Feral Beast: Bleak outlook for tycoon Conrad Black?

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Bleak outlook for tycoon Conrad Black?

This summer has been a pressing time for the erstwhile Canook press baron. Yet the New York Sun posted a paen to Conrad Black, and has pledged to run anything the disgraced tycoon might pen from inside the pen...assuming he cannot get his prison time reduced from the maximum of 35 years. The final sentencing is expected in November. After surrendering his passport, Black is not going anywhere anytime soon. Here's a link to a timeline for this high profile case, which resulted in three counts of fraud, and one obstruction of justice.
The racketeering charges were dropped, but still provoke questions.

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Feral Beast? Try Lemming

If the press were an animal, what kind of animal would it be? I’ve got my answer. A legion of lemmings, furry and well-intentioned, but ultimately condemned by their nature to follow each other mindlessly off a tall cliff, over the Paris Hilton peak or into the Invade Iraq crevasse. The words “feral beast” certainly wouldn’t come to mind. It’s not particularly accurate or particularly evocative. But that is how the departing British prime minister, Tony Blair, sees journalists: as malicious tormentors who have tried to tear him limb from limb.

--Gal Beckerman of the Columbia Journalism Review

“Journalism is a form of cartography,” write Tom Rosenstiel and Bill Kovach of Pew. “It creates a map for citizens to navigate society. Inflating events for sensation, neglecting others, stereotyping or being disproportionately negative all make a less reliable map.”

"Journalism is good at solving small problems or taking small bites of a big problem. It’s not good at solving big problems." Adapted from David Simon, creator of The Wire.

Retrospective : five decades of journalism as reported by CJR

Fake AP Stylebook reminds us: Unless you're doing a story on the Muppets, you are not a gonzo journalist.

"The once idealized information superhighway has become a parking lot of error, misinformation, rumor and junk." Poynter Institute, advocating a broader definition of who is a journalist.