So there’s a tide of severed human feet washing up on Pacific Northwestern shores, and it only merits a 300-word AP article? Scandal! Outrage! Can we all agree that the media’s top priority should be solving the Mystery Shoe Mystery? Can we at least get Brendan McCarthy on the case?
‘See you on the other side’ - Meet Jessica Lum, a terminally ill 25-year-old who chose to spend what little time she had practicing journalism
#Realtalk: This is the best moment to be in journalism - The old stuff isn’t coming back, but that’s okay
Streams of consciousness - Millennials expect a steady diet of quick-hit, social-media-mediated bits and bytes. What does that mean for journalism?
Sticking with the truth - How ‘balanced’ coverage helped sustain the bogus claim that childhood vaccines can cause autism
An ink-stained stretch - Can Aaron Kushner save the Orange County Register—and the newspaper industry?
This is the best moment to be in journalism (25)
The WSJ editorial page hits rock bottom (19)
A backgrounder for understanding the storm that hit Moore, Oklahoma
Is the ‘chilling effect’ real?
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113219/doj-seizure-ap-records-raises-question-chilling-effect-real
One year ago four journalists were brutally murdered in the bloodiest attack on the press in Mexico’s drug war. For those left behind the pain — and the threats — continue
50 years of foreign reporting from the NYRB
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
Uptown Messenger – Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
Justin:
I haven't seen the AP article, but I have been wondering about just the question you posed. I occasionally hear blips about the case whenever a new foot is found, but nothing else.
Mind you, I don't live in the Pacific Northwest, and (forgive me if I'm wrong) I got the impression most of the finds have been on the British Columbia side of the border.
If true, is it possible we're seeing a U.S.-centric bias away from what some might see as an, essentially, Canadian story? If so, that would be a scandal, because this is certainly one of the greatest "what's going on/whodunnits" in quite some time.
On the other hand, is it also possible that reporters are being stymied by law enforcement that have little understanding of what's going on themselves that they are either a) not willing to let go of whatever information they do have, and/or b) don't want to appear like they don't have a clue.
That would also be a scandal on two counts: 1) law enforcement holding back on information that might help people protect themselves from who ever is doing these grisly things, and 2) the press not pushing harder to find and report on that information.
Even from way down here in South Carolina, I'm intrigued by the mystery ... and why there hasn't been more/better coverage of it.
Martin L. Cahn, Senior Editor
The Chronicle-Independent
Camden, South Carolina
Posted by Martin L. Cahn on Wed 6 Aug 2008 at 01:12 PM
You know, I mostly just posted this because it was so weird, but I really do think that the press has been particularly clubfooted here. I think I'll check with some Canadian papers and see if they're in step with this story. If not, it probably does arch back to police stonewalling or reportorial laziness. Either way, the point is that there have been lots of disembodied feet appearing on beaches out West, and nobody in the press can get a toehold on the story. Which is just bizarre.
Posted by Justin Peters on Wed 6 Aug 2008 at 05:13 PM
Justin -- you're funny (in a dark way) ... "nobody in the press can get a toehold on the story"?
Seriously, though, that is bizarre. Hopefully someone somewhere is paying attention.
Posted by Martin L. Cahn on Wed 6 Aug 2008 at 11:56 PM
As a resident of BC I can tell you that it has been well covered in the papers here (Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Province) and on the CBC. One case has been solved through DNA analysis tracing back to a missing person. The rest remain unsolved. However, police have been quite forthcoming on this mystery and have stated that the feet do not appear to have been severed artificially but instead it's the result of natural decomposition of a body in water along with predators such as crabs. Because the feet are in running shoes they stay "intact" and that's all that remains [sic].
Posted by Doug Alder on Thu 7 Aug 2008 at 07:44 AM
Doug:
I'm glad to hear the authorities are being forthcoming and that the press there is keeping tabs on the case.
But did I understand correctly -- the feet haven't been severed by somebody? What theories have the authorities put forward, then? Statistically speaking, it seems incredible that this number of feet would wash up like this, with running shoes still intact, in the same general geographic area and not have some artificial element to it.
Very, very interesting.
Posted by Martin L. Cahn on Fri 8 Aug 2008 at 10:33 PM
Another IPCC Chicken Little Fairy Tale Bites The Dust
It looks like Al Gore can keep his San Francisco bayside condo off the market for a while before he has to worry about the meltwater chasing uphill.
The science doesn't back up Sidall's inititial claims.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/21/sea-level-geoscience-retract-siddall
Ah well, back to the AGW storyboard....
Posted by padikiller on Sun 21 Feb 2010 at 08:43 PM