Slashdot Mirror
Developing the Future of Investigative Journalism Online
meckdevil writes "If you're a cutting-edge geek with an interest in investigative journalism, there's a great job opening at the badly named Reporter's Lab, a project supported by Duke University's DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy. Headed up by former Washington Post editor and reporter Sarah Cohen, the Reporter's Lab is Duke's effort to extend what is known as 'computational journalism' into the realm of investigative reporting and thereby make investigative reporters more efficient and effective."
That will require the ability to make anonymous untraceable submissions, since the government spends most of its energy prosecuting and vilifying whistle blowers these days.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Seek help.
Today's bloggers do not have to worry about such things as "journalism", "investigative reporting", "grammar", or "objectivity". Look at a typical posting on Engadget or Gawker to see each of these points burned to the ground. Today's bloggers just need to read a brief summary from a real news source (like the NYTimes), form some type of inner rage or indignation, and write out a few snarky comments with a link to the source. This is what today's 20-something audience demands. Who needs "facts" or "reasoning" when a quick, witty blogpost is all that's desired?
Duke University isn't that the school that believes in guilty until proven innocent?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
And that goes the same for many of the news media outlets the bloggers get their info-rage from. Take a look at a NYT article from today and compare it to something 60 years ago...then compare it to the average blogger vent. Its the same for many newspapers as the editing team is handpicked by the owning group. The Austin American Statesman suffers from this as well as an inability to report without prejudice. The news is polarized these days and you have to really pick through it to get to the truth...its almost not worth the effort.
So, in other words, at the rate we're going investigative journalism is going to look much like Trade chat in World of Warcraft? That's hardly news...
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
So bloggers are just like any other news outlet then?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
FYI: it was the inability of Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame to publish their documentary evidence that the Bush administration had started the Iraq war under false pretenses that instantiated Wikileaks. They had documents proving that Bush lied, on national television, about Saddam Hussein trying to build nuclear weapons. This was a stated reason for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. No "journalist" worldwide was willing and able to publish their explosive documents.
People who had already considered building something like Wikileaks were galvanized into action. They began the Wikileaks project in November of 2003. There was a lot to do, so it took several years before Julian registered the domain. At first they didn't even have a name for it.
This author agrees with you that starting wars under false pretenses is worse than persecuting whistle blowers. What you did not know, before reading this, is that the war under false pretenses, and the inability of the media to honestly report on it, was the reason for the founding of Wikileaks.
This statement its not hearsay or supposition. I was there while it happened, and was very much caught up in the process. In early 2004 Valerie Plame stayed at my house and met with a Wikileaks Architect. This is a first person account from a long time slashdot reader and contributor.
An editor pwned by Corporate America's owner/operators.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
...it' s just a rather convoluted way to promote voyeurtools.
Mostly harmless.