink …

Thu, 17 May 2012 04:01:07 +0000

Seen one humongous Mesozoic reptile fossil, seen ‘em all, eh dinosaur fan? A few reporters and editors fell into a trap inadvertently laid by a Bristol University press release (see Grist below) with a headline that says “Ancient sea reptile with gammy jaw suggests dinosaurs got arthritis too.” You all out there who remember school science classes on the vanished age of reptiles, or who have covered these things or just paid attention, know that not all gigantic creatures of dinosaur days were dinosaurs. Major exceptions were the ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs, pliosaurs and so forth that swam in the sea, and the flying pterosaurs including the iconic pterodactyls that roamed the sky.

The news is simple and an easy choice for news editors looking for a quick, science filler to round out the page or website. A grad student for her thesis looked into the mangy-looking Jurassic mandible on one of the university’s stored specimens. It looked like a degenerative condition much like arthritis. This creature’s head is about six feet long. The teeth look cruel. But it is not a dinosaur. It is a pliosaur, a marine reptile more than 25 feet long. It may have eaten an occasional small dinosaur that happened into its lagoon. The paper is, it says here, in the current issue of the journal Palaentology, although I cannot find it.

A few outlets repeated the press release by implying in their headlines that this is a dinosaur. Some declared it a dinosaur also in their stories’ texts. Some, thank goodness, got it right. Some even appear to have exerted effort on this story beyond what it took to put the press release on their computer screen or desk and merely rewrite what had been handed them. The odd thing is, the headlines and other assertions of arthritic dinosaurs may be to some extent justified. Seems to me this is not the first evidence of arthritis from dinosaur times, including in dinosaurs. But don’t point at a pliosaur for proof.

Stories that say or imply this was a dinosaur:

Metro (UK) Dinosaurs suffered from painful arthritis, say scientists ;
Telegraph (UK) Dinosaurs struggled with arthritis just like humans ;
Daily Mail (UK) Rob Waugh: Fossil shows off that even the DINOSAURS suffered arthritis 150 million years ago ; Surely Waugh knows better. But the lede is “Dinosaurs suffered painful arthritis in their huge joints…” and then cites only the pliosaur as evidence.
HealthDay News: Dinosaurs may have suffered from arthritis ;
RedOrbit: Skull of Jurassic Sea Creature Shows That Even Dinosaurs Had Arthritis ;
ANI (India): Pliosaurs may have suffered painful arthritis ; Hed good, lede not.
Gather.com – Felicia Floyd: ‘Loch Ness Monster’ Dinosaur, Pliosaur, Suffered From Arthritis in Enormous Jaw ; What a concatenation of errors amplified during rewrite this is.

Stories that don’t mix their ancient extinct reptile clans:

LiveScience – Charles Choi: Ancient ‘Loch Ness monster’ suffered from arthritis in jaw ; Choi’s a serious pro. Naturally, he called up one of the authors and took ownership of this story away from the press release. This story runs at several outlets.
Business Standard/Press Trust of India: Pliosaurs had arthritis: The lede has this inserted by somebody who pays attention; “… not dinosaurs but ancient sea reptiles that lived 150 million years ago..” ;
ScienceNOW – Erin Loury: Jurassic Arthritis Was a Jawbreaker; A shorty, but not a whisper about dinosaurs. Of course if this outlet (AAAS Science Mag) screwed that one up there’d be painful conversation with the boss.

Grist for the Mill: U. Bristol Press Release ;

- Charlie Petit

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Joaquin Alvarado, former APM and CPB exec, is joining the Center for Investigative Reporting as its first chief …

Wed, 16 May 2012 19:33:57 +0000

Published May 14, 2012

Joaquin Alvarado, former APM and CPB exec, is joining the Center for Investigative Reporting as its first chief strategy officer.

The nonprofit news organization announced on May 2 that Alvarado will work to expand membership, engage diverse audiences and increase revenue for the San Francisco–based center, the nation’s oldest nonprofit investigative reporting organization. Alvarado also will take a leadership role in the center’s upcoming Knight Foundation–funded YouTube investigative channel.

Alvarado departed in March from American Public Media, where he served as senior v.p. for digital innovation for two years. In 2009, he led efforts to bring more diversity and digital innovation to public media as a CPB senior v.p.

“When I joined the board of CIR last year,” Alvarado said in a statement, “I said that CIR exemplifies a truly networked newsroom with some of the most talented reporters and producers working today. It’s still true — and even more so with the merger with the Bay Citizen,” the local nonprofit online news hub.

Prior to joining CPB, Alvarado headed up the National Public Lightpath, which advocates for high-speed fiber-optic networks.

Several public media journalists will pursue their proposals for journalism innovation at Stanford University next academic year.

Among the 13 recipients of John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships announced May 1 were: Barbara Allen, a producer/engineer at Chicago’s WTTW-TV, who will work on a transmedia platform creating virtual-reality experiences of historical events; Andrew Donohue, editor of the nonprofit news outlet Voice of San Diego, who will develop sustainable investigative news projects built around crowdsourcing, transparency and narrative storytelling; Latoya Peterson, a former Public Media Corps fellow and editor and owner of Racialicious.com, who will use the multimedia and text capabilities of mobile technology to democratize communication and societal participation; and Eric Westervelt, Berlin correspondent for NPR News, who will create a digital international news platform using all aspects of new media.

PBS NewsHour has hired visual journalist Tom Kennedy, formerly of WashingtonPost.com and the National Geographic Society, as its managing editor for multimedia.

Kennedy currently teaches in the multimedia, photography and design department at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. In more than 35 years in print and online journalism, he has created, directed and edited projects that have earned Pulitzers, Emmys, Peabodys and Edward R. Murrow awards.

At the NewsHour, Kennedy will direct online content strategies and digital operations. In his previous jobs, Kennedy was managing editor for multimedia at WashingtonPost.com. He also directed photography at the National Geographic Society. Kennedy begins work at the NewsHour in June.

Former Newsweek chief exec Tom Ascheim, is now chief strategy officer and executive v.p. of Sesame Learning, a new position within Sesame Workshop’s educational publishing unit.

He’ll oversee corporate business development as well as the Sesame Learning unit, which provides Sesame Street educational assets to classrooms and childcare settings. Previous to Newsweek, Ascheim ran the Nickelodeon TV group and headed up Nickelodeon’s digital networks.

During his time at Nickelodeon, Ascheim forged a relationship with Sesame Workshop to launch Noggin, a preschool educational channel. The Workshop sold its ownership stake in the joint venture in 2002.

Ascheim “has an amazing ability to shape new paths where the models for education and business evolve with digital technologies,” said Sesame Workshop President H. Melvin Ming in a statement.

Alicia Shepard, former NPR ombudsman, is joining the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, as a visiting professor in the journalism and media studies program.

Shepard, a freelance reporter who writes for Current, will teach media ethics and work with the university’s pubradio station, KUNV-FM. Prior to her stint as NPR ombudsman, from 2007 to 2011, she reported for the San Jose Mercury News in California; taught journalism at University of Texas at Austin, Georgetown University and American University; and authored a book on Watergate reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

Management

General Manager Dave Spizale, who has worked at KRVS-FM Radio Acadie at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette for 31 years, is retiring in June. During his tenure at KRVS, Spizale also served as a president of the former Southern Public Radio, which in 2006 merged with Eastern Public Radio, forerunner of Eastern Region Public Media. Earlier in his career, from 1976 to 1984, Spizale was general manager of KEMC-FM at Montana State University Billings.

Dorie Vallillo, g.m. of Tri States Public Radio at Western Illinois University in Macomb since 1987, has retired. In her time at the station, Vallillo raised more than $6.5 million, oversaw planning and construction of its broadcast and studio facilities, and raised two broadcast towers. Former station Music Director Jeff Holtz introduced her to her husband, Chris Vallillo. The three produced the nationally syndicated radio series Rural Route 3, which later became the station’s popular Celebration Concert Series. Vallillo served 15 years as treasurer on the board of directors for Public Radio in Mid America, and she is currently vice president of radio for the Illinois Public Broadcasting Council.

Programming

Nova has hired documentary filmmaker Chris Schmidt as a senior producer. Schmidt has produced and directed movies and television programs for the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, National Geographic and PBS. He executive-produced the four-hour Nova mini-series Making Stuff, and this season’s two-hour special Hunting the Elements.

Television journalist Lynn Sherr, who began her career at WNET in New York, has a new book out, Swim: Why We Love the Water. A reviewer for Sports Illustrated describes the book as “a witty and informative celebration of her sport, as well as an inspiring tale of personal challenge and discovery.” Sherr also worked for WETA in Washington, appeared on the MacNeil/Lehrer Report and Bill Moyers Journal, and frequently cohosts PRI’s The Takeaway.

Tom Dehner, former news director at WSIE-FM, came out of retirement to write and voice a short personal commentary, From the Sidelines, four times a week on the station at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. The two-minute segments draw on Dehner’s experiences in public relations, broadcast journalism, higher education and sports. “I like to write,” he told St. Louis Today. “This isn’t work to me.”

Governance

Stephen Engelberg, managing editor of the online nonprofit investigative newsroom ProPublica, was elected by Columbia University to the Pulitzer Prize Board. In 2010, ProPublica became the first online news outlet to win a Pulitzer, for reporting that chronicled the experiences of one hospital’s doctors while they were isolated during Hurricane Katrina. It also won in 2011 for exposing Wall Street practices that contributed to the nation’s economic meltdown. Before joining ProPublica in 2008, Engelberg worked for the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va.; the Dallas Morning News, The New York Times and The Oregonian of Portland, Ore., where he was a managing editor. He is the co-author of Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War, and shared an Emmy with Nova for a documentary on biological warfare.

Latino Public Broadcasting has elected Bill Stotesbery, g.m. of KLRU-TV in Austin, to its board of directors. In his announcement letter, Board President Edward James Olmos said that Stotesbery’s “leadership and expertise will greatly contribute in helping our organization grow.” KLRU has worked on several projects focusing on the Latino community, and recently added the Spanish-language multicaster V-Me to its channel lineup.

The new chair of the Association of Public Broadcasting Stations of New York is Alice Recore, president of Mountain Lake PBS in Plattsburgh. Member stations in the association also include WMHT, Schenectady/Albany; WSKG, Binghamton; WNED, Buffalo; WLIW, Long Island; Thirteen/WNET, New York City; WXXI, Rochester; WCNY Syracuse; and WPBS, Watertown. As chair, Recore will work with Executive Director Peter Repas to promote collaborations among members. The association appointed two additional station chiefs as officers: Brian Sickora, president of WSKG, treasurer; and Robert Altman, president of WMHT, secretary.

Minnesota Public Radio has elected Elise Donohue, a rancher who raises cattle in Montana, to its board of trustees. Donohue is the daughter of the late Sarah Maud Sivertsen and stepdaughter of Bob Sivertsen, an MPR “Life Trustee.” The special designation is reserved for board members whose service to MPR is so substantial it extends beyond the usual term of 12 years. The Sivertsens were among the earliest supporters of MPR.

Academia

Beverly Kelley, a communications professor who helped launch KCLU-FM/AM, the NPR member station at California Lutheran University, is retiring after 35 years at the school in Thousand Oaks, Calif. Kelley came to the university in 1977 and founded the communication department in 1981. KCLU went on the air in 1994. Kelley has published three books exploring political ideologies in film, and written a biweekly column for the Ventura County Star since 1997. Kelley will become an emerita faculty member.

Finance

Cheryl Locher is the new manager of finance and administration at Milwaukee Public Radio, WUWM-FM, supervising the daily administrative and business functions of the station. Locher previously worked at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she held several positions, including communications supervisor for university police and research program manager for the Rehabilitation Research Design & Disability (R2D2) Center, an interdisciplinary unit for research, development and instruction related to technology and disability.

Development

The WMRA Radio Network, which includes WMRA and WEMC in Charlottesville and Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, has appointed Donna Carrasco director of corporate and foundation support. Carrasco most recently worked as a senior sales representative for WJCT, the dual licensee in Jacksonville, Fla. Previously she was employed by the Amelia Island Chamber of Commerce, also in Florida.

In election, ‘a seat at the table’ costs $5000

Tue, 15 May 2012 23:58:46 +0000

Editor’s note: LZ Granderson, who writes a weekly column for CNN.com, was named journalist of the year by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and is a 2011 Online Journalism Award finalist for commentary. He is a senior writer and columnist for ESPN the Magazine and ESPN.com. Follow him on Twitter: @locs_n_laughs.

Grand Rapids, Michigan (CNN) — President Obama appeared at two recent fundraisers with some serious sticker shock.

About 200 people ponied up at least $5,000 per ticket for an event hosted by Ricky Martin. That was followed by a function at a private home where 60 people spent $38,500 each to get through the door.

Just last week, Obama — with George Clooney — raised $15 million in one night. This makes me wonder how in the hell our political process became so distorted that Obama needs this much money to run for re-election. I thought we were broke? And yet, at the end of March, Obama and his presumed general election opponent, Mitt Romney, had raised nearly a combined $300 million, almost enough to fund Planned Parenthood’s annual budget by themselves.

Forget Wall Street, it’s the campaign trail that needs to be occupied.

The median income in the United States is about $50,000, so I doubt very many 99 percenters are able to meet the $75,000 minimum that was expected at a recent Romney fundraiser. Did you know the goal of the RNC is to raise $800 million by November? Imagine how many families could be helped if just half of that was used to train people for the new job market, as opposed to being spent to help one guy get hired?

Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter and Facebook.com/cnnopinion

Face it, the president and Romney may have different political and economic views, but they are both propped up by highly affluent power brokers who are expecting big returns for the big checks they are writing.

This is why the worst thing to happen to our process was the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which allows corporations (and unions) to spend unlimited funds to promote a candidate. This is akin to handing the keys of a bakery to the Cookie Monster. These big spenders are not just involved in shaping dialogue. They get involved with shaping policy, which inevitably makes the good of the people secondary to the good of the deepest pockets.

We don’t just need campaign reform, we need roadblocks to prevent special interest groups from turning the democratic process into more of a sham that it already is.

Let the Supreme Court keep its ridiculous ruling, but set a limit on the amount of money candidates can raise and spend on their campaigns. Require all ads and debates to be aired on public television, and then cap the number of hours each party is allowed to use during the general election.

By putting it on public television, we stop large media conglomerates from profiting from the process. So, ideally Obama and Romney would both get $10 million and 40 hours of advertisement to state their case.

Let’s take away the $200 million war chests that Obama has been able to amass in both 2008 and 2012, and force him and future candidates to find a way to persuade the country to vote for them without relying on their ability to outspend their opponent.

I know, I know, Romney wouldn’t even be in the position he’s in without outspending — and dare I say, bullying — his opponents.

By leveling the economic playing field, our politicians have a chance to return to being representatives of the people, not just the ones who know the right people or make the right promises.

Before making the rounds in New York on Monday, President Obama tweeted a sentence from the commencement speech he gave at Barnard College: “Don’t just get involved. Fight for your seat at the table. Better yet, fight for your seat at the head of the table.” He left out the part about needing $5,000 to get in the door so you can even see the table.

But I guess those messy details are easy to overlook in a country with an 8.1% unemployment rate, whose leaders still find it appropriate to hold fundraisers for rich people.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of LZ Granderson.

CNN to Host the Second Annual iReport Awards

Tue, 15 May 2012 23:58:43 +0000

CNN announced today its second annual awards program to celebrate the most compelling stories of 2011 from CNN iReport’s participatory journalism community. Recipients of an iReport Award, selected from more than one million members worldwide, will be announced during the first-ever iReport Awards Weekend June 22 – 24, 2012. Hosted at CNN’s World Headquarters in Atlanta, GA, attendees of the weekend-long event will be treated to exclusive workshops, panel sessions and an awards presentation.

“Every single day, iReporters and their stories play an important role in CNN’s journalism and storytelling. The iReport Awards is our way of saluting the best of that work, and recognizing the incredible contributions of community-created journalism on our network and news media at large,” said Lila King, participation director for CNN Digital. “We look forward to a weekend of events that celebrate and cement CNN’s commitment to iReport and to the future of co-created news.”

iReport Awards will presented in six categories: Breaking News, Original Reporting, Compelling Imagery, Commentary, Personal Story, and Interview. From nearly 15,000 iReports approved for use on CNN last year, a total of six nominees in each category have already been selected by a team of CNN experts. A diverse panel of judges comprised of innovators and trailblazers in participatory storytelling and journalism will choose the recipients.

This year’s roster of judges includes Andrea Allen, director of production & community at Vimeo; Brooke Baldwin, anchor of CNN Newsroom; Burt Herman, co-founder of Storify; Solana Larsen, managing editor, Global Voices; Vadim Lavrusik, journalist program manager, Facebook; Issa Rae, producer, director and writer, The Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl; Nic Robertson, award-winning journalist and senior correspondent for CNN International.

Of the 36 total nominees, online users also can show their support for the package they think best embodies CNN iReport in 2011 by voting for the Community Choice award recipient at http://CNNiReportAwards.com. Voting is open until Monday June 11, 12p.m. ET. Beginning the week of May 14^th through the week of June 4th, nominees will be featured during Newsroom with Kyra Phillips (weekdays from 11-12 p.m. ET) and CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin (weekdays from 2-4 p.m ET). In addition, the Community Choice Award recipient will be featured on air June 25^th.

For information about CNN iReport, visit iReport.com, and see CNNiReportAwards.com to learn more about the iReport Awards or to check out this year’s nominees.

CNN Worldwide, a division of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner Company, is the most trusted source for news and information. Its reach extends to nine cable and satellite television networks; one private place-based network; two radio networks; wireless devices around the world; CNN Digital Network, the No. 1 network of news Web sites in the United States; CNN Newsource, the world’s most extensively syndicated news service; and strategic international partnerships within both television and the digital media.

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CONTACTS:

April Andrews 404.878.5017 Twitter: @aprilCNNpr april.andrews@cnn.com

MSU Journalism Centennial | junard anderson | Activity

Tue, 15 May 2012 19:58:50 +0000

Unique Suggestions From Denver Home Inspector To Get The Most Out Of Real Estate Sales

Knowing as much as you can about selling real estate is going to help you a great deal when the time comes to sell. There are steps that you can take to assure that you get the most out of your home. Learn some helpful tips to selling real estate by reading the following article.

In a buyers’ market, sellers do not generally have the upper hand when it comes to pricing and negotiating the value of their property. It is especially important not to become too frustrated by the market early in the game; it is only natural and perfectly expected that it will take longer than normal for your house to sell. These tips from denver home inspectors should help to prepare you for the challenges in today’s market.

When deciding on a real estate agent, be sure you tell the agent how much communication you would like. A lot of people say that they do not hear from their agent as much as they would like. Let the agent know what communication you expect from them and how often you want to communicate. Tell the agent first to see if it will be a problem and if you will be a good fit with that agent.

Before you sell your home, make sure you do some research to determine a selling price that won’t be too high or too low. Get a rough estimate by finding out the approximate price per square foot of recently sold homes in your neighborhood, and apply this rate to the square footage of your own home. Take into account the trends in your area. Are homes generally appreciating or depreciating in value? General economic conditions such as the current interest rate and the strength of the job market can also play a role. An advice from home inspection denver.

Give your home the best possible curb appeal when selling, by making sure that the lawn is watered and mowed, excess items are not left outside, and putting a couple of potted flowering plants by the front door. The clean cut appearance will help attract buyers to your home.

One of the most important aspects when trying to sell your real estate is the paint on the home. This is one of the easiest fixes you can do to help with the curb appeal of the property. When buyers drive by and see a worn and tired paint job on the home, they might never call to find out about the property because of this poor impression. Another advice from denver home inspection.

If you have a small extra room in your home, you should not try to cram furniture in there and call it a bedroom! You should add furniture to it that will create a neat little office. Many buyers are seeking home office space, so this step may increase the likelihood of a sale.

In conclusion, the better educated you are about selling real estate, the more successful you will be with it. Apply the tips and advice that were included in this article to your selling plan and you are more likely to be pleased with the overall outcome of the transaction.

Journalism Fellowship | From the Principal's MacBook

Tue, 15 May 2012 03:06:25 +0000

Mt. Ararat English teacher, Jason Prince has been awarded a fellowship to the University of Texas’ Reynolds High School Journalism Institute June 17-29 in Austin. The institute is designed to provide a strong grounding in the core values of journalism and the tools students need to produce quality multimedia news.

Michener Awards Foundation announces Fellowship winners

Sun, 13 May 2012 19:02:17 +0000

OTTAWA, May 10, 2012 /CNW/ – The Michener Awards Foundation today
announced the winners of the 2012 Michener-Deacon Fellowships.

The first Michener-Deacon Fellowship for Journalism Education is awarded
to Melanie Coulson, senior online editor at The Ottawa Citizen. She
will spend the winter term in 2013 at Carleton University’s School of
Journalism.

Laura Eggertson, a freelance journalist based in Ottawa, is the winner
of the Michener-Deacon Fellowship for Investigative Journalism. Ms
Eggertson will investigate Aboriginal Youth Suicide as a significant
health crisis in Canada. A former Nieman Fellowship winner, she plans
to research and write a series of print and on-line articles, and
create a radio documentary, based on both positive and negative
experiences of Aboriginal communities dealing with suicide.

Ms Coulson will teach an undergraduate reporting course at Carleton and
will conduct research into the growing phenomenon of audience
participation in the journalism produced by media enterprises and will
share her research and experience with students. Having made the shift
to digital media more than a decade ago, Ms Coulson has also been
responsible for community engagement projects in the national capital
region for her employer.

The Investigative Journalism fellowship is supported by the BMO Financial
Group. It allows a journalist to devote up to four months for a reporting project.
Applicants are required to undertake a project that aspires to the
criteria of the annual Michener Award for journalism with its emphasis
on making an impact for the public good.

The Michener-Deacon Fellowship for Journalism Education, supported by
the Michener Awards Foundation and the Family of the late Paul S.
Deacon, is dedicated to the advancement of the education of Canadian journalists.
The winner will spend time at a Canadian university journalism school,
teaching or mentoring students, and also pursue personal education
interests.

His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of
Canada, will host the Michener Awards ceremony at Rideau Hall on June
12 where the Michener-Deacon Fellowships will be presented and the
winner of the 2011 Michener Award will be announced. .

The Michener Award, founded in 1970 by the late Roland Michener, then
Governor-General, goes to a news organization. The judges’ decisions
are heavily influenced by the degree of public benefit generated by the
print and broadcast entries submitted for consideration.

Judges for the 2011 Michener-Deacon Fellowship
Lindsay Crysler (chair), former managing editor of The Gazette,
Montreal, former director of journalism, Concordia University,
Montreal; Clinton Archibald, associate professor, professor of public
ethics, St. Paul University, Ottawa; Michael Goldbloom, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Bishops
University, Lennoxville, Quebec, and former publisher of The Gazette
and the Toronto Star; Lynne Van Luven, associate professor of
journalism and creative non-fiction, University of Victoria; Erin
Steuter, chair of the sociology department, Mount Allison University,
Sackville, NB.