AN UNEXPECTED CONTRAST in media modes — new and old — came through dramatically this week.

On one hand — stark, direct and unmediated — there was the worldwide transmission, via the Bambuser.com website and its anonymous user handled as “Baba-omer,” of raw images and gut-wrenching sounds out of the Syrian city Homs, as it got horrifically pummeled by mortar bombing from President Bashar al-Assad‘s forces. On the other hand, the world celebrated 200 years of Charles Dickens (pictured left) a communicator greatly loved across many cultures but without question always a very present mediator of his audience’s experience — and you might say a determined manipulator of it.    Continue reading “The Reporting Behind Two Centuries of Dickens’ Impact” »

POSSIBLY THE BEST WORD for it, and it’s meant approvingly, is ‘farrago‘.

New York’s Lincoln Center, specifically its august resIdent The Metropolitan Opera, is currently wowing much of its faithful audience and enticing a newer public (which looked to me quite a younger one) with its decidedly multimedia — and multiply-sourced — confection known as The Enchanted Island.      Continue reading “Mixed-Media Extravaganza — and a Global Message” »

THIS WEEKEND BRINGS A PIQUANT moment for me — a telling anniversary in the chronicles of information-management, as well as a horrifying memory in itself. At 4.10 p.m. Sunday afternoon, exactly 40 years ago, I witnessed soldiers shooting innocent civilians dead, an atrocity that officialdom instantly lied about — and provoked a four-decade struggle to get the truth finally established.    Continue reading “Struggle Through Decades to Overturn Massacre Lies” »

THEY LINED UP in familiar opposing ranks. On one side Rupert Murdoch, sounding crustier than ever now that he tweets … the Motion Picture Association of America (which of course includes Murdoch’s 20th Century Fox studios) … and other traditional media conglomerates like NBC Universal. On the other side, younger digital dynamos like Google, Mozilla, WordPress and Wikipedia.      Continue reading “SOPA and PIPA Battle Far From Over” »

THANK YOU, DIGITAL REVOLUTION! You’ve given us many benefits, to be sure, but now this. We are living, apparently, at the mercy of people with the manners of a chimpanzee and the tongue of a Sicilian fishwife.

Such is the assessment of Misha Glenny, a British compatriot and colleague of mine who distinguished himself internationally with some powerful reporting on the Balkan wars, and since then has been trenchantly exposing the workings of global organized crime.    Continue reading “Cyber Threats — and Remedies — Get Overdue Airing” »