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September 2007 - Posts

Looking back on the KNS coverage

Sunday, September 30, 2007 3:15 PM
As regular (or even sporadic) readers of this blog probably know, I was one of three Knoxville-area bloggers to volunteer to cover the News Sentinel's reportage of its editor's lawsuit against Knox County Commission. Since the editor is the lead plaintiff
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Saturday Sentinel blogging

Saturday, September 29, 2007 3:11 PM
Today's paper has this front-page story about yesterday's developments in the lawsuit of News Sentinel Editor Jack McElroy against Knox County Commission. Although the news itself is potentially bad for the people of Knox County, the story is written
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The News Sentinel takes Lumpy for a spin

Friday, September 28, 2007 11:08 AM
Testimony ended yesterday in the trial of News Sentinel Editor Jack McElroy's lawsuit against Knox County Commission. Although Commissioner Greg "Lumpy" Lambert was never called by the defense as a witness, he was called to the stand yesterday during
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Batting .500 on the paper's front page

Thursday, September 27, 2007 10:38 AM
Today's News Sentinel carries two front-page articles on yesterday's testimony in the ongoing trial of Jack McElroy's lawsuit against Knox County Commission. The article above the fold relates the testimony by former County Commissioners John Schmid and
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Shocker

Wednesday, September 26, 2007 2:58 PM
I know this may come as a shock, but I have no significant critique of either of the two trial-related articles on the front page of today's News Sentinel. This one details the testimony of County Commissioner Paul Pinkston, and this one discusses the
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From news article to gossip column in three sentences

Tuesday, September 25, 2007 9:03 AM
Today's News Sentinel carries this story on its front page which details yesterday's testimony by County Commissioner R. Larry Smith. Smith testified about his observations and his role in the process leading up to Black Wednesday, the subject of News
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More sarcasm in the KNS coverage

Monday, September 24, 2007 10:23 AM
Today's News Sentinel includes a set of highlights (or lowlights) of last week's developments in Editor Jack McElroy's lawsuit against Knox County Commission. Although a periodic narrative recap of recent events would certainly help flesh out the coverage,
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Meet Ogg the caveman

Sunday, September 23, 2007 6:45 PM
I have a new story posted at the Psychozilla Tribune, in which the world is introduced to Ogg the Caveman. After lying frozen in a glacier for 50,000 years, he woke up when global warming started melting the ice. He's now taking the world by storm. Read
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This is why blogs exist

Sunday, September 23, 2007 4:41 PM
Newscoma is tipsy-blogging "Plan 9 From Outer Space." Right now, as I type this, she's watching the movie and drinking some merlot, and blogging about it. Just go read this post . This is why God invented blogs. Share this post: Email | del.icio.us |
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Sideshow as headline

Saturday, September 22, 2007 3:59 PM
The plaintiffs rested their case yesterday in News Sentinel Editor Jack McElroy's lawsuit against Knox County Commission. As is routine and ordinary in every trial in the land, the opposing side then immediately submitted a motion to dismiss the case
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Two articles on yesterday's happenings

Friday, September 21, 2007 1:39 PM
Today's News Sentinel carries two articles about yesterday's proceedings in Editor Jack McElroy's suit against Knox County Commission, both of which are well-written and stick to the facts. This story , above the fold on page A1, details "the most contentious
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An open letter to the DNC

Thursday, September 20, 2007 9:38 PM
Dear Democratic National Committee: Because of this , you just lost a donor. From this moment forward, and starting just a few minutes ago, all my national political contributions previously designated for the DNC will instead go to MoveOn. The DNC will
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A misleading headline, Mark Harmon, and Thurgood Marshall

Thursday, September 20, 2007 10:25 AM
Today's News Sentinel story on the Knox County Commission trial displays something of a split personality; the headline, subheading, and front-page portion of the article bear little resemblance to the remainder, buried on page A11. The first half states
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News Sentinel gets it right, and I blog like a pirate

Wednesday, September 19, 2007 12:58 PM
Two articles on Jack McElroy's suit against County Commission appear in today's News Sentinel ( here and here ); believe it or not, I have no objections to either article's objectivity. None. They stick to the facts, avoid biased characterizations, and
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Lumpy's phone records

Tuesday, September 18, 2007 12:24 PM
This article on page B1 today's News Sentinel (an early draft of which I discussed yesterday ) covers the failure of Commissioner Greg "Lumpy" Lambert to turn over his mobile phone records as evidence in the ongoing lawsuit against County Commission.
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Monday's happenings

Monday, September 17, 2007 9:20 PM
Rich Hailey was in the courtroom today, live-blogging the proceedings in Jack McElroy's lawsuit against Knox County Commission. This is awesome; I wonder if this is the first time anyone has ever live-blogged a trial in Knox County. Most of today seems
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A train wreck of an article

Sunday, September 16, 2007 12:15 PM
Sunday would have been a good day for the News Sentinel to run a comprehensive recap of this week's developments in the News Sentinel vs. Knox County Commission trial. Instead, in today's paper, we have this train wreck of an article, which begins on
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Unnecessary sarcasm in the News Sentinel's coverage

Saturday, September 15, 2007 2:15 PM
Today's News Sentinel carries this report on yesterday's court proceedings at the top of the front page, and it begins with this snarky lede: Don't blame Knox County Commission Chairman Scott Moore for nixing the notion of a special election to replace
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A positive trend continues

Friday, September 14, 2007 9:53 AM
Two articles appear in today's News Sentinel in the ongoing coverage of Editor Jack McElroy's lawsuit against Knox County Commission. Both articles present the facts of yesterday's proceedings in a mostly objective, unbiased way; this is a continuing
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I broke Technorati

Thursday, September 13, 2007 11:14 AM
I've been irritated at Technorati since Tuesday, silently cussing them over the fact that none of my posts have been picked up since then. A while ago, I realized I was the culprit. I've been using this tag for my posts on the lawsuit between News Sentinel
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Opening arguments

Thursday, September 13, 2007 9:44 AM
Page A1 of today's News Sentinel has an article below the fold on yesterday's opening arguments in Jack McElroy's suit against Knox County Commission. Perhaps surprisingly, I have no significant criticism of the article. It leads with what will likely
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Now this is more like it

Wednesday, September 12, 2007 9:29 AM
So far, I've had some fairly critical things to say about the News Sentinel's objectivity in its coverage of Editor Jack McElroy's lawsuit against Knox County Commission. Believe it or not, I have some complimentary things to say about the coverage in
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Conspicuous by its absence

Tuesday, September 11, 2007 2:48 PM
Jury selection continues today in the suit by News Sentinel Editor Jack McElroy against Knox County Commission. A brief story appeared on KnoxNews.com earlier today regarding the questioning of prospective jurors. They were asked for their opinions on
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Changes coming to patent law

Tuesday, September 11, 2007 12:48 PM
HR 1908 just passed the US House of Representatives and is awaiting action by the Senate. This bill would enact a plethora of changes to US patent law, constituting the most sweeping revamp of patent law since 1952. Quite a bit has been written about
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Reporting the news vs. shaping the story

Tuesday, September 11, 2007 9:38 AM
Jury selection in the trial of the News Sentinel's lawsuit against Knox County Commission hasn't even started yet, and the News Sentinel's coverage of the trial already seems to have some problems. Yesterday, I commented on the paper's coverage of some
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Off to a shaky start

Monday, September 10, 2007 8:50 AM
As discussed here and here , I'll be one of several (probably one of many) Knoxville-area bloggers commenting on the News Sentinel's coverage of its lawsuit against Knox County Commission over the Open Meetings Law. Since the News Sentinel is a party
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Oil industry wastes $40 billion per year by "flaring" gas

Sunday, September 09, 2007 10:10 AM
This is incredible: a study conducted by NOAA has concluded that the practice of "flaring" natural gas (burning it at the outlet of an oil well) wastes an amount of gas worth $40 billion per year, resulting in an unnecessary annual injection of 400 million
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Warrantless fishing expeditions

Saturday, September 08, 2007 4:48 PM
The FBI's warrantless surveillance and data mining of telephone records and email goes even deeper than previously acknowledged. Now, it's come to light that the FBI was using "national security letters" to fish through phone records of suspects as well
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9/11 as national myth

Friday, September 07, 2007 11:20 AM
This article in today's NYT draws some interesting parallels between our national response to 9/11 and our collective response to Indian attacks in the 17th century. Although I think the author, Susan Faludi, may be overstating her case a bit, she makes
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The "surge" and ethnic cleansing in Baghdad

Thursday, September 06, 2007 10:29 PM
The "surge" has resulted at least one measurable benchmark: significant ethnic cleansing in Baghdad : The National Intelligence Estimate confirmed that where some “conflict levels have diminished,” it was due to ethnic cleansing. [...] Center for American
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I'm thinking of buying a laptop

Thursday, September 06, 2007 1:34 PM
I've been toying with the idea of buying a laptop. I don't need one for any specific or imminent purpose, but I think it might come in handy. My criteria are pretty simple: I want performance, portability, and quality for the least cost. I'd likely use
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And yet it moves

Wednesday, September 05, 2007 10:25 PM
In this post , I linked to a story in which former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card is quoted as saying that Bush continued to insist there were WMDs in Iraq as late as April 2006. Incredible as that story is, this piece in Salon by Sidney Blumenthal
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Some delusions are hard to shake

Wednesday, September 05, 2007 8:29 PM
This is just freakin' unbelievable : In Oct. 2004, President Bush finally admitted that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction: “Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there.” Yet according to former White House chief
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A realistic approach to Iraq

Tuesday, September 04, 2007 6:18 PM
For the last four and a half years, Americans have been bombarded with the ridiculous notion that Iraq can be re-molded through the application of American military force. The intervening years have proven what a disaster that neo-con pipe dream really
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Arctic melting rapidly

Tuesday, September 04, 2007 5:07 PM
Arctic sea ice is melting rapidly ; at the present rate, it may be gone completely by 2030: The Arctic ice cap has collapsed at an unprecedented rate this summer and levels of sea ice in the region now stand at record lows, scientists have announced.
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Bremer replies

Tuesday, September 04, 2007 12:05 PM
On Sunday, I posted about Bush's bad memory regarding the disbanding of the Iraqi Army. He claimed that the official policy had been to keep the army intact, but that Paul Bremer had disbanded it anyway. Bremer replied in today's NYT and provides documents
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How times change

Monday, September 03, 2007 5:10 PM
Twenty years ago, the appearance of this sentence in a newspaper would have been unthinkable: Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said he has asked the US government to give Central America at least US$1bn (£500m) to support its fight against drug trafficking.
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Bad memory or buck-passing?

Sunday, September 02, 2007 5:13 PM
In an interview transcript in today's NYT , Bush says he didn't want to disband the Iraqi Army after the invasion, but that Paul Bremer went ahead and did it anyway. Then he says he doesn't remember exactly how it happened: Mr. Bush acknowledged one major
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Cutting through the jungle of lies

Saturday, September 01, 2007 2:48 PM
The Bush administration continues to assert that "progress" is being made in Iraq, and things are going just swimmingly. As usual, Juan Cole cuts through the BS (the original version of his post is here ): A Government Accounting Office report has found
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