Journalism

The business limiting information on health care

Last fall the October 2005 issue of Seventeen was pulled from the shelves of 2500 Albertsons stores across 12 states. The complaint centered around an educational health article written by Jennifer Howze entitled Vagina 101. According to Associated Press articles on the magazine story it "shows a drawing of a woman's genitalia with arrows pointing out the clitoris, the labia majora, the labia minora, the hymen and the anus. It provides a one-paragraph description of each part of the anatomy, under the headline "Owner's Manual." On the second page, the author addresses what's normal and what's not — from the color and consistency of female discharge to how to detect a urinary tract infection."

Shhh! Don't tell anybody

Apparently it is considered poor taste over at KLAS TV to mention the Adult Entertainment Expo. The show which runs concurrent with the Consumer Electronics Show each year has been in Las Vegas for years. KLAS's coverage, however, goes a long way to prove the puritanical taboos rule even in Sin City. The station has little compunction about detailing any sort of violence but seemingly cannot even mention the name of the aforementioned Adult Entertainment Expo calling it instead "another convention at the Sands".

Coloradoan executives resign abruptly

Publisher Dorothy Bland and Executive Editor Michael Limon abruptly left the Coloradoan yesterday. Everybody involved is understandably tight lipped. Adding to the mystery senior Gannett Company executives including the newspaper group president and human resources manager were reportedly in Fort Collins.

Update: Adding to the growing mystery Gannett named Christine Chinn president and publisher of the Coloradoan on Thursday, one day after the resignations.

Fact checking please

Perfect timing. Listening to a podcast this morning I was heartened to hear Amber Mac tell Mac Cast listeners about the importance of the editor to users. Way too much hype is out there about "unfiltered" being better. In the real world people only have so many hours in a day and don't have time for unfiltered content. Last week I mentioned why this makes Google's news feeds so great to feed into my newsreader.

Today is another prime example. TNL.net says in a story "I did not expect I would end up getting something that few others are aware of and maybe even a scoop." Maybe. Well several people who should know better like Doc Searls, Phillip Torrone and Dave Winer all announce the news as well.

State of news

MSN aims to be a lot of things. The page has search and plenty of portal news content. It is amazing that the picture below was taken just moments ago. One would never guess an airliner crashed and all 309 people on board escaped with their lives. Now if Drew Bledsoe had injured his thumb that would be newsworthy...

Is it a bad thing if you have to look up the name of a quarterback to find out who is in the league these days a week before the fantasy football draft?

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