Last week or the week before, I did one of my stories for WMUA on the ultimatum issued by David Cameron to the newspapers of Britain with regards to self-regulation.

Some years ago, the News Corps owned News of the World publication was under investigation for hacking the phones of (according to Wikipedia) first, “celebrities, politicians and members of the British Royal Family” and then later, “murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, relatives of deceased British soldiers, and victims of the 7/7 London bombings.” This, as one might imagine, did not go well for News of the World (which shut down due to all its advertisers taking their business elsewhere). However, it also caused Cameron to commission a report, forming a special committee, headed by Lord Justice Leveson, to look into not only the News of the World scandal, but also the wider culture and practices of UK newspapers. Continue reading →

The quest for better, more ethical journalism at WMUA continues, but that’s a post for another time.

This is a “thing n°11 I learned about journalism” that I can’t really justify putting on the midterm: it’s damn hard work. Continue reading →

I’m still feeling proud of myself. Wednesday, at 5:30pm on WMUA, I read two stories that I had done some more significant research for. They weren’t proper reporting: I didn’t get any interviews, I didn’t find the lead and hunt it down. But I drew from multiple sources, and came to some good conclusions. I did some things that the places I first encountered the ideas didn’t do (not particularly complex additions, but that’s alright).
The first story was one about what the possible effects of climate change may have been on the creation of Hurricane Sandy. [Pro tip: don’t try and understand all of meteorology in an afternoon. It will not go well.] Continue reading →

It turns out that I joined the WMUA news team just as big changes were beginning to get put in place. It just so happens that up until this year, the news you may have heard on WMUA was the journalistic equivalent of a chop shop. The stories were put together from bits and pieces of the New York Times, the Gazette, al-Jazeera… The attributions were fishy, and the licensing non-existent. It was, in short, Very Bad Journalistic Practice. Continue reading →