Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Recommended Reading

If anyone wonders how I keep track of all these diverse websites I link to, I use Google Reader. It's very easy to use and basically lets you pull in information from multiple sources and compile it into your own personalized newspaper. Give it a try if you're sick of letting other people decide which articles you should see.

I'll begin with an article discussing the future of the Washington Post. It quotes Microsoft's Steve Ballmer as saying that no one will read paper newspapers anymore in ten years. Though it may take a bit longer than that, it will happen eventually. Start thinking about how that affects you if have any plans to make your living as a journalist. In an economic system like we have in America, it's your job to figure out how to make money doing what you like. So stop fretting and get to it.

In the international sphere, Glenn Greenwald calls American elites on how they seem to hold other countries to quite different standards than ourselves:
If there were a powerful nation (besides the U.S.) that had a leading foreign policy analyst unapologetically justifying the brutal destruction of another country by explaining that its citizens needed to "Suck On This," and had a leading presidential candidate who sung songs about dropping bombs on the U.S. and who told jokes about killing Americans (while his leading ally demands that that country attack even more countries), we would be subjected to an endless array of Op-Eds from Fred Hiatt and Charles Krauthammer condemning them and demanding that "meaningful action" be taken against such a "rogue nation." And Tom Friedman would be righteously and darkly insisting that such a country be "compelled to change its behavior."

Moving on to American politics, Marc Ambinder provides some interesting analysis of how Obama has managed his campaign, which is a refreshing change from all the nonsense that passes for political reporting in most publications.

Also in good political journalism, Radley Balko asks some excellent questions of John McCain.

Thinking of longer-term issues, John Robb ponders how communities can use disruptive new technologies to protect themselves.

As always, for more links, go here.

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