Media Revolution: How can free speech be liberated?

France 3’s editorial discussion program, VOTRE TELE et VOUS (Your Television and You) (N°61), recently focused on one of the highlights of 2011 — the Arab spring following elections in Tunisia and Egypt.

A surprising story about letters to the editor

“We think the diversity of the letters we print reflects the diversity of the populace we serve.” — Bob Richer, the Express-News’ public editor who also selects and edits letters to the editor.

Name withheld, but not his identity

The New York Times generally does not publish the names of sex crime victims. But a recent article about one of the boys in the Jerry Sandusky case at Penn State contained details that some say amounted to de facto identification.

Telling truth to tyrants

The Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) recently paid tribute to journalists who died covering the Arab uprisings, as well as others who gave their lives reporting from the world’s conflict zones during 2011.

As of early Nov. 11, the CJFE reports that 89 journalists had been killed while doing their jobs this year.

This year’s CJFE event focused on the human costs of the struggle for freedom in the Arab world and recognized “the people who raised their voices in protest against repression and those who covered their stories.”

Afghanistan bombing photo: Graphic, yet important

Readers react to a front-page photograph of an attack on a Shiite Muslim gathering in Afghanistan.

Seeking fairness in the tough world of news aggregation

A look at the recent dust-up between the Poynter Institute and Jim Romanesko offers insight into the workings of news aggregation web sites.

Riding the Republican roller coaster

The New York Times political editor overseeing the newspaper’s national election coverage views the 2012 presidential election as “very possibly an epic clash of ideologies and ideas at a moment of palpable crisis.” Richard Stevenson recently discussed The Times’ campaign coverage strategy with Public Editor Arthur Brisbane. Stevenson frames the election as such: whether President Obama will experience “one of the most dramatic rise-and-fall stories in the history of American politics,” and whether the Republicans will seize the opportunity or fumble it.

Brisbane says the “the epic phase must wait while President Obama bides his time and the Republican primary campaign bumps toward clarity. For the moment, The New York Times and other news organizations are stuck with covering a Republican contest that political historians and other experts say may be an unprecedented exercise in whack-a-mole primary politics.”

The photographers’ art of capturing what they see

There is a line photographers walk between recording the literal experience and producing an artistic account of it.

Pair of crime stories crossed line, reader contends

When covering crime stories, journalists have to walk a fine line between demonizing and glorifying the perpetrator.

Trash or treasure? Describing items left behind at Occupy L.A.

As the saying goes – one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Since the Occupy L.A. encampment first formed in early October, L.A. Times readers have filled the newspaper’s inbox with their opinions on Times coverage.

Views, as expected, were mixed: Several Occupy L.A. detractors said the paper threw in its lot with the protesters, while supporters accused the paper of harboring an anti-Occupy bias.

More recently, readers took issue with language used in the stories about the recent eviction of the protesters.