Government Has No Business Defining What ‘Reporter’ Means

Some members of Congress are trying to decide what determines a journalist’s authenticity; NSA agents are spying on their ex-lovers; meanwhile, honey was found in Egyptian tombs, perfectly preserved. These discoveries and more below.

On a regular basis, Truthdig brings you the news items and odds and ends that have found their way to Larry Gross, director of the USC Annenberg School for Communication. A specialist in media and culture, art and communication, visual communication and media portrayals of minorities, Gross helped found the field of gay and lesbian studies.

Government Should Not Define What a Reporter Is — or Isn’t Sen. Dianne Feinstein and a horde of members of Congress of both parties want to decide who is and who isn’t a reporter. Sen. Feinstein says a “real” reporter is a “salaried agent of a media company.”

The Science Behind Honey’s Eternal Shelf Life Modern archeologists, excavating ancient Egyptian tombs, have often found something unexpected amongst the tombs’ artifacts: pots of honey, thousands of years old, and yet still preserved.

NSA Abuses Include Stalking Ex-Girlfriends It doesn’t happen a lot, the NSA told the WSJ, but often enough that there is a word for it.

‘A Nation of Sullen Paranoids’ Three items on the continuing National Security Agency controversy: the information that came out this week, a prescient warning from a veteran British intelligence hand, and a prophecy from an interesting source.

Artist Turns London’s Garbage Piles Into Bizarre Monsters Most people don’t give garbage a second glance.

Death Keeps Typewriters Alive, Clacking Swintec, a New Jersey typewriter company, is one of the last manufacturers standing in a dying industry. What has helped keep it alive? Funeral homes.

How Binge-Viewing Could Rock Netflix Stock Binge-viewing may lead to binge-spending at Netflix, which could eventually see the impact in its stock price.

More Evidence Psychedelic Drugs Don’t Screw You Up Just because psychoactive drugs with a large recreational following may help in some mental issues doesn’t automatically mean they don’t cause other ones. Except, a new look at health records finds, they don’t.

Obama Explains the FEMA Camps The Conspirosphere has been buzzing about FEMA camps – mass incarceration/relocation centers – for some years now. But what does the president have to say about them? Quite a bit, it turns out.

Why are Publishers the New Villain in the Digital Age? As Amazon tears down the gates around literary culture, even independents are caught in the crossfire.