Orion Jones
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If the Internet is understood as the democratization of information, then the print and TV news that preceded it was a fiefdom. In this fiefdom, feudal news producers condescended to let the people know about all the different goings-on in the world, but at least they seemed like benevolent overlords, acting in the broad public interest by doing investigative journalism at home and maintaining independent desks abroad. But those two hallmarks of news, investigative journalism and overseas bureaus, have changed for the worse in the recent past. What can be done to save them? … Read More
February 24, 2010 | In Media & Internet
Will The National Enquirer Win a Pulitzer?
Today The Huffington Post reports that The National Enquirer will be considered for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for journalism in the categories of Investigative Reporting and National News Reporting for its coverage of John Edward’s infidelity scandal during his presidential campaign of 2007 and 2008. The Enquirer has broken several stories ahead of the more legitimate press, such as Rush Limbaugh’s drug abuse, because unlike other sources, The Enquirer will pay for information. Should the Pulitzer committee award the Enquirer for its coverage of John Edwards, it should also censure the paper for its reporting methods and publication style. … Read More
February 18, 2010 | In Media & Internet
Relative to the American sound bite, John Kerry recently gave an in-depth interview to Al Jazeera, the independent Middle Eastern news service which operates an international TV channel and a website in Arabic and English. Kerry discussed Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, and now the New York Times’ Media Blog reports that Hillary Clinton has met with Al Jazeera’s “senior manager” and has herself given an interview before a crowd of 300 university students. Is this possibly the same Al Jazeera that former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld called “vicious” and “disgraceful”, referring to its coverage of the Iraq War? … Read More
February 16, 2010 | In Media & Internet
Not being a subject of Her Majesty The Queen, it is difficult for me to imagine the British Broadcasting System: a public media network of radio, TV, internet, podcast, iPhone app, etc., which is funded by a TV tax and oft-criticized for being a mind-numbing bureaucracy that pushes its limits, unfairly making private media businesses redundant. I was, however, able to delight in the comedy following a post in The Guardian about the BBC’s directive to its journalists to consider social media a direct source. … Read More
February 10, 2010 | In Media & Internet
Born and raised in the Midwest, Orion Jones completed his degree at the University of Iowa while studying modern philosophy in France. After a stint in the English Cotswolds, he relocated to Barcelona, where he wrote for Catalonia Today, the region's English-language newspaper. Besides blogging for Big Think, he has published a chapbook of poems and is currently a reader for The Barcelona Review, a review of contemporary fiction.
Orion Jones commented on Is Happiness for Shallow People? on February 24, 2010, 8:45 PM
Strange logic, Jeffrey. Why do you admire someone's work that you think might lack context or be pointless? Anyway, my father never exactly said "Depressed? I'll give you something to be depressed about...", but I generally think depression is over-diagnosed. What's stranger is its entrance into our culture as a positive value, being depressed. Having the attitude that "Life's a b**ch and then you die" was almost a mark of intellect in the college circles I recall; a kind of fashionable ennui among the perceptive, literary kind. "I've had my knocks," it says, and probably you have. You certainly can't blame people for wanting to be on anti depressant medication. As for the writers the New Yorker article references who were writing better on prozac, staying in a career you don't actually like, I imagine, would be a big cause of depression.