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The future of the green blogosphere
Meaghan O’Neill, TreeHugger
As mainstream media cuts specialist reporters, green bloggers will break the stories and pick up others’ mistakes
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Four years ago, when TreeHugger was initially launched, our mission was to drive sustainability mainstream. We pictured a world where people were modern, hip, comfortable, and green and where air and water were clean and products were designed for disassembly.
We have grown from one measly writer (me) to roughly 40 from around the globe and our approach has shifted. Where we once predominantly covered design, architecture, and fashion, today we also cover politics, energy, and transportation.
Of course, it is not just us that has changed. Green has exploded. It’s in every newspaper, on New York fashion runways, on chain grocery store shelves.
But it is becoming more and more obvious that the “20 Simple Tips to Save the Planet” approach isn’t going to get the job done.
Meaghan O’Neill is editor-in-chief for TreeHugger.com and PlanetGreen.com
(5 March 2009)
Ithaca College Program Relishes Change in Media
Liz Lawyer, The Ithaca Journal (New York)
ITHACA – Though independent media are often thought of as a phenomenon of the Internet, they have had an important role in every major upheaval or social movement in U.S. history.
So the students of journalism professor Jeff Cohen of Ithaca College are taught. Cohen is the first director of the Park School of Communication’s year-old Center for Independent Media, and a veteran of mainstream television news networks.
“Much of independent media today is booming because of the Internet,” Cohen said. “But our view of independent media is that it certainly existed before there was an Internet.”
The role of the center is “the study of media outlets that create and distribute content outside traditional corporate systems and news organizations,” the center’s Web site says, and to present careers in independent media as an option to students, who are responding positively to the message, Cohen said.
… “Traditionally, if you have a journalism degree, you are thinking about going to work for a mainstream daily. But how many of them are hiring? Many of my students are now thinking of being entrepreneurs. Many are considering creating their own news startups.”
In recent years, the presence of lone bloggers and their ability to pack a punch has grown. Each startup’s success is determined by the ability of each blogger to get the story and present it well, much like traditional media, but also his or her ability to mobilize and deputize the readers.
(5 March 2009)
Many people in journalism are very discouraged. The Ithaca program seems to have a good approach. -BA
San Francisco Historians Condemn 1906 Earthquake Deniers
The Onion
SAN FRANCISCO—In an event that sparked outrage across the historical community, deniers of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake convened last weekend to share their controversial theories about what actually occurred on that tragic day more than a century ago.
The 1906 Earthquake Deniers, a group reviled by Californians and scholars alike, held three days of lectures and roundtable discussions over what they call a “century-long hoax” of exaggerated seismic activity in the Bay area, and part of a conspiracy to bring the World’s Fair to San Francisco in 1915. Historians protested the conference, saying the organization’s statements denying any major seismic activity in 1906 are reprehensible and out of line with all available geologic data from the time.
… Pamphlets distributed during the symposium, which brought together some of the world’s most notorious 1906 Earthquake Deniers, raised numerous questions about the so-called “myth” of the 296-mile-long rupture in the San Andreas Fault felt from Oregon to Los Angeles.
“If an earthquake of that size really did strike downtown San Francisco, then where is all the rubble?” read one pamphlet, entitled “After$hock$: Truth, Lies, And The Business Of Earthquakes,” obtained by reporters. “Where are these alleged 3,000 dead? And why does the mayor refuse to answer questions about the fires that mysteriously started moments after the supposed ‘earthquake’ occurred? Ask yourself: Who is he protecting?”
(6 March 2009)
Satire. -BA
