Melançon Enterprises • a multidivision multinational since 1980

Ted Rall
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/06/3649/

After learning the history/meaning of the term "Fourth Estate" it's says something about the sad condition of journalism, ahistorical and uncaring, that this term has enjoyed as much currency as it has.

An extension of the three estates declared by Louis XVI in 1789! Lords, clergy, and commoners (which didn't include poor folk). That journalism would ever aspire or declare itself an estate in such an undemocratic system or conception of society...

At least the essay is about moving beyond that.

But it provides almost nothing worthwhile in my opinion.

Death by Numbers
We’re obssessed with plane crashes and bridge collapses, yet we pay little attention to the stuff that kills the rest of us.
by Meghan Daum
Published on Saturday, August 18, 2007 by The Los Angeles Times

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/18/3253/

Good reference for the point that news should be about what matters – with death being a useful, unambiguous defining of important –

Steve Boriss of http://thefutureofnews.com posted that Rupert Murdoch would split the national newspaper market into right and left, with the Wall Street Journal overshadowing the allegedly liberal New York Times and Wall Street Journal. I think he's right but noted on his site:

Except that CNN, NY Times, and Washington Post aren't really left in any way that matters, certainly not on matters of economic justice that would bother the 2% of people like Rupert Murdoch who claim to own half the planet.

More on NowPublic.

(Via http://justagwailo.com/2007/07/31/7794 "There's only two types of journalism: good journalism and bad journalism")

Scott Karp's "It’s Not Citizen Journalism Or Crowdsourcing - It’s Just Journalism"
http://publishing2.com/2007/07/30/its-not-citizen-journalism-or-crowdsou...

I don't care about the terms so much, but I am very concerned with defining journalism as process and standards (which everyone has to talk about more) and not as a profession.