Hometown Baghdad shows civilian life in Iraq

"Security" Hometown Baghdad



Hometown Baghdad is a video blog that joined YouTube on January 9, 2007 and has produced 18 videos since then of every day life in Baghdad for a group of teenagers. The latest video called "Security" gives a tour of Ausama's grandmother's house after U.S. soldiers raid it because they believed that it was a terrorists haven.


"Powerless"- Hometown Baghdad


Powerless shows us how Iraqis deal with constant power outages and living with only a few hours of power each day.

"Kiss and Tell" talks about the dating stories of Saif, Adel, and Ausama.


Adel plays his guitar for therapy and talks about his band in "Songs of Pain".



A picture of a regular school day in Iraq posted by BlogIraq.

If you want to find out what is really going on in Iraq, blogs and vlogs written by real Iraqis give a much different us a unique perspective on the war.

You can also get an idea of like in Baghdad from the McClatchy Baghdad Bureau at the Inside Iraq blog.

American newspapers rarely report on civilian life on Iraq. I found an article from German newspaper Spiegel called "Anything Is Better than Baghdad"

According to a survey complied by Mercer Human Resource Consulting Baghdad Came in Last for quality of life among global cities. The red cross released a report about the 'ever-worsening' humanitarian crisis in Iraq.

With all this bad news its hard to believe that John McCain's walk through Baghdad was anything more then a political stun to fool Americans into thinking the war is getting better.


In order to get the truth with whats is really going in the American public has to search beyond the mainstream media.

More newspapers cut jobs

The Denver Post announced that it will buyout about 90 newsroom workers to trim costs. The paper only has about 268 workers in the newsroom so this move will take them down to 178. This comes one-year after the Post bought out a dozen newsroom positions. The Rocky Mountain News owned by Cincinnati-based E.W. Scripps Co. eliminated 50 employees last month and The Baltimore Sun just eliminated 50 positions.

All these layoffs raise the question can small papers still provide the same quality coverage that their readers rely on with 178 people? Job cuts that are this big must have a lasting effect on what the paper is able to cover and how they divide their resources to cover local and national events. Most papers already rely on the big three to provide them with coverage of most international events. So if a paper cannot afford to have a corespondent in Iraq do they need one in Chicago? New York? Washington D.C.?

All these layoffs will probably lead papers like the Denver post to focus more on local events that they can cover better then any other news outlet.

Many news outlets have used layoffs as a way to boost their stock prices but that rarely ever works.

Media General Inc had a net lost in the first quarter of 2007 of $6.5 million and as a result they are cutting 70 staff positions from the Tampa Tribune.

Discovery started April by cutting 200 jobs, with more layoffs to come.

In the case of Le Journal in Quebec, Canada 140 employees were locked out after the company reached an impasse with the Canadian Union of Public Employees at the daily tabloid newspaper.

Media: Fire newstaff Hire Programmers

Here is the Trib. vs. Sun-times ad Mocking the Mac Vs. PC ads



Tribune only recent Triumph Red Eye?


Look for our classmate in video.

Excutives at the Chicago Tribune have announced another round of firings at its Flagship and the Los Angeles Times with both papers hit by declining advertising revenues and a first quarter loss of 4 percent.

Its hard to believe that this latest round of "spring cleaning" by the Trib. has nothing to do with, real estate mogul Sam Zell purchasing the Tribune Media Group. Last year on August 25, the Trib . laid off 250 jobs and another 120 on July 14. In 2005 they dropped 900 jobs on December 7, and over 200 jobs on July 7 2004. So over the last three years they have laid off a total of 1,720 employees according to I Want Media.

While newspaper ad revenue and circulation is down in almost every category you can break it up to according to The State of the News Media 2006. Many people believe that online ad revenue will one day like 2018 surpass print advertising. Lets hope that day comes a little sooner for anyone who still has dreams of becoming a reporter at a major newspaper. Like me. Damn you Tribune Dream squasher.

While the Trib. is worried about the decline stock price since its peak on 12/32/04 at $82 a share some people other newspapers are exploring new ways to use the Internet to cash in on new ad revenue.

Daily newspapers laid off around 600 people during 2005 which is about half of the 1,200 to 1,500 reduction that is projected for 2006 by the state of the media report that comes in March.

there are a few special cases where newspapers are actually transitions from print to web and gaining in profit at the same time.

The Wall Street Journal is a special case with more than 764,000 paid subscribers to its online version, and profits of its extended online operations, including indexes and “Marketwatch,” now outstripping those of the print edition.

The report had a warning about the effect of cutting staff has on the quality of newspapers.

Our sense based on the data is that deep news-staff cuts, however logical a response to tough times, may be undermining the core product in dangerous ways. The practice is certainly eating away at the range and depth of newspaper journalism in many communities.

What is inspiring the recent layoffs in the newspaper industry? not falling revenue but stagnate revenue growth.

The threat to newspapers now appears from nearly every indicator. From 1950 through 1999, for instance, newspaper revenue grew seven percent a year. From 2000 through 2006, by contrast, it has grown by just 0.5%. Then in the first quarter of 2006, growth was even less: 0.35%.

Newspapers people have been hiring Journalist-Programmers who can make their website more user friendly and using their web sites to cover stories from all angles using interactive graphics. On example of a newspaper that has done this is TheNewsTribune.com Tacoma, Washington.

One other thing that might be causing the Tribune to cut its workforce Moody's cuts Tribune rating deeper into junk since the deal with Sam Zell's will give them $8.4 billion in dept. Which means should they evertake out a loan on anything the interest on it will go throw the roof.

Presidential candidates debate on the Web

from this?



To online debates

Yahoo, Slate and the Huffington post have announced that they have are co-hosting the first-ever online presidential debate. This comes two weeks after the Democratic presidential candidates all lined up behind former Sen. John Edwards by refusing to participate in a debate that was sponsored by Fox News Channel and the Congressional Black Caucus. That was in the wake of remarks made by Roger Ailes that President Bush would have trouble telling the difference between Obama and Osama bin Laden.

There will be two online debates, one for the Democrats and one for the Republicans candidates both hosted by Mr. Charlie Rose held after Labor Day.

The debate will feature real-time questions sent in by the online audience, and viewers questions uploaded on video.

So why online as opposed to the old TV model?

With an online debate the though is that you can engage rather then enrage the audience. For many people the TV presidential debate sometimes feel like way to scripted like a planned out TV drama. With online debate you can members of the public participate in the debate. The 2008 campaign has been all about connecting people through the Internet and giving them the tools to blog about the candidates and raise money online.

This is also a sign of how the campaign is moving away from TV and one to the Internet where you can produce videos and upload them to YouTube for free.

In the past local TV stations have relied on political ads for a large part of their revenue.

"In the 2003-2004 election cycle, some 80 percent of new revenue for local stations came from political advertising," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. said.
Durbin told this story by way of explaining why he has introduced, along with Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., S. 936, the Fair Elections Now Act. Durbin says he's tired of political campaigns being a "cash cow for TV stations."

While it is hard to believe that Durbin's plan to take the money out of politics will work I think that the Internet is completely changing the way our candidates campaign.

Now that all the presidential candidate have YouTube channels and some of them have already begun to use their channels to ask questions of the public and answer them in short videos.

In a way the online debate has already began. Through the site ExpertVoter.org you can even keep track of what issues the candidates have made videos on.

What are you going to do to bring about change?



RE: David's Question on Education in a Changing World

Airing Uncomfortable Truths

In crisis's wake, focus is on 'citizen journalism' - Orlando Sentinel : Lifestyle In crisis's wake, focus is on 'citizen journalism' - Orlando Sentinel : Lifestyle

In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech Massacre CNN received cell-phone video shot by Jamal Albarghouti through their I-report initiative, that encourages viewers to send in video and photographs to the network's website. The video recorded outside of Norris Hall caught the sound of several gunshots. Its the only footage of that catches the shooting as it happened. This video has been played over and over again on CNN over the last week.

In the past reporters usually arrive to the scene of a crime after the smoke has cleared and the police have taken away the bad guy.
Technology has made it easy for eyewitnesses to document events as they happened. Within a few hours the media can broadcast the footage for millions to see.

The key to Citizen Journalism is usually about being at the wrong place at the wrong time like Jamal Albarghouti was when he found himself outside of Norris Hall.

bringing the audience closer to the action and seeing it from the point of view of a direct witness tot he events rather then a reporter flow in to cover the story is an example of how citizen journalism can enhance news coverage.

A few days after the massacre NBC aired the video that the killer sent them. NBC received heat from the victims families for airing what they saw as propaganda of a delusional psycho while other people in the media argued that the public needed to see this to reignite the debate about what to do with the mentally ill and gun control.

Jeff Jarvis said that the video could have ended up on YouTube if NBC did not air it or another site.

"We need a debate in this country about our mental health and privacy laws." Jarvis said.
"It is Journalism's jobs to give us the uncomfortable truths."

When I first saw the footage my first reaction was why are we airing the rant of a madman? why are giving him any air time at all, to glorify the mass murder that he carried out?

After taking in the coverage I think Jarvis and other members of the media that have defended NBC for airing the clip. I have a hard time believing that NBC could keep the tape from ending up on YouTube once they realized what they had. As long as the video is not played every time they find a new detail about the killer.

You can see what the President of NBC had to say about airing the video at http://www.khnl.com/Global/story.asp?S=6405306


Protest of airing VaTech killer video


Should the video be taking off of YouTube?


Bringing uncomfortable truths to light to the public light is part of the media's job. It also their job to continue the public debate even of issues like gun control and how to deal with the mentally ill that have not been address in a long time.

The coverage should focus less on what was in the killer's head and more on how he was able to carry out this horrific act despite all the warning signs.

We need to reexamine our laws regarding the purchased of firearms. We need to take a second look with how we deal with mentally ill people. Most of we need to remember the victims and how 32 lives were destroyed in one day.

Tribune to victims

Recruiting citizens to do the paparazzi dirty work

When two of the biggest movies stars in all of Bollywood (Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan) are planning to get married in a secret wedding how does Rediff news plan to cover the event?

By sending out a call for citizen journalists to mail the photographs, video to them.

Now, YOU can become a Citizen Journalist, and have your reports published right here on rediff.com
Here's how: If you spot Aishwarya Rai, Abhishek Bachchan, their families, guests, or if you are lucky enough to witness the wedding, take a photograph or a video, scan the pictures, and mail the pictures and video clips to us.

More and more Media organizations are actually recruiting citizen journalists to cover everything from world events to celebrity news.

They even played an important role in the coverage of The Virginia Tech Massacre.


Why hire professional journalists to break stories when you can find citizen journalists to sent you scoops for free or little money?

This is part of the exciting new world of citizen journalism. As long as their is still someone acting as an editor and someone doing a little fact checking with enough scepticism to tell when a story is too good to be true. In order to be a trusted news organization you have to have filters to distinguish the Hoaxes from the real thing.

This can help major media organization to get the immediate rare footage that their viewers crave and it give the average citizens to decided which angle to cover the story. But we must stick to the Principal of accuracy over immediacy. Reporting rumors just to say you heard it here first will always come back to bite you when the truth comes out.

Libel on YouTube

Hawaii's Go Airlines files a lawsuit against website



Bloogger threaten with a lawsuit after she wrote about her personal experience




According to the Media Law Resource Center people attacking other people in blogs and video have sparked some 60 libel lawsuits. Today everyone who has a beef against their boss, fellow coworker or rival candidate can blog about it or create a video blog and upload it to YouTube. When does a practical joke go to far to the point where you can be suit for libel? When you secretly record it and upload it to YouTube for the world to watch over and over again.

Sites like YouTube and MySpace have content editors to censor out offensive material but their is only so much they can take out do. Mecaca moments are bond to get through because what some peope might see as a harmless joke will be racists and highly offensive to others.

The site DontDateHimGirl.com allows women to post the name and pictures of guys they have dated along with reasons not to date them. Few of the women that write on the site have any idea that they can be suit for libel for identifying their ex's and writing about them in this public forum. There are 91 profiles of men in Chicago. How can any of these men get a date after their last girlfriend profiles them as a liar and a cheater like Otis "Big O Lucky" for example? How do you distinguish pure gossip from a someone out for revenge from the truth on the Internet? You can't.

The freedom of the blogosphere and the vlogosphere for people to rant and rave about anything they want has let blogger Tim O'Reilly to draft a Blogger's Code of Conduct.

So far O'Reilly has come up with seven rules for bloggers to follow like consider eliminating anonymous comments, and take responsibility not just for your own words but for the comments you allow on your blog.

He is not only asking bloggers to be upfront and accurate about their statements but to also filter their comments. This is a practical idea but I believe that it will only be followed by the major bloggers. many bloggers pull in a large audience in the same way as Howard Stern pulls in listens "you never know what he is going to do and say next." Other throw out controversial topics and wait for their readers to argue back and forth in the form of long rants.

The Internet is a forum that can never be completely censored nor should it be. Creating a code of conduct for blogger is a good idea but a better idea is to educated the public from a young age about libel and the consequences of offensive speech. Education the public will reduce the number of Imus moments by letting people know that their are consequences whenever you blog or rant in front of a video camera and upload it into the public domain.

You no longer have to be a celebrity, or a journalists to get the public to pay attention to you all you have to do is have something interesting or provocative to say. So Citizen Journalists use you power wisely.