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Media
January 25, 2006
Henry Wade Rolled Over in His Grave
Gelf previously has taken issue with Metro, one of New York's free daily newspapers aimed at commuters. But it was Metro's generally superior rival, amNewYork, that ran a front-page headline Tuesday on par with the New York Post's Kerry/Gephardt ticket (Smoking Gun). Quoth amNewYork: "The prez vows fed abortion ban will be overturned—many New Yorkers disagree."
Media
January 24, 2006
So Long, Plagiarists
Among the highlights of this week's edition of Oops, Gelf's quasi-weekly round-up of media corrections: Holocaust numbers; that 'Friends' apartment; and two longtime journalists get fired, prompting questions about overreaching from the plagiarism police. Here's one of our favorite corrections this week:
Media
January 22, 2006
Sex Cells
Pherotones are the controversial brainchild of Myra Vanderhood, an iconoclastic intimacy researcher whose findings have alienated her from mainstream science. If you hear a phone ring with one of these sounds, you will be under the influence of a love potion. That's the story at pherotones.com; but maybe it's all just a stealth marketing campaign by McKinney Silver, as several commenters at Makezine.com have argued. At the suggestion of a spokeswoman for Durham, North Carolina-based McKinney Silver, Gelf instant-messaged with Dr. Vanderhood. We'll leave it to you to decide whether you should soon put on earmuffs when within earshot of cellphones, or instead install a bullshit-detector when surfing new websites.
Media
January 22, 2006
Scare Quotes
In this week's edition of Blurb Racket—the Gelf feature in which we take a close look at those critic blurbs that are a fixture of ads for movies—see breakdowns of blurbs for The White Countess, The Ringer, The Producers, and more. This week's winner of the Bogus Blurb of the Week award comes in an ad for Hostel:
Media
January 10, 2006
Of Farris and Ferris
As every good journalist knows, three's a trend. This helps explain why the New York Times's Week in Review article about Farris Hassan, the 16-year old student who traveled to Iraq, also mentions two other male teenage risk-takers from years past as it attempts to weave a narrative that links adolescent derring-do stunts to… well, it's unclear.
Media
January 9, 2006
The Mother of All Baby Names
In this week's edition of Zooming In, Gelf's quasi-weekly round-up of undercovered local stories from around the world: Very hungry eagles; an ad of questionable taste; and an ironic citizen-journalism blurb. One of our favorite stories this week concerns the Czechs' official baby-name minder.
Media
January 9, 2006
President or Substitute?
Recently, ESPN.com has started using linking software that hyperlinks the names of athletes that appear in articles to their player pages on the site. Thus, when a columnist like Pat Forde writes about Villanova basketball star Randy Foye, readers can click on Foye's name and find out his latest stats. It's a useful tool, but it has its flaws.
Media
January 5, 2006
Sources Strike Back
What happens when a source is unhappy about the way he has been represented in an article? The uncreative sort will bitch and moan and ask for a correction, maybe even threaten to sue. (Such as some Scientologists.) Perhaps he will write a scathing letter to the editor or try to get favorable coverage in rival media outlets. Boring. A modern and enterprising injured party blogs about the injustice, and publishes a copy of the interviews and emails with the journalist, along with commentary on what a douche the writer is.
Media
December 20, 2005
The GWOT Guru
When journalists are not too busy interviewing spinmasters and party hacks on both sides of the issue at hand in an effort to bring a false sense of neutrality to their articles, they often turn to a specialized type of source to lend a sense of authority to even the silliest of pieces. That source is the trend watcher, a man whose omniscience in his niche compels reporters to seek him out to comment on any news tangentially related to his expertise.
Media
November 29, 2005
On War and Dinner
The December issue of Rolling Stone includes a fascinating story about the PR firm hired by the Bush administration to spread pro-war propaganda in the media. The article names names behind the deception that led to a war that has cost tens of thousands of lives, so it's no surprise that spin-master John Rendon, the article's subject, takes umbrage with the way he is presented in the magazine. More surprising, though, is that a lot of the dissent about the article revolves around lamb chops.
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