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April 26, 2005
2005 Boston Marathon Photo Album
I've just posted a photo album of pictures I took during the 2005 Boston Marathon. Here are a few samples:
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Close-up of one of the runners |
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A pack of runners |
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A collapsed runner receives emergency medical care |
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One of the wheelchair racers |
Posted by acarvin at 05:14 PM | TrackBack
Backyard Animal Adventures
A family of deer grazing behind Susanne's parents' house in Parker, Colorado.
Posted by acarvin at 04:20 PM | TrackBack
April 25, 2005
A Musical Trip to Denver
We're spending a few days in Denver right now with Susanne's parents. On Tuesday evening, we're going to see a live performance at Gates Concert Hall at the University of Denver's Lamont School of Music. Susanne's dad is a composer and two of his works are being performed by the university orchestra, including a wedding march he composed for our wedding. Both pieces will be played by a full orchestra, so I'm really excited to hear them live.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 03:05 PM | TrackBack
Grandpa's Matzah Brei Recipe
Now that Passover is in its full swing, I thought I'd share Grandpa's Matzah Brei recipe.
Maztah Brei is essentially french toast made with matzah. My grandfather had two recipes, one for a drier, flakier brei, the other a more hardy, omelette-like brei. Both are wonderful for any meal.
Matzah Brie Ingredients:
Two squares plain matzah
two eggs or egg substitute
cooking spray
Maple syrup (or whatever else you as a condiment)
salt and pepper
If you prefer to make the heavier, omelette-like matzah brie, begin by taking the matzah and soaking them in a bowl of warm water for two minutes, then drain. If you prefer the flakier matzah brie, skip the soaking process.
Crush the matzah into small pieces, but not too small. (How's that for specific?) Think no smaller than one inch square, or three centimeters square if you prefer the metric system. In other words, break it up but don't pulverize it.
Whip up the eggs in a small bowl, then incorporate them with the matzah. Let it sit for a few minutes so the matzah will absorb the egg. Add a dash of salt and pepper; you can also throw in a bit of cinammon.
Coat a large pan with cooking spray and then bring it to high heat. When the pan is hot, add matzah mixture and turn heat down to medium. If you've soaked your matzah, allow it to cook as a large omelette and turn when it begins to brown, cooking it as desired. If you've used dry matzah, stir fry the mixture as you would with scrambled eggs, and serve when brown. Goes well with maple syrup. Enjoy! -andy
Posted by acarvin at 10:50 AM | TrackBack
April 22, 2005
MyPyramid.gov: Achieving E-Health for All?
I've just published an article on the Digital Divide Network about the USDA's MyPyramid.gov and the problems faced by marginalized populations accessing government nutritional information that's only available on the Internet. A reprint of the article can be found below. -andy
This week, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) unveiled its newest food pyramid. First launched in 1992, the food pyramid is intended as an easy-to-use tool to convey healthy nutrition guidelines to the general public. Unlike the previous pyramid, which was a one-size-fits-all dietary recommendation, the new pyramid is actually a collection of a dozen different pyramids, each one designed to target specific groups of people based on their age, gender and activity level. That way, individuals may select a pyramid that's personalized for their health needs.
On Tuesday, the USDA launched MyPyramid.gov, a new website for disseminating the updated food pyramid to the general public. While health experts debate the nutritional merits of the new pyramid, it's raised eyebrows among some activists involved in the digital divide movement because of the way the new pyramid was rolled out primarily as an online resource. Since the website is currently the only easy way for members of the public to determine which personalized food pyramid applies to them, it begs the question of how offline populations will gain access to these new guidelines.
Earlier this week, I posted one of the first stories on this issue on my blog. In it, I noted that many of the potential target audiences for the new pyramid, such as low-income households and ethnic minorities, face many challenges gaining access to the Internet, thus denying them easy access to important health information. Here at the Digital Divide Network, we've written extensively about this issue, which we often refer to as "e-government for all": in other words, ensuring that all members of the public have equal access to government services and information, no matter their income, education level, ethnicity, language spoken or physical ability. Quoting our 2004 report E-Government for All: Ensuring Equitable Access to Online Government Services:
It is all too common, for example, that information on most government websites is skewed to the needs and abilities of highly educated citizens. For low-literate populations, the Web remains an untapped resource. People with disabilities, such as the visually impaired, continue to struggle with government websites that don’t address their accessibility needs.... Millions of people are effectively cut off from these increasingly essential resources as long as government information and services are not offered appropriately to accommodate their needs.... As U.S. government agencies expand e-government, a pressing question remains what will happen to these underserved, marginalized populations, particularly as traditionally offline government services are replaced entirely by online services.
The MyPyramid.gov website raises similar concerns. In this particular case, certain populations that would benefit the most from accessing the latest government nutritional guidelines are some of the least-likely populations to have access to the technology or the skills to accomplish this.
By The Numbers: Obesity, Overweightness and the Digital Divide
According to the US Surgeon General's website, ethnicity and income level are contributing factors to obesity and overweightness:
- In women, overweight and obesity are higher among members of racial and ethnic minority populations than in non-Hispanic white women.
- In men, Mexican Americans have a higher prevalence of overweight and obesity than non-Hispanic whites or non-Hispanic blacks.
- For all racial and ethnic groups combined, women of lower socioeconomic status are approximately 50% more likely to be obese than those of higher socioeconomic status.
And it's not just adults faced with these health challenges, according to the USDA pamphlet, Facts About Childhood Obesity and Overweightness:
- Low-income white adolescents were about 2.6 times as likely to be overweight as those in middle- or high-income families.
- Overweight and obesity rates among children and adolescents were highest for Mexican American males age 6 to 11 (17 percent), African American females age 6 to 19 (16 percent), and adolescents age 12 to 19 from low-income households (16 percent).
Paradoxically, many of the demographic groups faced with these health challenges correspond with the same groups that are most likely to be on the wrong side of the digital divide. According to the US Department of Commerce report, A Nation Online 2004, only 37.2% of Latinos and 45.6% of African Americans have Internet access at home, compared with 65.1% of white households. The statistics are even starker when you examine household Internet access by income: while 82.9% of households earning $75,000 or more are online, only 31.2% of households making $15,000 or less are online. The deeper you dig into the data, the clearer it becomes: ethnicity, income and education level remain barriers to bridging the digital divide. This fact has enormous consequences when it comes to relying on the Internet as a tool for conveying public health information to at-risk audiences.
The USDA's Response
Following the launch of MyPyramid, I contacted the USDA and spoke with Jackie Haven of the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion to learn more about the USDA's strategy. "[The Web] seemed like such an excellent resource and a way to reach many masses of people," she said, noting the site received 62 million hits yesterday. Haven explained that the original pyramid, launched in 1992, came with a 32-page booklet that offered details on nutrition, "but no one had really seen it." Creating a website with nutritional information, therefore, seemed like a natural course of action.
"With the Internet, it's really possible to personalize this a little bit more for consumers," she continued. "So it really seemed like the best and only avenue to reach more people and to help personalize it for everybody."
Haven described Tuesday's launch of the MyPyramid website as part of a three-year initiative to get the word out about the new nutritional guidelines. For the time being, the launch is focusing on the website, though she expects other agencies and programs, such as the Food Stamps program, to tailor the guidelines for different audiences, including low-income families, Spanish speakers and others. "We thought, 'Let's get it out there, let's get the feedback,' and we'll continue to grow and refine what we have on the Web," she said.
I noted the concerns that many of us in the digital divide movement have regarding equitable access to government information for all members of the public, and asked whether the USDA would contemplate launching public campaigns that utilized PSAs, toll-free numbers and other off-line communications tools. "I think we may come to that point," Haven replied. "If we don't, there are other agencies that might." She went on to describe some of the educational materials available through the website, which could be downloaded by schools and intermediary organizations to pass on directly to members of the public who aren't online. "There are also spin-off publications that are being printed as we speak," she noted. This summer, the USDA will launch an initiative to publicize the new pyramid to all US public schools via the discounted lunch program. For now, though, people interested in the new guidelines will have to find access to the Internet.
Regarding whether the USDA had any intentions to publish MyPyramid.gov in Spanish, Haven said, "A lot of the material has been translated but it hasn't appeared yet. So we do plan to reach out to those audiences as well." I then turned the conversation to access for people with disabilities, noting that there is a federal US statute known as Section 508 that requires government websites to be designed with accessibility in mind. "Oh, absolutely, that was in the contract, 508 compliance," she assured me.
Needless to say, Haven was surprised when I informed her that my rudimentary tests of the website's homepage and an additional page suggested the site had not reached compliance. "It certainly needs to be 508 compliant," she said, before assuring me that my concerns would be raised with appropriate people within the USDA to correct these mistakes.
Conclusion
In many ways, the case of MyPyramid.gov is a classic example of the challenge faced by government agencies when it comes to achieving e-government for all. There is a strong desire to utilize the Internet as a tool for reaching the general public. In that regard, I applaud them. But the desire to get information and services out to the public as rapidly and as cost-effectively as possible sometimes means that traditional off-line channels such as public service announcements, storefront government access points and telephone services get marginalized, postponed or left out of the equation entirely. In a country where two-thirds of the population is online, it's tempting to shrug off these concerns. But the reality is we have millions of people without Internet access or the skills to use it, not to mention millions of people with disabilities whose Internet experience is severely curtailed because of insensitive website design.
There are some very simple steps the USDA could take. For example, they should create a PSA and print promotion campaign that would encourage the public to either go to the website or call a toll-free number for more information. The toll-free number would allow people to talk with an operator in English, Spanish or through an assistive device. The operator would look up the appropriate pyramid for the person, describe it to them, and dispatch appropriate materials either on paper, braille or as an audio book. Materials could also be distributed through post offices, libraries, schools, community centers, health clinics and other community institutions. Some of these materials, it seems, are already in the pipeline for later this year. For the sake of equitable access, though, it would have been much better if at least some of these offline materials had been made available at the same time the website went public. That way, people without Internet access would have had alternative mechanisms for accessing this information.
Fortunately, it seems that Jackie Haven at the USDA recognizes the limitations of the food pyramid's online strategy. "Of course, the Web can't reach everybody, but we're doing our best here, and with the kind of hits we've been having we know we're reaching somebody. At least we've gotten, I think, a fairly decent start, but we know we have our work cut out for us."
Indeed, the USDA -- as well as government agencies large and small -- has their work cut out for them. So it's incumbent upon those of us involved in the digital divide movement to support government efforts to use the Internet for public services, while at the same time getting them to understand that relying solely on the Internet to convey information and services is a sure-fire way to marginalize segments of the general population even further.
Posted by acarvin at 11:57 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 20, 2005
The Mystery of the Food Pyramid: An E-Government Fiasco?
In case you haven't heard, there's been a change at the US Department of Agriculture. No, we don't have a new Agriculture Secretary or an official national vegetable; instead, we've got a new food pyramid.
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The Old Pyramid | The New Pyramid |
While the old pyramid was far from perfect, it was readible. You could look at the pictures of the various foods within each section of the pyramid, and get a sense of what proportion of your diet should be made up of those foods. (Personally, I follow more of a Mediterranean diet than anything else, but that's another blog entry.) There wasn't much to explain with it. We could all quibble over whether it was over-reliant on carbs or whatever, but at least we knew where things stood.
Now, with the new pyramid, it seems that the folks at the USDA have taken a play out of the Department of Homeland Security's book, creating a color-coded pyramid. It's somewhat remiscent of that infamous color-coded security alert symbol; just imagine it being turned on its side and skewed in Photoshop. But the amazing thing about the new pyramid is that it doesn't have any food symbols or text. It's just a pyramid with an uneven rainbow shooting to the top, with the little recycle dude icon pulling a Tenzing Norgay on the left side.
In case you're not thoroughly confused yet, there's actually more than one new pyramid. In fact, there are 12, based on your age and level of activity. In some ways, it's a good thing that they're acknowledging that no one food pyramid could apply to everyone, but having 12 might be seen as overwhelming to some people. Because there are 12 different pyramids, it's no longer possible to print it on cereal boxes or other food packages, unless you just want to show the standard pyramid. Instead, if you'd like to know your perfect pyramid, you're expected to go online to the MyPyramid.gov website, fill out a form, and wait for the website to recommend a pyramid for you. (Interestingly, I've tried it three times today; each time it's hung for about two minutes, then timed out with an error message.)
I truly, truly hope the USDA does more than just this website to educate the public, though. As I've written before in my work on e-government for all, it's poor policymaking to assume that all constituents will have equal access to the Internet or the skills to use it. Therefore, you need to make sure you use alternative offline channels -- TV, radio, print, in-person meetings, etc -- to make government services and information available to the people who need it.
Unfortunately, when you look at various demographic groups, there's a higher likelihood of lower-income, less-educated people to eat a poor diet. Just the audience you'd want to reach in a public health campaign, right? Paradoxically, they're also the ones least likely to have Internet access or Internet skills. This makes it even more important to invest in large-scale offline campaigns to get health-related information directly into their hands.
Meanwhile, don't get me started on Web accessibilty for the disabled. I ran an accessibility test on the homepage and the Inside the Pyramid page, which describes the pyramid in greater detail. Both failed even the most basic accessibility standards; in the case of the homepage, it was because it didn't have alternative text descriptions for all the images on the homepage.
I hope the new pyramid(s) will lead to a healthy - no pun intended - debate in this country over what is a proper diet and what isn't. I just worry that the populations who would benefit the most from this dialogue will be left on the sidelines, eating more Big Macs and other nutritional train wrecks. In the meantime, I'll just sit back, relax, and wait for MyPyramid.gov to tell me which pyramid is the right one for me... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 01:59 PM | TrackBack
Tom DeLay's Digital Divide
In a recent radio interview about judicial activism, congressional firebrand Tom DeLay went out of his way to attack US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy - for his use of the Internet.
The main thrust of DeLay's comments labeled Kennedy as an irresponsible judicial activist. "We've got Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon international law, not the Constitution of the United States? That's just outrageous," DeLay told Fox News Radio on Tuesday. But as icing on the cake, he added this perplexing nugget of scorn: "And not only that, but he said in session that he does his own research on the Internet? That is just incredibly outrageous."
I did a double-take when I read the transcript earlier this morning. No matter what you think of DeLay's politics or Kennedy's perspectives on jurisprudence, the whole idea of attacking a Supreme Court justice because they use the Internet when researching cases is absurd, not to mention disturbing. What exactly was DeLay trying to suggest with this remark? That the Internet is a treasure-trove of misguided case law and other judicial balderdash that should be avoided at all costs? That Internet users might succumb to dissenting viewpoints, historical documents or empirical data? That Supreme Court justices might become porn addicts, buy prescription drugs from Canada or - perish the thought - learn how to play Texas hold'em?
So far I haven't seen much of a response to this angle of the DeLay-Kennedy story, but Senator Dick Durban of Illinois caught on to it immediately. "Has the Internet become the devil's workshop?" Durban asked. "Is it some infernal machine now that needs to be avoided by all right-thinking Americans? What is Mr. DeLay trying to say, as he is stretching to lash out at judges who happen to disagree with his political point of view."
I really, really wonder what DeLay was driving at with his anti-Internet comment. Is it the Internet he hates, or is it Internet research? (Perhaps it's just research that troubles him.) Should we assume that DeLay bans his staff from researching policy issues online? Or that he ignores online correspondences from his constituents, because he sees it as somehow tainted? Is he against e-government, computers in the classroom or teaching Internet skills to encourage low-income citizens to enter the high-tech workforce?
Perhaps he supports all of these things. Perhaps not. But I think Congressman DeLay has a lot of explaining to do, so we can all understand why a well-respected jurist using the Internet to make informed decisions is so outrageous.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 01:21 PM | TrackBack
April 19, 2005
Seeking Volunteer Judges for World Summit Awards USA Competition
As some of you may know, I'm the US representative for the World Summit Awards, an international competition to identify the world's best digital content in conjunction with the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Nearly 170 countries will be submitting nominations for the contest; winners will be honored at the WSIS summit in Tunis this November.
Each country participating in the World Summit Awards will first host their own national competition to select the best digital content in a variety of categories, including e-education, e-culture, e-health and e-inclusion. As US representative to the international competition, it will be my job to select one winner in each category, then submit these winners to the international competition. US-based content producers will be able to submit their projects for consideration in the coming weeks; I'll have more information on the contest rules soon.
In the meantime, I would like to put together a small team of volunteers to assist me in selecting the winners for the US contest. The volunteers should be US-based experts in at least one of the contest categories (listed below), and be willing to assist in reviewing applications in early June. The review process will occur online, so no travel will be involved. Reviewers may not submit their own online content to the contest, though they may nominate content produced by others.
I'm seeking experts in these categories:
- e-culture
- e-education
- e-health
- e-government
- e-science
- e-business
- e-entertainment
- e-inclusion
I am also looking for at least one expert in Web accessibility for the disabled. While accessibility is not a content category in its own right, websites will be judged on their accessibility during the selection process.
If you are interested, please email me (no attachments, please) at acarvin @ edc . org. In your email, please include a brief description of your areas of expertise and your professional background. Thanks! -andy
Posted by acarvin at 01:53 PM | TrackBack
April 18, 2005
Elite Runners Head to the Finish Line
The fastest runners in the Boston Marathon enter Boston and race to the finish, as I note in this podcast from Brookline. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 02:20 PM | TrackBack
Marathon Winner Clips
A couple of video clips of the winners of the marathon: Catherine Ndereba of Kenya and Hailu Negussie of Ethiopia.
Posted by acarvin at 02:20 PM | TrackBack
A Day At The Races
Just stepped outside to watch the lead runners make their way to the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Here's a podcast from Beacon Street in Brookline. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 01:38 PM | TrackBack
April 13, 2005
Citizen Media, Gangsta Style
This morning, CNN did a story about an underground DVD making its way around the streets of Baltimore. The DVD, Stop Snitching, is hosted by "Skinny Suge," whom local authorities claim is a neighborhood drug dealer. It's basically a low-budget documentary that focuses on what happens to snitches who betray Baltimore gang leaders. "To all you rats and snitches lucky enough to cop one of these DVDs," Skinny Suge tells viewers, "I hope you catch AIDS in your mouth and your lip's the first thing to die." Along with Skinny, we get to meet a host of colorful Baltimore gang members strutting their guns and their bling bling, mixed with more messages about why it's a bad idea to cooperate with law enforcement, unless you want to end up "with a hole in your head."
Thanks to the war in Iraq, we've seen a lot in the press about the way terrorists have taken advantage of low-cost media production tools like iMovie and Final Cut Pro. Just today another American hostage was shown on Al Jazeera, and not too long ago US forces got their hands on a videotape of a battle shot from the insurgents' perspective, probably for use in a pro-insurgency promotional video. The democratization of media production tools means that bad guys, as well as good guys, can use it for their own benefit. But apart from the Baltimore DVD case, I've seen very little regarding the role of video production amongst US gangs. As can be seen in this particular case, citizen's media has been turned on its head, being used to threaten the public from taking civic action, rather than using the technology to catalyze civic action.
How is Baltimore responding to this new trend? They've released their own 90-second video, "Keep Talking," featuring hip-hop music and cops with local street cred to send the message to the community that it's important cooperate with local authorities to get criminals off the streets.
"The men and women of the Baltimore Police Department would like to thank the producers of the Stop Snitching video," detective Donny Moses says in the police clip. "In case you didn't know, you actually helped make Baltimore a safer city. If we didn't know before, now we know the faces in the gang. In fact, three of the people in the video have already been arrested and they won't be coming home for a while."
"We did the video for two reasons," deputy police commissioner Marcus Brown told CNN this morning. "The first reason was to send a message to these thugs that if they're going to wave guns on camera, that if they're going to attempt to intimidate witnesses, if they're going to terrorize the neighborhoods that they're in, that the police department was going to target them, we were going to make them a priority, and that they would end up in federal prison, as they did in this case.... The other reason for putting out the video was so that we could reach out to some of the younger people who may have seen the video. And when they watched the video and see these criminals glorifying their lifestyle, we want to make sure that we put in the sequel that shows the end of what happens with these guys and the end for these guys typically is they're either ending up dead or they're ending up in prison."
I went to the Baltimore Police Department's website to track down the video, but unfortunately it isn't online as of yet. CNN only showed a few seconds of it, but I'd be curious to compare it with the gang-created DVD. From what it sounds like, though, the police's 90-second video won't do much to combat what may be an expanding trend by gang members to use media.
"When I asked a group of six students at Southwestern High School if they had seen the video, five said they had," Gregory Kane of the Baltimore Sun wrote recently. "Two boys said Stop Snitching isn't the only video of its kind, that they're quite common and that they are the only type of movies they watch."
If that's the case, the police better start hiring local kids to counter the gang-produced videos with DVDs of their own. Just let them do it anonymously so they don't get clipped.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 01:44 PM | TrackBack
Move Over Cookie Monster, Here's the Kohlrabi Monster!
This week, Sesame Street's Cookie Monster got a nutritional makeover; rather than just gorging on cookies all the time, he's learning that cookies are actually "sometimes food" rather than "all-the-time" food. This means Cookie Monster is also exploring the health benefits of fruits and vegetables.
In general, this seems like a good idea for the show, given the horrifying child obesity epidemic in this country. I just hope they don't feel the need to re-name our favorite cookie junkie. In case they do, though, here are a few friendly suggestions:
- carrot monster
- courgette monster (for the British version of the show; otherwise, zucchini monster just doesn't work)
- collard monster
- couscous monster
- curry monster (now that's a show I'd watch)
- kelp monster (maybe we could see him fight Godzilla or Mothra)
- cauliflower monster
- kohlrabi monster (my personal fave)
On second thought, let's keep Cookie Monster's name as is. A little South Beach Diet and he'll be just fine... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 12:26 PM | TrackBack
April 11, 2005
Hospitals, Morphine and Infectious Boredom
A podcast update about being sidelined by an infection on my hand; podcasting is easier than typing at this point... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 01:23 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 10, 2005
Yet Another Hand Pic
Trying doing shadow figures with this hand...
Posted by acarvin at 02:06 PM | TrackBack
Three Handy Medical Self Portraits
Assorted self portraits during and after my hospital adventure.
thursday:
friday:
today:
doesn't seem like i'm making much progress... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 01:56 PM | TrackBack
April 09, 2005
Discharged from the Hospital
For those of you wondering why i've been quiet this week, it's because i've been in the hospital. i went to canada for a couple days to visit IDRC, and during my stay, a cut on my left index finger got infected. by the time i got home my hand was swollen like a balloon, so i high tailed it to my doctor. he gave my hand one look and told me to go straight to the emergency room.
for the next 36 hours i got to experience half a dozen doctors, two surgeries, four IV antibiotics, 10 tabs of percoset, three hours' sleep and two shots of morphine. meanwhile, my hand was suspended in a stocking hanging from the ceiling; picture lambchop the sock puppet hanging in a dungeon while Torquemada yells confess! confess! and you'll get the idea. for the next few days, a nurse will come to our apartment to change the dressing on my hand, then i go back to the hospital for a consult with the hand surgeon. i just dread him saying something like, you'll never play guitar again - let alone type 60 words a minute. man, that's a depressing thought.
as you may have noticed, i'm not using much capitalization; that's because my left hand is wrapped like an egyptian mummy. typing is really difficult, so don't expect lots of prose this week. but at least i can still podcast with one hand, as demonstrated here, recorded yesterday afternoon.
so that's it for now. time to watch hellboy on cable and pop another percoset.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 07:47 PM | TrackBack
April 06, 2005
Ottawa Interlude
Left Boston for Ottawa last night; I'm spending a couple of days meeting with colleagues at IDRC. It's about 15 degrees chillier than Boston, but it's very sunny; too bad I'll be spending all my time indoors.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 10:38 AM | TrackBack
April 02, 2005
The Passing of the Pope
Vatican TV has just reported Pope John Paul II has died. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 03:00 PM | TrackBack
April 01, 2005
Reuters, CNN and the Italian Media Pull a Monty Python
CNN reported 30 minutes ago that the Pope had died, but now they're retracting the story as fast as a Monty Python character can say, "I'm not dead yet!" Yes, it comes as no surprise that the Italian media jumped the gun on the passing of Pope John Paul II, which in turn caused Reuters and CNN to do the same. Meanwhile, Yahoo's homepage seems to be changing every few minutes, reporting the Pope as critical, dead, then critical again.
It seems we're in a situation not unlike Yassir Arafat's end of days, in which the media reported that the PLO chairman had "died" on numerous occasions until they finally got the story right. It doesn't seem to matter that the death of the Pope will be one of the biggest stories of the year, if not the biggest; there's so much pressure for the media to be first out of the gate with the scoop, they don't seem to care much if they make a mistake on something as importance as the death of the most recognized religious leader on the planet. But I think there's plenty of blame to go around, considering the public doesn't exactly cry foul whenever the media pulls stunts like this; it's almost as if we expect the media to blow it a few times before they get the story right. So is this a result of the 24-hour news cycle, the increasing number of blogs competing with TV journalism, or both? -andy
Posted by acarvin at 01:45 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Reuters Reports the Pope has Died, But No SMS Text Message Yet
Reuters is now reporting that Pope John Paul II has passed away, according to CNN. The network has not confirmed this yet, though, noting that their correspondents have not received an "automatic message" on their mobile phones from the Vatican, which sounds like there's an SMS text messaging system in place to automatically alert credentialed journalists that the Pope has indeed died. Only time will tell if Reuters jumped the gun or not, though.... -andy