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We've all become semi-experts in using search engines and search terms to get the information on the web. But how easy is it to ask a question in normal language and get the right answer? Several new services are trying to do just that. OTM producer Mark Phillips set out to get some answers.
Filmmakers have long been fascinated by the idea of the grizzled reporter chasing a scoop. In the silent era, titles like “The Daring of Diana” and “The Final Extra” treated journalism as adventure – and it’s no different in the modern age. Joe Saltzman, director of the Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture, discusses the movie reporter.
We devote the show this week to the illustrious past and perilous future of investigative reporting. How will investigative stories fare in an era of layoffs and slashed newsrooms budgets? Reporter and UC Berkeley professor Lowell Bergman, Stephen Engelberg of the investigative nonprofit ProPublica and The City University of New York's Jeff Jarvis discuss the past, present and potential future of this core journalistic enterprise.
Freelance photographer Zoriah Miller was disembedded from the Marine Corps this summer after taking photographs of dead US Marines and posting them to his blog. Miller says despite following every rule of embedded journalists, the Marine Corps leadership sought to ban him from being an embed for life.
WNYC staffers Elaine Rivera and Corey Takahashi went to the Unity ’08 Journalists’ convention last week and weren’t they surprised when their neighbor at the next table turned out to be the CIA! Hear what convention-goers made of the Agency’s presence.
Economic turmoil was the story this week, with oil and gas prices causing much of the anxiety. The rise in prices are often cited as a simple issue of supply-and-demand but Howell Raines, media columnist for Portfolio Magazine, says journalists haven't pushed back hard enough against oil companies' explanations for the high prices.
A few weeks ago, Slate's music critic Jody Rosen received an email suggesting his article had been printed under a different name in a small alternative weekly in Texas. Rosen dug around the paper's website, and says that he couldn't find anything that wasn't plagiarized.
With movie-ticket sales flat, the film industry is looking for a way to entice audiences back into the theater with new digital 3-D technology. Big name directors and major studios all have 3-D projects in the works, but Portfolio Magazine's Kevin Maney says many hurdles remain before 3-D becomes commonplace.
When Pervez Musharraf traded in his military uniform for a suit and tie, or Castro embraced an Addidas track suit, it was that rare moment when dictatorial politics and the sartorial sweep of history collide. OTM takes this idea one step too far with Project Runway: Strongman Edition.
The ability to search through massive amounts of data, Google-style, is having far-reaching effects. And, according to Wired Magazine's Chris Anderson, one of the most significant casualties may be the venerable scientific method. He explains why in the age of the petabyte, scientific testing is forever changed and why the numbers now speak for themselves.
