Like any devout follower, writer and performer Mike Daisey was reluctant to ask questions about his favorite religion—the church of Apple. A self-professed gadget freak and number one fan of the ubiquitous technology company, Daisey’s reluctance is probably familiar to all of us.  In his most recent monologue on NPR’s popular series, This American Life, Daisey renews the debate about “fair trade” electronics by traveling to China and investigating working conditions at Apple’s main manufacturing plant, Foxconn.

Listen to his story here.

Is anyone truly surprised by what he found? Should it come as a shock that while hundreds of thousands of Americans are perusing the latest gadgets at this week’s Consumer Electronic Show, children as young as 12 are working full-time in China in conditions so poor their manufacturing plants are surrounded by suicide-thwarting nets? Read more…

The nonprofit journalism organization I work for, the Common Language Project, now has some unexpected company. The New York Times reported Friday that the IRS has granted nonprofit tax-exempt status to James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas.

You might remember O’Keefe as the mastermind behind the clandestine videos that brought down two NPR executives and outed questionable practices by ACORN employees. O’Keefe told the New York Times that thanks to the nonprofit status, the group would be able to train an army of volunteers to mimic his tactics.

The group has wrapped themselves in the mantle of “muckraking” and “investigative journalism,” apparently without a care or a clue as to what that means.  And while I’ve gotten used to the term “journalist” being used to describe everything from a guy on the scene of a crime with a cell phone camera to the owner of today’s trending Twitter account, O’Keefe has gone too far.  He’s no journalist and here’s why: Read more…

As everyone who follows news closely has noticed, the big breaking news story is easily available. If you are on any social network following news outlets or have news hound friends, the bare facts of the major stories (Michael Jackson dies, Congress revokes Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell) appear almost instantly. So what value can a news organization truly add with a mobile phone app? As the host of a daily news/talk show, I’m intent on staying up on news. Here’ s a look at the mobile apps from five leading news sources with commentary on their individual strengths and a few thoughts about where they fall short. All were used on an iPhone 3Gs.

AP MOBILE – Fast and comprehensive, it’s a quick way to follow up on the headlines and see photos while on the move. It allows you to designate one or more locations under the ‘Local’ tab. Seattle users see headline from the Seattle Times and Seattle P.I., but the story list is incomplete. Many top Seattle Times stories are withheld. It has an option to send photos and video, but that’s buried  under the ‘More’ tab. It’s got the best weather option I’ve seen but developers could add more categorization to the ‘Local’ tab. Under the current configurations sports, tech and breaking news are bunched together.

CNN – Like AP, it’s a good first stop for an overview of national and international stories. The ‘My CNN’ tab includes local stories from KING5 TV and local blogs, but lacks the depth the Seattle Times and P.I. stories provide. The big draw is watching the TV stories and live feeds from breaking news events like presidential press conferences. Prominently featured is the ‘I-Report’ tab, an entire section of user-generated videos and stories. You are encouraged to report by uplinking video and there is even an assignment page where the day I looked users were assigned winter news reports.

Read more…

Journalism faces an unprecedented existentialist crisis, due to the economy, new digital platforms, and dwindling advertising revenues.  In collaboration with the Online News Association and the UW Journalism program, we hosted this forward-looking forum on potential future models of news.

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Wonder how the housing market folded?  Friends of Ira Glass explain how the financial crisis happened in his audio file, Giant Pool of Money at This American Life http://tinyurl.com/5fl6z7. I caught this audible podcast episode early last summer as I faithfully downloaded my subscription at iTunes. It was worth revisiting again last week.

Now they’ve followed up with Another Frightening Show About the Economy to explain more about how our economic crisis went global. http://tinyurl.com/497nkq

Locally, we’ve been talking about the head-turning affect in our rank/reputation research group.  Podcasts noted above clearly describe the startling phenomena of rapidly matched business strategies to keep market share. Did too many heads turn?  In attempting business survival of the fittest, was lemming-like behavior the unintended consequence?

I think these American Life podcasts are excellent examples of digital storytelling that both educate and entertain.

I first heard of Gever Tulley and his Tinkering School a couple of months ago on the NPR news program, All Things Considered. Any body who wants to put power tools, fire, and knives into the hands of children is ok in my book. I wanted to know more. I did a search and found that he had done a TED talk. I think the nine minute video is well worth the time but the part that is germaine to our study here is his fifth item. He encourages kids to violate the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). He mentions in his talk how he has  the children do this:

1. buy a song on I-Tunes
2. write it to a CD
3. rip the CD to an MP3
4. play it

 but he doesn’t say what the conversation is that accompanies the activity. Read more…

posted by Sidnee

Heard on NPR this week: A collaborative story is being created by middle school students from across the globe using Twitter.com. Each student is using the same account to contribute their 140 (or less) characters. Contributions are copied and pasted into a Google blog maintained by Mr. Mayo–the teacher who thought this up? The original idea of ‘Twittory stories’ – one story being written by many voices using Twitter technology – came from Cameron O’Reilly of The Podcast Network, according to Many Voices.

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Hi. My name is Sarah and I’m addicted to NPR.
At first, it was just a little ‘This American Life’ every other week or so. That Ira Glass, he can just be so comforting after a stressful day when I just need to reflect. Little did I know that he was just a gateway to harder stuff like ‘All Things Considered’ and ‘The Bryant Park Project.’ Now it’s a full-blown daily habit.

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