Ignoring its slight pretension, can you imagine, even for one second, a UK editor writing this column?
Critique of video game journalism
Not very well written, but an interesting critique of video game journalism nevertheless. Not a genre I’ve ever really written for, but I can understand why it would suffer from the alleged problems if it’s anything like film journalism.
Journalists should go on strike for a year
To prove that bloggers and Google News robots can’t do the work of trained reporters, Chicago Reader executive editor Michael Lenehan proposes a year-long journalism strike.
“I am urging reporters and editors around the world to put down their notebooks, close their laptops, hang up their phones. Lie down and be counted! Let’s have no reporting, no editing, no application of any human intelligence whatsoever to events public or private till January 1, 2007. I’m calling it the Year Without Journalism. Let’s all relax, let go, and float blissfully in the information-free state (excuse me, I mean free-information state) that our public awaits so eagerly. … Let’s see if Wonkette can deal with the devious bastards in the executive branch any better than Judith Miller did.”
No salary for a year. I can manage that…
The effects of binge-drinking
What better way to investigate the effects of binge-drinking than to binge-drink for a month?
One hundred things we didn’t know a year ago. Except we did.
The BBC is running a story containing 100 facts we didn’t know last year. Aside from the 101st fact that we did know quite a few of those things if we’d ever read a book before 2005, there were quite a few interesting nuggets in there, notably:
7. Baboons can tell the difference between English and French. Zoo keepers at Port Lympne wild animal park in Kent are having to learn French to communicate with the baboons which had been transferred from Paris zoo.
29. When faced with danger, the octopus can wrap six of its legs around its head to disguise itself as a fallen coconut shell and escape by walking backwards on the other two legs, scientists discovered.
50. Only 36% of the world’s newspapers are tabloid.
53. It takes 75kg of raw materials to make a mobile phone.
65. Actor James Doohan, who played Scotty, had a hand in creating the Klingon language that was used in the movies, and which Shakespeare plays were subsequently translated into.
99. The Japanese word “chokuegambo” describes the wish that there were more designer-brand shops on a given street.
Hungary and Finnish not so close after all
It turns out the Finnish and Hungarian aren’t so close after all, despite my previous impression. According to The Economist, Estonian is a lot closer.
“Philologists’ labours have identified some 200 words with common roots in all three main Finno-Ugric tongues. Fully 55 of these concern fishing, and a further 15 are about reindeer; only three are about commerce. An Estonian philologist, Mall Hellam, came up with just one mutually comprehensible sentence: ‘the living fish swims in the water.'”
If you haven’t picked up the Christmas edition of The Economist, you definitely should. It’s a time when they let their writers go wild and scribble on about anything that interests them (as well as the news). This year’s highlights include the history of wheat, a survey of human evolution, personal finance in Jane Austen’s novels and an analysis of the sex-toy market in China.
Kelvin MacKenzie quits Highbury
He’s off. He spends millions getting there, fires everyone in sight and then quits after a few months saying there was too much debt. Did you not spot that when you bought the shares, Kelvin? What exactly is your idea of due diligence?
I’m guessing that he’s using the issue of debt to cover his ego somewhat. He tried to play hardball with the banks, who have never liked him. He lost. Now he needs a way to cover up his failings.
Doesn’t bode well for Highbury, though, to have your chairman quit during the middle of debt negotiations.
Free speech in all cases
A somewhat coherent argument about freedom of speech from Spiked’s deputy editor today.
Who says journalists can’t do good?
A New York Times reporter explains how he was able to stop a child porn ring and get one of its victims off drugs and into college.
Don’t want to do any research? Time for some weasel language
The Media Guardian has a curious article today on the effect that John Spencer’s death will have on The West Wing. I say curious because it seems to be written by someone who doesn’t know that much about how television works and can’t even be bothered to find out. Take this quote
The West Wing, which is in production on its seventh season and is thought to have got two or three episodes in the can before Spencer died…
“Is thought to have” is a great weasel phrase. You can use it in all sorts of articles. You can use it for making statements that you don’t have the facts to confirm, the confidence to assert or which may even be completely untrue (eg “The Prime Minister is thought to have refused the deal in no uncertain language”, “President Bush is thought to have taken bribes from Osama bin Laden”).
You can use it to avoid having to do research as well. Here a simple check would have revealed that the first nine episodes of The West Wing have already aired in the US. The NBC web site or tv.com would have shown that. A quick check of the calendar would have done the same, since the majority of US shows start airing in September and October. A little thought would also have highlighted the fact that production companies tend to shoot episodes weeks before they actually air, so it’s likely episodes 10 and 11, at least, are already in the can.
How are they going to address Spencer’s death in the show? I’m pretty sure a second fictional heart attack is the most likely option. The ongoing story line already has various politicians pressing his character to do more for the campaign, with Spencer refusing: “They’re trying to kill me”, a reference to his almost-certain fate were he take on even more stressful tasks than running for vice president.