Did sports blogs ruin sports journalism?

Loud and very dated 2008 debate between newspaper/magazine journalist Buzz Bissinger ("Friday Night Lights") and founding editor Will Leitch of Deadspin.com, the sometimes raunchy sports blog/website. Debate aired on Bob Costas' HBO sports show.

Early Dissident Newspapers Were NOT Very Reader-Friendly

See crowded layout of William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist publication, The Liberator, here and here. Not exactly HuffingtonPost. No half-naked actresses. Cady Stanton's/Anthony's feminist publication, The Revolution, was almost as dense.  Content was king (or queen) back then.

Internet and Media Hoaxes

Question: Are younger educated people who were raised on the Internet LESS likely to be taken in by hoax emails such as Obama as "radical Muslim" than Jon Stewart's 80-year-old aunt? Or clothing designer Tommy Hilfiger as racist?

Today, viral video hoaxes seem more common than text hoaxes -- like "Golden Eagle Snatches Kid" hoax, which, unknown to this ABC News panel, was perpetrated by animation students using computer imaging in Montreal. And like "Worst Twerk Fail EVER - Girl Catches Fire," a hoax perpetrated by the Jimmy Kimmel show as self-promotion.

NBC "Today" show interviewed me a year ago (9/30/13 -- my bit starts at 2:25) about separating fact from fiction in media and Internet.

Is U.S. media system failing U.S. democracy?

Typical of similar academic studies over the years, a 2008 study compared the level of public knowledge about current events in Denmark, Finland, United Kingdom and the United States. It found that the countries where TV/radio is dominated by public broadcasting -- Denmark and Finland -- were the best informed. Our country, dominated by corporate commercial media, was the least informed. The study's authors suggest that differing media systems play a role in those results.

A 2003 study of public knowledge of facts related to the Iraq War found that misperceptions among U.S. residents (that evidence linked Iraq and al Qaeda; that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq; and that world public opinion favored the US invasion) were greatest among those whose primary info source was Fox News -- and least among those whose primary info source was public broadcasting. (A Pew poll taken in Aug. 2010 found that almost 1 in 5 Americans believed President Obama to be a Muslim; only 34% knew he is a Christian. 43% chose "don't know.")

Does the tree fall in the forest if over 300 thousand people march . . .

. . . through the media capital of the world for action on climate change, and U.S. mainstream media largely ignore the event?

The 40-year secret revealed: These are the citizen burglars. . .

. . . who broke into a Pennsylvania FBI office in 1971 to prove the Bureau was lying when it claimed not to be spying on peace and civil rights activists.

Nightmare in Tunisia . . . for Longtime Dictator

Tunisia is a small, Mediterranean country in North Africa.  Back in 2007, Tunisian citizen-journalists and bloggers had documented the tourism/shopping sprees of the dictator's wife aboard the presidential plane to Europe and global fashion capitals. (H/t Global Voices)

In 2010, the TuniLeaks website was set up to post (WikiLeaks-released) internal U.S. Embassy documents candidly exposing the corruption of Tunisia's dictatorship.

Fascinating photo (released by Ben Ali's office) of dictator Ben Ali visiting the hospital bed of the desperate young man who set himself on fire in protest in Dec. 2010 -- the young man didn't live long enough to learn that his act led to the overthrow of Ben Ali after sustained nonviolent protests.

Amid the protests, Tunisian rapper El General put out this widely-circulated music video attacking Ben Ali and urging folks to join the protests. It led to his arrest for a few days. Soon after, the dictator fled. The song went on to become an anthem in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere.

U.S. jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie performs his classic jazz tune "Night in Tunisia," first recorded in 1944.