Simona Halep match preview
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.
Rough Seas at SeaWorld by Tammy Drummond
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.
Stay tuned as the SeaWorld saga continues.
Fact checking assignment
Let the People Speak, Ravi’s fact check
Sometimes it might be best to just let the people speak for themselves.
Thoughts on ‘Climate Audit’; Why We Need ‘Fact Fight Club’
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.
Starbucks and Israel: A conspiracy theory?
For the past eight years, the coffee mega-giant’s reputation has been smeared in the Middle East. Leftists activists across the region have claimed that the organisation is a “Zionist entity” which gives direct support to the Israeli government – and even to the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). Pro-palestinian groups have called for a boycott of the group and staged protests outside Starbucks franchises in Beirut, London and in the Palestinian Territories. Although the global firm has tried to refute the claim many times, its reputation remains tarnished as many potential clients, in the Middle East and abroad, refuse to go anywhere near the Seattle-bred giant.
What and when: Pro-Zionist rhetoric and funding
The conspiracy theory exploded in July,11, 2006 when a fake letter, allegedly written by Shultz, the CEO and founder of Starbucks, confirmed the company’s active support to the state of Israel. The satirical letter was originally written by Andrew Winkler, the editor of a anti-Zionist website called ZioPedia. According to NOWLebanon, the statement was read by over 100,000 users on the site alone. 
Starbucks-boycotters claim that Shultz himself, a businessman “born to a Jewish family”, has made anti-zionist remarks at Jewish congregations such as the Temple De Hirsh SInai in Seattle in the past. They also point out to the fact that he received ‘Israel’s 50th Anniversary Tribute Award’ from the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah in 1998 for “playing a key role in promoting a close alliance between the US and Israel“, according to his Wikipedia page. Activists also argue that “Schultz made donations to the charity the Jewish National Fund, and that this used to be posted on [Starbucks’] website”. As such, boycott campaigns claim that the organisation financially supports the State of Israel, and has deliberately deleted that information from its website, but with not other evidence.
TRUE or FALSE?
The verdict is…. FALSE.
With some thorough-fact checking, it appears that the Starbucks’s CEO might have pro-Israeli tendencies but this does not imply that his company financially supports Israel, or that he personally benefits from the company revenues. The company is indeed publicly traded and as such all of its financial statements are publicly available.
Potential counter-strategies
Rather than publish statements which reiterate and refute the conspiracy theory, Starbucks should pursue a more pro-active strategy by emphasizing on its positive role in the Middle East. Indeed, the company has in the past tried to distance itself from the CEO’s actions by releasing the following statement (which is for some reason currently unavailable on its website):
The coffee giant has also released anti-libel statements regarding its activities in the Middle East in 2010, in which it repeats and refutes more than 3 times (!) the Zionist claim.
Effective PR strategy for the MENA region
The company should reinforce the impartial and maybe positive role it plays in the MENA region by highlighting the following points:
- Buff up its MENA page by highlighting the revenue, employment, and growth it is creating in the Arab world. Starbucks needs to make the argument that its franchises generate growth for local markets, and do not completely go back to the conglomerate.
- Capitalize on the fact that Starbucks has actually shut down all its operations in Israel/Palestine since 2003 and that all its Middle East branches are operated by a Kuwaiti-based group called Alshaya. While the company publishes this on its website (“We are also committed to hiring locally, providing jobs to thousands of local citizens in the countries where we operate.”), it should do a better job at outlining its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy in the MENA region.
- Finally, the company should be aware of the complexities and the context it operates in and distance itself from Shultz if the CEO persist in making politically incorrect -or sensitive- comments. The company should, and can, publicly release its financial statements to demonstrate its impartial nature and hold critics at bay.
Protected: Philippine government on media killings: ‘Not so serious’
Protected: Transcript
Eating meat as bad as smoking cigarettes, says study. Does it really?
Update: Only upon posting this exercise did I think to Google for stories and find the above CBS “news piece.”
The following is an exercise in marking up a EurekAlert press release with three different fact-checking schemes. Bolded sentences denote hyperbole. Yellow highlighting is linked to a passage in the scientific study. Grey highlighting refers to citations of previous studies. I was later turned on to the Chrome plugin Churnalism which does something similar–though much spiffier–by comparing news articles to press releases. Here’s the Longo et al. study.
Click below to see the “web app” in action.
