AC/DC study fools newspaper, Freakonomics author
September 28, 2007
Another cautionary tale about not believing everything you read on the Internet: The Sydney Morning Herald, in a double-bylined story, reported a joke study that had been posted online — as did amed Freakonomics co-author Steven Levitt in The New York Times.
The study claimed to examine how the songs of two different AC/DC frontmen influence decision-making.
Details here.
PolitiFact rocks
September 28, 2007
PolitiFact.com, a project of the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly, has created a video of its promotional song Gimme the Truth. The song, written by Chris Ave and directed by Adrian Phillips, features backup vocals by Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon.
Phillips tells CyberJournalist.net: “When we considered the different ways we could promote our new fact-checking site, PolitiFact.com, it seemed most appropriate that we would add our take to the ever-expanding collection of music videos that – no doubt – will be a recalled fixture of the 2008 Election. (If you look closely, you can see several references to Obama Girl, Guiliani Girl and the YouTube debate snowman, Billiam.) Produced and directed in-house by our Web staff, this effort was conceived and executed in four weeks.”
(PolitiFact is a project that aims to help readers find the truth in the presidential campaign. Every day, reporters and researchers from the Times and CQ will analyze the candidates’ speeches, TV ads and interviews and determine whether the claims are accurate.)
USA Today’s candidate match game
September 27, 2007
USA TODAY researched candidate positions on top issues and created 11 multiple-choice questions to help differentiate the candidates and their stances.
As you answer the questions, you can roll over each color bar below the candidates’ heads to find background on their positions. Your answers are matched with the positions of the presidential hopefuls to reveal the candidate (or candidates) closest to your views. The sliders on the right allow you to assign relative weights to match the importance that you place on each issue.
Web 2.0 debate: It’s on!
September 27, 2007
The Wall Street Journal recently featured a debate on Web 2.0 between Andrew Keen, author of “The Cult of the Amateur,” and David Weinberger, who wrote “Everything is Miscellaneous.” Web 2.0: Spiralling into chaos or empowering users? “The explosion of blogs, social networks and video-sharing sites has allowed any Internet user to become a journalist or filmmaker or music star. But is this democratization of information — often called Web 2.0 — the future of the Internet or a looming disaster?” The Wall Street Journal asks.
Discussion on whether awards overlook new media
September 26, 2007
Interesting discussion on LinkedIn about, “Do you find that most reporting awards overlook serious investigative reporting done by alternative press and new media journalists and bloggers?”
QuePasa.com Spearheads Citizen Journalism for Latinos
September 26, 2007
We’re increasing seeing more citizen journalism ventures around the world and in different languages.
Here’s an interesting announcement about what claims to be the first Latino citizen journalism website on the World Wide Web, QuePasa News Network.
If you know of any, send them to editor@cyberjournalist.net or add them (or any other Citizen Media site you know of) to the CyberJournalist.net Citizen Media Sites Wiki at http://wiki.cyberjournalist.net/citmedia
Survey of news media’s use of Twitter
September 25, 2007
Curt Hopkins, the founder of the Committee to Protect Bloggers, has created a survey on how traditional news media use Twitter and it’s located here: I set up a survey to track Twitter use at news organizations. If you use Twitter at a newspaper, radio station, television station or another “MSM” organization, fill it out.
Evening Standard launches news site
September 25, 2007
The London Evening Standard has launched a new news site, standard.co.uk.
New York Times introduces mobile real estate listings
September 24, 2007
The New York Times launched mobile real estate listings today, enabling readers to send and receive detailed property listings on their mobile devices. Later this fall, The Times will introduce real estate alerts for mobile users providing information and updates on properties based on users’ individual criteria.
WNYC crowdsourcing: Are You Being Gouged?
September 24, 2007
WNYC’s latest crowdsourcing project asks listeners to go to their local grocery store and find out the price of three goods: milk, lettuce and beer.
You don’t have to buy them (or consume them), but we want to know how much they cost in different neighborhoods throughout the New York area.
Here’s the assignment:
Go to your local bodega, supermarket, or gourmet grocery store and get the prices for our predetermined basket of goods. Here’s the shopping list:
-a quart of regular, non-organic whole milk
-a head of iceberg lettuce
-a 6-pack of 12-ounce Budweiser (bottles)Then, come back to our website and leave the following information in a comment:
-The prices of these goods
-The neighborhood where you bought them (please give exact address, or at least the block and cross street)
-The name of the supermarket
-Any distinguishing characteristic (e.g. Korean Deli, high-end retailer, etc.)
-Whether or not you were surprised (yes or no)?You have until next 1 pm on Monday, October 1st to carry out the assignment. This is something you can do in the course of your regular shopping trip, but we encourage you to go the extra mile and report on neighborhoods and stores you wouldn’t normally shop in.
Next week we will report the findings, along with a map showing the most expensive and least expensive neighborhoods, and talk about what they mean on the air.