What's Metanews?
21stC believes that the process by which research stories become news is, itself, newsworthy. Our column Metanews -- "news about the news" -- focuses attention on this process. What research projects have attracted press attention, and why? Has a new finding been overpublicized? ignored? distorted? presented fairly and responsibly? In mediating between researchers and the general public, have the media done justice to both? Look to Metanews for informed discussion of these questions.For more journalism resources and media criticism, look here.
Metanews from Issue 4.2, Fall 1999 The demon in the freezer? Alibek book returns spotlight to bioterrorMetanews from Issue 4.1, Spring 1999
Foodborne infections? Didn't anyone know?
Jefferson and Hemings: History hangs on haplotype hypeMetanews from Issue 3.4, Winter 1999
"Dr. Death" terminal; will end-of-life research thrive? After the Nobel, the fractional quantum reportorial effectMetanews from Issue 3.3, Fall 1998
Online blues? Other researchers see red It really won't HRT a bitMetanews from Issue 3.2, Spring 1998
AZT trials in the Third World: Tuskegee redux or cheap shot? Run for your lives! (Uh, never mind.)Metanews from Issue 3.1, Winter 1998
Media contagion: botching the science behind the bioterror headlines
Better children through chemistry?Metanews from Issue 2.4, Fall 1997
Press turns deaf ear to beneficial uses of tobacco
Scapegoating tenure, or, What the media did and didn't learn in Econ 101
You say managed, I say mangled, let's call the whole thing off?Metanews from Issue 2.3, Spring 1997
Bloomsgate
Space stories steal the spotlight
Can't the press do something besides clone around?Metanews from Issue 2.2, Winter 1997
Mammography in the media: covering the absence of consensus
Black English becomes magnet for misunderstandings
Nobelist Vickrey: the ideas behind the human-interest storyMetanews from Issue 2.1, Fall 1996 (Special Issue, "Biospheres")
Controversial book spotlights core courses
Recovered memories: hot buttons and lukewarm evidence Mad, bad, and difficult to cover: BSE in the mediaMetanews from Issue 1.4, Spring 1996
Earthshaking story! Film at eleven!
Enteric "second brain" in the gutMetanews from Issue 1.3, Winter 1996
First Amendment: bulldozed off the Infobahn?
Silicone studies, sensationalism and stats
Biosphere's rise and fallMetanews from Issue 1.2, Fall 1995
A historian's compendium
Heart attacks from the news?
Cyberporn studyMetanews from Issue 1.1, Spring 1995
Airborne Ebola?
Antiscience conference
The KS virus story
Global climate change
Soft science
Doctors' free speech
The last theorem
Breast cancer brouhaha
Modernist culture clash
For anyone interested in journalism, media criticism, or the interface between the media and the academic world, here are a few more links:
- American Journalism Review
- American Reporter
- Associated Press
- Breaking news from Associated Press, on New York Times site; requires subscription
- Brill's Content
- Columbia Center for New Media forum, "News in the Digital Age"
- Columbia Graduate School of Journalism homepage
- Columbia Journalism Review
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
- The Electronic Journalist, Society of Professional Journalists
- European Journalism Centre, Maastricht, Netherlands
- Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
- James Fallows, "But Is It Journalism?" (discussing online news), American Prospect 11.1 (November 23, 1999),
- Feed magazine's dialogue on Internet journalism, "Soft Copy"
- Foundation for American Communications
- Freedom Forum
- Immediacy, New School for Social Research
- Journalism & Media Resources & References, Denny Wilkins, St. Bonaventure School of Journalism and Mass Communication
- Journalism Web Sites, Poynter Institute for Media Studies
- Journalists' source list, Prof. Steve Ross, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism
- Just the News, RealAudio worldwide radio portal
- The Media Channel
- Media and Democracy Congress, Institute for Alternative Journalism
- Media Watchdog
- Newspaper and Current Periodical Room, Library of Congress
- Online Journalism Review
- Online-Journalist.com, Doug Millison
- Online Searching and Information Gathering, Karla Tonella, U. of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication
- PBS Frontline feature, "Why America Hates the Press"
- Pulitzer Prizes
- Salon
- Slate (subscription required)
- Wen Stephenson, "Out of Context" (discussion of media criticism and "meta-journalism," particularly in electronic media), Atlantic Unbound
- WWW Virtual Library journalism resources, John Makulowich
We invite further suggestions for links, and we welcome crosslinks between your site and ours. Please write to the Editors with your comments.