Shooting War: A Photographer's Vision

Photographers can't wait for the perfect shot as war happens all around them. "When shooting pictures at a time like this, there is a split-second chance to make a frame that reflects my feelings about what I am witnessing--the craziness of the environment and the pain and danger that are ever present," Marcus Bleasdale writes in Nieman Reports from Harvard University.

Surrounded by danger -- he never knows if in the next minute he will be hit, arrested or shot -- the photojournalist seeks "to represent the reality of what is happening." Bleasdale uses both words and pictures to share that reality.

Visit his website to see more of his award-winning work, hear his podcasts and see how journalists today are using technology to communicate across platforms.

Are You Surprised?

Checking my Yahoo mail just now, I spotted a news flash on the Yahoo homepage: Dubai gets surprise $10 billion lifeline - A last-minute infusion of cash keeps the glitzy city-state from plunging deeper into crisis .. Who came to the rescue..."

Did I check to find out? You bet. Was I surprised? Hardly. How about you?

Oh, I haven't mentioned the name of the knight in shining armor. Click HERE for the AP story sent out by Yahoo! Finance

What's the word on the street (read: gossip) on your BlackBerry?

Cut-and-Paste Dubai

The National this morning takes a look at what the British media has been writing about Dubai and headlines "Cut-and-paste critics give Dubai an unwarranted pasting". In many ways, this article is a good model for your media criticism essays. Note the point of view established at the start, backed up by examples. What's missing for me are the names of the publications whose coverage is being assessed.

It makes a different what publications are being considered and in what section the articles appeared. In only one instance, at the very end, does the writer cite specifics -- a travel story in The Sun, a gossipy, celebrity-driven tabloid. How has The Financial Times reported the Dubai story? The Guardian ? The Economist? What stories have run on front pages or in business sections?

I also wondered at first glance why the writer looked only at British media when the WWW gives access to the world, including a translation service for foreign-language press. But note who is writing this article. It is not a National staff writer but "an adviser to the London-based Arab Media Watch, whose mission is "Objective British Coverage of Arab Issues." That explains why only British coverage is assessed but not why he neglects to tell the reader what publications he is discussing.

I also want to know something about the person who is making the case. What are his credentials? Goggling the writer doesn't turn up much more than he is a journalist. Nothing on Facebook or LinkedIn.

All this goggling takes time, time none of us has. With all the information choices out there today -- in print, online, on the airwaves -- it's important to be a critical consumer of the news. One way is to decide what news sources you find credible. And even then read with a critical eye. Where do you go if you want to find reports you feel you can trust?

Invasion by Minaret?

Switzerland has all of four minarets in the whole country, but 57.5% of the Swiss voters just supported a national referendum to ban construction of any more. Key is swaying opinion was a billboard poster showing a veiled woman in the foreground. Behind her is a small forest of minarets, looking like missiles, on a Swiss flag. "At least for the time being, the minaret has replaced the veil as the dominate symbol of the tense relationship between Islam and the West," writes Christopher Hawthorne, the architectural critic of the Los Angeles Times . Read what Hawthorne thinks and see the billboard poster.

Billboards are mass communication, too.

Dubai: Too Much, Too Soon?

That's what BBC television suggested this morning. Here we are with front-row seats on a financial crisis that is rocking the world, but we may have to go seeking outside sources to find out what is going on and what it all means. Reuters in a story with the combination dateline DUBAI/ABU DHABI says you wouldn't know about the crisis that is "sending a shudder through global markets" if you relied on local media. Crisis, what crisis? Debt-ladened Dubai just shrugs is the headline on an article posted on Reuters today.

Where are you following the story? What do you think are the most creditable media stories? And were those "negative" stories we read about Dubai earlier in the year unfair reporting by foreign journalists or an unbiased look at what is going on? How should local media be reporting this story of global importance?