Should Journalists Pay for Information?

BRETT FAVRE ALLEGEDLY used his cell phone to send images of his man parts to a former New York Jets sideline reporter. The website Deadspin paid $12,000 for the images and voicemails that Favre allegedly left the reporter.Is there anything wrong with journalists paying for information?"When you pay for a story, you're making a contract with the person who supplies it and that means you're no longer acting independently," Hagit Limor, the president...

Can Animation Be Journalism?

AN AIRLINE PASSENGER recently opted not to go through the full-body scanner at San Diego International Airport. Instead, he requested the full-body pat-down. But when the security officer explained what would happen, the passenger said, “If you touch my junk I will have you arrested.”The passenger captured the entire event on his cell phone video camera, and the raw video has gone viral.A Hong Kong-based news operation creates animated videos of news stories, like the airport incident. Watch the video above. Is the animation an appropriate way...

Should Journos Give People What They Want?

IT WAS REVEALED that USA Today has 27 reporters covering the entertainment industry. They only have five covering Congress.Is there anything wrong with that? Are they simply recognizing the fact that people want entertainment information? Or should they be devoting more staff to "serious" news?By the way, does Bristol Palin count as a celebri...

Can Coaches Ban Social Networking?

SEVERAL MEMBERS OF the Temple University basketball team, apparently, are on Twitter. At Villanova University, however, the players are banned from Twitter and facebook during the season. Villanova coach Jay Wright says that bloggers read the tweets and build unwanted and distracting controversy.Can college athletes be banned from using social med...

Jesse Pearson: "We Strive to be as Inclusive as Possible."

A GOOD MAGAZINE represents the editor, Vice magazine editor Jesse Pearson said in class yesterday. "The mag needs to be about my curiosity," said the Levittown native who has lead the magazine since 2003.This year, Vice did a photo spread involving bears (burly gay dudes) dressed as vikings. Pearson assigned a gay pornographer to do a Q&A with Karl Lagerfeld. That same issue features a fashion spread with models in caskets, looking like they're...

Vice Magazine: More Than a Hipster Bible?

ON TUESDAY, VICE magazine editor Jesse Pearson will visit class.Vice magazine started in Montreal in 1994 as a government-funded project. It's now a for-profit, advertising-driven magazine circulated to more than one million people around the world and they have offices in 30 different countries.The mag has stories from around the globe, about random subjects like fashion, immigration, music, skateboarding, hatred, Iraq and just about anything else....

Making Friends, With Marc Zumoff.

EVERY DAY MARC ZUMOFF wakes up, the sun is shining and life is good. "I'm happy to be me," he said in class today, despite the dreary rain outside.Zumoff, a Temple grad, is the voice if the Sixers. He's one of only 30 pro basketball play-by-play announcers in the country. He flies in chartered planes, stays in fancy hotels, eats quality meals and then gets to watch some of the world's top athletes from the front row at mid-court. That's his job....

Do You Want News With an Attitude?

DURING TUESDAY'S ELECTION, Fox News drew larger audiences than any other cable news operation.Fox News averaged 6.96 million viewers in prime time on Tuesday, according to ratings results from the Nielsen Company, the New York Times reported. CNN averaged 2.42 million viewers. MSNBC averaged 1.94 million viewers.Does that mean that people with conservative leanings were more engaged in this election? Or is this a sign that viewers want information...