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Twitter has been criticized as a time-waster -- a way for people to inform their friends about the minutiae of their lives, 140 characters at a time. But in the past month, 140 characters were enough to shine a light on Iranian oppression and elevate Twitter to the level of change agent. Even the government of Iran has been forced to utilize the very tool they attempted to squelch to try to hold on to power.

Chris Matthews used a gotcha question about evolution to ambush a GOPer off his game yesterday, and gloated about it today. Now here's a way conservative reporters can get prominent Dem. leaders and other liberals to cross a line, hem and haw, or look stupid: "Sir or Madam, are you an ape? Are you a great ape? Answer this question directly, yes or no."

Battered by a one-two punch of declining readership and ad pages, Newsweek magazine is getting an extreme makeover this year that will include a large circulation reduction, deep cuts in operating costs, and a new effort to attract advertisers by concentrating on an elite audience. According to The New York Times, executives at Newsweek say the retooled magazine will focus on being a "thought leader" that focuses on telling readers how to think about news, rather than telling people what happened in the last week. The plan, similar to the editorial outlook espoused by The Economist magazine, is aimed at...

There was a big development in science this year, yet most people missed it. It wasn't induced pluripotent stem cells or global warming or Barack Obama securing 99% of the scientist vote despite his belief that vaccines cause autism, which caused even heterosexual scientists to disregard Jenny McCarthy. No, it was an alarming decrease in available clichés to describe what scientists think about new discoveries.

Health journalists are getting scolded by one of their own. Susan Dentzer, a correspondent for PBS' The NewsHour, argues in a commentary in today's New England Journal of Medicine that medical reporters too often get the facts wrong, fail to provide context about new research, and hype treatments that don’t deserve the coverage.

Poll: McCain has slight lead in Ohio over Obama By The Associated Press – 1 hour ago THE POLL: The Ohio Newspaper Poll, presidential race, likely Ohio voters (20 electoral votes). THE NUMBERS: John McCain 48 percent, Barack Obama 42 percent. OF INTEREST: Almost half of Ohio voters, or 47 percent, say they are worse off than four years ago. About one-third, 34 percent, said they were the same, while 19 percent said they were better off. The candidates have lined up support within their own party, with 85 percent of Republicans saying they would vote for McCain and 81...

First person: Embedded with Iraqi army, where saluting is optional

I hate to pick on a fellow journalist, but if I were Jeannine Aversa of the Associated Press, I would be embarrassed. Ms. Aversa covers economic issues for the AP, and I guess it’s hard to come up with actual economic facts every day, so she likes to publish predictions. This tends to precipitate the following chain of events: Ms. Aversa reports that economists expect the economy to tank, jobs to disappear, etc. The economy does not tank, and jobs do not disappear (at least not as much as “economists expected”); Ms. Aversa reports economists’ surprise. Ms. Aversa reports that...

“Recession is when a neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours.” Perhaps the above Ronald Reagan quote is a good example of why the Mainstream Media is so gloomy about the economy. If you’re employed by the MSM, job cuts and downsizing is not only a fact of life, there’s no end in sight for the members of the Media Pampered Class. It’s easy to see why the MSM talking heads are so obsessed with bad economic news: if arrogance and conservative-bashing are no longer enough to ensure one’s continued employment in the MSM, then the economy...

The Politico's Ben Smith and David Paul Kuhn attempt the first major media post-mortem of the Rudy Giuliani campaign, and wind up revealing more about the media than the campaign. They claim the loss demonstrates the end of 9/11 politics, but that analysis misses a lot about what went right in the Giuliani campaign. It misses because the media never bothered to report anything beyond the superficial for more than a year: Rudy Giuliani's distant third-place finish in Florida may put an end to his bid for president, and it seems also to mark the beginning of the end of...

The Other Fallujah Reporter Posted By Michael J. Totten On December 16, 2007 @ 2:17 pm “The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.” — Thomas JeffersonI just returned home from a trip to Fallujah, where I was the only reporter embedded with the United States military. There was, however, an unembedded reporter in the city at the same time. Normally it would be useful to compare what I saw and heard while traveling and working with the Marines with what a colleague saw and heard while working solo....

Is it just me or are we all getting pretty tired of FNC’s abuse of “Breaking News” and “News Alerts”? It amazes me that you can’t watch one day’s worth of programming on America’s “fair and balanced” network without being assaulted by these false overtures. The producers at the FNC must think we are the dumbest viewers in the history of television news. The recent fires in Southern California provided almost every anchor on Fox with the opportunity to over-dramatize the events of the day. I’ve never seen so many “Breaking News” reports on one story in my life. And...

All news must be good news, says Chinese government Jonathan Watts Saturday August 18, 2007   China has ordered its media to report only positive news and has imprisoned a pro-democracy dissident amid a clampdown on dissent ahead of the most important meeting of the communist party in five years. Media controls have been tightened, Aids activists detained and NGOs shut down as president Hu Jintao prepares for the 17th party congress, when the next generation of national leaders will be unveiled in a politburo reshuffle. Chen Shuqing, who is a founder member of the banned China Democracy party,...

Who are these people? Katie Couric used to be on the Today Show, then she fell off the map. You’ve never heard of Becky Johnson? Allow me to help. Becky Johnson is a Staff Reporter for the Smoky Mountain News. I know both Becky and her editor, Scott McLeod, and respect their work. If you’re not familiar with the SMN, it covers Haywood, Jackson, Macon and Swain Counties in western North Carolina. Becky could teach Katie a thing or two about reporting. Case in point: Becky wrote a story in the February 21 issue of SMN, which is a near...

The week before Christmas was filled with excitement for 6-year-old Macenzie and her mother, Lacie Simmons.They decorated the tree, shopped and put an inflatable snow globe in the yard. The festive mood ended abruptly Dec. 20 when Simmons collapsed in the hallway of her parents' Grand Prairie home. When the EMTs arrived, Macenzie clung to her mother."I just need to take care of my mom," she repeated as she patted her mother's arm. It was the last time she saw her mother alive."Her blood pressure bottomed out, her heart failed and that was it," said Lacie's mother, Renee Simmons.Within 26...

The most explosive and far-reaching news story of the year has nothing to do with underage pages and a certain Republican ex-Congressman. This story involves ignition in the streets of Baghdad and six immolations that probably never occurred. While Mark Foley took down a congressional majority, the tale of Jamil Hussein may end up permanently damaging the credibility of the world's premier news gathering source, the Associate Press... The story begins on Nov. 24 when Qais al-Bashir, an Iraqi "stringer" working for the AP, wrote a story in which he alleged that Shiite militiamen avenging earlier attacks burned down four...

Another search through different avenues has failed to turn up AP’s source for more than 60 reports of atrocities and murders: The AP (non-)responds and another search comes up empty.

On the Thursday, October 5, 2006, edition of the Today Show, Matt Lauer announced that Ms. McGee was "unemployed" because "she says she showed some students some art and it got her fired." Ms. McGee also stated on camera "[i]t really blindsided me to go in the next day and realize my job was over." Finally, Ms. McGee claimed the principal reprimanded her for exposing students to nude art. All of these statements are false, despite the real facts being available to the media and Ms. McGee for weeks. The real facts are: 1) The Today Show showed its audience...

Time magazine's much-publicized July 17th cover story, "The End of Cowboy Diplomacy," has been viewed as a seminal media effort to capture the transformation of the Bush Administration from a trigger-happy approach in foreign policy to reliance on other nations and the U.N. But a careful analysis shows that Time exaggerated and distorted the facts in order to produce a story that would entice and mislead its readers. It would be foolish to insist that changes in the Bush foreign policy have not been made. Since Condoleezza Rice became Secretary of State, she has clearly been relying more on the...

(Machine Translated) *Critical excerpts of the text: Till this day Islamic terrorists have not succeeded yet in striking in Germany. But mean the mess according to unanimous expert's opinion nothing. Above all not, because it already three attempts given hat: In 2002 one wanted to commit an Abu Mussab al-Sarkawi attached terror cell posters against Jewish and putatively Jewish equipment in Berlin and in the Ruhr area. In 2003 Tunisian Ihsan Garnaoui should have planned to explain a poster in the midst of a demonstration in Berlin. In the end of 2004 lifted security services a group of Kurdish Iraqis...