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Thursday, September 13, 2018

Top 101 Blogging Statistics: BC on Falling Man 9/11


We cannot pluck a flower witout disturbing a star

— Loren Eisley, born  in 1907


How Poetry Came to Matter Again


A young generation of artists is winning prizes, acclaim, and legions of readers while exploring identity in new ways





What It’s Like to Wallow in Your Own Facebook Data


For the past 13 years, I’ve given the platform my photos, my videos, my likes, and untold hours of my time. Sifting through it all was amusing and surprising—and weirdly sad.


UK - The Chartered Institute of Taxation reviews Public Accounts Committee hearing on HMRC's performance in 2017–18

The Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) has published a blog reviewing the public accounts committee hearing on 5 September 2018 on HMRC performance in 2017-18.

HMRC senior management answered questions on country by country reporting, fraud and error in tax credits, customer service, the legality of HMRC's voice biometrics programme, the cost of tax reliefs, registers of beneficial ownership and VAT compliance (especially in relation to online platforms). The final part of the session was spent on Brexit and customs, and included the revelation that the 'third release' of the new Customs Declaration System will been delayed to March 2019, so HMRC are testing a strategy of using CHIEF (the existing system) for exports and CDS for imports for a period.




“You can’t win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.”
Blogging is dead, long live blogging |

What Blogging Has Become via The Atlantic
What does the future look like for The Blogger? – ART + marketing

Apparition At Lourdes: Artist Who Poses Nude In Front Of Famous Nude Paintings Visits Pilgrimage Site (Nude, Of Course)


The Luxembourgeoise artist Deborah de Robertis, who has been arrested multiple times for displaying herself alongside displays of some of the world's most famous female nude paintings, "has been charged with 'sexual exhibitionism' after she stood in the famous grotto at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, hands clasped as if in prayer, wearing nothing but a blue veil on her head." (She titled the performance "The Origin of Life.") …Read More

MarketPlace: “The cost of the learning content was designed so that everybody could take a 30 percent margin three times — the distributor, the wholesaler, the bookstore. What gets taught is based on the curriculum that a school can do based on the professors they have, which is very different than what you want to learn, what you need to learn, the time that you are available to learn it and the price you can pay for it…”
Most Americans continue to get news on social media, even though many have concerns about its accuracy: “About two-thirds of American adults (68%) say they at least occasionally get news on social media, about the same share as at this time in 2017, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Many of these consumers, however, are skeptical of the information they see there: A majority (57%) say they expect the news they see on social media to be largely inaccurate. Still, most social media news consumers say getting news this way has made little difference in their understanding of current events, and more say it has helped than confused them (36% compared with 15%). Republicans are more negative about the news they see on social media than Democrats. Among Republican social media news consumers, 72% say they expect the news they see there to be inaccurate, compared with 46% of Democrats and 52% of independents. And while 42% of those Democrats who get news on social media say it has helped their understanding of current events, fewer Republicans (24%) say the same. Even among those Americans who say they prefer to get news on social media over other platforms (such as print, TV or radio), a substantial portion (42%) express this skepticism….

Tax boss warns outages are 'a fact of modern life'


CohenWashington Post, Sheldon S. Cohen Dies at 91:

Sheldon S. Cohen, a tax lawyer and certified public accountant who helped set up the first presidential blind trust, for Lyndon B. Johnson, and then helped fully computerize the IRS as Johnson’s commissioner of internal revenue, died Sept. 4 at a nursing home in Chevy Chase, Md. He was 91. The cause was complications from congestive heart failure, said a grandson, Reuben C. Goetzl.



They came swimming in with the morning tide
After three days of storms unmoored our boats.
Somehow, they guided each hull back toward shore.
Like a school of fish two miles long and wide,
They moved as one, some submerged, some afloat,
Filling the bay with hope, a pleading corps.
We launched the boats and went fishing for souls.
Our bows bobbed clumsily through the dead shoals.
As we leaned to take their outstretched hands --
Beseeching yet so difficult to grip --
We found them quite impossible to ship,
Since each boat was already fully manned.
We saved a few but most soon went under.
A rainbow blessed the sea; then came thunder.


Reuters: “…At age 58, [Dale] Kleber had extensive experience working for law firms, as an in-house general counsel and in general management jobs. But he had been out of work since the summer of 2011, when he lost his job as the CEO of a dairy industry trade association. Kleber’s search for senior-level general counsel positions had proved fruitless, so he widened his scope to include more junior positions. But his application for the position at CareFusion, a medical device/services company, had gone nowhere. CareFusion had not called him in for an interview for its senior counsel job, and it ultimately hired a 29-year-old candidate, according to the company’s response to the original U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint that preceded the lawsuit. Kleber, who lives in suburban Chicago, thought the seven-year cap on experience described in the job ad violated the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), which protects the rights of workers aged 40 and older…”




WOODWARD'S BOOK: As excerpts of "Fear" trickled out, The Atlantic has compiled a "best quotes" list. Here's more from The Washington Post itself, and a wild Trump-Woodward phone call.


CUT IN HALF: The conspiracy theory site Infowars has lost half of its audience since hate speech prompted its ban from its two primary distribution channels, Facebook and YouTube, the NYT's Jack Nicas reports.


OUTLINE CUTS WRITERS: The culture site Outline laid off six staffers, including its last writers. It will apparently rely on freelance material from now on, Fast Company's Cale Guthrie Weissman reports. 


UNION MOVES: Two combining newsrooms in Virginia say they have support for a union and are asking Tronc for immediate recognition, NPR reports. The move at The Daily Press in Newport News and The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk follows unionization of Tronc properties in Los Angeles and Chicago.


MOVES: Juliet Lapidos joins the new Atlantic Ideas section as deputy editor. Lapidos comes from the Los Angeles Times, where she was the op ed editor and Sunday Opinion editor. … Juana Summers Markland joins the AP in Washington, covering the Democratic Party. She comes from CNN Politics and previously wrote for Mashable, NPR and Politico.

 OECD, Tax Policy Reforms 2018: Countries have used recent tax reforms to lower taxes on businesses and individuals, with a view to boosting investment, consumption and labour market participation, continuing a trend that started a couple of years ago, according to a new report from the OECD 


'The importance of quality journalism,' tips for covering Florence, what it took to prompt Moonves' exit


When he was a freshly minted journalism grad, with no clips, Michael Arnolt got his first reporting job, he said, "because they felt sorry for me."

By the end of 5 1/2 years at The Elkhart (Indiana) Truth (obits, cops and courts, county bureau, state editor, political writer) he had picked up two statewide AP awards and was dreaming of a Pulitzer one day. However, a call from his widowed mother, summoning his help on the family business, took his career in a different direction.

Of his reporting life, Arnolt said: “I couldn’t wait to go to bed at night to wake up the next morning to go to work.”

Forty-five years later, Arnolt has kindled his love of journalism in a big way, donating $6 million to Indiana University, his alma mater, to establish a center for investigative reporting, beginning next fall. The gift, announced Thursday, the biggest in Indiana's century-old journalism program, has prompted interest from other possible donors to the center, said James Shanahan, dean of The Media School at IU's Bloomington campus.

The Michael I. Arnolt Center For Investigative Journalism began as an idea to build reporting training and strength in a heartland news desert, Shanahan said, and grew from there. 

In an interview from Indianapolis, Arnolt says he has used the writing and investigative skills he learned in reporting — "fairness, accuracy and being thorough" — in business as well. One example: Arnolt mentioned that journalism taught him to quickly encapsulate a conversation in a followup note, driving the conversation forward. He made his fortune as the co-founder of Graston Technique, a physical therapy method adopted by clinicians, outpatient clinics, 450-plus sports organizations and university advanced degree teaching programs.

While he grew his business,“I never lost my interest in what I call the news game," Arnolt said. "I felt like I had the privilege and right to critique it and also the right to be the largest defender.”

Some of his love for the field dates back to childhood and "journalist" Clark Kent fighting for truth, justice and the America Way. That said, the real-life result of meticulously reported accountability journalism — "the impact of what we do on everybody’s life" — can help democracy so much, he said.

Arnolt's involvement with IU grew after he became part of a Media School advisory board looking at the future of journalism. Arnolt and Shanahan joined a group of journalists and academics who brainstormed about what an investigative center could mean to help students, the state and the region. The others in the group "did not know the depth to which (Arnolt) would commit himself, and he’s very humble,” Shanahan said.

“The decision has been based on the importance of quality journalism as a watchdog of the government, of things social and education, and for the people," Arnolt said. "None of this fake news, Trump, Russia, occurred to me as a rationale for doing it.”
The Indiana center joins investigative centers established last month by the Scripps Howard Foundation at the University of Maryland and Arizona State. Shanahan says all 50 states should have such a center.
He acknowledged, however, that the strong interest in recent days has been daunting.
"When I saw so many people were interested in this," the dean said, "I thought, 'I have to make it work.'”

Quick hits

WHAT IT TAKES: Meticulous reporting, detailed charges and named accusers often are needed to prevail “against the fierce resistance of a paternalistic, self-protective and often sexist culture,” media columnist Margaret Sullivan writes. Against all odds, she says, something akin to justice happened Sunday at CBS with the departure of CEO and chairman Leslie Moonves after dogged work by The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow and the courageous voices of a dozen women who publicly accused of Moonves of sexual harassment and assault.
JOURNALIST PROBED: Mike Ward, a veteran reporter in the Austin bureau of the Houston Chronicle, has resigned after questions were raised about the existence of several sources in recent stories, which internal researchers were unable to confirm. The Chronicle's executive editor, Nancy Barnes, told readers that the paper has hired an outside journalist to investigate, and she promised to publish "a full account of our findings."
ZUCK’S CHOICE: Evan Osnos’s profile of the Facebook chief includes this question: Should my company be the arbiter of truth and democracy for two billion people? A huge problem for Mark Zuckerberg, Osnos writes, may be adjusting from past habits, including times when his single-mindedness proved the best course for the company. But here are three other past habits: “Between speech and truth, he chose speech,” Osnos writes. “Between speed and perfection, he chose speed. Between scale and safety, he chose scale.“
MOVES: Gregory H. Lee Jr. is returning to Washington, moving from editorial director of nba.com to senior managing editor of The Athletic’s D.C. operation. Lee, formerly of The Washington Post and The Boston Globe, is a former NABJ president. ... Axios has hired veteran auto reporter Joann Muller, currently the Detroit bureau chief of Forbes. Muller, formerly of Business Week and the Detroit Free Press, will be writing a newsletter on autonomous vehicles, reports Chris Roush of Talking Biz News.
MILE-HIGH MILESTONE: The Denver-based Colorado Sun has become the first digital-only member of The Associated Press, says its editor, Larry Ryckman. “It's an honor to receive this vote of confidence and trust from our colleagues at the world's largest news organization,” Ryckman, a former AP reporter, foreign correspondent and editor, told me.
WHAT READERS ASKED THE NYT ABOUT ANONYMOUS: Why did you publish the unsigned op-ed? How did you find the writer? Were the writer’s motives considered? These are among the questions James Dao, the Op-Ed Editor of The Times, answered here. One thing Dao said the paper hadn’t considered: the effect of publishing the essay on conspiracy theorists promoting QAnon and the notion of a “deep state.”
WISDOM: Whatever side you are on in the U.S. Open/Serena Williams dispute, take a look at this Martina Navratilova op-ed from Dao’s shop — there is an understanding, clarity of thinking and earned authority that brings value to all, IMHO. "All of this U.S. Open history, combined, perhaps, with always feeling like an outsider in the game of tennis — I know exactly how that feels — goes some way toward explaining why Ms. Williams reacted the way she did, and most of all, how she just couldn’t let go." wrote Navratilova, who came up against Communism and bigotry much of her life. "But what is clear is she could very much not let go."
R.I.P. ADAM CLYMER: Presidential reporter, pollster, inveterate digger. When The New York Times and Baltimore Sun journalist learned that George W. Bush had called him a "major-league asshole" into an open mic, he responded: “You know, if they all love you, you might as well just be driving a Good Humor truck.” He was expelled from the then-Soviet Union in the 1960s as a "hooligan" and said his favorite part of covering the Richard Nixon "I am not a crook" speech was the dateline: Disney World. (h/t Karen Tumulty)
REPORTING GRANTS: Three members of the AP's Pulitzer-winning investigation into seafood from slaves have won McGraw Fellowships for Business Journalism. Margie Mason, Robin McDowell and Martha Mendoza will research labor abuses and international supply chains. Freelance journalist Gary Putka will explore aspects of income inequality in the U.S. economy and workplace, and USA Today's Nick Penzenstadler and Grand Valley State University professor Jeff Kelly Lowenstein will examine the racial impact of foreclosure within federally backed mortgage programs designed to keep seniors in their homes. Roughly 100 journalists applied for the semi-annual fellowships.
 


Observation on the Falling Man via BC:


"Perhaps the last defiant action of an individual, who in an act of celebration of liberty, freedom and choice, chooses the manner of his demise!  Rather than accepting the inevitable, he chose it.  One final flip of the bird to those who sought to imprison him!


It might be none of those things, it might be all of those things.



The falling man has always represented a celebration of life, liberty and free will for me.



Long may it reign on the face of the earth."



The Falling Man. An unforgettable story. By Tom Junod. Sep 9, 2016. “Do you remember this photograph? In the United States, people have taken pains to banish it from the record of September 11, 2001. The story behind it, though, and the search for the man pictured in it, are our most intimate connection to the horror of that day.”

“In the picture, he departs from this earth like an arrow. Although he has not chosen his fate, he appears to have, in his last instants of life, embraced it. If he were not falling, he might very well be flying. He appears relaxed, hurtling through the air. He appears comfortable in the grip of unimaginable motion. He does not appear intimidated by gravity’s divine suction or by what awaits him. His arms are by his side, only slightly outriggered. His left leg is bent at the knee, almost casually….

| MONEY LAUNDERING

More than two years after Panama Papers was first launched, the impact is being felt in Algeria.

Algiers has opened a money laundering probe into the abuse of a government-run milk powder subsidy program on the back of a story written by our partner Lyas Hallas.

| FREEDOM FIGHTER


Meet our Namibian-based member Gwen Lister (who founded The Namibian) in our monthly Meet the Investigators.

Lister has an incredible story of resisting apartheid (and being bombed!) Now, she is focused on educating younger reporters, so they can continue to expose corruption and injustice - and she has lots of advice!

| TURKISH PAPERS


A quick update on court threats facing our Turkish member over Paradise Papers: the civil case was suspended last week, while two criminal cases continue! Read our original story about the matter here.

| PANAMA DOCUMENTARY

Finally, one for the movie buffs: the latest Panama Papers documentary trailer is out. Elijah Wood narrates and Alex Winter directs. Check it out!

Washington Post Magazine editor Richard Just had been looking to tell stories differently. Singer-songwriter Ben Folds was up for something new. 

Folds composed a song for The Post, "Mister Peepers," about Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's struggle with Trump acolytes. It has been the centerpiece of the magazine's alternative storytelling issue, which includes poems by Eliza Griswold and Robert Pinsky, verse by Gene Weingarten, a Betsy DeVos board game, a three-act play and a Trump-themed Mad-Libs DIY "story."

The issue is an attempt to break out of an incessant facts-information overload; to try to find ways, akin to an arresting 6,000-word long-form article, in which a story could "rattle around in your brain and stay with you," Just said Tuesday from The Post.
Last spring, the magazine staff had an intriguing charge in conceptualizing stories for the issue: How creative could it be?
“There are a lot of storytelling forms that people don’t use in journalism,” said Just, a former editor at The New Republic and the National Journal. “Once we started thinking about all the forms you possibly could do, the list kept getting longer.”
For Folds, known for sharply drawn songs like "Brick," "Rockin The Suburbs" or the depressing journalist's portrait of "Fred Jones, Part II," writing for a news organization was a challenge. He spent three weeks researching Rosenstein's life and developing a factually based theme of a dedicated bureaucrat buffeted by willy-nilly political moves. He said Post editors wanted to make sure his use of "thugs," for example, was toned down, more clearly metaphorical. (In his song, the browbeating of Rosenstein by the House Intelligence Committee and the dismissive nicknaming of the bespectacled official as "Mister Peepers" stood in for the bullying and smashing of a character's eyeglasses in "The Lord of the Flies.")

Ben Folds

So, the song was edited? Yes, Folds responds by telephone from Nashville: "I was fact-checked by The Washington Post."
"Mister Peepers," available for streaming today, represents his modest attempt to reverse decades of demonization of bureaucrats and lawyers, something Folds acknowledged engaging in previously.
“What does Mister Peepers get out of this?" Folds asks of the Rosenstein's berating by Trump and his allies. "He’s dragged to hearings. What does his wife say? She jokes that he should have taken a private sector job at twice the pay, but he has a commitment to public service.”
The last lines of the song get to the fragile underpinnings of civil servants in these times. “Because when all those Mister Peepers fall," Folds writes, "God help us all.”
Just, the editor, said efforts of alternative storytelling by his magazine and others represent a resurgence in fortunes from a decade ago, when conventional wisdom said short digital "takes" would replace the considered, creative magazine story that makes people think.
"Now we're asking, 'Could a board game be journalism? Could a play be journalism?'”
While Just's not committing to an annual alternative storytelling issue, he said this week's experiment has built an appetite for working at the intersection of two different forms, of “journalism and something else.”
Readers, what's the most experimental thing you've read in a news outlet? Did it work? Send me a link if you've got it to dbeard@poynter.org.

Quick hits

CLOSED: The Missoula Independent, the Montana alternative weekly bought last year by Lee Enterprises, which also owns the daily Missoulian. The closing of Montana’s largest weekly was sudden, with the Independent’s offices locked and employees told to make an appointment to collect their belongings, or have them delivered by mail. Readers attempting to read articles from the Independent’s 27-year history were redirected to the Missoula homepage, and the Independent’s vibrant Facebook and Twitter feeds were deleted.
BACKGROUND: The Missoula Independent’s employees had voted in April to unionize and had been optimistic as recently as last week that the company was negotiating in good faith with the understanding it would remain open. The Missoulian and Independent’s general manager, Matt Gibson, who had owned the weekly for two decades before selling it to Lee last year, called it a chronic money-loser. Lee also has faced unionization efforts this year at The Southern Illinoisan and its Casper (Wyoming) Star-Tribune.
FULFILLING A PROMISE: The NYT’s Rukmini Callimachi, under criticism for removing ISIS documents from areas retaken by Iraqi forces, had said the newspaper was negotiating with a university to digitize and make them public. On Monday, the Times and George Washington University agreed to do just that. Callimachi said she had struggled with the provenance issue from the time she found the first of the 15,000 documents in 2016. The originals will be returned to Iraq’s government.
PHOTOGRAPHERS, TOO: Why photography needs its #MeToo moment. “When an industry is so dominated by men at every level and at nearly every major institution, a toxic culture toward women is the inevitable result,” writes Vox’s Kainaz Amaria. “Thus, it’s disappointing but not surprising that many in the photojournalist community — whose job, ironically, is to bear witness to injustice in the world — want very much to look away.”
TEAMING UP: One way that nonprofits are reaching bigger audiences. By Magda Konieczna.
PODCASTS: The Guardian is joining the crowd launching flagship podcasts, with political editor Anushka Asthana set to host it. Among six audio journalists hired are executive producer Leo Hornak, the BBC World Service journalist who did this amazing full-hour episode of "This American Life" on a Somali immigrant who won the U.S. visa lottery. Also hired, as lead producer: The New Yorker Radio Hour’s Mythili Rao, formerly of WNYC. (h/t Nick Quah)
 
 
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