The Biz: DigiDave "Bullish" on Journalism, Calls for 10,000 Startups

Digital journalism blogger Dave "DigiDave" Cohn says he's "bullish" on the future of journalism. At least someone's bullish about something. The S&P 500 just broke down below the 2002 lows, so Cohn's optimism is a good antidote to that glum news. Here's his interesting column on the need for 10,000 journalism startups (of which he thinks two will become the new New York Times).

TAGS: future of journalism, interesting, the biz

Investigations: NPR Host, Guests Had Pharma Ties

Dr. Frederick Goodwin, host of a popular show on NPR, earned at least $1.3 million giving marketing lectures for drug makers between 2000 and 2007, reports this interesting blog item on Jim Romenesko's site, citing this New York Times piece. Especially noteworthy, reported a Slate article on the same controversy last May, is that Goodwin hosted an NPR show called "Prozac Nation: Revisited," which featured four guests who talked about how worries about a link between Prozac and suicide are overblown. All four guests also have financial ties with antidepressant drug makers, according to the report. As well, Goodwin's show, The Infinite Mind, itself has received "unrestricted grants" from one antidepressant manufacturer. Also interesting is the back-and-forth debate appended to the end of that Slate piece between an NPR producer, the NPR ombudsman and the Slate article's authors.

TAGS: pharma, investigations

Conferences: Call for Internet Research Papers

Internet researchers are being called for papers for the Oct. 2009 annual conference of the Association of Internet Researchers, titled "Internet: Critical," to be held in Milwaukee. Learn more about the conference and this organization (which has an interesting free listserv) here.

TAGS: tools, conference, internet, Web 2.0

Journalists Attacked: Armenia's Baghdasarian Hospitalized

A leading Armenian investigative journalist known for stories exposing government corruption was hospitalized after an attack outside his office, the latest in a series of attacks on journalists in Yerevan, says this item: "Edik Baghdasarian, who heads the Armenian Association of Investigative Journalists and runs a Yerevan-based online magazine, Hetq, left his office in downtown Yerevan at about 8 p.m. Monday and shortly was ambushed and beaten by three unknown assailants as he was going to get into his car parked in the street, according to his own account."

Baghdasarian was quoted saying: “Right near the car two people attacked me and began to land heavy blows. I retaliated and we were exchanging blows. I punched one of them and since I was holding a mobile phone in my hand at that moment, the phone now has blood stains on it, presumably the blood of one of the attackers." The attackers fled when a security worker fired a shot into the air. The journalist says a computer disc was lost with several investigative stories that he planned for publication. He had recently written about corruption in Armenia’s mining industry.

Reporters Without Borders has called for a thorough investigation.

TAGS: journalists attacked

Tools: Targeted Video Search

Interesting new tool now in beta development: VideoSurf.com. These guys have created a new way to search for video by actually including elements of the video footage in the search algorithm. What does that mean? Unlike YouTube, which searches based on tags and descriptions - and thus, doesn't necessarily reflect what's actually in the video if a poster doesn't include the right info - VideoSurf seems to give more targeted results aggregated from other video sites. Cool.

Tools: FOI Litigation Handbook

Lawyer and journalist Harry Hammitt, the FOI guru behind the AccessReports.com resource website, has come out with a new book, "Litigation Under the Federal Open Government Laws 2008". "Under the Freedom of Information Act, one need not be a lawyer to file a lawsuit," says Secrecy News, a project of the Federation of American Scientists, in a post on the new handbook. "A clever, committed advocate can sometimes defeat a team of government lawyers and win disclosure of denied documents. On the other hand, an inept, overzealous or unlucky litigant can leave a trail of legal wreckage that will make the lives of other FOIA requesters more difficult. A newly updated guidebook will help any would-be litigant, whether a lawyer or not, to avoid many of the pitfalls of FOIA litigation and to realistically assess the chances of success. Don't file suit without it." Read more here at Hammit's site.

TAGS: FOI, tools

Awards: ProPublica to Recognize Government Investigators

Add this to the what-a-good-idea column: ProPublica, the nonprofit investigative journo outfit in the U.S., is creating a new series of investigative awards for government entities. The awards will honour outstanding reporting by bodies like the Government Accountability Office, Congressional committees, inspectors general, state attorneys-general and the like from federal and state levels. Nominations open now through Jan. 31, 2009, for the 2008 calendar year. Learn more here.

TAGS: awards, investigations, ProPublica