Another new general news site launches

Founded by 29-year-old Ezra Klein, who built the Washington Post's Wonkblog into a big deal, has launched Vox.com. Here's some background. Vox.com is part of a new media group that includes SB Nation and The Verge.

Can journalists/columnists with strong political ideologies . . .

. . . still engage in independent commentary -- as opposed to partisan propaganda? Here is some critical commentary from the conservative National Review Online within hours of John McCain selecting Sarah Palin as his running-mate in August 2008.

Undercover videotaping of farm animal abuse...

...has prompted "food libel" or "food disparagement" laws in a dozen states, aimed at protecting powerful agribusiness interests that apparently have something to hide. Here's a video report from U.C. Berkeley News21 students.

2008 Presidential Election: A Huffpost citizen journalist had impacthe Bus" project

Mayhill Fowler says she didn't hide that she was recording ex-President Clinton's angry words ("sleazy" . . . "slimy" . . . "dishonest" . . . "scumbag") about a Vanity Fair reporter, while he greeted voters in public as he campaigned for his wife in June 2008. BUT Clinton obviously did not know Fowler was a HuffPost "citizen journalist." Should she have ID'd herself? (She clearly got a more honest take from Clinton than if he'd known she was a journalist.)

Shouldn't public figures know nowadays that anything said in public -- especially rants (or racism) -- will be recorded and available forever? Exhibits A (and A1) and B.

Mayhill Fowler's earlier reporting scoop that launched "Bittergate" uproar. The Bittergate of 2012 campaign: "47%-gate."

Mainstream TV News Can Have Standardized Content . . . and Format

A BBC correspondent lampoons the sameyness (and cliches) of  mainstream TV news reports.

Mainstream Media Coverage of Edward Snowden

I wrote this piece on how some in mainstream media reacted to Snowden and his revelations of widespread surveillance of Americans who are not suspected of a crime.

Blogger Took Ethical Action

Here's an example of a blogger acting quite professionally and ethically. Ken Krayeske, who famously questioned University of Connecticut's basketball coach about his huge taxpayer-paid salary -- announced in Oct. 2009 that he wouldn't be covering Hartford City Hall because his girlfriend had a job there. If he'd disclosed the relationship and kept covering City Hall, that  might have been sufficient from an ethical standpoint.