Being an aviation geek, I just had to do this. I curated different sources of information using Storify which was helpful, though there needs to be alot more work to share such information. If Storify was to make use of theme’s and add on’s to give more control on how one may want the content to look would be greatly helpful. Here is the story so far..http://storify.com/judemwenda/malaysian-airlines
Challenges
If this was to be a fully professional media story, perhaps there would be agreat challenge with verification. Early on there were rumours that the plane landed in Vietnam which was later proved not to be true. There needs to be a better way to annotate such crowdsource information. Storify does not do a lot of justice especially when one want to annotate and add comments to crowdsources stories.
Last Sunday, a young Canadian freelance photographer was killed in Aleppo while covering the civil war in Syria. Ali Mustafa was one of the few journalists in the country as the time.
Mustafa and seven others were killed after regime aircraft dropped barrel bombs in the Hadariyeh area of Aleppo, which is apparently under opposition-control, according to the Associated Press.
Mustafa’s family reportedly learned of his death through social media after his Facebook page lit up with remembrances. His family was apparently not aware that he was in Syria according to Time Magazine. He wrote on his Twitter page on February 14 that he was in Syria.
Three days earlier, Mustafa’s last post on his Facebook and Twitter accounts showcased the type of work he did for The Guardian, The Times of London and other major publications.
The accidental death of journalists occurs often in conflict areas but Mustafa’s death last Sunday sheds light on the precarious working conditions of freelancers in countries such as Syria, which are literally closed off to international media. In these conflict zones, freelancers are required to take greater risks to report the situation on the ground because traditional news outlets refuse to send their staff and offer them a certain degree of protection.
So sad. All those freelancers out there in war zones. @jsource: Canadian photojournalist Ali Mustafa killed in Syria http://t.co/thKIJegsYt
This Post on Facebook by renowned Arab commentator Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi, refers to Mustafa’s flatmate in Cairo, who gives a picture of the financial and emotional difficulties the journalist was going through at the time.
His death also sparked outrage from Syrian Anti-Asaad and leftists groups, which strongly attributed full responsibility to government forces for the attack. The Syria Freedom Forever blog, which describes itself as “dedicated to the struggle of the Syrian people in their uprising to overthrow the Assad authoritarian regime”, posted the following eulogy in honour of Mustafa and the attacks’ victims. The author of this post is unclear.
In response, the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) issued an open letter saying the organization was “deeply troubled” by Mustafa’s death, saying it served as a reminder that “Syria is the deadliest country for the press, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.”
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 63 journalists have been killed in Syria since March 2011 and another 37 are being held by rebel groups or are missing.
There is so much social media floating around about SXSW that it was a challenge to sift through it. Storify was a good tool for this assignment because it was a central platform to search Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, Google and Instagram.
This was a reaction of a twitter user who makes a reference to American action films where we hear police saying “Put the gun down” against a suspect or a criminal with a gun. The slogan revealed the criminalizing official treatment on the internet which was seen as a gun against the new Internet law numbered 5651 passed on the 6th February with the justification of privacy. The law approved by the President authorizes the Telecommunications Communications (TIB), to block access to websites without court authorization in 4 hours. A person who feels being insulted by a website will be able to apply to the court directly and ask for the blocking the access of the related part in 24 hours. If this timing is too late, the Minister or the Telecommunications Communications will be able to obstruct accessing the related parts in the websites.
The minister responsible of communication and transportation Lütfi Elvan defended the law by arguing that with the authorization of the Telecommunications Communications (TIB) the sufferings of citizens will end:
“Our citizens will not go door to door to the service providers. What will they do? The decision will go to the TIB which will take the necessary steps. Thus the torment of our citizens will end”.
It was no wonder the PM was in a hurry to control internet with the law. A series of hidden telephone conversations revealed that the PM Erdogan ordered media companies what to write and what not to write, kept shouting at media owners following those news he did not like, many corruptions, scandals…etc. PM Erdogan claimed these records were not his voice, and fake.
The law is not sufficient. What is next? Banning youtube and facebook?
After the law was enacted and series of scandals were revealed through internet, PM Erdogan increased the tone of anger in his speeches “There are other steps we will take after the 30 March” (after local elections).
He declared that they may ban youtube and facebook soon. The Minister of Transport defended that as such:
“Think about this. Almost all things about your family, your private life are subjects. There are statements that you would be embarrassed even to read…These really do not suit us, especially to the nation’s moral values”.
(The assignment says no comment, so I should stop here).
Click the image to go to ThingLink and see what’s behind the bullets.
For this assignment I tried to use a different form of curation than the in-the-moment stream of Storify or Rebel Mouse, which are more popular (Carvin is on Rebel Mouse, for example). I was specifically looking for something more contained and less cluttered that wouldn’t give the impression of drowning in information.
As subject I chose to preview the fourth round match between Simona Halep, Romania’s top player and #7 worldwide, and Eugenie Bouchard, scheduled for Tuesday, March 11, 2014, at 2pm EST.
I used ThingLink, which allows the use of a photo upon which one can overlay other information (YouTube videos, photographs, links to other information). It’s not perfect (I couldn’t embed it on the blog), and it does take you outside of the piece on almost every click, but I liked the idea of containing all relevant information in an interactive image. (The concept I guess is not unlike a static infographic).
I imagine this type of curation could work great as a preview or summary, and could then be supplemented by real-time work.
They call it the “Blackfish effect.” Things just keep getting worse for SeaWorld ever since the controversial documentary released in 2013 that accused the popular marine entertainment park of abusing the Orca whales in its care and showing reckless disregard for the safety of its whale trainers. Blackfish highlighted the killing of trainer Dawn Brancheau, 40, who was mauled by a 6-ton Orca named Tilikum during a performance at SeaWorld Orlando. A whale that had killed at least twice before.
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The documentary has unleashed widespread protests outside SeaWorld’s entertainment parks and online over the welfare of the whales.
Howard Stern is one of a number of celebrities who have jumped on the anti-SeaWorld bandwagon.
Now, a California state legislator name Richard Bloom wants to put SeaWorld in San Diego out of the whale business entirely.
If Bloom’s bill were to pass, SeaWorld would lose its most lucrative attraction.
That prospect has been wildly applauded by animal rights activists on blogs:
And on Twitter:
SeaWorld has aggressively fought back, denouncing the Blackfish documentary and its allegations of animal maltreatment as lies. The company is appealing a $75,000 federal fine levied in the Dawn Brancheau case. It is also fighting the court’s ruling that trainers can no longer swim with the whales and must only work with them through a protective barrier.
SeaWorld is arguing that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration which conducted the investigation has overstepped its bounds. The theme park’s lead attorney is Eugene Scalia, son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
SeaWorld is also going after OSHA investigator Lara Padgett. The company accuses her of being biased against SeaWorld and of collaborating with the documentary producers.
A reported photograph of Padgett posing with the Blackfish cast on micechat.com
For comparison purposes, a photograph of Padgett on her Facebook page:
OSHA has confirmed to the Orlando Sentinel that the agency is investigating Padgett’s conduct.
Not to be outdone in the court of public opinion, SeaWorld has mounted an aggressive attack online and in the media.
The company has employed some of its trainers who were interviewed in Blackfish to refute claims of animal maltreatment that were made in the documentary.
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In a move that has enraged animal rights activists, SeaWorld hired Steve Irwin’s daughter Bindi as an ambassador. Irwin the world famous Australian wildlife expert died in 2006 after a stingray stabbed him repeatedly in the chest.
Dawn Brancheau seems all but forgotten in all the brouhaha over the whales. The video of her mauling was never made public at her family’s and SeaWorld’s request. Here is a summary that was released in court by the Orange County Sheriff’s department.
Brancheau’s family members it appears, are not among the Blackfish film supporters. They went about as far as they could to distance themselves from the documentary with this post on the Dawn Brancheau Foundation website.
How do you fact check a blog like Climate Audit? The site details what the authors see as inconsistencies and exaggerations in the work of climate scientists, so they see themselves as the fact checkers. Yet in many cases, the site simply reprints private e-mails and quotes from climate scientists in which they are revealing the messiness of the scientific process, and suggests that this messiness is proof that the scientists are wrong about their conclusions on climate change.
For example, in one post, a climate auditor posts an e-mail from a scientist and writes: “Not sure what this email is about but it doesn’t sound very good.”
The site is full of details, charts, and graphs. It feels like proof of something. And the site details every time a climate auditor has their FOIA requests declined or redacted, suggesting that such secrecy is in itself proof that the scientists are wrong and hare hiding their true findings.
One thing is very clear: the scientists and the climate auditors don’t understand each other. There’s a culture clash full of misunderstandings.
Facing Off: Why Fact Fight Club
I can’t think of a way to create a single piece of media that can refute the ‘climate audit’ site. But here’s an idea for a service that could make a small contribution.
What if we set up a Web site that could match up strangers who hold opposing views and allow them to participate in a live video chat with each other. The participants would get instructions on how to structure their conversation. They’d be asked to spend the first 5 to 10 minutes answering an ice-breaker question and getting to know each other. Then they’d each give a short statement on why they either agree or disagree with global warming. Then they’d have a chance to give rebuttals. Let’s call it Fact Fight Club, though that name is intentionally provocative and probably not the best name for the actual service.
I built a very simple working version of Fact Fight Club using Blogger:
The site relies on a service developed here at the Media Lab called Unhangouts, which makes it easy to set up Google Hangout video chats.
I tried to find two people to try this, but I wasn’t able to pull that off by the deadline. The concern, of course, is that the two people would take the “fight” in the name to heart and that the experience could feel more like a live-action flame war than a productive meeting of polite citizens. But I think there’s something to this idea of connecting people to those who disagree with them — to pop the “filter bubble” — and to do so in video so that hopefully people might be more civil because they can see the person they’re talking to.
I’ll be curious to see what people think of this idea.
