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Namibia strikes black gold, in massive amounts — Opalo
Emanuel Derman: “often, funnily enough, business life can be more collegial than college life” — Reuters
Ken Auletta: Rupert isn’t firing Brooks ‘cos he’s only got 2 friends, and she’s one of them — TNY
Why do I get the feeling this ain’t one of those movies which initially gets released only in NY and LA? — TBI
In which I talk debt ceiling negotiations with Chuck Scarborough, legendary NY anchor — NBC
Jailed for cashing Chase check at Chase bank — Consumerist
If you work at AP and express public joy about the NY gay-marriage bill, you’ll get disciplined — Poynter
A fascinating post on why Japan’s economy is much better than you think — Fingleton
My Ten-Point Action Plan for Spending One Million Dollars at Tiffany — Awl
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Namibia hasn’t found massive amounts of oil. There’s the hope there may be but drilling is really only starting next year. Thus far, there’s been very little drilling and a lot of seismic – and a lot of high hopes.
Also, there are no guarantees that if companies drill and find hydrocarbons that it will be oil, it may be gas, as seen at Kudu and, apparently, Kunene.
AP is far from the only media organization with a rule like this — see the Juan Williams case, for example — but it’s a little bit silly. Journalists all have their biases and worldviews; I’d rather they be out in the open, instead of pretending they don’t exist. Let them develop a reputation for fairly covering stories on which they have strong feelings; if an AP reporter fails to keep personal opinions out of an AP story, then of course you apply some sort of institutional controls.
This quote is a bit reductionist but gets to the nub of why the current mode of balanced and unbiased coverage (ahem) is flawed:
“A reporter is expected to avoid taking sides. This is how one side wins. There is a false equivalency in political reporting. If one party is corrupt or extreme, the reporter must show that both parties are corrupt or extreme; otherwise he is charged with bias. This false equivalency rewards extremism. Why be moderate when extremism has more leverage?”
–Eric Hanson, writing a commentary at Minnesota Public Radio today.
Corruption is one thing, but “extreme” is subjective.