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    Overheard on the Web, and other Web links
    From The Herald's Research Editor


    Thursday, June 30, 2005

    Finding your food needs 

    If you're a cooking site and food blog junkie like me, you'll love Food411.com, which links to all sorts of delicious sites and information. This site was one of Time Magazine's 50 Coolest Websites for 2005. A couple very cool things I found via Food411: Frog Hollow Farm (Land of Legendary Fruits), just for the beautiful art on the Webpage. (It's in California but the peaches are available for order.) And Local Harvest where you can find farmers' markets, farm stands, and restaurants selling locally produced food.

    posted by liz at 3:17 PM
    (3) comments

    Recruiting willies 

    Lots being discussed about why military recruitment isn't making goals these days. There's a new site called Leave My Child Alone, which encourages people to fight back at attempts to create a database of draft-age children (through schools, via the No Child Left Behind Act). a Yale researcher has done a study of this.
    Of course, several critics of the war have suggested a draft will be needed to fill the spots. Enjoy the Draft is a semi-satirical look at the possibilities, with real news links.
    Some reaction to the recruiting news: lots and lots of comments about why the Bush twins haven't signed up. And the "Yellow Elephant" campaign to get Young Republicans to sign up, from the blogger calling himself "Jesus' General".

    posted by liz at 2:09 PM
    (0) comments

    Not a target 

    But a Knight Ridder correspondent was shot to death in Iraq by an Army sniper last week. Yasser Salihee, an Iraqi doctor, took a job working with KR's journalists because his job at a Baghdad hospital didn't pay enough to live on. He was shot as he drove his car through an intersection where an Army patrol was searching a building.
    When I posted the interactive map of Iraq casualties last week, a reader wondered why civilians weren't included. Salihee's death is just one of those tens of thousands of deaths that don't go reported in any official report, so they might as well not exist. The Iraq Body Count is using volunteers reading the world press to come up with numbers of civilian deaths (their latest count is 22-25,000) but they got a lot of flak when they started. Iraqi Civilian War Casualties is a site by a civic group that lists names of the dead when available. ICasualties.org doesn't even attempt to count civilians, although they do list contractors...and journalists. At least Salihee's death will be listed there, and on the Reporters Without Borders Website.

    (Added later): A closer look at the Iraqi Civilian War Casualties site, which I hadn't seen before, reveals that it was the result of a door-to-door survey covering three months in 2003 organized by Raed Jarrar, who also has the Raed in the Middle blog. Raed, you may remember, was the subject of Salam Pax's pioneering blog from Iraq, titled 'Where is Raed?' 'Salam' also published a diary of the casualty survey. The 'Where is Raed?' blog hasn't been updated in several months, but Salam maintains a media presence with a book and TV and blog appearances on occasion. His latest blog is called Shut up you fat whiner, and is being updated frequently now.

    posted by liz at 10:08 AM
    (0) comments

    Wednesday, June 29, 2005

    Cuban blogs and spanglish word origins 

    First there was Babalu Blog, a couple years back (author Val Prieto just celebrated his 2nd blogging anniversary). Now there are more Cuban-American blogs from the Miami area. The 26th Parallel is a few months old, and its author, Robert, points to another:
    Cuban-American Pundits has postings from several people, including Robert.

    'Conductor', at Cuban-American Pundits has a post on the origins of 'spanglish' words and points to a fascinating history post on the Adios Cuba site which claims that the term 'guajiro' (countryman) may have originally been a cubanization of 'war hero' from the Spanish-American War (War of Cuban Independence).
    He also points to a wonderful discussion on Babalu Blog about the pidgin spanglish used by handymen in Miami. Do you know what a 'plastero' is? How about 'draibol'? One commenter calls it "cubonics".

    posted by liz at 1:37 PM
    (1) comments

    Buffaloed 

    Al Tompkins has an interesting note on his "Morning Meeting" column about a rash of emails (I haven't gotten one yet) saying the new buffalo nickel is being recalled. Something about too much detail, involving male anatomy. Al points to The Urban Legend Reference Pages at Snopes.com says it's just another myth, and shows you the images if you haven't looked closely at a new nickel yet. There are larger images here.
    Hmm. Too many people have too much spare time...or haven't spent enough time around farms.

    posted by liz at 10:22 AM
    (0) comments

    It's Google's World 

    If you think Google is taking over the earth, you're right. Google has now come out with Google Earth, a downloadable program that will bring the earth to your desktop. It uses your PC's 3D capacities to deliver satellite images that you can tilt and rotate, has address searches, directions, and more.
    You'll need broadband Internet access, a PC (this doesn't work on Macs yet), and may need to confirm you have a 3D-compatible graphics card. Downloading is free, although there's a Plus version with GPS capacity for $20, and a 'Pro' version for $400.
    (Via Steve Doig and SearchEngineWatch.)

    If you'd rather find something like this from another source, there's World Wind, from NASA, which is also a download and offers zooming and 3D topography using satellite images from Landsat and Shuttle Radar Topography.

    posted by liz at 9:52 AM
    (0) comments

    Tuesday, June 28, 2005

    Live 8 is coming 

    Live 8 is coming (July 2) and worldwide coverage is heavy. Here's a Reuters Live 8 News page.

    The One Campaign is collecting signatures from celebrities and others to convince world leaders to reduce poverty by forgiving third world debts.

    Blog search engine Technorati has a special Live 8 portal where you can find news from blogs, as well as other links.

    The official Live 8 site is at Live8Live.com.

    Dave Sifry tells how to become a Live 8 blogger.



    posted by liz at 5:14 PM
    (0) comments

    Searching within the book 

    Google's Google Print feature is now online, in Beta. This feature allows you to search within the fulltext books that Google has archived so far. I searched my name and found it mentioned in UM journalism professor Bruce Garrison's 1996 Book, Computer-Assisted Reporting, and in a long-ago encyclopedia of the West (!).
    Here's what you get when you search Miami Herald + Gene Miller. When you click on the link (unless the page or book is restricted) you get the image of the page the search appears on.
    This feature is similar to the 'search within the book' feature that Amazon.com introduced a year or so ago. Between the two, this may make even more books searchable.
    Note you will have to be registered on Google (as a Gmail user, or otherwise) to use the service, but it's free (so far).
    (Via Doc Searls.)

    posted by liz at 4:51 PM
    (0) comments

    Monday, June 27, 2005

    Around the Web 

    Here are a few intriguing things that have come up in my searches over the last few days:

    • Did you know that The Justice department auditorium statues have been uncovered again? These are the statues of nude Justice that former Atty General John Ashcroft had covered with $8000 worth of drapes so no one would be offended by an occasional photograph including a breast.

    • The Sports Cliche List is a database sorted by topic of all the things we really, really get tired of hearing athletes say during interviews, or sports commentators repeating over and over: "It's a whole new ballgame. They've scratched and clawed their way back into the game. It's a shame somebody has to lose this game.They're playing with a sense of urgency. "

    • The Safest Family Car: a blogger on the new Bayosphere community journalism site posts a thoughtful analysis about how we can all be better drivers (and car owners). (Pointed out by Dan Gillmor.)

    • Medieval Boston: this exhibit on an urban planning forum shows how Boston looked before urban development. I would have thought it was a stretch to call it 'medieval' but there are buildings pictured here from the early 17th century, still a bit late but looking like medieval English towns nevertheless....I'd like to see something like this devoted to Miami.

    • The World's Healthiest Foods: the site is devoted to salmon recipes this week as it's the Food of the Week.

    • Iraq War. No matter how much you hear it's hard to picture the number of casualties that have occurred here over the last three years. This new site has taken the database of casualties and put them on a map. When you start, each casualty pops up on a map with a 'tic' sound. (It didn't work for me at first, using Firefox. But when I clicked on 'play again', it started.) It's a bit shocking when it gets to this year: the number of deaths is low for the first few months, but the red spots (indicating many deaths) proliferate over the last several weeks....

    • Top 5 Gitmo Falsehoods from Media Matters.

    • Detention Practices Project, a Wikipedia from the Daily Kos folks about Guantanamo and other detention questions.

    posted by liz at 2:59 PM
    (0) comments

    Thursday, June 23, 2005

    New tech for tecchies 

    Now here's something absolutely new that can replace that aging Palm or Treo you're carrying around: The Hipster PDA (that's for Parietal Disgorgement Aid) is the ultimate time-saver: a pile of 3x5 index cards and a clip. Really.
      It scales brilliantly, degrades gracefully, supports optional categories and "beaming," and is configurable to an unlimited number of options. Best of all, the Hipster PDA fits into your hip pocket and costs practically nothing to purchase and maintain.

    Instructions to make your own are here.
    (Via Guardian Newsblog.)

    posted by liz at 4:04 PM
    (0) comments

    Wednesday, June 22, 2005

    How big is it? 

    Take a look at the moon as it rises over the Beaches this week. Does it look enormous? NASA says it's because of something called the 'summer moon illusion and it is particulary obvious this week. The page also has moon rise times in various cities so you can check it out: Moon rise in Miami will be 9:19 tonight. (That is, if you can see it through the clouds. Check out The Herald Web Cam to see if the sky is visible.)
    (Via Metafilter.)

    posted by liz at 12:13 PM
    (0) comments

    Monday, June 20, 2005

    What are the blogs saying about your public officials? 

    There are a few services around that will search blogs, like Technorati and Daypop, or that will search feeds from blogs (like Feedster), but now there's one that you can set to easily find any blog postings on a public official in your state, or members of the U.S. Cabinet, Supreme Courts, Congressional committees, etc., as well as, of course, the president and vice president. Pubsub is a service that lets you create searches of blog postings and have them fed to you. Now there's Pubsub Government that finds postings on officials. Here's an example of Jeb Bush postings from lots of different blogs; PubSub says Jeb is one of the most popular subjects in political blogs.

    posted by liz at 7:29 PM
    (0) comments

    Is public broadcasting in danger...or not? 

    For the last nearly 10 years, people have been forwarding an emailed petition claiming that PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are in danger of losing their funding. The letter campaign was started by two college students in 1995 and at the time there was a proposal in Congress.
    But the email gained a life of its own and periodically resurfaced. I've gotten it from two or three correspondents in the last year....and usually one of the people who they sent it to would reply setting them straight, and then there'd be an apology.
    But now, a story in the New York Times Week in Review section says MoveOn.org is sending out a new petition about a new funding cut threat. What they have to do now is convince people that the new email isn't about that old petition. Here's the explanation at UrbanLegends.About.com, and Snopes.com.
    So if you get a petition in the mail about public broadcasting spending cuts, double check it. It may actually be something worth looking at. (Here's The petition at Moveon.org.)

    (Via J.D. Lasica.)

    posted by liz at 7:14 PM
    (0) comments

    Sunday, June 19, 2005

    More on Miller 

    Some tributes to Gene Miller from other papers:
  • Joel Achenbach in his Washington Post blog.
  • David Von Drehle (Washington Post obituary).
  • Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
  • Guest book on Herald.com includes tributes from former colleagues and friends from all over the country.

    posted by liz at 12:49 PM
  • (1) comments

    Friday, June 17, 2005

    Gene Miller 

    The Miami Herald lost its greatest treasure today, with the death of long-time reporter and editor Gene Miller. I wrote about Miller on my news research blog today. Here's part of it:

    Posted by Hello

    Miami Herald obituary


    He may have been my favorite journalist of all time. I met Gene not long after coming to The Miami Herald in 1981. He'd been there for 25 years or so already, and had won two Pulitzers. Not only that, but they were Pulitzers for getting innocent people out of jail. Not often anyone gets to do that.

    Gene was irreverent, funny, had a huge laugh you could hear across the newsroom. He had friends all over journalism and was constantly writing letters to them pointing out stories they'd missed, errors, or making suggestions. He'd often bring those letters around to be read, because he enjoyed them so much. He wrote the best ledes ever.

    When he was inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame, he wrote his own irreverent biography. The Herald obit, mostly written by Gene himself, is a rewrite of the Hall of Fame bio, but adds some commentary by Martin Merzer, who gets the essence:

      "His philosophy: Put everything in the newspaper, unvarnished. Just ask questions, write down the answers and put them in the newspaper. Pretty simple.
      Gene's first byline appeared in The Herald on Nov. 9, 1957, the day after he came to work. In that story, a BBC executive said, ''There is no substitute for news.'' It became Gene's creed.
      'Publish! Journalistic cowardliness and/or soft-headedness is as evil as censorship and is just as harmful to a free society,' Gene wrote in 1984 when a Herald editor made the mistake of sending him a questionnaire about dicey journalistic situations."


    Gene died on the anniversary of the Watergate break-in, probably the biggest thing to happen to journalism in his lifetime. I hope he got to enjoy the Deep Throat stories in the last few weeks....I noticed recently that among the files in the Bernstein/Woodward Watergate collection at UT, is one correspondence from someone at The Miami Herald: Gene Miller. Another of Gene's letters.


    One thing keeps coming back to mind from the last few months Miller was still working in the Herald building: my desk was near the elevators, and nearly every night as Gene left, I'd hear him telling someone as they went into the elevators: "Puusha da button". I imagined that most of the people he encountered didn't know what he was talking about. But Gene taught me to pay attention to Miami's history, a passion of his, and 'puusha da button' was the thing that Guissepe Zangara was reported to have said just before he was executed for the attempted assassination of FDR and murder of Chicago mayor Anton Cermak in Miami's Bayfront Park in 1933. A crude mockery of Zangara's Italian accent, but part of Miami's amazing history. He loved Miami and its stories, and his enthusiasm infected everyone around him.

    Among former Herald reporters writing about Miller: Joel Achenbach at his WashingtonPost.com blog. There will be more. I'll link later.


    posted by liz at 6:46 PM
    (0) comments

    How unwired are we? 

    Looked for a place to get Internet access while out and about lately? Here's a survey of America's most unwired cities. These are cities with the most places to get wireless Internet connections: the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area comes in 20th in percentage of WiFi hotspots, beat out by places like Toledo and Baton Rouge.
    If you need to find a place to plug in, there are several sites that can find a WiFi connection for you. Try WiFi 411, WiFi Maps, or use Yahoo Maps and choose 'WiFi hotspots' from your search result. (Here are the WiFi hotspots near the Miami Herald building.)

    posted by liz at 6:39 PM
    (0) comments

    Thursday, June 16, 2005

    Missing? Who cares? 

    Still some rumbles out there about why it seems only pretty young white women who go missing get any attention from the major news media. Of course, recent discussions focus on the teen lost in Aruba; the last mention was over the 'runaway bride' story. But USA Today points out the other stories, including that of Tamika Houston, missing since June, who disappeared from the Spartanburg, SC area. Houston's aunt, who lives in Miami, has been trying to get media publicity for the case for months, and has failed til now. There are two Web sites: Tamika's Family and Friends, and Missing: Tamika Houston.
    (Via Political Animal.)

    posted by liz at 5:13 PM
    (0) comments

    Condi for President? 

    Apparently, there's a movement, at least several blogs devoted to getting the next Republican presidential nomination for Secretary of State Condoleeze Rice: and there's one site, Blogs for Condi, that aggregates and links to them all. From the header: "She is our Margaret Thatcher". Hmm.
    Then, of course, there's Blogs Against Hillary...

    posted by liz at 4:41 PM
    (0) comments

    A Florida Straits odyssey 

    Via Boing Boing, a story of an unusual attempted trip TO Cuba (that's a twist), by someone who tried paddling to Cuba in an Outrigger Canoe in 2003. Lots of photos too. A fun read. Here's Boing Boing's take on the story.

    posted by liz at 4:21 PM
    (0) comments

    Wednesday, June 15, 2005

    For your SUV 

    This looks like something that people in Miami could use, with the proliferation of SUVs and the lack (most of the time) of anywhere to go offroading: Spray On Mud is a British product, but is available for purchase online. If you really want to look like you use your vehicle for the purpose it's made for, you can get 'that authentic off-road look' using this product.

    posted by liz at 1:13 PM
    (0) comments

    Lynching apology 

    The Institute for Southern Studies' blog, Facing South, is covering the story about the Senate resolution to apologize for lynchings. Some good links and insight for anyone who thinks this story isn't relevant today.

    Metafilter posters also linked to several histories of lynching; lots of comments and other links here too.

    posted by liz at 12:25 PM
    (0) comments

    Ink in the blood 

    Sometimes it's fascinating to find out about the origins of someone you didn't know much about. I was a bit surprised this morning to read of the death of the father of rocker Neil Young: Scott Young, who died this weekend, was 87 and wrote for the Globe & Mail in Toronto, where this obituary ran, as well as other Canadian news organizations, and wrote several books, including one about his relationship with his famous son. Somehow I don't picture the author of the song about 'a town in north Ontario' as a product of Canada's largest city.

    Speaking of journalists, there's a new blog written by a group of retired journalists, called From Hot Type to Blog, and it seems to have a strong Miami connection: all the writers have worked at least part of their careers at the now-defunct Miami News, including former News editor Howard Kleinberg, who's written about the history of Miami for years, and whose column ran on The Herald's editorial pages for many years after the News died.

    posted by liz at 9:41 AM
    (0) comments

    Tuesday, June 14, 2005

    Gore and the Internet 

    After all the discussion (and derision) during Al Gore's campaign for president about how much he had to do with 'inventing' the Internet, interesting to see that he was awarded a 'Webby' Lifetime Achievement Award for helping to get the legislation needed to make the 'Net work. According to journalism prof and blogger Bob Stepno, Gore was allowed just five words for his acceptance speech: "Please don't recount this vote". Other Webby winners: Craig Newmark of Craigslist, The Kleptones, and Flickr, among others.

    Check out the other winners at WebbyAwards.com. Some great stuff here.

    posted by liz at 11:32 AM
    (0) comments

    Just a little more on Deep Throat 

    I am really shocked at how much reaction there is to this story, still. I thought by now there wouldn't be much interest. But it just keeps coming. Two things that I think are worth reading if you're still into the story:

    How Deep Throat Fooled the FBI, in The Nation; this story says W. Mark Felt was in charge of investigating the possibility that 'Throat' was in the FBI: "This placed Felt, who as the FBI's associate director oversaw the bureau's Watergate probe, in an unusual position. He was essentially in charge of investigating himself."

    The Albany Times-Union reported the other day that others in the FBI were also involved in leaking to Bernstein and Woodward.
    Fascinating stuff.

    posted by liz at 11:05 AM
    (0) comments

    Acquitted 

    If you just can't get enough on the Michael Jackson story, there's MJJSource.com, where you can find anything you'd want to know about Michael. At least, I think. I couldn't get into the site, which uses a lot of Flash and Javascript, but it was linked to by Davenetics, who says among the things found there is this:
      June 13th, 2005:
      Remember this date for it is part of HIStory.

      This and other ridiculousness can be found at the The Official Source for Michael Jackson News and Information.

      The line of the day came from the jury foreman who during an interview on CNN was asked whether jurors hoped Jacko had learned any lessons from the trial.

      "We would hope ... that he doesn't sleep with children anymore."

    (Via Guardian Newsblog.)


    (Added later:) Joel Achenbach has a thoughtful posting in his WashingtonPost.com blog: Would Michael Jackson have been acquitted if he was black? "Not a chance", says Achenbach. "...as a Bleached American, Jackson served merely as the representative of ALL multi-millionaire, has-been, facially mutilated pop stars who are suspected of touching boys during sleepovers at their mansion.
    ...During the coverage last night the TV showed young Michael, dancing and singing in his prime, and my eldest daughter said, incredulously, "That's Michael Jackson?" Yes, that was Michael Jackson, doing "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough," handsome, talented beyond belief, charming, smiling, black, and male."


    posted by liz at 10:33 AM
    (0) comments

    Tuesday, June 07, 2005

    Light blogging 

    I've been attending a librarians convention in Toronto the last couple days and now am visiting family so away from my regular computer and routine. Posting will be sparse for a couple more days, but I'll be back to it by next week...if not sooner. Check back again.

    posted by liz at 10:31 PM
    (0) comments

    Thursday, June 02, 2005

    Recordings and history 

    The Internet Archive has added Lots of 78rpm recordings to their audio archive. Great place to find things like Mitch Miller, Paul Whiteman, The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, classical recordings (Caruso!), voice recordings (Pope Leo XIII!) and more.
    For more recorded history, History and Politics Out Loud has voice recordings from presidents' speeches to Nixon tapes. FYI, if you want to hear more Nixon tapes, C-Span has an archive online.
    For those who remember the Washington Post's famous political cartoonist, Herblock, who was still drawing up to his death a couple years ago, Herblock's History is an online exhibit of his cartoons, including lots of Richard Nixon, from the Library of Congress.

    On another topic, maybe future history, As the World Burns is a Mother Jones investigation of how ExxonMobil and others are working to convince journalists to report that global warming is a hoax.

    posted by liz at 5:16 PM
    (0) comments

    Notes from former senator Edwards 

    The TPM Cafe, a new group blogging spinoff of Joshua Michah Marshall's popular Talking Points Memo blog, has a section of guest bloggers. This week's: former VP candidate and Senator John Edwards of North Carolina. He talks about his move back to NC, his wife Elizabeth's health (and their 5-year old son's birthday) and a subject close to his heart: the working poor.

    posted by liz at 12:51 PM
    (0) comments

    Even more 

    For Deep Throat junkies, the Washington Post is doing a Deep Throat Revealed blog. Is that enough?

    If you're tired of all this, here's another blogger who thinks the coverage has gotten way out of hand (with screenshots of Washingtonpost.com and the print front page).

    posted by liz at 11:52 AM
    (0) comments

    Can't get enough of Deep Throat? 

    Seems like there are a lot of you out there. For a lot more links to fascinating stories about how all this happened, the journalistic ethics, what will happen now (will there be a book?), the Romenesko blog from the Poynter Institute is collecting links to all the stories.
    I'm fascinated by one of the links in particular. Apparently in an online chat on the Post's Website, Post reporter Dave Von Drehle discussed the feeling in the newsroom. One participant asked: "Did you get chills seeing Bob and Carl sitting at the desk together again?"

    Of course, Von Drehle, who's in his 40s, I'd guess, wasn't at the Post during Watergate. He wasn't at any newspaper then. He worked at The Miami Herald before he went to the Post in the early '90s or so......So seeing Bob and Carl sitting together is a stretch. Of course, he probably saw the movie of All the President's Men, so like all of us, has a pretty good picture of what it was like. Having seen the real life, I was shocked at how real the movie was and how much it made me believe Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford 'became' Carl and Bob.

    (Added later:) But I guess there is something to this Post history thing. Today Joel Achenbach, who is also too young to have been a journalist during Watergate and worked at The Herald until sometime in the '90s, says today:
      We may never again see, as we saw this week, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward and Ben Bradlee converging at the Post to deal with a breaking story. Forgive the overblown language, but in our profession these men are gods. Their stories are the legends we will tell our grandchildren.

    Other links include one to Nora Ephron's story on the Huffington Post. Ephron, who was married to Bernstein for several years in the '70s - '80s, says she figured out Felt was Throat (which is why her son Jacob believed it) on her own: "It has been hell, and I have dealt with the situation by telling pretty much anyone who asked me, including total strangers, who Deep Throat was. Not for nothing is indiscretion my middle name."

    posted by liz at 10:38 AM
    (0) comments

    Blogging the story of a Florida murder 

    An email and comment to my blog report the story of Taylor G. Wells, imprisoned for a 1993 home invasion robbery/murder in Cape Canaveral in which several young men were charged. One of the men, Wells, was sitting in a car outside where he believed, he said, he'd just been dropping one of the men off. Despite his lesser involvment, Wells got one of the harshest sentences -- life in prison.
    Florida writer Kay Day is writing a book, One Night for Life, and publishing it in a blog. A family friend, Beth Cioffoletti is blogging the Wells case. There are links to other Wells defense sites on both of these blogs.

    posted by liz at 10:30 AM
    (0) comments

    Wednesday, June 01, 2005

    War coverage 

    It always amazes me that more people don't know about Coalition Casualty Count (Icasualties.org). It's the Website that has been gathering news of military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, and compiles them into a database so you can quickly find out who died from your state, or how many in helicopter accidents, for example. It also tries to find infomation about wounded (harder to get), civilian deaths, deaths of Iraqi police and military, and has also gathered info on deaths from other coalition forces.
    So it's nice to know that The Lunaville Blog (Lunaville.org was the original URL for Icasualties) is not only letting us know how it's going, but is pointing to news from Iraq that we may not hear of elsewhere.
    There's a great story on the blog about an Atlanta pub that started posting a number on their outdoor sign. People asked what the number meant, until the link was added: to ICasualties.

    posted by liz at 11:51 AM
    (0) comments

    Followup on Felt/Throat 

    This is something I've been thinking for a long time: If Watergate were happening today... by media analyst Michael Gartenberg:
      "If Watergate we happening today, the Nixon tapes would be MP3's and downloaded as podcasts. Deep Throat would have used email and of course Woodward and Bernstein would be be bloggers."

    I suggested as much in a column I wrote for The Herald last summer for the 30th anniversary of Nixon's resignation. The column attracted some attention on the journalism forum Romenesko where it was argued. I commented on the discussion on my other blog. (Of course a month or so later the question of whether bloggers could break news changed with the Dan Rather/Bush military records revelations by bloggers. Several more examples have occurred since.)

    Blogger Bob Stepno has gathered lots of links to coverage of 'Throat'. Included, the Hartford Courant has made available the original 1999 story about the Florida college student who reported Felt was 'Throat'.

    The Post's Joel Achenbach is still thinking about this and has the best comments on this whole story and on the 30 years of trust between Felt and Bob Woodward.

    posted by liz at 11:23 AM
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    Elisabeth Donovan


    Elisabeth (Liz) Donovan was a Herald librarian for 10 years, and Research Editor for 13 years. She came to The Herald in 1981, following several years at the Washington Post. She started blogging in 2000, with a news research blog, followed by the blog at Herald.com in 2003. A frequent speaker and writer on news research, she was honored in 2004 by the News Division of the Special Libraries Association for her contributions to the field.


     Latest posts

       •  This blog is old news
       •  No more entries here
       •  The blog is moving
       •  Teele and DeFede
       •  Reaction
       •  Remembering a different tragedy
       •  Watching the shuttle
       •  Bloggers jump on Microsoft's map service
       •  Florida blog news
       •  Follow the money


     Archives
       •  July 1990
       •  October 2004
       •  November 2004
       •  December 2004
       •  January 2005
       •  February 2005
       •  March 2005
       •  April 2005
       •  May 2005
       •  June 2005
       •  July 2005
       •  August 2005
       •  July 2006

    Old blog (WeBlog at Herald.com, 7/2003-10/2004)




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