The Press Can Save Lives?

"Could a more aggressive press in the United States during World War II have saved lives?" This question was the basis for an online exhibit on the Newseum's website that traced the shocking choice of the mainstream US press to downplay the increasing human death toll at the hands of the Nazis.

The exhibit cites a few reasons why the editors, during the time that the Holocaust was happening, placed the development of a million innocent people being killed on page six or page ten. Basically the editors couldn't bring themselves to believe that what was happening was real. Supposedly there was a lack of eyewitness accounts, a lack of photographic evidence, and the US had it's own anti-semitism that affected the coverage of the time.

But ultimately, I would say the press is to be faulted and blamed for not contributing to ending this atrocity against humanity.

It makes me wonder, what are the stories of today that are similarly being relegated to the back pages. What events are not being covered by the mainstream press that could be saving lives?

(Photo: Grant MacDonald / Flickr)

News That Will Matter in Ten Years

The fantastic author and journalist Michael Pollan is speaking in San Francisco tonight at an event being put on by the Long Now Foundation. Despite the Long Now Foundation being based in San Francisco, I had never heard of them before. I went to their site and their projects are very "forward" thinking...literally. One of their ventures, Long Bets, provides an arena for people to make bets on future events. The goal is for the process to create accurate predictions.

The Long Now Foundation is attempting to launch the "Long News" project, which will try and determine what the most important stories of the week are. The ones that will transcend time and continue to be relevant five or ten years from now are deemed most important. I look forward to following this and seeing what they come up with. As the Long News Project attempts to take off it will begin in the form of blogposts which can be read here.

Twitter Tipping Point

I am sensing a Twitter Tipping Point. Not only was it the hot topic among friends at a bar this weekend, KQED interviewed Twitter co-founder Biz Stone this week about the role of this social networking tool.

At the bar last Saturday my friend asks his twitter savvy friend why he should use this mini-blogging tool. The response came in the form of a question: "Do you remember when I told you to use Facebook eight months ago?" he asked. "Now you use it often and don't need me to tell you why to use facebook," he said. "Well, that's whats going to happen once you start using Twitter."

That's exactly what Stone said as people wrapped their heads around why they should start using this technology. In an interview on KQED's Forum, Stone spoke with host Scott Schafer and bay area callers about why Twitter is important, how to best use it, and the implications of its use.

The main thing that seems to differentiate Twitter from other social networking sites is its closeness to real-time interaction. Even news events over the past few months have been given immediate access to the public via twitter. Just look at the Mumbai attacks or the landing of the plane on the Hudson River in January.

If Twitter is going to become a source of up to the minute news, Schafer asked about how much credibility users should be giving this "news." Stone believes that there does not need to be a mediator, the truth will prevail. The truth will emerge because once something false is presented, Stone says another twitter user will come along and correct it. He also emphasized the need for twitter users to authenticate information for themselves by choosing their sources wisely and/or cross checking information with other sources.

More practical ways that Twitter is being used:

- Twitter is a vehicle for keeping a blog's readers updated on new posts.
- It can be used in dangerous situations. Just look at the journalist student who alerted his network of twitter friends when he was arrested in Egypt.
- Twitter is a great way for companies and organizations to keep their customers or members updated on promotions or events.

There are probably a million other ways that Twitter can be used and I imagine its role will continue to evolve as it becomes more mainstream. In my sphere of friends and acquantences only a few tech-savvy ones religiously use Twitter. However, I am sensing a tipping point. While Twitter currently seems like a piece of technology that I can live without, my interest has been sparked and I am really interested to try it. My main worry is that Twitter will make me document every second of my life rather than live it. But, I am open to the possibility that it could find a niche in my world and become an important way for me to connect to information as well as share it. I'll keep you updated on when Twitter inhabits my life. What are your thoughts on the Twitter tipping point?

Business Reporters Blow It

As we currently face our financial debacle, many blame the press for not doing a better job of alerting citizens to the approaching collapse. Former Wall Street Journal reporter, Dean Starkman, traced the history of Business Journalism and found that there was a significant shift among business reporting that lead to the audience being referred to as investors rather than citizens. It was approaches such as these that Starkman mentions were the reason behind business reporters missing the biggest story of possibly their career.

Caption: Unused newspaper racks clutter a storage yard in San Francisco, California on Friday, March 13, 2009. (AP Photo / Noah Berger)

The image sadly speaks for itself.

Some related articles:

San Francisco Chronicle May Cease Operations

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Dies, Reborn Online

How Do We Know What We Know?

Iraq viewed through an armored vehicle. (Photo: Benjamin Lowy / The New York Times)

How do we know what we know is a deep philosophical question, yes, but on the more practical level it can be applied to how we make sense of our present world. For instance on the issue of Iraq, this question is a deeply fascinating one to ask Americans. How do Americans know what they know about Iraq, a country that is far away yet deeply connected to our own. The avenues for receiving information on what is happening in Iraq include:

- Reading the news from reporters who are stationed there or from news agencies who have Iraqi contacts in the region.
- Hearing the President or Generals report on the situation.
- Hearing scholars and analysts sum up the situation as they see it.
- Possibly directly hearing about it from service members when they return.

A recent piece from the Washington Post, "What We Don't Know About Iraq," brings up a source of information that often doesn't reach Americans ears:

The view from Iraqis themselves.

Americans have an interest in understanding the way Iraqi's view the war, especially since they are partners in securing their country so that foreign forces can leave them be (or that's what the US military says will happen).

In his piece, Phillip Bennet writes about the names Iraqis have used over the past six years to describe the situation, as told to him by the Washington Post's Baghdad correspondent, Anthony Shadid: "ghazu or 'invasion'; sometimes 'the events'; occasionally 'sectarian war'; and most often, and most hauntingly, suqut -- simply 'the collapse.'"

The above is an interesting to me because we don't often see news articles framed or informed by the average Iraqi perspective.

Bennet cites the 2008 book "The Forever War," by Dexter Filkins, as a strong account of how and why information from Iraqis is not entering the American consciousness. Filkins writes, "there were always two conversations in Iraq, the one Iraqis were having with the Americans and the one they were having with themselves."

Sometimes what we know is not easy to find out and is hidden by cultural or power relation barriers. What would happen if Americans had access to the thoughts and feelings of Iraqis regarding the US war in Iraq?

Bush Captured by a "Mirror with a Memory"

On Monday, January 12, 2009, George W. Bush gave his last press conference. In his last address to the Washington Press Corps, Bush said: "Through it all, it's been -- I have respected you. Sometimes I didn't like the stories that you wrote or reported on. Sometimes you misunderestimated me. But always the relationship I have felt has been professional. And I appreciate it."

With Bush out of office attempts are being made to shape his legacy. In this spirit, Award-Winning Documentary filmmaker, Errol Morris, turned to three press corps photographers to share the images they felt captured Bush's "character" over the past eight years. Morris does not believe that photographs preserve reality, but in fact "capture our evasions and self-deceptions."

View the photos that Vincent Amalvy (AFP), Santiago Lyon (AP), and Jim Bourg (Reuters) chose at Morris' blog "Zoom" on the New York Times website.

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Its interesting to note how each of these photographers view the access they were given to the president:

Vincent Amalvy (AFP) says in America the press corps is given more access to the President compared to other countries: "It’s a different situation in Europe. In America when you are part of the presidential pool, you move everywhere with the president. It’s not that way in other countries. You don’t have the same quantity of free access to all these attitudes, pictures and opportunities."

Santiago Lyon, takes a different view then Amalvy: "And it is true that the American system, and especially the White House, allows much more access because they’re much more media-savvy. The White House understands the power of the image. And that’s where I sometimes get the feeling that we’re all being manipulated. It is true that we do get access to a much larger extent, than many other world leaders allow it. And that’s something to be thankful for, in the sense that we’re able to witness White House activities. But, at the same time, the thing is so contrived and so controlled that like any consumer of information, it behooves one to look at the source of the information, to look at the circumstances of the information, and to be able to cast a critical eye on it."


Jim Bourg comments on the role of White House Photographers: "That’s the talent of our White House photographers: to be able to work within the constraints that are imposed upon them by the White House staff, but also to fully document what’s going on."

Bourg also makes an interesting point about key Bush photographs: "It’s interesting to see how differently people will interpret the same picture, how a strong supporter of the president will see a picture one way and a critic of the president will see it a different way. There have been some pictures of President George W. Bush where the reactions have actually gone all over the map, where some Bush supporters see interpret the image as taking a cheap shot at him. Other Bush supporters see that same moment as endearing or showing off his character, showing that he’s a regular kind of guy or showing that he’s a common, unpretentious type of person. And then there are pictures where a photo opportunity can totally backfire on the White House. An example of that would certainly be the “Mission Accomplished” banner on the aircraft carrier where that is a very straight photo as you look at it."