The Calgary newspaper says asking people to volunteer their expertise and register as sources for future stories is a way to "make our journalism better."
Pinterest, the increasingly popular pinboarding social network, is able to present a visually arresting interface in large part by using copyrighted images pinned by users. Although creative bloggers are concerned, the company reportedly stays within the law by removing content upon request of copyright owners.
"Local reporters have now become part of the very story they were covering, prompting the local Newspaper Guild to craft this very blunt message to the Oakland Police Department: Back off," SF Weekly reports. Another story is on NBCBayArea.com.
The benefits of cloud computing are significant, but be careful what you store online, the author warns. "That’s not only because of the technical risk that someone might access my data without my knowledge, but also because the legal protections for journalists using the cloud is, well, cloudy. Congress should clear the air by updating the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 (PPA), which protects journalists generally from government searches and seizures."
An off-duty TV news photographer tried to document a minor police incident with his cell phone camera, only to have officers grab it, delete photos and video and detain him in the back of a squad car.
Layoffs, corporate paranoia and the suicides of two former workers have led to despair at the LA. Times, says Ed Padgett, a pressman at the Times for 30 years until he, too, was fired in December.
Investigative reporting by the nonprofit news operation ProPublica will be published in e-book form beginning in February. Early titles will include "Presidential Pardons" and "Post Mortem," a series on coroner and medical examiners' officers.
When the Travel Channel's Nisha Chittal launched her public profile on Facebook Subscribe, she looked forward to connecting with a community that shared her wanderlust and passion for social media. Instead, she got sexually explicit messages, pornographic photos, and spammy, irrelevant messages from thousands of users around the world. Many other journalists also report being shocked, disturbed or disappointed by Subscribe's results.
The Washington Post online announces changes designed to make the comment threads easier to use, and to foster "smarter, livelier and more civil conversations."
Associated Press photojournalist Haraz Ghanbari says he noticed Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer holding an envelope marked "Mr. President” as she waited to meet President Obama on the tarmac during his visit to her state last week. So Ghanbari stuck around after other photographers went to another area, and he caught the now infamous confrontation.
