Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

My Brother Joins Team Greenwald

Dan Froomkin joins Omidyar-financed Greenwald media project:

Dan Froomkin is a veteran journalist who has received national acclaim for his writing about U.S. politics and media coverage. He’s been particularly focused on the issue of journalistic accountability – i.e. correcting misinformation, asking critical questions, and holding those in power accountable to their actions.

He was preparing to launch a website called FearlessMedia.org when we approached him about working with us. Before that, he was senior Washington correspondent and Washington bureau chief for The Huffington Post. During 12 years working for The Washington Post, he spent three as editor and six as the writer of the popular and controversial White House Watch column. Dan has also worked since 2004 for the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, most of that time as deputy editor of the NiemanWatchdog.org website.

No word yet on what they are going to be calling it.

I’m very optimistic about the product given the team.

Posted in Dan Froomkin, The Media | 2 Comments

Good Reads

Is Glenn Greenwald the Future of News? is an interesting debate between the NYT’s Bill Keller and Glenn Greenwald.

Myself, I thought Keller was losing, but just on points, until he first knocked himself down by defending the NYT’s failure to call torture “torture” when the US government does it. Then he finished the self-TKO by defending David Brooks…

I want my new media!

Here, by the way, is another take on how to read the debate: Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel), The Institutional Subjectivity of the White Affluent US Nation.

Bonus good read because I’m late posting the above: Kevin John Heller, Why Is Britain Intentionally Using Weapons of Mass Destruction?.

Posted in The Media | Comments Off on Good Reads

Hitting the Target

Moving Targets is a new blog by my colleague Mary Anne Franks. It has a very austere design, but the contents are fiery.

Some of my students were telling me today of what they called an “epic takedown” of an idiot on TV yesterday; you can see links and aftershocks to what I presume is the same event (could there be two in one week?) on her blog (Part 1, Part II).

Previously: Mary Anne Franks Profiled in Ocean Drive (May 9, 2013).

Posted in U.Miami | Comments Off on Hitting the Target

Much Better Anti-NSA Video

This is more like it! (found via Cory Doctorow)

Earlier today: Anti-NSA PSA

Posted in Civil Liberties | Comments Off on Much Better Anti-NSA Video

Anti-NSA PSA

Lots of celebs in the video. I was a bit concerned that the first few were ancient. Then I thought it was a bit long. Neither seems well calculated to reach Millennials.

There will be a rally in DC on Oct. 26th at noon. You can also sign the StopWatching.us petition.

Posted in Civil Liberties | Comments Off on Anti-NSA PSA

A Dark Side of the Cloud

Mammatus-storm-clouds_San-AntonioI am mostly OK with cloud-based services that keep a master set of my files so long as I have a complete set on my hard drive too. That’s how Dropbox works. I give up some privacy — if Dropbox gets a subpoena or a National Security Letter they’ll give up my data and I’ll never know, plus the stuff is no doubt scanned in transit by You Know Who. But I get a lot of convenience, plus the security of being able to recover accidentally deleted files. And if something is really private, I could just keep it off the Dropbox.

Where I draw the line is cloud-only services like Google Drive or Box.com. This ITworld article, How Box.com allowed a complete stranger to delete all my files illustrates why.

Photo Copyright (c) 2009 Derrich, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Posted in Internet | 2 Comments