Are Politicians' Dog Tales Newsworthy?

For some reason, the story about Mitt Romney taking a family vacation and strapping his dog in a pet carrier on the roof of the car has not gone away. And the vacation in question was in 1983.

Now, it was a 12-hour drive to Canada the Romneys embarked upon. But it was a long time ago.

The story has seen new life in the wake of the news that Barack Obama ate dog meat as a child growing up in Indonesia. He did that a few times ... in, like, 1970.

Are either of these stories relevant today, in 2012? Are they newsworthy?

(Photo by the White House, via the Washington Post)

Are Journalists Perpetuating the Bigotry?

JAPANESE BASEBALL SENSATION Yu Darvish is now playing with the Texas Rangers. He was roughed up a bit during the first inning of his MLB debut last week but he came back to earn the win against the Mariners.

The game was somewhat marred by a collection of racist events.

First, the Rangers commissioned a new hot dog in Darvish's honor - the Yu Dog. It comes with a fortune cookie.

Then, a TV analyst called a hit by Ichiro a "chinker."

Finally, there were these, er, fans in the above image.

What should the journalists do with these instances? Should they run a story and photos of the events? Or, by highlighting the ignorance of a few small-minded folks, are the journalists in fact perpetuating/ spurring on the racism?

Keep in mind that we are in a post-Jeremy Lin era, when an ESPN writer was fired after crafting a headline that read "Chink in the Armor" after Lin and the Knicks lost a game.

Check out this SNL spoof of the Jeremy Lin excitement, and the racism that followed in the mainstream media.

Photo by US PRESSWIRE via Larry Brown Sports.

This Post Was Brought to You By The Good People of JUMP, The Mag For Cool People.

THESE DAYS, PEOPLE in journalism are getting creative about generating revenue. Advertising is simply not raising the cash it used to.

Philly.com, the website connected to the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, is experimenting with sponsored tweets. A company can pay to say that a headline posted by philly.com was "brought to you by ..."

Is there anything wrong with that? Does this deceive the reader? Or is this the same as an advertisement running between segments of a newscast?

April Fools? Can Journalists Make Jokes?

A BLOGGER FOR FORBES.COM posted a story yesterday about Mitt Romney dropping out of the presidential race.

The story continued:

The move shocked observers, including Senator Santorum, as Governor Romney seemed poised for a decisive victory in Wisconsin.

The governor, however, said he concluded that he has “no chance” to win the general election in December and that a Santorum candidacy in 2012 would be in the “best interest of the party.”

He explained, “It will save time. As many observers have pointed out, my defeat in 2012 will be interpreted by the party faithful as evidence that our problem is that we’ve become too pragmatic and moderate. In 2016, we’ll ˜correct™ that and nominate some right-wing nut and get demolished in the general election.

It’ll be like Goldwater in 1964. I don’t want to wait until 2020 to get my party back. I’m all about efficiency. Let’s get our butts kicked now and move on.”

Of course, the whole thing was an April Fool's day joke. After the story was circulated via news aggregators, it was pulled from the Forbes site.

Should journalists play pranks like this? Is it lighthearted fun or irresponsible?

See the full, original post here. Photo by AP via ABC news.