We Are The News

Suicide Attacks

2009-02-25T07:28:00.003-05:00

Recently, Random House published a book by Robert Pape titled Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (2005). The book looks at what we know from many news reports of suicide bombing attacks in the Middle East. Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article about the book:

Pape claims to have compiled the world’s first “database of every suicide bombing and attack around the globe from 1980 through 2003 — 315 attacks in all” (3). “The data show that there is little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world’s religions. . . . Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland” (4). It is important that Americans understand this growing phenomenon (4-7).
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_to_Win accessed 2/25/09

WikiNews

2009-02-20T22:57:00.004-05:00

If you don't know about WikiNews, you've got to learn about it. The journalists at WikiNews very much have the spirit of We Are The News. Here is the link to their home page:

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page

I see the Google Page Rank of their home page today is 6/10 and their Alexa Traffic Rank is 12,411. Those are pretty good numbers, especially the traffic ranking.

The WikiNews people have developed their sense of purpose over time. Initially, they published a manifesto. Here is an excerpt from that manifesto:

We seek to promote the idea of the citizen journalist, because we believe that everyone can make a useful contribution to painting the big picture of what is happening in the world around us. The time has come to create a free news source, by the people and for the people. At the moment, only a small minority of us can participate, but you are free to help us find practical methods of crossing this digital divide. We invite you to join us in this effort which has the potential to change the world forever. excerpted from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews_manifesto accessed 2/20/09

Subsequently, the manifesto was revised to the following Mission Statement:

Wikinews seeks to create a free source of news, where every human being is invited to contribute reports about events large and small, either from direct experience, or summarized from elsewhere.

While Wikinews aims to be a useful resource of its own, it will also provide an alternative to proprietary news agencies like the Associated Press or Reuters; that is, it will allow independent media outfits to get a high quality feed of news free of charge to complement their own reporting.

Wikinews follows key principles which have made Wikipedia and other Wikimedia websites what they are today: neutrality, free content, and an open decision making process. from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews#Mission_statement accessed 2/20/09

The current Mission Statement at WikiNews reads as follows:

To present up-to-date, relevant, newsworthy and entertaining content without bias

Wikinews promotes the idea of participatory journalism because of the belief that citizens know what is news like no others. You are invited to join in this effort, and share news that is of interest to you.

The Wikinews project is a free content news source of the Wikimedia Foundation that seeks to provide content where everyone is invited to contribute reports about events large and small, either from direct experience, or summarized from elsewhere. Wikinews is founded on the idea to build a unique news environment to enrich the media landscape.

Wikinews' use extends beyond original reports, by providing free, neutral, integrated summaries of the news from elsewhere. It will already be useful even if the subject range covered will be full of gaps—because in these subject areas, we will already benefit from the collaborative wiki model. It will grow to become more useful every day.

While Wikinews aims to one day be a useful resource of its own, it will also provide an alternative to proprietary news agencies like the Associated Press or Reuters; that is, it will allow independent media outfits to get a high quality feed of news free of charge to complement their own reporting. Thanks to copyleft, anyone can create their own free news source—even a non-neutral one—on the basis of this work.

There are many challenges. Wikinews adopted the key principles that made Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia websites what they are today: neutral, free content and open decision-making processes. from http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews accessed 2/20/09

The citizen journalist (i.e., you, me and everyone else with access to the internet) can learn from WikiNews how to prepare an article for publication at WikiNews by reading their page at http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Writing_an_article.

And now you know something about WikiNews!

As We Transition

2009-02-20T22:42:00.002-05:00

As we transition away from newspapers and toward online news journals, we may stop to consider whether we agree with the position taken by Sara Stein Lichtman of New York. She likes the content she's getting in newspapers and is glad to spend money to get the paper rather than look for the newspaper online, avoid paying anything for the news and, in so doing, contribute to the demise of the newspaper. Read her Letter to the Editor of the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/opinion/l13news.html?ref=todayspaper

I expect the NY Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers will begin partnering with internet providers. The news providers will be able to provide news to subscribers on a "for your eyes only" basis. Subscribers will not be able to redistribute any portion of the news that the owners/providers of the news don't want redistributed.

What We Call The News

2009-02-20T22:37:00.000-05:00

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

from http://sendables.jibjab.com/originals/what_we_call_the_news

We Are The News dot net

2009-02-20T22:20:00.003-05:00

Tonight while surfing the net I found www.wearethenews.net.

I was surprised to see someone else working with a notion similar to what I had a year ago when I started this blog. I noticed the Google Page Rank of their home page is 3. Their home page has the following text on it:

JOIN our website and be part of «We Are The News» — a news correspondents network in the Middle East and in the Balkans.

Stories & Opinions provide you an insight into two fascinating regions.

Based in Switzerland, this website serves as an opportunity for young people in the Middle East region and in the Balkans to author articles and podcasts about their immediate environment. Every contribution is reviewed by professional journalists from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and from the Swiss National Television (SF). «We Are The News» correspondents also get personal feedback on how to improve their writing and researching skills. The aim of wearethenews.net is to foster independent media coverage, brought to you by engaged and critical thinking young people. To find out more, click join.

Unfortunately, when I click on the "join" link, what I get is the following:

sidebar1 Content

The background color on this div will only show for the length of the content. If you'd like a dividing line instead, place a border on the left side of the #mainContent div if the #mainContent div will always contain more content than the #sidebar1 div.

Donec eu mi sed turpis feugiat feugiat. Integer turpis arcu, pellentesque eget, cursus et, fermentum ut, sapien. Fusce metus mi, eleifend sollicitudin, molestie id, varius et, nibh. Donec nec libero.

Main Content

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Praesent aliquam, justo convallis luctus rutrum, erat nulla fermentum diam, at nonummy quam ante ac quam. Maecenas urna purus, fermentum id, molestie in, commodo porttitor, felis. Nam blandit quam ut lacus. Quisque ornare risus quis ligula. Phasellus tristique purus a augue condimentum adipiscing. Aenean sagittis. Etiam leo pede, rhoncus venenatis, tristique in, vulputate at, odio. Donec et ipsum et sapien vehicula nonummy. Suspendisse potenti. Fusce varius urna id quam. Sed neque mi, varius eget, tincidunt nec, suscipit id, libero. In eget purus. Vestibulum ut nisl. Donec eu mi sed turpis feugiat feugiat. Integer turpis arcu, pellentesque eget, cursus et, fermentum ut, sapien. Fusce metus mi, eleifend sollicitudin, molestie id, varius et, nibh. Donec nec libero.

H2 level heading

What is that? Apparently they have a bit of work ahead of them. But who am I to talk about them? I started this blog a year ago and am only beginning to do anything with it now..

Teaching Peace

2008-02-02T09:28:00.000-05:00

What does it look like - teaching peace? I send these quotes out to the world, a message in a bottle, hoping to connect and inspire someone out there. Somewhere among these quotes is a lesson in peace. I trust you will find it.

“When you seek revenge, start by digging two graves.”
--Confucius

“It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them."
--Alfred Adler

“Those who make peaceful reform impossible will make violent
revolution inevitable."
--J. F. Kennedy

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
--Martin Luther King

“If war is ever lawful, then peace is sometimes sinful."
--C. S. Lewis

“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom."
--Soren Kierkegaard

“When you look at the long history of man, you see that more hideous
crimes have been comitted in the name of obedience than have been
comitted in the name of rebellion."
--C. P. Snow

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and
we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it."
--Michaelangelo

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most
intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."
--Charles Darwin

“Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you
come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is
people who have come alive."
--Harold Whitman

“Nothing happens unless first a dream."
--Carl Sandburg

“It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we
discover."
--Henri Poincare

“Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together
go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius."
--Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress
depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
--Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"

“My religion is simple, my religion is kindness."
--Dalai Lama

"Do you know what astonished me most in the world? The inability of
force to create anything. In the long run, the sword is always beaten by
the spirit."
--Napoleon Bonaparte

Most of these quotes are from http://www.eqed.co.uk/Quotes_for_Transformation.pdf accessed 2/2/08 (Groundhog Day!).

What are your thoughts? Post a few of them here using complete sentences.

Sociolingo’s Africa

2008-01-28T22:11:00.000-05:00

Africa’s Media: Democracy and the Politics of Belonging
By Francis B. Nyamnjoh
Review
“An exceptionally rich and thought-provoking work. Nyamnjoh gives us a vivid, well researched picture of the new African media landscape, while asking probing questions about both journalistic practice and the meaning of democracy.”–James Ferguson, Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology, Stanford University
“Nyamnjoh’s book is a worthwhile addition to the growing body of knowledge on African communication and politics. It is creatively rendered in a descriptive and critical style that combines the anthropologist’s eyes for patterned behaviour and the journalist’s nose for social criticism. The result is a delicious rendition on the complex role of communication in democracy. This should be required reading in journalism, political science, and sociology.”–Charles Okigbo, Department of Communication, North Dakota State University ‘This latest work by Professor Francis Nyamnjoh raises the level of the debate on the media and the democratization agenda in Africa to a very high level with perceptive and insightful analysis of the problematic. The work is informed, detailed, useful, and meaningful. It serves as an outstanding contribution and source for scholars, professionals and top-level decision makers in the area of media and democracy in Africa. It is a “must” text for all students of mass media and development in Africa.”–Cecil Blake, Chair, Africana Studies Department, University of Pittsburgh“Nyamnjoh’s analysis innovatively develops a new conceptual framework in assessing studies on, and the state of, African media and how people use them. His theoretical achievement is to critique African essentialism on the one hand, while developing an indigenized critical theory on the other. He speaks from Africa, about Africa, in an engagement with Western theory, assumptions and policies. This study is a breakthrough.”–Keyan G. Tomaselli, University of KwaZulu-Natal and President, South African Communication Association
Book Description
This major study explores the role of the mass media in promoting democracy and empowering civil society in Africa. The author contextualizes Africa within in the rapidly changing global media and shows how patterns of media ownership and state control have evolved and the huge difficulties under which most African media workers labor. The author also explores the whole question of media ethics and professionalism in Africa. The general analysis is supported by a detailed case study of Cameroon.
Africa’s Media: Democracy and the Politics of Belonging
By Francis B. Nyamnjoh
ISBN-10: 1842775839ISBN-13: 978-1842775837
Available from Amazon.com
This entry was posted on January 28, 2008 at 1:59 pm and is filed under AFRICA, AFRICAN COUNTRIES, AFRICAN LITERATURE, AFRICAN POLITICS, African book review, African books, African democracy, African writers, Cameroon, POLITICS. . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
from http://sociolingo.wordpress.com/2008/01/28/african-bookafricas-media-democracy-and-the-politics-of-belonging/#comment-24821 accessed 1/28/08

Media Literacy

2008-01-27T17:25:00.000-05:00

"The voracious campaign press, competing daily for new material, whips small stories into twenty-four-hour firestorms. A week later, the details fade into obscurity, replaced by some new blowup, all of them distractions for voters trying to understand the issues and decide for themselves who our next President should be."
Patrick Caldwell, former intern for the Nation Institute, reflecting on the mass media's instant but short-lived reaction to his online story that the Clinton campaign had tried to plant a question at a public event.
from http://www1.medialiteracy.com/ accessed 1/27/08

Using Social Media

2008-01-27T17:09:00.000-05:00

"If you look at nonprofits, I think the successful ones have a passionate core that want to hear what's going on, that want to see what's going on with video, that want to get regular updates, that want to comment, engage, and participate. Social media very much facilitates that in an easy and, as I said, affordable way, so it's a natural fit for what nonprofits are looking for." --Eric Mattson, co-author of Blogging for The Hearts of Donors.
Nonprofits Outpacing Business in Use of Social Media: An Interview with Eric Mattson
http://www.netsquared.org/blog/britt-bravo/nonprofits-outpacing-business-use-social-media-interview-eric-mattson accessed 1/27/08

Critical Thinking

2008-01-27T13:39:00.000-05:00

Critical thinking and common sense are more alike than they are different.

We Are The News

2008-01-25T20:07:00.000-05:00

That's right! We are the news. And now we are wanting to participate in the reporting of the news. We will contact CBS-TV and tell them our plan. We want CBS affiliates to invite residents of their broadcast areas to appear on the six o'clock news and read the regular news from the regular teleprompter. We can do this! We want to do this because we want the public to be involved in the media of our society. We want to show that TV broadcasts can be used as a public space where citizens can make a positive contribution. Post your comments here and 'sign' your name. Contact CBS at

CBS Television Network
51 West 52nd Street
New York, NY 10019
Main telephone number: 212.975.4321

CBS News
555 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019
Main telephone number: 212.975.4114

All best,
Erasmus

We Are The News

Suicide Attacks

WikiNews

To present up-to-date, relevant, newsworthy and entertaining content without bias

As We Transition

What We Call The News

We Are The News dot net

Tonight while surfing the net I found www.wearethenews.net.

Stories & Opinions provide you an insight into two fascinating regions.

Header

sidebar1 Content

Main Content

H2 level heading

Teaching Peace

Sociolingo’s Africa

Media Literacy

Using Social Media

Critical Thinking

We Are The News