Daily Archives: February 19, 2009

Bad driver or bad mistake?

Posted on
Reply

It’s nice to see that other countries make blatant mistakes concerning immigrants. Also from the BBC comes this story of Ireland’s “worst” driver. From the article:

“Prawo Jazdy is actually the Polish for driving licence and not the first and surname on the licence,” read a letter from June 2007 from an officer working within the Garda’s traffic division.

“Having noticed this, I decided to check and see how many times officers have made this mistake.

“It is quite embarrassing to see that the system has created Prawo Jazdy as a person with over 50 identities.”

Link via BBC NEWS | UK | Northern Ireland | The mystery of Ireland’s worst driver.

U.S. and North Korea

Posted on
Reply

One of the things that frustrates me most about the United States and it’s foreign policy (under Clinton, Bush, and now Obama) is the ridiculous hypocrisy that’s pervasive. This comes from an article on the BBC:

Referring to speculation Pyongyang was preparing to test-fire a long-range missile, Mrs Clinton said the US viewed any such tests as provocative.

“We don’t comment on intelligence matters but it is clear that under the United Nations that under the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1718, North Korea is required to suspend all activities related to its ballistic programme.

I’m tired of us and other Western powers getting away with missile tests and nuclear stockpiles and yet somehow expecting other countries to do what we say and not what we do. This was the kind of diplomatic hypocrisy that I was hoping Obama would end.

Link via BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Clinton urges N Korean dialogue.

Challenges for small college journalism

Posted on
1

Carlos from the Walla Walla Union Bulletin sent this to me over Twitter last night and I think it’s particularly apt to describing the challenges facing the Whitman Pioneer in our effort to move to a more web-based newsroom. In particular, the article lists “Old mindsets from the students” as issue #3; the article describes this as:

Another problem, one that is certainly not unique to small schools, is that a print-centric mindset often still dominates. But at a smaller school, this problem is magnified as well.

“I’m stumped about how to get students — who SHOULD be more attuned to the innovative ways they like to get information — involved in utilizing that information,” said Cameron.

This is something that I’ve found to be particularly frustrating in working for the Whitman Pioneer. There are so many tools out there (Twitter, Publish2, etc.) that would be so beneficial to a student news organization but are nearly impossible to get a significant portion of the newsroom using. I’m working on getting people using Publish2 and maybe even Twitter but am continually confronted by what seems to be a disinterest in actually producing any online content. Anyway, here’s a link to the full article.