Hillary Clinton’s Foray Into Social Media

By turning to the public personally via Yahoo! Answers, Hillary Clinton exemplifies how emerging applications of new media can help to foster and strengthen participatory democracy.

Check out Clinton’s question and the tens of thousands (and counting) of user-submitted answers: “Based on your own family’s experience, what do you think we should do to improve health care in America?

Read SearchEngineJournal’s blog post about this.

Lara Logan’s Plea From Baghdad

laralogan.jpgCBS News’ Baghdad Correspondent Lara Logan recently sent out an e-mail pleading for friends and colleagues to push CBS to air her “Battle of Haifa Street” report on any of their news programs. They have thus far agreed only to post the video on their Web site. Watch it here and you’ll see why they’re hesitant to broadcast it. The 2-minute clip closes with a soundbyte of an Iraqi citizens’ experience with American troops that may be just too balanced and accurate for today’s U.S. media: “They told us they would bring democracy, they promised life would be better than it was under Saddam. But they brought us nothing but death and killing. They brought mass destruction to Baghdad.” The text of Logan’s e-mail is below:

From: lara logan
Subject: help

The story below only appeared on our CBS website and was not aired on CBS. It is a story that is largely being ignored, even though this istakingplace verysingle day in central Baghdad, two blocks from where our office is located.

Our crew had to be pulled out because we got a call saying they were about to be killed, and on their way out, a civilian man was shot dead in front of them as they ran.

I would be very grateful if any of you have a chance to watch this story and pass the link on to as many people you know as possible. It should be seen. And people should know about this.

If anyone has time to send a comment to CBS – about the story – not about my request, then that would help highlight that people are interested and this is not too gruesome to air, but rather too important to ignore.

Many, many thanks.

Ira Glass: ‘Public Television is Terrible’

Public Radio all star Ira Glass is bringing “This American Life” to the boob tube. Showtime approached him, he accepted, and he told the TV critics why he’d never be on PBS (save for Frontline):

“Public television is terrible. This isn’t the greatest thing for me to say, but it’s the truth. In terms of innovation and what they do, you know, it’s just not that interesting most of the time…. In fact, the stations are more beholden to corporate interest than commercial TV.”

Thanks, Karen!

The L.A. Times’ Iraq Coverage

Lately it seems that the LA Times‘ A Section has at least one Iraq-related article on nearly every page. While the rest of the media world speculates on the fate of the TribCo and the designs the Times‘ potential suitors may have in mind, is the paper covering Iraq better than anyone else?

The general trend of newspapers focused on cost-cutting and boosting readership is to expand local coverage. But as recently as last month, the Times foreign desk has been looking to add more reporters to its Baghdad Bureau (LAO).

One definite advantage is printing in the Pacific Time Zone. When it’s midnight in LA, it’s 11am in Baghdad, so while East Coast papers have already hit the streets, the Times has the opportunity to print Monday’s early morning news from Iraq in the Monday paper. Case in point: The Times seemed to be the only major paper to sneak a report of last week’s early-morning execution of two Hussein aides into its morning edition.

The global press appears to be infatuated with the wordy and fairly balanced analyses of The New York Times‘ man in Baghdad, John F. Burns. But one man can’t possibly provide for a broad understanding of how the situation on the ground relates to the disingenuous and spin-wrought policy statements out of D.C. and Baghdad. Hence, this shout-out to Baghdad Bureau Chief Borzou Daragahi, Louise Roug, Julian E. Barnes, Peter Spiegel, Megan K. Stack, Solomon Moore, and Molly Hennessy-Fiske for bringing the truth to our doorsteps.

Ex-CNN News chief Eason Jordan lays out a typical day of LAT Iraq coverage here. Check for yourself online at http://latimes.com/iraq.

originally posted at LAist