In their Digital Journalism Study, Oriella discovered that 75% of UK journalists surveyed used social channels to find stories from known sources, whilst reliance on press releases is diminishing.
I’m as big a supporter of the digital age as the next avid Tumblrite, but isn’t this pretty worrying?
When I find news like this alongside the story of an algorithm that can predict the popularity of news stories before they’re published, I do get uneasy about the impact the new 24-hour fast-paced world is having on quality news reporting.
Mr Justice Eady said in his judgment:
“The [previous] judge should have feared for the loss of trust in those hitherto believed to be neutral observers if such observers maybe too readily compelled to hand over their material. It is the neutrality of the press which affords them protection and augments their ability freely to obtain and disseminate visual recording of events.”
Sometimes I like our legal system.
That’s a third of the Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli military jails. All in prep for Prisoners’ Day.
Badass.
** obvious TW for rape description **
this is what being a decent human being looks like
4 april 2012,
Today, in #syntagma square, just next to the Greek parliament, a 77 year old man shot himself in the head. His last words, according to passers-by, were “I don’t want to leave a debt on my children”. Since this morning, people have swarmed around the tree, next to which the man took his own life, leaving notes and silently honoring his memory.
His suicide note reads:
“The Tsolakoglou government has annihilated all traces for my survival, which was based on a very dignified pension that I alone paid for 35 years with no help from the state. And since my advanced age does not allow me a way of dynamically reacting (although if a fellow Greek were to grab a Kalashnikov, I would be right behind him), I see no other solution than this dignified end to my life, so I don’t find myself fishing through garbage cans for my sustenance. I believe that young people with no future, will one day take up arms and hang the traitors of this country at Syntagma square, just like the Italians did to Mussolini in 1945”
(Note: Tsolakoglou was the first collaborationist prime minister during Germany’s occupation of Greece during the Second World War and the 77-year-old man compared the currently assigned prime minister Papademos to the traitor Tsolakoglou.)
this post’s photo is by @iptamenos3
learn more about this story through this real-time storify post or through twitter via #syntagma hastag
BBC article about the 40% suicide surge in Greece
This is even more ridiculous than the normal story about the US funding and training terrorist cells.
According to a “new, multi-sourced report from The New Yorker‘s Seymour Hersh”, the Bush administration trained the Iranian dissident group Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK).
The MEK are the group that’s probably behind the recent assassinations of Iranian scientists. They’re also being funded and trained by Israeli intelligence agencies.
Just… ugh.
Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi wins by-election
Ms Suu Kyi’s opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) said she had easily won the vote in Kawhmu, though official counts have not yet finished.
The NLD was competing in its first elections since 1990.
The vote is a key test of promised political reforms, though the military-backed ruling party remains dominant.
During the campaign, foreign journalists and international observers were given the widest access for years.
The European Union hinted that it could ease some sanctions if the vote went smoothly.
“We hope the whole day can be run in a peaceful way and we’ll make an evaluation later on the basis of all the polling sessions that we will be seeing,” EU observer Ivo Belet said.
BBC correspondent Rachel Harvey, in Burma, says the NLD alleged some voting irregularities in the capital, Naypyidaw …
Earlier, Ms Aung San Suu Kyi described this year’s election campaign as not ”genuinely free and fair” and warned that reforms were “not irreversible”.
But she said she and the NLD did not regret taking part.
“Still we are determined to go forward because this is what our people want,” she said.
Our correspondent, Rachel Harvey, says regardless of the outcome of the by-elections, Burma’s balance of power will not change overnight and full democracy is still a long way off.
She says all Burma’s ethnic minorities must be made to feel they have a voice in the political system and that President Thein Sein still needs to convince more wary parliamentarians that it is in the country’s interests to open up to the outside world …
Read Whole: BBC News
:DDD
better than nothing!
(via siouxsieismygrandma)
Ban of abortion after 6 weeks passes Mississippi House
JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi House bill would effectively ban abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.
The bill would require doctors to search for a fetal heartbeat before performing an abortion and, if a heartbeat is found, would make going ahead with the procedure illegal.
The bill passed the House on Wednesday and now goes to the Senate, where a similar bill died in committee.
House Judiciary B Committee Chairman Andy Gipson, R-Braxton, says the bill will ban 90 percent of the abortions in the state because most women seek abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detectable.
The bill allows exemptions if the woman’s life is at risk or no fetal heartbeat can be found. There are no exemptions for rape and incest victims.
The bill is among several supported by anti-abortion groups.
___________________________________________________
This is an embryo at 6 weeks LMP (or about 28 days since fertilization):
Actual size 4-6 millimeters!
Up to 6 1/2 weeks calculated from the 1st day of the last menstruation cycle, no embryo can be visualized yet, therefore merely a gestational sac can be seen.
But, yeah, whatevs. This sounds like a great law to pass.
Are you fucking kidding me?
This is fucking outrageous.
OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUR COUNTRY’S LEGISLATORS
actually I know exactly what’s wrong with them
(via fuckyeahsexeducation)
Mystery over giant metal gorilla dumped in village
Apparently this bad boy just… appeared in a Cambridgeshire village.
I suspect Anti-Borrowers.
