If we can’t always trust health news (especially TV health news), at least it’s nice to know that media watchdogs are out there to monitor and hold the press accountable for poor or dangerous health reporting. Unfortunately, it’s not an easy task, and now one of the watchers has quit the game. HealthNewsReview.org stopped reviewing and rating television health news in September, explaining that after years of critiques, health coverage on networks...Go to full story

On November 10, two British freedom of expression organizations--the Index on Censorship (IOC) and English PEN--released a report recommending a ten-step reform of British libel law. Their proposals argue that the UK’s current libel system has a “chilling effect” on journalism by curbing the free and accurate dissemination of information in the public interest, Laura Olivier, writing at Journalism.co.uk, reports. Olivier writes that the release, 'Free Speech is...Go to full story

We recently received a tip from a reader pointing us to an error in a New York Times story about the same-sex marriage vote in Maine on November 3. The article discussed the repeal of Maine's law by public referendum, which had granted same-sex partners the right to marry and was signed into law by Governor John Baldacci in May 2009.

Written by Abby Goodnough, the New York Times article looked at the effects and ramifications of the law's defeat. Yet in the third...Go to full story

New York Times story--“Afloat in the Ocean, Expanding Islands of Trash” by freelance writer Lindsey Hoshaw--looks like a normal Science Times clip, but it’s not.  Publicly funded to the tune of $6,000, the article is the first collaboration between “crowdfunding” journalism site Spot.Us and the Times: “a milestone for a model of news funding that has been the subject of much optimism since Spot.us announced itself,” according to...Go to full story

Unemployed journalists, check it out. Want to do enterprising, investigative journalism and get paid for it? Freedom, a magazine published by the Church of Scientology since 1968, is looking to hire experienced journalists to further their mission of "Investigative Reporting in the Public Interest," according to news site TrueSlant. The ad has been joke fodder for TrueSlant and Reddit among others, but it also raises a serious question; is Freedom actually journalism,...Go to full story

In response to failing economic models, some pioneering newsmakers are coming at the problem from a different angle: non-profit journalism.

Last Tuesday The Texas Tribune, a new online-only, non-profit news site, joined the handful of journalism outlets already working with a non-profit model: the Voice of San Diego, The New Haven Independent, Propublica, and the MinnPost, which just marked its second anniversary, are a few of the most successful.

A spate of science coverage last week on a crack in Africa’s Great Rift Valley exemplifies one particular kind of sloppy reporting--covering news that isn’t. Charlie Petit--one of the writers at MIT’s Knight Science Journalism Tracker--breaks down the issue in a November 4 post. He says many publishers who covered the new discovery (distributed in a University of Rochester press release) told the “the easy (no news) story, not the real (new news)...Go to full story

If Paul Carr meant to start a debate, he succeeded. Over the weekend, Carr, who writes for Techcrunch, penned a criticism of citizen journalists at the Fort Hood shootings that picked up quite a bit of traction online.

Aside from his many Twitter mentions, other social media critics responded to his critique and while most felt his post didn't have the substance to sustain a convincing argument, Megan Garber writing at the Columbia Journalism Review was more...Go to full story

Two years after an episode of Sesame Street first aired, the dregs of controversy are being stirred. And while it would be fair to criticize politicized content in a publicly-funded children's program, some argue that the offending clip is a playful parody that has been mis-interpreted.

In a segment from a 2007 episode -- which also aired a few times in 2008 and, most recently, on October 29, 2009 -- Oscar the Grouch plays a news host on the Grouchy News Network,...Go to full story

Last week StinkyJournalism questioned the ethics of inviting Jayson Blair, a self-admitted liar and plagiarist to lecture journalism students. But it seems it’s not just professional pariahs who are in danger of teaching young journalists a bad ethical lesson; Supreme Court Justices are now suspect too, according to the New York Times. On October 28, Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy--known for his defenses of free speech, freedom of the press and the first...Go to full story