Interview questions

adding more...

Pat Butler is a brave man, to submit to a face to face interview.

I am not a brave man. On the other hand, I do readily answer questions from my readers.*

Questions:

• Others have said:
  The goal of objectivity is not fairness or balance: it is reliability and credibility. Objective information actually upsets rote "fairness" when one side of an argument is based on an obvious distortion.
  and
  Neutrality requires that you give equal billing to people who say the earth is flat and those who say it is round. Objectivity allows you to point out the evidence that the flat-earth folks are wrong.
  Do you aim for objectivity, or for neutrality and 'fairness', in The Union's reporting?
  
• The Union started a weblog last spring that contained some interesting posts and comments, which I had linked to from mine. In your switch to the new, less reader-friendly format, the old (WordPress) blog's posts and comments were taken offline, thus blocking community access to a unique source of local information. Were the posts and comments archived? if so, will they be put back online?
  
• The long-broken pre-2002 Archive Search, that used to be on The Union's website, has been taken offline. Are there plans to restore it?
  
• Why is the current Archive Search still broken? It hasn't been fully functional for over a year. Why is there no warning on the page, to inform the users? (there used to be one, then it disappeared, and, despite repeated requests, hasn't returned)
  

More questions are in the old list here.

posted by Anna at 9/28/2005 10:22:00 PM | Comment

 

progressive blogging at The Union

Thurs update: I'm trying to get an answer from an editor (of web or paper) at The Union as to whether the posts and comments from their previous blog a) were archived and b) will be put back online. One days-old email query not answered, now switching to asking in blog comments (which, according to Kady, are working now - "Our servers in Reno had some problems...a few things were lost before I got a chance to save them to our own system."(*)).

If 'conservative' can mean 'ok with treating the planet as disposable since Armageddon will be right with us' then a 'progressive newspaper' can be one that engages in gratuitous linkrot, deleting all old posts and comments from their WordPress blog and replacing it with redirecting visitors to a through-the-looking-straw pseudoblog.

So if and until it gets resurrected, my past links to their blog's posts and comments are kaput.

Reason?
from the dead blog, "We also hope to revamp the look of our blog soon and make it easier to read and skip from entry to entry.*"

My response (in comment to that post):
Their reply? None, AFAIK*, except to do pretty much as I foresaw - although it was a surprise to find that the old posts and comments had been blown away altogether.

Advice for progressive newspapers: Cover news, not tracks.

posted by Anna at 9/24/2005 10:47:00 PM | Comment

 

blog hiatus, belated explanation

Still alive, still conscious, busy elsewhere in life for now, plus the usual tone of this blog is wholly inappropriate in a time of natural and other disasters.

One thing I have to say though -

I've worked in the broadcast industry - writing software to configure and control equipment that's used in television stations and post-production houses - for over 15 years. It's been great to be paid (well) to work out puzzles all day, but, up until recently, my standard 10-words-or-less career summary has been "I'm a minion for the forces of evil", since, well, it is television, opiate of the masses, dragging society downward and all, with me shamefacedly, selfishly and profiteeringly doing my part to make it happen.

The television coverage of New Orleans post-Katrina changed that.

It's a new and wonderful thing to feel proud of what we do.

Added Thursday, found in TPM Cafe:

posted by Anna at 9/23/2005 09:41:00 PM | Comment