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The week, The Lancet formally retracted a deeply flawed study that suggested a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. The 1998 study has provided fuel for the anti-vaccine movement for years. The Lancet's editor Richard Horton describes how this debacle has forever changed the way the journal will deal with the scientific community and the media.
For years, the remarkable accuracy of video game football was the closest armchair quarterbacks could get to actual NFL play-on-the-field. The actual game inspired the virtual one. But increasingly, according to Chris Suellentrop in this month’s Wired Magazine, the trend has reversed. A generation of actual NFL players, raised on games like Madden NFL, are bringing the influence of video games into their real play.
The typical televised football game lasts about three hours. But according to a recent study by The Wall Street Journal, only 11 minutes of that time is actually devoted to live play. Bob Fishman is a game director for CBS Sports, the person who decides what home viewers see and when they see it. He explains how he spends the other two hours and 49 minutes of a broadcast.
JD Salinger died last week, nearly 50 years after publishing his last short story. The reclusive author claimed to have been writing novels in private over the last half century. Slate columnist and devoted Salingerophile Ron Rosenbaum talks about what might be locked in Salinger's safe, and when we might get to see it.
South Koreans were among the first to truly embrace the internet. Perhaps that’s why the country has also become one of the first to treat internet addiction as a psychiatric disorder. Author Douglas Rushkoff traveled to South Korea for an upcoming series that will air on PBS' "Frontline" next week. Rushkoff gives us a glimpse into South Korea's battle against digital obsession.
Some unpublished Salinger writing has already found its way into the world. For instance, the Firestone Library at Princeton University has a collection of never-published stories by the author. While patrons aren't allowed to check them out or even to photocopy them, that hasn't stopped obsessive Salinger fans from making the pilgramage to see the stories. OTM producer PJ Vogt is one such fan.
The H1N1 virus hasn’t proven as deadly as first feared. A German epidemiologist named Wolfgang Wodarg says the WHO intentionally overstated the threat. Others blame the media. We asked The New York Times health reporter Donald McNeil, sociologist Eric Klinenberg, and the CDC's Glen Nowak whether the media overstated the threat or helped contain the virus.
Apple released its tablet computer this week after years of speculation. The tech media went wild with some loving the iPad and others leaving disappointed. OTM producer Mark Phillips chimes in on why everyone is so anxious to see the device in action.
Last summer the Washington Post, in an attempt to increase revenue, planned a series of off-the-record salons whereby a sponsor could pay for the opportunity to meet with government officials, Post reporters, and others to discuss, say, health care. The man responsible for implementing and marketing the salons was media consultant Charles Pelton, and though that attempt proved ill-fated he remains convinced that media outlets should find ways to turn their reporters into profit centers.
When we think of journalists experiencing trauma, we often think of war correspondents and yet trauma can happen in one’s own backyard. Two years ago, a shooting rampage in the small community of Kirkwood, Missouri left local journalists covering the murders of their friends and neighbors. Don Corrigan, editor of The Webster-Kirkwood Times, says he’s never seen journalism in the same light since that day.
