Journalist’s Resource:Research on today’s news

Facebook and the newsroom: 6 questions for Siva Vaidhyanathan Media scholar Siva Vaidhyanathan shares his thoughts on how reporters can do a better job covering Facebook and its influence on the lives of billions of people worldwide. In an interview with Journalist’s Resource, he argues that “journalism is feeding the beast that’s starving it — the more that journalists pander to Facebook … the more that Facebook becomes the governing mechanism to journalism.” 3 quick tips for debunking hoaxes in a hurricane Reporters covering natural disasters can expect to contend not only with the weather, but also an onslaught of mis- and disinformation. We’ve pulled together a few tips and resources  to help sort what’s real and newsworthy from what’s fake. Hospital mergers may lead to higher health care costs Research by UCLA economist Matt Schmitt offers new insights  for policymakers and consumer advocates to consider as an increasing number of local and regional hospitals get gobbled up by larger health care providers based hundreds of miles away. Chris Fleisher of the American Economic Association explains. Ig Nobel Prizes go to research on employee retaliation, self-colonoscopy Burning and stabbing voodoo dolls gives employees who’ve been mistreated by their bosses a feeling of justice, according to new research led by Lindie Liang of Wilfrid Laurier University. The study was one of 10 recognized at the 2018 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, which also honored research on topics such as smelling flies in wine, the nutritional content of human flesh and self-colonoscopies.

Visit JournalistsResource.org

Checks and Balances Help Protect Us from Betsy DeVos

janresseger

Sam Tanenhaus, the former editor of the NY Times Book Review, is quite a writer, and it is fascinating to contrast the Betsy DeVos we’ve come to know in the months since she became U.S. Secretary of Education with the Betsy DeVos we meet in Tanenhaus’s Vanity Fair profile of the western Michigan DeVos Empire.  Tanenhaus writes: “In the solar system of elite Republican contributors, Richard DeVos Sr., who died Thursday at age 92—one of the two founders of Amway, the direct-sale colossus—occupied an exalted place, and his offspring did too. Since the 1970s, members of the DeVos family had given as much as $200 million to the G.O.P. and been tireless promoters of the modern conservative movement—its ideas, its policies, and its crusades combining free-market economics, a push for privatization of many government functions, and Christian social values. While other far-right mega-donors may have become better known…

View original post 1,314 more words