Ariel Castro’s final Facebook status before being arrested for the kidnapping of 3 girls in Cleveland.

peterfeld:

This is going to be so awesome! Imagine combining the news value of Wolf Blitzer interviewing a hologram of will.i.am with the entertainment value of Wolf Blitzer interviewing a hologram of will.i.am… oh, wait.

thedailywhat:

CNN Throws In The Towel of the Day: It was only a matter of time — confronting its worst ratings in 21 years, CNN is in the early stages of developing a slate of reality shows in the same vein as Anthony Bourdain’s upcoming Sunday night travel show.

According to the New York Post, the cable news network is “seeking out reality-show ideas and big-name stars not afraid to talk politics,” and top brass are soliciting ideas from the same producers who supply reality programming to channels like Bravo, Discovery, and History.

An anonymous source who has sat in on the meetings likened it to “that moment when MTV decided to stop playing music videos.”

[shortformblog]

Ya know, I was just thinking- what do we need more of? Reality TV! /sarcasm

(Source: thedailywhat, via underthemountainbunker)

futurejournalismproject:

Americans’ Confidence in Television News

Gallup has a new poll showing that American’s confidence in television news is at an all time low. However, they can’t quite put their finger on why that might be so:

It is not clear precisely why Americans soured so much on television news this year compared with last. Americans’ negativity likely reflects the continuation of a broader trend that appeared to enjoy only a brief respite last year. Americans have grown more negative about the media in recent years, as they have about many other U.S. institutions and the direction of the country in general.

FJP — We’ll hazard a guess: US television news is positively craptastic.

If I were to venture a guess, I’d say that if you made a graph of the proportion of actual news vs opinion coverage you’d find a direct negative correlation.

(via theamericanbear)

80 Thai Muslims Suffocate After Arrest At Protest

Thai soldiers arrested hundreds after clashes outside a police station

Almost 80 Muslim demonstrators arrested in southern Thailand suffocated after being crammed into army lorries, the Thai authorities admitted yesterday.
Only six people were previously believed to have died when security forces opened fire to quell rioting on Monday in the Muslim-majority region adjoining the border with Malaysia.

The huge new toll, and the manner of the deaths, are bound to add to tensions and highlight methods to quell a 10-month rebellion that has claimed 400 lives.
In a comment likely to inflame Muslims, Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister, blamed the Ramadan fast for weakening those who died. A Muslim leader predicted that “hell will break out”.

(Read More)

mohandasgandhi:

STUDY: Kardashians Get 40 Times More News Coverage Than Ocean Acidification

Ocean acidification, which is currently at levels of 30% acidity and rising, has been called “global warming’s evil twin” and may be even more deadly and destructive than global warming itself, yet it receives very little media coverage. This is a huge media fail.

(via contemplatingstardust)

tpmmedia:

The discovery of a long sought-after particle known as the Higgs boson — which has been nicknamed “the God Particle” because physicists theorize it is the missing piece to understanding how all matter in the universe has mass — could be announced Wednesday, July 4.

Read more…

(via diadoumenos)

Obama spending binge never happened: Government outlays rising at slowest pace since 1950s.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Of all the falsehoods told about President Barack Obama, the biggest whopper is the one about his reckless spending spree.

As would-be president Mitt Romney tells it: “I will lead us out of this debt and spending inferno.”

Almost everyone believes that Obama has presided over a massive increase in federal spending, an “inferno” of spending that threatens our jobs, our businesses and our children’s future. Even Democrats seem to think it’s true.

(Read the article for all the details.)

jcstearns:

Rich media, poor democracy.

While campaign ad revenue from candidates and Super PACs are are WAY up, actual coverage of the election is WAY down. Pew reports that there has been a 33% drop in the amount of presidential election coverage from 2008 to 2012.

One way in which our politics have become a “reality” show.

(via theamericanbear)