PressEthic

The Five Man Electrical Band was onto something in the seventies with their number three billboard hit single, "Signs." The lyrics strike an astounding chord with todays heavily commercialized and advertised landscape across American media. The New York Times ran a story, above the fold front page, on November 14th about another proliferation - political signs.

The argument I link in this post is neither.

Our watchdog press should train itself to seek a couple new scents.

The concern of advertising's influence over editorial in newspapers has grown with the rising reliance on advertising revenue. Should the same scrutiny be paid to the influence of editorial over advertising?

The local television news network of Rwanda, Rwanda Television or TVR, will soon recieve training and support from the Japanese government.

On Monday, Editor & Publisher reported that two North Carolina newspapers have issued official apologies for supporting race riots that occurred across the state over a hundred years ago.

A quick and promising response to a journalistic inquiry.

As university leaders routinely find their policies and personalities shredded on student web pages, many are attempting a new approach and creating their own blogs. College presidents maintain blogs as a way to communicate with the college community and in an attempt to remain relevant and progressive - and some of course, just see the opportunity for a cheap marketing tool.

On November 19th, the Los Angeles Times reported that eleven large-scale thefts of free college newspapers have occurred throughout the fall. In the mini-society that college campuses reflect, these thefts show the most basic attempt to muffle the news.

According to an article that appeared in USA Today, California's State Supreme Court has upheld the 1996 federal Communications Decency Act. The court said that only original authors on blogs and Web sites can be sued for posting libelous or defamatory comments.

An article that appeared on Yahoo! News (via Reuters) states that combined revenue for newspaper and online ads, including classified ads, slid 1.5 percent. This is the first time the revenue has slipped since 2004 when the Newspaper Association of America began tracking it.

Thanks to Michael Richard's offensive and racist meltdown on a comedy club stage, Mel Gibson's drunken rant about Jews seems minor in comparison. But you couldn't tell by the media coverage.

Two of the Washington Post's top political reporters announced their plans to leave the paper for an upstart political website owned by Allbritton Communications.

The departures of John Harris, The Post’s political editor, and Jim VandeHei, a national political reporter, combined with that of David von Drehle, a longtime Post writer and editor, who announced last week he was leaving to become a national correspondent for Time, caused Jack Shafer to wonder "Are journalists leaping from the newspaper ship before it sinks?

In its first week on the air, Al Jazeera English offers news through a distinctly non-American perspective, but it also highlights "where East and West actually meet."

The day after being rigorously questioned by Nancy Grace on CNN Headline News in September, Melinda Duckett committed suicide. Now, CNN and Grace are being sued, according to an AP article, because Grace "caused emotional distress that led to the suicide."