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What's the Best Online News Story You've Read Lately?
I'm asking you and your fellow Slashdot readers, "What's the best online news story you've read lately?" because last year I stood up during the awards ceremony and said I felt the entry fee was way too high (the Pulitzer Prize entry fee is only $50), especially for volunteer and non-profit news sites, many of which do excellent journalism even though they don't have the resources of an MSNBC, ABC News or major newspaper chain behind them.
Since I believe in putting my money where my mouth is, I offered to pay the entry fee next year for five deserving stories published by sites that couldn't otherwise afford to enter. Now it's "next year," and I'm keeping my promise. I would like to make sure the entries I sponsor (the money is coming out of my own pocket) have at least a fighting chance of winning, which means they need to be among the very best published anywhere, not just the best ones I've run across myself. Many eyeballs can make a big difference here.
Please take a look at the contest rules before you start posting your favorites to make sure they qualify, and in which category they should be entered.
I'll select the five entries I sponsor based on your comments, and next week I'll update this post with the titles and URLs of the chosen ones.
Declaration that this is the funniest thing the poster has read in a long time.
Misguided/failed attempt to construct this comment in similar style.
Florida State Presidential Election Rigging by Bush Jr. And Sr. through common CIA and Intelligence community tricks. Note the close similarity to of events to Coup d'etat, a HOWTO book written from the perspective of the American Intelligence community. I note that Bush Sr.was the former Director of Intelligence during the Carter administration, and has detailed experience with overthrowing many governments while managing the CIA. --Maynard
Perhaps an independent outlet could be seen as non-threatening, and preferred over a better site on a rival conglomerate. Something like giving the Congo to the King of Belgium instead of any of the big powers.
For a moment, I thought of Jon Katz being in the judge board. Brrr.
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Yeah, what he said!
:)
(Wrote the author of said story.
-Waldo
You might want to consider submitting something from Suck. If they have something that'd fit, it would be a nice tribute to a dead site.
Moderation of "-1, troll" applied because of hatred of comment authors supposed politics.
Best Slashdot Co
They say it was a server problem at VA Linux, I think it was a LoI attack, myself.
Best Slashdot Co
I think most of the articles at Salon.com are very well-written and worthy of some sort of an award. They tend to look at all sides of the issue and bring up interesting points. I especially like Salon's series of articles about clear channel.
It's not pulitzer prize winning writing or anything like that, but I really enjoyed the report Slashdot ran under the headline DirecTV's Secret War On Hackers . I strongly feel that the "best online news story" needn't -- indeed, shouldn't -- be a tech story (there's lots of other stuff out there), but within the genre of tech writing, I thought this was really well done, with a compelling narrative and a description of events that was both easy for the lay person to grasp & accurate enough to keep most of the tech savvy readers happy. It gets my vote.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Grant Gross' Newsforge article detailing LinuxOne's tangled web was a great read and showed some impressive investigative journalism.
They call me the working man. I guess that's what I am.
http://www.guerillanews.com/cocakarma/
A very lengthy and detailed account of a currently pending case in the US 7th Circuit Federal Court system. It chronicles the case of one Bob Kolody as he fights Coca-Cola over some marketing intellectual property.
By the end of the article, we've seen armed US Marshals bursting into courtrooms, a judge's connection to the Chicago mafia, complicity in frauds on the Federal Courts and on the Copyright Office, and the whole fate of the case resting on a little-known angle on how the US Supreme Court works.
A definite must-read for the slashdot-type crowd.
There is a LOT that could be improved in this story. Specific references to court papers are made, but not enough detail is really presented to make it entirely convincing. It needs more footnotes, more links, more actual testimony, more data to go with this narrative. As it stands, it is just a very interesting outline for a John Grisham novel, made especially for conspiracy theorists. But if it's more than a quarter true, it's quite a worthy feat of "not scared of the big boys" journalism.
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A very lengthy and detailed account of a currently pending case in the US 7th Circuit Federal Court system. It chronicles the case of one Bob Kolody as he fights Coca-Cola over some marketing intellectual property.
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http://cbc.ca/news/indepth/hackers/
This was originally a story broadcast on the CBC on Dec. 6, 2000.
Very, very well done and pretty accurate (for the time). All in all, I was incredibly impressed, this is the first (and only) piece of mainstream journalism that "Get's It" with respect to computers and network security.
Good read (for the most part). Check it out.
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M
mod this man up! This is an *amazing* story
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
http://www.fair.org
- tokengeekgrrl
I can't pick just one story from fray so I'm going to say the entire Criminal section as a packge.
- tokengeekgrrl
I'm not absolutely sure that it's eligible, but Charles Taylor's recent article on Salon.com entitled "The Morality Police" is definitely the best piece of online journalism that I have ever read.
Salon is unique in that it's authors have differing opinions: they don't all fit into their editor's socio-political mindset. I write for my University's newspaper and one thing that I notice every time that I attend a press conference is that most media employees are simply toeing the company line, not really expressing themselves as journalists. How sad.
The thing about Taylor's article is that it is insightful and it is not afraid of questioning norms and "established" values in order to get his point across. He even goes so far as to directly contradict another Salon.com article, a move that would be unprecedented in today's news media.
So cast my vote for "The Morality Police".
--windside
...Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Churchill
My favorite was his article last year about "KDE is dead, GNOME has won". This article truly showcases Christian's talent and intelligence.
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
They have their own list of popular articles, and .company craziness, but just from the homepage comes these gems: SETI@home, house bonds, web profanity, Dell says, communists!, corporate power, and from their archives: capitalism!, Jakob Nielsen, more onion than the onion, famous cubist site, Nader, USentric... Jezus, I'm gonna stop adding links now, otherwise this post could be a copyright violation of their archives page.
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mrBlond (I don't email from Malaysia)
CowboyNeal for president!
"Hit any user to continue."
well come on, what about the reports "voices from the hellmouth" those could win any sappy journalistic award, especially an online journalism. I hate for /. to plug /., but we must. "Voices From the Hellmouth" was a real heartfelt story and should be put up as some of the best user community and Jon Katz writing, members put forth their memories and current experiences of violence, while Katz relegated it all.
"Sorry, but I don't there's anything charming about ignorance and carelessness." -LordNimon
Simson Garfinkel: Hard feelings meet hard logic
Foley's, Idiots, and Thoughts on Capitalism
Both from Goose24.org, an independant random article, free software, goose loving site.
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As a general site, I recommend Netslaves. They have a large number of articles by a number of talented writers, and so it is hard to recommend just one.
There is The Last Time I Ate Neuchatel By Heedless Housman; and many other similar observational pieces.
But the one I actually recommend is the "How To read a 10q" series of articles kicking apart the hard core financials of places like Juno, Salon, Razorfish, Yahoo, and many others. The explanation The Media, Money, and You by Steve Gilliard also should be included with it, as it explains what the series is about. The whole package is really worth looking at.
There is a menu box on the right side devoted just to this series, complete with the intro, etc. Definitely worth putting in for something.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Just published today in fact, a nice little piece about Cal Ripkin, Jr.
"Cal Ripken eats his vegetables"
Face it, people are stupid, and the internet is the place where they all meet.
Agreed. Very impressive story. And as best I can tell, they got the stroy out to enough people that the bigger sites started noticing, and things got changed. Not only impressive reporting, but reporting that made a difference. That seems to be getting rarer in a world where most reporting takes the tone of "this thing happened, and though it's important and impacts you directly, there's nothing that can be done," and, IMNSHO, ought to be rewarded.
K5
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Is that all there is? The only site that can challenge the Times, the New Republic, CNN, the WSJ and other primarily off-line sources is The Register!?! I've always thought of it as one step before Segfault.org. Kind of sad...
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
This is news in progress, but its the most disturbing piece I've read the last years. It's a long piece about a man suing coca-cola, and how far Coca-Cola is willing to go in a copyright-case. It's all here: CIA, corrupt judges, and missing documents; and it isn't even cranky.
http://www.guerrillanews.com/cocakarma
This is a site dealing with DirecTV hacking. Some of the stories are lame. But others are quite compelling?
Why? It documents the back-and-forth battle between DirecTV and hackers. Live. And it consistantly gives a very thorough and understandable explanation of what is going on. A good example is this story:
We're Ready -- 06/13/01.
Scroll around and ready some of the stuff, and some of the archives. There is some good material in there. Even if the site isn't quite 'above board'.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Goes to show you who's a moron...here this is again but after previewing and fixing:
See here:
Search on The Register for "CPRM"
Stealth plan puts copy protection into every hard drive
Copy protection hard drive plan nixes free software - RMS
Everything you ever wanted to know about CPRM, but ZDNet wouldn't tell you...
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Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
I feel this investigative piece is worth at least a read, perhaps even a chuckle...
. html
http://www.theonion.com/onion3722/surgeon_general
Oh wait, you mean stuff that's true?
one of my favorite articles was on kuro5hin.org, it was the death of a false warrior. check it out. it was about an online journal of a "cancer patient" that got extremely popular and turned out to just be a hoax. actually, a few weeks after i read this article, i read a similar one in the nytimes.
I don't have the time to go into details, but this was a horribly biased article. If you want to see why, read the comments when this story was posted on kuro5hin here. I certainly hope that Roblimo doesn't waste his money getting that story submitted. Shoeboy's story has a much better chance of getting anywhere.
It'd never win, but the Filthy Critic, while being obscene, vulgar, and pedantic, has always impressed me with some surprisingly intelligent commentary, and always remains true to form.
Beware typoes.
is this Confusingly Titled Meta Story
Appraisal of story, plus cogent quotes.
Criticism of other similar stories contrasted with why this particular one shines.
BOSTON SUCKS!
I think my favorite was by Asia Carrera (yes the pr0nstar) where she rambled on about her new athlon system running linux she built www.asiacarrera.com maybe it was the pictures that gain my bias though.
Rogers Cadenhead (Web: http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench)
While I'm happy Slashdot supports the little guy, I personally don't have any problem rooting for Salon again, especially considering their financial state. Their coverage IMHO is as in-depth as any of the best traditional media sources like the NYTimes, but they consistently ask questions and tackle topics that most papers & tv won't touch. They also follow up on stories that the majors report that turn out to be completely bogus (like the whole Clinton staff trashes White House offices on departure bit).
Full disclosure: I am a lawyer. I have also clerked for a federal judge (on the East Coast, not in Chicago).
The first half of the article was interesting, and, although I have not looked into the details of copyright law or the specifics of the case, it appears at first blush that Mr. Whatzizname might have a valid claim against Coke.
However, the second half of the article is little more than ill-informed, paranoid conjecture about the judge buying her seat on the federal bench, selective case assignments, the use of court security to intimidate people, a conspiracy by the 7th Circuit to squelch the "crusading lawyer," etc. Speaking as a lawyer, much, if not all, of these provacative events described in the second half of the article are all consistent with the normal and appropriate functioning of the federal court system.
I will be the first to admit that, unfortunately, legal proceedings often seem inscrutable to the layperson. However, laypeople should not be in such a hurry to ascribe sinister motives to every legal ruling or procedure that they do not understand. It's a pity that the "journalist" writing this article decided to rely primarily on the guidance of a "court reformer" and "electronic journalist" who obviously has an ax to grind against the judiciary, and is prone to making wild assertions of extravagant criminal conspiracies involving judges, the CIA, etc. etc., and then citing the absence of evidence supporting his assertions as proof of the effectiveness of the same conspiracies. I've got news for the author of the story: while my court might not have tossed the plaintiff's lawsuit against Coke as abruptly (maybe-- it's hard to say without seeing the papers), from the decsriptions in the article, it would have responded exactly as the trial judge did on all the subsequent proceedings. Does that mean that my court is in line with the CIA and Coke and the rest of the black helicopter brigade, too?
But to keep this on-topic, an online news story worth giving an award would try much harder to present a well-researched and balanced story, without resorting to the one-sided sensationalism that this one does. A real reporter would not only not adopt Mr. Skolnick's assertions that Judge Manning paid a million dollars for her seat on the bench, but would not even mention such an extraordinary claim without first attempting to verify through sources other than Mr. Skolnick. Any news story could be turned into an attention-grabber like this one by making vague innuendoes, failing to provide evidence to support the most outrageous claims, and mischaracterizing the consequences of particular acts, all of which this reporter repeatedly does. Keep in mind the addage that "extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof" while you re-read parts 6-10 of that article.
These awards are for excellence in online journalism, not yellow journalism.
For Feature Journalism, GRC's report on DoS attacks and zombie bots. Any news article that contains the phrase "Attack-Neutered Mutant Zombies" definitely deserves some sort of award :P
While I appluad Rob's efforts, he still faces an uphill battle to get smaller news sites the recognition they deserve. The biggest roadblock is not the large fee, but rather the judges and screeners. The Judges from last year:
Six of the the judges are from large media outlets. This large media bias becomes more pronounced when you look at the list of screeners. These are the folks who select the web sites for consideration by the judges. ABC News, AOL-Time-Warner, Knigh-Ridder, NBC and Microsoft owned media appear to have the largest reresentation. In addition, there are the other big media usual suspects: Fox, Bloomberg, NY Times, LA Times, CBS, Hearst, etc. You get the idea.
Given big media's open hostility to on-line and independent journalism, why should we expect this collection of judges and screeners to be receptive to news sources that raise questions about the relevance and supremecy of the media conglomerates?
The welfare of the people has always been the alibi of tyrants. - Albert Camus
On the cutting edge alternative news site, Geekizoid, by the charming Shoeboy.
Parts of it were posted in Troll Talk, originally.
For the category of "Enterprise Journalism," I would say that the most important story broken last year was the Register's CPRM story (from a geek perspective, anyways). Catching media companies in the act of trying to destroy open computer standards through the backdoor was pretty impressive, and I doubt you'd find reporters from MSNBC digging around in T13 conference minutes for the dirt.
:)
That's my two cents. Feel free to disagree
This
If it hasn't been said yet, Coke Karma (http://www.guerrillanews.com/cocakarma/) wasn't too bad. Long, though.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"