Bob CollinsThe Internet’s power was supposed to be giving a voice to the voiceless. They had their chance and, a casual walk through the comments section of most websites reveals, they botched it. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Tag: Media
It’s a stunning display of courage in the interest of journalism turned in by a photographer for the Associated Press today. Read more →
We haven’t played You Are Editor in a long time. Let’s play. Here are three scenarios about the news and social media. You make the call. Read more →
Rachel Martin started her new gig as a co-host of NPR’s Morning Edition today, and if you read between the lines of her interview with Current, the public radio newspaper, one gets the sense that the ‘inner-Beltway mentality’ continues to crumble.
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Facebook and Twitter increasingly are the new venue for audience feedback, so while the online audience continues to have a voice, the reality is that fewer people in the news business side of things are listening. Read more →
A note from a listener passed my way this week asking MPR to provide more coverage of the Standing Rock protest over the Dakota Access Pipeline and even send a reporter there, arguing we didn’t have one.
We did. Two. And now, three. Read more →
Another long-time scribe has left Minnesota journalism.
Steve Brandt has covered Minneapolis neighborhoods, schools, and government since 1976 and if he doesn’t hold the record for longevity at local newspapers, he’s got to be close. Read more →
For the record, NewsCut has smashed traffic records for the year so far and the last two months have been the most popular months in the history of the thing. But, we’re also aware that blogs aren’t the “bright shiny object” that so hypnotizes the experts.
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Just as sure as the sun will rise in the east, the baseball awards season will lead to people calling for baseball writers to get out of the business of voting on postseason awards. Read more →
Instead of complaining, journalists should be bringing value to the conversations that now occur without us, a journalist argues. Read more →
In public radio, ‘politicians and pointyheads’ tend to dominate. So it can be jarring to hear from people who are neither. Thus the term public radio.
There were some flaws in how NPR covered the campaign, sure, but it would be unfortunate if people walk away from the notion that hearing from people living their lives is something requiring apology. Read more →
Katherine Cramer, a professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, has been traveling to specific towns in rural Wisconsin for about 10 years and she says the results of last week’s election was about respect — or the lack of it — for rural areas more than anything else. Read more →
Gwen Ifill co-anchors one of the smartest news programs in America that probably isn’t as well watched as it should be, but for those who value a calm and intelligent discussions about the day’s issue, she was a national treasure.
She died today at 61. Read more →
Perhaps you’ve noticed in the last seven days that, despite not having a shred of specifics from the new president, reporters have had no trouble telling the story of what a Trump presidency means for everything and everybody.
They could have spent the last year doing those stories for all of the candidates who wanted to be president, but they couldn’t; they were too busy regurgitating the stump speeches and rehashing the horse race, which relies on polls that were completely inaccurate. Read more →