Tag: nytimes

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Will Okun Wins NYT/Kristof Africa Trip

will okun in union pier, miBig-time congrats to Will for penning a winning essay for the chance to join New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof (and one other winner) on an all-expenses-paid trip to Africa. Will is one of my Chi-town homies and also happens to be the best photographer you may have never heard of, unless you’ve seen his killer Players’ Ball spread for Vibe, which undoubtedly won over Kristof for good.

It wouldn’t be shocking to see Will’s photography show up, well, anywhere — but to catch his name while scrolling through my Google Reader (scanning the Times’ newsfeed) came as a total surprise.

Will’s professional qualification for winning is his status as a teacher at Chicago’s Westside Alternative High. Congrats, Willy! (Will Okun’s photos are here, his winning essay is here).

Kristof’s Win a Trip contest spawned out of a 2005 editorial in which he called out to Bill O’Reilly to accompany him on a trip to Darfur, and later asked readers to contribute and sponsor it. To nobody’s surprise, O’Reilly declined. The NYT later launched a Win a Trip With Nick Kristof contest which was won by Mizzou Journalism Master’s student Casey Parks (See her NYT blog).

Another thing I just realized is that TimesSelect is being offered free to .edu e-mails — one more thing I can take advantage of before my graduation in a couple weeks. I can finally re-subscribe to the Op-Ed podcasts! Any other tip-offs on good ol’ student discount action so I can get ’em while I can?

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Iran: NYT Reporter Beats the Drum — Again

The New York Times reporter who in 2002 co-authored several articles with Judith Miller that contended with near certainty that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is parroting propaganda once again.

Michael Gordon, whose reporting in 2002 was instrumental in the Bush administrations argument to invade Iraq, and has since been famously proven false, is back at it — this time using weak sourcing to report Iran’s involvement in supplying bombs in Iraq.

Bloggers on both the right and the left are interpreting the U.S. government’s rhetoric as straight posturing, while the top story of the day — and believe it or not, the top issue this morning on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace (where he is in the process of tearing Douglas Feith a new one) remains, ironically, the inspector general’s damning report on the Bush administration’s self-manufactured intel providing the definitive argument for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Is the Times already anxious to turn the page to Iran, days after Congressional Republicans appalled many legislators including at least 7 on the GOP, by effectively stifling a proposed debate/review on the Iraq War?

Greg Mitchell breaks down this “breaking news,” — as sourced by “civilian and military officials from a broad range of government agencies” — for Editor & Publisher:

Saturday’s New York Times features an article, posted at the top of its Web site late Friday, that suggests very strongly that Iran is supplying the “deadliest weapon aimed at American troops” in Iraq.

The New York Times is running with Gordon’s report just weeks after Gordon was castigated by the paper for stating the following on the Charlie Rose Show:

“So I think, you know, as a purely personal view, I think it’s worth it one last effort for sure to try to get this right, because my personal view is we’ve never really tried to win.

While failing to explain why we’ve been led to believe for so long that a Sunni-led insurgency is rife with IEDs (Iran is predominantly Shi’a), Gordon provides a bullhorn for Def. Sec. Robert Gates’ claim: “I Can Prove Iran’s Role in Iraq. Flip for more on Feith.

UPDATE: Dan Froomkin has further analysis on the media’s varied coverage and response to what was apparently a highly secretive and questionable display of “proof of Iranian involvement in Iraq” in his Monday column.

Continue reading “Iran: NYT Reporter Beats the Drum — Again”

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How Does the New York Times Moderate User Comments?

The Times’ site has amassed over 2,000 comments regarding the execution of Saddam Hussein in the last 36 hours. The sentiment of the majority appears to denounce the practice of execution and the rapid manner in which Hussein met his fate following a “farcical” trial. Reactions ranged from: “bin Laden is next,” to “this is a sad, sad day.”

There are a TON of comments. Most are devoid of hyperlinks (although a couple odd ones from the shady-right partisan informationclearinghouse Web site snuck into a couple) and despite an abundance of typos and poor spelling, I didn’t notice any “bad words” at first glance.

However, my interest is piqued by comment #2032:

P.M. Alessandrini:

I submitted, today at 11:20 am, a comment criticizing the fact that links to videos concerning the execution of Saddam Hussein in yesterday and today’s web edition of the New York Times are coupled with advertisements, in video and image form, for the new film about Idi Amin, “The Last King of Scotland”. Criticism of coverage and its presentation is absolutely pertinent to this issue, and should not be suppressed. Let us not forget that support among the US public of the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq was due largely to a campaign of misinformation by the Bush administration, made possible – with only too few exceptions – by cooperation from the US media. Nonetheless, after seeing my comment listed as number 1953 below the heading, “Your comment is awaiting moderation”, it has not appeared on the page of comments one hour later, despite the fact that numerous comments submitted afterwards have been posted. I therefore invite your readers to see my comments about the coverage of the New York Times in the coming days on the website of the Atlantic Free Press, to which I am a contributor, if this criticism continues to be censored from the NYT comments page.
posted on December 31st, 2006 at 12:29 pm

The commenters originally moderated comment 1953 has not since appeared. Minutes later, another commenter adds, “It seems that the NYT has decided to take side rather than just delivering news and let Americans speak their mind.”

Shortly after that, theh posting of comments appears to have been halted. As I write this (5:57pm EST) the last posted comment is from 12:40pm EST, despite a standing invitation on the NYT Home page for fresh comments.

I’m very interesting in learning about the Times’ policies regarding readers’ comments and who/what disqualifies particular content from being posted. Anyone? Calame, are you reading?

A happy, healthy new year, readers!

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NYT Online Props Cash In … New L.A. Homeless Map

“The New York Times Co. said on Tuesday that it expects its Internet-related businesses to generate about $270 million in revenue in 2006” according to Reuters

The figure accounts for all NYTco owned Internet properties, including about.com. Online revenues may grow an additional 30 percent in 2007.

I think a handful of newspapers will see some hefty returns on their online properties next year if they go with the flow. (Also, great article in the Times — “Blogs and Jazz,” lots of links!

LA’s Downtown News, the underrated weekly with the killer map of downtown as well as a new MetroMix-y what’s happenin site teamed up with Cartifact for another great downtown mashup — the L.A. Homeless Map.

BlogBurst now offers topic-based widgets for inclusion on their online newspaper partner sites. I still haven’t seen any action from the service despite being an original content provider.