News sites that publish mugshots as a service or to attract traffic are being affected by a Google tweak that keeps the photos from the top of search results. READ THE WHOLE STORY HERE.  ...

Is Twitter Ruining America and American politics? "Why do we need journalism when we have social media" is the rallying cry of those who have a perspective to share. If you have something to say — a cool link you saw or a photo or a review of a restaurant — you go on Facebook and Twitter and Yelp and say it. Why do you need journalists to tell you about links or how good restaurants are when you have social ...

By Tracie Powell Throughout its 168 year history, Scientific American is known as much for its writers as it is for its exploration of science and technology. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein, have written for the magazine. Danielle Lee is another one of its well-known scientific writers. Lee, a biologist who studies animal behavior, mammals and the ways organisms interact with their enviro ...

Selling sex and violence to kids through comics ...

By Tracie Powell Since African Americans are disproportionately represented in public sector jobs -- in other words they disproportionately work for the government -- allDigitocracy took a cursory check around the Web to see how black news organizations are covering the U.S. government shutdown. Unfortunately, we didn't find a whole lot specific to black folks. Of particular interest, however, is the fact t ...

Want an upwardly mobile career in journalism? Better learn to code. ...

Here's a piece I wrote for the Columbia Journalism Review about UNITY's recent troubles before and after the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) took its exit in 2011. Now the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) are set to vote on whether to leave. Here's how UNITY got to where it is and how its new president hopes to reverse course. Excerpt: "With the National Association of Bl ...

Unfortunately, the media is not properly informing the U.S. population of the factors at work in the shutdown. As happens so often, too many reporters are claiming a false equivalency between the GOP and Democrats, and frankly, they’re not serving democracy with such weak analysis. I talk more with Voice of Russia's Jamila Bey. This is an UPDATE to a piece I wrote over the weekend. ...

...

What is there to be done? The first and most important thing is to recognize how we came to this pass. Both sides did not do this. Both sides are not to blame. There is no compromise to be had here that will leave the current structure of the government intact. There can be no reward for this behavior. I am less sanguine than are many people that this whole thing will redound to the credit of the Democratic ...