Archive for the ‘Media issues’ Category

Questions — which declare values

Tiger, I am more prone to be inquisitive, to promote discussion. I want to find out what your thinking was. I want to find what your feelings are. … and did you learn anything? Boy! Great mission. — Tiger Woods’ father Earl Woods’ voice features in this new Nike/Tiger Woods ad April 2010. Gutsy. Fantastic [...]

ex-Reporter Helps Convict a Con Man

No, not me. I have Google alerts loaded for all my authors — the search engine automatically sends me an email message with a reference when one of them is mentioned on the internet. So for several years, among the articles, interviews, TV appearances and reviews of my authors, I’ve also been getting alerts about [...]

Shaun Stenning: Monkey or Organ Grinder?

The recent flurry of legal threats (well, threats of threats, really) from Australian Geekversity internet marketing ‘guru’ and travelling salesman Shaun Stenning and local property spruiker Dean Letfus seeking to suppress negative comment about their joint activities (and, apparently, really embarrassing photos on Facebook) has got me thinking. Judging by accounts of Shaun Stenning’s unpublicised [...]

Godwin’s law

Sometimes falsely truncated to: ‘The first person to mention Hitler in an online argument loses’, Godwin’s law actually states (well, according to, gulp, Wikipedia): As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1. I saw the misinterpretation of Godwin’s law: “first person to mention Hitler, Nazis, or [...]

Smear the messenger! (Groan)

The New York Times has been singled out as “unfair” (ahem) for its coverage of the Pope’s blame/knowledge/involvement in the cover up of serial sex abuser Father Lawrence C Murphy. Here’s how the NYTimes reports on itself … Vatican Official Defends Pope’s Handling of Case 31 March 2010 VATICAN CITY — A top Vatican official [...]

iLearningGlobal ditches MLM, bemoans lack of leaders

This is too bad. I thought this best-teachers-in-the-world-on-video model (a la Buckminster Fuller) had some real possibilities. (Thank goodness for iTunes, iTunes U, TED talks, BBC, NPR and a zillion audio & video podcasts that distribute terrific material — a great deal of it free). The MLM structure (requiring a high monthly ‘spend’ from your ‘downline’) [...]

Facebook — leaks like a sieve

Facebook Glitch Exposes Private Email Addresses Huffington Post 31-Mar-10 Just over a month after a Facebook glitch sent personal messages to the wrong users, a new Facebook flub that struck yesterday evening exposed members’ private email addresses. The bug hit at around 6:45PM ET Tuesday evening and lasted approximately 30 minutes… Continue reading at HuffPo [...]

I heart Rachel Maddow … trying to increase the cost of lying

Remember the full page ad she took out to say it wasn’t true? He’s apparently still saying it is. So, Rachel Maddow let Scott Brown have it straight … You [Senator Brown] made something up that’s not true. You have such a lack of respect for your conservative donor base around the country that you [...]

Mocking Bill O’Reilly – such a juicy target

Recently on Fox News, Mr-Exception-that-proves-the-rule Shep Smith may have been (-subtly-) taking the mickey out of Bill O’Reilly over his infamous “We’ll do it live!” meltdown… But for my money, by far the funniest spoof of O’Reilly going thermonuclear was the BarelyPolitical.com crew’s “Bill O’Reilly’s Producer (Unseen footage)” — watch: (warning: some blue language) From [...]

David Frum’s ‘Waterloo’ blog post

— that got him sacked. www.frumforum.com/waterloo Just so we can find it easily…. oh, and it’s worth reading! Telling the truth about the ‘divergent interests’ of the Republican leadership and the ‘conservative entertainment industry’ I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it [...]