- The Blaze: Does Raw Video of NPR Expose Reveal Questionable Editing & Tactics?
This undercover video of an NPR exec is such a hack job that even Glenn Beck is calling foul. Comparing the edited version to the raw video makes obvious that unrelated bits of audio were edited together to make it appear that the guy was saying things that he never said. How embarrassing. - Nieman Journalism Lab: Knight gives Bay Citizen, Texas Tribune $975,000 for open-source CMS
Brilliant, brilliant use of a million bucks by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Having spent a half-decade managing online content for a media outlet, I feel comfortable saying that the existing options are terrible, either because they're too complex for most media outlets (Bricolage), they're not the right tools for the job (WordPress, ExpressionEngine) or because they're just plain awful (nearly everything else). Let's hope that the grant recipients are up to the task. Codenamed "Armstrong," the Django-based CMS is scheduled for a June launch. - New York Times: Japan’s Strict Building Codes Saved Lives
An unregulated free market wouldn't construct buildings designed to withstand once-in-a-generation earthquakes. ("Greed is good.") Capitalism is great, but sometimes the things that make it great make it dangerous. That's why we have regulation.
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It’s maddening that NPR got rid of people based on video from a known liar with a history of misleadingly editing video from stings. What do they think they’re going to gain by it? They strengthen O’Keefe and certainly won’t cause the Republicans to back off—more likely they’ll be emboldened by getting two more scalps. And of course the rest of the media reporting on the situation show no signs of learning either.
I roomed with O’Keefe for 3 months in 2006 when I was working at the Nature Conservancy and he was busy getting fired from the Leadership Institute for being too batshit crazy even by their standards. He was the filthiest (literally-the place was disgusting after the guy whose room I took left), cockiest, laziest, least trustworthy and most disorganized person I had ever met in my life. I remember hearing him and his equally looney cohorts fantasizing one night about some of their juvenile video pranks to bring down blacks, fascists, Muslims, and (with even more disdain) liberals. He had just recently pulled his Planned Parenthood stunt, and said that being on Fox News was the greatest high ever. I remember smiling and thinking as I drifted to sleep that this punk was going to get his ass handed to him the next time he tried one of these stunts. Now I just wish that I had done it myself.
Wow, small world, Kaveh! I know next to nothing about O’Keefe personally, but now I feel like I’ve got the measure of the man. :)
Re: Japan.
Yep. Japan is one of the few countries that’s thought ahead about the posssibility of natural disasters (granted they have a history of them). As bad as the destruction from this quake is, it would have been worse in practically any other country.
Building codes, earthquake engineering, and tsunami planning are fine, but when it comes to siting and building nuclear power plants you only have to be wrong one time, and this looks like it. Witness the failure of the T-test and the cost of a losing gamble.
The USGS just revised the ‘quake magnitude to 9.0 This is an historic earthquake.