Monday, February 23, 2015

Interesting news media websites: Retro Report, Emergent

Some say the Internet has fostered a golden age of journalism. The Internet supports a host of new media outlets, niche-subject websites and miscellaneous blogs on writing and reporting.
What follows are several websites I have yet to spotlight on Tech-media-tainment, but are worth visiting.

Retro Report

Journalists on average are good at breaking news, but not so great with following up on those stories after their initial coverage.
Retro Report does video segments on old news stories that deserve a second look.
Launched in 2013, Retro Report is a documentary news organization that provides forward-looking coverage of older news stories. The Retro Report team includes veterans of the CBS news show “60 Minutes,” the New York Times and other prestigious journalism outlets.

Emergent

Social media is rife with false news reports. The website Emergent is trying to be the Snopes.com of breaking news.
Emergent describes itself as “a real-time rumor tracker.” The website “focuses on how unverified information and rumor are reported in the media. It aims to develop best practices for debunking misinformation.”
Emergent is a research project of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University.

Couldn’t Be Reached

A blog entitled “____ couldn’t be reached” documents the many times public officials decline to make themselves available to discuss important issues.
“Whether it’s an investigative, nonprofit newsroom like us, an international outlet like the New York Times, or newer media like Politico or BuzzFeed – when journalists call, officials are choosing to comment less for stories on the record,” the website says.

Where Bloggers Blog

Where Bloggers Blog shows photos of the workspaces of notable bloggers.
My reaction: their desks are way too tidy.

Thomas Wolfe Was Wrong

Author Thomas Wolfe wrote the famous adage, “You Can’t Go Home Again.”
The blog Thomas Wolfe Was Wrong documents the many times people think they’re being clever online when they write that Wolfe was wrong, you can go home again. It’s now an annoying cliche.

BuzzFeed Articles Without the GIFs

BuzzFeed has been an enormous success with its stupid quizzes and click-bait lists. It also runs a lot of articles with animated GIFs.
The website BuzzFeed Articles Without the GIFs shows how terrible those articles are without the GIFs.

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