PRSA local update: Independent Practitioners SIG members will celebrate the season from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 12, at Nancy Farrar's home, 5924 Forest Lane, Fort Worth. RSVP by Dec. 8.
PRSA local update II: PRSA Dallas will collect canned goods or nonperishable foods for the North Texas Food Bank at its "giving and receiving" holiday party Monday, Dec. 4, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Sambuca on McKinney Avenue. More here.
SPJ national update: LAT editor fired; AP, military spar; and for Iraqis, news is a deadly business. Los Angeles Times editor Dean Baquet, who defied orders to cut jobs, was forced out of his own job Nov. 7, shocking the newsroom just as it geared up to cover election returns. The paper's publisher, Jeffrey M. Johnson, who openly objected to cuts ordered by the Tribune Co. in September, was fired last month. While the company maintained that further cuts might be necessary, Baquet considered them excessive. More here. ... The Associated Press is standing by its Nov. 24 report that six Sunni men were burned to death in Baghdad by Shiites. But military officials say they cannot confirm that the incident took place and asked AP to retract the story, which was repeated by media around the world and cited as an example of Shiites taking revenge for a bombing that killed more than 200 people the day before. More here. ... The label "independent" media in Iraq has become a death sentence. Fifty-five Iraqi journalists had been killed in 2006 through November -- more than in any other year -- and four remained hostages. There have been a string of media murders against print, radio and TV journalists. When Al Shabiya TV was hit, it was the second such attack in a fortnight. More here.
SPJ national update II: Administration shutters bomb-making tutorial; and lab breach could be "devastating." The Bush administration has removed a government web site containing material captured during the Iraq war that told how to build an atom bomb. The "Operation Iraqi Freedom Document Portal" contained a dozen Arabic-language documents with diagrams and long narratives on bomb building that nuclear experts say went beyond what's available on the internet and in other forums. "For the U.S. to toss a match into this flammable area is very irresponsible," said A. Bryan Siebert, a former official at the U.S. Energy Department, which runs the country's nuclear arms program. The New York Times said the administration started the site under pressure from congressional Republicans who hoped to find evidence of dangers posed by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. More here and here. ... In a recent security breach at Los Alamos National Laboratory, sensitive information -- possibly how to deactivate locks on nuclear weapons -- left the facility. Secret documents apparently taken from the lab were found during a drug raid at a Los Alamos-area home in October. More here.
SPJ national update III: Journalists threatened with arrest at polls; and what the Democrats' win means for tech. A writer and photographer for the Cincinnati Enquirer were threatened with arrest at a polling site Nov. 7, the paper reported, after attempting to photograph a congressman as he voted. Tony Jones was trying to photograph GOP Rep. John Boehner at a Butler County polling place when Jones and reporter Janice Morse were stopped by poll workers. "Boehner had told the media he would be available for interviews this morning, but Jones and Morse were told by poll workers that they could not come into the polling place," the web site stated in a story. More here. ... It was the narrowest of Republican margins in the U.S. Senate that doomed a vote on internet neutrality earlier this year. By an 11-11 tie, a GOP-dominated committee failed in June to approve rules requiring that all internet traffic be treated the same regardless of its source or destination. A similar measure failed in the House of Representatives. But now that control of Congress has switched back to the Democrats, the outlook for technology-related legislation on a wealth of topics -- digital copyright, merger approval, data retention, internet censorship -- has changed dramatically. More here.
SPJ national update IV: Republicans and the profits of porn; and print skills translate online. Despite running an ad accusing a Democratic senatorial candidate of accepting money from "porn movie producers," the Republican National Committee itself has accepted donations from the president of Marina Pacific Distributors, which calls itself "the leader in adult video distribution." Nicholas Boyias has personally given to the Republican Party several times over the last few years, six times to the RNC. The donations range from $200 to $500 and total around $2,000, according to a search of federal election records. No contributions to Democrats were found in the records search. More here. ... An Online News Association report evaluated the top skills needed to function in an online newsroom, and tech savvy didn't make the list. Of 400 people questioned, the skills that emerged are the same ones needed for print -- attention to detail; news judgment; grammar skills and style; and ability to work under pressure and multitask. More here.
