The Media’s Role in the Shutdown

Partisan journalism has played a large part in shattering the government; someday only the rich may be able to keep their emails private; meanwhile, a false cancer study revealed the deficiencies of second-rate science journals. 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.

How the Broken Media Helped Break the Government There’s a direct connection between the shutdown and hyperbolic, partisan journalistic outlets driven more by profits than the search for truth.

Forceful Mayor’s Drastic Plan to Stop Foreclosures Gayle McLaughlin looks and sounds like the former school teacher and data entry worker she was — down to her sensible brown walking shoes.

Attacking Tor: How the NSA Targets Users’ Online Anonymity Secret servers and a privileged position on the internet’s backbone used to identify users and attack target computers.

How AIPAC Lost Its Grip M.J. Rosenberg has always believed that, at some point, the Israeli prime minister and his lobby would lose their grip on U.S. Middle East policy, at least since 1982 when Tom Dine, AIPAC’s most successful executive director, explained how it would happen.

A Cartoonist’s Vision of a Car-Free Future St. Paul-based cartoonist Andy Singer has never owned a car, even though he’s lived, over the last 47 years, in places as diverse as New York City, Ithaca, Oakland, Boston, and now the Twin Cities.

Women, Gays, and Classical Music Classical musicians generally shy away from making political statements.

Pew Surveys of Audience Habits Suggest Perilous Future for News News organizations have been confronting the problem of a shrinking audience for more than a decade, but trends strongly suggest that these difficulties may only worsen over time.

In the Future, Only Rich People Can Afford to Keep Their Emails Secret When Edward Snowden communicated with Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, the journalists to whom he eventually leaked the NSA PRISM documents, he used an email provider called Lavabit.

The Hard Numbers on Fracking: Radiation, Toxic Wastewater and Air Pollution Researchers at Duke University announced this week that samples collected from 2010 to 2012 near a fracking wastewater treatment facility that discharges into Blacklick Creek had up to 200 times the amount of radium than samples just upstream, as well as elevated levels of salts and heavy metals.

Fake Cancer Study Spotlights Bogus Science Journals A fake cancer study spoofed hundreds of shoddy science journals, despite obvious errors.

5 Threads Reporters Missed On Obamacare There are (many, many) opportunities for redemption ahead.

Are Personal Essays the Future of Digital Journalism? Personal essays have never been more popular online.