Topic: Journalism

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๐Ÿ”— Jerry Pournelle has died

๐Ÿ”— Biography ๐Ÿ”— Science Fiction ๐Ÿ”— Biography/arts and entertainment ๐Ÿ”— Journalism

Jerry Eugene Pournelle (; August 7, 1933 โ€“ September 8, 2017) was an American polymath: scientist in the area of operations research and human factors research, science fiction writer, essayist, journalist, and one of the first bloggers. In the 1960s and early 1970s, he worked in the aerospace industry, but eventually focused on his writing career. In an obituary in gizmodo, he is described as "a tireless ambassador for the future."

Pournelle is particularly known for writing hard science fiction, and received multiple awards for his writing. In addition to his solo writing, he wrote several novels with collaborators, most notably Larry Niven. Pournelle served a term as President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

Pournelle's journalism focused primarily on the computer industry, astronomy, and space exploration. From the 1970s until the early 1990s, he contributed to the computer magazine Byte, writing from the viewpoint of an intelligent user, with the oft-cited credo, โ€œWe do this stuff so you wonโ€™t have to.โ€ He created one of the first blogs, entitled "Chaos Manor", which included commentary about politics, computer technology, space technology, and science fiction.

Pournelle was also known for his paleoconservative political views, which were sometimes expressed in his fiction. He was one of the founders of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy, which developed some of the Reagan Administration's space initiatives, including the earliest versions of what would become the Strategic Defense Initiative.

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๐Ÿ”— Disneyland with Death Penalty

๐Ÿ”— Freedom of speech ๐Ÿ”— Journalism ๐Ÿ”— Singapore

"Disneyland with the Death Penalty" is a 4,500-word article about Singapore written by William Gibson. His first major piece of non-fiction, it was first published as the cover story for Wired magazine's September/October 1993 issue (1.4).

The article follows Gibson's observations of the architecture, phenomenology and culture of Singapore, and the clean, bland and conformist impression the city-state conveys during his stay. Its title and central metaphorโ€”Singapore as Disneyland with the death penaltyโ€”is a reference to the authoritarian artifice the author perceives the city-state to be. Singapore, Gibson details, is lacking any sense of creativity or authenticity, absent of any indication of its history or underground culture. He finds the government to be pervasive, corporatist and technocratic, and the judicial system rigid and draconian. Singaporeans are characterized as consumerists of insipid taste. The article is accentuated by local news reports of criminal trials by which the author illustrates his observations, and bracketed by contrasting descriptions of the Southeast Asian airports he arrives and leaves by.

Though Gibson's first major piece of non-fiction, the article had an immediate and lasting impact. The Singaporean government banned Wired upon the publication of the issue. The phrase "Disneyland with the death penalty" came to stand internationally for an authoritarian and austere reputation that the city-state found difficult to shake off.

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๐Ÿ”— Today is Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

๐Ÿ”— Human rights ๐Ÿ”— Internet ๐Ÿ”— Religion ๐Ÿ”— Comedy ๐Ÿ”— Freedom of speech ๐Ÿ”— Islam ๐Ÿ”— Journalism ๐Ÿ”— Animation ๐Ÿ”— Comics ๐Ÿ”— South Park

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day (or Draw Mohammed Day) was a 2010 event in support of artists threatened with violence for drawing representations of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It stemmed from a protest against censorship of the American television show South Park episode "201", led by the show's distributor Comedy Central, in response to death threats that had been made against some of those responsible for two segments broadcast in April 2010. A drawing representing Mohammed was posted on the Internet on April 20, 2010, with a message suggesting that "everybody" create a drawing depicting Mohammad on May 20 in support of free speech.

U.S. cartoonist Molly Norris of Seattle, Washington created the artwork in reaction to Internet death threats that had been made against animators Trey Parker and Matt Stone for depicting Muhammad in an episode of South Park. Postings on RevolutionMuslim.com (under the pen name Abu Talha al-Amrikee; later identified as Zachary Adam Chesser) had said that Parker and Stone could wind up like Theo van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker who was stabbed and shot to death.

Norris claimed that, if people draw pictures of Muhammad, radical Islamist terrorists would not be able to murder them all, and threats to do so would become unrealistic. Within a week, Norris' idea became popular on Facebook, was supported by numerous bloggers, and generated coverage on the blog websites of major U.S. newspapers. As the publicity mounted, Norris and the man who created the first Facebook page promoting the May 20 event disassociated themselves from it. Nonetheless, planning for the protest continued with others "taking up the cause". Facebook had an "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" page, which grew to over 100,000 participants (101,870 members by May 20). A protest page on Facebook against the initiative named "Against โ€˜Everybody Draw Mohammed Day'" attracted slightly more supporters (106,000 by May 20). Subsequently, Facebook was temporarily blocked by Pakistan; the ban was lifted after Facebook agreed to block the page for users in India and Pakistan.

In the media, Everybody Draw Mohammed Day attracted support from commentators who felt that the campaign represented important issues of freedom of speech, and the need to stand up for this freedom.

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๐Ÿ”— Betteridge's Law of Headlines

๐Ÿ”— Journalism

Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no". It is named after Ian Betteridge, a British technology journalist who wrote about it in 2009, although the principle is much older. As with similar "laws" (e.g., Murphy's law), it is intended to be humorous rather than the literal truth. The adage fails to make sense with questions that are more open-ended than strict yes-no questions.

The maxim has been cited by other names since 1991, when a published compilation of Murphy's Law variants called it "Davis's law", a name that also crops up online (such as cited by linguist Mark Liberman), without any explanation of who Davis was. It has also been referred to as the "journalistic principle" and in 2007 was referred to in commentary as "an old truism among journalists".

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๐Ÿ”— 'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

๐Ÿ”— United States ๐Ÿ”— Comedy ๐Ÿ”— Politics ๐Ÿ”— Politics/American politics ๐Ÿ”— Journalism ๐Ÿ”— Politics/Gun politics

"'No Way to Prevent This', Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens" is the title of a series of articles perennially published by the American news satire organization The Onion satirizing the frequency of mass shootings in the United States and the lack of action taken in the wake of such incidents.

Each article is about 200 words long, detailing the location of the shooting and the number of victims, but otherwise remaining essentially the same. A fictitious residentโ€”usually of a state in which the shooting did not take placeโ€”is quoted as saying that the shooting was "a terrible tragedy", but "there's nothing anyone can do to stop them." The article ends by saying that the United States is the "only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past eight years," and that Americans view themselves and the situation as "helpless".

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๐Ÿ”— Nellie Bly

๐Ÿ”— Biography ๐Ÿ”— Medicine ๐Ÿ”— New York City ๐Ÿ”— Psychology ๐Ÿ”— Women's History ๐Ÿ”— Women writers ๐Ÿ”— Biography/arts and entertainment ๐Ÿ”— Pennsylvania ๐Ÿ”— Journalism ๐Ÿ”— Medicine/Society and Medicine ๐Ÿ”— Medicine/Psychiatry ๐Ÿ”— Pittsburgh ๐Ÿ”— Newspapers

Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman (born Elizabeth Jane Cochran; May 5, 1864 โ€“ January 27, 1922), better known by her pen name Nellie Bly, was an American journalist who was widely known for her record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days in emulation of Jules Verne's fictional character Phileas Fogg, and for an exposรฉ in which she worked undercover to report on a mental institution from within. She pioneered her field and launched a new kind of investigative journalism.

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๐Ÿ”— โ€œNo Way to Prevent Thisโ€, Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

๐Ÿ”— United States ๐Ÿ”— Comedy ๐Ÿ”— Politics ๐Ÿ”— Politics/American politics ๐Ÿ”— Journalism ๐Ÿ”— Politics/Gun politics

"'No Way to Prevent This', Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens" is the title of a series of articles perennially published by the American news satire organization The Onion satirizing the frequency of mass shootings in the United States and the lack of action taken in the wake of such incidents.

Each article is about 200 words long, detailing the location of the shooting and the number of victims, but otherwise remaining essentially the same. A fictitious residentโ€”usually of a state in which the shooting did not take placeโ€”is quoted as saying that the shooting was "a terrible tragedy", but "there's nothing anyone can do to stop them." The article ends by pointing out that the United States is the "only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past eight years," and that Americans view themselves and the situation as "helpless".

๐Ÿ”— Headlinese

๐Ÿ”— Journalism

Headlinese is an abbreviated form of news writing style used in newspaper headlines.

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๐Ÿ”— Order of the Occult Hand

๐Ÿ”— United States ๐Ÿ”— Comedy ๐Ÿ”— Journalism

The Order of the Occult Hand is a secret society of American journalists who slip the meaningless and telltale phrase "It was as if an occult hand hadโ€ฆ" in print as an inside joke.

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๐Ÿ”— Anna Politkovskaya

๐Ÿ”— Biography ๐Ÿ”— Human rights ๐Ÿ”— Russia ๐Ÿ”— Russia/mass media in Russia ๐Ÿ”— Politics ๐Ÿ”— Guild of Copy Editors ๐Ÿ”— Women writers ๐Ÿ”— Biography/arts and entertainment ๐Ÿ”— Biography/politics and government ๐Ÿ”— Journalism ๐Ÿ”— Ukraine ๐Ÿ”— Russia/politics and law of Russia ๐Ÿ”— Russia/history of Russia

Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya (Russian: ะะฝะฝะฐ ะกั‚ะตะฟะฐะฝะพะฒะฝะฐ ะŸะพะปะธั‚ะบะพะฒัะบะฐั, IPA:ย [หˆanหษ™ sสฒtสฒษชหˆpanษ™vnษ™ pษ™lสฒษชtหˆkofskษ™jษ™]; Ukrainian: ะ“ะฐะฝะฝะฐ ะกั‚ะตะฟะฐะฝั–ะฒะฝะฐ ะŸะพะปั–ั‚ะบะพะฒััŒะบะฐ, IPA:ย [หˆษฆษ‘nหษ steหˆpษ‘nโฝสฒโพiuฬฏnษ polโฝสฒโพitหˆkษ”uฬฏsสฒkษ]; nรฉe Mazepa, ะœะฐะทะตะฟะฐ, IPA:ย [mษหˆzษ›pษ]; 30 August 1958 โ€“ 7 October 2006) was a Russian journalist, and human rights activist, who reported on political events in Russia, in particular, the Second Chechen War (1999โ€“2005).

It was her reporting from Chechnya that made Politkovskaya's national and international reputation. For seven years, she refused to give up reporting on the war despite numerous acts of intimidation and violence. Politkovskaya was arrested by Russian military forces in Chechnya and subjected to a mock execution. She was poisoned while flying from Moscow via Rostov-on-Don to help resolve the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis, and had to turn back, requiring careful medical treatment in Moscow to restore her health.

Her post-1999 articles about conditions in Chechnya were turned into books several times; Russian readers' main access to her investigations and publications was through Novaya Gazeta, a Russian newspaper that featured critical investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs. From 2000 onwards, she received numerous international awards for her work. In 2004, she published Putin's Russia, a personal account of Russia for a Western readership.

On 7 October 2006, she was murdered in the elevator of her block of apartments, an assassination that attracted international attention. In June 2014, five men were sentenced to prison for the murder, but it is still unclear who ordered or paid for the contract killing.

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