Tweet backlash: Kan. officials learn lesson about free speech

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s social media staff isn’t doing him any favors. Taking exception when they came across a disrespectful tweet by a suburban Kansas City high school senior participating in a Youth in Government program, the staffers alerted program managers, who reported the student to her principal. The principal then demanded that she apologize.
The result? An adolescent tweet — “Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot.” — directed to 65 of the high school student’s closest friends is now a national story. Type “Gov. Brownback sucked” in Google and you’ll get 130,000 results. Whoops.
Emma Sullivan’s tweet was both crude and untrue. She didn’t actually say anything to the governor. But efforts to punish her for her free expression backfired on every adult involved.

About the First Amendment Center below article

Associated Press source

How UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi Brought Oppression Back To Greece’s Universities

Submitted by Tjadendevries on Sun, 11/27/2011 - 4:18pm

Mark Ames: How UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi Brought Oppression Back To Greece’s Universities

Yves here. Reader sidelarge raised the issue yesterday in comments, of UC Davis chancellor Linda Katehi’s role in abolition of university asylum in Greece. The story is even uglier than the link he provided suggests.

Mark Coatney on how Tumblr can help journalists advance their careers

NH Union Leader endorses Gingrich for president while blaming media for voter indecision

Publisher Joseph McQuaid elaborated on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal”:

The polls show that [Mitt] Romney maintains a lead, which is understandable … but the polls also show a tremendous amount of indecision on the part of the voters. And we said in the editorial that we thought that part of that was what has been the national media focus to date on the Republican campaign, which has been to really magnify every little mistake any one of them makes and not concentrate on the broader issues.

We came to the conclusion a few weeks ago that it really came down to two or three candidates and who was going to best grab the moment and not really be a manager if he got into office. Cline told CNN Sunday morning that those two candidates were Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
Editorial boards are much tougher than town hall meetings where, contrary to primary mythology, most questions are predictable and repetitive. This week Herman Cain appeared clueless about Libya while speaking to an editorial board in Wisconsin, which by the way is not an early state. Cain is not the only candidate to conclude that editorial board meetings can do more harm than good.

Earlier this week, publisher McQuaid gave thanks for the paper’s near-miss with Cain:

I was going to write about Herman Cain and the “interview that wasn’t” here at the Union Leader last Thursday, but it’s not worth much ink. We had an earlier interview here with him and I found him a likeable, intelligent guy with a good sense of humor. But Cain is going nowhere fast this presidential season, so I will only say that (a) he is not well-served by his staff; and (b) it is funny that in an era when candidates complain about the drive-by media, the Cain campaign cancels an hour-long interview with the state newspaper.

It is no easy task to compete with the faceless and remote mass and massive media these days. But as a Granite Stater, I’m thankful so many do.

96leroy 1 day ago

The media IS to blame but not for voter indecision - for voter misinformation. If the media had actually vetted O during the 2008 campaign, he wouldn't have become president. Since the media is in the bag for the dems, they didn't do any vetting what-so-ever. That fact is glaringly apparent.

J B 2 days ago

Only a right-wing paper could conclude that it's the media's fault for reporting the facts about what the candidates have done to themselves.

scottleadingham 2 days ago

From twitter

#Jpeeve: That an endorsement from a two-person ed board at a small-state newspaper is national news: http://t.co/h9Q88aGt

Newspaper Guild questions funding of Union Leader publisher’s trip to Afghanistan

Old news is new again thanks to Facebook's frictionless sharing

The 5 types of stories that make good Storifys

by Mallary Jean Tenore

While covering Occupy Wall Street, many news sites have used Storify to capture on-the-ground reports from journalists and protesters. Storify, they say, gives them a way to help their audience make sense of the stream of information flowing out of social networks. The social news curation tool also helped news sites thwart last week’s media blackout.
Storify CEO and Co-founder Burt Herman said there’s been a surge in the number of people using Storify to capture the protests. But he’s also seen news sites use it in interesting ways for a variety of other stories.

Lindsay Beyerstein
‎Abbas Raza writes: "Friends, help me! I must confess that we have thrown a party and no one is coming: for the first time ever, we've announced the 3QD prize for Politics & Social Science and we don't have many nominees! Come on, you guys must know of some blog post in the last year that deserves to win $1000! Please nominate something (and it can be something by you!), please share this on your own wall, and please tell your favorite political blogger about this! At this point, it's easy money!!!"

Photos: The final 12 hours of Chinese women on death row

Red, Green and Blue
How bad is the new plan for California's peripheral canal? 242 groups, from natives to corps, stand opposed...
242 groups stand up against California’s peripheral canal
redgreenandblue.org
An unprecedented 242 environmental organizations, environmental justice groups, Native American Tribes, recreational angling organizations, commercial fishing groups and outdoor businesses sent a letter on November 16 to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and California Natural Resources Secretary John ...

Anglers Blast DFG Striped Bass Proposal
Published on 11-05-2011 01:28 PM

Published by Dan Bacher
Bill Jennings, executive director/chairman of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, said everybody concerned about restoring Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations should strongly oppose the DFG proposal. "This proposal is based on bogus science and is a capitulation to those who are attempting to shift responsibility for the Delta collapse from the export pumps to the fish - and who are blaming the victims of water exports for the collapse," Jennings explained.*
Water Defense Campaign
From The Huffington Post: "...if New York were to proceed with fracking, but without studies, it would be the first time that sizable urban populations will have been placed at risk for exposure to fracking chemicals. Studies show these chemicals can migrate over distances in water, while ozone causing air pollution travels even farther."
http://j.mp/v4Wy2j

Is New York's Governor Opening a Pandora's Box?

www.huffingtonpost.com

With recent evidence that fracking chemicals can migrate far from a frack site, should people have to play "believe it or not" with the safety pronouncements made by gas industry P.R. and advertising campaigns?