MSNBC has created an exciting website for the African -American community called the Grio. The Grio, which  translates to  “a storyteller in western Africa who maintains the oral tradition and history of a village or family,” gives an African -American voice and perspective to the Internet. Recent articles covered topics as diverse as  Black Actors and Drag, the enhanced ebook version of Roots, and racial issues in Alabama. Pages dedicated to Politics,  Opinions,  Entertainment, Health,  Money, Travel,  Black History and News supply a unique Afro-American centric approach.

For those who would wonder if a site specifically focused on one ethnic or racial group is necessary, I say one word: bias. I use this word,  minus any negative connotation, and suggest one scan the  MSNBC’s main page, and then the Grio’s page. The differences are considerable.

I commend MSNBC’s outreach to the African-American community, and look forward to other media outlets reaching diverse populations online.

The website Wikileaks has certainly earned the wrath of some major international governments and corporations: the US,  Chinese, Saudis,and even Bank of America to name a few. So it is not surprising that on December 1, 2010 we  find the  site ‘unavailable’.  According to Geek.com, a DDoS attack has crippled the site, but a possible rescuer maybe  Amazon. Wikileaks is now hosted by Amazon after massive DDoS attacks questions who has the ability to inflict such a massive attack, and how long Amazon wants to be in the thick of controversies.

The issue of censorship needs to be addressed if  in fact a government blocked the site, and takes the issue to a whole different level. Can a government censor not only sites in their own country, but also globally? Since Wikileaks was hosted in Sweden, will the World tolerate other nations shutting down the site? These questions should be debated once the mystery is solved– Who shut down Wikileaks?

Check out the site Truth Dig for some interesting analysis and commentary on todays stories!   http://www.truthdig.com/

So you want to be a published journalist? Assignment Zero takes the field of journalism and opens it up to all budding writers. By posting an ‘assignment’, the editor of Assignment Zero gives multiple individuals the ability to post reports on the topics. Multiple reports on a topic will make all interpretations represented.

The question this raises for the media major is, how will this effect the profession in the future. Is this a fad or the future?

For more information, see the New York Times article ‘All the World’s a Story’

Steve Foster from Dr. Keller’s Class has recommended an interesting Media Blog–DocBug. DocBug tackles: ‘intelligence, media technologies, intellectual property, and the occasional politics.’

    Reporters sans frontieres/Reporters Without Borders is a Media/Human Righs group that monitors the issue of freedom of the press globally. An outstanding source.
According to their website: “Reporters Without Borders’ maintains this trilingual (French, English and Spanish) website in order to keep a daily tally of attacks on press freedom as they occur throughout the world. Updated several times a day, it functions like a press-freedom news agency. It gives Internet users an opportunity to act as a group to demand the release of jailed journalists by signing on-line petitions. To circumvent censorship, it presents occasionally articles that have been banned in their country of origin, hosts newspapers that have been closed down in their homeland and serves as a forum where journalists who have been “silenced” by authorities can voice their opinions. This website, which welcomes 150,000 to 200,000 visitors per month, also provides complete reports on cases covered in the press, as well as a daily “barometer” summarising the most recent attacks on press freedom.”

      Check out this particular blog:TMZ.com . This site might have been a minor player on the web until the recent Mel Gibson incident. Media outlet around the country were scooped by this site. In fact many media sources cited it as their main source.
For covering the entertainment field, it is unique and worth your attention.