Death Hung Over Mumbai

"Death hung over Mumbai on Saturday" is the one-sentence lead of a "wrap-up" story in The New York Times on my desktop this morning. Story was posted yesterday. The last few days we've seen stories reported almost minute by minute by cellphone and Blackberry, by "citizen journalists," professional journalists and the victims themselves. Those stories conveyed the horror and the chaos, but here traditional journalism -- old media, if you will, even though we are reading the story online -- helps us try to make sense of it all.

Mumbai Attacked By Sea

India's 9/11 has dominated all news channels since late Wednesday when young men in jeans and t-shirts and AK-47 assault rifles began terrorizing Mumbai. Now that the fires have been put out, the last gunmen killed or apprehended and bodies counted, the question remains: Why Mumbai? Aljazeera points out that the terrorists reached the urban peninsula by boat -- "the first time that the sea route was exploisted for access" -- and suggests that the government's total reliance on technological intelligence-gathering may be why Indian intelligence agencies didn't anticipate an attack of this size and incredible organization. It is clear that intelligence officials across the world will have to develop better coordination to battle against such attacks, says the Aljazeera report, adding that the root causes of such assaults must be addressed. What message did the gunmen deliver?

Local News

Local news in a course about international news criticism? With the Internet, nothing is local. Everything is accessible everywhere. Well, almost. Internet social networks have put a new spin on what's news and who reports it. Just consider Facebook to which some of you belong. I typed in "Abu Dhabi" to search for groups and came up with over 500 possibilities, including commercial establishments, alumni organizations and sports and music fan clubs. I stopped browsing on Screen 52 with the Abu Dhabi Mar Dragon Boat Team. No, I didn't join any groups, but I can see how useful they could be for journalists or researchers wanting to get a feel for what goes on here or looking for sources. In fact, I used Face Book earlier this fall in interviews for my conference paper on the virtual community of the Coptic diaspora.

There's a ZU-related global group on Facebook, by the way: I was in Abu Dhabi with GlobCom 2008 where memories and photos are being shared.

Mumbai

Access this article from The Wall Street Journal, one of the few "old media" companies that has a model for making money online. You have to be a paid subscriber to read online. As a subscriber, I can email stories to people for only a brief period of access. Looks as though I can share with you WSJ. Are you surprised that India has the largest Muslim population after Indonesia and Pakistan? Good background in this piece and an opportunity for you to see how yet another news organization covers international news. This story has all sorts of local ramifications. Which ones come to your mind?

Why Where Matters, Part II

The Somalian pirate story we have been following all semester gets more global each day. Yet at the same time closer to home. A Reuters news analysis in the IHT yesterday says the surge in piracy raises concern about terrorism in the sea lanes, which are even more vulnerable than air transport. Terrorists could raise money by holding ships for ransom or turn one into a floating bomb to send into a port just like in the pirate movies. "And an attack aimed at shutting down a major port like Singapore or disrupting a key shipping lane like the Strait of Hormuz, though which as much as 40 percent of the world's traded oil passes, could do real economic damage," the writer suggests. I suspect you know where the Strait of Hormuz is. Not so sure the same could be said of your peers in the U.S. In reading international news, you don't have to have an atlas at hand, but do goggle to brush up on your geography to understand the significance of what's happening.

Reinventing The Guardian

Mark Potter, Guardian Creative Director,on newspaper and website redesigns

Readers Have Their Say

This week we're exploring the Guardian website, which underwent a massive redesign in February, generating plenty of discussion among designers -- and readers. When Emily Bell, director of digital content for Guardian News and Media, blogged news of the transformation, 362 readers zapped back just what they thought. One reader raised the issue of navigability vrs eye-catching design. In a print edition, readers "navigate" by turning pages. Not so simple on the web. So how do we go directly to the football news was the first comment, which generated an extensive exchange among readers and Ms Bell. Overall, the comments were positive, but there's always someone who likes it the old way. Grumbled one reader: "Why on earth does the Guardian do this every now & then? We just get use to the site & then--out of the blue -- it is changed causing much chaos." How easy do you find navigating the site?

Hassan Fattah Talks to Columbia J-school Students

Hear what Hassan Fattah, former New York Times Middle East correspondent and now deputy editor of The National, had to say to students at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City. Hassan Fattah and I received master's degrees from the school. The international news criticism class will be at The National today.

Indian Navy 2; Pirates O

This just in (63 minutes ago) on the NYTimes website: Indian Navy Sinks Pirate Ships. One of my friends Mark McDonald is credited with reporting from Hong Kong where he works as an editor for the IHT, so I will email him to see how he is covering the story from there and report back. I don't know how fast other news organizations are posting on this story, but you might check that on on your RSS feeds. Note that it isn't the UN, NATO, the US or French commandos reacting. It's India with a financial rather than geopolitical stake. Is this exciting or what?

Why Where Matters

News doesn't just happen out there somewhere. It happens somewhere on this globe of ours. In our increasingly interconnected world, where it happens makes a difference to how it will affect us right here in Abu Dhabi. When I called your attention in class early this semester to the pirates off the Somalian coast, the story seemed far distant. With the seizure of the Saudi oil tanker this week -- the world's biggest ship hijacking, according to the Gulf News-- the story just got closer. And any Louis Vuitton fans among my dear readers may find the price of their next handbag going up if cargo ships start avoiding the Suez Canal and going by way of the Cape of Good Hope. Read today's front page story headlined "Pirates spark global alarm" in both online and print editions. Check out the print edition to see the excellent use of a locator map and ship diagram on p. 14. The story is now important regionally as well as internationally.

Video: RSS in Plain English

First Italian Type

Just when I was thinking about posting an "on vacation" sign here until after Tuesday's mid-term, I bumped into a blog that reminded me of the Gutenberg Revolution in communication. The German didn't "invent" the printing press or ink or printing on paper or even movable type, which had already been used in China and Korea. His genius was in putting it all together into a system that worked. A goldsmith, he figured out how to cast little letters out of metal (a combination of lead, tin and antimony still used today) and then move them around in a type tray to form words, reusing them after each print job.

That was only the beginning of the revolution. Printers in Venice, Italy, soon established a vibrant and -- for the times--international center of book production. As discussed in class, a fellow named Aldus came up with the idea of making smaller books and a new "typeface," lighter and thinner than the bold and heavy "roman" then in use. It allowed him to get more words on the page and make books small enough to carry around and read anywhere.

The blog I just discovered is called I Love Typography . As I nosed around the blog, I found an old posting about the history of type terminology, which included this little notation about the first Italic type:

And, as we're on the topic of dramatic changes, during this period we see the very first italic type in 1501. They were first created, not as an accompaniment to the roman but as a standalone typeface designed for small format or pocket books where space demanded a more condense type

We thank you Aldus Pius Manutius and so do book publishers everywhere.

Where in the world.....

Now that the U.S. Presidential Election, with all of its global implications, is out of the way, where is the focus of international news going to move? The economic crisis is still with us, but that's a much tougher story to convey because it has more numbers than narratives. As you surf sites for international news, see how the media is telling the economic story in ways to connect with readers/viewers around the world. Let us know if you find anything that helps you make sense of it all.

Back to "Desperate Housewives" re-runs?

Compelling narratives are what pull readers and viewers into any news story, international and nation. As The Wall Street Journal points out in an online item just in, the U.S. Presidential Election created "election junkies" because it offered so many great stories. So here's a perfect example of the Libertarian Press System at work: a press free from government controls offering content that helps find truth, inform, interpret -- and entertain.

Excerpt from Journal article:

The end of the most-followed presidential campaign in recent years will leave many Americans feeling lost, even if their candidate won. The 2008 race provided drama and suspense to a nation hooked on reality television, mystery novels and Hollywood epics.

Arin N. Reeves, a Chicago-based diversity consultant, says she lost hours of sleep to late-night cravings for new campaign developments. For her, the vice-presidential picks were among the many suspenseful episodes -- with the emergence of Gov. Sarah Palin deliciously surprising. "Week after week after week the story just kept getting better," she says.

Seldom in American history has a presidential campaign offered such compelling narratives: The rise and fall of former first lady Sen. Hillary Clinton. The come-from-behind primary performance of war-hero Sen. John McCain. The emergence of Barack Obama, the biracial Harvard Law star raised by a single mother. The moose-slaying Sarah Palin, who proudly embraced her unwed pregnant teenager. The father, Sen. Joe Biden, who raised his young sons alone following the death of his wife and daughter in a car accident.

On the morning after the election, however, it's as if "The Sopranos," "American Idol" and "Desperate Housewives" all ended on the same night.

"Flooded With News...No Information"

That's what Columbia Journalism Review says is going on in coverage of battles between Pakistan's army and tribal insurgents in that wild, wild west of northwestern Pakistan.

...we are flooded with news but get no information. When all that's on hand are official sources, and when those sources are notoriously unreliable, it's hard to know what to believe. It doesn't mean these things didn't happen, just that we can't be sure they happened the way the government describes it, writes Joshua Foust, a defense consultant and a blogger on Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Don't believe everything you read if the only sources are "senior government officials," he cautions. What's needed in balanced reporting by journalists independently confirming casualty reports without becoming casualties themselves. In such a violent part of the world, verifiable stories are hard to come by.

Columbia Journalism Review, established at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1961, considers itself "both a watchdog and a friend of the press in all its forms" with the mission "to encourage and stimulate excellence in journalism in the service of a free society."

Economist endorses a Socialist?

I came across this blog item when adding RSS feeds to my Google Reader (more on this in a subsequent post). Given the high global interest in Tuesday's election, I wanted to share how a blogger for The Nation, America's oldest weekly and self-described "flagship of the left and now most widely journal of opinion," reacted to the Obama endorsement by the British weekly he calls "the journal of monied elites." Whether left or right, both The Nation and The Economist are well-respected magazines (and websites!) among readers who want an inside track to what's going on in the world.

D planet needz u

When I logged on to my Yahoo account this morning, I found a message from the Sierra Club, an international environmental non-profit, inviting me to go to txtoutthevote.com to have free text messages sent to friends, reminding them to vote Tuesday in the U.S. presidential election.

New research shows that texting is a particularly good way of reaching the young. Image how "txting" could be used in international campaigns for causes or products. Of course it doesn't do much for the English language.